It's not about eloquence, it's about making a case or discussing the pros and cons and details.
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With everything going on in the world, what stops you from turning socialist/marxist? What still makes you cling to capitalism?
- Thread starter Keasar
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It's not about eloquence, it's about making a case or discussing the pros and cons and details.
If you don't mind me asking, which country? Sounds like East European bloc but I can't be sure.
Yeah, Hungary. We were called "the most upbeat of the barracks" on the "good side" of the Berlin Wall.
If I thought it was enough I would not have dipped my toes into revolutionary theory. I didn''t start out as a dirty commie you know. I was raised as a both sides neolib, voted Obama twice than Hilldawg, then ventured into the socdem/demsoc nexus, and avoided MLM as long as I cuold. The failures of reform to address the big issues (imperialism, wealth inequality, climate change) are why I lost faith in reformism. If it worked in a timely manner, I would be a Warren lib right now. Instead, you have Democrats justifying drone strikes as political necessity and EITCs for Exxon. How can I possibly believe in reform when these are our reformists?
My advocacy of market socialism is the transition, the end goal is somewhere else, I don't really know where, I'm focused on the next step.
I feel like this is an incredibly good point that seems to be getting missed, and it rings true with the actual lived experiences of people from Socialist/Communist countries.
It certainly rings true with my old boss's experience of his life in Venezuela, and why he decided to GTFO 10 years ago, when armed military personnel turned up at his job as an IBM engineer.
I've never asked to be persuaded. I have however leaned some things from this thread about socialism, and enhanced my overall thoughts about power and economic systems.
Unlike a lot of people, I don't read the internet to argue, and don't think all discourse has to be combative. That's why I signal boosted the socialists who did not just come to the thread to pick a fight.
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Did he tell you why they showed up or what they asked him to do?
My condolences, the East bloc had a rough time of it. If it makes you feel better, if I was a commie dictator I would make exemptions for all East bloc emigrants and just leave you guys alone. Might be accused of favoritism, but hey it's no worse than capitalist favoritism.
Do liberals not do this as well? Every ideologue thinks their ideology produces the best of all possible worlds, that is point of ideology. It is not a meaningful criticism of socialists that they occasionally dabble in utopic thinking, yes, people want to build utopia, wow how terrible. Only grim, nihilist realpolitik is trustworthy.
Essays have been written on liberal utopian political thinking.
The Californian Ideology - Wikipedia
Washington Consensus - Wikipedia
The myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?
The long read: Sorting people by ‘merit’ will do nothing to fix inequality
www.theguardian.com
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Its been a while since he told me about this, so my memory is vague, but from what I recall it was one of those situations where the military personnel basically said "We are here, we are authorised to be here, get used to it and don't ask why"
I think they may have demanded full access to all their data. Don't quote me on that one though.
He and his wife started applying to overseas sponsors that very same evening.
Well, liberals can at least point to decently successful SocDem countries, like the Nordic countries. And I don't think anyone is arguing they're "utopias", just that they're overall pretty nice. And what we do is just free market capitalism, combined with high taxes that are used to pay for education and healthcare.
Pretty much. I said it earlier in the thread, but my issue with these discussions is that socialists argue purely from a theoretical standpoint and if there is a socialist country where things haven't worked out, it wasn't "pure" socialism so it doesn't sound. Other ideologies at least have real world examples for or against them, which is is why I also prefer Democratic Socialism because I can look to countries where it's worked for how it would play out in real life, not in some ideal situations where all actors involve behave perfectly, which isn't realistic or likely
People always argue that Socialism works on paper/not in real life etc without really explaining or justifying why Capitalism works/providing evidence on that front. The closest nation that has been able to adopt Capitalism while not having huge wealth without being virtually reliant on exploitation of other countries is probably India and the Indian government is hardly the best for human rights.
Either way Socialism/Capitalism aren't really well defined things to most people so I tend to think most people are just arguing about meaningless terms since I imagine most people in this form would basically agree with all Socialist propositions
Either way Socialism/Capitalism aren't really well defined things to most people so I tend to think most people are just arguing about meaningless terms since I imagine most people in this form would basically agree with all Socialist propositions
I'm not going to try to convince you your nation isn't nice to live in, or that it is/isn't a capitalist utopia, or even deny that I (a US citizen) wouldn't like to live there. I just want to show you the socialist perspective on socdem "working", you can decide for yourself if this perspective is meaningful or not.
