How can I reconcile Marxism with patriotism?

How can I reconcile Marxism with patriotism?

I'm kind of sick and tired of having my country be the plaything of capitalist powers for centuries so they can mock and smear us on their media when we have to deal with the legacy of all that. And I'm sure it's not an unique sentiment among developing nations.

You don't. Petty tribalism is spooked as fuck.

Patriotism a shit. We're all born on the same place, just different landmasses.

Are you sure its not Brazilian bourgies that are exploiting the country?

Basically you don't.

It's not your country that is the plaything of the capitalists. Countries don't exist.

What's being exploited is you. You, and everyone you've ever cared about. They'll smear you with whatever label they can. Country, race, gender, sexuality, even your fucking hobbies. There's no escape.

/argie/ here. I know your frustration, but you have to understand that as a third world country, we are subjects of opression from both the transnational bourguie and the "national" porkies. They are both the same shit, although they may clash between each other when their interests collide.

Basically, supporting the national bourguies against the transnatinoal corporations will only end in more PT, PSDB or the same old shit you have been through your entire life.

That does not mean that the working class shouldn't take advantage of an eventual fight between national and first world porkies, but the left should always have an independent position and clearly deline its intentions and program.

You seem to think there is a concept of "country" separate from capitalists.

Allende was patriotic

You don't. Loyalty to an arbitrary plot of land is stupid as fuck.

Proletarian internationalism all the way.

The notion of a country only serves to distract you from the exploitation of you and your fellow proles. Instead of recognizing and experiencing the exploitation directly, you project it onto the spook of your country. Thus it turns into something abstract rather than material. To be patriotic toward anything but your class or the people in is totally contradictory with leftism. It is playing right into the hand of the bourgeoisie.

I love you, marxhead poster.

Just don't be an autist about it, and don't lose sight of the fact that the root cause of the problem is capitalism.

I'm pretty sure this is the Tankie Marx head.

By making Revolution happen in your country.

Once it is no longer capitalist-occupied, it is actually yours and there is no shame being proud of it.

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OP here, I went to bed and completely forgot about this thread. I'll reply to some of the comments now.

Dismissing things like that as tribalism is ideology, imo. Once a cleavage is carved between people it is there even if what justified it in the first place seems invalid today. Ideological categories have real, material consequences, and if they form a hierarchy it's only natural that those below will unify based on this category.


You're all starting from the dangerous presupposition that a political abstraction is immaterial just because it's arbitrary. It isn't, because it's historically conditioned. We can believe all races are equal but still have to deal with racism existing as the political superstructure of a series of economic factors such as the search for cheap labour and cheap resources that has left a tangible legacy.

Seeing those abstractions through the lens of materialism is what Marxism is about, not denying them simply because they can't be sustained by any basis other than that of economic activity. Or something. The nation-state, the superstructure for the historical search for a national market is here, disagreeing with it doesn't make it go away.


This guy gets it

AnĂ£o, we need a Vargas of the Left tbh.

Bring CEPAL thought to the public discourse back since a large bulk of our left sold its soul to neoliberalism

Prestes was our last revolutionary, and even him grew with disappointments with our land.

So, I think there's a difference between emancipatory "patriotism" and nationalistic patriotism. The emancipatory element sees discrimination and exploitation of the countrymen. You are not being defined by your borders, or even so much your culture, but rather by the fact that the rich amass their wealth by taking from the poor, and the bourgeois use different methods in each country. It is by these methods that proletarians of a nation gain a unifying identity. When the identity of "national solidarity" overrides the intended proletarian emancipation, and you are no longer aloud to criticize national bourgeois, you now have the filthy stuff that brings petty squabbles and mass deaths along border lines.

Recommended reading from Lowy (on the subject of nationalism.)

National Socialism is the cure

I agree with this in general

Socialism has to start in the developed world, so even if we consider socialist revolution to be our final goal, Brazil has some developmental processes to go through before, and in that period an alliance with the bourgeoisie is acceptable

Unfortunately, it was largely the geopolitical and economic circumstances of the time that made Vargas possible in the first place. Repeating his legacy in an age of neoliberalism might not be possible

Genuinely can't even image what it's like to be dumb enough to look at this picture and not laugh, let alone take it seriously

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check yourself before you wreck yourself, pollyp

I don't care. Your spooks are your problem. You will end up supporting some variety of leftism out of rational self interest because the alternative will be supporting the people who want you to starve to death quietly.

Or maybe that will all happen after we're dead. I don't know, but I really don't care.

even if we build a colony on mars, you would still say Patriotism is stupid, you faggot.