<ITT: discuss various forms of localist politics, e.g. communalism, municipalism, other forms of localist socialist governance, distributism, etcthere are some who still complain that russia was "socialism in one country". i contend that they are right, not because the concept is absurd, but because they do not go far enough. we have not yet taken stalin's gnosis to its logical conclusion and brought it to the hyper-financialized modern era
the current dichotomy in modern discourse has largely been between reformism and revolutionism. ultimately both forms make the mistake of operating as though contradictions are uniformly distributed. it is either you immediately go against the whole system in order to take it down, or you work with the whole system in order gradually reform it into socialism. why are these ultimately the only two notions entertained? the first approach underestimates the adaptability of monopoly capital or they fail to see the difficulty in coordinating an immediate revolution across large spans of the country. i think we all can see the failure of the second approach with its disregard for the blatant capture of bourgeois institutions by capital. maybe instead of still operating at such a high level of social change, we should focus more on what we can achieve on lower levels
this was part of the wisdom in "socialism in one country", it was the recognition that the contradictions were ripe in certain regions over others thanks to imperialism, and the specificity of these contradictions to particular regions only supports rather than detracts from the cultivation of determinate national character (contrary to industrial capital, which constantly strives towards maximal hyperconnectivity and the erosion of all national determinateness). ultimately, if you can not even achieve socialism in one country, there is much less hope in achieving socialism globally. now, we must of course acknowledge that "socialism in one country" was a logical response to imperialism, with the latter's tendency to unite the various classes within a society against a common imperialist bourgeois enemy. it is easy to see this and conclude that various forms of third-worldism are the answer. my issue with such a position is that it simply gives us an excuse to sit on our asses all day. if we actually carefully analyze things, we would notice that developed western nations have a tendency to, after the rest of the world has been conquered, start to turn imperialism back inwards. this initially manifests as a ghettoization of the country. the late stages of this tendency is the current administration's attempts to destabilize the american nation so that technocrats would be able to capitalize chunks out of it. with such a tendency, we have, in various western nations, the tendency for the contradictions to uniquely concentrate in particular regions rather than others. this calls for a new stage in the "socialism in one country" tendency; socialism in one region
the point on technocrats deserves expanding. we see with the government spending and tax cuts, combined with the mass layoffs of federal workers, the commitment towards gutting the power of the federal government. one of the groups targeted by such layoffs were the fbi. this is likely part of the attempt to privatize national security and give it to the hands of palantir and other tech companies. as a result of this movement, the federal government is weaker than ever before in its capacity to engage in special operations. if there was a time to build an entrenched position, the time would be now. aside from this, the erosion of the federal government is also a sign of neo-reaction now rising towards state ideology. the ideal many of these technocrats are moving towards is "patchwork", wherein there would be multiple relatively autonomous zones that would experiment with their own forms of governance. the federal government is meant to give way to "freedom cities", "network states", etc. i believe this is an instance of imperialism being turned inward, with these imperialist nations mounting towards self-colonization. there has been a serious lack of appreciation of this tendency on the left in any actionable capacity. if the western countries are really moving towards "patchwork", why is it not possible to have a socialist form of this? while these corporations have the capital, the labour does not strictly belong to them. there is, i believe, untapped potential in the prospect of pursuing "exit". by this i do not mean the usual anarchist lifestylism which simply attempts a small-scale secessionist strategy. rather, i am talking about something more coordinated. i am not afraid of some degree of centralization as long as the relation between the local and the global is sufficiently mediated. i hence personally lean more towards a council communist orientation
while we have neo-reaction become state ideology, we have seen a localistic turn in reformist strategies as well. with progressive victory we see a concerted attempt to secure executive positions at the city level, with some manifest success. of course, these guys are are all socdems, but it demonstrates the greater potential that can be drawn by pursuing concrete local objectives rather than vague organizing strategies that dont seem to ever go anywhere
if we can not achieve socialism even in one nation, there is little hope to achieve it globally. likewise, if we can not achieve socialism in a singular municipality, the capacity to achieve it in a single country and hence globally, becomes questionable.
it is based upon this logic that i see a decent amount of potential in bookchin's municipalism as a strategy. there can be a larger scale party or federation that can help encourage the proliferation of municipalities. i remember there was a thread on municipalism before, but i unfortunately didnt post in it to articulate this broader perspective
i also have articulated my own program with regards to things based upon various localist principles. my idea would be to create an alternate structure of power which is stratified on top of worker cooperatives. other fractal democratic organs would be in place to ensure maximal representations for different sectors. i do not intend to have what i am doing be a general movement because i have particular pro-trans pro-biotech pro-fleshcraft priorities, but the core idea can definitely be made one
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