Why isn't communism rising in the economic crisis?

[ANTIFA GATE-9]

Communism traditionally rises in situations like today. Some workers being extremely underpaid while other enjoying a life of luxury.

When people saw the capitalist financial system crumble why didn't they give communism another try? Communism has always risen in situations like this and yet if anything people are preferring to join far right movements. No significant rise in people joining the communist and far left movements and organisations have been recorded in the last few years as far as I know.

So that's my question. Why isn't communism, anarchism or socialism taking over the word like they once used to in situations like this?

I'm new to RevLeft so forgive me if I missed an obvious answer.

[Nevsky]

No one except for communists believes communism is possible nowadays. Cynicism and defeatism are the leading ideologies of today's masses. Just take a look at a modern popular film like The Dark Knight Rises for example. It's message is clear: The world is bad but revolution won't change anything, only the virtuous rich man can save us. A real life correspondent of this phenomenon is very much present in my country, Italy. After several years of socio-economic decline, desperate people not only still vote for someone like Berlusconi, they believe in him and his neoliberal myths more than ever.

[Comrade Jacob]

I think there has been a rise in "left" parties because many people realise that capitalism is a problem, the reason there is not as much support for communist parties etc is because people have been brought up with the lie that communism will never work but only in theory.

"People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves".- Mao Tse-Tung

There has been only a small growth in communist and socialist thought amongst the people of Europe, South-America and parts of Asia. Sadly not so much in my home-country on Britain and neither in North-America (minus Mexico) and Oceania.

[Luisrah]

If it doesn't start to rise and we don't use this to further the goals of the left, things may get so bad in Europe, for example, that some guy with a square moustache may show up again...

[Per Levy]

the reason, for me at least, is that the workers are extremly demoralized, the partys/unions they turn to help them sell them out, when they do something on their own it gets supressed and hardly ever reported by the media(and if only in a negative light). and with so many defeats, a lot of workers retreat to things that gives them somewhat of a hold and safty, like family, friends and so on.

[Rafiq]

Because the Left as it is today has proven to be incapable of formatting political consciousness among the proletariat, and has ceased to represent their interests directly. Because at every chance, when arises trade union consciousness, the left fails to swoop in and seize the opportunity to develop class consciousness. What we need is a strong political base, and an effective political strategy.

[rednordman]

I think we are missing out the social economic conditions. Back at the start of the 1900s people in the wealthiest west were for the most part very very poor. Yes there is poverty in developed countries nowadays, but it isn't anything on what they had to deal with then. As for the rest of the world, well i think they have all but given up (money has so much power + life is cheap). Apathy reigns, sad to say. The spark is quite ignited yet i guess.

[Ace High]

No one except for communists believes communism is possible nowadays. Cynicism and defeatism are the leading ideologies of today's masses. Just take a look at a modern popular film like The Dark Knight Rises for example. It's message is clear: The world is bad but revolution won't change anything, only the virtuous rich man can save us. A real life correspondent of this phenomenon is very much present in my country, Italy. After several years of socio-economic decline, desperate people not only still vote for someone like Berlusconi, they believe in him and his neoliberal myths more than ever.

I like that you brought up the Dark Knight Rises, you're right about its message :D

Also, I should add that people literally cannot grasp the fact that communism does not mean a totalitarian government. People are all "ahh ussr, no, no, bad". It's an automatic response, and it shuts off their willingness to even research the subject in the first place.

[Zutroy]

If it doesn't start to rise and we don't use this to further the goals of the left, things may get so bad in Europe, for example, that some guy with a square moustache may show up again...
As bad as it would be, that would play to the advantage of communism.

[Philosophos]

Well there are lots of reasons as the guys above mentioned and I agree with them. The most common reasons are fetishes (I believe communism is bad because someone taught me it was bad, there can't be another system just capitalism, people MUST have a leader because they can't decide on their own and so on) with no scientific thought/proof, the anti-revolutionary behavior of people (they are used being screwed so they can't see why it's bad), the media propaganda and generally the fear of changing the traditional 'values' in life (the 'great' nations, religion, money, over-consumerism and some other stuff capitalism brought up as values).



I'm new to RevLeft so forgive me if I missed an obvious answer.

Don't worry we are all trying to learn here ;)1

[Brutus]

The working class has no leadership- the unions sell them out and the left has split up into sects.

[Buffalo]

I would blame inadequate education among the people as to what Communism really is/what it can be. They continue to view it as a failed experiment. I may catch flak for this statement, but states like North Korea and the horror stories that make it to the states about China don't help either. North Korea is still referred to as a Communist country by the media as well. While whether or not it is could be debated, the popular view point of North Korea is it's bad and should be stamped out. To say it is communist only makes us look worse.

Even if one is somewhat educated in Communism they, as Nevsky said, refuse to believe it will work when implicated. They seem to be content to just give up. Which I resent, but there isn't much I can do about their opinions no matter how much I speak.

What Communism desperately needs is a party that tries purely to spread Communist ideals and opinions. We have no influence in the media, at least in America which is the country I am speaking for. The ideal of Communism is spat on in the classroom. Teachers seem to love throwing in their own opinions when they teach, even though they should keep their mouths shut. We need spokespeople and a way we can spread our views and ideas to the world. We simply don't have that and until we organize and pull our own weight as revolutionaries we will just have to deal with the steady decline of our parties and increasing public ignorance on our beliefs.

[Per Levy]

As bad as it would be, that would play to the advantage of communism.

how? the fascists in germany destroyed the the workers movement, communists, the unions and much more. the german workers movement never recoverd from that.

[Popular Front of Judea]

If crises don’t always produce widespread struggle, is it fair to say that widespread struggle nonetheless requires some sort of precipitating crisis in order to get underway? For instance the most progressive period in US labour history was in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

Clearly social unrest doesn’t appear out of thin air. And I’m certainly not suggesting that social struggles can’t emerge during times of economic crisis—they obviously can. But often such crises only appear to be the catalyst for struggles. There are many crises, economic or political, that could, and perhaps should, ignite upheaval and do not—countless police murders that don't start riots, austerity programs that don't trigger uprisings, and so on—which are then forgotten.

Pinpointing the ingredients that spark protest is always tricky since so many factors tend to be at work. Contrary to received wisdom on the left, however, many struggles come not out of worsening economic conditions, but rather periods of expansion. The Great Depression, as you mentioned, is often held up as the prime example of an economic crisis providing fertile ground for radical social movements. But it should be noted, even there, that perhaps the most militant episodes in that struggle—the iconic factory occupations and sit down strikes of 1936-37—took place not during a worsening economic crisis, but a recovery, when the employment rate had increased by thirty percent from the depths of the depression. And that’s telling: often social movements get the most traction when people’s expectations rise and they have a sense of their own collective power, not weakness. The movements of the Sixties in the US, similarly, arose from a time of economic expansion and relatively high wages. It was the backdrop for tremendous rank and file militancy, which fell off after the severe economic crisis of the early 1970s.


Hoping For The Worst | New Left Project (http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/print_article/hoping_for_the_worst)

[ind_com]

So that's my question. Why isn't communism, anarchism or socialism taking over the word like they once used to in situations like this?

Because there needs to be a vanguard communist party for using the social dissent and unrest to bring about revolution. In western countries now, there is no such party which is experienced in revolutionary war and can transform the political situation into a powerful and organized class war within a short period of time.

[Zutroy]

how? the fascists in germany destroyed the the workers movement, communists, the unions and much more. the german workers movement never recoverd from that.

Gravely unfortunate, that. In the end, though, socialism spread.

I don't advocate warfare as the first resort---that's just plain horrifying---but the war that resulted from the first rise of fascism was rather cathartic. Far-rightwingery in Europe was blasted into rubble, and is only now on its way to fully recovering.

[Chop_Sugar_Cane_Dem]

I'd say times are changing, and changing quickly. Traditional paradigms of "left" and "right" don't really fit a 21st century world, as these themselves are products of a 19th century mindset.

This doesn't mean that Marx's historical analytic are wrong; Just that the current approach to problems needs to change.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Sometimes I think that it would require another situation like the Spanish Civil War to bring the whole of the left back into focus.

It'll take some new fascist, supported by other reactionary governments, who attempts to overthrow a democratically elected government somewhere, and threatens to unleash the beast of fascism one again in the world.

[Chop_Sugar_Cane_Dem]

Sometimes I think that it would require another situation like the Spanish Civil War to bring the whole of the left back into focus.

It'll take some new fascist, supported by other reactionary governments, who attempts to overthrow a democratically elected government somewhere, and threatens to unleash the beast of fascism one again in the world.

You seem like you almost want this to happen. Why would you want this to happen?

[Sea]

...This doesn't mean that Marx's historical analytic are wrong; Just that the current approach to problems needs to change.Tell us more of this twenty-first century socialism of which you speak. What is it that has to change? I'm not saying you have to explain everything, but a link to a programme with which you agree or somesuch would be great. However, I suspect the standard critique will apply...

Marx's propositions for action were drawn directly from analysis of the most basic elements of capitalist society. Unless we have somehow strayed from capitalism, I find it hard to believe that the methods of fighting it would have changed for much. Marx and Engels weren't archaic writers - they based their tactics on the condition that modern industry and automation would take over in the realm of production, and now that this has happened (and is happening) their tactics are no longer futuristic, but modern. It is misguided to think the opposite, that they were once modern, and are now archaic. I won't be too harsh on you since you sound like a bit of a newbie (that's alright) but one cannot simply "modernize" that which is day by day growing more into modernity. That is, those conditions that qualify a plan of action as 'modern', are, as capitalism advances, applying more and more to the work of those formative socialists of some 150 years ago. I have yet to see a plan for "modernized" socialism that is not merely a co-option of radical thought to the influences of social-democracy and reformism.

[DaringMehring]

The thread makes a false assumption. "Communism" is rising, in that the sense that the working class is getting active.

Many left-wing groups are experiencing a big growth in membership or at least in membership interest.

Occupy was a left-oid outburst in hundreds of cities in the USA alone.

Unions are facing unprecedented attacks (eg Wisconsin) but at the same time, metrics for militancy are increasing, eg number of strikes and number of large strikes. And, in places like CA, union membership is actually increasing.

More and more people have seen that capitalism is not all the bourgeoisie pretend it is. Bourgeois propagandists have made several pre-emptive defenses... TIME has a cover about capitalism, Fareed Zakaria published a "Capitalist Manifesto," and a bunch of bull like that. They're feeling the heat.

Rome wasn't built in a day. After the beating the working class has taken for the last 30 and even 60 years, we won't rise to the level of the 30s immediately. So what? Organize to make it happen. Or, if you're just a petty bourgeoisie who will only attach themselves to a movement that is already massively powerful, ideologically clarified, and to your exact taste, then, sit it out. That's fine too.

But don't try to demoralize everyone else with falsehoods. Like Sasha Lilley quote presented here once more. I dealt with this in the thread posted specifically about it. But let's just point out her mistake in this particular quote reproduced here. She says that capitalist expansions actually can fuel militancy and she eschews the Depression.

1) Her analysis of the Depression is wrong. She tries to explain away the massive uprisings and victories of 1936-37 by a slight uptick in the miserable situation. But the situation was still horrible, and the same people, the same efforts, had been made 1933-34... but in 36-37 the situation had grinded on longer, and the strikers were more experienced. So they finally won. Their experience and the increased desperation of the dragging on Depression was decisive, not some slight uptick in employment.

2) the 60s. If you look at the leading militants of the 60s, you will find numerous ex-Communist, Trotskyists, New Left types, etc. basically, a strong organic link to militancy of the Depression era. And of course, she might want to mention the differences between a civil rights struggle and a workplace or socialist struggle.

In short, the Left is beginning a phase of growth based on the changing economic realities. You can help it, or... not. We have a ton of obstacles, all the tools and techniques of the bourgeoisie, so I hope people choose to engage, and not to hide.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

You seem like you almost want this to happen. Why would you want this to happen?

I don't want this happen, not even to my worst enemy.

But whether or not I want it to happen is irrelevant, because in order for a great number of the various sects to stop bickering and unite for a common cause, it's going to take a massive crisis that threatens to unleash the demon of fascism and totalitarianism again upon the world.

I fear that things will have to get much, much worse before we can even hope for revolution.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Can you spare us the talk of "falsehoods" please? You have a different analysis? Fine make your case. May the better analysis win. But please don't come down off the mountain and preach to us.

I could go point by point through your post and question every assertion you make -- such as the continuity between the Old Left of the 30's and the New Left of the 60's. (Really?) But the question is what needs to be done now. Working people are justifiably demoralized. What we need is some victories however small. We need to feel that the balance of power is shifting our way -- as it briefly did during the full employment 60s. We need a renewed sense of efficacy.


