Reformism

To elaborate: I view historical materialism as just another way of mystical thinking. It has no practicality and seems religious for some reason.

I like it but i think it might be outdated but idk im too new

tl;dr OP is opportunist and found that revolution isn't so easly to perform, so he decided to use seemingly radical rhetoric to give up revolutionary fight

your view is nothing new, worker's movemend already been there, done that

Liberal GTFO.

Untrue. Reformism has always lead to the pacification and assimilation of oppressed classes within the larger system. This is the primary reason why they're granted in the first place, the other being the need for capital to hold some kind of equalibrium against pending rupture and chaos.

100% agree with this, which is why Permanent Revolution appeals to me despite being an anarcho-Maoist.

It would be almost impossible to take control of capital through existing political systems. Capital isn't something you can just "control" using the existing state apparatus, it's something you must break, or chip away at from outside.

You are not a leftist, because your understanding of socialism is terribly poor and one-dimensional.

kill yourself socdem

abluteau.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/german-corpse-may-be-rosa-luxemburg/

DiaMat and HistMat tackle issues in which Aristotelian Logic can't. If you believe everything is linear, how do you amount for something as basic as evolution, or any complex question for that matter. Reductionist approaches can never give a complete understanding and in many cases you find layers upon layers of meaning which must be dissected and deconstructed.

Plus, there's nothing wrong with "mystical thinking". The Enlightenment sucked, read Adorno.

ITT: ad homs and strawmen

what a misinterpretation of Adorno; Adorno wasn't reactionary and he attacked the Reason in the name of Reason

You're sure you know what's about you write?

You're basically American version of socialdemocracy (so called "social liberalism") which only reason to exist is to abandon revolutionary mission of the working class and represent an interest of petty bourgeoise inside the worker's movement. You didn't even change your rhetoric from times of Bernstein.
I'm spitting on you, at your disgusting class pacifism, faggot.

How am I an opportunist? I've never begged anyone to join the D-S-A.

How?

It's actually the opposite. Reforms are necessary to build consciousness. Even Maoists understand this, which is why they propose a two-fold revolution with national liberation and then class struggle after a national consciousness as been achieved. Since there is no class consciousness in the west, reforms are necessary.

Adorno (and Foucault) were not even anti-Enlightenment like many modern PoMos would like you to think. Both of them wanted MORE progress and MORE enlightenment, not less, hence why Adorno became very anti-Marxist and Foucault became a proponent of neoliberalism late in life. Their main critiques were that the Enlightenment betrayed itself and could never fully wipe out superstition.

Our movement is actually filled to the brim with working class people, single mothers who live paycheck to paycheck, people who have been unemployed for years, etc. And look at who voted for Bernie last year: the basis of his support was the working class, not the petty bourgeoisie.

He's not entirely wrong to view historical materialism as having a mystical component - it does come from Hegel and Feuerbach, who are more process theologians than philosopers as the word "philosopher" is traditionally understood.

This makes no sense. Evolution and the study of it fit neatly into science. It is absolutely a linear process. Moreover, the dialectic is an extremely linear process, and efforts have even been made by Lewontin to integrate them into a notion of signified discourse between an organism and its environment! Nononono, you don't know what you're talking about! The reason why empiricism can't be straight-up applied to social fields is that history and the economy are both nonlinear, complex, and chaotic. Our best guide is neither Kant nor Hegel, but Spinoza and modern systems theory's successor to the conatus, autopoeisis. The Deleuzian enveloping of a potential by a signified quality describes many processes without relying on the ahistorical modernistic temporal-spatial linearity of a progressive dialectical process.

Read this - it addresses the notion of revolutionary consciousness straight off the bat: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-committe-to-our-friends
If you want an up-to-date Marxist take, read this: libcom.org/library/eclipse-re-emergence-communist-movement

I really don't get anti reformism, we've been closest to socialism in the West when the mainstream left was the most powerful, the trampling of the left from the 70s/80s left us further away than ever.

You're a burgouise socialist, fuck off with your Bookchin shit

Oh so you support protecting private property?

i.e. "Let's prevent capitalism from collapsing, and let's certainly not do anything to actually replace it, instead let's just push reforms that kill any revolutionary or autonomous spirit the workers movements may have, and then let capital undo them when they interfere with profits!"

