Left-Wing Discussion Thread II: Behind 700,000 Bunkers

[Nekotani]

Of course, I should note, that I think some degree of asceticism is virtuous.

It should be the prime goal of religion.

If religion were to disappear, that would be the greatest tragedy in the history of humankind.

Indeed. People would have to justify their hatred instead of claiming it was ok because of their religion.

He even has a swastika!

[Nature-Spirits]

I believe that a socialist system of economics cannot be achieved in the absence of a strong state which takes a concrete effort to ensure that workers have access to the means of production and that every business is run along those lines. That, alas, precludes the achievement of a communist society.

How wrong is this view, ancoms, ansocs, ansyndies and fellow democratic socialists?

It's a common problem so I don't blame you, but I think you're misinterpreting what most libertarian socialists mean by "state". The majority of libsocs, in my experience, are in favour of some sort of administrative apparatus -- one common example is workers' councils. What we mean when we say "state" is an institution with a monopoly on violence, that wields authority unjustly over the people in order to maintain bourgeois property relations. A horizontally-organised administrative body, made up of democratically elected delegates who can be recalled at any time, would be far more accountable and no less competent than current governments.

Alright folks, I will relay a question I asked the RWDT earlier. What are your opinions on animal rights?

Animals shouldn't be tortured like they so often are, but I'm still going to eat animal flesh, and I don't really care if that makes me a bad anarchist or whatever for upholding a hierarchy. They aren't people.

What are the LWDT's thoughts on Deng Xiaoping Theory - that private enterprise in services and finished goods can be allowed in a socialist country, as the bourgeois are by definition those who own land and raw materials so the existence of private enterprise in those industries is apparently not contradictory? Reformist claptrap or an admirable position?

I haven't really read into it, but honestly it sounds like Deng was just trying to excuse capitalism in a country he really wanted to call socialist. I mean, I work for a company that deals in services and finished goods, and I can tell you they're just as exploitative as any other private enterprise. They profit off of my labour while I make barely more than minimum wage, even though on an average day I can gross two or three thousand dollars for them (which is more like 5000 on weekends, and even more if there's a big sale on). And I know how much they inflate the prices because I can easily look up that information, so I know for a fact that what I earn in a month is what I earn for the company in a few days.

I could go on, but I'll just finish with this: Using definitions and theories developed in the 19th century by Marx and his contemporaries, without adapting them to the modern day, is ludicrous. Much of their work holds true, yes, but the material conditions are incredibly different now than they were back then. Class relations have shifted in some ways that Marx and his contemporaries didn't anticipate. So to use a 19th century definition of bourgeoisie, in this case, is a wild misapplication of Marxist theory.

Why have much of the modern left embraced full-on Western capitalist decadence? The idea of "Luxury automated gay space communism" being an end goal I find disgusting, and not because of the gay part, because of the luxury, automated part. If there are no workers, then how can there be a society of workers?

Lol.

I don't see why work is such an amazing thing. If we could have a society where physical labour is all done by machines and scarcity is a thing of the past, enabling humanity to spend most time on leisure, and intellectual and personal pursuits, is that not the height of emancipation of the workers?

I mean, classless society and all that.

Classless society is supposed to mean a society of workers, not a society of bourgeoisie.

"Bourgeoisie" doesn't mean "doesn't labour". You should revisit the foundational texts if that's what you think.

Why have much of the modern left embraced full-on Western capitalist decadence? The idea of "Luxury automated gay space communism" being an end goal I find disgusting, and not because of the gay part, because of the luxury, automated part. If there are no workers, then how can there be a society of workers?

Absolutely disgusting, no better than the materialism and hedonism which pervade liberalism and capitalism. I think it has a lot to do with them being ex-liberals, to be honest.

I honestly don't see why [ethical] hedonism is such a bad thing. Why aren't pleasure and leisure good things?

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to get the far left to abandon denial of the Holodomor and the deaths under the Great Leap Forward? Because it's seriously even more pervasive than Holocaust denial. I just tried arguing it on a Facebook group, but it's really difficult to keep your composure when people are denying genocide.

Facebook is rife with those sorts. Libsocs are less vocal on that platform for whatever reason.

And considering that most of those sorts are American teenagers and young adults who've probably never done any real activism in their lives because they'd rather wait for Lenin's resurrection, I just try to ignore them when I can and ridicule them when I can't. They're far less common IRL, in my experience.

