Hello, I'm the new guy.

[The Undecided]

ABOUT ME
I am a normal, average, everyday guy who lives in New Jersey, U.S.A. I am sort of young. I won’t tell my age, but I am between 18 and 30 years old. I am interested in politics, geography, history, religion, philosophy, culture and sociology. I’m basically a social Studies guy. I am new to RevLeft and the Leftist community. I like playing video games, and am a nerd.
ABOUT MY POLITICS AND RELIGION
I chose the name “The Undecided” because it is difficult for me to make up my mind when it comes to politics, religion and controversy. I am not sure whether I am a Christian or Atheist (I consider myself Agnostic; I don’t believe a deity (or deities) could be proven or disproven.) Another thing I am trying to figure out is if I am Socialist or Capitalist. I am currently researching. But as of now, if my political beliefs were a scale, and you put Socialism on one end and Capitalism on the other, it would lean more to the Socialist side. I am more Socialist than I am Capitalist, but I still am unsure. However, I am anti-Fascist, anti-Nazi, anti-racist and anti-Imperialist.
WHY I AM HERE
I’m here to learn more about Leftism and talk with other Leftists and debate with anti-Leftists. I want to learn about Marx, Engels, and Lenin first, then move on to study the other Leftist philosophers and leaders.

I’m here to learn, chat, and debate.

Thanks for reading my intro, and I’ll see you guys on the forum later.

[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.

[Chomskyan]

You sound like another me, except from New Jersey. I am from Minnesota.

Welcome to the forum.

I'm absolutely a Socialist. Free Market Capitalism doesn't exist, and if it doesn't exist I don't see why we should pretend that it does.

I'm also a Christian, because Jesus' words are clear "you cannot serve God and money" (Luke 16:13).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

First of all, welcome.

Second, could you explain what you mean by "socialism"? To most people here, I imagine (or rather, I would hope!) socialism means the movement for a classless, stateless society based on social control of the means of production, through a proletarian revolution. Yet you describe yourself as being somewhere in-between socialism and "capitalism" (capitalism is a mode of production, not a conscious political movement; people who advocate capitalism are variously called liberals, conservatives, fascists etc. due to differences which are unimportant to us at this stage). This suggests - and you are more than free to correct me, of course - that you view socialism as a sort of regimented, state-controlled capitalism, or alternately the organisation of society into co-operatives competing in a market.

Some questions I would suggest you try to answer for yourself:

• do you think the means of production should be controlled by society or private individuals (or groups of private individuals)?
• do you think production should be for human demand or for profit?
• do you think factors of production should be allocated by rational planning or by the market?

As for Christianity, socialism does go against some of the social tenets of Christianity, from the socialist insistence on the abolition of private property to things like abolition of the family, free abortion on demand at any stage of the pregnancy, full rights to non-heterosexuals, the struggle for a secular and public education system and so on.

[RedWorker]

Some questions I would suggest you try to answer for yourself:

• do you think the means of production should be controlled by society or private individuals (or groups of private individuals)?
• do you think production should be for human demand or for profit?
• do you think factors of production should be allocated by rational planning or by the market

I think asking such questions is useless at this point. The guy is trying to learn. I'd say most people who are socialists now at first (when they started learning about socialism) had a negative answer, were unsure or avoided asking themselves that on such questions then they progressively developed their politics. That is because advocating such positions does not come from arbitrarily assigning oneself to a dogmatic group - it comes through learning. Even if one had the socialist answer to such questions, it would be useless if he didn't understand why, or had the wrong reason for why.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

[/LIST]
I think asking such questions is useless at this point. The guy is trying to learn. I'd say most people who are socialists now at first (when they started learning about socialism) had a negative answer, were unsure or avoided asking themselves that on such questions then they progressively developed their politics. That is because advocating such positions does not come from arbitrarily assigning oneself to a dogmatic group - it comes through learning. Even if one had the socialist answer to such questions, it would be useless if he didn't understand why, or had the wrong reason for why.

