I've been reading Marx for the past one year or so and I have to say that, after getting a decent enough understanding, I can't really seem to find existing socialists anywhere who are really Marxists.
'Marxists' today are:
>progressives who are 'intersectional' and get distracted by Palestine/LGBT/other cultural issues
>usually, they're not even good Marxists and are critical theory types, professional managerial 'class', intellectuals, etc.
Or:
>batshit insane tankies
Or:
>Maoists/Third Worldists, usually obsessed with race and calling America Amerika
Are there no orthodox Marxists today out there, anywhere? The closest thing I can think of is perhaps the Neue-Marx-Lekture.

>>24618824 (OP)
The Left probably doesn't see the class struggle as the biggest problem anymore. I have the feeling that their biggest talking point is LGBTQ, Anti-white and the other woke shit now.

I don't rally know why most socialist decided to change their main subject like this. Maybe they noticed that communism doesn't work or they weren't successful with it. Since the fall of the USSR a lot of criticism against communism was published.

>these marxists are bad marxists, we're the good marxists
and so the 21390th marxist group comes to being
>>24618841
>The Left probably doesn't see the class struggle as the biggest problem anymore. I have the feeling that their biggest talking point is LGBTQ, Anti-white and the other woke shit now.
he says while every leftard on twitter is posting slop about class war luigi mangione epstein labubu

>>24618841
In my opinion, the USSR was state capitalist. But even apart from that, I think that the left never really recovered from the fall of the Second International and it was slowly dying and it was easily coopted by the '68 'revolution'. Ironically as Žižek says, 1968 was better for the far-right than for the left.

>>24618824 (OP)
World Socialist Website and the International Committee of the Fourth International

>>24618824 (OP)
I was in a local Trotskyite group for sometime and fell out with those involved over differing views, in particular them being uncritical about the repression under the Bolsheviks

Most Marxists seem to idolise Lenin and Trotsky and even though Marx’s writings and analysis of capitalism is still unparalleled, I don’t think there’s really a way to have a system around particular ideology and for it to also not be coercive and lacks the spontaneity needed to keep a radical spirit

As Deleuze and Guattari as well as Baudrillard understood, capitalism has an adaptability that these rigid ideological systems don’t allow, as well as constant appropriation and neutralising of potentially radical aspects of political movements.

I turned to anarchist theory but find most followers of that just as closed-minded, cliquey and irrelevant as most Marxists. Idk about you but that’s the point I’m at.

>>24618864
Yes, I share your experience with them. I've never been part of any Trotskyist group, as it's simply not a common thing where I live, but people do idolize Lenin. After looking more into the Bolsheviks, I got a different kind of attitude towards them and I'm uncomfortable with Leninism.

>>24618824 (OP)
>I can't really seem to find existing socialists anywhere who are really Marxist
Amerika is a global financial parasite society and as such has no proletariat aside from illegal beaners, so there is no class to adopt the class action in question. I am sorry but when the entire workforce exists exclusively in the third/second world that's where all the Marxism is going to be.

>batshit insane tankies
It is true that they are batshit insane, but you should keep in mind that over the last 50 years neolibs and succdems have actively justified more violent conflicts and bloodshed than tankies can ever hope to. So batshit insanity is in no way exclusive to them.

>>24618864
>As Deleuze and Guattari as well as Baudrillard understood, capitalism has an adaptability that these rigid ideological systems don’t allow, as well as constant appropriation and neutralising of potentially radical aspects of political movements.
Every formation has a lot of adaptivity to it, and countless means of appropriating the movement to resist it. But history is yet to see any formation appropriate a bullet, and that's what we've been told to start with since Marx.

>and for it to also not be coercive
What part of "dictatorship of proletariat" did you find so hard to understand?

>>24618882
>Amerika is a global financial parasite society and as such has no proletariat aside from illegal beaners, so there is no class to adopt the class action in question. I am sorry but when the entire workforce exists exclusively in the third/second world that's where all the Marxism is going to be.
Even if (if!) labor aristocracy is a real thing, what defines a worker is if their income primarily comes from wage-labor and that is indeed the case for workers in America.

>>24618886
These workers are comfortable enough, as they are not the main source of the extracted surplus value, and are given a portion of it to secure their passivity. It is their objective class interest to sit, watch tiktok, masturbate, take drugs and inhale their own farts. Things might change as the global economic system changes tho.

>>24618907
>Things might change as the global economic system changes tho.
Probably. Marx did write about the capitalist mode of production in Capital with the assumptions of one single world market, without any trade barriers and so on.

You people ALREADY admitted that communism wasn't inevitable over 100 years ago. Wasn't that the point of "socialism or barbarism"? That you'd have to fight because Marx's supposedly unstoppable collapse of capitalism wasn't assured.

Has it occurred to you that if socialism and barbarism are the choices, maybe barbarism wins? Maybe humans don't get any better.

>>24618924
you look like that

>>24618924
>Maybe humans don't get any better.
We don't and that's a key part of the issue. If humans could get better, the ruling class would just develop a caste of better, more moral, more empathic serfs who could be chained to a wall and made watch their daughters get gangbanged by AIDS niggers 24/7 forever and they'd just go
>"B-but if I kill my enemies it means they win so I'll be a better person and just silently accept that life is complicated and stuff"

Social democracy in essence is a project to develop such serfs, but as we all saw it fails at the part where the ethical cucks conclude that reproducing is also amoral so they must drive themselves to extinction in order to provide sheep, dogs, goats and goatfuckers with a natural environment to inhabit.

>>24618844
>In my opinion, the USSR was state capitalist
You don't get to decide that. History does.

>>24618985
Not according to economic analysis?

>>24618864
I've never met actual Stalinists desu except in very niche groups..everyone seems to be some variation of Trotskyism.

>>24618988
>so incredibly shitty that even the other Bolsheviks hated him
>got a fucking icepick through the head and nobody even cared
>has the most enduring legacy of the Bolsheviks to this day

That's kind of absurd and depressing.

>>24618844
>>24618985
>In my opinion, the USSR was state capitalist
In Lenin's eternally based opinion, wanking your peepee or what is was or will be what particular -ist is fundamentally gay. If your praxis makes the global capital writhe, seethe and deploy overseas expeditionary forces then you are not doing a single thing wrong ever and should proceed but even harder.

>>24618986
Show me the evidence, pal. Bureaucratic collectivism is the end goal of socialism. Every socialist movement begins as Marxist and ends Weberian as per Elite theory seems to pan out. You try forming a socialist party and suppress the oligarchical tendencies. Pro tip: you can't.

>>24618996
al-qaeda made global capital seethe but it wasn't exactly a communist movement
>>24619000
>weber
ignored

>>24619000
Pro pro tip - it doesn't matter whatsoever. Dictatorship of proletariat can be egalitarian and democratic, or oligarchic, or totalitarian, or primitivist, or minarchist trade union platonist, or semi-accelerationist-meta-Land-cocksuckian. That's not the issue for socialism and revolution.

>>24619005
>al-qaeda made global capital seethe
Not really, more like go "eh, stinky" at best. They had no real playbook beyond some gamer moments, the capital was aware of that and just used them as disposable justification for more imperialist action.

>>24619012
Yeah but you didn't disprove what I said. Im not a leftist either.

>>24619026
>Yeah but you didn't disprove what I said
I rendered it irrelevant. Every socialist regime very much may transform into a Weberian oligarchic collectivist plutocracy. Or an agrarian hippie commune. Or a satanist murder cult. It doesn't change a thing.

>>24618824 (OP)
>ackshually TRUE MARXISM has never been tried
I love when a Marxist acts squeamish when you bring up that only authoritarianism allows their retarded utopic ideas come to fruition.

>>24619042
>a Marxist acts squeamish
Not TRUE MARXIST. Class conflict is not a consensual thing by it's most basic characteristics.

>>24619045
Okay so why do you cry "batshit insane tankies", pussy? Or are you just a paper tiger like the rest of these modern day "true" Marxist?

>>24619047
I am not OP, I am joining you in dunking on OP.

Anon "orthodox marxism" died before Marx himself did

Orthodox Marxism was more or less a "scientific theory" about how society would play out, and when everyone got impatient for it to come true, revisionism kicked in, it evolved into a more active ideology leading to things like vanhairsism

I doubt Marx himself was an "orthodox marxist" just as Stephen hawking later recanted some of the ideas he wrote about in his earlier books as new information came to light

>>24619056
*vangaurdism

>>24619042
Socialism is inherently bureaucratic to some degree. I own it, but other socialists don’t. And since that power will be top down, people like Weber (whom I think has a good grasp on today’s modernity) was particularly concerned about the concentration of that power. Whenever under capitalist or socialist arrangements.

Modern societies ate evolving toward technocratic rule by experts and administrators, where democratic participation becomes increasingly meaningless because ordinary people can’t understand or influence complex bureaucratic systems. We really need charismatic leadership that could break through bureaucratic stagnation, the strongman theory is very prevalent in such systems.

>>24619056
>Orthodox Marxism was more or less a "scientific theory"
How many quotes with direct calls to action directly from Marx would you find sufficient to qualify yourself as a bitch gay homo fag nigger who sucks black cock?