But don't try to demoralize everyone else with falsehoods. Like Sasha Lilley quote presented here once more. I dealt with this in the thread posted specifically about it. But let's just point out her mistake in this particular quote reproduced here. She says that capitalist expansions actually can fuel militancy and she eschews the Depression.

1) Her analysis of the Depression is wrong. She tries to explain away the massive uprisings and victories of 1936-37 by a slight uptick in the miserable situation. But the situation was still horrible, and the same people, the same efforts, had been made 1933-34... but in 36-37 the situation had grinded on longer, and the strikers were more experienced. So they finally won. Their experience and the increased desperation of the dragging on Depression was decisive, not some slight uptick in employment.

2) the 60s. If you look at the leading militants of the 60s, you will find numerous ex-Communist, Trotskyists, New Left types, etc. basically, a strong organic link to militancy of the Depression era. And of course, she might want to mention the differences between a civil rights struggle and a workplace or socialist struggle.

In short, the Left is beginning a phase of growth based on the changing economic realities. You can help it, or... not. We have a ton of obstacles, all the tools and techniques of the bourgeoisie, so I hope people choose to engage, and not to hide.

[Delenda Carthago]

First of all, I dont think that "communism is not rising", mostly because that includes many things that dont nessesary have to do with simple things like votes for example. I will speak on my behalf, as something that I do know, to give some examples.

KKE lost 50% of its votes last year on the second elections, most of them to SYRIZA. So if you are an outsider, you would say that not only its not rising, but it is collapsing. BUT: on the last year, KKE has seen a big rise on the biggest issue of all, the movement. On unions, syndicates, student movement etc there is a pretty noticable rise. So what is it? Rising or falling?

And this brings me to the second point. Communism rises when the worker struggles are rising. On the last years you do have some worker struggles that were imposible 5 years ago, but still, we are very much behind of the needs of the situation. That doesnt mean that its not going to change, but it takes time. One day at the time, convince your co-workers to unionise, to fight, to strike and you have made a step.

Another point is that we live in the times of the counter-revolution. USSR collapse was only 20 years ago and that brought a big dissapointment to a vast majority of the working class that "something else is possible". 20 years on a history level is a very short time. If we do manage to rise up in the next 10 years, it would be a historical achievement. And I think we will.

Last but not least, we pay for the opportunistic mistakes of the past. At a theoritical level the communist movement worldwide is really bad. Eurocommunist, tail chasing of the capitalis left,crude stagism, or childish leftism and smallworld thinking, revisionist dust, lack of economical knowledge, lack of history knowledge etc. We have a lot to go through, a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn to make ourselves relevant. Can we do it? For sure. Will we? Its on us.



And keep in mind, history can make the progress of a decade within a month and the progress of a month in a decade. Whatever the year doesnt bring, the instance might, as we greeks say. The struggle will bring the answers itself.

[jackcallidus]

There will be no Vanguard party in the United States, nor should there be one. More statist rhetoric. More bowing to authority. Same old song and dance. Fuck all that.

The United States, in regards to the radical political communities, is in a state of dire disinterest. Nothing anywhere close to the amount of activism in European countries. This is probably because of the cultural connection the American population has to this perpetual system of coercion and domination. So, it isn't necessarily that organizers are doing anything wrong. People are just being too heavily coerced. It is going to take something raw: an economic collapse bigger than 2008, another war, something demonstrative and unjustifiable--then perhaps this decaying society can finally commit suicide and establish new social relations not based on patriarchy, ownership, and dominance.

[darkblues]

db

[The real Fabians]

If you keeping telling a lie for long enough and loudly enough people will believe it as truth even if facts that disprove it are thrown at their faces.

Especially in Britain, we have been told that we are only individuals and only we should sort out our own problems, not others.

A left wing party isn't going to win if it openly opposes that natural attitude of greed and selfishness that neo-liberalism promotes.

[Fidel-Castro]

Cultural Hegemony

[Anti-White]

Occupy didn't do shit but camp out and smoke dope. That shit was a fucking failure.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Primarily two factors, I'd guess: 1) the fact that the left has done a poor job of manipulating the situation, and 2) the fact that many people still associate communism with the former USSR and state socialist regimes, and understandably find those alternatives to be unappealing.

[Popular Front of Judea]

"the left has done a poor job of manipulating the situation" Interesting choice of words there ...


Primarily two factors, I'd guess: 1) the fact that the left has done a poor job of manipulating the situation, and 2) the fact that many people still associate communism with the former USSR and state socialist regimes, and understandably find those alternatives to be unappealing.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Well, the economic crisis wasn't based around organized labor struggles, which have the highest tendency of increasing consciousness about the situation. Quite the opposite happened: there were mass layoffs. Instead of an army of laborers, there is an army of the unemployed, who are completely disparate and unconnected, and who don't organize together or struggle together.

The reason Occupy was so successful was because everyone was mad about the situation. The camps gave people a place to gather together, to organize together, and struggle together. It obviously had its shortcomings, but the problem with organizing unemployed is because they're not in some kind of association. And that is also why the Occupy movement failed, because you can't force momentum, and once the space was gone, aside from activists, many people stopped going to these things, stopped having shared experiences with others like them.

Movement as a class requires not only common struggles, but shared struggles. People have to struggle together, not alone.

[Taters]

2) the fact that many people still associate communism with the former USSR and state socialist regimes, and understandably find those alternatives to be unappealing.

Perhaps more than the purges, I think people associate the USSR with the most soul-crushing bureaucracy you can imagine. For most, communism seems to be the end of creativity and progress and being directed from above by some elite that is convinced that they know what's best.
As long as communists are portrayed wanting some kind of improbably massive state apparatus, we'll remain irrelevant.

[Delenda Carthago]

Perhaps more than the purges, I think people associate the USSR with the most soul-crushing bureaucracy you can imagine. For most, communism seems to be the end of creativity and progress and being directed from above by some elite that is convinced that they know what's best.
As long as communists are portrayed wanting some kind of improbably massive state apparatus, we'll remain irrelevant.
Organise Mass Criticism from Below

The second question concerns the task of combating bureaucracy, of organising mass criticism of our shortcomings, of organising mass control from below.
Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organisations—Party, Y.C.L., trade-union and economic. When people talk of bureaucrats, they usually point to the old non-Party officials, who as a rule are depicted in our cartoons as men wearing spectacles. (Laughter.) That is not quite true, comrades. If it were only a question of the old bureaucrats, the fight against bureaucracy would be very easy. The trouble is that it is not a matter of the old bureaucrats. It is a matter of the new bureaucrats, bureaucrats who sympathise with the Soviet Government, and finally, communist bureaucrats. The communist bureaucrat is the most dangerous type of bureaucrat. Why? Because he masks his bureaucracy with the title of Party member. And, unfortunately, we have quite a number of such communist bureaucrats.
Take our Party organisations. You have no doubt read about the Smolensk affair, the Artyomovsk affair and so on. What do you think, were they matters of chance? What is the explanation of these shameful instances of corruption and moral deterioration in certain of our Party organisations? The fact that Party monopoly was carried to absurd lengths, that the voice of the rank and file was stifled, that inner-Party democracy was abolished and bureaucracy became rife. How is this evil to be combated? I think that there is not and cannot be any other way of combating this evil than by organising control from below by the Party masses, by implanting inner-Party democracy. What objection can there be to rousing the fury of the mass of the Party membership against these corrupt elements and giving it the opportunity to send such elements packing? There can hardly be any objection to that.
Or take the Young Communist League, for instance. You will not deny, of course, that here and there in the Young Communist League there are utterly corrupt elements against whom it is absolutely essential to wage a ruthless struggle. But let us leave aside the corrupt elements. Let us take the latest fact of an unprincipled struggle waged by groups within the Young Communist League around personalities, a struggle which is poisoning the atmosphere in the Young Communist League. Why is it that you can find as many "Kosarevites" and "Sobolevites" as you like in the Young Communist League, while Marxists have to be looked for with a candle? (Applause.) What does this indicate, if not that a process of bureaucratic petrification is taking place in certain sections of the Y.C.L. top leadership?
And the trade unions? Who will deny that in the trade unions there is bureaucracy in plenty? We have production conferences in the factories. We have temporary control commissions in the trade unions. It is the task of these organisations to rouse the masses, to bring our shortcomings to light and to indicate ways and means of improving our constructive work. Why are these organisations not developing? Why are they not seething with activity? Is it not obvious that it is bureaucracy in the trade unions, coupled with bureaucracy in the Party organisations, that is preventing these highly important organisations of the working class from developing?
Lastly, our economic organisations. Who will deny that our economic bodies suffer from bureaucracy? Take the Shakhty affair as an illustration. Does not the Shakhty affair indicate that our economic bodies are not speeding ahead, but crawling, dragging their feet?
How are we to put an end to bureaucracy in all these organisations?
There is only one sole way of doing this, and that is to organise control from below, to organise criticism of the bureaucracy in our institutions, of their shortcomings and their mistakes, by the vast masses of the working class.
I know that by rousing the fury of the masses of the working people against the bureaucratic distortions in our organisations, we sometimes have to tread on the toes of some of our comrades who have past services to their credit, but who are now suffering from the disease of bureaucracy. But ought this to stop our work of organising control from below? I think that it ought not and must not. For their past services we should take off our hats to them, but for their present blunders and bureaucracy it would be quite in order to give them a good drubbing. (Laughter and applause.) How else? Why not do this if the interests of the work demand it?
There is talk of criticism from above, criticism by the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, by the Central Committee of our Party and so on. That, of course, is all very good. But it is still far from enough. More, it is by no means the chief thing now. The chief thing now is to start a broad tide of criticism from below against bureaucracy in general, against shortcomings in our work in particular. Only by organising twofold pressure —from above and from below—and only by shifting the principal stress to criticism from below, can we count on waging a successful struggle against bureaucracy and on rooting it out.
It would be a mistake to think that only the leaders possess experience in constructive work. That is not true, comrades. The vast masses of the workers who are engaged in building our industry are day by day accumulating vast experience in construction, experience which is not a whit less valuable to us than the experience of the leaders. Mass criticism from below, control from below, is needed by us in order that, among other things, this experience of the vast masses should not be wasted, but be reckoned with and translated into practice.
From this follows the immediate task of the Party: to wage a ruthless struggle against bureaucracy, to organise mass criticism from below, and to take this criticism into account when adopting practical decisions for eliminating our shortcomings.
It cannot be said that the Young Communist League, and especially Komsomolskaya Pravda, have not appreciated the importance of this task. The shortcoming here is that often the fulfilment of this task is not carried out completely. And in order to carry it out completely, it is necessary to give heed not only to criticism, but also to the results of criticism, to the improvements that are introduced as a result of criticism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/05/16.htm





The horror...

