There is something on my mind. As we can see, athletes, actors etc. earn many times more than workers who are crushed under heavy conditions. Now, should we show our anger toward these people as well, since they are just taking advantage of the opportunities capitalism offers? Because these people might end up in a position where they can employ workers themselves tomorrow. I know they are being exploited to some extent, but seriously, the possibility of making money from money using that capital is massive. As for another topic, OnlyFans, there is no condition forcing you to follow a different system compared to the others; you produce content with your own tools whenever and at whatever hours you want. I would appreciate it if you could write down how you evaluate this as well.

i just had a discussion with a fellow communist, and they were defending that the petty bourgeoisie is still the bourgeoisie and should be treated as such. however, i was born in a family of small business owners, as in a family business, and i have been through so much struggle due to the fact that we depend on our own labor to survive, and it makes me kinda conflicted to agree with that.

we depend solely on our own labor to be able to get money to survive, we don't profit off of it, we do it for the sake of having somewhere to live and many around us too, aren't we technically also selling our own labor? how could you compare ms anne who sells her homemade cakes for a living with the owner of starbucks? if something happens that makes us have to stop opening our shop, we just don't have any survival plan anymore, we're also kinda slaves of the system? we sell on marketplaces that exploit the hell out of us, shein covered us in debt

it feels kinda... segregating to separate some kinds of workers from the working class because they work for themselves, i mean yeah I guess there's a bit of the privilege of being your own boss but it doesn't change anything if we're still gonna have to work 14 hours a day every day of the week anyway

we don't own the building of our shop and are almost always in debt with the risk of losing it, we don't own the means, im sorry im just so confused on what they meant by grouping us with the oppressor class, I don't mean to victimize myself and to be all "oh pity me too i also suffer" its not about that, but capitalism does affect us just the same so i just wanna understand

Hello all!

I’ve been working my way through quite a few marxist Leninist texts lately. Currently I’m reading Lenin’s Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.

Living in the US, I found it applicable to the current struggle against fascism and for democracy. Especially that in these struggles we must maintain our class independence and advocate for proletarian democracy.

Am I missing anything? Have other Marxists expanded on this? Suggested readings? Are any parties adopting this line?

I’ve been a communist for a while and recently took time away from the movement bc I have to deal with work and school. This was from the perspective of Trotskyism and while I do have some criticisms of the individual groups that profess these ideas I think that Trotskyism is overall the most accurate in terms of historical materialism and dialectical materialism. Just to let my bias be known.

Over my time in the space and online I have seen one common theme with tendencies across the space is their unquestioning and unwavering hatred of Trotsky but it’s for so many different reasons I can’t make much sense of it.

People say he’s both ultra left and a Nazi collaborator, referring to his theory of permanent revolution followed by his criticisms of the Soviet Union. They also downplay his part in the 1917 revolution and when there’s mountains of evidence that agree that he was pretty much as important as Lenin was.

I get the framing of the question is a little bias but I have to be frank. Where is the evidence to support the claims of the MLs? Why does criticizing states claiming socialism make it counter revolutionary? And how is permanent revolution ultra left when MLs admit themselves that a socialist state can’t survive in a world of capitalism without addressing it in some way?

Genuinely trying to have a discussion

I'm looking for a book about socialism which reviews socialist countries and empires honestly and in depth. Highlighting ways they worked, why they failed (if they did), How they came to be, and what problems or struggles they encountered. It is really important to me that the book is honest about things like American Empires interference while simultaneously not pretending that socialist countries are utopias.

I want an understanding not an idealization and I don't want to feel like I'm reading propaganda but rather that I'm reading political history through the eyes of moral progressivism. The most important thing to me is an end to oppression and, it's important that the book does not ignore this, but rather explores how to combat this and create a more equitable society for marginalized communities within the bounds of socialism.

I would like to explore how we can have a socialist country which liberates LGBTQ people and treats it's indigenous communities with respect. And how different forms of revolution effected the people involved. I do not want a book that glorifies Chavism.

My deepest held beliefs are that all people deserve liberation from oppression. For this reason I do not support countries like Venezuela who treat LGBTQ and Indigenous communities poorly. I do not want a book which glorifies these countries but rather one which reviews their history and maybe considers what could be the solution to those problems. Youth Liberation is also another very important issue to me which I would love to see addressed but which I don't expect.

My question is mainly for Marxists and communists. The development of class consciousness among the masses is necessary for revolution and the transition to socialism. But we know that class consciousness does not develop spontaneously among the general public.

