/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Liberals want socialism without the socialism.

The money out of politics is fine if its a part of a larger effort to make a third party that is explicitly socialist and not attached to the dems. Call it idealist or whatever but I don't think these types of reform are incompatible with Marxism.

There are of course larger structural forces (municipal bond markets for instance) that make the whole anti-lobbying thing seem naive but that's exactly what a larger socialist party is capable of dismantling. I think a lot of the more radlibs that support this are at least aware of needing to do more than just removing lobbying.

I also support the typical liberal solution of packing the Supreme Court past 9 justices, it's really dumb we can't have national abortion because RBG decided she wanted to die on the bench.

>>2789502
most people, libs and otherwise don't know what bourgeois class dictatorship is, what class society is, what revolution is, why reformism has failed, why pacifism doesn't work, what the difference between idealism and materialism is, etc. the specifics don't matter here, they lack general the foundations to reason properly about the wider problems, so they focus on hyper specific things like particular bills and particular politicians

Money out of politics is correct and libs are correct to want it but what they don’t realize is that you will never get this under capitalism because it’s essentially a demand to end the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie while capitalism still exists, which would require an “authoritarian” state like China to even be halfway plausible. There’s no sustainable way to combine liberal bourgeois democracy and get money out of politics either rule of the people wins or the bourgeoise reassert control and that Same experiment has been run in Western Europe and chile under Allende. So yes get money out of politics which whether they realize or not is a demand to get porky out of politics but that’s not gonna happen, because the bourgeoise will not tolerate that challenge to their rule while they have the resource to fight it and you’re going to have to resort to “authoritarianism” to do so, which the liberal will not do and if they do they’re no longer a liberal.

>>2789502
Are we just gonna pretend that the system hasn't gotten more corrupt?
See this is why liberals are always accusing leftists of having "purity tests", because you guys let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If a policy doesn't INSTANTLY lead to communism then it's worthless, no matter helpful it might be in the interim.
So many of you have rejected material reality in favor of an ideological project, which is the exact opposite of how we should be operating.

>>2789502
You change the relative balance of forces in favour of a less evil wing of capital. Only a brain-dead retard thinks the oil and tobacco industries are as evil as the solar and generic medication industries.
Restrict donations and you raise the relative strength of activists and of being a sector with inherently good PR, allow money to flow freely and you can buy anything.

When you have a toothache, painkillers are better than nothing.

>>2790541
yes yes sis, we gotta crittically support the good porkies against the evil porkies

>>2790291
>Are we just gonna pretend that the system hasn't gotten more corrupt?
yeah. it has. because reformism has failed.
>See this is why liberals are always accusing leftists of having "purity tests", because you guys let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I can tell you haven't read an ounce of theory and are just going off vibes. You sound like a culture shocked lib who just found out a year or two ago that there is an anti-liberal left.
>If a policy doesn't INSTANTLY lead to communism
>policy
>INSTANTLY
>lead to
>communism
"Policies" under bourgeois class-dictatorship are reforms, and reformism doesn't work. Policies will never "INSTANTLY" or "SLOWLY" "lead to" "communism." The only thing that will "lead to" "communism" is proletarian revolution.
>then it's worthless, no matter helpful it might be in the interim.
it's not that it's "worthless" it's actually very useful…. for the ruling class to demobilize the proletariat by tossing them some bones to chew on only to take those bones away later. Table scraps.
>So many of you have rejected material reality in favor of an ideological project, which is the exact opposite of how we should be operating.
>you have
>how we
you start with accusations founded on age-old liberal failed assumptions and end with a fake "left" unity that you have declared without buliding.

>>2790562
> "Policies" under bourgeois class-dictatorship are reforms, and reformism doesn't work.
There are plenty of 'reforms' that build socialism you condescending piece of shit. Off the top of my head: minimum wage increases, labor hour reduction, progressive tax schemes, nationalization of industries and transportation, universal healthcare. And before you say these are all day dreams I should remind you that between Carter and Nixon every one of these policies was being discussed politically. If you extend your political eye towards countries like Sweden in the 60s-70s even more so.

The idea that you can't material improve the lives of workers and push the contradictions of capital within an electoral system is completely made up.

>>2790581
historically illeterate turbo lib

>>2790581
Bernstein speechbubble

>>2790583
>>2790584
I aped half of those from the manifesto.

>>2790542
You are irrelevant and don't need to do anything.