[Taters]

Organise Mass Criticism from Below

The second question concerns the task of combating bureaucracy, of organising mass criticism of our shortcomings, of organising mass control from below.
Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organisations—Party, Y.C.L., trade-union and economic. When people talk of bureaucrats, they usually point to the old non-Party officials, who as a rule are depicted in our cartoons as men wearing spectacles. (Laughter.) That is not quite true, comrades. If it were only a question of the old bureaucrats, the fight against bureaucracy would be very easy. The trouble is that it is not a matter of the old bureaucrats. It is a matter of the new bureaucrats, bureaucrats who sympathise with the Soviet Government, and finally, communist bureaucrats. The communist bureaucrat is the most dangerous type of bureaucrat. Why? Because he masks his bureaucracy with the title of Party member. And, unfortunately, we have quite a number of such communist bureaucrats.
Take our Party organisations. You have no doubt read about the Smolensk affair, the Artyomovsk affair and so on. What do you think, were they matters of chance? What is the explanation of these shameful instances of corruption and moral deterioration in certain of our Party organisations? The fact that Party monopoly was carried to absurd lengths, that the voice of the rank and file was stifled, that inner-Party democracy was abolished and bureaucracy became rife. How is this evil to be combated? I think that there is not and cannot be any other way of combating this evil than by organising control from below by the Party masses, by implanting inner-Party democracy. What objection can there be to rousing the fury of the mass of the Party membership against these corrupt elements and giving it the opportunity to send such elements packing? There can hardly be any objection to that.
Or take the Young Communist League, for instance. You will not deny, of course, that here and there in the Young Communist League there are utterly corrupt elements against whom it is absolutely essential to wage a ruthless struggle. But let us leave aside the corrupt elements. Let us take the latest fact of an unprincipled struggle waged by groups within the Young Communist League around personalities, a struggle which is poisoning the atmosphere in the Young Communist League. Why is it that you can find as many "Kosarevites" and "Sobolevites" as you like in the Young Communist League, while Marxists have to be looked for with a candle? (Applause.) What does this indicate, if not that a process of bureaucratic petrification is taking place in certain sections of the Y.C.L. top leadership?
And the trade unions? Who will deny that in the trade unions there is bureaucracy in plenty? We have production conferences in the factories. We have temporary control commissions in the trade unions. It is the task of these organisations to rouse the masses, to bring our shortcomings to light and to indicate ways and means of improving our constructive work. Why are these organisations not developing? Why are they not seething with activity? Is it not obvious that it is bureaucracy in the trade unions, coupled with bureaucracy in the Party organisations, that is preventing these highly important organisations of the working class from developing?
Lastly, our economic organisations. Who will deny that our economic bodies suffer from bureaucracy? Take the Shakhty affair as an illustration. Does not the Shakhty affair indicate that our economic bodies are not speeding ahead, but crawling, dragging their feet?
How are we to put an end to bureaucracy in all these organisations?
There is only one sole way of doing this, and that is to organise control from below, to organise criticism of the bureaucracy in our institutions, of their shortcomings and their mistakes, by the vast masses of the working class.
I know that by rousing the fury of the masses of the working people against the bureaucratic distortions in our organisations, we sometimes have to tread on the toes of some of our comrades who have past services to their credit, but who are now suffering from the disease of bureaucracy. But ought this to stop our work of organising control from below? I think that it ought not and must not. For their past services we should take off our hats to them, but for their present blunders and bureaucracy it would be quite in order to give them a good drubbing. (Laughter and applause.) How else? Why not do this if the interests of the work demand it?
There is talk of criticism from above, criticism by the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, by the Central Committee of our Party and so on. That, of course, is all very good. But it is still far from enough. More, it is by no means the chief thing now. The chief thing now is to start a broad tide of criticism from below against bureaucracy in general, against shortcomings in our work in particular. Only by organising twofold pressure —from above and from below—and only by shifting the principal stress to criticism from below, can we count on waging a successful struggle against bureaucracy and on rooting it out.
It would be a mistake to think that only the leaders possess experience in constructive work. That is not true, comrades. The vast masses of the workers who are engaged in building our industry are day by day accumulating vast experience in construction, experience which is not a whit less valuable to us than the experience of the leaders. Mass criticism from below, control from below, is needed by us in order that, among other things, this experience of the vast masses should not be wasted, but be reckoned with and translated into practice.
From this follows the immediate task of the Party: to wage a ruthless struggle against bureaucracy, to organise mass criticism from below, and to take this criticism into account when adopting practical decisions for eliminating our shortcomings.
It cannot be said that the Young Communist League, and especially Komsomolskaya Pravda, have not appreciated the importance of this task. The shortcoming here is that often the fulfilment of this task is not carried out completely. And in order to carry it out completely, it is necessary to give heed not only to criticism, but also to the results of criticism, to the improvements that are introduced as a result of criticism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/05/16.htm





The horror...

Yeah, I don't think most people know that Lenin actually struggled against the bureaucracy. That's the sort of thing we have to emphasize.

EDIT: woop it was stalin

[Delenda Carthago]

Yeah, I don't think most people know that Lenin actually struggled against the bureaucracy. That's the sort of thing we have to emphasize.
Let alone that I just quoted Stalin.

[-NW2-]

I suppose an obvious answer to the OP is that at the moment many people are too scared for their jobs to be militant in any way. At my place of work (which is heavily unionised), a new shift pattern was put forward by management recently which entailed more weekend and unsocial hours. A few years ago it would have been rejected or negotiated. Now it was voted in. The most common point of view among my work mates was 'we are lucky to have a job'.

People in any kind of secure job with half decent money are scared s***less about losing it. People who scream and shout all day long for strikes and militant action often forget that people have rent/mortgage, bills, kids et etc. Most people just want to keep their heads down.

All the main parties offer more of the same and the parties on the far left who make the most noise scream and shout for strikes when we as workers at our weakest position in years.

Reading some of the posts above, people have a lot more optimism than me, and I hope they are right but I dont see it around me as yet. Mind you, the recent campaigns in Britain to save A&E's and the Peoples Charter are positive move that might increase people consciousness.

[StringsofG]

The left needs a new breath. Every major revolution has come about by way of a relatively new idea, or way to implement that idea. In order to move forward the left needs to throw its past in a trash bucket, stop thinking of dead patrons, and realize what the living can do. Another big factor in the left is that it is always fighting against something. The difference between a revolt and a revolution, is that a revolt is against a force, while a revolution is a a a force behind a progressive idea.
The growth of leftism, at least in the U.S. is slow because of the right finding ways to stunt our tactics. A fresh batch of weapons and propaganda will be need to further the cause.

[audiored]

For a bunch of Marxists, no one seems to offer a materialist answer about why the working class is particularly demobilized right now and for the last 40 years.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Occupy didn't do shit but camp out and smoke dope. That shit was a fucking failure.
If that's really your conclusion, then I don't believe you followed the movement very well during its existence. Occupy began to be a "fucking failure" due to the apolitical methods of its leadership (the consensus vote, for instance) and ended up being co-opted by the Democratic party. You can't simply explain away all of their protests, marches, and the police abuse they endured up until their dissolution by paying reference to drugs.

[blake 3:17]

For a bunch of Marxists, no one seems to offer a materialist answer about why the working class is particularly demobilized right now and for the last 40 years.

There's a lot of sterile Marxist thought and maybe more sterile Marxist activity.

There are and have been huge gulfs between genuine historical materialist analysis and strategic socialist politics and practice. Too often they get conflated which gets the waters murkier.

I've been part of the revolutionary socialist movement for about 20 years. I was recruited to a current which hoped to unify parts of the Left which were fractured for no good reason. A former comrade just wrote a public document on why the latest attempt was a failure, here in Toronto, and got it at least half wrong. In the past 20 years I've made a lot of mistakes, both ultra left and opportunist. But there's no Magic Hand of Marx or Lenin to guide any of us. And they wouldn't know anyways.

I've been reading a really good book by some kind of left social democrat on the American labor movement called Solidarity For Sale. Nobody from the classical Marxist tradition anticipated the depth of criminal corruption in the American labor movement. I've been challenged on this board, and been happy to reply, to charges of bureaucratization of the labour and socialist movements from the late 19th century on, but when there are professional criminals, happy to make deals with the bosses, what can you do?

You sort through what's in front of you and embraces chances when and where you can.

There is no blueprint.

[precarian]

There are so many reasons for the failure of the communist struggle for working class liberation. It is difficult to know where to begin, but it is crucial to start with a critique of the left itself:

Communism is not rising because...

1/ The far-left is more concerned with arguing over the intricacies of theories propounded by irrelevant dead Russians, seeking to build revolutionary movements under wholly different conditions to those we live under today. Consequently many leftists sound like eccentric curators in a museum, engrossing themselves in their wee hobby to the detriment of genuine class struggle.

2/ Many leftists have completely failed to understand the nature of neoliberalism and, therefore, have no idea how to combat it. Not only is it a way of organising production, it is an ideology which seeks to inculcate certain values and behavioural traits (by various means) in people so that they conceive of themselves as rational entrepreneurial actors in a global marketplace. Neoliberalism entails the construction of a "new man" wholly accustomed to the notion that human society should consist of millions of self-seeking economic units locked into ruthless competition with each other.

The daily life of the working class is now structured in such a way that they must conform to this degenerate way of thinking in order to survive and advance themselves. Every aspect of our being is to be harnessed for the benefit of private profit - "the soul at work" as Bifo Berardi put it. If you don't comply, then you'll be marginalised and popular opinion will declare it to be your own fault for failing to "play the game."

Unless we begin our analysis of late-capitalism with a relentless critique of daily existence under this system - and the assumptions about life internalised by much of the working class! - then we're going nowhere.

3/ The left is infected with cowards, self-publicists and shrinking violets, many of whom are wedded to the notion that capitalism can be "reformed."

IT CAN'T.

Time for these fair-weather "socialists" to be purged from the left. No more Ken Loach-style reactionary hankering after Keynesian social democracy. No more sell-out popular fronts. No more campaigns based around preserving the pre-2008 status quo. Time for a genuinely radical alternative to emerge!

If we are to build a movement of the working class, it must be predicated on a radical basis. Reformists suck the life out of the class struggle. Time to jettison them, if we want to actually win our freedom. At this point in time, there simply is no alternative.

(...this post could go on for about 65 pages, but I'll end it here!)

[Glitchcraft]

If it doesn't start to rise and we don't use this to further the goals of the left, things may get so bad in Europe, for example, that some guy with a square moustache may show up again...

hmmm.... I think the little square moustache rose to power because the ruling class opted for the ... uh squares. rather than have the red flag folks take over all their stuff.
The big fat pig fucks that claim to own this world don't really want fascism, it's too strict.
the Squares were too authoritarian with the Free Market.
Bourgeois Democracy is where they want to be. Free Market and State Power.
It's only when threatened with socialism that they go with the fascists.
That is what happened in Germany, that is what happened in Spain.
That's just what happens.

The rise of ultra right wing groups coincides with the rise in revolutionary activities.
The more the Rulers feel threatened the more they fund/back the Fascists.

(disclaimer) im not talking about whether these revolutions failed because Kautsky wears little girls slippers or Stalin sent anthrax laden blankets to the Spanish workers, I'm saying the Ruling Class will always back the Fascists over the Reds but they don't really want to do that.

[D-A-C]

IMO Communism isn't rising because it can only do so through Communist Parties and organizations.

People have to be educated in Marxism, I cannot stress enough that it does not arise spontaneously as some people on the Left believe.

People are angry and seeking other options from the main political parties in countries all across the Western World, but in many, like the UK, America and others no 'real' left-wing revolutionary Communist/Socialist parties exist.

Even where they do exist they are often beset either by poor organization, or by personal infighting.

There do of course exist some major socialist parties, but there aren't enough IMO.

Communist/Socialist Revolutionary Parties have to be built and maintained prior to crises such as the one we are experiencing to take advantage of them.

Of course our Anarchist comrades I'm sure feel differently and I welcome their opinion on the matter.

Although I'd also like them to point to a period in time when an Anarchist based Left Wing movement assumed power in a country, but perhaps that's another matter, and another debate.

[RebelDog]

I think there is a lot bubbling beneath the surface we cannot see. Look at the US. The inequality in the US is breathtaking. The Wallmart family have more wealth than half the population. The political system is utterly pointless for most of the population. Same is true in Europe. It surely cannot continue in this direction without some huge explosion of dissent.

[baronci]

IMO Communism isn't rising because it can only do so through Communist Parties and organizations.

People have to be educated in Marxism, I cannot stress enough that it does not arise spontaneously as some people on the Left believe.

most pessimistic thing i've ever read

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

most pessimistic thing i've ever read
What part is pessimistic to you? I honestly didn't see pessimism, but a sober look at how far we have to go.

[stefanbl]

There's no real awareness about the grand majority of people that far-leftism is something they could turn to, or something that is a viable option.

So when people hit hard times, people don't turn to far-leftism, as they don't see it as something they could turn of.

[synthesis]

I'd argue that "communism," in the sense that people are using here, has been rising during the economic crisis, but people just don't necessarily feel compelled to use the word "communist" any more, so the developments go unnoticed in the Marxist theoretical ghetto. Of course, even far-left parliamentary parties have seen a resurgence in Europe, such as in Greece, Hungary, and so on.

[precarian]

There's no real awareness about the grand majority of people that far-leftism is something they could turn to, or something that is a viable option.

So when people hit hard times, people don't turn to far-leftism, as they don't see it as something they could turn of.

...but why not??

My material circumstances, coupled with intellectual reflection, led me to far-leftism.

In the teeth of a massive economic crisis, which entails the decimation of working class living standards, why aren't more people questioning the system?? I mean is it really to much to ask for some folk to actually engage in a bit of critical thinking?? Are people incapable of searching out information on the internet or opening a book!?

Personally, I find it absolutely maddening. The great mass of people just aren't interested. They'd rather stare into the palm of their hand at a fucking mobile phone, going through the motions of life almost in a robotized fashion, than think about political emancipation. Many appear to derive a perverse sense of satisfaction from this ability to bury their heads in the sand whilst the class war rages all around them.

The more I experience the attitudes of "the average person", the more my attitude towards them hardens. Particularly since I'm at the sharp end of the low wage economy.

