Any anons centrist or not completely Marxist?
I like to lurk on here and pol and I can firmly say I'm pretty normal when it comes to political views and moral. (Race, gender, the poor etc) I don't want an Ethno-state or A communist one. I would rather have a fully functioning Democratic Republic with both sides being able to have a conversation and not rip into each other or boil down to fights or screaming matches. Can at least some of you anons see that? An America that follows the principles of the Constitution that were originally intended. I guess I'm a Centrist who knows. I think Zig Forums is better about holding conversations so what do you Anons think? I'm not a Ultra-Nationalist or a Progressive I want everyone to be equal but I don't believe in alot of leftist ideas. What even am I? I don't even know. Modern America is a mess both sides can agree on that I'm sure. But I see alot of people on both sides wanna drop Democracy for radicalization. What am I? Does anyone agree or think like me anymore?
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Capitalists with a human face.
Hi sargon
I said I'm a Centrist not Applebees waiter.
Don't worry, you are just a liberal. Not in the rigged american sense, though, where liberal means you are pro-LGTBQ and that's it (though you are also that). More in the classical sense: you believe a well-functioning democratic process ensured by the rule of law can improve our society, and you probably believe that we have to find and implement the proper mechanism to improve our democracy (i.e. reforming the voting system, giving reparations and different forms of affirmative action to increase the participation of minorities in our societies, etc…).
Having said that, it's a position that is nowhere near marxism. On the very contrary, it is the complete opposite of marxism: it's the ideology of the classical bourgeoisie, of Bentham, of the french revolution, and of the "founding fathers".
This fragment of Marx might be interesting to you:
"We now know how the value paid by the purchaser to the possessor of this peculiar commodity, labour-power, is determined. The use-value which the former gets in exchange, manifests itself only in the actual utilisation, in the consumption of the labour-power. The money-owner buys everything necessary for this purpose, such as raw material, in the market, and pays for it at its full value. The consumption of labour-power is at one and the same time the production of commodities and of surplus-value. The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.
This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.
On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding."
Yeah I agree with just about everything here thanks user.
Come home, white man
lmao
touché, fair enough.
Anywho, we all started where you are at.
Give Marx a chance if you're ever curious.
You're a liberal. Do you seriously have to ask this?
The Communist Manifesto? Read it not really a good read good idea on paper but unless it's a mixed economy with a small population like Denmark. But I won't go into that since that'll lead to a dumpster fire just know I'm not a Marxist.
this is bait right?
Centrism and an ideal status quo is extremely appealing to me in theory because I hate politics and dealing with political people, but in reality I really do not think that capitalism is at all sustainable to say the very least, and I do really believe that humanity's survival, let alone flourishing, depends on a new way of organizing society that can only properly be called a revolutionary socialism of some kind. I do sympathize though user. I wish I could be apolitical but I am a poor laborer so it is not something I feel I can personally do in good faith. I just want to be apolitical in a socialist society.
Obviously.
I read Marx's work not really a fan tbh.
You know that we are (almost) all in favour of democracy right? Just real democracy without bourgeois representatives bought and paid for by corporations?
marxists.org
theanarchistlibrary.org
Read user and learn if you don't want to stay a centrist dweeb
Yes I am spoonfeeding OP fuck off. A thread died for this
Well we communists are pretty reasonable if you think about it.
Dont worry user, we'll show you where you're going wrong. What are your main points you're hung up on?
If you've only read the Manifesto you know nothing about communist theory.
Here you go
That hasn't been functioning for the last 30 years, if ever. The preference of the average American has zero impact on federal legislation.
YIKES AND CRINGE BRO
You aren't fully radicalized. I know we all wish it could be so much simpler, peaceful and civilized, but to save our world we can't do it this way. People that are perceptive to what is happening to us, and visualize the problems we have to deal with can't possibly be close to the center of the political spectrum. We obviously will generate different solutions to the same problems (far leftists for example thinking to stop the refugee crisis we should stop imperialist powers from turning well functioning countries into shitholes, creating the crisis in the first place. The solution to rightwingers however is militarized closed borders or shit like that).
So there you have it OP. You either pick a side and pick your solution or you remain a utopian.