Yeah some of it may not be the best praxis, but reformism definitely hasn't worked at abolishing capitalism besides socializing it.

Any attempt to take control of capital by the state has led to the state being transformed to serve the interests of capital.

Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Imperialism go hand in hand. What point would there be for a two- or one-state solution if it just preserves exploitation with a different face? Do you think Africans, Asians, Arabs and Latin Americans stopped being exploited when official imperialist rule ended?

Yes it was. And just check how much good that did. It effectively castrated the revolutionary fervor among the South African working class. Porky at most changed skin color, and barely even that.

I can definitely support reformism to improve people's standard of living (Single payer healthcare, not letting people starve in the streets, basic education, etc.). But you're pretending this would abolish capitalism, or you just end up supporting "reforms" that keep capitalism alive and kill revolutionary movements without actually increasing living standards.

Also namefilter check:
Democratic Cops of America
Democratic Socialists of America

The way of creating this situation is as below:

bourgie: "We shouldn't do revolution because it's violent, let's talk and share some of our profits with the proletariat to make them less angry"

working class consciousness decreases

"Yeah, no we can start hard neoloberalism to full fuck!! Nobody can stop us now!"

working class consciousness increases

Libsoc / socdems: "Whoa, there's consciousness in the West, we need to make reforsm to increase it and make bourgies share some profits with the proletariat - it'll definitely help!"

The main problem of whole your tendency is that instead of empowering the people and help them in self-organisation and fight against the state and capital, you persuade them to substitute actions like voting on your parties, and if after a pint of luck efforts of the class struggling masses you finally get the power you're giving people miserable shocks as successes and you explain that anything more can't be done, and that the bourgeoisie can't be deprived of power, and the system is good and functioning properly.

Your tendency is popular only because the people are deprived of hope and disempowered, and they don't beleve in their direct action potential by lack of mass scale, which lead them only to counting on the mercy of politicians. The scheme always is the same and independent of place and time (inb4 historical materialism is mysticism).

...

The way of creating this situation is as below:

bourgie: "We shouldn't do revolution because it's violent, let's talk and share some of our profits with the proletariat to make them less angry"

working class consciousness decreases

"Yeah, now we can start hard neoloberalism to full fuck!! Nobody can stop us now!"

working class consciousness increases

Libsoc / socdems: "Whoa, there's no consciousness in the West, we need to make reform to increase it and make bourgies share some profits with the proletariat - it'll definitely help!"

The main problem of whole your tendency is that instead of empowering the people and help them in self-organisation and fight against the state and capital, you persuade them to substitute actions like voting on your parties, and if after a pint of luck efforts of the class struggling masses you finally get the power you're giving people miserable shocks as successes and you explain that anything more can't be done, and that the bourgeoisie can't be deprived of power, and the system is good and functioning properly.

Your tendency is popular only because the people are deprived of hope and disempowered, and they don't beleve in their direct action potential by lack of mass scale, which lead them only to counting on the mercy of politicians. The scheme always is the same and independent of place and time (inb4 historical materialism is mysticism).

Bookchin didn't support private property.

You're misunderstanding me.

I never said I supported the existence of capitalism. Quite the contrary. I said the only way we can deal with capitalism successfully is through reformist measures, since most of these anti-gradualist approaches can't work.

I clearly stated we should *control* capital through political means. That's what the D.S.A. plans to do in the future. We fully understand the destructive nature of capitalism and by no means are trying to preserve it.

Are you sure? This seems like a statement with nothing to back it up.

That's why I said a one state solution is just a reform, as it, like SocDem, doesn't guarantee the end of capitalism. Just like with SA, capital will change from Israeli hands to Palestinian porky hands. But who on this board is against a one state solution? That's my point: you can be for reformism all while recognizing its limits.

Not immediately but eventually if we keep grabbing more and more over time.

This has never been the case. We can even look at history and see instances where radical leftism increased when the welfare state was at its peak. The Civil Rights Movement and the student movement happened at the height of the American welfare state. French Maoism was a strong force at the height of the French welfare state. Scandinavians are far more class conscious than most other Europeans, because they realize even the system they have isn't good enough and want more from it.

