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Americans and socialism
Americans and socialism
302 comments
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Of course, you could just talk about "Tax The Rich" or "Bring Back the New Deal" but then how could people know you read Karl Marx?
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I've been thinking a lot recently about how to rephrase socialist ideals as capitalist bills for the sake of America.
I want to propose a "Proof of Economic Viability Bill" somewhere if I can find the right influence point.
Basically, financial advisors suggest that people should pay no more than 30% of their income towards living expenses. Knowing that the vast majority of Americans only have income from their primary job, this means that any business should be expected to pay no less than 30% of their income, evenly divided across the entire workforce (cart pusher to CEO), as a "living expense allotment" to prove they can afford to pay their workers enough to live and stay afloat. This will push out companies who are doomed to fail because of a lack of available workforce, allowing more economically viable options to reign king.
Edit to add: you can make this sound a little nicer to the maga crowd by telling them they can reduce wages by doing this. I don't necessarily care that you're paying minimum wage as long as you can afford to put your worker in a home and fill their stomach.
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You just described what the minimum wage was supposed to be, and plenty of red blooded American patriots already hate that.
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You're absolutely right. However, if you use the right magic words you can convince them that it will be good for them. Constituents will be happy because their bills will be guaranteed to be paid by their company, and investors will be happy because they can look at a company and instantly see whether they can make money off it. It just so happens that politicians tend to be into the same things as investors
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However, if you use the right magic words you can convince them that it will be good for them.
This is Utopianism, and was practiced by early Socialists like the Owenites. The problem is that such a practice never works. One of Marx's major advancements was in developing Scientific Socialism, which looks at material reality and its trends to see how to better guide them.
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I don't disagree with you, in general. This is why I like the two-pronged focus of my plan. I don't wanna just go and propose bills and convince people to be socialists. I've been going around spreading the word of food co-ops and non-profit/expense-sharing apartments (but not the same way that section 8 and whatnot work). You can feel free to poke through my account a bit to see some of that.
If you still find an issue with this line of thinking definitely let me know so I can try to adjust the strategy
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Generally, people will agree that good systems are good. The criticism I have is going from A to B, ie how do we get these things into reality, as well as "hiding your real intentions."
For the former, again, the Owenites pitched an idealized model that they had managed to get started, and was working rather well compared to other systems. The problem was that the ruling class never adopted it because it would harm their control and profits for the sake of the whole of society. Marx's analysis led to the development of Scientific Socialism, which has had much more lasting impact and success.
For the latter, it can lead to being seen as sly or manipulative. People can sniff this out pretty well, I believe, and causes them to distrust you. It is better to be open about your intentions.
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I still don't disagree with any of your points. I think in the future I could be more on-the-nose about explaining the purposes of the bills and how to actually go about using maga-friendly magic words without actually supporting maga-friendly "magic words" (hopefully that makes as much sense outside of my head lol).
I'm of the belief that good leadership and psychopathic manipulation are nearly identical, it's all about what you actually influence them to do/feel. As such, I believe there is a way to go about using these words effectively, it just takes a certain type of individual to do so and the right circumstances and education to make sure they can do it right
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I think my other comment I just wrote here answers this, so I won't repeat myself. Just leaving a comment so anyone who wants to follow this comment chain can see where it goes, if it does.
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Yeah, I just replied about the two lines of thought in these chains but this seems like a good convergence point for any readers. Can continue in just that one
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I realize my other comment didn't actually properly answer your concern. You are right about this being the equivalent of minimum wage. However, the meaning of wages have changed since the time when those laws were made. We don't need companies to prove they can pay their people for today, because we have technology that lasts hundreds of years if properly maintained. We need them to prove they are economically viable forever.
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Stop using polysyallabic words like "proletariat" when trying to appeal to the American working class who read at a 5th grade level.
Seriously. Like the guy in Severance said. Apologize for the word. It's too long.
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No no, you just have to use the right ones that they like. The "magic words" so to speak. Investors really like "economic viability" because it means they can instantly look at a company and see if they can make money off it. Politicians just so happen to be interested in a lot of the same things as investors for some reason.
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Historically, this just doesn't work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as "MAGA Communism." Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics. You need to be honest with people, otherwise they will learn they have been tricked and resent you. Further, this isn't really Socialism, but Capitalism with bigger safety nets.
The problem with policy is that it needs material foundational backing, otherwise it will be walked back if the class in power doesn't like it.