You seem to assume that The Undecided will become a socialist by learning more about socialism. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't. But it's always useful to have political clarity and those questions, I think, represent the basic divide between socialists and liberals.

[Comrade V]

I think we've all been in that boat at one point or another brother. Only very recently began identifying myself as Marxist.

Best of luck in your quest for knowledge!

[The Undecided]

As of now, I believe in a democratic system of government, however I think that there should be a person higher than the President/Prime Minister/Head of State, who doesn't have too much power, and can ensure a safe, successful, equal society. However this person could get corrupted, not be trusted, not make intelligent/rational decisions, and can ruin the state or turn into a murderous dictator.

I believe that the workers should be in charge of the workplace, and supervisors and managers should be elected from the workers, and do as much work as the workers do for as much pay as the workers get. You need to get as much money as much you do work. An elected manager or supervisor should give out bonuses, raises and overtime fairly. If a worker stays for another hour and works the whole time, he should get a fair amount of overtime money. No more, no less.

I believe in a democratic, fair, equal, secular government, school, and workplace. I want a socialist country with all the rights in the U.S. Constitution and more. Separation of place of worship (church/temple/mosque, etc.) and state, freedom of speech, association, religion, political beliefs, ideas, the right to bear arms, vote, work, marry and have/raise children with whoever you please, go to court (have a fair trial), etc. I want the people to be free, and in charge of their lives and the workplace.

Rational decisions should be made by society and the government on production and redistribution of the product, instead of the market. Workers make the product, and society and the government gives as much people as possible an equal amount of product. Certain product that are unnecessary such as potato chips should be bought with money or labor vouchers that are earned legitimately. The gov. and the people (through democracy) redistribute the necessary products that people need. Labor vouchers and currency buys people the extra luxuries. No one should ever starve or go homeless, and no one should ever have mansions full of luxuries (unless they've been working overtime with excellent speed and performance for a long period of time).

However, I am not like most leftists. I am definitely not pro-DPRK, and I think most socialist/communist regimes of the past and present were/are censorship-filled, corrupt, terrible dictatorships full of starving people. Many people have failed to create a socialist/communist society, and have made a bad name for leftism. Most people, especially conservatives, think that leftism is a horrible, evil, "satanic" political movement full of horrible people who seek to destroy freedom and democracy. Some people are stuck in the Red Scare-era and some people think that terrible (and, in China's case, capitalist) regimes like the DPRK and PRC (N. Korea and China) are socialist.

I do not believe that total Communism, or a Utopian society can be achieved. Humans will steal, fight, murder, rape, corrupt, and discriminate against others. If we will ever be close to achieving Utopia, it should be done slowly and carefully. Many people have tried to achieve an ideal, Utopian society. They have all failed. It either can't be achieved, or is VERY, VERY difficult to achieve. Dystopia is easy to achieve, Utopia is not.

Anyways, this is what I believe, and I have a lot of studying to do before I make up my mind completely. If I'm already a socialist, that's fine, but I still want to study socialism more. Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry if this is long, or wall of text. I just had a lot to say.

[ChangeAndChance]

It seems to me like you advocate a sort of Michael Moore-inspired perpetual dictatorship of the proletariat thing that operates under the principle of "to each according to his contribution". I'm not really getting a revolutionary vibe from what you're saying (especially when you admit you believe in that misanthropic "it's human nature; we can't change it, just control it" bullshit). I'd recommend reading 'Are We Good Enough?' by Peter Kropotkin to clear up thoughts on that.

As an anarchist, I personally view the state as an oppressive entity no matter who controls it, but a large number of the people on this site are tried and true Marxists who believe that a transitional DOTP is necessary for communism. You, on the other hand, seem (forgive my words) frightened by the prospect of being totally free and insist on staying within the confines of state "socialism".

I hope you'll stay with us and try and mature your own political views. I'm here for precisely the same reason.