Meanwhile, you don't see much leftism in the 3rd World at all, despite huge poverty and social unrest. When 3rd World people fight, it's always along ethnic, religious or tribal lines, rarely among proletarian ones.

Piss off.

Holy shit fuck off. Literally the biggest Communist Parties in the world exist in the Third World.

Go tell the CPI(M) that their struggle is along ethnic lines. They have more experience with actual governance than every cop in the Democratic Cops of America combined.

Amerikkkan chauvinism and arrogance knows no bounds

Are you sure Maoism is even socialist?

Socialism will happen in the west before it happens in the east. You denounce "American chauvinism" without realizing America has been one of the most revolutionary countries in history.

Goddamn kiddo

Perhaps among its oppressed people, but the American government has been the greatest force for imperial reaction since the literal British Empire

Of course the elite classes in the US have always been reactionary, but the American PEOPLE have always held a kind of revolutionary spirit that you never see elsewhere. When America was founded, the idea of a nation based not on blood or linguistics or the divine right of kings was in itself highly revolutionary. Plus you have an entire 200 year history of rebellions and egalitarian movements, the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the women's movement, civil rights, anti-war, you even see this in the modern era with things like Occupy and BLM.

The best America could do was the Weatherman and BPP. Meanwhile other countries had REAL armed risings and shit.

But user, that's exactly the heart of the matter. The only way to take control of it is by force. Both theory and historical practice support this. It's just plain fact.

So there is no revolutionary potential in American society simply because it never had a Maoist guerilla army? This is narrow-mindedness at its best.

Material conditions in the west today are not the same as they were in Russia in 1917 or China in 1949 (if you even want to call the latter "socialist"). Every single revolutionary movement will change its practice to meet with its current conditions. There is no way violence could work in the US or any western country for that matter, especially since the introduction of the nuclear bomb has made a 1917-style revolution impossible in a modern context. (I should add, the Russian Revolution was only won after years of reformism in Russia.)

I don't see anything new or controversial in what you're saying OP. That's just standard Marxist approach. Although without a materialist view of history you will never properly grasp what the limitations of institutional reform are, and where our energies should be placed, and you will fall into the same traps the first two Internationals did.

If you haven't, read these two. They're short and easy.
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/int-hist.htm

Because how come there's never mainstream left when the radical left doesn't exist?

Look, the state is an apparatus of class rule, it operates by both coercion and concession. Once radicals threaten the economic system from the outside, the state and the upper class offer concessions. This is how the "mainstream Left" comes into stage, but without the initial threat they're nothing, they're even easier to push aside.

Remember, Bismarck himself loved Lassalle when he was afraid of Marx and Bakunin.

The Weather Underground was a joke. Listen to War Nerd's episode about 60's guerrillas.

And the best thing america could do was not either the BPP or the WU, but the Socialists of the first two decades of the 20th century, Debs' and Haywood's generation. There has never been a bigger proletariant movement in the US, or one that achieved more results.

Unfortunately, dialectical and historical materialism are nothing more than ill-supported dogmas which have no basis in empirical reality. Modern physics debunks diamat and histmat can be easily debunked in the process.

Not to mention, these guerrilla groups are highly limited in what they can achieve. BPP feeds a small amount of school kids; meanwhile, a social democratic program feeds an entire city of schoolchildren. Blowing shit up doesn't feed people.

That's why so many of us are despairing. Force seems to be the only way possible, but it doesn't seem possible anymore, at least at this juncture. The idea is that an opportunity will eventually present itself in the form of a really big capitalist crisis akin to WW1 itself.

I admit, it's just a hope. But it's more than I can see with peceful means. The very reforms you mention in Russia were constantly sabotaged and rolled back, and even after the February Revolution the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government were full of shitters. Without October's radicalization, the Revolution would have lost all socialist character.

Of course, I can't say that taking capital peacefully is impossible, but still. If a person figures out a way, he'll be bigger than Marx himself.

Socialism can only occur when capitalism is on its final leg. Every single time vanguardism was attempted the final product came out looking nothing like socialism. And that's where I'm getting at: just imagine that a capitalist vanguard tried to implement capitalism by force in the middle of the 1500s. It wouldn't have lasted very long without needing to be heavily bastardized into some kind of capitalist-feudal hybrid.

