/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

what were the contradictions of primitive communism?

Why doesnt the left seek compromise with the right? Give them their irrelevant idpol goals in exchange for our economic goals?

>>2883511
Ever heard of CLASS?

>>2881394
That it is an abstraction since there's no going back to it unless a global nuclear war goes on or some shit like that.

>>2883511
Their idpol goals require immense suffering and oppression of those they dont like and that contradicts with communist goals of destruction of class and equality of man

>>2881394
>what were the contradictions of primitive communism?
scarcity

How do i cope with the nagging doubt that my ultimate goal of proleterian revolution will not solve social issues i deeply care about and that im abandoning these things in a purely class struggle approach? I understand not wanting idpol but i just dont feel like the end of capitalism will mean an end to those other injustices? Myself and a lot of my friends have skin in the game and i feel deeply resentful of those who inflict oppression that is not strictly class based and feel like im just lettting it all happen while waiting for a revolution that might never come and even if it does, it might mean nothing in the end in that sense. I dont care if i get called an anarchist for this but if im being honest i cometely understand their behavior considering how bland the mainstream marxist movement sounds to people whose rage drives them forward. Maybe im just getting demoralized but it is what it is.

>>2883522
>Their idpol goals require immense suffering and oppression
I agree with this. Nothing will change until rightoidism can be medically cured.

>>2881394
just spitballin here but I wonder if the extinction of megafauna by hunting pressures would count since the basis of food production is hunting large game species but overhunting results in the megafauna going extinct and thus changes the food production.

>jewish billionaries
why do rightoids have such an almost allergic response to any kind of marxist theory? why cant this latinx faggot just say bourgeoisie

>>2883986
anti-semitism is class struggle for idiots

why is marxism so obsessed with petty bourgeoisie when the strict definition of petty bourgeois (individual/family commodity producer) is vanishingly small?
there's also the special category of "haute bourgeoisie", who proportionally control a lot of the economy, but in the grand scheme of things not really

between those categories that receive special attention, there's the vast gulf of seemingly "ordinary bourgeoisie" that nobody talks about, that accounts for like 90% of everything.

>>2883511
>Why doesnt the left seek compromise with the right?
the left™ has compromised with right constantly since forever, its the foundation of multiple leftoid ideologies like social-democracy and marxism-leninism, the hell world you live in right now was born out of the leftoid compromises of the 20th century

>>2885337
You are right, marxists never talk about the bourgeoisie.

>>2883986
because "billionaires, some of which are jewish, importing millions of muslim rapists" makes perfect sense?

Why Deng Xiaoping cause some much division among leftist?

>>2886534
Because his reforms basically opened up China to capitalist exploitation and whether or not this course was justifiable is still an open question.

>>2886551
Any good book about the topic, that present case for and against Deng reforms?

In various places Marx argues against equality as an outdated slogan from the French Revolution and that crude communism is based on jealousy, in other places he talks about how wealth and status are relative to social conditions and inequality creates bad feelings. What should I take from this?

<The crude communist is merely the culmination of this envy and desire to level down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. It has a definite, limited measure. How little this abolition of private property is a true appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilization, and the return to the unnatural simplicity of the poor, unrefined man who has no needs and who has not yet even reached the stage of private property, let along gone beyond it.

vs.

<A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls. An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. Rapid growth of productive capital calls forth just as rapid a growth of wealth, of luxury, of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although the pleasures of the labourer have increased, the social gratification which they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased pleasures of the capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage of development of society in general. Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.

So what's the plan, turn the palaces into museums or timeshares? Knock down the little houses and give everyone a palace? (arguably impossible depending on the nature of the palace)

