/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>1478488
Reformism IS practicality. You can't go straight to a command economy overnight, that's how you get the Great Chinese Famine. You need to accept that class struggle is going to increase under socialism, not decrease. Let some people get rich first.

>>1478504
I don't think I'm saying "push the red button revolution now", I understand that this is project many decades in the making. But all socialists once affirmed that it was the self-activity of the workers in civil society that laid the conditions for socialism and that the dotp was a social necessity. People want state capitalism without working for a dotp.

>>1478510
Underline their reality and make them self-aware. They only advocate for reformism out of personal comfort and their privileged position in the global order.

>>1478515
This is where I think the brunt of my resentment comes from, I can tell when people are anxious and trying not to confront uncomfortable political truths about the ephemeral and transitionary nature of capitalist society. But wouldn't you agree that the privilege and comfort discourse is ineffectual? I am trying to win people over to the side of socialism and to see that there is a real possibility for something better.

>>1478530
And you can. To a "socialism" that doesn't advocate for revolution, nor actually bring them any discomfort at any point. Work on class consciousness first.

>>1478488
forget about the tl;dr, I read your post (big mistake), here is something that indirectly answers your question
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/01/indifferentism.htm
tl;dr do what you can with what you have, don't use purity as an excuse

>>1478535
This is the thing - the people in this progressive milieu, whether they're inner-city yuppies, baristas or educated trade union members, they all seem to share a similar perspective on class. It's something they're aware of, but they lack the ability to be conscious of it like people were in the past. The extent that they acknowledge class is in terms of inequality, the rich get richer what have you, anything deeper than that I think is treated with suspicion.

>>1478547
This is a good polemic, for the sake of dialectics though I will lay out the typical counter-response from the indifferentist progressive: "That was in 1874 when they were struggling for the 10 hour day, since then we have improved our position and gained reforms so that type of action is no longer necessary."

Obviously it's fallacious, and they fail to understand how any of these reforms were achieved, but it still is a successful talking point for those who don't have a Marxist background.

It sounds as if you're just assuming for granted that they're anti-capitalist already, when that's really a niche point-of-view, even among the left.
>omg the left isn-
The left is whoever is on one side of the relevant parliament. Any other appropriation is a weird form of identity politics. Deal with it.
In Australia, the left is primarily capitalist succdems with some green characteristics.

So, to come out and just assume them to sympathize with a direct critique of capitalism itself is a wild jump, and not many will take that jump with you in a single conversation. If they don't already see signs that the system is wildly broken, they're probably not ready to see the system as the issue.
Additionally, pointing out that they're in line with the police is obvious (they're the fucking government who make the laws police are paid to enforce) and most people just by default see the police as a necessary force. They've probably never experienced or seen police abuse, beyond a couple of 'bad eggs' that can be rationalized away. Labor supporters don't think society needs to be overthrown, and you sound like a violent lunatic to them if you tell them it does.
It's not that you need to learn basic social skills, it's that you need to apply empathy and rhetoric to make more gradual questions that are appropriate to their current worldview and guide them in the right direction without jumping to the extreme conclusions

and an inb4
Polls have verified the obvious: most people in 5EYES don't think the word 'socialism' has anything to do with means of production.
So even if someone says they're a socialist, there's an actual chance they're not an anti-capitalist and they see no contradiction.

>>1478560
Look dude, you don't need to make wild characterisations of how I talk to people, I'm pretty lowkey. I think it's the nature of chan board to assume everyone is socially retarded, it's not the case. I have never glorified violence to anyone.

In the specific instances I'm recalling these are typical "ACAB land never ceded" type of individuals who have a superficial type of critique of society and reveal themselves to be anti-Marxist in a lot of their thinking. When I mention the police, I'm referring to concrete examples where our state police collaborates with the FBI for state surveillence technologies, or how Labor stacks all sorts of watchdog commissions. A lot of this knowledge is relevant to my work.

I hear what you're saying and it is fair enough, my strategy already is basic socratic dialectic, but it's pretty obvious to see where the conditioning is just enmeshed with some people across all social classes.

>>1478569
>I think it's the nature of chan board to assume everyone is socially retarded
You have a point but seriously, I'm not assuming you're retarded. It just sounds from what you've said that you're pushing arguments which they're not likely to be receptive to, possibly because they're sheltered, hence their reactions.
>I have never glorified violence to anyone.
I'm not even saying you are, but the concept of revolution and denial of reform suggests it. To say 'capitalism is bad' invokes themes of socialist dictatorship by the big bad Lenin and Mao!