Which is exactly why it's logical to assume socialism will happen in the west first. We're at that stage of development where we could implement actual socialism within a very short amount of time if we set the conditions.

If Americans were half as revolutionary as you say they are, they would have produced revolution or even nationwide mass psychosis.

None of those movements you listed seriously threatened the existence of the American government. At no point in time did the idea that we could do better than the Constitution/liberal democracy ever spread as a result of these movements. (This is the country that produced Fukuyama for Dogs sake).

The fact that the government can amend itself in response to social agitation proves to Americans that nothing "really" needs changing. The American state will function excellently so long as the right party is in charge, according to these people.

Americans were highly revolutionary in the past. Again, most of the 20th century was littered with far-left movements springing out of the US, things which you rarely saw outside American borders. There is a very strong revolutionary culture here. Even during the last election many Trump voters admitted Bernie was their second choice, which says A LOT about the mentality of this country.

Actually the Labor Movement was a huge threat to the US gov. 90 years ago labor organizers, anarchists, and communists were raided all the time similar to how Muslims in the US are today.

A dogma that changes as new evidence is presented and is constantly changing its assumptions and methodology. Interesting dogma, this one.

Ok, how?

Like I said above, reform only comes possible when revolution is a threat. The BPP ascended in the late 60's, and you had this:

Now there's no radical left, and america faces this:
nytimes.com/news/fiscal-crisis/2013/10/11/schools-fear-shutdowns-threat-to-lunch-programs/?mcubz=1

Passing reform when the government and the elites don't think of it as the "lesser evil" is virtually impossible, particularly in a globalized economy.

Neither/both are impossible/inevitable. Read Blanqui.

...

He thinks Historical Materialism is dogma, but he centers his political worldview in one of the conclusions arrived at through it.

So tell me OP, with all your infinite wisdom, why it is that communist revolution has only ever occurred in the most "backwards" nations and never within a technologically advanced society? Perhaps it's not only that "progressive" societies have more than enough, and the entire source of their prosperity is rooted in the exploitation of colonized nations/indigenous peoples, but also that their entire culture and ideological apparatuses stem from this exploitative base? Postmodern westerners are pretty much born to exploit. Social democracy (or as Berniebros call it "democratic socialism") only furthers this, because it continues the walk into the fog of progress instead of breaking with it. Communism isn't the final destination but the rupture.

My comrade! Blanqui was truly a revolutionary against progress.

Histmat maintains its narrative. It's just religion for Marxists which has zero support from modern physics or anthropology.

So first the BPP were not a threat to the US government, now they were enough of a threat that Nixon implemented reform due to their actions?

You don't need to blackmail the government through the potential use of violence to get it to listen to you. The Women's March and Linda Sarsour's efforts are arguably doing much more good than Antifa.

HistMat says no such thing.

Similar points were made in the days of the second international when Parvus and others thought that the discrepancy between military technology made insurgency impossible. Ten years later the Bolshevik revolution happened. We always believe we can't beat the system in arms, but that's not a sentiment based on a serious, lucid analysis but a reflexive fear of authority instilled into us since the day we're born. Military technology is on the hands of soldiers, soldiers are workers who can be converted like any other. Besides that, I fail to see how a nuclear bomb can stop a revolution from happening in the very cities of the country that owns. Does the bourgeoisie just nuke itself to preserve capital?

And it's important to point out that they also had nuclear weapons when the Chinese revolution happened, or more importantly when the Cuban revolution happened right next to the United States. For someone who claims to base your analysis on empirical evidence, you sure like to ignore all the historical record that proves you're wrong.

"Reformism" in which sense if the Duma was carefully designed to make reforms impossible? None of the Social-Democrat parties had power within it, any "reform" that came out of it came from the reactionary sects with the intention of curbing popular for socialist parties, once again.

Those "socialist revolutions" in the postcolonial world primarily came about as a reaction to the Cold War. Leaders declared themselves "socialist" merely to get aid from the USSR, and also to counter the influence of the west. But in reality, nationalist/ethnocentricist, religious and tribal movements have always been far more powerful than socialist ones.