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I see your concerns, I really do. Poke around my account and you'll see the other steps that need to come along with these bills which I've suggested around a bit. Basically, I've been asking people and trying to spread some influence to get some real socialism going at the same time
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I have too, and I've tried it both ways. Openly being a Communist and explaining clearly and exactly why I hold the views I do has netted me more acceptance and respect. I even made a Marxist-Leninist introductory reading guide, which has netted several new comrades and still gets new upvotes even months after originally posting it.
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And I greatly appreciate work like yours. I believe we need to do both. There are people who will be easier to convince if you use those magic words because that's what works for them. There are others who will be easier to convince if use more maga-friendly terms. The important part is that bills like that need to be introduced in the correct way.
It is possible, as an American citizen to draft and propose a bill to your senator with a petition to your fellow man. We need to go convince people, in whichever works for that particular individual, to sign these petitions for bills that will help them. We need to convince them to vote for them in whatever ways will get them to do so. But we need to draft those bills carefully and ensure they get shot down if they get twisted in the chambers.
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The "magic words" bit generally isn't true, though. I recommend reading "Brainwashing" followed by Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing." My strategy entirely changed after reading these, people will not side with you truly if they already license themselves to believe something else. This coincides with the real experience of Communists and other Leftists historically, Liu Shaoqi's How to be a Good Communist talks about maintaining this honesty in dealing with the rest of the Working Class who may not be radicalized yet. This keeps us in touch with their needs and desires, preventing commandism or tailism.
Further, signing petitions and trying to force the ruling parties into action generally doesn't work without millitant labor organizing.
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I'll have to look into those. My reasoning behind the "magic words" thing is two-part and quite likely outdated: research and anecdote.
Quick side note before the meat: Also, I appreciate that we're keeping two lines of thought going across these two comment chains. Not a skill I see in others often, but one I enjoy having in my friends for moments like this.
The basis comes from my understanding of how propaganda works, but honestly mostly comes from my memory on the classes in school. Granted, I paid a lot more attention in school than a lot of my peers but I haven't done as much research since then as I should/probably you and other more theory-oriented communists have done so I can probably get schooled a bit. Basically, I like to make use of emotion-provoking terms a lot. In person, I do so by trying to befriend people from across the aisle to observe them and listen to them. They'll use the words that matter to them, "egg/gas prices" or "housing crisis" or whatnot. Then, I find ways that their "team" has hurt the things that matter to them, and I'll go and talk to them about those bills. Usually along the lines of "Hey did you see this? It's got these great benefits for us but those rat bastards snuck in x/y/z" and over the course of a few months I've gotten a good handful to start noticing the pattern (this is where the anecdote comes in).
I've convinced a traditional "good ol boy" from Oklahoma (I learned so many slurs from him in the first few months) in the past to argue for communism against one of his classmates just because he didn't like that classmate at the time. After about 2 years of knowing this guy, he was the type of ally who would stand up and knock a motherfucker out if he heard you say something homophobic in passing. And the best part was that I never even tried for that bit, I only ever tried with economic strategies with him and he figured out the humanitarian aspect on his own
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Thanks for the compliments, though you've probably seen by now that I ended the other comment thread, haha. I feel that this one is consolidated enough so I linked it over here.
Either way, I don't actually think you're wrong from a rhetorical point of view, but I do think that you would see more lasting success by being more open, at least online where you aren't in (as much) danger if you're found out. In personal terms, I usually just recommend friends and potential allies to listen to Blowback. It's very effective for radicalizing against the US Empire, and promotes sympathy for AES states and the Global South in general. Online, however, I find that it's better to openly state that I'm a Marxist-Leninist, and explain my views on those grounds.
As a side-note, I do recommend diving into theory if you haven't. The more theory you read, the more effective your arguments can be, and while it isn't a linear scale this has certainly helped me the most.
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I've had a lot of negative experiences with some people who are overly theory-oriented (theory is great but you should form opinions on it, not let it dictate them to you) which has definitely pushed me away from reading it. I'm at a point in my life now where I think I could probably start dipping my toes into that without going off the deep end, and this conversation was a particularly good motivator to start doing so. Always more to learn
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You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
I'll also shamlessly plug my own Marxist-Leninist reading list again as it's designed for people to go from knowing no theory to having a solid grasp of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, as well as its historical context.
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Listen to Blowback
You might also try putting people on Why Socialism by Albert Einstein by Hobo Johnson (Spotify Link)
Hobo Johnson is an incredible artist, and as far as I can tell a modern day Renaissance man. In this particular piece he does an exceptional job of literally reading the writing to you without making you think he is. He uses commentary, humor, a melody and a chorus to make learning more fun. I was thinking about this while walking just now and I actually might send him a letter of appreciation to follow the best practices of empowering and positively reinforcing that behavior.