[United Muscovite Nations]

@Nature Spirits:

Work is great because it is what produces; it is what enables our lives.

Also, if machines did all of the work, and humans did nothing but benefit from the automation of labor, then that would give humans a bourgeois relation to the means of production.

[Jelmatt]

@Nature Spirits:

Work is great because it is what produces; it is what enables our lives.

Also, if machines did all of the work, and humans did nothing but benefit from the automation of labor, then that would give humans a bourgeois relation to the means of production.

1) The point of the luxury and automated parts is that labor would become completely voluntary; people won't have to work. All work would be done because humans want to do it; the artist would paint not because they'll die if they don't, but simply to express their creativity. I'm highly skeptical that automation will ever get to that point, and I'm doubly-highly skeptical of any claims to a post-scarcity society, but it's not bad in and of itself.

2) I mean... no? Machines aren't (or don't have to be) sentient and the automated robots won't exactly be social agents, so they can't exactly be proletariat. Machine "labor" would be closer to means of production in a social sense.

[Conscentia]

I believe that a socialist system of economics cannot be achieved in the absence of a strong state which takes a concrete effort to ensure that workers have access to the means of production and that every business is run along those lines. That, alas, precludes the achievement of a communist society.
How wrong is this view, ancoms, ansocs, ansyndies and fellow democratic socialists?

It's a common problem so I don't blame you, but I think you're misinterpreting what most libertarian socialists mean by "state". The majority of libsocs, in my experience, are in favour of some sort of administrative apparatus -- one common example is workers' councils. What we mean when we say "state" is an institution with a monopoly on violence, that wields authority unjustly over the people in order to maintain bourgeois property relations. A horizontally-organised administrative body, made up of democratically elected delegates who can be recalled at any time, would be far more accountable and no less competent than current governments.

Why are you mixing the Weberian and Marxist definitions together? Weber's definition is faulty. "Monopoly on [the legitimate use of] violence" is such a vague thing, and it wouldn't recognise a global state as a state, because it's not geographically limited, which is clearly daft. It also wouldn't recognise states sharing a jurisdiction as states. While it's not a stable situation, as one state inevitably subsumes or exterminates the other, I still wouldn't characterise an area where states compete to exercise control as stateless.

Additionally, you did add something found in neither - the idea that a state is an institution that "unjustly" wields authority. Not only is justice something debatable, adding more vagueness to the definition given, but your definition wouldn't recognise an institution that justly maintains bourgeois property relations as a state. I assuming by "bourgeois property relations" you mean the property relations of any ruling class, else your definition is worse still because it wouldn't recognise pre-capitalist states as states.

I could go on, but I'll just finish with this: Using definitions and theories developed in the 19th century by Marx and his contemporaries, without adapting them to the modern day, is ludicrous. Much of their work holds true, yes, but the material conditions are incredibly different now than they were back then. Class relations have shifted in some ways that Marx and his contemporaries didn't anticipate. So to use a 19th century definition of bourgeoisie, in this case, is a wild misapplication of Marxist theory.

As I demonstrated earlier, the idea that Marx and his contemporaries defined the bourgeoisie as only those owning land or raw materials is not true. Sticking to their actual definition still gives the conclusion that capitalists in finished goods and services are bourgeois.

[Conscentia]

@Nature Spirits:
Work is great because it is what produces; it is what enables our lives.
Also, if machines did all of the work, and humans did nothing but benefit from the automation of labor, then that would give humans a bourgeois relation to the means of production.

Is a carpenter maintaining bourgeois relations by using a hammer rather his fists? Is he exploiting the work of the hammer? No. That's ridiculous. Instruments of production are not comparable to workers. Automated machines are instruments of production, not labourers.

[Arkolon]

What are the LWDT's thoughts on Deng Xiaoping Theory - that private enterprise in services and finished goods can be allowed in a socialist country, as the bourgeois are by definition those who own land and raw materials so the existence of private enterprise in those industries is apparently not contradictory? Reformist claptrap or an admirable position?

I haven't really read into it, but honestly it sounds like Deng was just trying to excuse capitalism in a country he really wanted to call socialist. I mean, I work for a company that deals in services and finished goods, and I can tell you they're just as exploitative as any other private enterprise. They profit off of my labour while I make barely more than minimum wage, even though on an average day I can gross two or three thousand dollars for them (which is more like 5000 on weekends, and even more if there's a big sale on). And I know how much they inflate the prices because I can easily look up that information, so I know for a fact that what I earn in a month is what I earn for the company in a few days.