Miserable retards who've skimread talking points are a plague on communism.
Class analysis that starts and ends with "everything I don't like is a bourgeois trick." - is it possible that ineffective liberals who've drifted left over time are not, in fact, bourgeois stooges and are, in fact, developing class consciousness? Is it possible the reactionary turn of bourgeois politics against even tepid liberalism is a response to the realisation that one cannot co-opt these movements without making concessions too pricy to countenance? No. I don't like the "radlibs" on the internet so it can't be that, it must be a fiendish trick to undermine REAL proletarian communists like ME, ME, ME.

The bourgeois must advertise leftypol on big billboards outside an asylum for cretins. It's the only explanation for posters such as this.

>>2790594
indeed

>>2790587
The manifesto was written when M&E were still liberals, virtually none of M&E’s work before Gundrisse has any value

>>2789502
To be frank anon, I think that's more a gut reaction to America being the most flagrantly corrupt western democracies out there.

Like let me try to create a parallel example: you've got an arm chopped off and you also have cancer. You know your arm is chopped off, you're panicking, there's blood gushing everywhere. Your cancer, well, you may not "feel" it, you may need specialized tests to know its there. But you definitely notice your arm missing.

Like it's not just that "money in politics" is part of the problem, it's how fucking flagrant it is. Like, it's legitimately amazing how Trump managed to find new ways to be corrupt in spite of that because everyone can see right in front of them businesses are bribing politicians to get what they want. For fuck's sake you even have them essentially just admitting it on live TV!

Again, I want to make it clear I agree with most if not all of your points. But I think the obsession with "getting money out of politics" is just because of how flagrant the money in politics actually is. It just offends any sense of the common good, so it becomes an easy thing people can point to in order to say "WE HAVE TO STOP THIS!"

>>2790875
This! I'm baffled by how this isn't a more common understanding. People seem to at best run into Althusser's stupid fucking 1845 division, realize that that is arbitrarily specific and silly and then don't think further about the FACT that there are AT LEAST THREE PHASES of Marx and Engels writing which qualitatively improve substantially. Then you have these "communists" and "communist parties" quoting immature Marx and Engels writing from when they were still humanist liberals and chauvinists obliviously, without a clue that it sometimes doesn't strengthen whatever point they're trying to make whatsoever.
The writings of Marx and Engels become scientific from, like you said, the point at which they actually put the tools they yap about into practice, into direct material analysis of capitalism, and that takes all the way to the mid to late 1850s. Another qualitative leap, in terms of political strategy.
mid to late 40s only breaks with bourgeois ideology.
mid to late 50s actually breaks with bourgeois economics. If one creates a hypothetical Marxist who only reads Marx and Engels writing until the point at which they start working on Grundrisse, it becomes clear as to why Lenin found himself in a 2nd international eventually filled with opportunists, anti-revolutionary pseuds, chauvinists and social-imperialists.

>>2790875
>The manifesto was written when M&E were still liberals
The what manifesto? The COMMUNIST manifesto. They weren't liberals, they were merely allied with liberals in 1848, understanding that it was temporary. Pic related.
> virtually none of M&E’s work before Grundrisse* has any value
This isn't remotely true, and reads like bait.
>>2790925
>This! I'm baffled by how this isn't a more common understanding. People seem to at best run into Althusser's stupid fucking 1845 division, realize that that is arbitrarily specific and silly and then don't think further about the FACT that there are AT LEAST THREE PHASES of Marx and Engels writing which qualitatively improve substantially.
Just because there are different eras of Marx with increasing "maturity" in the development of their theory, it does not follow that they were "Liberals" in 1848 when they wrote the Communist Manifesto.
>Then you have these "communists" and "communist parties" quoting immature Marx and Engels writing from when they were still humanist liberals and chauvinists obliviously,
Lenin being among them:

<The first works of mature Marxism — The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto — appeared just on the eve of the revolution of 1848.
<Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapter 2
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch02.htm

Was Lenin just a dumb idiot who didn't seem to understand Marx was still a lib in 1848, unlike you, a genius on an imageboard?

>>2790940
Lenin was human, he can be wrong, on this issue he was wrong, simple as

>>2790940
The content of the communist manifesto is liberal, we know its liberal by the fact that most of its demands have been met by most liberal democracies

>>2790604
they're calling it the most armchair quote of all time

>>2790946
>The content of the communist manifesto is liberal, we know its liberal by the fact that most of its demands have been met by most liberal democracies
if you are referring to the 10 point plan in chapter 2, the most important of those demands have not been met.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
   
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
   
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
   
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
   
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
   
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
   
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
   
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
   
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
   
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.
    