>In the specific instances I'm recalling these are typical "ACAB land never ceded" type of individuals who have a superficial type of critique of society and reveal themselves to be anti-Marxist in a lot of their thinking.
Ah, these details cut out a lot more guesswork. I assumed it was more just the 'Liberals bad' crowd.
Maybe it would be worth seeing what their ideas of reform are and suggesting that they may not be effective. But by the sounds of it, that's your approach already… not sure how it would lead to talking about police collaboration with the FBI though.

And yeah, conditioning is the right word. There's some walls to break down before we can even say obvious things like "China has no interest in military invasion of Australia, and North Korea aren't going to try and nuke us."

>I am always disappointed by their self-admitted reformism described as "practicality".
It depends on what you're trying to do innit? Are you just trying to spread class consciousness? Or are you aiming for something more? Like actual organizing, maybe even strikes? As always, remember your historical materialism and choose an appropriate method, don't do for the sake of doing.

>>1478584
>There's some walls to break down before we can even say obvious things like "China has no interest in military invasion of Australia, and North Korea aren't going to try and nuke us."

This in particular is very frustrating, there is a lot of fearmongering, misinformation and double standards being used to demonize China here, and none of it is placed towards our own governments. I am not a Xi-head or a Dengist, so I think some criticism of China is fine if you at least have some cursory knowledge of the history or a genuine interest, but it's very apparent when the media narrative has taken root. There are hour long 60 minutes reports that are psychologically preparing a significant part of the population for war.

I recall Lenin in Imperialism talking about how certain sections of the working class and the reserve army become bourgeoisified and led into chauvinism by the ruling class. I feel like I'm seeing this in real time when before people were pretty apathetic about geopolitics.

>>1478590
>Are you just trying to spread class consciousness? Or are you aiming for something more?

I'm limiting my discussion to class consciousness, how to best represent my position to people who are apolitical and can be persuaded to socialist politics. I do legal work for refugees, and I've assisted in some local electoral campaigns for socialists. I talk to a lot of people and hear them out on all sorts of issues. What I encounter frequently is an anxious resistance to economic critique.

>I understand people are responding to their class interests but I also believe that the superstructure has confused people about some of these issues.
Your idea about the superstructure is definitely right. I feel like even those that nominally dislike capitalism have been instilled with too much faith in liberalism, to the point where they will side with that over socialism. They don't understand class society because they don't understand that issues can be systemic under liberalism, they hold the assumption that any problems can be voted away. Even if you get them to agree with you on a few issues, people refuse to support anything outside of the approved political spectrum, because they assume that those these ideas would get represented more if they had any serious basis. Any overt attempts to assail liberalism instantly discredit you in their eyes, bringing forth the image of big bad dictators that starved 19 billion peasants for fun.

>>1478603
Interesting perspective, I've definitely ruminated on this before but it's easy to fall into a type of doomerist nihilism about the potential for any type of socialist politics in Western countries which I think is defeatist.

Just on your point about liberalism, I actually prefer people that describe themselves as liberals because at the very least you can discuss what in their mind constitutes freedom and where it came from. What is their idea of "the good life", what is their ideal of democracy, what is "unfreedom", is voting between two parties really "true democracy" etc.

With progressives what I notice that's distinct, and maybe some people have different experiences, is that they think everything in society can be managed and controlled by a technocrat. Or that there is some guiding rationality and secret plan that capitalist politicians have to bring us progress.

>>1478611
>I've definitely ruminated on this before but it's easy to fall into a type of doomerist nihilism about the potential for any type of socialist politics in Western countries which I think is defeatist.
I get your outlook, but I definitely have some faith in socialist politics, but I only think they'll come into fruition when things get really, really bad. Weimar Germany saw the rise of Hitler while the communists bided their time waiting to win the elections, and the socialist wave brought about the Great Depression was mostly quelled in the West with some sucdem reforms

>With progressives what I notice that's distinct, and maybe some people have different experiences, is that they think everything in society can be managed and controlled by a technocrat. Or that there is some guiding rationality and secret plan that capitalist politicians have to bring us progress.
I feel like progressives and liberals are both guided by the just world fallacy, the idea that "if it works it's right, if not it's wrong". The support of technocrats and politicians is key to this, thinking that "these people are smart so they are capable of fixing society, and the problems we have now are because unfit people are in charge". Either way it's divorced from socialist thought and based in one of the key aspects of the capitalist superstructure.