That shouldn't be surprising: your labour is not the only expense the services & finished goods firm has to cover. There are also material costs, transport costs and utilities costs to keep in mind, but also breakage hazard, taxes, and externalities caused by other economic agents. My guess is that the difference between what you (employees) make your employer and what your employer gives you is much bigger than the difference between the retail income of your employer and the costs of the service your employer provides. That difference isn't - in my opinion - exploitation, since profit is necessary in every market-based system, because profit is sometimes luck (the price was set below the equilibrium price by accident and your firm realised accidental superprofits), and it's always necessary so as to cover capital depreciation and/or capital accumulation to realise greater future production. The real exploitation is the size of dividends, rent and return on investment that your work provides the bourgeois class: if you worked in a cooperative and all profits went to covering capital depreciation and/or investing in future production, I wouldn't consider this the working class exploiting itself. Would you?

[United Muscovite Nations]

@Nature Spirits:
Work is great because it is what produces; it is what enables our lives.
Also, if machines did all of the work, and humans did nothing but benefit from the automation of labor, then that would give humans a bourgeois relation to the means of production.

Is a carpenter maintaining bourgeois relations by using a hammer rather his fists? Is he exploiting the work of the hammer? No. That's ridiculous. Instruments of production are not comparable to workers. Automated machines are instruments of production, not labourers.

A hammer still requires input from the worker. The worker is still performing work.

[Conscentia]

Is a carpenter maintaining bourgeois relations by using a hammer rather his fists? Is he exploiting the work of the hammer? No. That's ridiculous. Instruments of production are not comparable to workers. Automated machines are instruments of production, not labourers.

A hammer still requires input from the worker. The worker is still performing work.

Automated machines are like apple trees. The tree produces the fruit without input. It is not bourgeois to enjoy apples. The machine produces goods without input. Enjoying them is not bourgeois.

[United Muscovite Nations]

A hammer still requires input from the worker. The worker is still performing work.

Automated machines are like apple trees. The tree produces the fruit without input. It is not bourgeois to enjoy apples. The machine produces goods without input. Enjoying them is not bourgeois.

You still have to harvest the apples, and tend to the orchard. There is still labor involved.

[Community Values]

The lack of Daniel De Leon on this poll is disheartening.

[Conscentia]

Automated machines are like apple trees. The tree produces the fruit without input. It is not bourgeois to enjoy apples. The machine produces goods without input. Enjoying them is not bourgeois.

You still have to harvest the apples, and tend to the orchard. There is still labor involved.

That assumes you're farming the apples. I was thinking about just some random tree, and taking an apple because you personally happen to want one - not because you're mass producing apples for sale.

[United Muscovite Nations]

You still have to harvest the apples, and tend to the orchard. There is still labor involved.

That assumes you're farming the apples. I was thinking about just some random tree, and taking an apple because you personally happen to want one - not because you're mass producing apples for sale.

You don't have to sell the apples to mass produce them.

[Conscentia]

That assumes you're farming the apples. I was thinking about just some random tree, and taking an apple because you personally happen to want one - not because you're mass producing apples for sale.

You don't have to sell the apples to mass produce them.

Whats the point of mass producing them then? You'll make more than you can consume, and have to dispose of them. Regardless, that's irrelevant.

[Conscentia]

The lack of Daniel De Leon on this poll is disheartening.

Should've brought him up one of the several times I asked about setting the options for the poll if you wanted him on there.

[Community Values]

The lack of Daniel De Leon on this poll is disheartening.

Should've brought him up one of the several times I asked about setting the options for the poll.

I don't go to this thread very often.

[United Muscovite Nations]

You don't have to sell the apples to mass produce them.

Whats the point of mass producing them then? You'll make more than you can consume, and have to dispose of them. Regardless, that's irrelevant.

Mass production for agricultural reason. I'd presume in a socialist or communist economy, the orchard would be communally owned.

[Conscentia]

Whats the point of mass producing them then? You'll make more than you can consume, and have to dispose of them. Regardless, that's irrelevant.

Mass production for agricultural reason. I'd presume in a socialist or communist economy, the orchard would be communally owned.