>>24619064
>where democratic participation becomes increasingly meaningless
Becomes increasingly meaningless from what, in comparison to what?

The statement implies a past desirable state of proper democracy and justice that is currently being lost due to [bad people]. Describe this state.

>>24618824 (OP)
>towards the end of the occupy days
>take marxism class
>inspires me with the idea of politics being about claiming control of the productive activities we do every day instead of the random cultural wedge issues of mainstream politics
>join picrel type group
>chill smart countercultural guys and girls into music, philosophy and literature, some recreational drugs now and then, political organization for worker stuff, anti-war, etc.
>aligned with "humanist" readings of marx, halfway between libsoc and tankie
>critical of identity politics in theory (laclau and mouffe were current at the time) but tolerant of it in practice
>zizek as mascot
>talk shit about liberals but usually accommodate them in practice
>conservatives, libertarians, etc. are beyond the pale
>time goes on
>people drift out of the group, new ones filter in
>democrats appropriate identity politics, shiv bernie
>we still agree fuck hillary ok
>troon and blm explosion
>tiki torch nazi scare
>group huddles up to liberal social causes for safety
>facebook algorithms "radicalize" trump-deranged liberals who replace the old regulars, some of whom no doubt turned chuddy
>what's left of group after covid is a few queers and a few totally intellectually checked out aging union guys
>professor who taught marxism class is now pro ukraine war funding (and not for based nazi reasons)

>>24619076
Ideological superstructure cannot overcome the foundation. Nearly every American knows for an indisputable fact that his personal well-being depends on perpetuation of the global capital. There's only so much youth larp he can engage in before taking the sums and realizing that revolutionary action does actually not benefit him in any way, while licking that boot clean is objectively lucrative.

>>24619075
It isn’t about a golden age, that’s my fault.

Weber was analyzing the transition from traditional authority (based on custom, religion, personal loyalty) to legal-rational authority (based on rules and procedures). Traditional societies generally had little or no democratic participation at all - peasants didn’t vote on anything. There is no past state of “proper democracy and justice” was being lost. The analysis was about how modern bureaucratic systems create their own distinct problems, not about decline from some better previous condition. The phrasing I used was sloppy.

>>24619075
Technocratic systems can create a kind of democratic deficit, decisions get made by experts using criteria that aren’t easily understood by the public, which can fuel resentment and a desire for leaders who speak in simpler, more emotional terms. The technocrats may be competent (or stupid), but they often lack democratic legitimacy or the ability to inspire.

>>24619087
>>24619095
>There is no past state of “proper democracy and justice” was being lost
So there is no problem of "democratic deficit". Nobody asks the plebs, but nobody ever really did, so...

>legitimacy
You can't be serious.

>>24619072
Like I said Marx himself revised his beliefs and ceased to be an orthodox Marxism

Orthodox Marxism isnt around anymore because it died well over a century ago

>>24619135
But that’s just a non-sequiter. You’re confusing two different things or purposely doing this. Just because there’s no golden age doesn’t mean current problems aren’t problems.
Weber or I wasn’t saying ‘democracy used to be better’ - he was pointing out contradictions within modern systems that claim democratic legitimacy but may not deliver it.

So let me ask you: Do you think there’s literally no difference between a system that doesn’t claim to be democratic versus one that claims to be democratic but fails to deliver meaningful participation? And if ‘nobody ever really asked the plebs,’ why do modern governments spend so much effort on elections, polling, and claiming popular mandate? What are they getting from that performance if it’s meaningless?
Are you saying we can never critique institutions against their own stated purposes because those purposes were never perfectly achieved before?“

>>24619135
Most revolutions are started by the middle classes anyways

>>24619032
You didn't though. Communism isn't a "people's movement", its a resentful middle class movement. Most rural bumpkins like to own property, the more the better.

>>24619135
And are you seriously arguing that because medieval peasants couldn’t vote, modern voters having no real influence over policy outcomes isn’t a problem worth discussing? What’s your actual position here.

>>24619165
>And are you seriously arguing that because medieval peasants couldn’t vote, modern voters having no real influence over policy outcomes isn’t a problem worth discussing?
The statement implies a past desirable state of proper democracy and justice that is currently being lost due to [bad people]. Describe this state.

>What’s your actual position here.
There has never been a democracy.

>>24619147
There is no such thing as a middle class.

>>24619152
>Most rural bumpkins like to own property, the more the better.
Correct. Kinda clashes with any future where they will own nothing and be supposedly happy.

>>24619140
>Like I said
You said:
>"Orthodox Marxism was more or less a "scientific theory" about how society would play out"
I said that you're full of shit. Are you arguing that you are not full of shit?

>>24619174
Nothing you’re saying is making any sense. Now you’re just strawmaning, are you mistaking me for somebody?.

I just think it’s abysmal reasoning to say that:

>There was never proper democracy, so there’s no democratic deficit”

its like arguing “since we never had clean water, we can’t be concerned about contamination.” That’s not even real, lol.

>nihilistic deflecting.
Very edgy, lol.

>>24619146
>Do you think there’s literally no difference between a system that doesn’t claim to be democratic versus one that claims to be democratic but fails to deliver meaningful participation?
None, yes.

>if ‘nobody ever really asked the plebs,’ why do modern governments spend so much effort on elections, polling, and claiming popular mandate?
For the same reason why kings spent so much efforts on coronations, anointments, feasts and processions. It intimidates impressionable fags and keeps them in line. They adopt a logic of "it all has to mean a lot, or they would not be doing it!"
Then everyone stops doing that forever and it turns out it didn't mean shit.

>Are you saying we can never critique institutions against their own stated purposes because those purposes were never perfectly achieved before?
All the necessary critique was done ages ago. Now you either act on critique or be a bottom bitch faggot.

>>24619085
And this is what drains the souls of Americans. America feels it too. Everyone is angry about the state of the world and no one knows what we can do about it. Vittorini called it being in the “throes of abstract furies”. He was talking about living in Mussolini’s Italy but the concept applies here too.

>>24619194
>its like arguing “since we never had clean water, we can’t be concerned about contamination.” That’s not even real, lol.
The statement implies a desirable state of proper democracy and justice (represented here as "clean water"). Describe this state.

>Very edgy, lol.
There is nothing nihilistic in being critical of democracy. Most of mankind through most of it's history was and currently is critical of democracy. It doesn't make those people nihilistic, doesn't mean they don't have a desire for interests to be respected and don't respect others and each other, and doesn't turn them into edgy "vgh millions mvst die" chuds. It's entirely reasonable and human scrutiny, and the only real argument is against it the current global capital calling itself "democratic" and puffing it's chest when you don't show it proper respect. Which is, again, enough to intimidate some.

>>24618841
Parties tend to adapt to a social base. Here in the U.S., the Democrats have a base, and the Republicans have a base. Some groups on the left in the 1960s adapted to the student movement. It's through interaction with some broader milieu that orgs formulate their strategy, and to one extent or another these groups reflect larger social pressures.

In Russia in 1917, there was a social base that was revolutionary which worked out great for the Bolsheviks. They grew out of a mass movement that was rooted in the experience of the country. Before that, many socialist parties in Europe had adapted to a more questionable social base like the trade union bureaucracy which supported the war in 1914, which was disastrous, and those parties split.

But there's another problem when there's a lack of social base, like at all. What often happens is you have a small group of people following some guy who is clinically nuts and has developed all kinds of quirky positions, and they mistake that guy's madness for originality and greatness, and then maybe there's a slightly larger group of people around them, but it's all fairly unpredictable and capricious and LARP-ish.

These groups also tend to love the "nucleus" theory of party-building. You have a hardcore "cadre" who imagine themselves as like military officers leading the masses when the time is ripe, like the nucleus of some element, like carbon or uranium. When heat is applied (like class struggle), the masses will accumulate around the nucleus like electrons and then you get to become the new government and have absolute power. That's the theory anyhow.

>>24618824 (OP)
Capitalism appropriated its own critique. All those leftists are just making money, as part of the entertainment industry.

>>24619196
Your claim that there's "no difference" between systems that don't claim to be democratic and those that claim to be but fail to deliver is textbook false equivalence. If elections were truly meaningless theater, explain why Putin rigs them instead of simply canceling them. Why do dictators consistently suppress voting rather than allowing fake elections? Because even flawed democratic mechanisms create real constraints and accountability that pure authoritarianism doesn't.

Second, you're engaging in reductive cynicism by dismissing all political legitimacy as mere pageantry. Yes, ceremony exists in politics, but reducing elections to coronations ignores that elections actually remove people from power - something no amount of royal pomp ever accomplished. Your analogy fails because it conflates symbolic legitimacy with functional mechanisms of accountability.

Third, your "all critique was done ages ago" line is laziness masquerading as wisdom. If political analysis was complete decades ago, why do Weber's insights about bureaucratic iron cages prove more relevant as digital surveillance and algorithmic governance expand? Reality evolves; analysis must follow.

