I’ve just finished a Marxist book club reading series, including Lenin and Marx and Rosa and several others.
My original studies were on anarchism. Graeber, Chomsky, lots of Anarchist Library articles.
My new studies are Postmodernists. Foucoult, Derrida, Marcusa, etc.
First things first:
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I think Marxists are way too proud of themselves and what they call science. I find Marxism useful but little more than a nice to discuss academic theory. I find serious flaws with it, and am annoyed that so many people seem to identify so strongly with it. In that way im very much in agreement with anarchists and postmodernists. The other thing is that Marxist-Leninism was infiltrated and defeated by capitalism many many times now, and sometimes even without its defeat it led to dystopia. I’m just not excited about this ideology at all, and I think it’s become a bit cringe to continue down this path. Capitalism and state is stronger today than it’s ever been. I think this has lived past its valid era.
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I think anarchism has a lot more truth and wisdom, but is not very powerful. I am unsure how to bring about this kind of society, which is true communism. It seems it will always devolve into a retelling of Marxist stages of history, feudalism, monarchism, capitalism. However I do think there are ways to prevent this if people are mass educated and localities are armed to prevent domination. But also, we live in a day of nukes, and I’ve never read an anarchist treaties on how to manage the nuclear arsenal anarchically. The more you organize anarchism though, the less it’s anarchism. I also worry about how much this turns into vigilantism and mob violence.
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I agree a lot with postmodernists, the concept of truth and morality since learning all the atheist rhetoric in my 20s are very vague to me. Understanding cultural truth, media power, the disparity of grand narratives, the collusion of the Everyman with the system (rather than it being purely a class duality) is “true” to me. However, even more so than #1 or #2 this very much lacks a revolutionary theory.
Then there’s the infighting. When you read the literature everyone “proves” each other wrong and shows how their “revolutionary vision” is impossible and not worth doing. People in socialist theory argue so strongly about such vague ideas. People really think that they are looking to achieve a thing called socialism, but I don’t think they will ever be satisfied with any system they find themselves in. They set impossible goals and then yell at the clouds that it hasn’t been obtained.
Sorry that’s my rant, I also am yelling at the clouds at my own intellectual defeat. I kinda feel like the best we can do is a kind of nihilism and intentional community.
I feel like this is what happens when you are too attached to labeling yourself politically. Believe what you want
Sure, but I guess I want two practical outcomes:
- A theory of action, that can then be put into practice.
- A level of commitment to that theory of action.
So, like, I could put 100% of myself into something I think will definitely work, or I could put 5% of myself into something I think likely won’t work but I’ll try anyway, or anything in between.
Not just for internet debates or something.
Also I’d like to be able to effectively share my vision for the world and answer common criticisms.
what are the real world, practical examples of putting 5% into something you think likely won’t work, and what are the real world, practical examples of putting 100% into something you think likely will work?
life rarely if ever asks you for a complete political ideology, the vast majority of the time your influence on the world will be limited to specific answers to specific issues
I volunteer with DSA some, should I volunteer a lot, a little? Is electoralism a good avenue, is mutual aid? Does it matter if my comrades have other ideas, or is big tent prefered? Should we organize under the banner of socialism, or should we use a less tainted word? Should you try to be a social democrat instead just out of defeatism? Or maybe I just go off and be a good person, be charitable. Or maybe I start a commune.
Polish Solidarity movement. Knock yourself out.
Unlike Marxism, that nowadays requires religious mindset to fit in, and magical thinking to believe in, Solidarity movement is a practical example of people achieving goals together.
In general, if you look for a socialist movement that was actively persecuted by communists and corporatists alike, you’ll find something interesting to study.
Honestly theory can be nice but action is more important. Someone who organises and gets people to support workers owning the means of production while not even knowing what a Marx is is a better Marxist than someone who has read all theory but does nothing about it. So ultimately it makes no difference what ideology you follow or even if you discard all of it as long as you help the working class.
I very much agree. I self-identified as a socialist for a long while before actually getting on the ground and building things. And you know what? I found that online “socialism” or “communism” is absolutely nothing like the folks you meet in real life.
Turns out that the loudest on the left doesn’t always correlate with who shows up to their community. It’s easy to be loud these days, after all. Not so easy to build.
I find that those I help clean the streets with or building new community spaces with are far more pragmatic than any of the “chronically online” socialists/communists - and that pragmatism is derived from a deep experience of what does and doesn’t work. What does and doesn’t build power and community solidarity.
See, I fear that the chronically online “socialism” is largely insular, idealistic, and uncompromising - and so that’s what many see it as.
Just like the “good Christians” are basically invisible right now compared to the authoritarian bible thumpers - so too are the “pragmatic socialists” because we’re being hidden behind the loudest, craziest, and dumbest at the behest of corporate owned media.
So yeah, it doesn’t really matter what ideology you subscribe to, the most important thing is getting out there and building with other like-minded people and figuring out the path to power in your area. It requires pragmatism, patience, and lots of really hard and unforgiving work with no assurance of making the change in your lifetime.
Why does there have to be a single ideology you adhere to? Personally, I believe parts of many different idealogies to create my own.
It is very easy to get discouraged with various ideologies as they are often based in the abstract and therefore hard to apply to the real world. With that said I’ll give you a slice of my own thinking / research on the matter. At a high abstract level, I think most economies needs to be more socially owned instead of privately owned and more market based rather than command based. Some possible theories and policies to help bring this change about are Mutualism and Georgism.
Mutualism encourages the concepts of mutual aid, workplace democracy and self management(cooperatives), and dual power. Dual power is essentially building alternative institutions to the ones that already exist in society until they can eventually supplant the existing institutions. Direct Action also plays a big role in anarchism in general and therefore Mutualism.
Also some georgism inspired policies such as a UBI and a Land Value Tax to be good starting points as far as policy as they are policies that could redistribute wealth from capitalists(1%) to the people.
There is obviously a lot more to unpack especially relating to Mutualism. Interestingly, there is a service built with the principles of mutual aid and direct action built and administered by @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com called AI Horde.
The underlying principles of direct action, mutual aid, and to a lesser degree dual power are ones that be implemented in your own life and are good places to focus your research in my opinion.
Another cool Gerogism-inspired policy is common ownership self-assessed tax (COST), which can be used to collectivize the means of production while maintaining decentralized control of it.
In terms of direct action, we should just starting building postcapitalism now with venture communes of worker coops, and implement policies we want in the venture communes. This would even help with reformism because it would bring economic power to the movement, which could be turned into political power
I think I get you. In my opinion it all boils down to praxis: what policies are you advocating for, how, what interests do you align your personal choices with and why. At least, that is something people of different views can align on out of pure pragmatism. We may have different ideas about the perfect future, most of the steps we can and should take right now are, I think, easy to agree on. I’m glad to see that happening where it matters.
