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Trying to remember where Bree is from because I recognize the name but yeah, that tweet's a yikes.
Primer on class.
Class in socialism/Marxism: Defined by your relation to production. If you produce good/services you're proletariat aka "working class". If you live off of extracted value (bank, royalty) you're bourgeoisie. If you produce while owning a bit (pizzeria owner) you're petit bourgeoisie. Most renters are proles. Most corporate landlords are bourgeoisie. Most non-corporate landlords fall under petit bourgeoisie. There is very little if any "class solidarity" between renters and rentees, because rentees, as a rule, try to protect their source of income before they protect others. They will, on average, evict before deferring/cancelling rent. There are some landlords who will side with tenants, but they are rare-ish, the economics of landlording does not produce a ton of class traitors. When riots happen, a lot of petit bourgeoisie try to protect property above people, often by allying with the bourgeoisie or the tools of the bourgeoisie (law enforcement), though most of them will try to sit on the fence as long as possible because they know the proles are their customers. Landlords generally have more class solidarity with banks than with tenants. Landlords extract rent from tenants. Banks extract mortgage/interest from landlords. The cycle of extraction works out for both banks and landlords and so most landlords are interested in preserving the cycle.
Class in common American liberalism/neoliberalism: Defined by your income/wealth bracket. Borders here are kind of fuzzy but I guess you could split it between 0-$50k, $50k-$200k, $200k+, low/middle/upper. When separating class like this I prefer to use wealth because income fails to pick up anomalies like CEOs who get stock compensation but draw a low on-paper income for tax reasons.
I think either framework of class has upsides/downsides. For socialism, it creates the weird, unintuitive result of software developers at Google being the same class as janitors at Google. For liberalism, it creates the weird, unintuitive result of beat cops being the same class as the people they harass.
Anyway, Bree is clearly using the latter definition, which is quite ahistorical. While the wealth bracket framework has its merits as a categorizer, it's particularly bad for class consciousness, because it tends to pit the survival of the poor against other poor, while insulating the rich and while it may look like it creates a poor vs rich dichotomy, in practice, Marxist class is a better predictor of where loyalties end up when shit hits the fan.
EDIT: Oh I forgot about another side of liberalism. Modern liberalism has a secondary system of modifiers based on identity. Male over female, straight over gay, white over black, etc. This secondary system is used to resolve ambiguities like a black business owner versus a white janitor, but sometimes this creates its own ambiguity because people are not sure who they should support, then they need to employ more granular categories like "does the white janitor vote Republican?". The problem with identity modifiers is identity tends to be fluid and sometimes using these modifiers create more problems than they resolve, like Asian "blue collar workers" vs Latine "white collar workers" in US society. And these modifiers are exclusive to the US, change the context and you need a new set of modifiers. I much prefer the simplicity of Marxism, which maintains consistency throughout time.
Primer on class.
Class in socialism/Marxism: Defined by your relation to production. If you produce good/services you're proletariat aka "working class". If you live off of extracted value (bank, royalty) you're bourgeoisie. If you produce while owning a bit (pizzeria owner) you're petit bourgeoisie. Most renters are proles. Most corporate landlords are bourgeoisie. Most non-corporate landlords fall under petit bourgeoisie. There is very little if any "class solidarity" between renters and rentees, because rentees, as a rule, try to protect their source of income before they protect others. They will, on average, evict before deferring/cancelling rent. There are some landlords who will side with tenants, but they are rare-ish, the economics of landlording does not produce a ton of class traitors. When riots happen, a lot of petit bourgeoisie try to protect property above people, often by allying with the bourgeoisie or the tools of the bourgeoisie (law enforcement), though most of them will try to sit on the fence as long as possible because they know the proles are their customers. Landlords generally have more class solidarity with banks than with tenants. Landlords extract rent from tenants. Banks extract mortgage/interest from landlords. The cycle of extraction works out for both banks and landlords and so most landlords are interested in preserving the cycle.
Class in common American liberalism/neoliberalism: Defined by your income/wealth bracket. Borders here are kind of fuzzy but I guess you could split it between 0-$50k, $50k-$200k, $200k+, low/middle/upper. When separating class like this I prefer to use wealth because income fails to pick up anomalies like CEOs who get stock compensation but draw a low on-paper income for tax reasons.
I think either framework of class has upsides/downsides. For socialism, it creates the weird, unintuitive result of software developers at Google being the same class as janitors at Google. For liberalism, it creates the weird, unintuitive result of beat cops being the same class as the people they harass.
