If we look at the first wave of leftist revolutions, they were preceded by breakthroughs in leftist theory that almost perfectly described the societies they were living in in their respective times. After that these theories were applied which gave us many socialist revolutions and societies, which however all eventually collapsed.
Today it is generally agreed, and Zizek even says himself, that Marx's analysis, while still correct on the fundamentals, is outdated. It's not that the core arguments changed, but rather so many new factors have entered the equation that just did not exist when Marx was alive.
So I think it's clear that in order for legitimate revolution to be made possible, someone needs to take Dialectics again and apply it to modern society. Maybe not turning Marxism on it's head, but rather extending it to cover what he couldnt due to the time he was alive in. I think, if we look at history, once this is done, the time will be ripe once again for revolution.
So, does anyone want to get on that?
John Gomez
Can you elaborate on this? The only thing people reference when they say this is that people aren't factory workers anymore.
Joseph Phillips
The service sector The way corporations are run Obviously, imperialism
For those interested in getting a more modern theoretical knowledge, I'd suggest debord and lenin on imperialism.
Ethan Morgan
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Owen Cook
No no, Socialism still applies fine, but rather the analysis of Capitalism needs to be updated, and possibly the revolutionary method as well.
William Barnes
I don't think there will ever be a leftist revolution. If there's a revolution, the right will start it but the left will finish it.
Joshua Howard
I think this should be one of the priorities. We already understand that capitalism is shit: publishing another "Das Kapital" isn't going to make people more aware of the issue or give them the power to affect change. Our organization is what's key.
Adrian Richardson
I was just joking, but tbh, I think we need sleeper agents who are willing to crash everything, with prole survivors. Primarily, military and intelligence. The left needs infiltrators in drone programs, the airforce, and the NSA to have a chance of overthrowing the current order. The more we infiltrate, the less violence there will have to be.
Evan Phillips
One thing you gotta keep in mind is with the Rise of the Internet we can actually make it possible for revolution. Because if we organize agitation through the internet, then it can influence the world outside.
Brody Lee
Well Marx's ideas about what defines class are outdated imo. Nowadays a factory worker can own stocks through his pension making him bourgeois while a CEO is technically part of the proletariat.
William Russell
This, Marx doesn't seem to have anticipated social democracy and the extent to which the capitalist state would be willing to compromise to keep the workers pacified.
Jason Butler
There are already leftists in these programs. They just don't know they're leftist yet.
Anthony Gutierrez
How about the major new factor which is that most men seem to effectively slave away for a woman who makes all the purchasing decisions. Who does all the most difficult work for the least pay? Men. This might have been true in Marx's day as well, but women had other tedious, difficult obligations, like keeping house and raising children then. These days most western women, even poor ones, seem to think themselves above the drudgery of life and leave that up to the men.
Matthew Martin
Don't most moden women work?
Ayden Harris
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Alexander Sullivan
Did you even read those ideas? Or did you simply consume regurgitated propaganda?
Factory worker could do so during Marx's time too. The question is: does he get the most of his income from selling his labour?
Except one could say that he owns his means of production.
It's called Soviet Union. And - yes. He did.
Caleb Green
the issue is the modern day service sector doesnt face nearly as much exploitation as industry and agricultural workers did in the past, especially in the west. most modern jobs in the west are too safe since the capitalists realized they need to keep their workers at least alive to not face a revolution. this is what people mean when they say the west has no revolutionary potential, not saying we should go full accelerationism and try to make prole lives worse, just saying its incredibly difficult now to get the proletariat in the first world to be class conscious, since they have absolutely no reason to be. a reform is good enough for them, only the third world can spark a (probably unsuccessful) revolution tbh.
Andrew Morris
Yes, but less demanding jobs than men, and for fewer hours. I don't have data to back this up, but I'm not the first person to notice that even if a man and a woman have the same job on paper, the man is more likely to be expected to do the more difficult, less rewarding, less glamorous work.
But more important is not who is EARNING the money, but who is SPENDING it. Marketing firms have long understood that it is women who are generally making the purchasing decisions for the household. If the man's earnings are actually being spent by/on his wife or partner, is not he effectively working for his partner? Is not he effectively her slave.
Jonathan Gutierrez
Come now, living an unrewarding stressful life as a menial wage slave doing bullshit for bourgs is not what most people want to do with their lives. There are good reasons to revolt.
Carter Campbell
They didn't realize. They got forced by the government. But once the threat passed - everything went back to the old times.
This is not true.
Gavin Hill
Who set's a CEO's wages?
Cameron Brown
Honestly, Marx's ideals still kinda fit with our times, that's the great thing about them.
Benjamin Phillips
does the CEO actually produce anything, or does he just manage things, which isnt even true since he has like a whole team that can do that by themselves?
Adrian Reed
Except the CEO owns way more stocks than the average worker can ever dream of, making him able to live without selling his labour force.
Brody Ward
The CEO still sells his labour to an employer for a wage. If we're only talking about physical labour then you basically have to exclude millions of people working in the service sector from the proletariat.
Thomas Lee
A CEO often is stock owner or even owner of the company. Cases where a CEO is purely an employee is rare, and even then he makes so much money that he owns a lots of MoP via stock/venture capital and generates wealth this way.
Josiah Sanders
Am I the only one who thinks revolution is ripe for the west, or at least america and canada? People are beginning to get sick of this system, the unemployment, garnished wages, no benefits, bull shit hours and commute. The 2008 crash also happened 8 years ago as well.
Owen Lee
It is probably ripe but you need to organize yourselves and get people to your side.
Adrian Wood
Not to mention, taking out the USA from the global equation could make it possible for europeans to overthrow their governments, since the global hegemony would be in disarray.
Ryder Ross
I don't think that things have degraded far enough to make people in the west generally ready to overthrow the government. We're well on our way, though. The news never talks about it unless there's a racial angle they can exploit, but there are constant protests and clashes with the cops. The only thing keeping things going right now is inertia, but come the next financial emergency, especially if it's concurrent with some medium-sized regional conflict, I expect things are really going to start popping off when government functions in the US start failing on a wide scale.
This. I think conditions are currently ripening for a revolution, but things are in no way ready for the sort of revolution we'd want.
IMO getting people on our side is important, but so is also the need to prepare for these eventual events of dysfunction. There's growing class consciousness in the US, especially among the young, but I don't think most people are going to be willing to listen or change their views until they're faced with no other choice.
What will attract people then won't be theoretical applications of socialism or radical social organization, but the ability to provide food, water, and safety, and if they can't get that I don't think it's unreasonable to think that they'll follow whoever will promise it to them, even if its the neighborhood fascists.
Ryder Turner
There's a book called "Wages of Rebellion" which argues that there are consistent conditions that precede major revolutions, and that we are living in a revolutionary moment, at least in America.
If I remember correctly the conditions listed included increasing disconnect between the ideology of the elite and the reality on the ground, a period of poverty that follows a period of relative prosperity, and a series of blunders/defeats/humiliations of the nation in question on the world stage.
Owen Butler
Patience, comrade. We're only just throwing off 70 years of anti-communism. The problems we face this century – the long recession and climate change – will spur people to think long and hard about alternatives. The left will be part of that.