>>2888934
Marx offers a dichotomy here, between "equality" and "equity", or what may otherwise be seen between "opportunity" and "outcome" (1875):
<Hence, equal right here is still in principle – bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor. But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal. But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby. In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Here, the equality of opportunity leads to immediate inequality, and so this is rectified by the redistribution of wealth - or an exploitation of the strong for the weak. Engels makes earlier comments (1843):
<The axioms which qualify as robbery the landowner’s method of deriving an income – namely, that each has a right to the product of his labour, or that no one shall reap where he has not sown – are not advanced by us. The first excludes the duty of feeding children; the second deprives each generation of the right to live, since each generation starts with what it inherits from the preceding generation. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
Here, the needs of society are thus more pressing than what can be entirely renumerated to each productive member, but must also have support for the unproductive. Thus, Marx justifies welfare (1875):
<Let us take, first of all, the words "proceeds of labor" in the sense of the product of labor; then the co-operative proceeds of labor are the total social product. From this must now be deducted […] funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
The Poor Relief is a specifically capitalist law of welfare payment, but we see a similar logic of pensions, with Pseudo-Aristotle (320 BCE):
<Nor do mankind beget children merely to pay the service they owe to Nature, but also that they may themselves receive a benefit; for the toil they undergo while they are strong and their offspring is still weak is repaid by that offspring when it in turn is grown strong and the parents by reason of age are weak.
https://topostext.org/work/731
Personally, I feel that charity is a natural virtue in man, and so if we are improved by a new state of society, we will give freely of what we do not require, rather than being forced by some administrative tool. As Epicurus once claimed, in contradistinction to Plato, a commune should not abolish property, but if all are friends, they will give what another wants from them. Aristotle is also wiser on this topic than the "crude communism" of Plato's Republic. Aristotle saw the need for the redistribution of property, but based on friendship, not force.

Would people here agree with this sentiment?

The typical view of "hierarchy" (e.g. right-wing political orientation) is not merely shallow, but false. The "conservative" order is to see it as something fixed in our essence, and so that which is not simply social, but natural. The caste system is a perfect example, where classes are assorted by a fixed division of labour, preconditioned by dharma. The universe has conspired against the lower order; this is the same idea as "the black pill" which we find online. Reading many of the ancients, they had no notion of upward mobility, and many even saw slavery as a spiritual condition, where servants followed after masters in death. We read in the "Traditionalists" like Evola and Guenon the same idea; of a spiritual class society. Christianity tells us that the spirit is equal with itself, yet the Pagans say that there are degrees of power in the inner man. I think any person who calls themself "right-wing" or "conservative", but who is a spiritual egalitarian (e.g. a Christian), or a supporter of "capitalism" (e.g. an economic liberal) is in contradiction. A "true" rightist (if you will excuse the implication) must be against the free market, Christianity and any democratic instinct. They must believe in hierarchy. Liberalism is not conservatism, and so on - and so most "conservatives" are really quite indistinguishable from liberals.

>>2888168
Not the thread for this but this idpol game is very stupid

>>2889139
Also, aren't most "Jews" white themselves?

>>2889128
The move you missed is conservatives claimed hierarchy is revealed by market competition. This rubs some cons the right way because they think it should be revealed by who's best at cleaving skulls with an axe instead of manipulating stocks and other effete financial BS.

>>2889144
Jews are an ethnoreligious group originating from the ancient Hebrews of the Middle East. While many Western Jews (such as Ashkenazi Jews) have light skin and may be perceived or identify as white today, the global Jewish population includes people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

>>2889179
>Revealed by market competition
Only in a cursory sense; the reactionary prefers monopoly over the endless struggle for economic power. This is why the classical tories were all protectionists and interventionists who controlled prices to specifically benefit the landed aristocracy against the bourgeoisie. During the repeal of the Corn Laws in the mid-19th century do we see the replacement of Tories with Peelites, who go on to create the Conservative Party (1834-), which is thoroughly liberal in its agenda.

>>2889144
In the US and anglosphere sense of whiteness, yes.

>>2889144
Best jewfu.

For decades the left said debt doesn't matter, maybe raise taxes a bit to offset it (tax and spend liberals). Now the USA is entering some kind of debt or bond crisis, maybe? So was the left WRONG and the conservatives RIGHT? Did the left sabotage Amerika from within via bad economic policies?

>>2898505
>For decades the left said debt doesn't matter
Did they?
>was the left WRONG and the conservatives RIGHT?
About what? The fallacy of conservative fiscal policy is a basic paradox of thrift; if you limited deficit spending to "balance the budget" you create recessions. The honest conservative will justify this by saying that it is market correction, but it also reallocates much capital into savings, and not investment, leading to monopolies. The conservative can't make their mind up whether or not they want a "stable" economy or a growing economy - while the liberal wants a growing economy, unequivocally - which has its own issues.
>Did the left sabotage Amerika from within via bad economic policies?
The Great Recession of 2008 was caused by deregulating the banks, which allowed for subprime mortgage loans - problems intensified under the Bush administration, who also raised military spending.