[precarian]

Perhaps we must also face up to an uncomfortable notion: The likelihood of "the people" consciously overthrowing the system is almost nil.

Ideas do not change history. The masses will never be moved by political rhetoric nor will they ever attain "class consciousness." If/when socialism arises, it will simply be the culmination of the historical process - the result of capitalism having run it's course.

Indeed, if the general public ever embrace socialistic ideas it will be because it is in their self-interest to do so - not because they have embraced a particular political philosophy!

A healthy dose of nihilism is needed on the left!

[nizan]

Revolution will have to be a creation, not a reaction, as has always been the case. Economic crisis won't usher in the barricades, they'll have to be made.

[precarian]

Revolution will have to be a creation, not a reaction, as has always been the case. Economic crisis won't usher in the barricades, they'll have to be made.

Really? What were the North African revolutions? They were wholly reactive uprisings with no real political direction. There is no way we can "create revolution" in the midst of a population who aren't interested in such a thing. There will be no "great awakening" I'm afraid, and to think otherwise is pure fantasy.

[nizan]

Really? What were the North African revolutions? They were wholly reactive uprisings with no real political direction. There is no way we can "create revolution" in the midst of a population who aren't interested in such a thing. There will be no "great awakening" I'm afraid, and to think otherwise is pure fantasy.

Populations are fickle, I don't trust their tastes often enough, but they are prone to rapid enough change. Consciousness is not a static phenomena to be treated to analysis via graph in chart in your sociology class- it is a dialectical composition. This epoque of ours is no doubt revolutionary, more so than ever, but these currents won't be found in your political revolution.

[Sotionov]

Occupy didn't do shit but camp out and smoke dope.
They didn't do shit, or they did shit, which is it? :D

[blake 3:17]

@precarian -- Agree with the first half of your post, disagree with the second half.

[synthesis]

Revolution will have to be a creation, not a reaction, as has always been the case. Economic crisis won't usher in the barricades, they'll have to be made.

What are you basing this on? Marx? Historical studies? An educated guess?

[Red Commissar]

I think there is a major problem in trying to move from theory to action. We all sound good talking to one another about these things, but when it gets to a person who probably hasn't really given serious thought about this, it just sounds like political wanking honestly. There's a problem in trying to elevate involvement in protests to something more meaningful, and I think this is often because we come in after the whole movement was made in the first place. And then have to deal with the inevitable cycle of a protest movement withering away or going through the labyrinth of electoral politics.

At the end of the day, if you're being brutalized by the effects of society- stretching through paychecks, making due on rent or a mortgage, utilities, trying to see some sort of future, you may be wanting more immediate solutions rather than promises of what's to come if the revolution succeeds. Of course this doesn't mean one should waste their time on reformist squabbles, but still we seem a bit too beholden to the particulars of past events and come off as divorced from reality, at least those of us in the United States (If I may misuse a Marx quote, "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."). I see promising developments in places outside the US, but here? Not so much.

Then again, I imagine someone from another country might read their own situation as such and respond in much the same way I did. I guess isolation is another problem, one I hope will be bridged with better communication.


No one except for communists believes communism is possible nowadays. Cynicism and defeatism are the leading ideologies of today's masses. Just take a look at a modern popular film like The Dark Knight Rises for example. It's message is clear: The world is bad but revolution won't change anything, only the virtuous rich man can save us. A real life correspondent of this phenomenon is very much present in my country, Italy. After several years of socio-economic decline, desperate people not only still vote for someone like Berlusconi, they believe in him and his neoliberal myths more than ever.

I think the other thing to take away from movies like DKR is we generally have a common literary element of a revolutionary whose motivations are less than noble or not at all what they promise. There's a belief that such movements are bound to fall into brutality or into the whims of its leader- going from other examples like DKR we see this in or video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Bioshock Infinite, Red Dead Redemption, and a bunch more. Animal Farm is usually read like this too. This is a rather common theme in popular culture.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeetTheNewBoss
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FullCircleRevolution

Now this is different from moralizing about bloody revolutions, but rather one that no one is actually genuine with their intentions for being in a revolution and ends up being a dick at the end. Better the devil you know.

[nizan]

What are you basing this on? Marx? Historical studies? An educated guess?

Bit of elbow grease and dialectical contradiction, mostly. Ideological revolutions are revolutions of the past which find themselves 'made' in the present. These revolutions of image tend to reflect the good tastes of their time, tending to fall back on all the same alienations and idiocies of the prevalent structure of thought. A few have circumnavigated this fate by disintegration at the proper moment (the enrages of the French Revolution, the commune, the sailors of Kronstadt, anarchists of Barcelona, the enrages of 68, etc), but revolution will still remain a target beyond identifiable definition, so long as the definitions of identification remain identifications known only to the world of the commodity.

We know nothing of modern revolution.

[synthesis]

Bit of elbow grease and dialectical contradiction, mostly. Ideological revolutions are revolutions of the past which find themselves 'made' in the present. These revolutions of image tend to reflect the good tastes of their time, tending to fall back on all the same alienations and idiocies of the prevalent structure of thought. A few have circumnavigated this fate by disintegration at the proper moment (the enrages of the French Revolution, the commune, the sailors of Kronstadt, anarchists of Barcelona, the enrages of 68, etc), but revolution will still remain a target beyond identifiable definition, so long as the definitions of identification remain identifications known only to the world of the commodity.

We know nothing of modern revolution.

What the fuck are you talking about? :lol:

[argeiphontes]

The masses will never be moved by political rhetoric nor will they ever attain "class consciousness." If/when socialism arises, it will simply be the culmination of the historical process - the result of capitalism having run it's course.


I don't share your pessimism but in fact a system predicated on unlimited growth can only last forever in one way IMO--war between the masters who need to dispossess each other and expropriate wealth and markets from one another. But I don't think that's as viable an option as it was.


Revolution will have to be a creation, not a reaction, as has always been the case.

"Citation needed." ;-)


Economic crisis won't usher in the barricades, they'll have to be made.

Denouncing and announcing can be two sides of the same coin, and are in fact going on. Assuming I can understand anything you're posting ;-)

edit: Meszaros book "Beyond Capital" gave me a lot of hope. Extensive and Intensive limits are being reached.
edit2: They're buying time through capital mobility though.

[RadioRaheem84]

In the past year I've lost a lot of faith in the general populace accepting socialism or some means of progressive alternative as a vehicle for social change. Socialism has been so besmirched as a ideology that it's practically null and void as a movement here in the States. We keep assuming it's just around the corner because we dive into the material so much. We see the logic behind it and the real alternative to what we have now. But most people won't even do a rudimentary study on it because of apathy, lack of time and energy, or disdain/fear of socialism.

Right wing politics has ursurped a lot of the populist rage in the States. I think its mainly due to the powerful anecdotal surface level worldview that doesn't require a lot of thought and can be tested as "self evident" by anyone. Coupled with religious zealousy, right wing extremism seems to have cornered the market on "anti-establishment" thinking. Liberals do people no favors by constantly mocking the poorer victims of the right wing propaganda machine as uneducated yokels, while at the same time asserting Obama is the best man we have for the job because a right wing presidency would be even worse for us.

Point is, people are not thinking from the root and do not know how or what to critique systemically. The class analysis has been rooted out of discourse and what we are left is trying to find solutions to the free market crises....through the free market.

The establishment has done a remarkably effective job of amputating left wing alternatives from the national discourse. Not only have they marginalized alternative views, anything remotely straying from the norm is viewed as nutty. It's about as perfect as it's going to get for capitalism as far as not having a viable competitor in the marketplace of ideas.

I just don't think its going to happen anytime soon, especially in the US. I can stay hopeful the entire time but the more I think about it the more I turn Marxism into some faith based religion. That someday there will be an explosive pouring out into the streets and the people will free us from this chattle wage work. I haven't lost interest in Marxism or left wing class analysis at all, in fact I think its' the only real explanation for our current state, but the part about the people rising being inevitable is largley becoming a myth to me.

[Thirsty Crow]

... but the part about the people rising being inevitable is largley becoming a myth to me.
It has always been nothing more than a myth. A reassuring myth for sure, but myth nonetheless.

[The Idler]

I blame Kautsky and Lenin.

[Anti-White]

In the past year I've lost a lot of faith in the general populace accepting socialism or some means of progressive alternative as a vehicle for social change. Socialism has been so besmirched as a ideology that it's practically null and void as a movement here in the States. We keep assuming it's just around the corner because we dive into the material so much. We see the logic behind it and the real alternative to what we have now. But most people won't even do a rudimentary study on it because of apathy, lack of time and energy, or disdain/fear of socialism.

Right wing politics has ursurped a lot of the populist rage in the States. I think its mainly due to the powerful anecdotal surface level worldview that doesn't require a lot of thought and can be tested as "self evident" by anyone. Coupled with religious zealousy, right wing extremism seems to have cornered the market on "anti-establishment" thinking. Liberals do people no favors by constantly mocking the poorer victims of the right wing propaganda machine as uneducated yokels, while at the same time asserting Obama is the best man we have for the job because a right wing presidency would be even worse for us.

Point is, people are not thinking from the root and do not know how or what to critique systemically. The class analysis has been rooted out of discourse and what we are left is trying to find solutions to the free market crises....through the free market.

The establishment has done a remarkably effective job of amputating left wing alternatives from the national discourse. Not only have they marginalized alternative views, anything remotely straying from the norm is viewed as nutty. It's about as perfect as it's going to get for capitalism as far as not having a viable competitor in the marketplace of ideas.

I just don't think its going to happen anytime soon, especially in the US. I can stay hopeful the entire time but the more I think about it the more I turn Marxism into some faith based religion. That someday there will be an explosive pouring out into the streets and the people will free us from this chattle wage work. I haven't lost interest in Marxism or left wing class analysis at all, in fact I think its' the only real explanation for our current state, but the part about the people rising being inevitable is largley becoming a myth to me.

You're right.

Americans see socialism as a swindle or a nefarious alien creed. The right-wing has harnessed antipathy against the state -- which is rampant because people do not trust the state because the state has shown itself untrustworthy.

With this in mind, what is left to us?

[blake 3:17]

Folks should check out Piven and Cloward's Poor People's Movements. The group identify with the most -- don't do a lot because of schedule problems -- uses their strategies.

Yes, you do have to win people over with ideas, but in immediate terms, you win stuff by using kinda wacky tactics. That doesn't mean black bloc stuff (sometimes that happens whatever) but by doing stuff that's unpredictable you can cause massive economic damage. We had march last year -- there was only 400 people, nothing big -- but because some of the marches and demonstrations had been crazier in terms of confrontational tactics, occupation of buildings, disruption of business events, a whole bunch of bug business and state enterprises went into lockdown. And we didn't do anything much! The police blocked more traffic than the demonstrators.

But you have to identify weak points.

Other folks have disrupted shipping routes, on rail lines, by letting be known there'd be physical obstacles (no vandalism or harm to workers) in a broad area. Officials had to close the line down. Nobody was hurt and no damage done. A few people arrested and that was a big hassle for them, but worth it in the long run.

We're not going to win everything all at once. There are going to be partial victories and amazing mass protests and mass strikes that'll have their goals defeated. For a time. But if you have to consider the other side. We don't talk about it much, but the most class combative time in the 20th century was right after the Second World War.

There were enormous strikes all over the place. And sure Stalin did a land grab, but the Chinese and Yugoslavians freed themselves. In the US and England and France, working people who'd never thought of struggling as workers were class conscious and organized. I've heard some amazing stories of restaurant workers in the US, they weren't wildcats, just spontaneous walk offs and pickets. People telling their bosses to fuck off (or something equivalent).

[RadioRaheem84]

Folks should check out Piven and Cloward's Poor People's Movements. The group identify with the most -- don't do a lot because of schedule problems -- uses their strategies.

Yes, you do have to win people over with ideas, but in immediate terms, you win stuff by using kinda wacky tactics. That doesn't mean black bloc stuff (sometimes that happens whatever) but by doing stuff that's unpredictable you can cause massive economic damage. We had march last year -- there was only 400 people, nothing big -- but because some of the marches and demonstrations had been crazier in terms of confrontational tactics, occupation of buildings, disruption of business events, a whole bunch of bug business and state enterprises went into lockdown. And we didn't do anything much! The police blocked more traffic than the demonstrators.

But you have to identify weak points.

Other folks have disrupted shipping routes, on rail lines, by letting be known there'd be physical obstacles (no vandalism or harm to workers) in a broad area. Officials had to close the line down. Nobody was hurt and no damage done. A few people arrested and that was a big hassle for them, but worth it in the long run.