Most importantly, you haven't engaged with the actual argument about how bureaucratic complexity in modern systems creates democratic deficits within institutions that claim popular legitimacy. Instead, you've deflected into crude dismissiveness and conversation-ending declarations.

If you want to argue that institutional critique is pointless, make that case. But don't pretend you've refuted an analysis you haven't even addressed.

Documentation from the holy grail seems to indicate an anarcho syndicalist bent to proceeding rusty s rules proper parliamentary process.

As does what remains of the pirate republic founding charters.

>>24618844
>In my opinion, the USSR was state capitalist
Your opinion is bollocks. It was big-state socialist, which is why it inevitably collapsed.

>>24618841
>The Left probably doesn't see the class struggle as the biggest problem anymore
Because they're all middle-class and don't want to jeopardise their inheritance.

>>24619012
>proletariat can be oligarchic

what left

>>24619211
> If elections were truly meaningless theater, explain why Putin rigs them instead of simply canceling them.
Because they intimidate some people into following him. He could intimidate him in other ways and his regime would remain exactly the same. Like, he is already officially Literally Worse Than Hitler. Would [something] judge him as le worse if he ceased the election circus?

>Second, you're engaging in reductive cynicism by dismissing all political legitimacy as mere pageantry.
It is cynical to present political legitimacy as anything but. It's an endless stream of justifications for why certain people have the indisputable right to abuse you and others. It cannot be accepted as a valid concept without an enormous dose of cynicism. Muh "except all the others that have been tried".

>elections actually remove people from power - something no amount of royal pomp ever accomplished
Nah, you are wrong here - every aristocratic ceremony ever served to empower certain people and depower others. representative democracy did not invent succession of power.

> functional mechanisms of accountability
Accountability implies consequences.

>why do Weber's insights
But brother, Weber did his work ages ago.
>prove more relevant
Relevant how? Are you assembling a new groundbreaking theory of the state based on him? One with predictive power, which you will scientifically use to change the way societies are organized forever? Fashionable theories are as "relevant" as fashionable colors. People give you more casual attention if you know how to combine them well in your dress.

>Reality evolves;
It doesn't. We're stagnating. Been for a while. Ardent belief in the absence of stagnation is a fundamental for perpetuating that stagnation.

>Most importantly, you haven't engaged with the actual argument about how bureaucratic complexity in modern systems creates democratic deficits within institutions that claim popular legitimacy.
I agree. I dismissed the argument as irrelevant, because ultimately there is no such thing as legitimacy. It's a fancy word for someone being scary enough for you to stay silent.

>>24619176
>There is no such thing as a middle class
The middle class are commoners (i.e. lacking hereditary titles) who own land, stock, property or other assets.
Glad I could clear up that absolutely elementary fact for you.

>>24619196
>both involve rulers and subjects, so they’re basically identical to dictators.

A person with a brain actually said this.

>>24619242
>The middle class are commoners (i.e. lacking hereditary titles) who own land, stock, property or other assets.
So, the contemporary society consists of the "working class", which are commoners who do not own assets, and the "middle class", which are commoners who do own assets.

Is there something lacking here, or was Mr. Wilde from The Repairer of Reputations actually right IRL?

>>24619240
Don’t take offense to this, but this is a lot of nihilistic reductionism, anon. But i’m happy your at least being honest about where you’re coming from, and I don’t mean this in a mean way.

Look, if legitimacy were purely about intimidation, why do regimes consistently collapse when they lose popular support despite maintaining military force? The Soviet Union is a great example; had massive coercive apparatus but dissolved when legitimacy eroded. Why do governments spend enormous resources on propaganda, education systems, and justifying policies if raw force is sufficient?

I don’t like the Putin example desu, it kinda proves my point: he maintains elections precisely because canceling them would delegitimize him in ways that matter practically - both domestically and internationally. The fact that he’s “already Literally Worse Than Hitler” to some people doesn’t mean additional domestic delegitimization is costless. If elections were pure theater with no functional difference, he’d save the money and effort.

Weber being “ages ago” is just plain anti-intellectual posturing. Newton did his work centuries ago; gravity still important. Weber’s insights about bureaucratic iron cages are more relevant now. Understanding these dynamics isn’t about “fashionable theories” - it’s about analyzing how power actually operates.

Your claim that “reality doesn’t evolve” and we’re “stagnating” is empirically false. Political systems, technology, and social organization have undergone massive changes even in recent decades. Denying obvious changes doesn’t make you insightful. The fundamental issue is you’re treating your nihilistic reductionism as sophisticated when it’s actually just lazy. Reducing all political analysis to “might makes right” doesn’t explain why some “might” is more durable than others, why legitimacy crises occur, or how institutions actually function.

>>24619240
>Nah, you are wrong here - every aristocratic ceremony ever served to empower certain people and depower others. representative democracy did not invent succession of power.

Not him but you’re confusing ceremonies that celebrate predetermined outcomes with processes that determine outcomes. These are not even the same.

Royal ceremonies didn't choose kings - bloodlines and conquest did. The ceremony just made it official. But elections actually pick who wins. That's why dictators rig them instead of ignoring them - because unlike coronations, elections can remove you from power.

Big difference between a graduation ceremony (celebrates something already decided) and the actual test (decides the outcome).

>>24619266
>Look, if legitimacy were purely about intimidation, why do
I believe you realize that "look if there is no X then why Y" is fundamentally not a valid argument to make.

>why do regimes consistently collapse when they lose popular support despite maintaining military force?
Popular support is actually a thing, but it has little to do with representative democratic processes. One of the factors here is that any army is inevitably part of the populace one way or another, and you cannot have military support with no popular support.

>The Soviet Union is a great example; had massive coercive apparatus but dissolved when legitimacy eroded.
There was absolutely fundamentally nothing substantial happening regarding popular support in the 1991 USSR, it had pretty much as much as it had in 1990, 1989 and 1988. In fact, there were multiple prior occasions when USSR had way, way, WAY less popular support than it did in 1991, and did not collapse. Signing of the Belovezha Accords saw no popular involvement, and not one of it's signatories was a democratically elected official. No popular action was involved in the GKChP coup attempt and it's prevention, neither was any involved in 1993 constitutional crisis and it's violent resolution. The point here being not that USSR was le awesome state loved by it's citizens - the point is that collapse of the USSR involved a gorrilion issues and factors, but among them did not involve the wider population whatsoever. The masses were watching the Swan Lake all the way thought it, nobody asked them either way. The idea of USSR collapsing because it's people got tired of it and that made it's government sorta kinda give up is some grade A Langley bullshit that exists wholly and entirely to adjust variables to a theory that was declared true in advance, and is so blatantly false that it is not respected even by American academia.

>If elections were pure theater with no functional difference, he’d save the money and effort.
Unless they are useful precisely as a theater, ofc.

>Weber being “ages ago” is just plain anti-intellectual posturing
I'm just pointing out that citing Weber only reinforces the idea that there is no real new criticism to make.

>Understanding these dynamics isn’t about “fashionable theories” - it’s about analyzing how power actually operates.
So... how's dat analyzing going? Analyzed anything useful yet? A theory on the collapse of the Soviet Union, perhaps? Academic historiography currently has no real consensus on that, you could farm some real h-index here.

> Denying obvious changes
Such as?

>reducing all political analysis to “might makes right”
Marx never did that. He did reduce like half of Unquestionable Pillars of Functional Society to Fucking Bullshit. The other half still stands tho.

>>24619284
>Not him but you’re confusing ceremonies that celebrate predetermined outcomes with processes that determine outcomes.
Oh the ironing.

>>24619259
>So, the contemporary society consists of the "working class", which are commoners who do not own assets, and the "middle class", which are commoners who do own assets.
In some countries there is also a vestigial aristocracy (an upper class), but most of its members are bankrupt nowadays.

>>24619350
So, fore example, in US, China or Russia there is literally only "the lower class" and "the middle class"?

>>24619362
Correct.

>>24619318
Sure. But the reason why I keep saying it is because but you're dodging the actual point. If Putin's elections are pure theater with zero functional difference from other intimidation methods, then maintaining this specific theatrical form when he could use cheaper, simpler intimidation suggests the form itself provides something distinct. Your "unless they are useful precisely as theater" response just restates the question without answering it.

The USSR stuff you’re actually proving my point while trying to refute it. You acknowledge that "any army is inevitably part of the populace" and "you cannot have military support with no popular support." Thats a legitimacy argument! That's exactly what legitimacy analysis examines - how systems maintain compliance through various mechanisms beyond pure force. The fact that elites made the final decisions doesn't negate that those elites operated within constraints shaped by broader social dynamics. I couldcare less about the technicalities, since your technicalities are just false precision. you saying it had nothing to do with legitimacy, but also using legitimacy claims.


Also, don’t move the goal post. You're demanding I personally solve Soviet historiography to justify using analytical frameworks? That's like dismissing physics because I can't personally build a rocket. Analytical tools don't become worthless because complex historical events have multiple interpretations.

>such as?