Anyway, Bree is clearly using the latter definition, which is quite ahistorical. While the wealth bracket framework has its merits as a categorizer, it's particularly bad for class consciousness, because it tends to pit the survival of the poor against other poor, while insulating the rich and while it may look like it creates a poor vs rich dichotomy, in practice, Marxist class is a better predictor of where loyalties end up when shit hits the fan.
EDIT: Oh I forgot about another side of liberalism. Modern liberalism has a secondary system of modifiers based on identity. Male over female, straight over gay, white over black, etc. This secondary system is used to resolve ambiguities like a black business owner versus a white janitor, but sometimes this creates its own ambiguity because people are not sure who they should support, then they need to employ more granular categories like "does the white janitor vote Republican?". The problem with identity modifiers is identity tends to be fluid and sometimes using these modifiers create more problems than they resolve, like Asian "blue collar workers" vs Latine "white collar workers" in US society. And these modifiers are exclusive to the US, change the context and you need a new set of modifiers. I much prefer the simplicity of Marxism, which maintains consistency throughout time.
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Excellent post and wanted to add more to this as when I think of "radical", it's the Civil Rights Era.
Here's a new SecondThoughts video on how America whitewashes radical figure and the concept of radicalism in the first place. Heavy focus on MLK but talks about how we whitewash everything you stated because the status quo'ers at the top need it to be that way. Also, it's a great way to keep the classes divided so that future mass movements are killed before they can even begin.
She's probably most well known for scaling the flagpole and cutting down the confederate flag from the South Carolina state house years ago. It's so frustrating when good people tweet boneheaded shit like this.
This year has cemented my views more than ever. I'm currently interning for a legal aid organization which helps low-income people fight off predatory landlords and stave off eviction. Just seeing how landlords treat their tenets, all of whom are the most vulnerable portion of the population is just disgusting. Why should landlords even exist? Why is housing a commodity and not a human right that each and every person should have?
I've since put more effort towards activism and charity works. I've always done volunteer work thinking that people would think I'm "humble bragging" when I talk about what I do. Instead, I realize that I can use it to get others to help me while advocating for those whose voices are not heard or have been taking away from them. Angela Davis's works have had a huge impact on my views.
I'm incredibly grateful for a former professor of mine for opening my eyes to these things. Capitalism is another cudgel of white supremacy.
I've since put more effort towards activism and charity works. I've always done volunteer work thinking that people would think I'm "humble bragging" when I talk about what I do. Instead, I realize that I can use it to get others to help me while advocating for those whose voices are not heard or have been taking away from them. Angela Davis's works have had a huge impact on my views.
I'm incredibly grateful for a former professor of mine for opening my eyes to these things. Capitalism is another cudgel of white supremacy.
OP
OP
2020 will be one of those pivotal years for the resurgent left like 2008 (the crash), 2011 (OWS), and 2016 (the first Bernie campaign). The reawakened BLM protests + covid + the depravity of the GOP and the tepidness of the Dems is a killer combo.
I agree. I hope it continues and things finally start to change.
Lol wut @ the tweet.
Yes, class consciousness is important... if you're in the proletariat. Capitalists (that includes landlords) are already united against the proletariat. She should look up Mao lol
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Well, Capitalists do have class consciousness. That's why they protect their interests so much. They know what can happen to their privileges otherwise
To be clear, I was saying that they do have class consciousness already. That's what the tweet misses. That cc is important for those who aren't owners to develop and not landlords
Capitalists have a kind of class consciousness, but it is undermined by the need to dominate and compete among capitalists. And capitalist lobbying sometimes as the unintentional effect of benefiting capitalists who had no hand in the lobbying. I would not call this "class consciousness". I would prefer something like "class unconsciousness" to describe when capitalists coordinate to protect their class interests despite seeing each other as rivals/competitors.
That said, obviously there is an active consciousness there as well like with the Davos forum, the Chicago School of Business, the IMF, the Mont Pelerin society, the Democratic party, etc.
The employees who run my uni campus housing are douchebags.
Dat landlord-wannabe envy.
Genuine question. Genuine question. Out of all the landlords you've ever had to live under. How many were actually truly kind and willing to listen intently to you? I mean without a dick/bitch resting face accompanied.
Dat landlord-wannabe envy.
Genuine question. Genuine question. Out of all the landlords you've ever had to live under. How many were actually truly kind and willing to listen intently to you? I mean without a dick/bitch resting face accompanied.
Hello, comrades! Thought I'd give this forum one more try after clearing my head for a bit. If there was one place (sub-community) where I always felt welcome, it was definitely here among my fellow lefties, so I just want to thank all of you for being such genuinely kind and hospitable folk to everyone on this forum. You all rock!