We're not going to win everything all at once. There are going to be partial victories and amazing mass protests and mass strikes that'll have their goals defeated. For a time. But if you have to consider the other side. We don't talk about it much, but the most class combative time in the 20th century was right after the Second World War.

There were enormous strikes all over the place. And sure Stalin did a land grab, but the Chinese and Yugoslavians freed themselves. In the US and England and France, working people who'd never thought of struggling as workers were class conscious and organized. I've heard some amazing stories of restaurant workers in the US, they weren't wildcats, just spontaneous walk offs and pickets. People telling their bosses to fuck off (or something equivalent).

Were all these examples of revolts post-Cold War? If so, I am impressed. If not, then I can't see much hope.

People will get fed up and do something but what that is may not be that good. They may revolt in a green or purple way and demand "fair elections". They may cry out for a rise in the minimum wage which I would be appreciative of but I highly doubt that socialism will take the forefront in the US.

I am specifically talking about the US. You just have to understand that in the States, socialism isn't even considered AT ALL. It doesn't register into the minds of Americans or Americans in positions of power, except out of some fear of the past like fear of Nazism.

At least in Europe and Canada while also out of the main discourse the term is not totally fogotten, it's acknoweledged in some regard. Here in the States it's not even uttered, not because of some fear of backlash from others or there is ban on the word, but because conjuring it up would be the equivalent of suggesting someone put fascism or nazism on the table as some serious measure in Europe.

We are a very very very business driven and minded society. Everything, outside of a few progressive pockets, is done out of a practical measure to ensure private economic growth. Leaders in our major cities are less concerned with quality of life than expanding the market which they presuppose creates a better standard of living.

Socialism would need a big private Fifth Ave. NYC PR firm to do a multi million dollar campaign to reinvent the ideology in the public's eye. As of now it's not seen as a viable alternative by any stretch of the imagination.

And you want to know what the saddest part is? People, and our leaders, think socialism is social democratic welfare state. So we cannot even fathom getting to the likes of Denmark much less think about workers owning the means of production!

[emilianozapata]

During thatcher's reign in Britain anti-trade union laws were introduced that rendered trade unions powerless making workers reluctant to go on strike and pushing fear into the minds of the working class. We also have a crisis on the left with not many political parties in existence and their is in-fighting among the parties which do exist. It is because of this that many working class communities revert to a reactionary mindset and support far-right parties.

[A.J.]

For a bunch of Marxists, no one seems to offer a materialist answer about why the working class is particularly demobilized right now and for the last 40 years.

What about this;

With specific regard to Britain, structural changes in the economy in the past few decades have led to the disappearance of the industrial working class. Consequently there is next to nobody in this country, save a few student radicals, who are receptive to the appeal of communism anymore.

[tanklv]

If crises don’t always produce widespread struggle, is it fair to say that widespread struggle nonetheless requires some sort of precipitating crisis in order to get underway? For instance the most progressive period in US labour history was in the 1930s during the Great Depression.


Hoping For The Worst | New Left Project (http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/print_article/hoping_for_the_worst)

What I see is we are now witnessing what would have happened during the 1930's US if Roosevelt and the New Deal policies enacted had never been done and Hoover's/Republican policies and worse had been the norm. I fear that unfortunately, that a new and virulent form of Fascism coupled with Christian Fundamentalism is very likely to take root.

The Kock Bros and ALEC, etc. coupled with the NSA and total corporate control of not only all media and but education and the resurgence of voter suppression, etc. is making it very difficult to cultivate left/socialist points of view. There IS no "left" in the US today, except for a very few individuals who are totally invisible and of absolutely no importance or able to push policy. The unions are all co-opted by business interests and union officials are totally corrupted and haven't represented their members for over half a century or more now. My dad used to be a union carpenter, and the way the union bosses treated their members was simply astoundingly bad. The union bosses were all "mafia". That's also why those outside of unions have such a bad image of all unions in the US.

[RadioRaheem84]

I agree that there is an element to where I understand why some workers hate unions. They become a sort of club that makes it hard for non union members to find a foothold in the industry their trying to break into. So that's why unions have a black eye in the States at least.

[RedMaterialist]

For a bunch of Marxists, no one seems to offer a materialist answer about why the working class is particularly demobilized right now and for the last 40 years.

The last 40 yrs:

1. Defeat of the US in Vietnam. The working class, unions had supported the war (Nixon hardhats, etc.), therefore after the war they became even more paranoid about socialism and communism. Patriotic nationalism became an ideology to control not only workers but the entire society.

2. New anti-union laws were passed making it easy to fire people for labor organizing and easier to simply destroy the existing unions. Workers had to choose between food for their kids or unions, they chose food. But a more fundamental question is why did unions allow this to happen? They no longer had a sense of labor and working class solidarity with even their own children or other non-union working people. They had become individualized, commodified and literally non-socialized. The only social existence they had was TV. It was for good reason that Thatcher said society no longer existed.

3. Marxist theorists were marginalized to college campuses where they were mostly non-radical and ignored.

4. Probably the most important factor was the export of union and middle class jobs to Asia. This lowered wages and made workers compete even more fiercely against each other for jobs. The use of computers and robots put even more people out of work, further depressing wages.

5. The government was forced to expand the welfare state to keep people from falling into complete destitution: social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc. For an entire generation of workers this destroyed the illusion that work was essential for their lives.

Disillusioned, demobilized, conumerized. If capital forces the government to end the welfare state then workers' suffering will reach the point where revolution is inevitable. Until then the left must become more radical.

"The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical."

my emphasis

[robbo203]

Perhaps we must also face up to an uncomfortable notion: The likelihood of "the people" consciously overthrowing the system is almost nil.

Ideas do not change history. The masses will never be moved by political rhetoric nor will they ever attain "class consciousness." If/when socialism arises, it will simply be the culmination of the historical process - the result of capitalism having run it's course.

Indeed, if the general public ever embrace socialistic ideas it will be because it is in their self-interest to do so - not because they have embraced a particular political philosophy!

A healthy dose of nihilism is needed on the left!

If workers don't consciously opt for socialism then socialism won't happen. Its as simple as that. You cannot operate a socialist mode of production without individuals en masse being aware of what it broadly entails - the (behavioural) "rules of the game", so to speak. Socialism cannot be imposed from above by a supposed enlightened vanguard. Nor will it be automatically ushered as a result of "capitalism having run it's course". There is, in any case, no good reason to think that capitalism will ever just "run its course" i.e. collapse; it has to be consciously and democratically got rid of. Or, to rephrase this statement slightly, there is no mechanism internal to the system itself that guarantees it demise (e.g. the falling rate of profit) although it is conceivable that the system might collapse as a result of some external factor e.g, some ecological catastrophe or World War 3. That wont bring in socialism however - much more likely some form of despotic barbarism


And of course ideas do change history. They just dont do it by and of themselves! It is a crudely reductionist - not to say mechanical - view of history to see ideas as simply epiphenomena, the mere products of "material forces". A mode of production does not exist apart from the ideas, values and beliefs that people hold in their heads. The material relationship that people enter into that define a given mode of production presuppose certain assumptions about the nature of social reality and it is precisely these assumptions that undergird our contemporary capitalist reality that socialists ought to be chipping away at. History is a process that is thoroughly mediated and permeated by "ideas". It cannot be anything other than this unless you subscribe to some notion of divine intervention

I find it straggeringly ironic that those who propound the non-importance of ideas and their irrelevance to the process of historical change should so passionately commit themselves to this batty concept in a forum dedicated to the exchange of ideas ;)

[TarzanWilde]

I think communism is just being forgotton... Ask any normal person in the street if they have any clue what it is and they'll probably just tell you they have no idea or that they think communism is evil due to western propaganda in modern culture. They dont understand it and what they dont understand scares them... I guess education is the key; if we weren't brought up to be succesful businessmen and that the idea of a good citizen being a rich lawyer or banker people would be more inclined to be more generous in nature.

[Popular Front of Judea]

That's ruling class propaganda. The working class broke early with support of the war. The polls of the time confirm it. It was working class kids that were catching the bullets after all.

Hardhats and Hippies: An Interview with Penny Lewis | Jacobin
(http://jacobinmag.com/2013/06/hardhats-hippies-and-hawks-an-interview-with-penny-lewis/)


1. Defeat of the US in Vietnam. The working class, unions had supported the war (Nixon hardhats, etc.), therefore after the war they became even more paranoid about socialism and communism. Patriotic nationalism became an ideology to control not only workers but the entire society.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Communists and libertarians together at last. Excuse me brother but your class bias is emphatically showing.


5. The government was forced to expand the welfare state to keep people from falling into complete destitution: social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc. For an entire generation of workers this destroyed the illusion that work was essential for their lives.

Disillusioned, demobilized, conumerized. If capital forces the government to end the welfare state then workers' suffering will reach the point where revolution is inevitable. Until then the left must become more radical.

[dgroves1522]

-We've turned into a Brave New World society. Everyone has too many stupid distractions to be interested in politics.

-There's no great leader for communism trying to educate people (you mention the far right: they have Ron Paul, who I actually like).

-The way politics is run now, it's all too complex for the average man or woman to wrap their heads around. Perhaps too complex for anyone to wrap their heads around. It's all so confusing, and every side has their own set of facts and dogmas. Who can say what's right and wrong?

-In the past the poor were really starving and suffering. At least in America that's not so true today.

-In times of trouble, radicals are still at the fringes. People crave safety and security more than anything in these times.

[Red_Banner]

People in the USA are too pacifist to be revolutionary.

If you don't agree with the "Democrats" you must be a "Republican" and vice-versa.

Occupy failed because they believe that Ghandi crap and they think you can go into a leaderless society overnight when in reality you need a leadership to bring about that.

[Popular Front of Judea]

After reading the posts so far I do not despair about the people as much as I do their would-be radical leaders.

[Hivemind]

-We've turned into a Brave New World society. Everyone has too many stupid distractions to be interested in politics.

People will generally say we're turning into Brave New World or 1984. Both of which are bullshit. Things are too complicated for them to fall inline perfectly with either of those.


-There's no great leader for communism trying to educate people (you mention the far right: they have Ron Paul, who I actually like).

A great leader trying to educate the people? Sounds draconic and absurd, we need less leaders, not more, since people who end up being leaders are no better and in fact are generally worse than the "average" person. Why would you want that person leading and educating people? That's a disaster in the making, as history has thoroughly proved time and time again.


-The way politics is run now, it's all too complex for the average man or woman to wrap their heads around. Perhaps too complex for anyone to wrap their heads around. It's all so confusing, and every side has their own set of facts and dogmas. Who can say what's right and wrong?

That's cause politics are extremely stupid and pointless. That's why anti-politics exists, it's a reaction to the complete fuckupery of political systems, painting them as reactionary and restricting elements, which they are.


-In the past the poor were really starving and suffering. At least in America that's not so true today.

That's why half the country is under the poverty line, people have to work multiple jobs and be on food stamps just to make ends meet. That is as much suffering in my books as anything else.


-In times of trouble, radicals are still at the fringes. People crave safety and security more than anything in these times.

And who provides the safety and security? The police, the army, the state? :laugh:

[blake 3:17]

Were all these examples of revolts post-Cold War? If so, I am impressed. If not, then I can't see much hope.

My post was a little scattered, but the social movement stuff I was referring to was about stuff over the last decade.

The dominant class has many weak points -- we just need to recognize them.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Hivemind, I'm not picking on you, your thoughts just seemed like a convenient jumping-off point.


People will generally say we're turning into Brave New World or 1984. Both of which are bullshit. Things are too complicated for them to fall inline perfectly with either of those.

Dystopian fiction is actually a really interesting starting point in my mind, and well suited, though wholly inadequate, to the moment. The dystopian character of our circumstances (at the imperial centre) is, while not universal, certainly part of popular consciousness (and working class consciousness in particular, often expressed in the popularity of conspiracy theory). Obviously any particular piece of fiction will fall short of being a perfectly adequate metaphor for our situation, but that misses the point of the problem. At this point, that massive technological apparatuses are directed to managing our lives in previously impossible detail isn't a particularly controversial suggestion. Where dystopian fiction fails is in imagining the possibility of collective responses to our situation.
Which leads rather well to my next point.


A great leader trying to educate the people? Sounds [draconian] and absurd, we need less leaders, not more, since people who end up being leaders are no better and in fact are generally worse than the "average" person. Why would you want that person leading and educating people? That's a disaster in the making, as history has thoroughly proved time and time again.