    

Met in most countries:
2, 6, 7, 10

Half met in most countries:
5, 9

Not met in most countries:
1, 3, 4, 8

>>2790944
>on this issue he was wrong
why? provide evidence.

>>2790958
Look around you, this is like asking for evidence about water being wet or the sky being blue

>>2790959
provide evidence for your claim
>this is like asking for evidence about water being wet
water isn't wet though. it wets things but is not itself wet. fire burns things but is not itself burned.

>>2790963
The fact that you’re even asking means you’re blind and cannot understand

>>2790965
any claim of self evidence should be viewed with skepticism, especially when the person making it cannot provide the evidence

>>2789502
>"Money out of politics"
neoliberals hate "pork" because the idea of the government spending money on social programs that people want is disgusting to them (also they're Zionist with dietary restrictions against pig meat?)
>the main reason liberals like spreading this myth
Marxism is a critique of political-economy for a reason, liberals separate the historical materialist sociological critique into mere "politics" and "economy" as part of the divide and conquer bourgeois strategy.

>>2790875
>none of M&E’s work before Gundrisse has any value
<value
"I can't extract anything from this raw unprocessed resource so its worthless" These dialectics denying True Communists believe they can create something from basic principles without going through the process of contradictions. The leftist equivalent of Elon Musk logic redditors
>>2790925
>The writings of Marx and Engels become scientific
You treat science as something other than the ongoing cycle of simply doing empirical study of objective reality and hypothesizing explanations, because you're not a scientist, and have never contributed to the growth of human consciousness
>>2790946
>we know its liberal by the fact that most of its demands have been met by most liberal democracies
True communism is when you erase the countless millions of working class lives who have been sacrificed to achieve these militant labor goals, because you are more concerned with being a soy anti-Iran Trot who scoffs with the typical Israeli contempt at using nationalized oil to give children healthcare, nothing could make neocon Trots more upset!

>>2791003
Dialectics are fake and iran is winning because of its liberalism

>>2790581
>every one of these policies was being discussed politically.
did the discussion bring about socialism?

>>2790581
>There are plenty of 'reforms' that build socialism
reforms that actually permanently change society can only come after revolution, under a proletarian class dictatorship, otherwise they just get rolled back by the bourgeoisie.

>>2791020
>>2791026
> Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm

> On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value. Forces of production and social relations – two different sides of the development of the social individual – appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high. ‘Truly wealthy a nation, when the working day is 6 rather than 12 hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labour time’ (real wealth), ‘but rather, disposable time outside that needed in direct production, for every individual and the whole society.’ (The Source and Remedy etc. 1821, p. 6.)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm

I won't be responding further. Agree or disagree I really don't care.

>>2791028

1. you're talking to two different anons
   
2. i don't see how those quotes refuted what I said, here >>2791026 and I suspect neither do you which is why you say
   

>I won't be responding further.

>>2790537
Do you think corruption is just a binary on or off value? There's no difference between some corruption and almost total corruption? There's no difference between Carter having to sell his peanut farm to avoid a conflict of interest and Trump making billions off crypto (among 9999 other corrupt schemes)? There's no difference between corruption in Denmark and corruption in South Sudan? Again, you are rejecting material reality in favor of an ideological project.

>>2790562
>because reformism has failed.
What does this actually mean? Nothing. You're not talking about specific events, people, or policies. You are just engaging in ideological assertions. It's lazy.
How can you say "reformism" has failed when the reforms were eliminated? And before you move the goalposts of the argument OP was making - OP is claiming the reforms (e.g. election finance laws) do nothing. Not simply that they're insufficient long-term because they can be abolished.
>I can tell you haven't read an ounce of theory and are just going off vibes.
Holy projection. You are posting vibes and calling it theory. There is no substance to what you're saying whatsoever.
>You sound like a culture shocked lib who just found out a year or two ago that there is an anti-liberal left.
Says the guy who was definitely posting praise kek memes on /pol/ in 2015 (assuming you were even sentient back then).
>it's not that it's "worthless" it's actually very useful…. for the ruling class to demobilize the proletariat by tossing them some bones to chew on only to take those bones away later. Table scraps.
If all reforms are just a scheme of the ruling class then why do so many in the ruling class fight so hard to eliminate them? And why has the trend in the United States been towards neoliberal deregulation for the past 50+ years? Again, you're rejecting material reality in favor of ideology.
>and end with a fake "left" unity
I'm primarily talking about you retards. When I say "so many of you" I specifically mean this website.