Seriously? Algorithmic governance, social media as political infrastructure, platform capitalism, digital surveillance states, AI decision-making systems. These represent genuine structural changes in how power operates, not just new decorations on old systems. You keep demanding I defend positions I haven't taken while avoiding the core question: even if you reduce everything to "might makes right," don't you still need to understand how that might actually functions in complex modern systems?

>>24619318
>The point here being not that USSR was le awesome state loved by it's citizens - the point is that collapse of the USSR involved a gorrilion issues and factors, but among them did not involve the wider population whatsoever. The masses were watching the Swan Lake all the way thought it, nobody asked them either way. The idea of USSR collapsing because it's people got tired of it and that made it's government sorta kinda give up is some grade A Langley bullshit
NTA but this is an interesting thing. I think the bigger problem with the USSR is that when it did collapse (due to a variety of complex factors as you point out), people didn't go out and fight to prevent it from collapsing. I think it's because the Soviet Union depoliticized people to a remarkable degree. One might even argue it had legitimacy to a certain extent, but if so, a lot of that had to do with inertia and it being the only system most of the population had ever known, unless they were really old. There was a great deal of fatalism in the population and a belief that trying to change anything was impossible, so when the reforms did occur, they occurred from the top down, and then it went totally out of control and the population had no idea WTF was going on.

Whether this is characteristic of all political systems or the Soviet one in particular is a different argument. Maybe it's a mix of both, but I think the arguments that the bureaucratic elite in the USSR had become detached from the mass of citizens is probably correct. And also a lot of the elites stopped believing in the ideology, it was something they repeated because it was important for their careers, and they joined the party because it was a career for them. I think that happens in politics a lot. It's true for even small-time Marxist groups where you have a clique of "professional organizers" who basically make a living off of it, and they have a couple thousand (at best) activists who do free labor for them, and they have ways of wringing money out of them through the dues they pay, and eventually those activists get burned out, so there's constant churn, but there's always a new batch of twentysomethings.

I think this is a big problem in Democratic Party, which is a weird and hilarious analogy. I'm not talking about the average person or the social base of the party, but the "party" bureaucracy. If you ever read about these political campaigns and how big of a grift it is, there's just an entire system of "consultants" and vendors and campaign ad agencies, and they exist to spend ludicrous amounts of money. Like the ad for the dome in Vegas with Kamala Harris on it, they probaly spent millions of dollars on it, but the money from the campaign goes through these vendors who take a cut. And there's just a bunch of people who are making money doing this, but it's very inefficient and they lose elections, and they really resist changes because that would be a threat to their jobs.

>>24619393
Well sounds like bad branding. If there is no "upper class", then the "middle class" is middle in relation to what?

Might as well call them "upper class" and "lower class", since there's only two, one above and one below. Or we can remember that spatial directions are not relevant here, and look at the function - "working class" and "ruling class", simple as. But in either case, there is no middle class.

>>24619398
The choice not to fire into the crowd during the revolution was a spontaneous choice made by cossack soldiers i believe.

>>24618824 (OP)
Marxism is just a really complicated way of saying that workers are overworked and underpaid and should get more respect. Over time people realized that there are easier ways to argue for redistributive justice and social egalitarianism and just became Keynesians or Rawlesians or whatever. The only people that are still Marxists today are weird DemSoc revisionists that follow obscure thinkers like Rosa Luxemburg or actual antihumanist psychopaths like Althusser, not to mentions Maoists who are just brown Nazbols.

>>24619318
>"if no X then why Y" isn't automatically valid.

Sure. but you're dodging the substantive point. If elections are pure theater identical to other intimidation methods, Putin's choice to maintain this specific form when simpler alternatives exist suggests functional differences you're not accounting for.

Your USSR analysis actually contradicts your broader argument. You acknowledge popular support "is actually a thing" and that "you cannot have military support with no popular support" - which directly undermines your claim that legitimacy is meaningless. You're doing detailed legitimacy analysis while denying legitimacy exists as a concept. More importantly, your historical account is selective. You claim USSR had identical popular support 1988-1991, but this ignores massive changes: economic collapse, nationalist movements in republics, loss of party credibility after Chernobyl, failed reforms creating widespread disillusionment. The elite decisions you cite (Belovezha Accords, etc.) occurred within this context of eroding social foundations. Elites don't operate in a vacuum - they respond to constraints created by broader social dynamics.

Don’t move the goal
post. You're essentially arguing we should abandon analytical frameworks unless they can personally solve complex historical debates? That's like rejecting physics because it hasn't solved every engineering problem.

>such as?

Seriously? regarding obvious changes - algorithmic governance, platform capitalism, digital surveillance states, AI decision systems represent genuine structural shifts in how power operates. These aren't cosmetic updates to old systems. Your Marx reference is fair - but invoking Marx's critical method while avoiding his constructive analytical work just leaves you with pure dismissiveness. Marx didn't just declare bourgeois concepts "bullshit" - he provided rigorous alternative frameworks. What's yours?

>>24619398
>then maintaining this specific theatrical form when he could use cheaper, simpler intimidation
What makes you think elections are not cheap and simple compared to the alternatives?

>That's exactly what legitimacy analysis examines - how systems maintain compliance through various mechanisms beyond pure force.
Does it? An "illegitimate" government has no access to those?

>Also, don’t move the goal post. You're demanding I personally solve Soviet historiography to justify using analytical frameworks?
If you are saying it's relevant and important, I would like to see you solve something at least. I'm an environmental scientist, Wright, Avise and Frankham are relevant to me, cause I solve deer. Marx at least solved Ming, Romanovs and a bunch of other bipedal farts. What does reiterating Weber solve? I mean it's old dirty Marxist trick, but where da praxis at?

>That's like dismissing physics because I can't personally build a rocket.
In physics at least someone builds a rocket. The modern political analysis consists exclusively of infinitely reiterated reasons why thou shalt not kill government officials.

>These represent genuine structural changes in how power operates,
Such as?

>even if you reduce everything to "might makes right"
Like I said - I don't though, I mostly reduce everything to class conflict like a good Marxist fart.

>don't you still need to understand how that might actually functions in complex modern systems?
The system is not more complex, Lenin made a lot of excellent points on how it actually grew simpler, and then stopped growing at all. It pretends to be more complex than it is so that pussies freeze in analysis paralysis. A 1776 royalist could provide anyone with about 50 petabytes of plain text explaining the intricate complexities of relationship between the Crown and the Colonies. The Continental Congress had no issue reducing that complexities to "fuck off and die limey", and guess what they were right.

>>24619440
>then maintaining this specific theatrical form when he could use cheaper, simpler intimidation
What makes you think elections are not cheap and simple compared to the alternatives?

>That's exactly what legitimacy analysis examines - how systems maintain compliance through various mechanisms beyond pure force.
Does it? An "illegitimate" government has no access to those?

>but this ignores massive changes: economic collapse
What collapse? Soviet economy was better off than it was in 1986. Orders of magnitude better than in 1946.
>nationalist movements in republics
Again, those were way stronger before that/
>loss of party credibility after Chernobyl
Except party successfully downplayed Chernobyl and outside of directly afflicted regions it had o presence in public perception.
>failed reforms
Which ones? Failed how?

Overall do I have to remind you that Langley itself had top-notch intel on USSR's economy and social affairs at the time, and the collapse caught the entire agency completely flatfooted, because according to their own data there were no reasons to expect it whatsoever?

>Elites don't operate in a vacuum - they respond to constraints created by broader social dynamics.
The one context they surely certainly definitely don't operate in is their own personal and class interests. That's for sure, right?

Also, don’t move the goal post. You're demanding I personally solve Soviet historiography to justify using analytical frameworks?
If you are saying it's relevant I would like to see you solve something. I'm an environmental scientist, Wright, Avise and Frankham are relevant to me cause I solve deer. Marx at least solved Ming, Romanovs and a bunch of other bipedal farts. What does reiterating Weber solve? I mean it's old dirty Marxist trick, but where da praxis at?

>That's like dismissing physics because I can't personally build a rocket.
In physics at least someone builds a rocket. The modern political analysis consists exclusively of infinitely reiterated reasons for why thou shalt not kill government officials.

>These represent genuine structural changes in how power operates,
Such as? The poor get poorer, the rich get richer. Not seeing the new thing here.

>even if you reduce everything to "might makes right"
Like I said - I don't though, I mostly reduce everything to class conflict like a good Marxist fart.

>don't you still need to understand how that might actually functions in complex modern systems?
The system is not more complex, Lenin made a lot of excellent points on how it actually grew simpler, and then stopped growing at all. It pretends to be more complex than it is so that pussies freeze in analysis paralysis. A 1776 royalist could provide about 50 petabytes of plain text explaining the intricate complexities of relationship between the Crown and the Colonies. The Continental Congress had no issue reducing those complexities to "fuck off and die limey", and they were wrong about nothing.

>>24619440
>Marx didn't just declare bourgeois concepts "bullshit" - he provided rigorous alternative frameworks. What's yours?
Why, the same one - take all control from the wealth, preferably by taking all the wealth, preferably nonconsensual.

>>24619408
You don't get to define what words mean.

>>24619435
>Marxism is just a really complicated way of saying that workers are overworked and underpaid and should get more respect.