Nowhere in the current world do we see the working class becoming widely conscious of its class position and historical interests. When an economic crisis happens, the working class often tends to embrace ultra-nationalist, ethno-religious, or other reactionary identities instead of socialism. Even mass protests in which socialists or the Left play a major role often end up being taken over or redirected by reformist forces.

The vanguard party model has also not shown consistent success. There are many Marxist parties that have worked with trade unions and participated in people's struggles for decades, yet we do not see any significant rise in socialism or the widespread emergence of class consciousness among the working class. At least, this seems to be the case in the region where I live, South Asia. I think a similar situation exists in much of the West as well.

So how will class consciousness actually emerge? Will it ever become a reality, given that many reactionary ideologies, including accelerationism, ultra-nationalism, and religious fundamentalism, also become stronger during times of economic crisis?

If class consciousness does not emerge spontaneously, and the traditional vanguard party model has also produced limited results, then what path remains for building a genuinely class-conscious socialist movement?

Me interesa entender qué razones históricas, económicas, sociales o políticas llevan a una persona a identificarse con la izquierda.

No busco simplemente preguntar si la izquierda es “buena” o “mala”, sino conocer qué acontecimientos históricos han influido en su desarrollo y en su atractivo actual.

También me interesa saber hasta qué punto quienes actualmente se identifican con la izquierda conocen y consideran estos antecedentes históricos. ¿Su postura suele basarse principalmente en principios económicos y sociales, en experiencias históricas concretas, o en una combinación de ambas?

Hi! I know value for Marx is a complex topic with lots of debate i.e. the transformation problem. I'm trying to understand the basics a bit more but am very perplexed.

I sort of understand that value for Marx is a non-empirical category that is expressed through exchange value. For example, Norbert Trenkle writes, "For it is neither possible to filter out the substance of labor from commodities, nor consistently to derive the values of commodities from the level of empirical appearance (that is, from the level of price)."

And that money is a way of measuring value: "One distinction is between two ways of measuring value. Marx (1990a: 188) holds that value has two measures, money and labor-time" (Kilman).

I have questions:

1. So does this mean that once value becomes expressed as money and labour time, it is being expressed in its empirical form? If so, why are surplus value and price both expressed in money? I thought surplus value was also a non-empirical category that had different empirical expressions?

2. And what exactly does it even mean to say that value is "non-empirical?" I understand this to mean that it is not quantifiable. But even the definition of value as socially necessary labour time - isn't it already quantifiable as socially necessary labour time that can be counted e.g. if I am producing hats for exchange on the market, I know in advance how much time I should produce each hat in in order to be competitive on the market?

3. Could you give me simple example of what value means as a non-empirical category? What is socially necessary labour time as a non-empirical category?

Or is value like a more abstract principle, such as "I need to produce commodities as efficiently as possible" that gets expressed in more concrete, measurable forms such as exchange value once the commodity enters circulation on the market?

I know there's likely my ignorance of Hegelian concepts behind this.

I hope my questions make sense, and thanks in advance.
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It appears that, non-elected socialist states, would create a place where corruption is hard to stamp out. How could the people prevent corruption whils creating their socialist government? Would it be better to always have elections as a socialist states? Is democracy justifiable for the people's rule?

So, I'm trying to read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick (or Frederich?) Engels so I downloaded a PDF of the book from oceanofpdf.com. However, the book I have is from Penguin Classics — I believe — and it has an introduction and notes from Gareth Stedmen Jones.

I'm not sure if I should read the entirety of the book, read a pure version of the manifesto, maybe read selections or something else. I want to consume this with the goal of comprehending what I'm reading. I'm new to socialism so I was wondering if there's a certain way to approach the manifesto.

Edit: spelling corrections.

Marx talked about a difference between a relationship between things vs a relationship between people. Is understanding commodity fetishization or the fetishization of money a difference in perspective between a thing and what it socially represents? The difference from “oh this one thousand dollars buys a phone” to “this thousand dollars is crystallized social labor“. One view credits the dollars for the acquisition of goods the other view credits the labor.

I'm arguing in a local FB group. Some person who I believe is maga only because he posts like 40 things a day saying how he loves trump and such but anyways I digress. He reposted a post into the page and it struck me as odd cause it says "The three biggest Killers of human life in history: Socialism/Communism, Islam, and Abortion. Democrats support all"

...

3 is odd to me because that list lists 4 and I point out that Socialism and Communism are different things.