How do I reconcile being totally sick of communist pseuds to the point of being negatively polarised into sympathy with bourgeois econ and liberal handwringing and all sorts of other lame nonsense with wanting to be cool on the internet, which requires at least superficially pretending to be a communist/socialist pseud.

The problem lies in overthinking the stupid things people say rather than being able to brush off that they're just wishcasting or posturing and shouldn't be taken seriously. My problem in short is that I actually believe this mumbo jumbo. In a Christian age I'd be part of some dissident sect upset that people aren't living in a godly way. But this is a post religious age so instead I'm driven to madness by the failure of communists to even seriously try and implement their ideas. Everyone's having a good time LARPing except this one idiot taking it all too seriously.

>>2898854
You just have to be honest with yourself and others.
What else can you do? If you're cringe, you're cringe.

>>2898505
debt literally doesn't matter
china would be a poor shithole like Haiti if they ran a balanced budget every year like monetaristards want.

>>2898505
A nation that issues its own currency does not run out of it. You can think of government spending as running a printing machine with dollar bills coming out of it and taxation as collecting and shredding some of these bills. Tax is to curb inflation, the spend-tax imbalance is indirectly related to that but eyeing to reduce that imbalance as a target for its own sake looks quite pointless. I haven't seen an argument for doing that aside from falsely assuming a nation with its own currency to be just like a household. I admit that view is not so silly when it comes to administration at the local level.

You might wonder: But what about compound interest on that debt due to the imbalance? - The government can literally just print without worrying about compound interest lol, causing too much inflation is the thing to worry about. But the law says… - These are self-imposed restrictions.

>>2899038
You haven't explained why taxation is necessary,
or why inflation is bad.

>>2898851
>Did they?
Yes. They're saying it right below you! Maybe you should debate them if you disagree. I was being cheeky though. Libs always say at least they tax, it's the GOP that spends like drunken sailors.

>>2899038
So it doesn't matter that servicing the debt is gonna be America's 2nd biggest line item, even more than military spending? Cool.

>>2898505
debt is a good thing, look up mmt

>>2898505
>For decades the left said debt doesn't matter, maybe raise taxes a bit to offset it (tax and spend liberals). Now the USA is entering some kind of debt or bond crisis, maybe? So was the left WRONG and the conservatives RIGHT? Did the left sabotage Amerika from within via bad economic policies?
a gordian knot of ragebait that i must untangle
1 yes debt matters
2 no "the left" did not say to the contrary. MMT theorists did
3 the neocons printed trillions to pay for their forever wars while pretending to care about muh debt
4 money printer go brr only works if you have currency hegemony and military hegemony, otherwise people stop holding reserves of your hyperinflating shit paper
5 the right privatized everything that wasn't nailed down and defunded the entire social safety net and printed money to pay for imperialist forever wars, and then any suggestion to maybe build hospitals instead of bombs was met with "but how we gunna pay for it??!??????"
6 fuck off cretin

>>2899042
>You haven't explained why taxation is necessary,
to create demand for a currency not backed by any particular commodity, you have to tax the currency so even self sufficient people with homesteads have to go out and earn it to stay alive
> or why inflation is bad.
because it makes necessities more expensive for the majority of people

>>2899228
Explain why debt is good yourself.
>>2899235
>Fell for the ragebait.
>>2899236
>to create demand
Why would people demand USD in the first place?
If I distributed my own currency and wanted to tax people, it would be worthless, so what gives USD value?
>more expensive
So what causes inflation itself? If taxation reduces inflation, then the rise in deficit spending (e.g. debt) must be offset through balancing a budget. Another way to ask the question is, what determines the tax rate? If it's government spending (e.g. more spending = more tax), then what is being admitted is that debt matters, by limiting spending.

>>2899235
A little note on privatisation: it's important to look closely at the details of privatisations, because a lot of the time they are effectively "fake", they're a state-sponsored cut-out racket for some appointed golden boy, rather than "really" handing things over to a competitive market. This is clearest in the UK and in Russia, where the privatisation programs were openly corrupt looting of the state, to massive detrimental effect. (Meanwhile somewhere like New Zealand had a hard time of it, but is basically a normal little country today except all those former state enterprises that weren't renationalised are now owned by Australians.)