Personally, I find the few people that are honestly apolitical to be very fascinating. They dislike the way things are and don't harbor any illusions about the government being right just because it's in power, but they also don't have any faith in alternative ideologies to make any major change. Just political malaise, doomerism, if you will.

>>1478621
>Personally, I find the few people that are honestly apolitical to be very fascinating.

There's a good piece by Tad Tietze and Elizabeth Humphrys on this https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2014/isj2-144/tietze-humphrys.html

I like the conclusion in particular:

"It is possible that this wave of anti-politics will end with “the political” reasserting itself in a new form on some quite different social basis, but without overturning capitalism – that is, if there is no social emancipatory movement that can come out on top instead.

Recognising “anti-politics” is not the same as negating intervention in the political sphere. But it means that the goal of such interventions is to surpass the alienated sphere of the political instead of perpetuating it. We cannot conjure social struggles out of thin air, but neither do we do ourselves any favours by pre-empting them with the demand they conform to the rules of the political game."

This was written a couple of years ago, but basically they consider it a net positive that normal people have disdain for the soup of politics. I agree with some of the analysis but I also think in the years since this may have backfired because anti-political people have embraced new religiosity, Q-anon conspiracy theories or on the left a sort of boutique lifestyle anarchism.

>>1478488
have you tried organizing them into some political action with you, or into education? I feel like a collaborative approach might get you somewhere. I know some libs that have moved left after actually getting involved in activism. They might just need some social guidance in order to encounter experiences they were missing. (and either way, its another person putting in some work)

>>1478552
People will treat anything new with suspicion, take it in stride. The burden of proof is on you, after all. The narrative of "rich get richer" and inequality is the mainstream left narrative. It's a decent jumping off point, but obviously very flawed. Secondly, you talk about how things are better now than when we had to fight for the 10 hour workday, and that's true, but now go and identify the specific acute struggles that already exist, and maybe even go to those people for politics, rather than your starbucks coworkers or college kids. Go where the struggle is, rather than trying to educate everyone on the struggles. The latter is important too, but the most success in that comes from strong self-advocating organizations struggling against their acute oppressions they experience. It's pointless to go to people who are relatively comfortable and convince them that there's a systemic logic to other people being uncomfortable and they should help do something about it because it could be them next, or they'll get some gain, or something. A key rhetorical principal is that people need to be made to care about what you're saying for them to engage, remember it, and be moved to action. The principle of communist organizing (or maybe we could just say, intelligent systemic organizing) is building power among people in similar conditions, self-knowledge and self-confidence; i.e. concentricity. You just need to worry about standing tall in your own boots, work on yourself, work on organizing with others to meet your collective needs, and advocate for your collective struggles. It's personal.

>>1478560
i like your post anon
I want to add to the point on how even most on the left are not abolitionists, and they are not revolutionaries, they support the structures they see around them because they take them for granted, and the idea of outright smashing and re-making our political system is a big leap in general not just for them.

We need to be totally tolerant of these seemingly myopic or empiricist attitudes, because really they're just uneducated. Not everyone has time, or has the strength of belief in theory and abstraction, to educate themselves on the history of oppression and social movements and then conclude that we will need revolution. But the lived circumstances will lead us to see the need for revolution either way, and so it's primarily the duty of communists to lead the way through all the twists and turns of the present, like a helmsman, and convince the people by showing them what's in front of their eyes of the need to throw our strength behind each maneuver. It's not about projecting far into the future and convincing everyone of this. It's enough some people know, in order to see the correct course of action. Mass education, especially in politics, will only come after we have control of education and means to provide it for all, equally, as well as the needed security to children and adults pursuing continued education.

>>1478569
hey OP, i used to be one of those "ACAB land never ceded" people and I was explicitly anti-marxist (even after reading some marx and lenin and getting into shallow marxist economics!). I got hit with reality when i came onto some materially hard times and I was really humbled by people's generosity and I kind of reversed course away from the individualism, and I began studying lenin and stalin, and finally I read marx again and it was just so different this time around… I just want you to know my journey so maybe you can make something of it. I think i needed an attitude adjustment, as well as personal development, as well as a real education on the fundamentals of socialism that i never got before, or that never stuck.