But then instead of having a discussion about it, he's asking me questions about where I stand and whether I support socialist ideas like that matters more than the fact that he's conflating two ideologies. I then point out that the American government kinda uses socialism and has for a while but instead of continuing the conversation he then says "OP but what really matters is do you support that or are you a common sense america first person ???? ill wait"

How do you debate or even discuss matters like this with individuals like that? Also am I wrong that socialism and communism are different?

I wish I could add the screen shots of the comments and the post. I feel like he's a troll and it's best to block him 😂

So as far as I know pretty much every country has its own constitution in some way or another to define its structure

For example the US constitution establishes not only individual's rights but also senate potus and the courts along with what power they have to create/retire departments under them

So in a socialist society what would be the overall frame work?

Would the economic planners be solely in charge or would they be broken up into multiple groups?

I think that there are a couple of major problems, that the left must eventually overcome. What are these issues?

Well, for starters the left tends to suffer from the microbe of economization, which it probably inherited from the capitalistic imaginary.

The second issue -which i also think is quite important- is that it really doesn't deal with anthropology that much. The right sees only individuals, the left expands the mode of analysis to systemic/ institutional levels, but in the end both of them refuse to access to a sufficient degree the anthropological dimension.

Lets start with economization. I think the major problem of society is mainly a political one and not an economical one. Of course the economy and politics are interconnected, and one could say, that of course it is also a political one, but from what i can see, the left gives too much emphasis on the economic/social/ productive sphere, while it tends to ostracize the political life.

For instance, Michael Albert, an anarchist, has written a book, about giving a description for a post capitalist society. Inside it, he gives an extensive and detailed description about how workers would organize their working environment and how they would interact with consumers to distribute goods according to their needs.

However, there is very little or no emphasis given at all about the pure political arena. How would society be organized on political grounds, outside the working environment? The left tends to sideline this sphere in favor of the productive one. As a result historical socialism reproduced a monarchic/oligarchic political typology, where a few ruled over society, mirroring in some ways the liberal societies on that department.

There are a few thinkers like Boockhin and Castoriadis, who escaped from the concept of economization,and who think that the problem is mainly political not economical.

Lets now move forward to the problem of anthropology. The left tends to think that humans are born relatively decent, and develop problematic tendencies because of the functions of opressing institutions. Of course, to some degree, this is a valid observation.

However, they really dont analyse that deeply the human mind, its character, its ethos etc. They also tend to be anti-tradition, even though there are "conservative" traditions that can cutlivate responsible people that would be able to manage their own affairs.

This is especially true for the anarchist wing of the left. It is even more problematic in their case. The reason that it is even more problematic in their case, when compared to a communist, is that anarchists tend to support a more immediate or pure form of collective self management.

If you don't have a proper anthropology, how do you create a human typology that is able to self govern democratically itself and its society collectively? The demos must be made by a body of citizens who can face hardships, who have a feeling of responsibility, who come towards through face to face relationships with people they dislike etc. in order to make decisions for the common good.

The left talks about values such as cooperarion and mutual aid, but it lacks a rich and solid tradition that can cutlivate this human typology, one that will be able to reproduce and preserve a proletariat democracy, or a collective self-governance.

In short, a mature and highly demanding political typology requires an analogous mature human typology to fuel itself. Capitalism requires an immature typology to preserve itself, because it treats people simply as consumers, tourists, airport travellers, cosmopolitans etc.

This must be reversed, we can't accept ourselves as we are.

These two problems are interconnected, meaning socialism -as is largely understood today- doesn't escape outside this consumeristic paradigm. It might aim to give people goods according to their humane needs instead of purchasing power, but consumers they remain nonetheless.

It doesn't aim to produce autonomous citizens that can self-govern their demos collectively.That need doesn't arise because the even more mature techno-productive base of future communism, will be able to take care of people needs well enough, to the point that face to face participation for the common good will not be a priority or even a necessity.

The logic is that if we develop a better machine, that can give us a richer materialistic life then we should do it. This however will keep producing human typologies similar to the western ones today. Therefore the anthropological problem is not solved and neither the political one.

You can have an advanced productive base, which serves the needs of humanity, and that system could still cultivate self centered, hobbyist human personalities that can't relate to one another, and it could still have an oligarchic character as a matter of design.

The problem of freedom and that of community and relation doesn't get solved.

The left must realise that the political typology is the most important problem, otherwise it will keep developing monarchies or oligarchies in its attempt to overthrow the oligarchy of capitalism.

And it needs to take more seriously the anthropological dimension. That is my take.

As a Californian, I just do not see many socialists in California, compared to places like New York. Is there a reason why there aren't to many socialists in California?