Now how 'bout that shitty new stimulus bill for which our 'representatives' are already patting themselves on the back? If a significant reduction in economic relief during an alarming inflection point in the middle of a pandemic isn't an indictment of capitalism, I don't know what is.
Now how 'bout that shitty new stimulus bill for which our 'representatives' are already patting themselves on the back? If a significant reduction in economic relief during an alarming inflection point in the middle of a pandemic isn't an indictment of capitalism, I don't know what is.
Wow, welcome back! I'm really happy to see you again, I can definitely understand that this forum is too much at times. Hope you can stick around in our thread again at least.
Welcome back, I'm happy to see you've figured things out. I would recommend not engaging with certain posters on certain topics for your own health but it is ultimately your choice.
Yeah stim is a joke, like the bare minimum. I'm interested in seeing if anything happen if we get GA though. They'll lose the excuse of McConnell then we'll see the real shape of things. In the mean time, I recommend everyone budget/plan for a similarly useless 2021 just in case.
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I definitely agree with that recommendation.
Yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up. Thankfully I'm running a new IT business from home, so my job security has increased a bit (and I can work safely), but it still sucks for so many people.
year's winding down so i just wanna say how thankful i am for everyone here, i guess i posted a bit in 2019 (when i was still quite lib lol, those che criticisms aged like milk) but i've spent most of my time here in 2020 and it's been great
solidarity forever!
solidarity forever!
Welcome back and solidarity, comrade! Good to hear you're doing well.
And yeah, the close out to this year of hell has been an absolute indictment on America's late stage capitalist hellscape. It's beyond ghoulish that they want us to seriously clap and be happy for this "relief" nonsense.
This all day:
Great thread in general, but this part especially resonated:
I wish I was able to do more. Organize and get people to stop accepting table scraps. It's hard to not feel nihilistic about this country in that regard. People can't just risk losing their jobs because of their health insurance and the police here are more than willing to light up protestors over less than nothing. It's deeply, immensely frustrating, and people have spent their whole lives absorbing American propaganda about individualism and not asking for handouts. It all seems too big to overcome at times.
Man I want to see a general strike so bad. Seeing people join protests like this past summer is always great, but a common relation to protesting is as a kind of tourist destination rather than a committed way of living. If just one general strike were to happen, it would show people the power that's waiting for them.
And let's thank our next mOsT pRoGrEsSiVe president for giving Democrats the final nudge into accepting crumbs for the poor while we give the military and Israel even more. Austerity for those starving, out of work, losing health insurance, and being evicted while they try not do die from a pandemic but not for the fucking Space Force 🙃🙃🙃
Pandemic Aid Bolsters Biden and Shows Potential Path for His Agenda in Congress (Published 2020)
Working together with the president-elect, bipartisan groups in the Senate and House helped push feuding leaders to compromise. It could be a template for the future.
Inside you are two wolves
One wants the complete destruction of capitalism
The other wants more Zelda characters in Smash
You can only pick one
Tue death of capitalism also kills copy right
Make our own zelda platform fighter
I understand how you feel, friend. What keeps me optimistic is that I'm helping the people I can help and that's something. No one said the fight would be easy or quick. It does seem insurmountable.
Agreed.
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I love Cori's uncompromising conviction!
I can only hope that he did that due to him trying to guarantee a compromise that would work quickly while Republicans still have the Senate, but if he tries to pull this type shit next year in the event that Democrats control both the House and the Senate, he's gonna get eviscerated by the left. Seriously.
I did a double-take when I saw your name on the "last response by" column. Welcome back, brain!
That's a nuanced take, but I swear it's so much easier to approach some people with "The Elites Control the Economy" frankly. When you see the heads of Amazon, Google, Apple not pay a cent in taxes and benefit from tax relief during a pandemic, and you know about lobbying, frankly that sentence seems real to me and it probably is for tons of people, and I feel it's easy to work from that.
But I do agree that one cannot stay with slogans and has to deepen the analysis or just fall into far right populism.
But I do agree that one cannot stay with slogans and has to deepen the analysis or just fall into far right populism.
The ruling class is the result of capitalism, not the other way around. The bourgeoisie come and go across generations but their role remains the same, to tend to capital and ensure its growth. They are not the masters of capital, just its overseers.
I do not agree with the level of nuance advocated for here. It is anathema to rousing revolutionary spirit. If you put someone to sleep from the jump, then that also leads to passivity. You are merely trading one kind of passivity (the passivity of boredom and apathy) for another kind (the passivity of nihilism).
