>socialists then
<how do we design a planned economy with enough efficiency that it can withstand external pressures and compete with other countries while meeting the needs of the populace? let's get thousands of scientists to work on this problem
>socialists now
<economics doesn't real, just do a revolution and everyone gets everything for free!
>socialists then
<how do we give the broader proletariat knowledge of its conditions and of what is necessary to overcome them? this is surely a complex problem that needs to be constantly re-examined because the answer will vary with time and place
>socialists now
<um it's not my job to educate you and also it's boring and too much effort, and i'm just gonna assume everyone who disagrees with me is unchangeably stupid and evil
>socialists then
<we need to carefully plan instances of activism and action, making sure they always advance our wider strategy and goals, knowing that sometimes it's best to do nothing if it will only hurt us in the long run
>socialists now
<i'm gonna go out and march around for a few days because it's cool and makes me feel like a badass revolutionary. we don't need to make concrete demands or have organization or a plan or anything. and then when this inevitably fails i'm gonna tell myself it's because the world is cruel and uncaring and i'm never gonna do anything again
>socialists then
<i'm a socialist so i'm gonna join an org, spread my ideas to my fellow workers, and sacrifice some of my spare time to real action
>socialists now
<i'm a socialist so i'm gonna post, listen to podcasts, and wear socialism-branded merch. let me cherrypick quotes from old respected figures to justify why this is actually based and revolutionary
we're staring down a thousand disasters all at once but god forbid doing something about it gets in the way of my fun.
I embrace it. Half the solutions are mumbo jumbo anyway, better to have handwaving and a good time than outright pseud behaviour and being wrong as well as boring.
Post-structuralism and its consequences
>let's get thousands of scientists to work on this problem
And so that they argue 24/7 over the tiniest details and never reach a consensus. Action comes first.
<The pure socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.- Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, 1997
<The [western Marxist] takes pride in not having any relationship with the entire historic concrete movement of the working class socialist and liberation revolutions. They take pride in not having any theoretical or political connection to the revolutions in China, Russia, Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique and Angola. They are, instead, proud of the supposed purity that their theory is not contaminated by the hardship of exercising power, by the contradictions of historical processes. Being pure is what provokes this narcissistic orgasm. This purity is what makes them feel superior. It makes them feel that they have a privileged moral and ethical standpoint compared to the other leftists who, for example, recognize the Chinese Revolution or the Cuban revolution and, therefore, accept authoritarianism and accept an economy that is not based on the total realization of self-management. This kind of Marxism has no critical power. It can produce and does produce a lot of good analysis of reality but it is incapable of producing a movement that is strategic and revolutionary that aims to take political power. Therefore, the process of rebuilding a revolutionary Marxism in the West has to recognize these symbolic elements, which have become ingrained in Western Marxism, that were smuggled in as contraband from Christianity. These elements have to be submitted to radical criticism and surpassed. - Jones Manoel, Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution, 2020
<The thoughts of every piece of private property as such are at least turned against richer private property in the form of envy and the desire to level everything down; hence these feelings in fact constitute the essence of competition. 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 alone gone beyond it. (For crude communism) the community is simply a community of labor and equality of wages, which are paid out by the communal capital, the community as universal capitalist. Both sides of the relation are raised to an unimaginary universality – labor as the condition in which everyone is placed and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community. […] The first positive abolition of private property – crude communism – is therefore only a manifestation of the vileness of private property trying to establish itself as the positive community. […] By reducing the worker's needs to the paltriest minimum necessary to maintain his physical existence and by reducing his activity to the most abstract mechanical movement. In so doing, the political economist declares that man has no other needs, either in the sphere of activity or in that of consumption. For even this life he calls human life and human existence. By taking as his standard – his universal standard, in the sense that it applies to the mass of men – the worst possible state of privation which life (existence) can know. He turns the worker into a being with neither needs nor senses and turn the worker's activity into a pure abstraction from all activity. Hence any luxury that the worker might enjoy is reprehensible, and anything that goes beyond the most abstract need – either in the form of passive enjoyment or active expression – appears to him as a luxury.- Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Third Manuscript, Private Property and Labor (1844)
