I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
No, I did not forget. I was specifically referring to the post war period. That’s why I ask that you analyze countries over time. If you want extra points, analyze a country pre-Revolution as compared to post-Revolution, then compare them with their contemporaries as they stand within global geopolitics. For example, Cuba was and still is brutally sanctioned, but retains a high life expectancy, literacy rate, and so forth, even beating blow for blow with the US on those.
Would you mind giving a contemporary example of a “pro-democracy protest” in China? According to Harvard, the CPC has an over 90% approval rate among their citizens. I am not saying these protests don’t exist, but they should be taken at a broader context. The Economist’s Democracy Index is an index that measures Private Propety rights and Liberal Democracy, Socialist states are designed to lose these. The US loses too just a bit because it has lower economic mobility than Social Democracies. President Diaz-Canal is the current non-Castro President of Cuba. Is your argument that George W. Bush should have been barred from office because H.W. preceded him?
Libertarianism does not mean freedom of press and people. Libertarianism specifically refers to small government. If you want to see it in action, see the Chiapas region. Marx is in favor of a Socialist and eventual Communist government, this does not mean the press does not have freedom or the people, it just means the state is publicly run and operated. Read Engels On Authority if you have questions about this.
Fair enough about mislabeling you a Trot. However, the rest of the comment needs to be addressed. Politics is entirely the product of Material reality. People are driven by their Material Conditions, not just random vibes! This is crucial.
When I say you are being an Idealist, I mean you have been arguing off of Vibes and not Metrics. You don’t have clear measures of Material Reality, you have been arguing using your preconcieved notions and optics. That, in my opinion, is a problem when discussing what remains to be done by Leftists like yourself and me.
That all being said, I do appreciate you accepting to read theory. I still have The Conquest of Bread on my reading list (coincidentally, Lenin was a big fan of Kropotkin and debated him in person). I’ll give a short reading list if that helps:
Critique of the Gotha Programme - Karl Marx Covers a criticism of a contemporary (to Marx) Socialist program, with advocacy for what he believes to be a better path
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Engels Goes ovef Utopianism, Scientific Socialism, and Historical Materialism. Crucial for understanding the philosophical aspects of Marxism and more relevant to our conversation addresses the failures of Utopian Idealists like the Owenites and how Scientific Socialism fixes this
On Authority - Engels goes over Anarchism vs Marxism, and what it means to use a state
Bonus Section! Only if YOU want further understanding, if the previous sections leave you confused or wanting more
How Marxism Works - Chris Harman written as a short, 40 or so page pamphlet going over the absolute basics of Marxism, from a Trotskyist perspective (even MLs recommend this work). You can read this one instead of any of the above if you are short on time or care
The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism - V.I. Lenin 1 page summary of Marxism from Lenin’s perspective. This is the sparknotes for the sparknotes, but leaves a lot out.
State and Revolution and Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism - V.I. Lenin These are the ones you could choose to read if you want to understand exactly where a Marxist-Leninist is coming from. This is 80% of Lenin’s major contributions to Marxism, it goes over the role of the State within the context of revolution, and how Capitalist states resorted to export of Capital to the third world to super-exploit workers for super-profits in much of Western Europe and America in order to combat The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, leading these countries to develop far quicker and slow the development of third world countries.