/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2802160
>general labour unions
Class unions?

>>2802163
General trade unions like Unite and GMB in the UK have around 1.7 million members, collectively and span various industries.
>>2802162
How do you mean? You generally pay a membership fee in a union, so if someone is forcing you to pay something, they're robbing you.

what the FUCK is a human being anyway?

Is there any contemporary marxist literature about the gig economy?

>>2804486
A very intelligent monkey.

>>2804508
Shameless bump with peak for attention

>>2805685
breen is peak not just for the unintentional comedy but also because its literally how your typical Qanon-flat earth-antivaxxer burger views themselves in relation to everyone else, history and the world in general.

How does a communist state look like? A single party like in the GDR?

Is left-wing politics good or bad?

>>2805969
historically speaking there have been one party states, communists that win on a regular basis in multiparty elections, societies that outright reject having a nation-state in the first place and everything in between. It can vary a lot depending on the material conditions.

>>2805969
a communist state is an oxymoron. communism is stateless.
for a description of the form of a socialist state i recommend reading anton pannekoek.

>>2805969
The GDR did not have a single party

>>2792624
the anon you are replying to is quoting marx in gothakritik and the rest of that paragraph after his quote explains exactly what you explain here.

How to handle my Eastern European friend who claims they were traumatized by communism?

>>2806225
Don't. As someone living in the butthurt belt, you can tell these people any idea you have for socialism and they'll still equate it with the worst aspects of the Stalin years or call their own capitalist countries communist and bad. It's a special kind of mental illness born from nationalism and having a failed form of socialism imposed upon your state

>>2806225
Just tell him it wasnt real communism.

>>2804508
Any specific questions you have regarding 'gig economy'? I ask because in the end 'gig economy' merely is a fancy word describing a way for capital to deminish or outright ignore whatever is left of workers' rights. So to understand the destitution of a worker without any rights or leverage to enforce his demands you can just read Marx and other 'classic Marxists'.

>>2806225
Just insult them or laugh at them. Tell them yes, it was in fact better than the system we have today. If they can't handle it that's on them.

>>2806247
Just broadly what a gig worker's relation is to the means of production. How does a gig worker sieze the means of production if the means of production is an electronic app?
Are gig workers a new class within late stage capitalism, similar to a guild journeyman who own their own tools, but are unable to sell their labour other than at a value dictated by the guild master (uber, doordash, amazon)?

>>2806225
ask what specifically traumatized them, I'd bet money it's something that happened after 1989-1991

Why didn't guilds ever have the same class consciousness as unions once had?
….Or did they?

If globalism is capitalists wet dream, why is nationalism not considered left wing?

>>2806538
Left and Right are both bourgeois politics

>>2806444
>Just broadly what a gig worker's relation is to the means of production
Same as for any other worker: he doesn't own means of production. He has to sell his labour power to survive. The novelty is that this happens via an information service provided by a monopolist via an 'App'. Stuff that before the rise of these platforms already was facilitatet by telephone books, black boards, homepages such as craig's list.
>if the means of production is an electronic app?
These apps are not means of production. These apps are systems to distribute information. While they offer some form of information service to the users that results in some (perceived) level of convenience, they primarily aim to become monopolistic platforms taking the form of basic infrastructure to then extract rent from the users. They don't produce. The way they are structured and positioned in capitalism, is mostly parasitic.
>Are gig workers a new class within late stage capitalism
No. They are not even a new class in capitalism. They are merely workers without job securtiy and with even less workers' rights than a conventionally employed worker. They are akin to day labourers and are close to (becoming) 'Lumpenproles'.
>similar to a guild journeyman
Not really. Guilds were a form of organizing (skilled) labour and represent interests in the middle ages. They faded away alongside the development of capitalism. One could argue that trading guilds facilitated the development of capitalism but thats a different matter.
>other than at a value dictated by the guild master (uber, doordash, amazon)
As mentioned earlier: uber, doordash, amazon (mechanical turk) etc. connect supply side and demand side and integrate a myriad of information services to do so. They do not, primarily, organize how the actual providers of the 'downstream service' do the work to provide their service. Nor do they dictate how many workers are allowed to offer their work via the platform. They provide an interface via which users interact.