A shitlib.
damn niqqa that's some good shit
fucking same.
marxism seeks to be scientific about political economy. ie. to have as a wide as context as possible (no a-historicism), to be as objective as possible (feelings shouldn't dictate interpretation), and hence it's fundamentally different than right wing thought. it's not even left vs right, it starts at "how does shit work" (ie. marxism) and you decide your politics based on that. OP, you might not believe communism works, but at least you should understand exactly why capitalism is doomed to sucks ball in order to fix it with actually significant policies.
I'm curious, what in Marx's works did you find not compelling?
I too was an idealist once. But the only way to have what you said is through socialism.
I'm not a Marxist myself.
I'm not even a centrist. I'm really just a reader and pipe smoker. (A pipe is the poor man's cigar). My main interest is in getting on with my personal projects.
But centrism, imo, i. e. actively spending any time bolstering up liberal politics (as opposed to just apolitically getting on with the grind at work, and doing what you can with your life outside it) may be a busted flush. If you're going to do any reading on Marx,OP, I'd suggest mainly reading up on the Labour Theory of Value, and also the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Because although it's highly technical, the conclusion of it is, it may be that as the system collapses, things go to extremes politically, and people have to choose between socialism (/communism), or barbarism (fascism) ( in the classic formulation.) If you don't have very much time to read, I'll put some links to YouTube videos on these subjects by ecelebs in the e-trash thread.
Even if the collapse doesn't happen, you're still better off backing movements further to the left than centre, just because it's in your interests to do so (Assuming your're not porky.) The higher the average wage, for example, obv the more you're going to get paid. All you need to do is e.g.boycott Uber the next time the drivers stage a wildcat strike. (The more uber has to pay its drivers, the better wages across the board, as porky has to compete for workers .)
agreed also
how about reading some economic theories beyond just the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, a pamphlet marx wrote to explain communism to the workers in 1848. Thats literally what a high schooler is assigned to do a book report on to learn communism.
Try reading capital volume 1 then come back
Just don't hoard grain after the revolution comes
I'm a baudrillardian which means idiot marxists think I'm not left enough, which is wack. Then again I think the left is a stupid idea that Marx never wrote about, and that the Bourgoisie is the left since it was defined in the French revolution so anyone whose all up in arms about the left is retarded by definition.
But seriously it seems that getting into the good shit with deep psychology, the symbolic, spiritual, the conspiracy theory of the universe, etc., will trigger all the people who think they are "materialists" and therefore objectively true (unhealthy emotional attachment to enlightenment positivism).
wait what
Social Democracy where the system is slowly but permanently made more left wing by small increments is the best way forward. The Capitalists and their sympathisers will be like frogs in a pot as the water slowly comes to the boil they will either cease to exist or become red. This kind of revolution has the advantage of being quiet and bloodless
I'm not a Marxist, but I fucking hate Nazis. Whoever kills Nazis is my friend, and liberals aren't killing Nazis. Commies might kill Nazis, which makes them good in my book. I have no particular concern about economic systems and have my gripes with the Marxist take on political economy. Basically, he's taking the assumptions of liberalism at face value, but the reality is that we don't really live in an ideally realized liberal society and never have, and modern liberals basically abandoned the principle of political equality. You can't speak of political equality as anything meaningful in a system where eugenics is law and roughly 20% of the population is not even really considered people proper (and this is just what is literally written in the law, if you've ever really studied the matter - anyone with a history of mental defects is basically fucked in what they can and cannot do with their life, unless they're rich enough to pay off the system and you have to be at millionaire status to buy legitimacy in this way, and even that doesn't always work). Never mind the history of slavery and conquered nations who were very much not considered equals, or the open rigging of democracy and repeated breaking of the trust people put in the system to actually be what it purports to be. The more you look at the details, the more the crude Marxist vision of capitalism starts to break down. It's a passable model for describing what generally happens in capitalism in its idealized state, but we don't live in that idealized state and a large part of the basis for political power is concentration of knowledge and the ignorance of the people (and indeed, their forced ignorance, as great sums of wealth and labor are put in mind-destroying propaganda and literally poisoning the public, in addition to the bigass police apparatus). Knowledge, truth, and reality control themselves are of paramount importance to the rulers and important as a part of the economic system, but capitalism doesn't have a good way of judging its value in monetary terms. That, I believe, is what would spur the next system - not that capitalism is going to make everyone miserable (people are already fucking miserable), but that the process of knowledge accumulation and learning will be systematized and become self-perpetuating, and the arbiters of knowledge themselves are in the position to actually wage revolution.