For example, listen to some actual Muslims discuss why socialism was so appealing to the Islamic World 50-60 years ago:
reddit.com/r/islam/comments/6vk1j0/from_a_muslim_perspective_why_did_so_many_places/

TL;DR - Socialism and secularism mainly appealed to the intellectual elites, rather than the general population, because such ideologies were seen as means of beating European colonizers at their own game. Regular Arab Muslims had no interest in Marx, Lenin, or Mao and even saw such ideology as foreign. Imperialist countries absolutely funded Islamic fundamentalists in order to offset socialist movements in those countries, but it still doesn't discount the fact that many Muslims were opposed to Marxism from the start.

We can also discuss India. The Naxals certainly have a lot of support, but Modi's party has even more. Not to mention Muslim separatists in Kashmir and Assam province, and Sikh separatists have also been more popular.

This is why I have to agree with Zizek in his criticisms of western leftists thinking they need to adopt eastern ways of thinking. The West had the Enlightenment and adopted such values as universalism, ethics, truth, hope and such, which are also the foundation of socialism. When easterners revolt, it almost always takes the form of ethnocentricism. When westerners revolt, it's to rescue those Enlightenment values from betraying themselves.

The US wouldn't even have to use a nuclear bomb to stop a violent uprising in any one of its cities, all it has to do is employ the police or National Guard. Look at what happened in Ferguson or Baltimore. Those "uprisings", while legitimate cries for justice, didn't last very long and didn't necessarily convince the public that police abolition is the way to go. I'm not saying those riots weren't morally justified, but they expose the limits of what rioting can do as far as political change goes.

What would have to happen for the American people to conduct a violent socialist uprising? At this point, reformism is a much better strategy.

Historical materialism can't maintain a narrative because it doesn't have one. It's a method. Marx and Engels adapted their conclusions when Darwin wrote, when Morgan wrote, when new findings in anthropology and history entered the scene. Kautsky disagreed with Engels on matters of historical development, Lenin disagreed with Kautsky, both disagreed with Plekhanov, and the many historical school within Marxism disagreed with each other. If it's a dogma, why were Thompson and Hobsbawm fighting with everyone else in the first place? A dogma is something that can't be challenged. And just so you know there also plenty of Marxist anthropologists and a firm Marxist tradition within modern anthropology, so I find it difficult to dismiss historical materialism with lack of 'anthropological evidence', although that itself assume the conclusion precedes the evidence which is not what historical materialism does. It one of ways to study how all the evidence and information were connected.

I never said the BPP were not a threat to the US government, are you insane? There's a reason Hoover himself said "The Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". I also don't think anyone familiar with the history of repression in that period, of COINTELPRO in particular, could believe the BPP were not a threat. That's why we like them.

These are terrible examples. The Women's March doesn't intend to interfe with the machineries of capital or reform our means of production.

Not only this is exactly what Historical Materialism says, but it virtually makes no sense without it. The socialist tradition up until Marx didn't believe capitalism had to live out its usefulness or that Communist society had to arrive through proletarian movements within it, it believed in replacing the entire existing system immediately with a ready-made social arrangement. If you believe Capitalism needs to reach its last leg, that is servers a historical purpose, you are consciously or not parroting a Marxist line.

Fergunson and Baltimore were fucking protests, not armed insurgencies, let alone insurgencies linked with the economic process of the country, which is where our whole strategy starts. You make terrible, terrible comparisons that completely miss the point.

Reformism has virtually no record of achievements in the last 50 years, and it didn't achieve anything close to the transformation of society in the first place. Besides that, nowadays there are institutional and financial designs in place to help render it powerless. Mitterrand and SYRIZA being perfect examples.

>reddit.com/r/islam/comments/6vk1j0/from_a_muslim_perspective_why_did_so_many_places/

lol, who the fuck makes their research on reddit?

I'm not even the guy you're arguing with but that's stupid. Ask the american board why they think Socialism was popular in the 60's and I'm sure you hear all sorts of stupid shit. People don't automatically know history just because they were born in a place where it happened.

And it's not a very well supported one.

David Graeber has debunked several of the claims made by Marxist anthropologists. It's late and I can't remember much off the top of my head, but feel free to read what he's said on the subject. Towards An Anthropological Theory of Value is a good place to start.

Sorry, I'm referring to another poster.