Still irrelevant. When I said apple trees I did not mean an intensively farmed orchard. I was just identifying a plant that gives edible fruit, and doing a comparison between a tree and a machine. Hence why I said "the tree" (singular), and "the machine" (singular).

[Salus Maior]

I think it's important to remember that Daesh's raison d'etre is to create exactly that kind of caliphate though. They directly appeal in their propaganda to the periods of centralized authority in Islam, like the Abbasids and Umayyads. Likewise the KKK in its heyday was very much an organized, hierarchical sect.

ISIS's claim in being a Caliphate is illegitimate though. Considering in order to be a Caliph you need the support of all Muslims.

[Bogdanov Vishniac]

You're right that I want a new society. While I would definitely take inspiration from old ones, I don't think, with advances in technology, that it is really practical to return to agrarian societies, so, instead, we should find a way to recreate the sense of community in an urban, modernized setting.

Most leftists again would agree with you about the virtues of building strong communities and ensuring people can live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. Where I think we differ is in what should provide the backbone for that way of life - most leftists think a shared ethos or political philosophy would be enough to generate that kind of cohesion, whereas I think you'd say that only religion in its function as a moral/ethical, political and philosophical 'package' has the capability to provide the conditions we agree on as the goal of the leftist project. Hence the disagreement on luxury space communism - most of us don't hold to ideologies that consider asceticism to be virtuous in and of itself. At least not explicitly, anyway. The problem there is that while our ideologies generally don't consider asceticism virtuous they also don't consider hedonism to be explicitly virtuous either, leading to the sort of squeamishness about pleasure-seeking you can see in works like the Culture series.

If Daesh were to create a caliphate, it would be more radical and extremist than any other caliphate.

Yep. And hence my point - religious systems like that are perfectly capable of generating and promoting violence and intolerance.

I think it's important to remember that Daesh's raison d'etre is to create exactly that kind of caliphate though. They directly appeal in their propaganda to the periods of centralized authority in Islam, like the Abbasids and Umayyads. Likewise the KKK in its heyday was very much an organized, hierarchical sect.

ISIS's claim in being a Caliphate is illegitimate though. Considering in order to be a Caliph you need the support of all Muslims.

Then there has never been a caliph or a caliphate, since the Sunnis and Shi'ites have been disagreeing on that point since the very beginning.

[Hazestan]

I think it's important to remember that Daesh's raison d'etre is to create exactly that kind of caliphate though. They directly appeal in their propaganda to the periods of centralized authority in Islam, like the Abbasids and Umayyads. Likewise the KKK in its heyday was very much an organized, hierarchical sect.

Except it's a form of Caliphate which already did more crimes than it's predecessors.

[Vegaslovakia]

1. Don't be a cunt to animals.
2. Animals aren't people.

^^^^this^^^^

It is impossible to promote equality while being complacent with human imperialism.

[Lanoraie]

If religion were to disappear, that would be the greatest tragedy in the history of humankind.

Indeed. People would have to justify their hatred instead of claiming it was ok because of their religion.

Yeah, how dare people judge you for your beliefs and your convictions? How dare someone hate muslims for believing in the most conservative, violent god and religion on earth! Such a travesty that they're discriminated for their discriminatory, hateful, dangerous beliefs. Sad!

I really hope religion dies off soon. It's a cancer that harms everyone with a triple digit IQ.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Indeed. People would have to justify their hatred instead of claiming it was ok because of their religion.

Yeah, how dare people judge you for your beliefs and your convictions? How dare someone hate muslims for believing in the most conservative, violent god and religion on earth! Such a travesty that they're discriminated for their discriminatory, hateful, dangerous beliefs. Sad!

I really hope religion dies off soon. It's a cancer that harms everyone with a triple digit IQ.

>edgy atheist
>Calling the views of others cancer
Fucking kek

[Bogdanov Vishniac]

I think it's important to remember that Daesh's raison d'etre is to create exactly that kind of caliphate though. They directly appeal in their propaganda to the periods of centralized authority in Islam, like the Abbasids and Umayyads. Likewise the KKK in its heyday was very much an organized, hierarchical sect.

Except it's a form of Caliphate which already did more crimes than it's predecessors.

Well the Abbasids and Umayyads have a higher body count by virtue of the fact that they were around a whole lot longer. Hard to compare them given the lack of good sources.