Here, I want to assert that both you, and the person you're responding to, are approaching leadership from the altogether wrong angle, conflating it with authorities and figureheads. We do need more leaders - principled, dedicated people who will take risks, who will be the first to strike, who will dare to struggle though the odds seemed impossible. We need leaders who inspire others to take on leadership; leaders who know how to empower others, and move them to take on leadership themselves.
What we don't need are more petty authorities. dgroves1522's example - Ron Paul - is a perfect illustration of the type of misleadership who must be disposed with the greatest haste. When a so-called "leader" is a windbag, a full-time spokes person - always in front of the cameras, and never setting an example of principled activity, they are a fetter. With "leaders" like Ron Paul, there's only room for one, and his followers are doomed to forever be tailing behind. That's not leadership.


And who provides the safety and security? The police, the army, the state? :laugh:

The state, capital, religious institutions, NGOs, unions . . . This isn't a point to by lol-smilied off. A critical mass of workers are materially dependent on the existing social order, and this can't be ideologied out of existence. Until means exist for a revolutionary minority to support its own material reproduction long enough to wrest the means of material safety and security (don't think cops - think food, shelter, and guns) from the state and capital, revolution is going to be DOA.

[Stalinist Speaker]

Communism is rising, especially in southern and eastern Europe. countries like Spain, Greece, Russia e.t.c

[Jimmie Higgins]

A watched pot never seems to boil.

Right now we're in the position of watchers, with a general understanding of history (you don't even need to be a marxist or anarchist to recognize that revolts of variouys levels happen in some way with some frequency in the modern world) we think it's likely that the chaos of the system and the daily fact of exploitation and oppression are going to produce some kind of responce. It's frustrating when it doesn't happen when we need it or want it. I think that's the source of a lot of anxiety among people who want a better world through mass class struggle.

Basically I think the class situation in the US is that neoliberalism has meant that the ruling class has been able to adapt to economic changes while the working class has not been able to adapt and develop effective means for itself (yet). Part of what is so hard is that we have been in a situation of a race to the bottom where competion and hardships have increased for the working class. This is demoralizing and disorganizing for folks. In the keynsian era in the US, it took about a generation for a new wave or radicalism to develop and begin to figure out new effective means of dealing with the specific issues of keynsian America - how to navigate Liberalism when liberals at least of the surface seem to be offering a pretty easily atainable stability for many workers; how to deal with racial divides that went hand in hand with post-war US social-democracy; how to deal with the union beurocracy; how to deal with McCarthyist type conformity. It's a process - and in the neoliberal era, everything was shaken up, made more fluid and insecure and that process has been slow going - or just defeats.

But I don't buy the arguments on the Left that this represents more than just a phase or momentary impasse and that class struggle can't happen or that workers are no longer the revolutionary class of capitalism. The forms of class struggle in the 1870s no longer worked in the 1930s, etc. Capital learns as much as working class movements learn and so there's no one way that workers can always win -- if a sucessful strategy works, it will be defanged or capitalism will shift itself to make that harder. But while capitalism can shift, these shifts close doors to some kinds of organizing and struggle, but open new ones -- because on a basic level, there will always be that tension between exploited and exploiter... even if it seems like not much can be done at the moment.

[Red Fury]

A watched pot never seems to boil.

Do average people even think communism is relevant these days?

[MarxSchmarx]

Perhaps this point has been made quite indirectly, but the basic answer to the OP's question still is that the left failed to lay the ground work before the economic crisis began.

The successes of the turn of the 20th century, and the great strides that were made when a crisis did hit in the past, were the result of decades of hard, dedicated and painful struggles by the left to grow, to supplant capitalism, and in many cases to convert people one person at a time. The criticism that socialism was utopian, or bad, or what have you was just as, if not arguably more, active in the 19th century than it is today. That did not discourage leftists from working to convince people, and often that took the form of writing in plainly and eschewing the "curatorial" hobby as someone quite correctly described the current state of affairs.




Right now we're in the position of watchers, with a general understanding of history (you don't even need to be a marxist or anarchist to recognize that revolts of variouys levels happen in some way with some frequency in the modern world) we think it's likely that the chaos of the system and the daily fact of exploitation and oppression are going to produce some kind of responce. It's frustrating when it doesn't happen when we need it or want it. I think that's the source of a lot of anxiety among people who want a better world through mass class struggle.


Whilst I am against "activism for activism's sake", I think it is important that the left if for no other reason than to prevent burn out and despondency, actively try to figure out how it is going to move from simply watching and waiting to begin to steer the ship around. Conversations among the left about what does and doesn't work as praxis, and experimenting with different lines, is going to be necessary and but are necessary for rank and file leftist workers to begin to develop a sense of agency. It is after all through such on the ground class struggle that the left moves from "watching" to affecting.



But I don't buy the arguments on the Left that this represents more than just a phase or momentary impasse and that class struggle can't happen or that workers are no longer the revolutionary class of capitalism. The forms of class struggle in the 1870s no longer worked in the 1930s, etc. Capital learns as much as working class movements learn and so there's no one way that workers can always win -- if a sucessful strategy works, it will be defanged or capitalism will shift itself to make that harder. But while capitalism can shift, these shifts close doors to some kinds of organizing and struggle, but open new ones -- because on a basic level, there will always be that tension between exploited and exploiter... even if it seems like not much can be done at the moment.

On the whole, I agree with this broad outlook, but what do you see as these new doors that are being opened? How do you propose the left even begin to start identifying such new lines of strategies? I think much of the reason the left feels like not much can be done is that while we feel there should always be tension, it is quite impressive to us how the left's response remains largely static and basically unchanged from the 1800s.

[TruProl]

I would say several issues but the main one's for me can be deduced down to the following; the complete lack of co-operation amongst the Left especially when it comes to Marxism thus resulting in a divided front (IMO having something like six different Communist/Socialist parties is ludicrous). I also think there is an obvious hesitance considering what has been revealed about State Capitalism trying to masquerade as Communism in terms of atrocities. Most important I believe is the obvious success of most major parties in destroying political awareness and action in the current generation by pushing forward selfish values that many have embraced as it allows for short term gratification of the self rather than long term unity of the Proletariat. The myth of the EU that has overtaken the so called Left in the EU has been very damaging considering how Fascistic the economic policy of the organisation is.

Cyprus has an example of unification of Communists allowing such a party to become a serious political force something not often seen in other nations.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Do average people even think communism is relevant these days?No, I also don't think that most people have faith in capitalist governments or their bosses either - at least most probably just begrudgingly accept that you have to do what you have to do. It's an unsteady and volitile position for people to be in - they don't like the cards as they've been delt, but the post-war refomist methods for trying to protect yourself from oppression and exploitation (which did work in a reformist sense for that time) have had the rug pulled out from under them. I think the way this tension manifests itself is in the rather large spontanious movement that just as spontaniously crash or run out of steam. There's enough anger to protest a draconian immigration policy or an overt example of union-busting like in Wisconsin, but then that anger has no where to go and either burns itself out or is diverted to the Democratic party or NGOs rather than a mass movement or rank and file wildcats or whatnot.


Whilst I am against "activism for activism's sake", I think it is important that the left if for no other reason than to prevent burn out and despondency, actively try to figure out how it is going to move from simply watching and waiting to begin to steer the ship around. Conversations among the left about what does and doesn't work as praxis, and experimenting with different lines, is going to be necessary and but are necessary for rank and file leftist workers to begin to develop a sense of agency. It is after all through such on the ground class struggle that the left moves from "watching" to affecting.I'm not sure if you were disagreeing with what I wrote or just commenting, but I don't disagree with this argument at all. In watching, I mean "the revolutionary upsurge" not "class struggle". Definately we need to be doing all that we can subjectivly to try and create more fertile conditions for a more independant and insurgent class movement that could become a revolutionary movement.


On the whole, I agree with this broad outlook, but what do you see as these new doors that are being opened? How do you propose the left even begin to start identifying such new lines of strategies? I think much of the reason the left feels like not much can be done is that while we feel there should always be tension, it is quite impressive to us how the left's response remains largely static and basically unchanged from the 1800s. Well yeah, that's the big question and I don't have an answer to it. In line with what I described above in responce to Red Fury, I think that there are any number of different struggles which may help people break-through to more militant, more "from below" type movements that can sustain and be a sharper weapon than say, Occupy (which had the grassroots part down pretty wonderfully, but had trouble in moving beyond that into something that could be an effective weapon against grievences, not just a gathering point for grieviences).

As far as the opening of new doors, I think I can only roughly guess that the sorts of possibilities there are. Neoliberalism is an attempt by capitalism to fix certain problems of the Keynsian era, but since capitalism can't fix itself permanently, the fixes lead to new problems just as Keynsian fixes led to different problems than in the pre-war era. So one of the main problems neoliberalism has attempted to do is to decrease the power of workers and this comes in the form of making production more flexible, breaking up larger firms so that smaller companies compete for lower and lower bids, threats of offshoring which put pressure on union beurocrats, right-to-work laws etc. This has helped capitalism, but it's also destroyed stability in the lives of workers and so there is more anger, more illnessness, more debts and people generally have less stake in the system than they did in the post-war era where a steady factory job did help convince people to "play the game" (electoral game and the business-unionism game) and slowly get ahead with raises and benifits and social reforms over time. Other things that have changed is that now women in the US are the majority of the workforce which means a much stronger and obvious link between economic exploitation and sexist oppression - when women's work is paid less and demeaned, an economic strike can become a social movement and vica-versa. The destruction and privitization of industrial cities has made it very hard for urban people, specifically black and immigrant workers who couldn't just move to where the jobs did as easily initially because many of the jobs moved to segregated suburban areas. This has lead to a massive prison and repression system in the US, which again, is a heavy burdon around the neck of the class, but at the same time opens up new weak points in capitalism because a movement inside and out of the prisons that really took this on would be a huge problem for capitalism in a practical sense and also ideologically. The reorganization of production means that outside of China, it would be difficult to organize single-shop shop-floor power like two generations ago... the service economy and diffuse production to a lot of smaller firms creates major new hurdles, but also means that when people do begin to fight back, it might also spark a much more "class" sense of struggle rather than this factory or even this industry vs. the bosses. If fast food workers or machinist shops organize themselves, then it the way those things are organized means that workers can't just fight in this location, against this one francize owner, but have to start dealing with the general condition of the whole class right now.

So without a movement it's hard to know practically what is the very next step for organizing and attracting new radical militants to revolutionary views. In a sense this is what all the various groups out there are trying to do: develop priorities based on what they think will help conditions for struggle and developing more revolutionary consiousness, assess them, etc. Until a self-sustaining movement does develop it's just going to be hard to guess in advance what specifically will be the sort of initial organizing focus that does lead to a movement.

[LibertarianSocialist95]

I think if we're going to smash capitalism the most significant issue would be our methods. On many occasions using the state to dismantle the ruling class has either failed completely, or the state has become a new ruling class in itself. I think people aren't as keen on anti-capitalism as they could be because it seems to conjure up images of totalitarian state power. Personally, I think we need to abolish capitalism and smash the state at the same time.

[EdvardK]

People still have many things to lose. You can only be undefeatable when you have got nothing to lose any more. And today's capitalists have learned the lessons of the past and made the working class very dependent on them: the workers are better to shut up and work so they keep their jobs and have just enough money to put their kids to school. If that would be taken away, then it would be hell to pay.

[Venas Abiertas]

I propose that harsh economic times breeds fascism, not socialism. People raised and indoctrinated in a capitalist society think first of their possessions and personal safety. Economic troubles threatens that and activates the "reptilian" part of their brains, causing them to retract into an "us vs. them" mentality which excludes and demonizes others. Those "others" can be of other races, religions, political tendencies, or national origins.

Look at the rise of fascism in Germany after the 20's and Great Depression, in Italy after the defeat of WWI, in Latin America after the stagnation of the 70's and 80's, in the Arab world after the oil bonanza failed to translate into economic gains for the majority of the people.

Socialism, on the other hand, is altruistic and stems from a feeling of solidarity and love for others. Those feelings are more easily produced during times of economic prosperity, when people feel good about themselves and others. When people feel more confident about their lives, they are more willing to be open and share, and they become concerned about those who don't have the abundance that they do.

This is just an idea, anyway, maybe it's total crap, I'll let the forum decide. :unsure:

[RadioRaheem84]

Honestly, I think there has to be some level of accountability the American people have to face considering their choices and beliefs. Sure that sounds like what a right winger would say but there are a lot of center to right wing beliefs in this country. I do think the American ppeople are victims of capitalism, but Americans are also suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome that has them so embedded with capitalism, that they dare not picture a world without it. We create movies where we can picture the end of the world, but not the end of capitalism. The boss is always given a fair play even when it's revealed how much of crook they are. There are a lot of reactionary, backwards beliefs about sexuality, work, and welfare.