>>1478594
re: china
libs still have to hold some dissonance, e.g. being generally anti-war but being anti-our-enemy, or being against racism and hate crimes but seeing the chauvinst mobilization against asians. I think in general this neutralizes them. It's easy to look on the level of rhetoric, and the level of citizen mobilization, and be horrified to think that libs are actually supporting, but from what I see it's just that they are the intermediate, they will be swayed by the media and its our job to be patient with them but stand strong on the correct approach, to remind them of their better instincts against racism and against war, on the history of imperialism, on the aggressive stance of the US globally, etc. These people are confused and are not the ones being mobilized against China the hardest, they are on the fence in actions.

>What I encounter frequently is an anxious resistance to economic critique.
Economic critique is taboo, but the real problem is democracy and control of companies anyways right? Purge the general contradiction from your mind, purge "anti-capitalism" from how you think about the problems, and deal with particular contradictions and particular critiques, because these are less scary to people and also less nebulous and less able to be simply dismissed.

>>1478603
what's wrong with the idea that all problems can be voted away? If they let us, we could vote in a new constitution, we could vote in a new system of democracy, we could vote in everything we need to only only make necessary changes but ensure our power into the future… what makes this impossible is the resistance we'll get from the right. But the nature of this resistance is anti-democratic. So in actuality we're aligned with the liberals on this. History will prove the need to fight to make democracy a reality when we come up strongly against the limits of our democracy and have a pressing need to implement reforms.

>>1478625
oh sorry i said US imperialism somewhere in there but ur aussie i forgot

>>1478625

>have you tried organizing them into some political action with you, or into education?
I'm a part of an anti-AUKUS coalition which has seen some positive growth here and support from a few intellectuals, but it's unfortunately still minor and the unions are extremely conservative. I have contacts on the left and I've attended some events.

>I think i needed an attitude adjustment, as well as personal development, as well as a real education on the fundamentals of socialism that i never got before, or that never stuck.
I appreciate the anecdote and that might constitute a significant minority of society, but for the most part here there is complete ignorance, I'm sorry to say. Other people fall on hard times and they might fall back on their religion, or another media driven narrative.

>>1478488
>that mandatory QR codes disguised as state surveillance are necessary and progressive because "the government is doing things"
Wait what?

>>1478488
Communists parties are so unpopular (except some countries in global south) that some kind cooperation is needed on proletarian class related issues.

>>1478756
I have a silly idea
What about the CPA and a coalition of SAlt, SEP and sallies replace the labor and coalition?
ACP can be the greens?

>>1478488
>I find it to be exhausting because whenever I make a point that these so-called social democratic parties are state capitalist and designed to protect a specific type of social organisation, or that they are in line with the police and other state-bureaucratic organisations etc. they look like at me like I'm a relic or instantly begin defending the status quo.
Although you mention using a Socratic approach elsewhere in the thread, this in the OP makes it sound otherwise, at least in some cases. Maybe it's just an abbreviation of the overall argument, but one thing you might need to control is the immediate reaction.

Of course, there has to be something like an objection at first, but that doesn't require a worked-out position as well, only an initial moment of doubt or reluctance to go along. Socratic eudaemonia was essentially that: warning of problems or errors. Carrying them to different conclusions requires more (and more time) than just that, but it's a start.

>>1478504
>You can't go straight to a command economy overnight, that's how you get the Great Chinese Famine
This applies more to the Chinese/developing world context. "Letting some people get rich" is what is already done in the first world, and the national bourgeoisie has moved on to becoming an imperialist bourgeoisie. Unless Australia is an even bigger shithole then I realized.

All these posts and yet nobody has proposed the easiest and most effective way of dealing with fascism: a bullet

>>1478892
I remember when Josef Stalin saved the world from the Nazis by engaging them in debate! How inspiring!(14 a,c,d,f)

>>1478894
OP is clearly talking about converting lib-leftists. Your answer to bring people who are receptive to our beliefs is to shoot them.

>>1478744
I guess he means this?

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/27/qr-code-check-ins-useless-in-australias-omicron-wave-but-experts-urge-for-them-to-stay

Yet more anti lockdown schizo posting

>>1478899
>libs and western leftists
>receptive to communism
You’re joking right? Left anti-communism is easily the dominant and most hostile form of reaction in our time. It’s the anti-communist left that’s at the forefront of cheering on the genocides of the Russian and Chinese people for the sake of their “true socialism” or “muh gays”. Those people are about as far from Marxism as you can get and above all have no connection to the working class

>>1478902
6/10 bait
here is your (you)

>>1478902
You're too harsh, first of all they may be fooled but they are more receptive than rightoids, at least liberals are tricked by concerns about human rights and genocide, the right are upset that the government isn't doing enough genocide and foreigners are allowed in, furthermore liberals often think of communism as 'a wonderful idea that doesn't work in practice' whereas rightists think all communists should be killed and hierarchy is justified and essential.

