Greetings

[OGirly]

Hello!

Not going to post a lot. Just a quick introduction. I'm 25, female, and currently in the USA. I am studying philosophy at university, and I am rather new to Socialism. I don't know too much about it, but recently I have started reading more of Marx and Lenin. Although I don't know much about Socialism I know enough to be sure I don't support Capitalism any longer. For a long time I felt this was the only way to go considering my father is a small business owner; but after my partners (I am poly-amourous) and I started talking about opening our own businesses (my partner and I are both working on getting our IT certifictations and hope to open a computer security consultation firm...philosophy is never known for producing much of a living wage) I started to think about how I would pay my workers.

I didn't feel right taking more than what I could afford to pay my employees, my partner says it's justified. So like usual I started reading (nerd that I am). I happened across Marx, and then I started with Lenin. I have to say it's solidified my views. I can't feel just taking more than I pay someone who is the reason my company is staying afloat in the first place. The company has not even opened yet and these are the dilemmas I am pondering lol...I spend too much time thinking I feel :P

Anyway, I ramble. That's been the last two years of my internal political self-searching. I can say I am a Socialist, possibly even borderline communist but I don't really know enough to say either really. Thats why I am here. I hope to learn more through reading, and hopefully pick some of your brains to help me figure out exactly what to call myself.

I"m a long time member of the War Resistors League, and currently just joined the Democratic Socialist of America. I hope to become more active helping to bring Socialism to the USA, but first I need to have a good understanding of what all this Socialism is about.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Yes this is jumbled. It's early in the morning, and I'm getting ready before class :P

[Q]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

Maybe you could start a coop, which certainly needs more popularity :)

[Orange Juche]

Hello!

And I agree, a co-op is the way to go :)

[Remus Bleys]

hi

[The Jay]

Hello there. If you want to learn a bit more about socialism I would start with some of the general marxist stuff before you move on to other theorists. Basically, start with Marx and not someone who references him in a way that many find questionable.

[Quail]

Hi, welcome to Revleft :)

[OGirly]

If you want to learn a bit more about socialism I would start with some of the general marxist stuff before you move on to other theorists.

Good advice. Thanks! I"ll keep this in mind while learning more. I'm trying to work through the book list in the Learning section. That seems like a great place to start actually. I was looking for something like that. There is so much literature out there it can be easy sometimes to get overwhelmed by it all. I'll keep to the basics for now.

Thanks for the welcome all!

[The Jay]

That's a good idea. What're you reading now?

[OGirly]

I recently finished the Communist Manifesto, but I"m literally working from the top of that list downwards so currently I'm reading "A very short introduction to Socialism" as well as the Communist version of the same series. They are giving me more things to consider looking into more once I finish with them. Good primers :)

I've got a lot of time on my hands since taking this semester off from university (I have schizophrenia so I had to spend some time in the hospital..on meds now, doing well) so I've been taking advantage of this time to really study some of the theories I"d like to get into working on when I get back to university. I'm considering starting a political science masters next year when I finish my BA in philosophy so I figured I"d start now and get a leg up ;P

[Alonso Quijano]

In my opinion perhaps the most important are The German Ideology:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/index.htm

Critique of the Gotha Programme (pretty short):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm

Also, Wage Labour and Capital:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm

[Queen Mab]

I'm considering starting a political science masters next year when I finish my BA in philosophy so I figured I"d start now and get a leg up ;P

I don't think they do much Marx at all in PolSci, sadly.

[OGirly]

The programme at the university I am considering is mostly independent study with some required course work. I'm hopeful I can blend my philosophy/theology background into something interesting with politics. If not...I'll just stick to the status quo and get the masters finished. I can't figure a political science to be a worse choice than philosophy in the end at least it's interesting...and has much more potential for finding me a job lol :P

[Oenomaus]

Hello!

Not going to post a lot. Just a quick introduction. I'm 25, female, and currently in the USA. I am studying philosophy at university, and I am rather new to Socialism. I don't know too much about it, but recently I have started reading more of Marx and Lenin. Although I don't know much about Socialism I know enough to be sure I don't support Capitalism any longer. For a long time I felt this was the only way to go considering my father is a small business owner; but after my partners (I am poly-amourous) and I started talking about opening our own businesses (my partner and I are both working on getting our IT certifictations and hope to open a computer security consultation firm...philosophy is never known for producing much of a living wage) I started to think about how I would pay my workers.

I didn't feel right taking more than what I could afford to pay my employees, my partner says it's justified. So like usual I started reading (nerd that I am). I happened across Marx, and then I started with Lenin. I have to say it's solidified my views. I can't feel just taking more than I pay someone who is the reason my company is staying afloat in the first place. The company has not even opened yet and these are the dilemmas I am pondering lol...I spend too much time thinking I feel :P

Anyway, I ramble. That's been the last two years of my internal political self-searching. I can say I am a Socialist, possibly even borderline communist but I don't really know enough to say either really. Thats why I am here. I hope to learn more through reading, and hopefully pick some of your brains to help me figure out exactly what to call myself.