"Positive Reinforcement" is an ideal I get a lot of pushback on because people think I'm treating them like an animal. They're right. Because humans are animals and I'm just as trainable as my dog if you do it right
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Kicking a dead horse a little bit but I just wanted to point out how right you are that I'm not actually suggesting socialism. Not yet. I have a rough 1000 year plan to get there in my head that I haven't written down yet. Once I've read some theory I basically wanna write some of my own modern theory like they did. In particular I've been very interested in Why Socialism by Albert Einstein, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
I'm suggesting more social systems more similar to what Norway and many other countries have. Like social security and the VA are already in America. It's not easy to disrupt the whole system overnight and put in a new one, and I'm not a revolutionary yet, just a radicalist. I want more systems like the ones America already has, and I want to base them off their successful compatriots
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Why Socialism? is a good read! I do think it's better as a precursor to theory rather than a substitute, as it isn't really theory in my opinion but a pitch for why theory is relevant and Socialism necessary. If I were to give my recommendation on any single starter work of theory, it would be Engels' Principles of Communism, the first work I have listed in my Marxist-Leninist Reading List, but it can be read after Why Socialism? if you'd prefer to start there.
As for Social Democracy like the Nordics, there are 2 major problems with that, and why I can't count them as "successful" despite outward appearances of good metrics.
The first reason is that the Nordics fund their safety nets via Imperialism, essentially working as Landlords in country form. They exploit the Global South. The United States, as the world's dominant Empire, could only gain these safety nets without Socialism by retaining Imperialism. Lenin has good analysis on this in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
The second reason is the lack of true feasibility of expanding these safety nets with the current bourgeois dictatorship. The New Deal only happened when the US had more millitant labor organization, and in the context of a world that just saw a successful Socialist revolution in Russia. The modern US proletariat needs to adopt both an anti-US Imperialism stance (ie pushing for the dissolving of NATO and overseas millitary bases) and a pro-labor organization stance in order to gain true change, and at this point revolution becomes more feasible anyways.
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And again, I agree with you on all points. I'll be poking my head into a bit of theory in the coming weeks, particularly the book worship and Why Socialism at first, and then into more communist stuff as well.
As for the social democracy issues, that's why I mentioned careful drafting of those bills and shooting them down if need be. It is possible to do those systems right. It has to be cooperative, not coercive and that's something that Einstein addresses in Why Socialism. We're currently in the predatory phase of humanity, so what we understand of human nature and cooperation right now can shine little light on the socialist future. We can't look at history for examples, we need to make them. I want to write bills that look similar to what's happening now, but is new and innovative for the sake of the future. This wraps back into the book-worship thing we discussed as well. They did great thinking 200 years ago about where we'd be right now. We need to do some great thinking today about where we'll be in 200 years.
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It's good that you want to read theory! Let me know if you have any questions.
As for strategy, the practical extension of trying to carefully prune bills while under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie does not have much practical success in the real world, historically. I expect you'll learn more about why revolution is necessary once you start diving into theory, though.
The thing with new and innovative bills is that they must be informed by existing conditions. In China, they describe this process as "crossing the river by feeling for the stones," you can only be sure of your position and must be flexible in where you move by seeing what sticks.
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Trying to prune bills...
I don't want to prune them I want to write them :)
Learn more about why revolution...
Reread that sentence, I said not a revolutionary yet. I still see a route for peaceful means, we'll get to box four (I can link that reference if you're curious "boxes of liberty")
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Still, you get the idea. Writing good bills while under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie will not get much, if any, change.
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I go even simpler.
The New Deal.
Make the GOPs explain why we could pay salaries that let one earner support a family of four in 1940 and can't do it today.
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It's the opposite, actually.
The people who talk about "tax the rich" or the New Deal don't actually do anything, they are armchair activists who have no real idea of how they would ever accomplish this outside of pretending the Democratic Party, which constantly opposes them and crushes such ideas, is the vehiclr, and the way to make it happen is complaining on the internet.
Communists know that actually addressing our collective problems is a much more difficult task, nothing less than the overthrow of capitalism, something that would need to survive attempts at cooption by liberal power structures like the aforementioned party. So we build from the ground up, educating one another and developing practice so that we can balance growth, education, and having impact through actions. We go to the meetings, we run the meetings, we teach one another, we organize the protests and marches, we build the strategic mutual aid events, we embed with workers' spaces and unions, we embed with and build from within the marginalized so as to be of them. Communist organizing is adding a part-time job on top of your other obligations.
