[Paradigm]

Feudalism was better than what we have now.

Damn straight. Those damn uppity bourgeois merchants didn't know what was good for them.

[spodi]

^Feudalism could always come back. Private Armies. Do not doubt the future.

[Lexington]

I am actually wondering if Marxism has to change: I mean, we live in a world where you can fly drones around shooting at people, a world where all technology is if not now then soon part of a network of technologies that can be infiltrated and monitored. We live in a world that is vastly more mechanized than in Marx's time. We live in a world where global trade makes local economies global.

The countries that were Marxist/Leninist/Maoists have all abandoned those ideas because history moved. So what new is there?

We also live in a world where most people vote, and that vote matters. The only argument I see there is that the people voting that don't vote for Communist parties are idiots, since in all of these countries they don't vote for them.

So what? What then?

[spodi]

Communism died with Stalin and Mao. China was smart and Russia was Russia. Dare debate me?

[Dagoth Ur]

Spodi believes in Great Men and Lex believes communists aim to return to methods from decades ago, I guess just for continuity's sake. Understanding communists seems so hard for some.

[spodi]

^ if your calling me naive about communism, whos really being naive here? When a person states they are a communist today the general population laughs at them. There is going to be no revolution, trust me. Even if one started, a state's domestic intelligence agency and their allies foreign intelligence agencies would kill it before it succeeded. This is COMMON SENSE. I am not degrading your ideals, I am just stating facts.
What's your rebuttal? But but Marx said this or trotsky did that. Better yet, north Korea will succeed, just be patient. Again I respect your ideology but communism ideally and in practice are two VERY different things.

[Dagoth Ur]

^ if your calling me naive about communism, whos really being naive here?

I didn't say naive. I basically called you ignorant and you've decided to prove me right, and what's more you seem proud that you don't know anything about Marxism.

When a person states they are a communist today the general population laughs at them.

More ignorance. Every year that goes by people are more and more interested in us communists. They don't laugh they ask questions.

There is going to be no revolution, trust me.

Trust the person who has no understanding of Marxism? No thank you.

Even if one started, a state's domestic intelligence agency and their allies foreign intelligence agencies would kill it before it succeeded. This is COMMON SENSE. I am not degrading your ideals, I am just stating facts.

Yeah and the international force sent to the nascent USSR crushed it and liberated Moscow. Your "common sense" is nonsense that you invented to suit your purposes here. And there is no such thing as just stating facts.

What's your rebuttal?

That you don't understand Marxism, materialism, or revolutions.

But but Marx said this or trotsky did that.

You wouldn't know what Marx or Trotsky said if it bit you in the ass. That much is obvious.

Better yet, north Korea will succeed, just be patient.

Succeed at what? Unifying Korea? How does that factor into an American communist's political mindset? What are the tangible benefits to the American communist? Or are you just assuming that we aim to replicate foreign communists?

Again I respect your ideology but communism ideally and in practice are two VERY different things.

I am not a utopian and any attempt we make at building communism may fail. But even knowing I would fail it would be better to try than to simply accept the barbarism we are subjected to.

Oh and despite your claims of respect for my ideology your post sounds smug and self-satisfied.

[spodi]

Wow those points you made really opened my eyes, thank you. Enjoy your revolution and best of luck with your perfect society.

[quetzalcoatl]

Reluctant as I may be to align myself with spodi, I also do not see a proletarian armed struggle on the horizon.

But this has nothing at all to do with an evolved electorate that has learned lessons from history. It is precisely the opposite. Yes, there have lessons learned from history - but not by the voting public. The group that has learned the lessons of history is the economic elite. They are determined not to permit a repeat of the politics of the Great Depression, and the Grand Bargain that created the safety net (aimed at softening the blows of periodic crashes structurally embedded in capitalism).

Their instrument in creating a new reality has been the growth of corporate power, allowing them virtual full control of all the major media of information dissemination. By disciplined application of incremental change, they have completely re-formed and re-framed the US political landscape. In doing so they have fully refuted and disproved the Marxist left's stance on incrementalism. A revolution in slow motion, achieved by money + power + discipline and a substantial cadre of the disaffected. Most tellingly, this cadre consists of the children of the cadre that formed the support for the New Deal - the agrarian poor whites.