>>2790875
This post is so funny.
>ONLY THEORY MATTERS (I will not elaborate)
>ok what about this theory
>THAT THEORY DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE I SAY SO!
Theory = vibes on here.

>>2790959
>provide evidence
>Look around you
BRO

I have to say the quality of posts on this website has nosedived over the past 5 years. Reminds me of what happened to old 4chan.

>>2791046
The kind of people you are arguing with, despite loving to abuse word "materialism", utterly ignore actual complexities of material reality, instead preffering to flatten it into simple abstract schema. Reform cant make revolution, therefore all reform is useless, that is about the depth of their reasoning.

>>2789502
They are not yet willing to accept capitalism has to go entirely is what. They are still under the socdem delusion that the plutocrats can be wrangled.

>>2791060
Because reality is fundamentally less complicated than either you or liberals make it out to be

>>2791065
Laughably wrong, you just insist otherwise because you need reality to be simple to ease your mental state. Ironically, this indicates you are psychologically right wing despite professing to be a leftist.

>>2791070
There’s no such thing as psychology or the inner world, you are what you do

>>2791028
did the discussion bring about socialism?

I'm not in need of theory discussion because I know the theory here. The issue is that I'm asking for it to pay up.

Was there some point in the last 80-odd years since the New Deal that the left fatally gave up on discussing reforms? I don't know when it was, because it seems to me like there's only ever been discussion of how to push for reforms, and it hasn't led to a radicalised working class.

We also are some 180 years from the Manifesto's call for reforms and large numbers of groups who made those calls, and yet we seem to be regressing horribly.

So I don't think it's the calls for reforms, or the lack thereof, that is at issue.

>>2791071
>literally admitting to being an NPC
Unfortunate, but there's nothing to be done about it. Some people are just born without mental faculties.

>>2791028
This does contradict the idea that socialism can be reached by reform rather than by the DotP though. Regardless of how desirable policies like working-day reductions, progressive tax schemes, and nationalizations of vital industries can be, they contradict the reality of actually existing capitalism in which they can hardly be implemented. The social democratic era you speak of came at a time when the expansion of capital was rapid enough that real wages could rise with productivity, and a high rate of profit could be maintained while providing a good living to a big chunk of the laboring population. This could no longer be maintained after the 70s, when a wave of crises proved the fragility of the Keynesian economic model and ever since then nobody is able to implement 60s style social democratic policies without major repercussions. Venezuela just got invaded for closing their oil fields to foreign investment and using the proceeds of their resources to fund social programs. The Scandinavian countries are slowly trying to shed their 20th century social safety nets as well, as have many European countries before them. This is not to mention all the capitalistically developing economies who cannot afford to miss any occasion for profit in the present environment of international capitalist competition. All of this is a movement in line with the present state of capitalism, and is traceable largely by profit rates. The nation-state cannot intervene with this to a large extent, since it by its institutional nature can't control capital, and therefore cannot have control over its politics. Every government in the world is either directly or indirectly controlled by the bourgeoisie as the result of power dynamics in capitalist society (BOG). This is not to mention that the old labor movement was institutionalized a long time ago along with the social democratic policies and perished with them. I wouldn't oppose someone trying to push pro-worker policies through the state, you're just not likely to succeed unless you have a very good plan, and any reforms made on the basis of "well it was possible then" will inevitably be temporary or fail.

>>2791078
You are not a protagonist because the world isn’t a story

>>2791087
That doesn't mean anything. I have an inner world whether you believe me or not.

>>2791088
The “inner world” is fictional and you got your ideology from video games

Concerning number one, I believe that everyone, bourgeoisie or not, must have the chance to participate in the new farmers' and worker's government.

>>2791092
created by socialization

>>2791090
You are delisional

>>2791100
More idealist psychobabble

Reformism has failed, unlike every western socialist/communist party.
You couldn't trust reformists to run a lemonade stand, but the average western leftist? Why, they could do it with their eyes closed.