Forget about communism, modern proles are too retarded to fight for higher wages, imagine having them try to rearrange the entire society.
Just fucking kill them. No more drinking, no more drug abuse, no more depression, no more wife beating.

>>24618824 (OP)
these are all the fruits of cultural marxism

>>24618841
>The Left probably doesn't see the class struggle as the biggest problem anymore. I have the feeling that their biggest talking point is LGBTQ, Anti-white and the other woke shit now.
they were pivoted to this direction after the elite became concerned by the occupy wall street movement.

>>24618988
>everyone seems to be some variation of Trotskyism.
Rupert Murdoch was a trotskyite.
So too were the initial neocons.

The elite can easily swap political ideolgies, as they chase the ideology that will most ensure that they first become, and then remain the elite.

>>24619499
Fortunately Marx does, dominating the academia helps a lot. Also checked.

>>24619406
>people didn't go out and fight to prevent it from collapsing
First of all - they kinda did. That's what August Coup kinda was, and wasn't, because it didn't involve populace at large. But the bigger issue - the year is right now. You live in New York. TV, cell, radio and Internet go out. You hear a lot of shots being fired from somewhere around Rhode Island. How do you go out and fight for ol' US of A? There is no battle against the Coming Chaos if you have no standing army to take part in it.

>think the arguments that the bureaucratic elite in the USSR had become detached from the mass of citizens is probably correct. And also a lot of the elites stopped believing in the ideology, it was something they repeated because it was important for their careers, and they joined the party because it was a career for them. I think that happens in politics a lot.
Here I agree in totality, although the ideology argument is tertiary imo. Soviet leadership had firsthand knowledge of how trivially easy it is for a well-organized group of armed individuals to topple a government, so they made a very strong point of being the only well-organized group of armed individuals in the country period. No one else allowed to be organized. That actually saved them from being toppled from below in turn, but it did not save the system from their own need for more power. For everything that collapse of the USSR destroyed, people forget that it created a dozen dictators and thousands of millionaires.

>>24619537
NOT THE JEWISH NIGGER~

Unironically though social democrats are worse than anything ever. Worse than neoliberals and nazis fucking combined. They face the fucking wall first.

>>24619435
>easier ways to argue for redistributive justice
Is that why the wealth divide is currently the largest it's ever been in human history? Because of how easy it is to simply argue for justice?

>>24619440
I also want to add that my issue with the theory of legitimacy lies in it appearing as some sort of Paradox vidya game political mana, which is accumulated by performing rituals like elections and spent on political action. But in actuality elected governments are toppled, unelected governments get popular, tyrants remain in power for decades and rigidly doctrinal regimes vanish overnight. It's a false abstraction with no foundation in political practice, an abstraction of nothing if you will. Popular support is popular support.

>>24618862
>"kicked out of the club"
Dude already has defined a club in order to demonstrate what he thinks the club is. Wow.

>>24619773
Do you disagree with the sentiment - that being left is no longer about economics and resource distribuition, but is now fixated on identity politics, and defining people as opressors and opressed?

>>24619801
I think centralized capital is much happier if the conversation is about race representation and gender grievances rather than economic concerns about the obscene disparity between hardworking people's wealth and that of those who own large holdings of capital. In other words, movements like Feminism, which are useful to capital as a distraction, are the ones that gain funding and clout in institutions, but they do not represent actual Left Wing concerns.

I find it kind of funny how both the far left and the far right respect each other more intellectually than either of them respect the libs who are technically less distant to them than the other end of the spectrum. You have chuds who read Gramsci and you have tankies who read Schmitt, but neither group is ever going to fucking read Mill or Rawls of their own volition.

>>24619829
Because both groups mostly consist of batshit insane people with a penchant for empty magniloquence and a boner for political violence

>>24619833
Thank you for clarifying, enlightened centrist.

>>24619538
yeah, let the rich do all that shit lol, they were anyway

>>24618824 (OP)
I'm personally believe nearly all modern Marxists are closeted fascists. The Worker/capitalist struggle that lies at the heart of the Marxist understanding of the world has long been replaced by Mussolini's Producer/Parasite struggle

>>24619885
Marxists have always been fascists, just of the hebrew rather than the gentile variety.

>>24619885
>I'm personally believe nearly all modern Marxists are closeted fascists.
Marxists are global socialists, fascists are national socialists.

at some point in the past in capitalism it was possible to talk about political economy or hold up the economist business people would be compelled by reality or the market or a belief in non reality to listen

>>24619147
Aren't all revolutions middle class revolutions with some buy-in from a minority of elites?

>>24618979
>>
We don't and that's a key part of the issue. If humans could get better, the ruling class would just develop a caste of better, more moral, more empathic serfs who could be chained to a wall and made watch their daughters get gangbanged by AIDS niggers 24/7 forever and they'd just go
Anon, that's called "America"

>>24619085
>>24619076
Marx is very right about capitalism. Everything /pol/ types complain about are effects of capitalism but they sublimate that to the "Jew," making their vision of the Jew borderline superhuman to ignore the actions of their own people and their stockholm syndrome to capital

>>24619549
Why did the Trotskyites become Neocons?

>>24619210
Deterritorialization or something

>>24619435
>"Marxism is just a really complicated way of saying that workers are overworked and underpaid and should get more respect."
You've never read Marx lmao. This is not it, bro.

>>24620289
The poltroon is childlike and looks for every excuse to not improve his own life

>>24620302
Generalizing and saying "just self improov bro" is a very low IQ and lost position. Even most normies feel how horrible dating, alienation, culture, and the economy is today. You have to be completely disconnected from the real world and real people to think there isn't a steady decadent decline.

>>24620311
It's not about self improvement, it's about a desire to avoid cutting off potential to the Nth degree such that commitment is avoided at every cost. The pluripotent stem cell is undifferentiated and is capable of many things but differentiation would cut off every other unchosen possibilty. Yet differentiation is necessary to live the good life.

Op is completely right, there is no popular Maoism or Leninism in the west. The "left", consists of liberals who are obsessed with identity politics and intersectionality, neoliberals, intellectuals, and celebrities. Not one actual worker amongst them. no factory worker, no service worker. Just college kids wrecked with class and race guilt. The furthest the left can go is social democracy of the bernie, zohran, aoc, type. And actual commies hate soc dems, call them social fascists lol

I have always felt american left tends more towards anarchism, or at least they have actually done propaganda of the deed, while commies write and read serious essays like nerds

>>24620315
Sorry for schizoposting, what I mean is that in spite of the very real and very perceptible decline of the world, we must come to terms with the painful fact that we still have to manage our lives if we want to live the good life, as short and fleeting as that may be

>>24620318
I hate using the word manage. Maybe it would be better to say we must take charge of our lives, surrendering the perceived freedom and possibilty of the uncommitted life in exchange for responsibility and dull banal toil if we want to do anything personally meaningful. We can blame our circumstances and yes, some will have to do a LOT more work than others, but learning to put up with uninteresting work without killing childlike imagination (or worse, cynically amputating it) is a necessary part of healthy maturity

>>24619435
Marx would have beat the shit out of you for this post

Notice how everyone in the thread is talking about modern pink-haired leftists they saw on twitter instead of actual quotes or excerpts of Marx

>>24620445
>marx was a violent dickhead
we know

>>24618824 (OP)
Marxism died after Lenin. After that, it was inprovised from circumstance and new steady applications. Marx’s praxis and theory writing is so different from that of China’s, it’s almost silly that they label themselves wholly Marxist rather than Deng Socialist.

>>24620289
Ever notice how only anglo aligned american sources straight from wallstreet and the like are the ones spreading modern antisemitism? It's not a niche view anymore and it's pretty commonly accepted, laws agaisn't it cause outrage but I have never ever ever ever seen even a single person be persecuted for it, except maybe 1 or 2 historians denying the holocaust but even than it's usually a academia only thing and denying the holocaust is not really offensive antisemitism depending on how you phrase things. It really is just americans shifting the blame. The eternal anglo grooms in the dark...

>>24620484
>I have never ever ever ever seen even a single person be persecuted for it
Kanye West
Mel Gibson
Michael Jackson

>>24620450
I was talking about how parasite-profucer struggle has possessed/overtaken/body snatched the mainstream Marxist concept of the Worker-Burger struggle

>>24618864
>I was in a local Trotskyite group for sometime and fell out with those involved over differing views
That's like the most Trotskyist thing ever.

>>24619885
That and also the sort of alter-imperialism stuff where any government that opposes the U.S./Europe/Israel/Japan/etc. is seen as good. "Proletarian nation" stuff vs. parasite nations.

>>24620317
There was a dozen-man anarchist group (with two rifles in an ambush position, the rest tried to distract the guards) that attacked an ICE facility in Texas a few weeks ago. They fucked it up though.

But yeah, Americans might more naturally take to anarchism (and on the right, what we now call libertarianism). There was a whole tradition of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century. Josiah Warren and Henry David Thoreau. There were a bunch of these people (there's a lengthy Wikipedia entry on individualist anarchism in the United States) and they might have been the first ones to publish Nietzsche's writings here.