>>2806444
>How does a gig worker sieze the means of production if the means of production is an electronic app?
Build another one. I read about a city in North America running an Uber alternative, but I forgot which one.

Isn't it kinda funny that the guys who went out and made actual experimental societies in the real world are the utopian socialists, and the guys who sat around in libraries speculating about future society are the scientific socialists.

>>2807535
Idiotic idealist nonsense from someone with 0 understanding of history

those people in libraries used that knowledge to organize those reading groups into revolutionary vanguards that were able to mobilize a militant working class by participating within the struggle and establishing solidarity instead of petite bourgeoisie dream of dropping out of the struggle and being a collective of property owners that support each other but have no incentive to actually participate in the liberation of the working class as a whole and who inevitably die out or get crushed

>>2807540
>Utopian socialists were actually counter-revolutionary opportunists
You know nothing. Robert Owen spent his life in the annals of power trying to establish a global revolution based in his model of a new society.

>>2807545
0 comprehension you dont think maybe the entire reason that it didnt work at all is because when people drop out of society it removes them from struggle

>>2807548
Owen frequently petitioned the British government to enact his reforms and even gave a cost analysis of the materials needed. He was not attempting to remove himself from society, but to prove the efficacy of a new way of society to exist by; what he called the "rational system" of society.
>the reason it didnt work
Why didn't Europe become communist?
Because Marx was a petit-bourgeois opportunist?

>>2807569
except half of europe was

>>2807584
>It was
Why isn't it anymore?

>>2807591
stalinism

>>2807169
Thank you for the consise response.

>>2807737
>>2807686
You must be over 18 to use this website.

>>2806521
They did, but it's an apples/oranges comparison. Guild members weren't proletarians, but typically self-employed artisans, or even members of the nascent pre-industrial bourgeoisie. They owned their own means of production, employed workers (typically apprentices), and sold commodities for a living. Marx specifically cites them as the precursors of the industrial bourgeoisie as a class.

I don't understand what is "riseup.net", does anyone have experiences using their tools?

What does mean when a post says (me) or (you) after it? Is that to show that a poster is responder to xirself? Does it say (you) because of my IP range? Cause it's usually not (me) or (you) when I read them. Thanks,
t. new channer

>>2810091
Yes, (you) means the post is made from the same IP address.
If you use a public IP address, then it can relate to different posters.

Anyone got a good book that gives a good overview of "Maoism", whatever that means?

I just have no god damn clue

>>2810891
start with the little red book maybe

>>2810101
I'm pretty sure the (you) are made locally from your browser cookies actually. They can get fucked sometimes after a crash and backup restore. You can clear them in the options (top right, in the ribbon with boards links)

>>2811160
Lets experiment then; clear your data and then reply to yourself.

Oh marx I ate too much pizza and now my tummy hurts, why did capitalism make me do this?

>>2811154
You can't learn anything from some dispersed quotations

>>2810891
There have been lots of textbooks and 'basic courses' on maoism, like file related from a maoist book publisher. I'm not sure if you're looking for that or something more like a history of maoist parties.

>>2810891
Take a look at whatever seems interesting:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/index.htm

>>2811154
I can't remember a damn thing from that. Just a collection of tiny snippets lacking context.

Is scarcity enforced?

>>2815351
It is "enforced" by our systems of distribution, if thats what you mean:
<In the EU, over 58 million tonnes of food waste (129 kg/inhabitant) are generated annually (Eurostat, 2025), with an associated market value estimated at 132 billion euros […] At the same time, almost 42 million people cannot afford a quality meal every second day
https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/food-waste_en
There is enough food to feed the whole world, yet so much is wasted because it isnt sold.

Asked this in the China general but didn't get much response.

Could someone give me a quick rundown on the hukou system? Dividing the populace into strictly defined urban and rural classes with distinct rights seems totally antithetical to communism, but I'm open to the idea that there's nuance I'm missing as an outsider.