>>2791112
If your lemonade isn’t selling itself you have a bad product

>>2791090
maybe yours is, bicameral mindist

>>2791060
>The kind of people you are arguing with, despite loving to abuse word "materialism", utterly ignore actual complexities of material reality, instead preffering to flatten it into simple abstract schema. Reform cant make revolution, therefore all reform is useless, that is about the depth of their reasoning.

i literally said in an earlier post that reform can only come AFTER revolution, not that reform is useless and the lib curiously ignored me. reforms aren't "useless" they just get rolled back by the bourgeoisie unless you actually change the class dictatorship from bourgeois to proletarian. This is why reforms such as 5 year plans under proletarian dictatorship actually transform society while reforms under capitalism are just meant to grant temporary concessions to the proletariat so they disband their most militant organizations, with the explicit intent of rolling them back later, as has happened over and fucking over in every industrialized bourgeois republic since the late 18th century.

>>2789502
the petit bourgeois were already doing this "what if capitalism minus this one thing i dislike about it but keep everything else" thing back in the 19th century lol

>>2791173
this is a lovely just-so story but it's complete fucking nonsense.
in the entire world, a real statutory minimum wage has never been properly abolished. the only partial exception is the US supreme court striking down DCs minimum wage law in 1923, only for a federal minimum wage to be created in 1938.
the 40 hour work week, abolition of child labour, safety protections, etc, are also all basically well established and exceptions are primarily cope. for all attempts at retrenchment, social welfare systems are also very well established. despite having several prime opportunities to do so, nobody has abolished the national health service. indeed, much of the modern efficiency in the NHS comes from trying to impose faddish pseudo-neoliberal ideas on it without selling it, as the underlying economics would suggest you do.
then there's the improved social status of women and ethnic minorities, reforms that are primarily in the interest of capital.

and that's just big scale reform, not more minor stuff. using your incredible pseud analysis, we can obviously conclude that having spent the last 30 years building up a good public transport system, the city of Auckland is now going to tear the tracks apart and use them to build spikes to impale the proletariat on because all reforms have to be rolled back! but what about utterly ambiguous cases - is the drug reform that will be rolled back the criminalization of marijuana, or its legalization in some parts of the US and netherlands?

>>2791190
and they got a huge chunk of what they wanted
the last case of cholera acquired in england and wales was in 1893. universal education of children, public sewer systems, state care of orphans, public health and sanitation more broadly, old age pensisons…

>>2789502
society would be greatly improved if we had more black and brown ceos because black and brown people are inherently have a greater sense of morals and ethics than whites

>>2791301
This
We need less Jeffrey Epsteins and more Oprah Winfreys

>>2791046
>>2791060
>sophisticated material analysis is when you post random graphs without context and spout reactionary nonsense to defend some allegedly 'better past' of a settler colonialist bourgeoise oligarchy
okay

>>2789502

Realizing that the only way to see true change is to completely flip the system on it's head is obviously required for many'a leftists

These cattle who would chose what we have now over any left wing economic system have yet to have this realization and never will because they are either to brainwashed from the residue of the Red Scare or they have no empathy and re in a position which benefits from the system.

The only reason to pose these hypothetical ways to do the best within the system is if you have completely abandoned the idea of any serious socialist movement gaining power.

>>2789502
These are "safe" solutions that doesnt threaten them or the status quo. Its about rationalization of self-interest.

>>2791992
asinine but incredibly common worldview.
let me ask you this: trade unions are effectively regulated into pointlessness in england. there are so many restrictions on what you can do that it's basically impossible to withdraw your labour in a way that does real damage. would "supporting"* a future centre-left government in weakening or repealing the 1980s-1990s laws that gave effect to this situation - an undoubtedly reformist act - really constitute "abandoning" the idea of any socialist movement gaining power? would it not make more sense to think of this change as the first and most obvious direct step towards building the kind of left-wing institutions that can actually take power in future?
once you accept this broad principle, all of the rest follows.
ironically the left would do well to read a lot of rightoids and neoliberals on incentives. why is it that the bourgeoise can run a lemonade stand but we can't? easy: they're being paid. building a serious revolutionary org is hard work, but you get exactly the same - perhaps better - short term rewards by posing as radical online. the ROI on cosplaying a revolutionary is so much better than the ROI on seriously working towards it.

*a wonderful non-term which can mean anything from "saying 'yeah cool good' on leftypol.org" to "actively a member and works 16 hour days to help the party"