I've come to think the reason Leninism came out of Russia, landed in China, and didn't work in the U.S. is because of the pre-existing political cultures were very different. You might even say writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Robert E. Howard were anarchists in spirit, though Howard would've had no interest in the pacifistic tendencies of many of the American anarchists in the 1800s. I was also reading a Chinese paper on American culture recently and they were like "Americans might be the most anarchistic people in the world." Ha ha. The author talked about different things, and noted (I had never really thought of this) that Americans don't like weaker people helping them. Like "I can carry my own bags, thank you." You go there, there's just a huge amount of cheap labor that does everything for you if you have any bit of money. I've heard stories of Americans who went there and became frustrated because it's like "I know how to drive a car, I can drive myself, okay?" There's a D-I-Y culture. The individual matters a lot. I want to be able to think for myself.

>>24620768
>I've come to think the reason Leninism came out of Russia, landed in China, and didn't work in the U.S. is because of the pre-existing political cultures were very different.
As always, economies had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

>There's a D-I-Y culture.
USA is the world's largest services market. One would expect the self-sufficient individuals to be less dependent on Miguel to sweep his driveway and prune his hedges.

>>24620783
>One would expect the self-sufficient individuals to be less dependent on Miguel to sweep his driveway and prune his hedges.
It's also the only developed country in the world where customers expect the staff to bag their purchases at grocery stores.

>>24619537
He won

At any rate, I've been around some of these groups and seen some LARPing and some crazy people, but the guy who identified as a communist who I respected the most wasn't involved in any of those groups, and wasn't about to start. He was from a union family up norf who moved to where I was at for a girl, and was mostly involved in his union. And he formed a local group with an anarchist of some sort (also a union guy) that was just a "workers" group for local people. It was very direct with none of the cliche symbols or LARP gear that happens a lot with leftists where it becomes a kind of identity. They didn't fly any banners with symbols that freak people out. If this guy had an identity around politics it was more the union thing.

When people show up to groups because they don't have any friends, or because they want the politics to be like their identity, that's usually a bad sign. I think to be effective as a political person you have to know yourself, and have your own house in order to some extent. (This is however more difficult for working people who are often struggling in their lives.) I think it's also good to have interests and hobbies outside of politics. It's like, I have an identity, and I can play Battletech or whatever as a hobby. I don't need politics to be that. Politics exists to handle other things that I need.

>>24618824 (OP)
Honestly, I think that the US was so prosperous thanks in part to capitalism in the 1950s that people just would rather fight to have another time like that then fight for a system that failed with the collapse of the USSR. Central planning was a failure of an economic model, the most left you’ll get these days in someone like Sheinbaum. Personally, I don’t want to live under communism, I just want the standard of living of my parents, cheap food and housing and a country that is a nation and doesn’t mass import third worlders like every western country has been doing for decades.

Whatever non-mainstream, non-idpol left there might be left still, it's so powerless and eccentric that they practically do not matter at all and certainly will matter even less in the future. Just accept it already that the left is and was bourgeois.

>>24620792
...do americans really do this? I would feel so uncomfortable watching someone bag my own groceries like I'm a retarded child or something

everybody seems to understand apriori in the past critically what was meant by the word class this is precisely the difficulty though because it is that aristotlean tradition category that must be thrown into radical doubt into phenomenological dialectic

I blame the fall of marxism in the united states on labor unions for turning into government regulated hotbeds of corruption. Unions and workers organizing are like the most important part of marxism, not vooting and political shell games.

>>24618824 (OP)
>once any given political system has been applied for a long term the result is melancholy

>melancholy is bred from hypochondria, which in and of itself is derived from signaling and involution

>paranoia becomes logically dominant

>all political systems manage and ingest their own dead organs

>>24618824 (OP)
>falling for the dark matter of socioeconomic theory
just because theory is elegant does not mean it is true.

>Marxism claims to be a scientific understanding of the world.
>A scientific theory's worth is known by its predictive power
>3rd world peasant shitholes rise up and not a single nation with a developed proletariat, capitalists work with their workers to improve conditions voluntarily, capitalist markets become more and more even keeled over time, the middle class grew substantially
>At every turn, Marxism failed to demonstrate a shred of predictive power, proving it fundamentally unscientific
>to survive, it had to be alloyed with random interest group power grab movements all over the earth
>the end result was 5000+ sects and a movement so hazily defined who can say what it stands for any longer

>>24623381
>>to survive, it had to be alloyed with random interest group power grab movements all over the earth
what's wrong with that

>>24623417
>democrats let men compete in women's sports
>marxism is vindicated!
uhhh ok

>>24618907
>under socailism this is utopia
>under capitalism it's exploitation

>>24623417
whats wrong is that its nonsense now
people give buddhism, christianity and islam shit for adopting local holidays or material appearances
communism literally takes in the interests and theories of those it alloys with so that its a bastardized mud blooded mess
all of these are mutually exclusive understanding of the world.

the only thing communism means anymore is "powerful people ought to be less powerful". so just more uppity slave morality.

>>24623453
>muh noo not communism
sounds like classic ressentiment to me

>>24623455
>communism is just ressentiment the ideology?
>no u!
ok

>>24623464
>noo how dare you resent rich people
slave morality

>>24618882
>Amerika is a global financial parasite society and as such has no proletariat aside from illegal beaners, so there is no class to adopt the class action in question. I am sorry but when the entire workforce exists exclusively in the third/second world that's where all the Marxism is going to be.
Great take but it needs the nuance that amerikan cattle are still wageslaves in their own accord, and are subject to Marx's critique of capitalist economics. Them being more comfortable is only due to American imperialism by being the true lord of Europe, South America, and much of Asia. But labor is still labor and even the capitalist himself is subject to the ills of capitalism, this is obvious after a quick inspection of social media and amerikan mental health.

>>24623469
this is the funniest part of marxism, marxists will resort to these utterly stupid arguments to try to save it, but it's like when ur reduced to stuff that dumb, maybe just drop marxism and move on? people get sooo committed to it, even after they realize it's lame, they just keep going with cope after cope

>>24623437
It's exploitation because the aristocracy workers are still subject to the ills of capitalism. This is pretty obvious after a quick inspection of Amerikan social media and mental health. Everything is commodified and alienated while elites use capital to abuse you and import immigrants en masse for cheap labor ETC.

>>24623482
>criticizing immigration
just outted urself as not a real marxist, all communists today support open borders

>>24623453
>>24623476
>yes i must be dominated by capitalist jews and eat ze bugs
Sounds like a slave to me g

>>24623485
One of the main concerns of Marxism is precisely how economic forces (the structure) lead individuals to migrate from the poorest countries to the richest ones.

He was even worried about Irish people migrating to the UK.
>Marx touched on a number of subjects, but his main focus was the “Irish question,” including the effects of Irish immigration in England.

>>24623488
>retarded fascist pretending to be marxist
u think u won't be eating bugs under communism? interesting

>>24623491
too late, u goofed

>>24623494
>>24623500
Samefag, I will be eating steak under communism. Today's technology produces surplus steak and everyone that works a real job (use-value) should be able to eat it everyday. Meanwhile you'll slave for me because I own the means of production unless you're some kind of welfare parasite.

>>24623501
yeah ur a temporarily embarrassed chairman of the central committee like every other communist

Why ought not resentment to be counted as part of a movement in the orbit of alienation or negativity?

Also part of the reason or value for marxist or socialist or materialist critique is that capitalism has no interest in even understanding what capitalism is doing in a political economic context or even necessarily has the ability to perceive that perspective.

>>24623502
>Marxists are educated and attain success through their intelligence
Interesting, tell me why that is?

>>24618824 (OP)
>Maybe they noticed that communism doesn't work or they weren't successful with it.
Communism does work-- it is just a primitive idea. Read the pre-socratics, more specifically about Pythagoras. Marxism never failed, but Bolshevism did. Social Anarchism is better than libertarianism: manufacturing and consumption MUST be centralized, but, paradoxically, decentralized under social clubs or cooperatives. Social-democracies are a proof that socialists were successful, but I prefer liberal-democracies (or anarchism) more.

>>24623506
>having to resort to posting female avatars to keep ppl engaged with ur lame content
...

the CCP are more faithful to Marx than the USSR ever was

>>24618841
>I don't rally know why most socialist decided to change their main subject like this.
The CIA infiltrated the left and weaponized "french theory" to subvert the old left, I'm not even memeing.

>>24618862
Good job self-reporting as a psyop'd retard.

>>24623519
>Obsessed with female deer
Why is that?

>>24618862
trvke

>>24623793
there was nothing to subvert, western socialists were either obscure sectarians, hardcore tankies or radical social democrats, people would eventually get bored by all three

>>24623803
If there was nothing to subvert, why so much invested in the red scare?

>>24623793
the left had to pivot to identity politics because by the second half of the 20th century it was obvious late stage communism was a total failure economically

>>24623811
umm ever heard of cold war

>>24619042
in my experience all marxist except the extremely anti-state ones are ok with that, i think you are confusing marxist with socdems or "progressives"

Marxists, socialists etc. are just Jews whose ethnophyletism won't allow them to recognize Jesus Christ, so they have to believe in a bunch of really lame stuff and can't even appreciate beauty in a real way since that derives from the Logos. They should be pitied.

