What drives your politics?

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

We all have a certain ethos or tendency based on what we feel is right, but which of the areas listed, if you had to choose, is the most important reason for you beliefs / politics. In other words, which of the above is the most important to you?

[Manic Impressive]

Personal self interest. I do not own property, I'm never likely to own property therefore it is in my best interests to abolish it.

[Zav]

Eh? What list?
Well I suppose the primary drive for my revolutionary politics is a desire for justice.

(In before moralism/objectivism shitstorm)

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Apologies, poll / list was not finished before I posted

[hatzel]

My politics are driven by a fundamental hatred for any imaginable form of politics.

EDIT: now that the options are up...I went for prosperity - it's more to do with the other options not exactly speaking to me for this or that reason - though I don't actually agree with how it's framed; I don't think a high standard of living is about being prosperous in the sense of monetary or material wealth, and I would happily relinquish all semblance of 'prosperity' if this would result in an increased prosperity of existence, that is to say, if it lead to individuals and societies prospering as individuals and societies, detached from any pursuit of prosperity as riches.

[arilando]

My love of liberty.

[The Jay]

I see economic equality as being a major factor in personal freedom, but for the purposes of the question I went with economic freedom.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

For an end to the whispers of the lives of the rich, for an end of the ability of capital to get its own way at the expense of ordinary people, and for an end to the politics that is driven by Capitalism.

[Questionable]

Doesn't this poll seem redundant? I think everyone who is a communist likes all four of those things.

For the sake of voting, I chose economic equality, since changing the material conditions is the only thing that will fulfill the three other options.

[Orlov]

Building the strongest workers state that the world will come to know (stronger and larger than the 1920's USSR) which will usher in the age of the dictatorship of the proletariat and allow the proletariat to seize control of the world's destiny.

[The Jay]

Building the strongest workers state that the world will come to know (stronger and larger than the 1920's USSR) which will usher in the age of the dictatorship of the proletariat and allow the proletariat to seize control of the world's destiny.

Could you make a thread outlining your view on a socialist state? Thanks.

[Dzo Komunjara]

No vote, all of them in a special way. If you get one of them, it's sure that in a some way it will be exxagerations or it would be abused by the people.

[Caj]

This poll seems meaningless to me. All of the options are inseperable from one another.


Building the strongest workers state that the world will come to know (stronger and larger than the 1920's USSR) which will usher in the age of the dictatorship of the proletariat and allow the proletariat to seize control of the world's destiny.

This sounds almost reformist. We need a big state to "allow" the proletariat to seize control, instead of, say, the proletariat carrying out revolution for itself? Can you elaborate on this?

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I didn't cast a vote because the possible selections were too vague. I pursue economic equality for a labors output, a government governed by the majority (proletariat), state control over vital resources and production to benefit the populace as a whole, abolish racism and replace them with two demographics : proletariat and bourgeois.

[Krano]

All four.

[Orlov]

This poll seems meaningless to me. All of the options are inseperable from one another.



This sounds almost reformist. We need a big state to "allow" the proletariat to seize control, instead of, say, the proletariat carrying out revolution for itself? Can you elaborate on this?
The workers state is the proletarian state after the proletariat seizes control through the vanguard party and the vanguard is made up of elected officials from the proletariat and the intellectual classes who lead the popular front (vanguard party) forward through shared political power and inevitably the popular front helps in the construction and organizing of workers council which function as the workers state.
Afterward, revolution is supported throughout other like-minded global Eastern nations who form a pact together and found similar states and inevitably form a strangle-hold and state a long, cold conflict until capitalism is choked out as a global system and the workers pact prevails allowing for political revolution in the global West and a communist victory.
It's hardly reformism as without the revolution this will not occur.

[piet11111]

I voted prosperity.

This because i am making minimum wage and with my father on unemployment and my mother not working i am the only one with a wage that adds to the household income.

I can live with some super rich asshole being my boss if me and my parents where able to live in financial security and without needing to scrape every cent together to buy our grocery's and pay the rent.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

What I want and what I feel does not drive my politics. My materialist knowledge of the fact that the producers of the world should own the world instead of those who steal from their labor does.