<We shall not surrender to “sentimental socialism”, or to the old Russian, semi-aristocratic, semi-muzhik and patriarchal mood, with their supreme contempt for trade. We can use, and, since it is necessary, we must learn to use, all transitional economic forms for the purpose of strengthening the link between the peasantry and the proletariat, for the purpose of immediately reviving the economy of our ruined and tormented country, of improving industry, and facilitating such future, more extensive and more deep-going, measures as electrification. Marxism alone has precisely and correctly defined the relation of reforms to revolution, although Marx was able to see this relation only from one aspect—under the conditions preceding the first to any extent permanent and lasting victory of the proletariat, if only in one country. Under those conditions, the basis of the proper relation was that reforms are a by-product of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat. Throughout the capitalist world this relation is the foundation of the revolutionary tactics of the proletariat—the ABC, which is being distorted and obscured by the corrupt leaders of the Second International and the half-pedantic and half-finicky knights of the Two-and-a-Half International. After the victory of the proletariat, if only in one country, something new enters into the relation between reforms and revolution. In principle, it is the same as before, but a change in form takes place, which Marx himself could not foresee, but which can be appreciated only on the basis of the philosophy and politics of Marxism. Why were we able to carry out the Brest retreat successfully? Because we had advanced so far that we had room in which to retreat. At such dizzy speed, in a few weeks, from October 25, 1917, to the Brest peace, we built up the Soviet state, withdrew from the imperialist war in a revolutionary manner and completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution so that even the great backward movement (the Brest peace) left us sufficient room in which to take advantage of the “respite” and to march forward victoriously against Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, Pilsudski and Wrangel. Before the victory of the proletariat, reforms are a by product of the revolutionary class struggle. After the victory (while still remaining a “by-product” on an international scale) they are, in addition, for the country in which victory has been achieved, a necessary and legitimate breathing space when, after the utmost exertion of effort, it becomes obvious that sufficient strength is lacking for the revolutionary accomplishment of some transition or another. Victory creates such a “reserve of strength” that it is possible to hold out even in a forced retreat, hold out both materially and morally. Holding out materially means preserving a sufficient superiority of forces to prevent the enemy from inflicting utter defeat. Holding out morally means not allowing oneself to become demoralized and disorganized, keeping a sober view of the situation, preserving vigor and firmness of spirit, even retreating a long way, but not too far, and in such a way as to stop the retreat in time and revert to the offensive. We retreated to state capitalism, but we did not retreat too far. We are now retreating to the state regulation of trade, but we shall not retreat too far. There are visible signs that the retreat is coming to an end; there are signs that we shall be able to stop this retreat in the not too distant future. The more conscious, the more unanimous, the more free from prejudice we are in carrying out this necessary retreat, the sooner shall we be able to stop it, and the more lasting, speedy and extensive will be our subsequent victorious advance.- Lenin, The Importance Of Gold Now And After The Complete Victory Of Socialism, November 5 1921
>>826089scientists do experiments though, they don't just argue all day. do people on this website even know what science is?
>>826102>let me put in 1/1000th of the effort you did and just shit on everythingSee! Your ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice! The quote is correct!
>>826102>cherry pickedis there any form of quotation that doesn't count as cherry picking to you?
>old respected figuresJones Manoel was born in 1990
>>826104>effortIm sure your ctrl button has been working real hard.
>>826106To curate the quotes I had to actually read them first. Meanwhile you read nothing, do nothing, and call everything cherrypicking. You won't even argue with the quotes and say why they are wrong or demonstrate how I took them out of context. You just mumble cherrypicker and dust off your hands.
>>826107>You won't even argue with the quotes Because I dont have issue with the quotes (other than Jones Manoel one, to say western marxism lacks theoretical connection to Russian and Chinese revolution is a blatantly false statement no matter what your definition of "western marxism" is). It is the context you put them in, attacking some strawman that lives in your head and 5 like tweets. Not to mention the utter lack of self-awareness.
>>826098>Jones Manoeli know what u are…
>>826089>And so that they argue 24/7 over the tiniest details and never reach a consensusif this were the case science would never go from theory to practice, which is obviously not true
>Action comes firstyeah, "shoot first ask questions later" has never gone wrong ever
>>826109>. It is the context you put them in, attacking some strawman that lives in your head and 5 like tweets.this is literally a strawman you have constructed, the irony. you never asked me a single question, this is all just assumptions.
>>826105>is there any form of quotation that doesn't count as cherry picking to you?good luck getting an answer out of that anon
>bumplocked
oh my god mods are you fucking serious? should this have been another thread about pedophilia or whether all women are whores?
>>826134mods are actually fucking retards
>>826109>Because I dont have issue with the quotesif you are OP i was posting them literally to back you up. did you just assume I was counter arguing? god damn.
>>826158i'm op that guy ain't me