That said, I agree with the content of the idea if not its implications for recruitment (that capitalism creates capitalists and not the other way around, as Mekanos said). Thinking that you'll make every worker also a scholar is admirable but idealistic, this is not the kind of thing history is made of. It's a very liberal view of the world that you must train every civilian to be a Socrates or a Hobbes in order to get your system to work. Learning to work with and direct "populist conspiricism" is what's needed, not to build our movement out of enlightened philosopher kings.
Leave the spirited, nuanced debates to the thinkers and intelligentsia of the movement, if they choose to engage in it. Create the conditions for the non-intelligentsia to join the intelligentsia, and dismantle the barriers of gatekeeping, rather than making intelligentsia membership a prerequisite to recruitment. Academics are useful, but no revolution was made out of academics.
Engagement and empathy is the key, not sustaining mental sophistication.
That said, I agree with the content of the idea if not its implications for recruitment (that capitalism creates capitalists and not the other way around, as Mekanos said). Thinking that you'll make every worker also a scholar is admirable but idealistic, this is not the kind of thing history is made of. It's a very liberal view of the world that you must train every civilian to be a Socrates or a Hobbes in order to get your system to work. Learning to work with and direct "populist conspiricism" is what's needed, not to build our movement out of enlightened philosopher kings.
Leave the spirited, nuanced debates to the thinkers and intelligentsia of the movement, if they choose to engage in it. Create the conditions for the non-intelligentsia to join the intelligentsia, and dismantle the barriers of gatekeeping, rather than making intelligentsia membership a prerequisite to recruitment. Academics are useful, but no revolution was made out of academics.
Engagement and empathy is the key, not sustaining mental sophistication.
Hey guys.
Even though I follow the news constantly and listen to political commentary daily I have never really studied politics properly. Reading some of you here makes me feel illiterate lol
I definitely lean left but I'm not sure where I land, probably social Democrat.
My main problem with communism (and perhaps socialism?) is that I'm not sure how they can be compatible with a democratic system with free elections every 4 years because it's a deeply different system to what we have now and changing a whole political system every 4 years seems crazy to me. Due to that, I feel like communism (and socialism?) can only work or devolve into authoritarian systems without free elections which, for me, seems like a terrible idea that can only end up in Civil conflict and unrest.
But then, I also hate where unabated capitalism has taken us and really think it's going to ruin life in our planet. At the same time, I feel like the reason why capitalism is so unhinged is because of how corrupt the system is, how unregulated it is, tax evasion, etc. Things that I feel could be solved, in theory, if people would really unite to get politicians to finally work for us instead of them. Seems very naive to think something like this will ever happen, looking at today's world political landscape (i think we will need to be fucked beyond repair before people really react to the situation, sadly) but, if I think about it, a communist or socialist revolution really seems very utopian to me too.
Well, I would like to know what you guys think of the probably dumb stuff I just said lol
Even though I follow the news constantly and listen to political commentary daily I have never really studied politics properly. Reading some of you here makes me feel illiterate lol
I definitely lean left but I'm not sure where I land, probably social Democrat.
My main problem with communism (and perhaps socialism?) is that I'm not sure how they can be compatible with a democratic system with free elections every 4 years because it's a deeply different system to what we have now and changing a whole political system every 4 years seems crazy to me. Due to that, I feel like communism (and socialism?) can only work or devolve into authoritarian systems without free elections which, for me, seems like a terrible idea that can only end up in Civil conflict and unrest.
But then, I also hate where unabated capitalism has taken us and really think it's going to ruin life in our planet. At the same time, I feel like the reason why capitalism is so unhinged is because of how corrupt the system is, how unregulated it is, tax evasion, etc. Things that I feel could be solved, in theory, if people would really unite to get politicians to finally work for us instead of them. Seems very naive to think something like this will ever happen, looking at today's world political landscape (i think we will need to be fucked beyond repair before people really react to the situation, sadly) but, if I think about it, a communist or socialist revolution really seems very utopian to me too.
Well, I would like to know what you guys think of the probably dumb stuff I just said lol
Asking questions in good faith will not get you shunned here.
If you want "well regulated capitalism" then the social democrats are your people.
This is a bit tricky, can you begin by describing, roughly, what you think communism (and socialism) is, because there's nothing in communism that bars elections. In fact, voting and democracy is how most communists decide things when working together on projects. I think you're thinking of "authoritarian communism" like Stalinism or Juche, and this is the one everyone in the West learns in school. The one they don't teach you is anarcho-communism which might make more sense to you as "libertarian communism". Just don't use the word "liberal" in this context to mean "democratic", it means a very specific thing to communists and they would be confused and probably flame you.
EDITED: Changed some of the terms here for consistency and clarity, please reread if the previous draft confused you. Sometimes people use socialism and communism interchangably but they are not the same thing, I would personally say communism is a subset of socialism.