I mean at times I think that Americans are not stupid, but overworked, misinformed and willfully ignorant. I mean I seriously do not know how many more excuses one can make for them. People all over the world see the detriment that capitalism is and are revolting. They may not be socialist or communist revolts but they are revolts against the system, and even when we get radical like with Occupy it ends up being a big mess that doesn't want to just come right out and say we have a shitty system, take it down and restructure it for human need. I mean I am sick of the tip toeing dance people in this country do for fear of getting red baited or looking like an "extremist".

The right wing media like Fox has done a huge number on people, a huge disservice by poisoning the airwaves and completely killing the political discourse. People do not even have a basic foundation on which to even begin any sort of reasonable conversation about politics in the US. I mean it's just bad. In most other nations this grand master level of right wing lunacy and misinformation does not exist so they have clearer battle lines drawn out. Even fascists in Europe have some sort of clear distinction of labor politics (albeit distorted), but in the US the worker cannot separate his interests from the interests of the owner. Logic = Market Logic in this country. We have such a market dominated society in America that we think thinking rationally and "objective" is thinking in the same vein as an owner of business. Any concept of worker interests is considered thinking negatively, lazy or like a crook. It's vulgar, naive, anti-socialist, and anti-establishment.

I really do not know how socialism would ever even get a footing here based on these conditions. People keep pointing to Russia and the other nations circa 1920 but these nations and nations around the world had clear lines of distinctions when it came to class warfare. The brutality of capitalism was apparent. There was never this overarching and domineering market logic that disturbed discourse. And American people eat it up too.

I just do not believe the theory all we have to do is wait for things to get bad and suddenly there will be an outpouring. I just don't.

[MarxSchmarx]

Honestly, I think there has to be some level of accountability the American people have to face considering their choices and beliefs. Sure that sounds like what a right winger would say but there are a lot of center to right wing beliefs in this country. I do think the American ppeople are victims of capitalism, but Americans are also suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome that has them so embedded with capitalism, that they dare not picture a world without it. We create movies where we can picture the end of the world, but not the end of capitalism. The boss is always given a fair play even when it's revealed how much of crook they are. There are a lot of reactionary, backwards beliefs about sexuality, work, and welfare.

I mean at times I think that Americans are not stupid, but overworked, misinformed and willfully ignorant. I mean I seriously do not know how many more excuses one can make for them. People all over the world see the detriment that capitalism is and are revolting. They may not be socialist or communist revolts but they are revolts against the system, and even when we get radical like with Occupy it ends up being a big mess that doesn't want to just come right out and say we have a shitty system, take it down and restructure it for human need. I mean I am sick of the tip toeing dance people in this country do for fear of getting red baited or looking like an "extremist".

The right wing media like Fox has done a huge number on people, a huge disservice by poisoning the airwaves and completely killing the political discourse. People do not even have a basic foundation on which to even begin any sort of reasonable conversation about politics in the US. I mean it's just bad. In most other nations this grand master level of right wing lunacy and misinformation does not exist so they have clearer battle lines drawn out. Even fascists in Europe have some sort of clear distinction of labor politics (albeit distorted), but in the US the worker cannot separate his interests from the interests of the owner. Logic = Market Logic in this country. We have such a market dominated society in America that we think thinking rationally and "objective" is thinking in the same vein as an owner of business. Any concept of worker interests is considered thinking negatively, lazy or like a crook. It's vulgar, naive, anti-socialist, and anti-establishment.

I really do not know how socialism would ever even get a footing here based on these conditions. People keep pointing to Russia and the other nations circa 1920 but these nations and nations around the world had clear lines of distinctions when it came to class warfare. The brutality of capitalism was apparent. There was never this overarching and domineering market logic that disturbed discourse. And American people eat it up too.

I just do not believe the theory all we have to do is wait for things to get bad and suddenly there will be an outpouring. I just don't.

Today, I don't think America is particularly unique in this respect. Australia, where voting is mandatory, just voted in a right-wing neoliberal coalition.

Even Chile with all the shit they've been through, there is widespread support for Catholic conservatism and a market economy. Ditto with Turkey - they've had a vibrant leftist movement and yet Turkish democracy has produced a fundamentalist neoliberal at its helm.

And it's not just in elections. Bob Avakian is a joke, but his despair at people lining up for iPhones has a kernel of truth to it. The sad part is that people line up for iPhones the world over, even in places like India where the price of a new iPhone is a year's income for a majority of the country.

Leftists from other parts of the global north sneer at the situation in America, but the criticisms apply just as readily in their own countries.

I think this also exposes the bankruptcy of American reformism. Even if America got rid of Fox news, made it harder to fire people, abolished the death penalty, etc... in short became more like Scandinavia, I don't think that brings us much closer to the revolutionarily democratic aspirations of our movement. They are steps in the right direction, but the notion that doing so would make Americans reject capitalism and authoritarian state rule is naive. It didn't work elsewhere, there is no reason to believe it will magically work in America.

[RadioRaheem84]

If that's the case than Marxism and socialism have no relevance outside a niche. Even though the leftist class analysis is the best thing to understand capitalism and the current world, it is still relegated to the margins.

Reagan and Thatcher succeeded in turning the world into consumers and have made people think of themselves as wannabe entrepreneurs not workers. It's sad but I think the most people want out of this world is third way social democracy at it's "leftist", They just want higher pay and benefits, they don't want a whole new world.

[MarxSchmarx]

If that's the case than Marxism and socialism have no relevance outside a niche. Even though the leftist class analysis is the best thing to understand capitalism and the current world, it is still relegated to the margins.

I don't follow. The point of leftist activism seems to me to be to overcome the sorry state of affairs. The left has always had its ups and downs, there's no reason to believe that things like Marxism and socialism will be "relegated to the margins" forever.



Reagan and Thatcher succeeded in turning the world into consumers and have made people think of themselves as wannabe entrepreneurs not workers. It's sad but I think the most people want out of this world is third way social democracy at it's "leftist", They just want higher pay and benefits, they don't want a whole new world.

I disagree. My favorite anecdote to this line of reasoning are the tribes of the Sahara who not too long ago fought vicious, fratricidal wars over water sources. Scarcity of water has always been a fact of life, if you ask them they just want enough water for their cattle, brewing tea for their families, so on. They don't want a world where, with the turn of a wrench on a red structure situated every few hundred meters or so, gobs and gobs of water will come out that will eventually evaporate and children can play in. Why? well part of it is that there is a generation that grew up knowing nothing else than nomadism and so are eager to stick to their traditions. But a larger part of it is because if you described such a world, they would think you are crazy and will have nothing to do with you.

Of course, it is easily done if you take the nomad to any modern city and show them it works. The task for the left is magnified many, many fold in difficulty. But there is no reason to believe it fundamentally impossible, least of all because of bourgeois ideological hegemony. Bourgeois hegemony has been overcome, if only temporarily, before. Yes it is harder today, but every reason I could think of that would render it impossible is just the issues facing the left a century ago just writ large. It is merely a matter of quantitative improvements in bourgeois ideology, not qualitative.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If that's the case than Marxism and socialism have no relevance outside a niche. Even though the leftist class analysis is the best thing to understand capitalism and the current world, it is still relegated to the margins.Well more or less and Marx and Lenin, at least, made comments to this effect. The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class. In the short-term, in the day to day, what people need to understand about capitalism is how to navigate it, how to deal with it, not how it works and why it works (or doesn't). It's like having a car - you only need to know how to steer, you don't need to know how an engine works unless you find yourself with a broken engine and there's no more open auto-shops.

Consaquently as a default, people will tend take initial action because of short-term issues. Our larger understanding allows us to see that only to a point can these short-term initial interests be satisfied through winning reforms so until larger movements hit that point (or until the system is in crisis and the inherent conflict of interests between workers wanting to survive and maintain their lives on the one hand and the need of capitalists to expand and make profits become more overt) then revolutionary ideas and answers will tend to remain a minority both within the class movement and society in general.

It's not that the capitalists and their parties have necissarily convinced people in ideas - the realities of neoliberalism convince most people that they have to sink or swim in capitalism and so competition among workers, increased demands on dicipline and time, decreased expectations for working conditions and wages, make us act out the immediate demands of capital regardless of how convinced we are of the ideas. They tell us that there is no alternative, and in an immediate way, they are right. "If you don't like your job, then vote with your feet and find one with better conditions" is what they tell us and while the alternative might exist in the minds of some people, if there's no union in your workplace (or if that union is shit, which is often the case) then it actually is more immediately possible to try and do something else or make sacrifices, than it seems to organize everyone at your workplace, take on the bosses yourself, etc. This can change quickly though -- people had no apparent choice but to put up with Jim Crow which is much more obviously regulating of people's lives and so they accomodated themselves to it for decades... but things like lunch-counter sit-ins and so on, helped to quickly destry those expectations and people saw they could fight for and expect more.

[Thirsty Crow]

I think that people tend to make a common mistake in that they interpret lack of working class activity as necessarily entailing acceptance of ideas of bourgeois hegemony.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I think that people tend to make a common mistake in that they interpret lack of working class activity as necessarily entailing acceptance of ideas of bourgeois hegemony.

i'd tend to agree. The majority of people I know do not like or in their hearts accept the current system. The problem is that as of yet many of them don't see a practical alternative (i.e the "unfortunately this is how things are" mindset) OR they see a return to the old "social-democratic" system as providing the answer (and i like to call this the "spirit of '45" mindset.) I can think of a small handful of people I know who think that this is a good way for society to be organised. Obviously this is all drawn from my personal experience and is therefore based on people who are fairly like-minded, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to suppose that a large number of people think similarly.

[argeiphontes]

Just wanted to quote some Marcuse. This is at least part of the problem, and hey, insights like this are few and far between. It's not enough just to suffer more, unless the suffering opens the critical space. Social and political psychology has to be accounted for.



...in the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional refusal “to go along” appears neurotic and impotent. This is the socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which, at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to represent the possibility of new forms of existence.




This immediate, automatic identification [ between the individual and the society ] (which may have been characteristic of primitive forms of association) reappears in high industrial civilization; its new “immediacy,” however, is the product of a sophisticated, scientific management and organization. In this process, the “inner” dimension of the mind in which opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking – the critical power of Reason – is at home, is the ideological counterpart to the very material process in which advanced industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition. The impact of progress turns Reason into submission to the facts of life, and to too dynamic capability of producing more and bigger facts of the same sort of life. The efficiency of the system blunts too individuals’ recognition that it contains no facts which do not communicate the repressive power of the whole. If the individuals find themselves in the things which shape their life, they do so, not by giving, but by accepting the law of things – not the law of physics but the law of their society.

[heylelshalem]

I think a lot of people think that things will get better and/or there is nothing that can really be done. A lot of people are'nt really even aware of any alternatives to the system that is shoved down their throughts..and ideas like communism or socialism only really bring up old cold war propaganda. The oligarchy in this country have definately done a good job of keeping the people blind.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Hmm I would argue Herbert Marcuse is part of the nightmare that the Left is trying to wake up from.

Here is a start: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/dream_on

[heylelshalem]

none the less i think also america is quite ignorant to the rich history of socialist in our own backyard who have done a lot of good work to at least try to "fix" things.

[DROSL]

People are sleeping or they've been dumbed down by the insane amount of corporatist messages, we're brainwash since birth by the media.

[Popular Front of Judea]

People are sleeping or they've been dumbed down by the insane amount of corporatist messages, we're brainwash since birth by the media.

You do realize virtually every minority political ideology, socialist or libertarian, holds a version of that gnostic belief? "If only the masses would wake up ..."

[argeiphontes]

Hmm I would argue Herbert Marcuse is part of the nightmare that the Left is trying to wake up from.

That could very well be true. I don't think his pessimism (for lack of a better word) is correct, nor do I think that "that you couldn't look to the workers to start the revolution - instead it would be led by three groups on the margins." or anything. But I do think there's an irrational component, and a manipulation component to modern society that you might not see in a previous society where oppression is more 'naked' and tangible.

So I guess I would say that things *are* worse in a society that operates through irrational manipulation and identification with the system. That being said, sure, lots of the New Left is probably nothing more than a fancy art project.

(Just think of my post as dialectical manipulation ;) )

I think the alternative, the future society, has to be made real and tangible. That's why I like the idea of just using the relative freedom available in Western societies to try to create a new society in the shell of the old. It's not ourselves we need to convince.

