It's liberal centrists that need the most coaxing to believe that a different, better world exists. I think that socializing profit and democratizing production are pretty intuitive concepts once you move past the stage of assuming only our decaying oligarch overlords can run things.
You're going to have to convince everyone, not just liberal centrists. I asked for more depth on what this "better world" will look like you still give me vague allusions, nothing concrete. Socialism is a broad category, as are the various shapes the government could look like to implement it. President AOC is going to operate in a different lens to President Sanders, despite both being social democrats. Just saying socialism and Marxism will fix everything isn't convincing in itself. Lots of countries have done that, with varying results. What will your America look like? Will it be like Bernie's?
The fact is that the question has to be raised again because the answers that mainstream American poltical discourse has at the moment for our current civilization crises are utterly inadequate. When I ask the question, what is to be done it is not a hypothetical or rhetorical one.
I'm not looking for questions, your supposed to be providing me with answers for why your vision is better than what we have now. Yes, current society is terrible, but why should I believe your ideas will be any better? I don't even know what terms you're operating under to call what government your advocating. Communism? Social Democracy? Fabian Socialist? What? You're not going to recreate society with questions. You need genuine, concrete answers so the people living under your flag know what lives they'll be living, what wages they'll get, what the government will look like, how education will affect their children, what will the economy look like etc.
Times are different and an a formal aristocracy dosent exist as such, cultural elites have far more cachet now. Also napoleon to use your example was an artillery officer at the time.
Who became a general and emperor of France, that was a massive stepping stone to him gaining political currency. When a proles ascends like that they become an intelligensia.
America has its own aristocracy, and they control every aspect of our lives. Times were different back then isn't a good explanation why rebellion has not occurred through the entire life span of the country from the left.
Most of the people on the wiki of the formal aristocracy were involed in the counter revolution or got guillotined.
Fair enough.
At any rate all of this is ducking the question of how things like Medicare for all and the green new deal are widely popular outside of reactionary bubbles. People want to believe that markets can be brought to bear by collective power, what they need is a younger, shinier and more diverse face for that movement.
People still look to Marx because he introduced several concepts into the western canon ( historical materialism, commodity fetishism, the base/superstructure relationship) that provide a more compelling account of social developement that whatever the liberal tradition has produced in the last 200 years since Hegel.
Popularity is great, being able to successfully implement them through congress is better. AOC's working on that but that sort of accomplishment is very, very tough when the JD's have small numbers and are not at full strength.
Which have had varying and sometimes horrific results. It'd be one thing if the American left had its shit together to commit genuine reform like you're talking but they don't. The movement isn't built for that sort of action. That's why their bench has been so tiny until recently, and only now have they affected political discourse though Bernie and AOC. And they're nowhere near the top of the totem pole in the Dem party.
The movement needs more than a fresh face, that's helps but the movement will die quick if that's all it has going for it. They require organisation, funding and manpower. All things the left are inferior to compared to centrists and conservatives.
This is still theory, when we're discussing implementation that will affect millions of people. The best shot right now to do that is with someone like Bernie, and remains a huge proposition were he to put in the Oval office tomorrow - that's when it ceases to be theory.
Have you ever read a Marxist text in your life? My god, man. Marxists have been involved in and at the forefront of the racial justice struggle for ages. If your frame of reference here is "Stalin and Mao" then you've somehow missed a ton of people.
The discussion was about full complete reformation of the system, which they didn't achieve and are in a constant struggle with the system to this day on those subjects. And my response did allow for variances in socialism's achievements.