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OP
OP
Ideally, we change the mode of production and corresponding political system to such an extent that people wake up in the morning and go about their day at the workplace that they themselves control as a "natural" part of their life, never even thinking about going back to a system where they are wage slaves to a capitalist, much like how very few people wake up today and think "Boy, I wish I was a serf living under an aristocrat of the feudal nobility!"
The thing about authoratinism is that america is already that except we get literally none of the benefits
Like there is freedom of speech but terms and conditions apply
Like there is freedom of speech but terms and conditions apply
I don't agree with this personally. Socialism and communism are different stages of the same thing. Most Marxist terminology would deign that socialism is when the workers own the means of production, and communism is a classless, stateless society. Socialism is a transitionary point to communism, and the goal of anarchism is essentially the same with a different method.
Now you could argue that's only theoretical and then no country has achieved "true" communism - which, a lot of people think is a weaselly answer, but that's genuinely how I feel and I think the distinction matters to an extent. Marxism-Leninism was codified by Stalin whose whole ideology was "Socialism In One Country." At best you could say communist countries are ideologically communist, if not wholly communist in practice. Maybe that distinction doesn't matter to most people!
Regardless, the pursuit of socialism/communism/however you want to define it has by and large brought improved material conditions in their respective countries. Russia before the Soviet Union saw people starving and dying under the Tsar, Cuba's workers were glorified slaves under Batista, and so on. These countries had radically increased standards of living and education once they moved towards socialism, though they also didn't have deeply developed capitalist infrastructure, meaning they were sort of making it up as they went along, trying to build a ton of stuff at once (sometimes literally), which often caused contradictions within the state. Marx's original theory was that revolution would occur in the developed capitalist countries first, but history hasn't born that out either.
Yeah this is fair, I'll make use of the "stage" framework the next time I write about this.
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Is it just me or have you taken on a much more pragmatic outlook these days? I might be getting you confused with someone else but I seem to recall you being a lot more idealistic regarding leftist politics in the past.
At any rate, I definitely feel like I've become a bit more jaded about our prospects as leftists after everything that's happened in the last few years.
I can't tell you how many times I've rolled my eyes at older generations talking down to me saying, "we've tried communism in many places, it doesn't work". At this point, I'm not sure how useful it is to cling to terminology that the world just can't seem to de-stigmatize. If we have to constantly explain that what socialism/communism isn't, how effective can we really be at proliferating the ideologies?
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You are not misremembering. I was a lot more"moderate" as far as leftism went in 2018 which is when I started posting here regularly and you probably interacted with that version of me.
Material conditions did a number on us all. In my case it has tipped me right over into revolutionary socialism. Though I started, like many of us start, with reformist socialism.
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After Super Tuesday some of joked about turning into Marxist-Leninists.
...not sure if it's a joke anymore!
It's definitely difficult, but I think at this point running away from the terminology makes things even harder for ourselves. We could rebrand it any way we want it, we call it Americanism, the ruling class will proliferate all types of propaganda and laws to push against it and punish its propagators because they know no matter what you call it, it's about reclaiming the means of production from them.
On the contrary, me personally using the term communism more frequently I think helps me feel like I'm normalizing it ever so slightly. I call myself a communist now instead of just a socialist. I think aside from the "real socialism/communism has never been tried" debate, there are two salient points to make:
1) The primitive attempts at liberal democracy failed as well, yet liberal democracy is a historically progressive force and the world is better off having transitioned to it.
2) We aren't socialists because "capitalism is stinky, let's do communism instead." Liberalism and capitalism were necessary evolutions that brought important and much needed change to the world. But just like capitalism evolved out of feudalism, we believe socialism is the next phase of society. It's about achieving a global paradigm shift, not turning America into USSR 2.0.
Obviously these are big and complicated topics that you can't boil down to a snazzy little phrase or slogan, but I do strongly believe we should not run away from the history of socialism and its failed projects, but rather understand what worked, what didn't, and push forward with that knowledge. A better world is possible.
In general I'm in favor of trying to "reclaim" communism and socialism, though I will definitely allow for tactical muddying of terminology when doing so will achieve some sort of connection. For example, if you're trying to breadpill your coworker and you know they're allergic to the "c-word" you might use "syndicalism" to ease them into the lingo rather than trigger an "oh my god I'm talking to a Russian agent" reaction. "Worker democracy" instead of "socialism", "mutual aid" instead of anarchism, etc.
I feel like trying to come up with new names draws us into the liberal trap of focusing too much on branding and sloganeering. Just do the work, and trust people to respond to that. And if they don't respond, it was probably hopeless from the start, no matter what new name you use.