(I also don't want the second part of "a future in which individuals would be liberated both from the fetters of capitalism and from the repression of their true instincts." because I don't think it's possible or even desirable. I don't think humans are infinitely maleable because we're biological animals.)

Maybe I'm just getting more pessimistic about the power of reason to change the world. The right has convinced people to act against their own interests, and paid actors are filibustering on the Senate floor as we speak...

[argeiphontes]

People are sleeping or they've been dumbed down by the insane amount of corporatist messages, we're brainwash since birth by the media.


You do realize virtually every minority political ideology, socialist or libertarian, holds a version of that gnostic belief? "If only the masses would wake up ..."

The shadow of structuralism could be determinism. It's important to take note of individual agency. The media can limit the spectrum of debate, the 'thought horizon' can be a function of power structures, but there's no such thing as 'brainwashing'. People do have the power to reject and modify messages.

I'm much too strong of an individualist to fully agree with Marcuse... I see it less as a determinism and more as an attempt to account for psychology.

[heylelshalem]

so what would you do to "wake people up"? thats the question of the hour right now.

[Jimmie Higgins]

so what would you do to "wake people up"? thats the question of the hour right now.not to beat a dead horse (and I know you are just quoting that other poster) but "waking up" is such a terrible analogy. It's not as though people are passive (in a class struggle sense they are), blind and deaf in regards to capitalism. People seek alternatives or lesser evil accommodations to capitalism all the time. This is the source of esscapism and idealist dodges and even reactionary ideas in the working class. People are confronted with the historical cards we are dealt and try to deal with it based on what seems possible, likely, and best. In the u.s. Where there isn't much of a living militant experience left in workplace struggle, most people seek induvidual accomodative solutions. In other places where there is more class organization and militancy, the tendency is usually towards some kind of reformism. To take a concrete example, would anyone argue that black workers in the u.s. Are asleap in regards to racism? No, by and large people see and experience it everyday... But the solutions you hear from a lot of people are individualistic or even blame other black workers for racism: pull up your pants and then the cops won't rough you up as much; that kid who was shot by the police should have known better than to sneeze near that cop, I tell my kids to not sneeze or blink too hard when cops are around!

Class is harder because racial oppression is a little more obvious (still the lack of overt bigotry in "post-racial" American racism does disorient people... White people more so), but people are not "asleap" when it comes to not liking inequality, debt, poor services, and the daily shit of work. People don't feel they can do much about it IMO.

[argeiphontes]

@heylelshalem: I don't know. ;) but I do think that Jimmy Higgins is right, "waking up" is a bad analogy.

Something might have to already exist, at least in a nascent form, that people see as concrete. In his interview with Bill Moyers, Richard Wolff said that in Italy they're giving money to self-organized worker cooperatives, as long as you can get 10 people together. That's something concrete that I support.

Almost nobody on this site is going to say that worker cooperatives are revolutionary, but IMO, since I'm interested in a revolution in the social relations of production, I would say they at least partly are. (With the right ideology, I prefer to call them 'collectives'.) I don't care for theorizing about world revolution vs. socialism in one country or something like that. If the structure is self-sustaining, then it could work. It's hard to take away people's freedom because they tend to rebel. It would have to go along with a revolutionary ideology and obligations to maintain the egalitarian, democratic nature so that it doesn't devolve into something else.

Furthermore, the more of these there are, the more they can coordinate production and consumption among themselves. That's when you would start to see resistance from the state and capitalism, when it became a serious threat and a transitional state would be entered.

Thinking that you can do away with commerce or money right away, both of which have existed for all recorded history and precede capitalism, is IMO impossible. First, you would need the concrete preconditions where such a fundamental change could take place.

The other benefit, the real strength, is that you can also put gas in your car and send your kids to school. Without that, I'm not sure you have anything. Unless, on the other hand, the system collapses so much that everyday life is threatened. But it would be unethical of me to wish concrete suffering on others for the sake of my idea(s). Besides, without a clear alternative to point to, you could just end up in Sweden. That's still better, but then it's not revolutionary at all, and could just work against revolution by causing greater identification with the system. When I joined this site, I had a little soft spot for Cuba, thinking that maybe over time it could evolve into something else (withering of the state), but now we're seeing moves toward capitalism, not anarchism or communism.

That could be because these kinds of states never revolutionized the relations of production. It should be very hard for a socialist state to revert back to capitalism, just as hard as it is for a capitalist state to become socialist. If it isn't, it's a sign that something is wrong.

These are just some ideas. Feel free to punch me in the G.U.T. ;)

[cliffhanger]

Not many posts in this thread refer to the material substratum of the political situation, let alone the broader historical context, which seems odd for Marxists. I'm not sure myself what the main reasons are but I think something like this is true:

- The world socialist movement essentially peaked with the construction of socialism in the main in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Nazi Germany then invaded the USSR, killing maybe 1 in 7 citizens. The fall of Hitler allowed democratic forces to take power in Eastern Europe and Asia. The weaknesses of the socialist bloc expressed themselves primarily in the existence of a privileged stratum of engineers, officials, generals and intellectuals. This formed the basis of a new bourgeoisie. Stalin had attempted to keep this managerial stratum under control through purges. After Stalin died, the stratum oriented towards a position that sought to stabilize and grow their power through "peaceful coexistence" and social-imperialism in foreign policy and liberal destalinization in domestic policy. In economic matters things were restructured on a state-capitalist basis.

- The revisionism of the leading core of the worker's movement, and the inability of less developed nations to form a coherent pole on a solid socialist basis, led to most countries trying to accept either patron status from the Soviets or a sort of national "independence" based on linking up with American capitalism. Decolonization continued during this period but the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, combined with the revisionism of its allies, led to a general collapse of attempts at comprehensive socialist planning. The "red flag" continued to be flown in a number of countries but as a system it had largely become a rival power bloc based on self-interest rather than a revolutionary bloc since the mid-1950s.

- The West focused on destroying economic alternatives and real independence, devastating countries like Korea and Vietnam, propping up brutal bourgeois dictatorships in many countries, suppressing (with the revisionists) communist movements in Western Europe and elsewhere. Countries learned the "lesson" that if they tried to be independent of American power they would simply be crushed, but if they played ball their elites would gain significant benefits of the world bourgeois culture.

- In the West, most socialist movements "destalinized" themselves in various ways and refused to defend the basic facts of the positive features of the Soviet Union. Instead, they cheered along the liberal reforms of the revisionists, or took liberal positions in favour of multiparty democracy or dead-end movements like Trotskyism and anarchism. This was largely because these movements tacitly supported the imperialist system.

- The precondition for a successful wave of revolutions, building the basis for a new socialist camp that can act as a pole of resistance to global capitalism, is the reevaluation of the socialist experience of the Soviet Union and the struggle against revisionism. This will probably happen outside of the West, which is in the grips of white supremacy and liberal ideology. This will probably be driven by real conflicts in a revolutionary society rather than some soul-searching debate between socialists. For example, a country's leadership might attempt some form of national independence from the imperialist system, which would force them through events to come to the scientific conclusions of the world socialist movement, such as those developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Stalin had attempted to keep this managerial stratum under control through purges.

So the choice is either Stalinist purges or the inevitable rise of a privileged nomenklatura? Some choice.

[argeiphontes]

The weaknesses of the socialist bloc expressed themselves primarily in the existence of a privileged stratum of engineers, officials, generals and intellectuals. This formed the basis of a new bourgeoisie. Stalin had attempted to keep this managerial stratum under control through purges.

Why aren't these people just a 'labor aristocracy' like when they're coordinating the capitalist system? Isn't a bourgeoisie a class that extracts surplus labor in the form of profit? If Stalin considered them to be bourgeoisie, he redefined the term based on his paranoia and anti-intellectualism.

"under control" is a nice euphemism for forced labor and mass murder, none of which is justified by the presence of any bourgeoisie, just like it wouldn't be justified in our societies.

In any case, we're talking about the situation now, and I don't think any appeal ad stalinum is going to help.

edit: If anything:

"One of Stalinisms greatest crimes was to make Marxism stink in the noses of those who could benefit from it." -- Terry Eagleton

edit2: You could probably argue that we've been set back by a couple hundred years by Stalin. When Stalin becomes just a name in the history books like Alexander the Great or the Czar of Russia, it'll be a great good for socialism.

[argeiphontes]

Just one more thing, because I don't want to be denounced for my love of Stalin ;) The type of literalization and concretization involved in 'purging' is similar to the same phenomena in mental illness. You can't kill people to destroy an idea. And the further you are from the fulfillment of your ideas, the more 'purges' look like a necessary, even reasonable, course of action.

edit: The further you are from socialism, the more this literal interpretation in this particular book sounds like the word of God. "Something must be done. This is something. This must be done."

[cliffhanger]

Why aren't these people just a 'labor aristocracy' like when they're coordinating the capitalist system? Isn't a bourgeoisie a class that extracts surplus labor in the form of profit? If Stalin considered them to be bourgeoisie, he redefined the term based on his paranoia and anti-intellectualism.

"under control" is a nice euphemism for forced labor and mass murder, none of which is justified by the presence of any bourgeoisie, just like it wouldn't be justified in our societies.

In any case, we're talking about the situation now, and I don't think any appeal ad stalinum is going to help.

edit: If anything:

"One of Stalinisms greatest crimes was to make Marxism stink in the noses of those who could benefit from it." -- Terry Eagleton

edit2: You could probably argue that we've been set back by a couple hundred years by Stalin. When Stalin becomes just a name in the history books like Alexander the Great or the Czar of Russia, it'll be a great good for socialism.
Marxists have always considered people who have some autonomy from or over productive, exploited wage labour to be "middle class" in the sense of being proletarians who are embourgeoisified because of their position of society. These people are called "petty-bourgeois". The labour aristocracy is an example of a petty-bourgeois class perspective. The petty-bourgeoisie is always being either pulled up into the haute-bourgeoisie or down back into the proletariat by the forces of class struggle. In the Soviet Union, the relative privileges and social position of the petty-bourgeoisie allowed it to form itself into a ruling class, thus becoming a new bourgeoisie.

If you don't think forced labour or mass murder are commonplaces in contemporary capitalism then maybe read the news.

[argeiphontes]

If you don't think forced labour or mass murder are commonplaces in contemporary capitalism then maybe read the news.

The existence of those evils doesn't justify them, though, does it? Whether you want to exploit or to end exploitation, none of those positions justify the violence. If we want to argue this, we should start another thread but I'm sure it's been covered in the past.

[cliffhanger]

none of those positions justify the violence.
Ok, then end capitalism without violence. If it's possible, do it, I'd be happy if you did.

[argeiphontes]

Ok, then end capitalism without violence. If it's possible, do it, I'd be happy if you did.

(Since I'm blabbing, I thought it might be important to add that violence can only be done to subjects that can experience violence. It's just the propaganda of propertied capital that would extend the definition of violence to include any cathartic act against property. Somehow it's violence to destroy a McDonalds but if you burn enough coal to sink Indonesia, that's somehow not violence, even though Indonesians can be the subject of violence but McDonalds can't. The case of Jose Bove illustrates the absurdity of 'violence against property'. If someone would like to argue that objects are somehow an extension of oneself, then I would say that's an ontological mistake encouraged by the system and has to be argued on other terms. Marcuse might even rear his ugly head in that one ;)

So if you're hungry and want to loot a Kroger, or a copy machine is intruding on your freedom and you want to take a baseball bat to it, be my guest because that's not really violence. I would expect people to release frustration by cathartic acts in the system we're living in. Your right to feed yourself is absolute against Kroger, and the same could be argued about the copy machine because it can't be subject of anything at all, it's an inanimate object.

But violence against people (or animals) requires serious justification. Violence is a right, but it's a right of last resort. A cornered animal will fight you to the death, and it's perfectly justified in doing so, but unless you're in that position you have some work to do if you want to justify violence. Just because someone is stealing surplus labor from me doesn't justify me killing or seriously harming them. That would be like saying that some guy wanted to steal my car, so I was justified in shooting him to death, or depriving his freedom for a year.

Not saying you're falling into this or anything, just wanted to clarify.)

[el mosquito]

you need a communist party

[Thirsty Crow]

The simplest solution to the world's problem, let's have a Party!

But really, this solves nothing. The lack of a unified and somewhat big political organization is not the cause of the immense weakness of the class.

[Popular Front of Judea]

you need a communist party

One Communist Party coming up:

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/3/3e/Red_Communist_Party.jpg

[Per Levy]

you need a communist party

there is a communist party in pretty much every country in the world, in fact there are probally dozens of commie/socialist partys in every country of the world.