It’s always funny when liberals come from Reddit because the profit motive slowly ruined everything that once made Reddit fun and disruptive, but then absolutelty mald about Marxists and other leftists once they get here, the explicitly leftist answer to Reddit.
It’s especially bad on !Lemmy.world, where the majority of users are too idealistic to stay on Reddit but not well-versed enough in leftist theory or practice to actually engage with most of Lemmy.
It’s even goofier when these same liberals think they are leftists, but then still get upset at Marxists, and even Anarchists.
and even Anarchists.
I have lost count of the number of times I have been called a tankie by libs lol
I am an anarchist, but I work with a decolonial Marxist org and I have read plenty of ML theory and know who my comrades are.
It’s pure idealism and vibes, theory is scary and anything beyond the liberal echo chamber is MAGA and Russian propaganda.
The good news is that the turbo liberalism drives the more well-meaning liberals leftward in search of actual theory.
They’re afraid to read Lenin because they know they might agree with him.
Congratulations, you’ve described me perfectly! 🥲 (except for the anarchist part, cought up with that about 6 mon ago)
If you want to get into Marxism (even if it’s just to learn about what people are actually talking about), Principles of Communism by Engels and How Marxism Works by Chris Harman are fantastic pamphlets that really take no time to read through, though beware, Harman is a Trotskyist and that bleeds through a bit in his writing.
Marx mostly spoke about Capitalism and while no Marxist can avoid reading Marx, he doesn’t provide a great introduction to Socialism in the Marxist sense, if that makes sense. Still, Value, Price, and Profit and Wage Labor and Capital are fantastic intros to the critique of Capitalism.
Even if you’re interested in learning about Marxism-Leninism, jumping straight to Lenin before even understanding Marxism would be a mistake. Lenin builds his own critique off of Marxism, as a Marxist, so it is preferable to go through Marx first.
The amount of comments I’ve seen start with “I’m as left as they come” instant eye roll
“I’m as left as they come! I also agree with US foreign policy, and think that every country on the official US sanctions and foreign adversary list needs to be overthrown.”
not well-versed enough in leftist theory or practice to actually engage with most of Lemmy.
The problem is that if your political world view requires actual study in order to understand and promote, you’re never going to get anywhere when it comes to affecting real change. Most humans don’t give a shit. You have to give them something simple and easy to make the core of their political identity. In our society capitalism has a head start because it’s baked into the school system, but you don’t get the luxury of forcing everyone to learn how you economic system works.
The problem is that if your political world view requires actual study in order to understand and promote, you’re never going to get anywhere when it comes to affecting real change.
Two war-torn feudal backwaters transformed themselves into spacefaring superpowers in the span of a single human lifetime. History has shown that mass political education is possible and effective. I mean hell, we all have to be instructed as kids about the dangers of fire, and that works. I don’t believe that educating people in Marxism is some sisyphean task any more than educating people in math. I think I can and has been done.
Do you control the public education system? Because until you do, you have to work with the educational background of the population you’re given, not the one you want.
Edit: the replies to this comment that I can see are so nonsensical or make so many wrong assumptions that it’s impossible to to even know where to start with them. I’ll just leave my reaction at “???”. If you, dear reader, want to explain to those people why their statements make no sense, I applaud your effort and the essay it will require.
It really doesn’t require much study to understand and promote. You can go as deep as you like, but the underlying principles are straightforward and rather obvious, like class dynamics.
Additionally, Capitalism doesn’t have any “edge” over Socialism - it’s in a steady state of decline, has been declining, and appears to continue to decline. Capitalism cannot be permanent, it does not have a head start, and there is no need to force everyone to understand how Socialism works.
That’s really my point, you have these knee-jerk reactions because you are unfamiliar with the topics at hand, and do not appear to have tried to understand them further. The inevitability of Capitalism’s decline means you don’t need to be forced to understand Socialism by anyone, you’ll either learn on your own or will ride the tide.
You probably won’t agree with what I have said, but that’s more a choice you personally make, on whether to engage or disengage, and that’s fine.