>>2899395
The problem with your own currency is that you don't produce anything people want. In MMT theory, the answer is: the US government will beat you up for not paying your taxes if you don't hand over some USD, and it will beat other people up for not accepting USD as repayment of a debt. The US government has the biggest army and an armed police force on its side, and you do not.

But you don't really need all that. Corporate scrip (e.g. disney money, or the junk some firms used to pay workers in) works because goods are offered that balance the value of the scrip. If you were saying "I'll give you a car for one Anonbuck", people would work or hand over USD for your currency. The only thing you can't do is tax, because you've no means of enforcing payment.

Inflation has many causes but for simplicity's sake: if we take it as too much money chasing too few goods, it doesn't really follow that you have to balance deficit spending (e.g. money creation) with taxation. you only have to balance it with the amount of money chasing goods. e.g. if more goods and services are produced, the extra money will be absorbed, and if the rate of transactions slows, the effective amount of money will be reduced. (this trick was used in the USSR with beznal for inter-firm accounting, which allowed inflation in production to be hidden from consumers, who enjoyed price stability… until an ill-considered Gorbachev reform broke the firewall between beznal and spending money, at which point the state was funding its own looting.)

Debt is just a ledger of past money creation. It's possible to have a country where the amount of debt keeps growing in cash terms, yet shrinking as a share of the overall economy (e.g. Britain's national debt in 1945 was £21 billion and 250% of GDP, a ruinous situation, in 1980 it was £95 billion but only 42% of GDP.) what matters (mostly) is the debt to GDP ratio, not the debt itself.
(As Japan shows, however, things can get fucky: their debt to GDP ratio is like 250% but because that money wasn't really moving around and because Japan is generally odd, their economy spent a long time stagnant and deflationary. it's only post-covid they've seen sustained inflation, and even then of ~1-4%, e.g. the thing they've been nominally trying to achieve since the 1990s.)

>>2899418
>>2899418
>Might makes right
But would you say that the diverse portfolios of assets (e.g. cash, credit, forex, gold, crypto) etc. allows for competition? If USD competes with GBP or EUR, then money markets have determination. The idea of BRICS, for example, poses a threat to dollar hegemony. Even domestically, the blockchain can fulfill purchases in place of Visa - store coupons are also a type of competitive, internal currency. This is also why authoritarian regimes have to keep people inside of territories rather than letting them emigrate (e.g. induce competition between states for citizens). So, potential and actual violence allows for relative monopoly, but it is still a dynamic system of competing sectors.
>corporate scrip
If I can offer 1 car for 1 anonbuck, this is an internal market, and so taxation (e.g. an overcharge on goods) is still possible by raising exchange rates (e.g. prices), no? Inflation acts as a tax on wages, say, since the same goods are now more expensive, due to increased money supply - so then, in the closed system of an economy, the value of one asset (e.g. wages) must feed another. The purpose of taxation is then a type of redistribution, seen from deduction. Tax money must go "somewhere". So then, taxes just act as a surplus, or profit. Profit is possible through my own currency, elsewise I wouldn't distribute it. Tickets at a funfair allow for a lot of profit. Here, the state much more resembles a household, no?
>if more goods and services are produced, the extra money will be absorbed, and if the rate of transactions slows, the effective amount of money will be reduced
Right, but this again is household economics. What you are describing are the differences between (i) spending, (ii) saving and (iii) investing. If I have $1M and I spend it all on food, drink, entertainment, etc. I waste the money, but if I save it, I preserve future wealth at dimimishing returns, while if I invest it, I accumulate future wealth at appreciating returns. The condition of investment is in the clause "if…" more goods and services are made… This would mean that so long as an increased supply of money was invested, rather than wasted, then budgets are balanced - but between what? In a household, rates of spending are limited by savings, and investment is only a non-liquid type of saving. So, if spending is given from rates of investment, then spending is limited by the total savings of the household. Empirically, we saw that "quantitative easing" (e.g. printing money without a tax mandate) reversed interest rates on savings to negative rates, meaning that the increased public spending was directly caused from an extraction of private savings. So, the accounts of a state are like that of a household.
>Debt is just a ledger of past money creation.
But if debt is cleared by taxation, then it is not simply the money, but untaxed money. If, as you say, taxation gives currency its value, then more debt must mean less value.
>what matters (mostly) is the debt to GDP ratio, not the debt itself.
Which ultimately depends on savings. If spending is greater than saving, you create debt, but only of savers as against spenders, no? Spenders only spend savings. It is a tautology in terms. Debt accrues an imbalance, and this is unsustainable, which is why if conditions are unfavourable to investors, the economy disintegrates. If debt is good and right, why wouldn't states maximise it?