I"m a long time member of the War Resistors League, and currently just joined the Democratic Socialist of America. I hope to become more active helping to bring Socialism to the USA, but first I need to have a good understanding of what all this Socialism is about.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Yes this is jumbled. It's early in the morning, and I'm getting ready before class :P

Welcome.

I am curious about your conception of socialism and how it differs from communism. I ask this because most people who make a sharp distinction between the two advocate a tightly regimented capitalism that they usually call "socialism". I am not saying that is the case with you - obviously you're new to socialism, so of course your ideas still aren't fully formed (and for what it's worth, you're much less confused than I was at the same stage).

As for cooperatives and so on - I think they're overrated. A cooperative is still a capitalist enterprise, and the co-owners of the cooperative participate in the extraction of surplus value from other workers - for example the Spanish Mondragon cooperative corporation blatantly exploits workers from underdeveloped regions. And this, it needs to be stressed, is a systematic problem. Even if your intentions are good, you will still be forced to participate in exploitation or be driven off the market - that is why capitalism needs to be overthrown, not simply tweaked, which is what social-democrats advocate in hopes of some sort of "capitalism with a human face".

This is not to say you shouldn't start a cooperative, or that you shouldn't treat your workers well, it's just that individual solutions to structural problems of capitalism are impossible. I think a lot of leftist enthusiasm about cooperatives amounts to sowing illusions in the ability of capitalism to restrain itself, become more "humane" and so on.

Another thing you might wish to explore is how your particular special oppression - being a polyamorous person with schizophrenia - is connected to the class structure of society (the role of the traditional family unit and the need to keep the labour force disciplined and productive contributing to bigotry against people with "unconventional" sexual and romantic choices and atypical psychological conditions), how these issues intersect economic issues and so on.

To be quite honest, I think the DSA are awful. Their conception of socialism is in fact a very loosely regimented capitalism - it's an adaptation of the usual social-democratic line to the ruling-class ideology of the USA. And they're right-Shachtmanists - people who split from Trotsky and even left-wing members of their own party (Draper for example) due to their monomaniacal hatred of the Soviet Union and support for the bourgeois regime in the US. They were the most committed cold warriors - and now they've buried themselves so deep in the Democratic Party they might as well give up any pretense of being an independent group.

I think the chief question for a modern socialist is - what is your position on (what used to be called) the Russian question? What do you think the Soviet Union was, and what was the appropriate socialist attitude towards it? That question is what distinguishes the various flavours of Leninism, left and council communism and so on.

I hope this post doesn't sound hostile - it's just that I think political lines need to be stated clearly and without embellishment. I wish you luck - figuring all of this out won't be easy, but certainly members of this site can help you with that (for better or worse, as the case might be).

As for a short introduction to socialism, I think Draper's "Two Souls of Socialism" is very good and accessible - even though his theories about "bureaucratic collectivism" are rubbish.

[OGirly]

No no not hostile at all. This is exactly why I joined this forum. To have my views challenged, Nana hopefully have them mature into more developed sound arguments against capitalism. Currently I am driving across the usa and on my phone so my response may be short until I can access my laptop this evening in the hotel room. As far as the DSA is concerned its because it was the first locally available orginization I came across lol maybe not the best strategy for choosing a party as I recently came across the Iso and they seem legitimate. I just jumped the gun looking to get active.

Regarding Russia and the soviet union I see them as a wonderful example of what is possible, but at the same time a warning for how quickly things can go wrong when you become too centered on a single leader (stalin) instead of focusing on the workers/citizens. To be honest right now I don't know enough to distinguish between communism and socialism, but I hope to learn if there is a difference. Right now that's why I dont know what to call myself as they seem to be the same thing in theory, just separated by different practise.

The co op is still being thought out. The reason I would like to open the company is because I was born into a richer family, and have had a lot of things available to me because of this fact. I feel like I owe it to people to create jobs for them where they will not be exploited, and can get an honest fair deal. Am I okay one day not being the owner of a company because we find and establish a better way of doing things? Of course...but I jUST don't know what that better way is currently so a co op is the best I can come up with. If you have any books I can read with alternatives please share them as I am extremely interested in learning how socialism would recommend I go about this if at all. I'm still very ignorant on all of this especially from the stand point of a company. To be honest my partner really would like to open the business I am just helping so he has an employee to start out with helping him. I'm an artist/philosopher in my heart lol (mainly selling paintings is how I contribute to my family income). Its why we bump heads so often because he is struggling with a strong capitalist background. Luckilly he's started reading my books when I finish with them recently. Hopefully his views change if not I'm sure we will continue to disagree on matters of his business.