I never suggested it does, I was only making a comparison between mass, non-violent protests vs. sporadic violent ones. While Antifa gets lots of brownie points for kicking the shit out of Nazis, no one asks why neo-Nazis are so visible in the first place. Trump winning the election gave white supremacist ideology legitimacy which is why these monsters feel content with showing their faces. A mass but principled non-violent movement with a strong leader would do more to end the spread of Nazism in America than anything Antifa could do.

I don't see why dialectics are the only way to reach this line.

READ PROUDHON, YOU FUCKING IDIOT

Of course it's not "research" as much as it is showing examples of what actual Muslims think about socialism today. The fact is, that part of the world is still heavily dominated by religion and ethnic/tribal loyalties. It's highly unlikely that you'd see socialism emerge from the MENA before the west.

I mentioned the labor movement. Were the Wobblies not a huge part of that era?

Oh, woops. Didn't see that.

The whole citation so far, to this, is yourself. Even enemies of Marxism don't deny its lasting impact on influence on several branches of historical and anthropological research.

Trust me, David Graeber is not putting the nails on anyone's coffin.

Yep, peaceful protests to Hitler worked really well.

Because only a dialectical approach will study history as a process of overcoming contradictions.

First, if you think the passage you've quoted is historical materialism, you're lost. Second, I understand that a shitty article somewhere has persuaded those of you who read neither that Marx got cues in historical philosophy from Proudhon, and Marx indeed liked some aspects of history theory besides that, but in that regard its flawed, as he criticized specifically that aspect of Proudhon.

I didn't say that. He certainly didn't come up with an a priori model which Marx criticized as utopian
In fact, prior to making his big break and attacking Proudhon via misrepresentation so as to cement his own position within the socialist tradition, Marx revealed how he actually felt about his work:
I read "The Misery Of Philosophy" and was surprised at how many reversions Marx made afterwards to the same ideas which he critiqued in Proudhon.
He was correct in some of his more central critiques (most importantly, the switch from focuses on institutions and an abstract notion of justice to the human's connection to material conditions and the alienation thesis, which opened up a road to society entirely beyond the value form for those of a young-Hegelian bent, accompanied by a critique of Proudhon's approach being compromisedly Kantian in the insolubility of certain contradictions fundamental to bourgeois political economy), but a lot of them were contrived and baseless. Proudhon has his flaws, but to claim that he doesn't represent a huge development of socialist theory in his own right, apart from Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen, is disingenuous.
Take, for example, that paragraph which you quoted. It accuses him of being quasi-Hegelian, and yet he adheres far more to Hegel's absolute idealism than Marx, putting property's development in the place of Hegel's weltgeist while leaving his system otherwise unchanged. He certainly does not adhere uncritically to the dogmas of economists - in fact, it was through critiques of them within the framework of political economy that he uncovered the idea of surplus value, adding an addendum to "property is the fruit of labor" with "property is the fruit of someone else's labor". Marx would certainly seem to agree with this in The Holy Family, before his motives became murkier by the intrusion of self-interest:
The purpose of the dialectic in Hegel's writing is to sublate an idea, resolving its contradictions by reconciling them within a larger whole and simultaneously abolishing them. Ultimately, it reaches its eschaton in reaching absolute reason. Marx is actually the odd one out here for arguing that the dialectic proceeds to undo the concrete ideal into the abstract real and sublate it into the concrete real (communism as an absence of exploitation as brought about by the agency of the proletarian subject, bringing about heaven-on-earth as the reunification of the individual with the gattungswesen) as opposed to breaking down the concrete real into its components of the abstract real and sublating it into the abstract ideal (property further developed into a harmonious whole which abolishes the proletarian subject by reuniting it with the usufruct object and thus achieving the heaven-on-earth of justice).

hello chaya

Is Democratic Cops of America filtered?

Yes.

Also the Democratic Cops of America is a useful means for building a mass movement; which it already is doing. What the US needs is an SPA 2.0 before we can even start thinking about Reform or revolution.

Just accept reformism has never worked IRL, OP.

Again, I don't see histmat as being a verifiable science. It's entirely mystical and speculative.

Elaborate.

Violent anti-fascist anarkiddies didn't stop him either.

Dialectics is mystical pseudoscience.