How do people here feel about forgiveness?
Is it weak and submissive to turn the other cheek, or is it strong to be able to extinguish the desire for revenge? Jesus says to give a thief your own coat - evil is injustly rewarded by lack of immediate punishment. This is the ethos of slaves and cowards to all sensible persons, no? Forgiveness can come afterwards, but never straight away.

The theological rationale of forgiveness is in the universality of sin, which thus makes no man better than another. Thus, Jesus says to not execute the adulteress so that she may repent. This is expressed today in the methods of rehabilitation; the redemption of souls. In older Catholic executions, the souls of criminals would be forgiven before their mortal bodies were destroyed. The forgiveness of sin was administered spiritually, but not materially. Of course, this conflicts with the Judgement of God - indeed, souls are destroyed in the Lake of Fire by their sin (the idea of a punishing afterlife in Tartarus going back to at least Plato). Here, there is no forgiveness, but a payment of debts. So, even if man forgives, God may not, making man more of a merciful spirit than God. The promise of Hell for the wicked paired with the forgiveness of ignorance (e.g. "forgive them… for they know not what they do") is certainly paradoxical, if not contradictory. So, is forgiveness really true, if sin still remains? As we see with the thief on the cross, forgiveness is granted by permission of God, despite one's sins in life. This is the "death-bed conversion" so notorious of criminal repentance, like Jeffrey Dahmer. In any case, sin is not erased, but passed on down the line - and this is the issue. Where mere man is asked to forgive his rapist and murderer, what sense can be in this? Beyond all passion is still the light of reason. Why is my forgiveness of evil more primary than the evil act itself? I reject this. I need justice.

>you have beaten me, raped me, murdered me - and now I love you
This is the psychological sickness of forgiveness. It is more than simple servility; it is the creed of slavery by an attitude of inferiority.

>>2900895
I think it's desirable to have some kind of avenue to forgiveness. A summary of a book I one read in a Slate Star Codex post (no, really) got to me on this.

From memory the story is basically as follows: There are two twin brothers, an unpopular one and a popular one. The popular one shows up in town and says that he and the unpopular one had a fight, and he killed his brother in self defence. Everyone naturally understands that this is forgivable, except the priest who says it will only be forgiven if he reflects on it, undertakes penance, is truly sorry, and so on. The townspeople think the priest is being old fashioned and too harsh, after all it was a good man engaged in self defence!

Then it turns out that it was actually the unpopular brother who killed the popular brother in self defence and came back to the town, not the popular one. He lied about his identity. Now the population is outraged: this is unforgivable! he killed a good man!
But the priest says: nope, forgivable, provided he reflects on it, undertakes penance, is truly sorry, and so on. Justice isn't a popularity contest and god doesn't discriminate.

Anyway I've probably butchered the story but the point that sticks with me is that there's no similar formal avenue of forgiveness today. You can't go to a priest and go "tell me what to do to show everyone that I'm truly sorry and repentant" and then have the priest stick up for you. All social crimes are either totally forgivable, totally unforgivable, or in an unstable position where they can be ignored most of the time but hauled out to shut you up if need-be. If there was some kind of accepted avenue towards conditional forgiveness, things would probably be a lot better.

>>2900923
Well, we set "penalties" against criminals, which if it they are paid, we say that they are forgiven (e.g. A "purgatory"; of "purging" impurities by a trial). Forgiveness in this case is the paying of debt (hence we call crimes "debts to society"). No one denies that forgiveness is possible - in time, but when Jesus says to offer your thief your coat willingly, he is effectively saying that forgiveness is unconditional, through taking on the debt yourself. Jesus thus takes on everyone's sin, leaving each to be sinless (if they would repent). So, the Christian is supposed to allow evil to overcome them by faith, and this we call "martyrdom". For example, Anabaptists are pacifists, and so you can murder them and they cannot defend themselves. When I see forgiveness of this kind, I see a willingness to be conquered, which I regard as undignified. Even if you will let yourself be victimised, at least defend others. So, I do not think forgiveness is impossible, but all crimes must carry a penalty.