At the beginning of the Great Depression, US society was teetering on the edge. The last flowering of agrarian populism was in full bloom, and hostility towards industrial capitalism was at its height. Consider this contemporary Gallup poll:



It was no wonder that many capitalists of the time were running scared. A Marxist revolution in Russia appeared it might succeed, and communism was a force in Europe.

Capitalists are no longer running scared. The totemic image of Wall Street employees tossing McDonald's employment applications down on the OWS demonstrators below says it all. The contempt for the poor in the US is now total - they are no longer the salt of the earth (in Great Depression terms) but the salt in the wounds of capitalism.

The public attitudes of the depression era have been reversed. You could take the results from the above poll, reverse all the numbers, and be pretty spot on. Even under very great economic pressure, this will be an effective block on any revolutionary undertaking.

[spodi]

^Yeah I agree the capitalists and corporations are screwing us but I also believe in human nature. As I said in the past, I bet you a million dollars that if I gave you a million dollars it would change you. Power, status and greed are part of our darker side. Look at all the revolutionary dictators. They were well intentioned, overthrew the out of touch status quo and became what they were against. In some cases worse. The great leap forward? They set back the peasant, wtf?

How about a revolution in human nature? Bright sunny ideals right? Good luck...

[quetzalcoatl]

^Yeah I agree the capitalists and corporations are screwing us but I also believe in human nature. As I said in the past, I bet you a million dollars that if I gave you a million dollars it would change you. Power, status and greed are part of our darker side. Look at all the revolutionary dictators. They were well intentioned, overthrew the out of touch status quo and became what they were against. In some cases worse. The great leap forward? They set back the peasant, wtf?

How about a revolution in human nature? Bright sunny ideals right? Good luck...

There are two quite distinct types of realism.

One type of realism, while recognizing the manifold limitations of human nature, still struggles within those limitations to achieve a better world. Whatever progress we have seen over the centuries is attributable to this strain of realism.

Then there is a much darker strain of realism. It ignores what has been (and can be) achieved, and instead focuses exclusively on the greedy power-seeking view of the human beast - a real but incomplete view of human nature. It rejects in toto any possibility of progress with a snickering lol. This is a type of realism that seeks to pull the wool over your eyes, by getting you to ignore the very real positive aspects of humanity that occasionally arise from the muck. I cannot prove this of course, but I strongly suspect this second brand of phony realism is just a cover for those attached to the status quo. Call it a counsel of despair aimed at the powerless.

[Paradigm]

^Feudalism could always come back. Private Armies. Do not doubt the future.

I actually think that anarcho-capitalism, if it managed not to completely collapse before it got off the ground, would quickly become feudalism, since feudalism is essentially a system in which property and government are one and the same.

We also live in a world where most people vote, and that vote matters.

I find the second part of that statement highly suspect.

[SolarCross]

I actually think that anarcho-capitalism, if it managed not to completely collapse before it got off the ground, would quickly become feudalism, since feudalism is essentially a system in which property and government are one and the same.

I think an-caps hope and imagine it would be something more like renaissance italy only cyberpunked; everyone is a Vaishya, even the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas would do business the Vaishya way as gurus for hire (brahmins) and mercenaries (Kshatriya).

What makes feudalism feudalism is where the kshatriya support themselves in peace time through land ownership acquired through conquest and fight at their own expense.

[Ambroise]

We also live in a world where most people vote, and that vote matters.

I find the second part of that statement highly suspect.

Not only that, but depending on the year, about 40-45% of the people don't even bother voting in presidential elections. Far from a rosy picture.

[fuser]

The only argument I see there is that the people voting that don't vote for Communist parties are idiots

No. Marxist argument is actually : Cultural Hegemony.

I think an-caps hope and imagine it would be something more like renaissance italy only cyberpunked; everyone is a Vaishya, even the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas would do business the Vaishya way as gurus for hire (brahmins) and mercenaries (Kshatriya).

What makes feudalism feudalism is where the kshatriya support themselves in peace time through land ownership acquired through conquest and fight at their own expense.

lolwut?