You’re confusing the way people behave in some forms of organization with the way people behave in all circumstances and forms of organization. The idea of a universal human nature that exists in static form, outside of its context, is idealism, ie an appeal to the supernatural. Further still, socialist governments and parties have all been very large, the CPC for example has 100 million people.

I don’t personally take much stock in fiction as a means to explain reality. Orwell was an anti-semitic British fed that kept a list of Jews and communists. His projection in Animal Farm and 1984 are taught in western schools for the very reason you are reminded of them, to discourage socialist organizing at a young age.

Read when you gain interest! If you force yourself, you won’t retain any of it, or you’ll take the wrong message.

Yep, right here, I believe.

Loving your Parenti-series of posts as of late! For anyone that hasn’t read or listened to the late Michael Parenti before, I highly recommend the “Yellow Parenti” Speech on US interventionism, the third world, and the USSR and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook. His lecture on “Inventing Reality” is also excellent.

For more works on the general question of reform vs. revolution, I recommend Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution | Audiobook, as well as Lenin’s The State and Revolution | Audiobook.

For learning about Marxism-Leninism in general, I recommend my intro ML reading list.

Lemmy.ml is one of the big communist instances, sure, but in no way fascist nor fascist collaborators. Communists support collectivization of production and distribution via establishing socialism, economies where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes are in control of the state. Fascism is about cementing capitalism and bourgeois rule in countries where capitalism has decayed. These stand diametrically opposed.

On Lemmy.ml’s meme communities, you see lots of leftist memes. Fascists are banned, as well as fascist memes.

Administration is not itself a class, and is necessary for any large-scale economy. Marxism opposes capitalism in theory and in practice. Management of industry is not the same as owning said industry. Marxism has never been about eliminating managament, because managers are not a class in and of themselves, but instead a section of the proletariat that perform necessary roles in coordinating production, distribution, and logistics.

Where did you get the idea that Marxists oppose administration from? It certainly isn’t found within Marx and Engels’ writings, without severe misunderstanding. Moreover, you’re displaying black and white thinking in believing administration under socialism is the same as capitalist ownership outright.

Every Western country is a mix of capitalism and socialism.

Capitalism and socialism are modes of production, ie descriptors for the principle aspect of a given economy. Having a public sector does not mean you have a socialist sector, just like having a private sector does not mean you have a capitalist sector. Public sectors in capitalism serve to support the private, and private sectors in socialism support the public. Determining which aspect is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries, and which class controls the state, is how we check for capitalism vs. socialism.

The US absolutely should move towards the socialism end but capitalism won’t vanish, most importantly because it’s detractors never offer a viable alternative.

Socialism is a viable alternative, see the PRC, where public ownership is the principle aspect and the working classes control the state.

Pretty much a guarantee that a big chunk of people wasting time and resources on an internet discussion board are in some way benefitting from capitalism.

The English-speaking internet does have a large portion of labor aristocrats, ie those who benefit from super-exploiting the global south, but that doesn’t mean socialism isn’t a necessary advance. Imperialism is decaying, thankfully, which necessitates socialism, not to mention the moral victory.

A less colonialist term for “citizen of the USA.”

Yea, it’s always a tightrope.

Whenever people ask me about politics at work beyond being vaguely progressive

I’m aware that Ukraine is in Europe, I was responding to their comment in the format they made it in.

You’re looking more at what the capitalists used to overthrow the aristocracy while entrenching their own rule here. Marx was an atheist, and built on the labor theory of value, for example. However, these liberal values were made with a mechanistic materialist outlook, not a dialectical materialist outlook, and as such could not actually stand for proletarian liberation.

Marxism is secular, has the labor theory of value, etc, but not because Marx was a staunch liberal and believed capitalism to not be capable of fulfilling these. Rather, he built upon what was already created to build new ideology.

No problem!

🫠

Haha, I appreciate it!

Brunch isn’t bad itself!

That’s a great comment, thanks for linking it! And ReadFanon hit the nail on the head, so to speak, we have to train and practice for revolution, while being cognizant that distrusting any and all formalized structure sets us back, as these formalized structures appear whether we acknowledge them de jure or not. Jo Freeman’s essay is also wonderful for showing how we really need to formalize vanguards, so as to legitimately democratize them and prevent people from naturally dominating the space.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that any large-scale organization will lead to greed, corruption, injustice, et al.

Why? Seriously, think about it. Are you appealing to a supernatural explanation like “human nature,” or a materialist answer? Is the presence of any corruption or greed unacceptable or incapable of countering with structures and checks?

It’s only since I’ve been reading about ML that I learned I lean anarchist. Vanguard parties sound like a bad idea to me.

Why are vanguards a bad idea, in your eyes? The working class should organize, and the most politically advanced should organize in parties. Can you imagine if we refused to let scientists perform research? If we refused to let surgeons handle surgery? Why should revolution be any different? Any long-term, complex project should be led by those who study and train for it.

Copying over @Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 's comment reply to you:

This is a very idealistic view of history. Ideology did not create material conditions, material conditions created ideology (and ideology was used as a tool to reinforce material conditions)

The slavery, genocide, capitalism and colonialism came first. Then liberalism was created to justify it. And I do want to emphasise that all of those 4 things were justified using liberal logic, that was the point of liberal logic.

The first liberals deemed the “unenligtened” to be subhuman, incapable or governing themselves, worthy of being treated like livestock and as fundamental threats to the ruling order. This was their justification for doing everything they did, you can read their writings on native Americans and Africans and see exactly what classical liberalism was all about.

Later waves of liberals ended up using liberal logic to abolish slavery. Great. But the reason they did this was because the capitalist mode of production had superceded the slave mode of production. The surplus of proletariats hated competing with slaves and having their wages be reduced. Meanwhile the northern bourgeoise often had friction with the southern planters since the planters were rentiers extracting wealth from the whole economy like parasites.

Modern liberals now proclaim themselves to be great champions of “liberty” (the liberty for the bourgeoise to buy property), but they by in large continue to support capitalism and western imperialism*. And frankly, why wouldn’t they? That was what the ideology was created for.

*you can see this in their insistence upon using “white man’s burden” arguments whenever foreign intervention comes up

I’m both a Statesian and a communist, sure.