Sorry if this is jumbled. Its hard to type with this serious delay on my phone. I'm up to talk more with you, or anyone for that matter, in private messages as well if you'd like. A good political discussion is always great, and I am eager to learn more about all this philosophy. :)

[BIXX]

Welcome to the forum!

If you're interested in other leftist/post-leftist ideas, I would recommend The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin.

I don't agree with all he said there, but it started me on anarchism. I am now a far different anarchist than I was then, but it gave me a strong base in understanding anarchism.

[Oenomaus]

No no not hostile at all. This is exactly why I joined this forum. To have my views challenged, Nana hopefully have them mature into more developed sound arguments against capitalism. Currently I am driving across the usa and on my phone so my response may be short until I can access my laptop this evening in the hotel room. As far as the DSA is concerned its because it was the first locally available orginization I came across lol maybe not the best strategy for choosing a party as I recently came across the Iso and they seem legitimate. I just jumped the gun looking to get active.

Regarding Russia and the soviet union I see them as a wonderful example of what is possible, but at the same time a warning for how quickly things can go wrong when you become too centered on a single leader (stalin) instead of focusing on the workers/citizens. To be honest right now I don't know enough to distinguish between communism and socialism, but I hope to learn if there is a difference. Right now that's why I dont know what to call myself as they seem to be the same thing in theory, just separated by different practise.

The co op is still being thought out. The reason I would like to open the company is because I was born into a richer family, and have had a lot of things available to me because of this fact. I feel like I owe it to people to create jobs for them where they will not be exploited, and can get an honest fair deal. Am I okay one day not being the owner of a company because we find and establish a better way of doing things? Of course...but I jUST don't know what that better way is currently so a co op is the best I can come up with. If you have any books I can read with alternatives please share them as I am extremely interested in learning how socialism would recommend I go about this if at all. I'm still very ignorant on all of this especially from the stand point of a company. To be honest my partner really would like to open the business I am just helping so he has an employee to start out with helping him. I'm an artist/philosopher in my heart lol (mainly selling paintings is how I contribute to my family income). Its why we bump heads so often because he is struggling with a strong capitalist background. Luckilly he's started reading my books when I finish with them recently. Hopefully his views change if not I'm sure we will continue to disagree on matters of his business.

Sorry if this is jumbled. Its hard to type with this serious delay on my phone. I'm up to talk more with you, or anyone for that matter, in private messages as well if you'd like. A good political discussion is always great, and I am eager to learn more about all this philosophy. :)

Broadly, the (Marxist) communist movement struggles for a proletarian revolution, the socialisation of the means of production, and the transitional dictatorship of the proletariat (the class rule of the proletariat against the remnants of the exploiting classes), in order to prepare the groundwork for the construction of the communist society, a society without classes, the private ownership of the means of production, and the state.

"Socialism", as a movement, is either synonymous with the communist movement, or it denotes more "moderate" groups who look for a parliamentary way to communism, or who do not advocate a communist society and the socialisation of the means of production, preferring what is called a "mixed" economy (that, to us communists, is but a variety of capitalism, and in fact the oldest one). According to this latter usage, people like Bernstein, Renner, Salah Jadid or Ne Win are "socialist but not communist". These people are social-democrats at best. The term "communism" was re-introduced by Lenin precisely to differentiate revolutionaries from such people.

As for the Russian question, that really concerns the class character of the Soviet state. For example, the ISO believes that the Soviet Union was capitalist, as does the LRP, various left-communist groups and so on. The DSA believe that the Soviet Union was "bureaucratic collectivist", as does the Solidarity group. "Bureaucratic collectivism" is a supposed form of class society where the means of production are owned collectively by the bureaucracy, and which is either just as bad (Solidarity) or worse than capitalism (DSA). On the other hand, "anti-revisionist" (Hoxhaist) and Maoist groups hold that it was socialist until the late fifties, capitalist and imperialist afterwards. Groups like the Spartacist League, Workers' International League, Socialist Organiser and so on hold that it was a workers' state, but bureaucratically degenerated - the economy rested on proletarian forms, but the workers had been politically expropriated by the bureaucratic caste. Brezhnevists like the SWP and the CPUSA think it was socialist until the nineties. And so on - these are difficult questions, but I think answering them is necessary for any sort of consistent socialist politics.

And like I said, I don't really think there is an individual solution - we are all embedded in the capitalist system and if you run a business, you will either exploit people (directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly) or be forced off the market (which might still happen even if you do exploit people). I'm not saying collectives are bad. But exploitation is, like racism, like homophobia etc., a structural problem that requires structural solutions - a revolutionary overthrow of the society that results in exploitation and so on. There is no individual solution. As an individual, you could try to help and build a revolutionary party. Or you could get involved in united front work against things like war, the Klan etc.

Of course, if you do start a company, if you don't treat your workers well according to some standard, most people will not take you seriously as a socialist. Well, unless you manage to become the chief of a bureaucratic cult.