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Yes, we should definitely not have something like Sweden or the old New Deal. We should let children grow up in poverty, let old people suffer, and let the planet burn while we sit around discussing Trotsky and the Second International in hopes that the revolution will come.
iirc de La Cruz got less than 100,000 votes.
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Yes, we should definitely not have something like Sweden or the old New Deal.
I think you need to refamiliarize yourself with what I said, as this is not it.
We should let children grow up in poverty, let old people suffer, and let the planet burn while we sit around discussing Trotsky and the Second International in hopes that the revolution will come.
I said something that is the exact opposite of sitting around, actually. Do your best to read a little more carefully before sharing opinions.
iirc de La Cruz got less than 100,000 votes.
And?
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Keep on arguing on the interwebs.
Maybe someone will notice.
Maybe.
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Do you think you're doing something else?
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I do stuff offline.
All you guys ever do is argue. Name one thing you guys have done in America in the last 50 years.
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You ever heard of the Black Panthers?
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lol!
You mean the tiny group that served some free meals in a few cities and got wiped out by the police?
The one that had a leader [Eldrige Cleaver] who considered rape as a political act?
Meanwhile Obama's ACA gave health coverage to 45 million people.
I'll stick with the people who actually get things done.
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You mean the tiny group that served some free meals in a few cities and got wiped out by the police?
I mean the communists that organized within black communities, fed children, protected their communities from racist cops, and did so well enough that they were targeted not just by the local police but by the FBI and other parts of the "national security" apparatus, including Reagan. Their former members are still often active and passing down valuable lessons to young people just learning, which you could also be if you learned to have some humility and honesty.
Note how far we have drifted from the things I've actually said, as you do not have actual convictions you can defend, just lazy reactionary talking points to help you avoid thinking challenging thoughts.
The one that had a leader [Eldrige Cleaver] who considered rape as a political act?
Rape can very much be a political act. US soldiers doing so systematically in Vietnam, for example.
But every political formation will have individuals with wrong opinions or worse. And if you are organizing with the marginalized, you will be organizing with ex-cons. I'm not sure what you think is accomplished by this tidbit. Cleaver was quite open about this part of his past and renounced it.
Later in this comment you refer to Obama. How many children did Obama kill with a stroke of the pen and a cynical line and how does this compare to the viplences of a teenage Cleaver? How much has Obama renounced and how many years did he serve in prison for the act?
Meanwhile Obama's ACA gave health coverage to 45 million people.
The ACA is primarily an individual mandate to buy a massively overpriced product from the insurance industry. It also included a limited Medicaid expansion that was quickly eaten up by inflation and wage growth (but not real wage growth). Insurance costs still rose, just less quickly than they were otherwise expected to. This is what you consider to be a major material win? Slightly slower rates of growth in picking workers' pockets? What an amazing gift!
I'll stick with the people who actually get things done.
What do you mean stick with? What part do you play in any of that? The ACA was a response to uncontrolled spiraling of healthcare costs that, among other things, make US workers entirely uncompetitive and only serves to create debt. The ACA was a Republican plan that forces people to buy companies' products. You are not the force at work here and you are not on any team aside from the exploited.
Whete do you factor into any of that?
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Only taxing the rich or bringing back the New Deal perpetuates Capitalism, we are talking about Socialism here, not Social Democracy. In that respect, when we analyze AES states, all have a firm understanding of Marxist theory, showing that it indeed has practical merit.
If you want to get started with theory, I keep an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out if you want.
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So?
If the workers have a 25 hour week with universal health care and great pensions who cares if the billionaires have spaceships to Mars?
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Considering we are speaking about the US, those safety nets would come from the massive Imperialism the US commits constantly. Workers in the Global South would continue to slave away so workers in the US can live cushy lives.
In a Socialist system, we can end that, but under Capitalism there is no path to deliberately end the practice of Imperialism, as it forms the basis of US foreign policy, and why the US Empire has hundreds of millitary bases around the world.
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Or we could be doing asteroid mining and getting raw materials from off-planet.
Marx and Lenin never wrote about that because they both died a century ago.
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And we would continue to centralize and give power to fewer and fewer hands, when we could provide much better living standards for all.
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You're ignoring the part where I said everyone has a high standard of living.
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We don't live in that theoretical fantasy world, and moreover that still does not logically justify allowing a small handful of people to live like gods. I am talking about reality, not a dream you had.
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lol!
Look who is talking about dreaming.
Have a nice day and don't hold your breath until the revolution.
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because they both died a century ago.
The idea of replacing all on world mining with magic sci-fi technology is exactly as implausible now as it was a century ago.
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If we'd had Al Gore as President we'd have had an extra $5 trillion to use on this tech.
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