The rest are just retarded

>>24618824 (OP)
Trve marxists:
Xi Jinping and the CPC
Gennady Zyuganov and the CPRF
Haz al-Din and the ACP
etc.
Anything else is bookcel cope. Marxism means development, power and war

>>24618844
>In my opinion
Facts don’t care about your feelings leftcom scum
The ACP is going to fucking kill you

>>24621372
>it's so powerless and eccentric that they practically do not matter at all and certainly will matter even less in the future
China is literally the second most powerful country in the world and they are speedrunning their way to the top with no resistence as we speak while the US speedruns its own collapse.

>>24623875
basado

>>24623482
Disimulation and dishonest to pretend that 'ills' wouldn't exist if not for capitalism. I could just as easily call the state taking what I've built and giving it to proles exploitation. The difference being capitistic systems are the ones lifting the average prole out of poverty.

>>24623875
Trvke
This thread is pathetic. Nobody on this board understands that Marxism is a dynamic science not scripture so they’re just stuck in the “but marx said xyz” box, blind to the rising red sun

>>24619550
>Unironically though social democrats are worse than anything ever. Worse than neoliberals and nazis fucking combined. They face the fucking wall first.
Can you explain this sentiment? Is it because they postpone the "revolution" until the end of time and just make small changes until the working class is satisfied and doesn't want any more change?

>>24623926
>Marxism is a dynamic science

Oof.

>>24623882
>extreme capitalism is actually communism if u put the hammer and sickle logo when u do it
the left is in such shambles it's actually funny

>>24618824 (OP)
>>progressives who are 'intersectional' and get distracted by Palestine/LGBT/other cultural issues
>>usually, they're not even good Marxists and are critical theory types, professional managerial 'class', intellectuals, etc.
Liberalism. You're talking about liberalism. Liberalism does this game where it morphs between different things that it's not to give the appearance that it's the enemy, so when it pegs you, you just go blame the other thing.

>>24623875
This. Liberalism has sought numerous routes to take Marxist eyes off of the working class and material problems and put them in weird little fetish categories.

>>24624050
>get distracted by Palestine
now marxists are saying that the struggle against colonialism is a distraction? lmao palestine is literally the last place on earth where they can get on their high anti-colonial horse and march around being authentically marxist, for better or worse

>>24624050
>Liberalism does this game where it morphs between different things
in this thread we have ppl saying chinese capitalism is marxism, and at the same time that leninist anti-colonialism is a "distraction", etc. if anything "morphs" it's marxism, marxism always has a way to hand wave away every failure and hypocrisy.

Marx's greatest failure was failing to understand the Phenomenology of Spirit. Marxism is, in fact, just another version of modernity/Enlightenment ideology, along with liberal democracy, fascism, and so on. They all contain the same fatal contradiction between universality and singularity and they all end up in the same place - tyranny in one form or another, the obliteration of the individual as a political actor. Hegel breaks this down step by step, in great detail, linking it to a dialectic that goes back to the earliest forms of human life (tribes, city states). The 'proletariat' is merely another faction taking the mantle of Universal Will, just like the division of powers in liberal democracy is only a mask for the same sort of oppressive, singular authority. There isn't actually a way out, the only way forward for people lies not in politics but Christianity. Until the end of time we'll just be shuffling through different forms of Enlightenment state, there's nowhere else to go and Hegel demonstrates this. If you understand Hegel, you can see through the chuds, the dems, the Marxists, etc., like they're made of glass - which they are.

>>24624110
>Marxism is, in fact, just another version of modernity
no shit dude marxism is like peak modernity, didn't bother to read the rest

>>24624061
>now marxists are saying that the struggle against colonialism is a distraction
Everything is imperialism. If we're updating the dialectic, communist expansion will be an empire of the proletariat. The language has loosened in this area. Colonialism is better language because it addresses the fact that eleven year old girls and their grandmas were being kicked out of their houses at the dead of night so rich New York jews can come in and steal their property for their condos.
>>24624076
>marxism always has a way to hand wave away every failure and hypocrisy
It's amazing how you deflect every liberal problem onto every other system. Liberalism is the distinct root of every one of your issues.

>>24624116
Nta but the point is that modernity ends up being shit no matter what form it takes.

>>24624123
>Liberalism is the distinct root of every one of your issues.
my issues? what issues? this is the best of all possible worlds and i'm sick of pretending it isn't

>>24624116
>liberalism isn't peak post- modernity
>i-i-it's everything else! especially that Marx guy!
Nope. It's liberalism. Your problem is still liberalism. Liberalism is doing this to you. Nothing else.

>>24624125
modernity ended with ww2 and the failure of communism, it's been postmodern since

>>24624129
>this is the best of all possible worlds
Oh is it? This is for you,huh?

>>24624137
>>24624133
>>24624050
>>24624123
2021 ahh posts

>>24624134
You want to argue about the meaning of words now? The dynamics Hegel described are still 100% alive, they will be alive as long as there are states that pretend to represent the People. If you want to call this stage 'postmodern' instead knock yourself out. This is such a retarded argument, "nuh uh, if you define modernity in this other way, then we're in postmodernity!" What you'd expect from a Marxist though.

>>24624134
>failure of communism
You mean the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

>>24624140
Yes. These were all problems under peak liberalism. We can go much further back or slightly further forward. It's liberalism every time. These are mostly from the phase where "conservative" media machines were pushing the idea that their own ideology was somehow not going to lead to this and it's all secretly Marxist. (it's not, that's a protip)

>>24624133
Check it out guys, a new faction is making an appearance! Perhaps it will wrest away the levers of power. Then again, maybe not. It'll be shit regardless.
>if only I could get the government to promote MY ideas then we'd by good...
You're a laughing-stock. Your playbook has never worked, never will work, and by nature cannot work. But I understand that Hegelian dialectics, even in a dumbed-down form, is beyond your average Marxist.

>>24624141
i'm not marxist dumb ass, modernist grand narratives have been dropped even by leftist academics as untenable

>>24624154
It's not about a "grand narrative" it's simply the nature of popular government - whether in a democracy, a dictatorship, syndicalism, whatever form it takes. It's unbelievable to me that you can't follow such a simple train of thought. I guess you get distracted by one of your other tabs midway through the post.

>>24624152
>Your playbook has never worked
The playbook of exposing liberalism? It works everywhere it has been tried. It's why Chinese communists beat Chinese liberalists, it's why the Bolsheviks defeat liberal dumacrats, etc etc.

>>24624150
At least update your images
Outrage over drag queen story hour was like a billion news cycles ago

>>24624154
Everything for him is Marxism. Everything he does, everything that liberals do, everything that's part of his system is recolored and recontoured to match his insanity. As liberalism is proven to be the most totalitarian ideology of all time he will sink on that ship screaming about an iceberg that sunk it, while he's boiling in the tropics.

>>24624169
I'll be posting these in fifty years as proof of western liberalism. I'm tempted to start posting Weimar as evidence.

>>24624043
Cope however you want but the chinks are death serious about historical materialism.

>>24624037
>Oof
not an argument

>>24623784
Yeah but it's not all roses in China. A lot of people feel like they're in a liminal zone where all the "China 2050" stuff hasn't arrived yet (pinky promise!) but unless you already made a bunch of money it feels like you've missed the boat. It's like a lot of places. People feel bummed out / ennui / malaise.

>>24624061
>>24624076
People can say anything on the internet. You have no idea what kind of schizos you can be talking to. People who will call themselves Marxists because they think it makes them sound edgy. You have some guy ITT talking about drag queens and Weimar degeneracy and saying Marxism is about loving war or something. I dunno, man.

>>24624037
You're responding to a cult member. "We have a dynamic science" and a leader. Like the zoomer version of Bob Avakian's bowling team.

>>24624287
>Yeah but it's not all roses in China
I know and I didnt imply it was, I was just pointing out that marxism is really alive, just not in the west.

>>24624129
>this is the best of all possible worlds and i'm sick of pretending it isn't
kek

>>24623875
>Haz al-Din and the ACP
nah

>>24624236
Not only is saying Marxism is a 'dynamic science' not an argument worth replying to, it's just rhetorical inflation. Marxism isn't some magical protocol with no provisional limits. If you truly believe otherwise you are ideologically possessed.

>>24624342
yah
2 0 3 6
0
3
6

in america you have a choice between the conservative party and diet conservative party.

dawg, yall never going to have a revolution

>>24624334
he's unironically right. it's not like communism is meant to be an improvement over capitalism, if it ever materializes it will be pure polpotist degrowth nightmare

>>24624332
>has similar wealth inequality to the united states but with zero human rights or environmental regulation
so this is the power of marxism?