[Rooster]

I'm doing it for the lulz.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I voted for liberty. I initially became sceptical of the legitimacy of capitalism when I realised that it in most cases does more to threaten and stifle personal liberty than to enhance it. I could also have voted for prosperity because now I see that this system just doesn´t make any fucking sense. It´s arbitrarily wasteful when it comes to the time, effort and lives of those who don´t belong to the ruling class.

[Comrade Samuel]

I voted economic equality because it is a very big part of it for me however overall I think for most if not all of us here it is just a combination of them all.

[Ravachol]

To rediscover the lost human community, to sing in the sun, to howl in the winds!

[bcbm]

vengeance

[Ocean Seal]

My personal reason is an understanding that conditions under capitalism are only going to get worse because of the falling rate of profit. Things are shitty enough as it is, so I personally see it as necessary to get rid of capitalism before the shit hits the hyperdrive as the cool kids say.

[robear]

I was actually a content republican/libertarian before I chose to be communist. I had just came back to the US from a study abroad in Germany when some very unfortunate things happened. This prompted me to focus my semester project/presentation on poverty, with emphasis on China's poverty. My eyes were opened to the gross inequality that exists in the world today. I would say economic equality and prosperity are the most important things to me.

[hatzel]

Doesn't this poll seem redundant? I think everyone who is a communist likes all four of those things.

I wouldn't say that, no. Not as they're presented, at least:

1) "ensuring no one is richer [...] than anyone else" - I am not unavoidably repulsed by the mere suggestion that one person may have more books than another, for example. If a fair economic system - one in which each person was fully remunerated for their labour, whilst also ensuring that those who refrain from labour are not condemned to a life of hardship - could be devised and implemented, allowing people maximum flexibility in choosing their own path, I would see no problem with one person choosing to work long days in order to afford a personal library, and another choosing to sit in the park, enjoying the sunshine, thus foregoing a personal library. I'm not exactly an advocate of Parecon, though I remember at least one of Albert and Hahnel's texts arguing that this is the very essence of economic equity, and I agree that there is nothing fundamentally unjust about the proposal. I also agree that capitalism will never be able to act as such an equitable economic system.

2) "personal freedom" - I am here reminded of an extract from Jung:


No one can flatter himself that he is immune to the spirit of his own epoch, or even that he possesses a full understanding of it. Irrespective of our conscious convictions, each one of us, without exception, being a particle of the general mass, is somewhere attached to, coloured by, or even undermined by the spirit which goes through the mass. Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness.Beyond simply a psychological approach - considering the influence of the unconscious mind, the Zeitgeist of each society, pervasive social mores etc. an its impact on the concept of 'personal freedom' - I also maintain that the individual is unavoidably constricted in their external actions, too, as their freedom to act is in fact more properly described as a social permission than a personal freedom, as it relies not only on the tolerance of one's neighbours, but also on the existence of a social structure which allows for the constitution of the person as a free entity. Though I am in many respects heavily influenced by so called 'individualist anarchists,' I don't actually think that individual freedom is possible - though in fact Stirner claimed that freedom was unachievable, a spook of the mind, suggesting that I needn't claim to have rebuffed the individualists, - and would therefore not be particularly comfortable claiming that my politics are driven by a demand for the illusion of personal freedom.

3) "cohesion of all people" - here my issue is with the word 'cohesion.' Perhaps I'm just being pedantic by appealing to etymology (thereby overlooking common understandings of the term, particularly in phrases like 'social cohesion'), but to co-here means simply to stick two or more things together. Co-hesion and ad-hesion, that is the root of the word. Personally I see no interest in binding individuals and groups together, forcing them to remain wholly connected to others, thus depriving them of any semblance of autonomy. I think that decentralisation and cohesion are necessarily opposed (as, in fact, are cohesion or diversity, which really gives me problems with the wording of this option! :lol:), and think that the emancipatory project, the old ideal of federalism and local self-management, actually demands the 'unsticking' of people, groups, areas. A certain interdependence will most likely remain, but I would be far looser and more fluid than is implied by the word 'cohesion' in its stringent use.