While more and more I read theory more I understand the need of militat but is actually really hard in my city first I'm not from the US, and the only (relevant) exponent in my city is the RCP and frankly I don't agree so much with the trotskist ideas and their argument about a newspaper to awake class consciousness.

What should I do?

Hi, I have some socialist leanings and was curious about something. I'm certainly in favor of things like a wide array social safety nets, services, etc... However, I want to make sure I'm clear about a certain aspect. When I see right wingers argue against these things, they always defer to the arguments of "It's support through theft!" or "Where is all the money you need for that stuff gonna come from?!" and so forth. But to my understanding, wouldn't the money for these systems come from taxes? Like, I wanna make sure I'm not missing anything here. When I see people say these things, I assume they're either ignorant of how taxes and such work, or they're just outright bad faith. Help me understand this.

I watched Red Star's video on Trotskyism and why he doesn't align with it.

Among his criticisms were that "permanent/world revolution" isn't international proletarianism/solidarity that Trotskyists make it sound like, but rather a euro-centric (almost white supremacist?) idea that only Europeans can have a successful long-term revolution, and all revolutions outside of Europe that don't try to force the revolution penetratively into Europe are doomed to counterrevolutionary bureaucratization, or something to that effect. According to Red Star, Trotsky's justification for this was because only in Europe was the majority of society fully proletarianized, and peasantry are a reactionary/counter-revolutionary class. The implication of this is that all potential revolutionaries shouldn't agitate for revolutionary conditions and then capitalize on said revolutionary conditions through vanguard leadership, but rather "wait for the entire world to be ready for revolution".

This sounds pretty analogous to both the stereotype that radlibs have that Marxists are supposedly euro-centric (in fact, almost all successful Marxists have been outside of Europe). Though I think this is more just because "Marx is an old white guy" liberal identity politic rather than analysis of what Marxists say, this does seem to inadvertently align with Trotskyism. It also aligns with the Anarchist stereotype that Marxists don't work toward revolution but simply wait for some far off revolution to happen. Trotskyism implies that you have to wait for every proletarian of every country to magically have class consciousness and not be materially disinterested in revolution due to imperialism for any revolution.

Is my understanding of Trotskyism correct on this basis? I don't really want to read Trotsky when there's much better theory to read, so any commentary on my thoughts about the stereotypes and Trotskyism would be appreciated.

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I often see on the internet left wing and right wing politics, socialism, communism and libertarianism. I want to understand these concepts.

Can somebody recommend an easy to understand book which explains these concepts.

I am an american. I always have been. I also consider myself a socialist, by ideology not that i follow a specific political party. But lately I feel like socialist discourse in online spaces have become fairly accepting and/or complacent when it comes to imperialism. To the point where i can't even express the fact that i feel this way without everyone seemingly running in screaming "why havent you joined local groups!!!" Or "well vote vote vote!!!!"

I mean all good and dandy. But arent we just voting for a new imperialist leader. Isnt that what we are doing at the end of the day.

I do not want to hop on a socialist space and see non stop "we need a strong america"

Well i'll be honest. I consider myself a socialist and i want no america. Im not saying this needs to happen nor i'll make it happen. Of course i live here.

But it's just a name. If america split into two tomorrow. Is it just fuck everyone on the other side? I personally dont think so.

And its especially absurd to me when a socialist tells me something a republican does is wrong because "its not in the constitution".

Idk maybe im "too pessimistic". But id like someone to respond to what im saying. Not what "i mean to say".

Because nationalist movements have, at various points, co-opted socialist terminology and some socialist ideas, I was wondering what is the general consensus within the socialist movement is regarding nationalism.

Do socialists reject nationalism in ALL of its forms?

Some forms seem fairly obvious to me. Ethno-nationalism and racial nationalism, for sure are out, they seem fundamentally incompatible with socialist principles of equality and solidarity.

But what about other forms of nationalism, such as cultural nationalism?

And what about civic nationalism, which, as I understand it, defines the nation primarily in terms of shared citizenship, political institutions, and civic identity rather than ethnicity?

Is nationalism itself inherently antithetical to socialism, or is the relationship more complicated? In particular, is it possible to be a socialist while also identifying with or supporting a civic or cultural form of nationalism?

I'm asking this in good faith because I know socialism has a strong tradition of internationalism, workers of the world unite and all that, but I'm not sure whether internationalism necessarily means rejecting nationalism altogether.

Would it be ethical to work in finance and in particular impact investing since it can benefit people and communities?

Which the the essential writings of Lenin? Do i need to read the whole Capital - Marx before Lenin?