Tldr yes liberals can be tiresome but not all liberals are equally bad and they're still closer to socialism than the right

>>1478905
That’s only because they think communism is what their universities and other institutions tell them it is, a free love wonderland where nobody works and everyone is gay and smokes weed and spends all day drawing furry pornography. The moment they learn that communism is an ideology of action, industry, patriotism, and growth, they recoil and shout “NAZBOL!!! TANKIE!!!” and immediately do what they can to dedicate themselves further to communism’s destruction. Ask any one of these liberals what their opinion is on Lysenko, assuming they don’t immediately freak out you’ll learn just how irredeemably indoctrinated they are when they mindlessly argue for Mendelianism. By contrast, those opposed to liberalism are at least socially closer to the communist movement and can be convinced, as seen with the Iranian Revolution

>>1478902
Stawman harder asshole, or just get off the damn internet for a while.

In a similar vein, can someone help me in how i would talk to someone like this:
>believes communism is inevitable
>at least purports to be well versed in Marxist thought
>namedrops situationists, bordiga etc.
>is bourgeois liberal family type
>claims there is no argument that isn't moralism to convince them to engage in praxis
they say they'll seriously listen to any answer i can provide but i'm stuck

>>1478912
Libleftists are closer to communism than you are.

>>1478950
I mean.
Some people are just going to refuse to do anything. They might be motivated to know about communism out of curiosity and interest and not because they think it needs to be pushed. The whole idea that it's inevitable can make people feel like they don't need to do anything and it'll happen automatically. Being a family type also lines up with that. A lot of people have the attitude that as long as they're personally doing alright they don't want to rock any boats, especially if they believe that everything will turn out ok in the end (there are many variations on this, both "communism is inevitable" and the Steven Pinker shit about how things are getting better are variations of optimistic fatalism that can pacify people from doing anything).

>>1478950
Tell him it's fun, or at least less boring

>>1478912
Communism accomplishes both and you're silly to think otherwise.

>>1479221
this is also what debord argued for essentially in SotS, iirc

>>1479623
no thats more of a Vaneigem-type critique as in RoEL

honestly i think part of it is that there is no way to 'betray your class' as such in the West anymore. it used to be, if you were born bourgeois, you could become a class traitor of sorts and join your local Communist Party. nowadays, wealthy American liberal can only use twitter or something. i dont know, i'm drunk.

>>1478488
>I am more often than not confronted by a lot of political illiteracy and miseducation
Uneducated people are products of a failed system. The target of our ruthlessness should be the system that fails them. The system that produces them.

>>1478902
> “muh gays”

i'm sick of reactionaries falling for (or more likely pretending to fall for) imperialist pinkwashing propaganda. I see this ridiculous cycle over and over again where burger king will put a pride flag on their fucking whopper wrapper and then a bunch of reactoids will go "seee!!!!! see!!!!!!! CAPITALISM IS ACTUALLY WOKE AND GAY!!!!!!!"

you absolute FAGGOTS (yes) salivate at the opportunity to throw LGBT under the bus any time some missile manufacture uses them as an excuse for why they're doing imperialism, as though it were their actual mission to bomb the 3rd world into being nice to trans people, rather than some kind of flimsy pretext to justify business as usual. It's so fucking transparent how easily (and possibly deliberately) you take porky at his word when he says imperialism and capitalism are about human rights and fighting discrimination. Fuck you.

>>1479804
Anon that person is clearly bait posting

>>1479766
The Catholic Church is the primary source of them.

>>1479824
Is it bait if you wre sincerely passing it off as truth and implying you believe it whether you do or not? sounds to me like cowardice and unwillingness to be open and upfront about what one is trying to suggest, and instead trying to weasly suggest it without taking a stand

Good topic

>>1478912
>an ideology of action
yes
>industry
industry for the sake of eliminating scarcity. not industry for the sake of profit
>patriotism
national and racial chauvinism are vestiges of parasitism
>and growth
growth for the sake of eliminating scarcity, not growth for growth's sake.

>they recoil and shout “NAZBOL!!! TANKIE!!!” and immediately do what they can to dedicate themselves further to communism’s destruction.
libs are simultaneously harmless virtue signaling morons who only ever complain about their feefees and bad words, and the biggest threat to communism ever devised