4) "prosperity" - as I said in my post above, prosperity in this sense seems to refer specifically to material gain. 'Access to quality goods' suggests one is here talking about having nice cars and TVs and other such products, and there is an implication that wealth and a high standard of living come hand in hand. Perhaps I'm calling for a transformation of understanding, and a reassessment of the implications of these terms. My dictionary, for instance, says that 'to prosper' means to be fortunate. 'Fortunate,' however, is a term with very obvious implications of wealth, of having a fortune. Compare this with a synonym for 'fortune,' namely 'luck,' which is etymologically related to various Germanic words meaning 'happiness.' If prosperity is the maximisation of fortune-as-wealth, then I'm not interested, and I would consider it an extension of pre-socialistic ways of thinking. If, however, prosperity is the maximisation of fortune-as-happiness, fortune-as-wellbeing...well, then I'm willing to throw my weight behind it, though it should also be acknowledged that these two types of prosperity, these two types of fortune - as wealth and as wellbeing - are potentially conflicting ideals, and I would sooner sacrifice the former in service of the latter. If there is a choice between everybody sitting in a field all day playing with sticks and enjoying life on the one hand, and everybody sitting in a factory building HDTVs all day so that we can watch them for a few hours in the evening to escape the misery of the day job...well, I'd go for the first option. And yes I know that's shameless hyperbole and there is absolutely no possibility of that scenario ever happening, because there would be faaaaar too many TVs, I was just making a point by going overboard, sheesh...

So basically what I'm trying to say is that I disagree with all four. Okay, maybe not disagree, but I have serious concerns about them as they stand, and don't see any reason to make these demands. But that's mainly just because I want to be all different and buck the trend and say something weird for the sake of argument and furthering the discussion or something. That isn't to say I don't agree with what I just wrote, though as with all my posts that's a very real possibility...

[Lilith]

Reverence for G-d drives my politics.

[Ele'ill]

I'd have to say 1,2,3, and 4.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Universal equality, simply put.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Not only are those four things not at odds with each other, they're impossible without each other.

[Bostana]

To know that the bourgeoisie assholes are gone and will not come back will help me sleep at night

[The Jay]

Not only are those four things not at odds with each other, they're impossible without each other.

That's very true, but one can favor one aspect over another while recognizing that they are all inter-related.

[honest john's firing squad]

Personal self-interest. I want a better world for myself, and also to have a better understanding of the world, the forces that drive it, and the direction it may ultimately take as a result of the class struggle in our epoch. I hold no eternal moral principles such as "equality" or "liberty" sacred in regards to my politics; I only support the real interests of my class in its movement towards the destruction of the presently existing social order, which are an extension of my own personal interests.

[Pretty Flaco]

What drives my politics?
hormones. i'm in it to meet women.

[The Intransigent Faction]

There's something to be said for each of those four poll options, and as someone else said they're pretty much tied together.
Forgive my vagueness, but I'd say I'm driven partly by compassion, and partly by rationality. We need to replace an irrational and socially destructive socioeconomic system with one that actually gives everyone the opportunity to be the best person they can be.
Speaking from my own experiences/what I've seen, capitalism is at the root of many of the discriminatory, backward attitudes in our world today, and it's long overdue for us to advance beyond all of that stuff.

[The Intransigent Faction]

To know that the bourgeoisie assholes are gone and will not come back will help me sleep at night

That too. I often wonder how people I know can so easily go to sleep or go about their daily routines knowing so many people are starving to death or are in otherwise terrible conditions and being treated like slaves.

I guess in short I was raised by liberal parents who taught me to value fairness, equality, compassion, and the payoff of developing your own work ethic, but then I looked around at the disconnect between those values and reality and knew something was wrong.

[Ose]

For craic. But really, no one of the options given is more important than any other, as they are all inextricably linked. With regard to communism, you can't have one without the rest.
What I want and what I feel does not drive my politics. My materialist knowledge of the fact that the producers of the world should own the world instead of those who steal from their labor does.Pronouncements involving 'should' in this sense aren't materialist. That is by no means a criticism btw (materialism contains no intrinsic goodness), just an observation that immediately sprang to mind.