Too bad that with Global Warming we really don't have much time to waste to radically change everything
This. I actually used to be a filthy succdem and then I realized capitalism is killing our species faster than reformists can ever work
Being anything other than a socialist in today's climate situation is almost irresponsible tbh. The climate scientists know capitalism has to go, but dare not say it explicitly. If climate change and over-exploitation is going to wreck our civilization, it'll be because of people constantly trying to rationalize a suicidal socio-political system.
bloodless for the rich. what about violent crime that overwhelmingly affects the non-rich during this "slow transition period"? although I guess starvation and most diseases are relatively bloodless, so I'll give you that.
god save the rich!
ask me how I know you haven't read marx.
based inglorious basterd, honorary comrade
I did?
So many people here don't know what they're talking about and get fucking autistic about taking a narrow reading of Capital as canon and insist it applies forever and in all situations. We just don't live in the conditions Marx was writing about, not exactly. I mean, you can use it to describe the behavior of capital even today, but the money isn't actually value in a meaningful sense. The concept of a "store of value" itself is quite nonsensical when you think about the real relationships between people and their environment, and each other. The people in power aren't interested in the success of the system in the aggregate, or perpetual growth of a global system, or whatever - they only care about reproducing that power, and the bare minimum quantity of material necessary to do so. They don't actually believe perpetual growth is possible, and making that argument against capitalists is a straw man that misses the point. The capitalist doesn't reproduce the system because he thinks the economic mode of production itself must be maintained, but because he likes owning shit and wants his workers to be little more than livestock. Maintaining the inferior status of the worker is itself the goal, and they will do it with whatever system they need to use. Now, people generally don't like being slaves, so they had to historically entertain the notion that workers were actually free to convince them that it wasn't so bad; but not for a second did the owners ever really see their workers as actual people, and they can't do so. Same with workers down the line against the workers of markedly inferior social status, and workers against the unemployable wretches of society. The condition of "free labor" as such is illusory, especially when to a large degree the kind of work you can do is always circumscribed. You get to choose your form of slavery within certain boundaries, and you get a small chance of winning the capitalist game of competition and entering the ranks of the middle and upper classes (but in practice, new men are never allowed to go too far without joining the Big Club and converting to the mindset of the bourgeoisie, and there are limits to how far money can take you before you run into aristocracy, and you have to pay dues in a big way to get into that club - and oh yes, there is very much an old aristocracy in this world, to pretend the capitalists just happened to get where they are by sheer tenacity is mythmaking). In short, judging capitalism as a failed system when you assume the liberal notion of "freedom" holds to the so-called free worker, is missing the point entirely. It's always been about power, plain and simple, and it is a truly large call to break that cycle without just creating some other power structure.
Try reading capitalist realism by Mark Fischer. It's very short and illustrates the ideology very effectively.
It's okay. Come here user. Just take this rose pill and you will feel better I promise. If you do stability, healthcare, social security, infrastructure, freedom, democracy and the continued existence of your country will come to you.
Braindead dishonorary retard lmao
It is possible have conversations with some republicans and liberals, but nazis are impossible to talk to and must be culled.
Pick one
Too left for the Zig Forums kids and too Zig Forums for the left. From reading clubs to posting Pepes on them argument threads.
i swear to god eugenics poster is annoying
The constitution intended for slavery to be legal lul.
Originalism/traditionalism/whatever you want to call it, is just a way to maintain existing power structures, no surprise that the worst fascists in America all claim to be constitutionalists.
just say capitalism. your borrowed euphemism comes off as Foucaultian
I mean yes capitalism, but white slaver imperial capitalism in particular. America was never designed to be even meritocratic capitalism for the people.
third pos gang rise up
A disgraceful stain on the Bunkerflag.
I want to impregnate the fash.
pretty hot ngl