>>24621428
Not anymore, no. Most places have self-checkout now, and you're incentivized to bring your own bags. But we used to do that. Sometimes it would be a two-person team: one to scan the groceries and another to bag them

>>24624363
Xista really said “human rights”

>>24624373
i bet u cry about "the carceral state" in the united stats on the reg tho

>>24624387
No clue what you’re talking about
Hope you enjoy getting raped at gitmo for not pledging allegiance to Israel in your land of human rights

>>24624363
the united states doesnt give a damn about human rights, it has staged countless coups and long lasting dictatorships which violeted human rights ruthlessly
and the only reason why the US and western europe can larp as enviromentally friendly is because they outsource their manufacturing to China and India, the polution these countries produce is largely funded by US capital

>>24624349
>>24624300
>>24624037
Same people denying that Marxism is a science probably believe in actual brainrot like “sociology”

>>24624487
marxism is sociology

>>24624363
>has similar wealth inequality to the united states
Source?

>>24624487
Marx was more of a scientist but your Marxists are more like Scientologists.

>>24623865
Christianity is highkey marxist though

>>24623875
Correct & based
>>24623920
>Disimulation and dishonest to pretend that 'ills' wouldn't exist if not for capitalism. I could just as easily call the state taking what I've built and giving it to proles exploitation. The difference being capitistic systems are the ones lifting the average prole out of poverty.
Just say you haven't read Marx. These are the first points he addresses and midwit level arguments.

>>24624356
>>he's unironically right. it's not like communism is meant to be an improvement over capitalism, if it ever materializes it will be pure polpotist degrowth nightmare
Just say you've never read Marx and cant think critically. "we zill surely be le polpot degrowth" is such a retarded take

>>24624545
>Just say you haven't read Marx. These are the first points he addresses and midwit level arguments.
I think this is a good intro level course:
https://youtu.be/EBK5aKOr2Fw

>>24624363
>comparing two wildly different countries
>one of them is decaying, while the other one is rapidly rising
???
china wasnt even industrialized before mao. think of the long-term, friendo

>>24624557
>Reading what im trying to discuss is literally le cult!
Ok weirdo, youre arguing nothing against nothing

>>24624566
I'm not here to argue with you. I respect that this is important to you.

>>24623920
ngmi, you dont even know Marx said capitalism will progressively better the conditions of proles, and you dont understand that anything you build without exploiting someone else would still exist

>>24624576
I accept your defeat, kneeling in fear & trembling to your superior is not an unexpected move.

>>24624589
We see things differently, and that's fine.

>>24624597
Of course, a slave would see things differently from a master. It's only natural.

>>24624601
I'm not here for roleplay.

>>24624609
This is reality, get used to it.

>>24624611
I'll only agree to this relationship if my punishments are also a reward.

>>24624557
ok this is epic

>>24624487
Marxism is not a science just because it describes itself as such. Might as well just just "Trve marxism is right because it's a science and it's a science because it says so." It's just a vague redundant rhetorical statement meant to obfuscate and dissimulate. Which Marx and Engles are great at.

>reports of Marxism's death have been greatly overstated

learn mandarin anon

>>24624705
>It's just a vague redundant rhetorical statement meant to obfuscate and dissimulate. Which Marx and Engles are great at.
if you're a mongoloid
hilarious how out of every popular philosophy only with marx&engels are retards proud enough to proclaim that they don't understand what either of them wrote, they don't do that with obscurantist hacks like Kant, no sir

>>24624783
You're a mongoloid if you fall for the rhetorical trick of something called 'dynamic science' (all science and dynamic and by definition not static) or reading something that calls itself a science of history and society then treating everything it says about society and history with ipso facto authority. I've never met a single Marxist who tries to interpret reality with their 'dynamic science' except admitting labor theory of value is bunk, misjudgment of capitalism’s flexibility and resilience, or that the complexity of worker identities and motivations is greater than Marx ever accounted for -- you know -- throwing pretty much the baby out with the bathwater.

>>24624812
high iq answer right there (if you're mentally retarded)

>>24624829
Since you're not address my argument I accept your concession that you are wrong.

>>24618824 (OP)
Relevance of Marx aside, he will never ever not be proven wrong by Bakunin.

>>24624709
>Chinese Leninist-fascism
Never forget. COVID was a China/US joint venture to eliminate the weakest of their flock. Both sides agreed to commit a hidden/out-in-the-open genocide.

>>24624812
Because you’re just talking to random 4chan retards. Lenin understood Marxism as a dynamic science and applied t to Russia. So did Mao and he applied it to Chinese conditions, where decisions are still made every single day based off Marxist scientific analysis

Political economy is a quantitative science though. It is why it was possible in the past to sit in the british museum reading room and read copies of the economist and then talk about the economy because the numbers in the economist represent some material reality supposedly at least.

>>24624867
>china is le fascist
ultimate midwit opinion

>>24624812
>>24624891
I'd say it was an attempt to apply a kind of scientific method to thinking about -- and intervening in -- society and politics.

Like if you read Mao, he writes a lot about how you have to "look at both aspects of the problem" (or things like that) and how to think about a problem rather than just trusting in supernatural forces to solve the problem (or believing that supernatural forces make it impossible to solve the problem or change anything). You see this a lot in his military writings. There are constant changing conditions and you have to adjust tactics accordingly. You're probably going to lose if you just charge in going "God wills it!" Or trusting in other gods or animistic forces as they do in China. You have to understand the political context you're operating in (and that's also changing), because war is politics. People have to be able to think creatively and independently within the framework of the overall strategy. You learn by doing (experimenting). This all shares things in common with the scientific method. There was a lot to this.

Of course this ended up becoming institutionalized and dogmatic during the 20th century. Also some of the dogmatic things that communists say are predictions made by other communists a long time ago which proved inaccurate, but they hold them to be scientific truths and repeat it like scripture. There's also the idea that communism is inevitable, which is a teleological concept, and they will try to fit events that occur in reality into that schema, which is completely backwards, and so they become (paradoxically) very one-sided and unscientific in their thinking. This is why they're wrong about stuff all the time and double down by forming cults that tend to react aggressively to outsiders, and they follow some guru or clique that's grifting the shit out of them (dogmatism is always useful for this). There are some things in Marx that I like though, like societies evolving through base/superstructure relationships.

>>24624922
Name anything that makes them not.

>>24624709
china's population is starting to collapse because marxism makes a terrible religion to build a family around unlike hinduism or islam, learn hindi or arabic

>failed ideology struggles to attract modern adherents

Shocking.

>>24625075
>>failed ideology
China is doing good

>>24618824 (OP)
it's never real marxism is it

>>24625377
real marxism has been tried and it was an utter failure
this is how der frankfurt schoole came into being

>>24625382
Who is this goddess

>>24625387
that's awkwafina she's a voice actor and a raper

>>24625382
>Frankfurt School were marxist
Oh son. GET A JOB

>>24625377
No, it's been Marxism repeatedly.
But when a party of elites adopt the name of the people's party of the commune, then you have clear liars who have no intention of bring about the commune.
Stop equating the the terms. Communism=/=Marxism

>>24625370
We're not talking about Mussolinism

>>24625393
Based retard.

>>24624332
>gigantic all-pervading, all-controlling state is Marxist

>>24626217
literally what the dotp is all about

>>24625377
Real Marxism is Stalin, Xi Jinping, Putin, Thomas Massie, and it’s glorious

>>24626857
Spittin
>>24625377
It WAS real Marxism when Genghis Khan was doing it
It WAS real Marxism when Stalin was doing it
It IS real Marxism when Xi’s doing it
It WILL BE real Marxism when we do it

>>24626857
CORRECT

>>24626857
>>24626932
>>24627010
What is this new strain of marxism that labels obvious non marxists like Putin as marxist? I’ve literally only seen it in this thread

>>24627010
>anti-capitalist uses all capitals
Oh the irony.

>>24627036
It's bourgeois nationalist tankies. Stalin's on linguistics ought to explain.

>>24627036
Theoretical purity is a psyop meme. Practice is the only real measure.

>>24620768
>any government that opposes the U.S./Europe/Israel/Japan/etc. is seen as good. "Proletarian nation" stuff vs. parasite nations.
That's a good point

>>24624542
The Marxist cannot stand the Christian because the latter is not a Materialist and is at most a useful idiot

thoughts on gabriel rockhill?

i tried to read das kapital but it was kind of boring, when does it get good

>>24618824 (OP)
They are victims of propaganda, they see a light and follow the light

>>24629199
it doesn't, just read a tl;dr, maybe david harvey or ruhle or whatever, it's been debunked either way

>>24618824 (OP)

Marx never considered himself a Marxist and he stated that socialism would take different forms depending on the varying conditions and development levels in nations.

Infact reading orthodox Marx gave me a better appreciation of the idpol leftists even if I disagree with them. But I can see where they are coming from and how their own line of reasoning regarding social issues is an extension to Marx.

And one can also see why the third worldists would be obsessed with race since they are subjected to value extraction on a global scale that benefits whites and their own despots/oligarchs/capitalists

>>24629027
Marx, Lenin and Stalin were Christians

>>24629372
The problem with them is if you disagree with the, they start calling you a racist and a Nazi.

>>24629255
>deboooonked
socialism (with chinese characteristics) won, chuddy