[Princess Luna]

Personal self interest. I do not own property, I'm never likely to own property therefore it is in my best interests to abolish it.
How very Objectivist of you

[Ned Kelly]

Material conditions..

[Renegade Saint]

Class interest drives my politics. I'm am a member of the proletariat. All my political questions come down to "what's in the best interest of the proletariat?"

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

What I want and what I feel does not drive my politics. My materialist knowledge of the fact that the producers of the world should own the world instead of those who steal from their labor does.

Yes, exactly. What drives me is the injustice of theft of labor, production and dignity. Hunger. This is what drives me, the fact that 100,000 humans die of starvation a day, 3 billion humans are left less than $2 a day from their production, and an increasing number of over 1 Billion humans are permanently severely undernourished. Lethargic from starvation, robbed of a social life, robbed of the right to work and forced to rot away in a slum. FUCK CAPITALISM.

[TheGeekySocialist]

freedom, liberty, democracy, equality.

[Quail]

I want a better world for myself, my son and everyone else. I want a world where people can live to the fullest, develop themselves and appreciate life.

[Goblin]

All four are very important, but prosperity is what means the most to me. Everyone should be able to stay healthy and have a roof above their head.

[Ostrinski]

I'm doing it for the lulz.Essentially this.

But in all honesty I basically am not a communist for any reason other than the fact that I've been one for a while now.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Anger and a strong uncontrollable desire to avenge myself, my family, and everyone else who has suffered at one point or another because of poverty, war, and ethnic hatred.

[Raúl Duke]

Economic/Political/Social Equality is the main reason behind my politics.
Only out of egalitarianism can a legitimate social/personal freedom can emerge

Also, class spite and being poor

[o well this is ok I guess]

street cred

[Dr Doom]

the possibility of working class rapture is the only thing that motivates me to leave my bed for work every morning.

[Catma]

The proletariat needs to be strengthened until it is capable self-organizing. Prosperity is most instrumental in driving that and enabling pursuit of the other 3 things in the poll. (The definition of the "prosperity" choice seems to include some measure of economic equality, so that all the prosperity doesn't simply make the capitalists yet stronger.)

[zoot_allures]

I chose personal freedom. However, "personal freedom" is such a broad concept, even considering the more specific definition you put in the brackets, that in my view it involves all the other options listed. These days, I'm not really sure how useful it is to talk about "personal freedom" without being a lot more specific about the particular context of the society and the particular goals you have in mind.

That said, I've always tended towards very anti-authoritarian views (before I was a leftist I was a hardcore anarcho-capitalist), and "personal freedom" still reonates more deeply with me than any of the other options.

[Firebrand]

Well I'm in it to eliminate competition.
The idea that it is somehow right and proper that some people fall by the wayside while others trample over their bodies to get where they want to be or even just to stay alive is sickening to me. Competition sets people against each other when they could achieve far more by working together. The idea of competition is glorified in this society when it should be vilified in all its forms. (except in sport, and various friendly competitions)

[MotherCossack]

cos it aint bloody fair..... obviously.
why should worthless, arrogant, pampered, ignorant, greedy, selfish, thoughtless and unpleasant little shits, once born into the privileged classes, have a life of complete
luxury... and get, easily, all that they ever want and more.

they dont need to work [much if at all]
they take for granted the best of everything...clothes, stuff, houses, education, holidays
they have money as a default position.
they never see the other side of the coin
they are healthier
they have influence
rules get bent for them
and they get away with it all

the playing field is so far from level...
it is more or less a different game...

we need to make it all fair.
then it is freedom and rights

[Althusser]

I think that anyone who voted for the "personal freedom" thing is a bit self-serving.

[El Oso Rojo]

I would choose all them as important for they are essential for a socialist society.

[Anderson]

What drives me is
1) Current human suffering due to unjust social and political structures sustaining the capitalist economy
2) I want to see the capitalists and bourgeois get defeated and suppressed

[Mr. Natural]

Good topic, but I couldn't select any of the choices, as usual. My politics are driven by a desire for human realization: the establishment of self-determined community with ourselves and with the rest of life. Such a human realization would include economic equality, personal freedom (together with others), human diversity, and prosperity.