Proposals for a Solution to the Capitalist Question

[ComradeViktor]

I know what some of you might be thinking right now. This thread is almost as broad and unoriginal as it gets. After all, is finding a revolutionary, strategic means to combat capitalism not the primary objective for most members on this website?

So here's my explanation. As I've read a majority of threads posted for practically the last year. It seems that the majority just simply have to do with spectating on possibly leftist triumphs, instead of causing truly leftist triumphs. Now I don't deny a single comrade's devotion to our collective, revolutionary cause against bourgeois dictatorship. But we're approaching a new year from a past 3 years of radical change, and certainly more to come. So this question must come anew if we're going to even begin to turn the tide of events into a leftist revolution.

So, to get to the point, here's what I'm asking:

Basically what actions, do you find, must be taken to expose capitalism for the exploitive dictatorship that it is among the populace? Because generally average people, in this modern Capitalist world order, see things very black and white. You either live in a "democracy" where there is a practically laissez-faire free market. Or you live under "socialism" where the "state controls your life." :roll eyes:
So how do we, revolutionary leftists, convince people that we do not want to become "big brother" in a 1984 regime. That evangelical conservatives are not Vox Populi. And finally, that hipster communes and state capitalist dictatorships are not good models of socialism, or at least, anything outside of the consumerist utopia?

Proposals?

[tuwix]

Even US citizen Noam Chomsky argues that world doesn't look like it even in America. The Occupy Movement is the best example of that. Despite of all that capitalist propaganda suddenly it's become evident that people known that are robbed by “1%”.

IMHO people know very well in whatever place of Earth that they're robbed by richest ones. The problem is different. They're atomized and undetermined to finish the system.

But the strategy is irrelevant. The system will collapse due to one of another crises as Marx predicted. Our task is to inform about solutions exactly as left-wing movement emerged in the Occupy Wall Street. The movement is virtually lost now but there will be another crisis of capitalism and I hope the last one. :)

[Red Economist]

Basically what actions, do you find, must be taken to expose capitalism for the exploitative dictatorship that it is among the populace?

There is very little we can do as class conscious is driven primarily by personal experience and is only accelerated by access to Marxist/anarchist ideas. widespread ideological changes in society can only be based on a shared experience as the result of historical development. The task is mainly that capitalism will discredit itself, and they are doing a fantastic job at it. The democratic process is anti-popular and serves a small elite, whilst the free market represents the freedom of large corporations to do what the hell they like- including breaking the law.


Because generally average people, in this modern Capitalist world order, see things very black and white. You either live in a "democracy" where there is a practically laissez-faire free market. Or you live under "socialism" where the "state controls your life." :rolleyes:


This is largely the fault of the mass media. Despite widespread talk of living in an 'information' age, the general public is badly informed and easily manipulated. to a large extent, people repeat what they are told over the television, or in newspapers. This may be a 'false consciousness' of social relations from the proletarian's point of view, but it does reflect the very limited opportunities for social change within a deeply conservative system.


So how do we, revolutionary leftists, convince people that we do not want to become "big brother" in a 1984 regime.

I'm one of these people who is in a perpetual deadlock between the center-left and the far-left. There is obviously the fact that capitalism and 'democracy' don't work in the interests of most people, and then you look over at the historical evidence at the USSR, People's Republic of China etc, and you find that the evidence is very damming. At the moment the lesser of the two evils remains capitalism- but for how long?

I think, really this comes down to the validity of Marxist-Communist theory. For a large part, communists in the twentieth century neither intended nor expected to produce such psychotic systems. It is hard to believe that we can simply repeat the same ideological convictions from the twenieth century and expect to get a different result in the twenty-first. The communists, far from being the masters of history guided by revolutionary theory, ended up becoming it's victims as the state apparatus started consuming it's own supporters, so only the unthinking repetition of communist ideology as dictated by the party was permitted.



That evangelical conservatives are not Vox Populi.

I assuming we're talking about the US here. But as a brit, I think it is again the enormous power of mass media to shape and limit public opinion .


And finally, that hipster communes and state capitalist dictatorships are not good models of socialism, or at least, anything outside of the consumerist utopia?

This is the question of opening up the scope of what is possible. Breaking what Mark Fisher called [I]Capitalism Realism; the idea that their is 'no alternative to capitalism/liberalism' other than totalitarianism.

For the most part this is about regaining faith in the powers of human beings to change society- without succumbing to the problems of 'human nature'/innate evil/human selfishness. Technological change will open up new possibilities and dangers, so we might have to wait and see?

[The Jay]

Honestly, just talk to people in a genuine way, without force. It is better to be calm and respond to their concerns rather than slamming them with slogans.

[ckaihatsu]

The Western Enlightenment tradition has brought us *this* far in encouraging us to take a 'hands-on' role over matters of civil society, individual rights, etc., and yet the same tradition puts *economics* into a 'hands-off' location where we're supposed to simply have faith that by leaving the markets unimpeded everything will balance-out just fine.

So the framing of the most urgent question there is, isn't 'capitalism vs. totalitarianism', it's 'capitalist collapse vs. economic democracy'.