Reddit - Dive into anything
www.reddit.com
To this explainer, I'll add that your socdem parties are the remnants of your history dabbling with socialism. And the US currently has no such history, setting aside all the pinkos we killed in the McCarthy era.
Also the armed government backed private armies that attacked unions in the early 1900sI am gonna pass over this slander saying that socialism somehow doesn't involve fair election, like we are anti-democracy cause others have already answered about it and move onto the next point.
I am gonna have to sincerely ask you.
You are undoubtedly in love with bringing Kronstadt and Tienanmen Square as possible violent reactions from a socialist/communist regime to suppress dissidence, therefore it is the baddest of ideas to ever go socialist cause your assumption seem to be it will happen no matter what. Like it would never happen under capitalism/democracy, lovers of human rights. Yet despite all that, I could write up a LONG list of atrocities committed by democratic, capitalist nations against their own people AND others "in the name of democracy".
What is **YOUR** guarantee of your fucking system not resorting to violence? Socialists have to constantly fucking defend themselves that no violence will ever happen under their ideology but if we wonder what guarantees the same from you, undoubtedly you throw the fucking "whataboutism" card or "don't turn this question around, I am asking YOU" telling us we are fucking slithering away from answering it. Well, I fucking personally can't guarantee anything, I don't know, if you wanna chalk it up as a "lol I win, commie bastard" go ahead.
I *do* know however that there have been so many atrocities and mass murders done in the name of freedom and free market that is fucking baffles me how anyone can pretend it isn't a viable reason to be concerned about capitalism.
The entire inception of the United States, 1776 and onward. Institutionalised slavery and the mass genocide and land takeover of the native Americans by the US. Government, the "We the People" folk who called their expansion "Manifest Destiny".
Manifest destiny - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Territorial evolution of the United States - Wikipedia
The Bengal Famine of 1943 made possible the famous war hero and cool cigarr dude Churchill.
Bengal famine of 1943 - Wikipedia
The Indonesian mass killings backed by the US. in 1965, backed by yours truly, 'Murica of freedom.
Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 - Wikipedia
The occupation of Cuba by the United States in 1898, then again in 1906, then again in 1917, willingly putting up a dictatorship Cuba, basically the reason behind the Cuban Revolution.
And not only Cuba, but a lot of central and southern America as well, as quoted by John F. Kennedy, brain still inside head:
Cuba: the supreme victim of imperialism and colonialism
‘To change masters is not to be free.’—José Martí.Cuba — perhaps more than most other countries — has been the victim of imperialism and colonisation. The greatest impact of imperialism and colonisation is on people, in particular, indigenous people. Cuba is no exception.links.org.au
Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960
SENATOR KENNEDY: I want to talk with you tonight about the most glaring failure of American foreign policy today - about a disaster that threatens the security of the whole Western Hemisphere - about a Communist menace that has been permitted to arise under our very noses, only 90 miles from our...www.jfklibrary.org
Might as well also throw in every, single, fucking violent response to the civil rights movement in the US.
Nixon started the entire war on drugs and fucked over the entire planet in his political hatred of black people and the left.
Civil rights movement - Wikipedia
Race and the war on drugs - Wikipedia
So consider me a little bit fucking tired of hearing people talk about Kronstadt and how socialism somehow "guarantees violence and death" when we see nothing less from the fucking other side of aisle and that is somehow goddamn acceptable because people get XBOX out of it.
Team sports have their fanatics.
just the capitalism side has the help of the wealthy to fund destruction of competition.
Neither are super well defined, they're broad terms that we give to a collection of ideologies and their application in real life.
I think there are some definitions most academics* can agree on (though they probably a bit different based on discipline) but I think at least in the US, there isn't anything close to well agreed definition of the terms in the public and in the media.
I think this is also true for era, which is why I think those threads often devolve to people arguing about the definition of those terms and what is and isn't real socialism\capitalism\communism.
* does not include right wing fucknuts, if we include right wing fucknuts none of those terms mean anything
I feel like the anarcho-communists tend to describe the implementation of their preferred systems better than other communists (Not counting people just advocating for singular policies under a capitalist system).
Meanwhile the more state-centric ones tend to be really evasive the moment you question the details beyond "capitalism is bad". Which is ironic when a state-centric approach strikes me as much more feasible in modern society.
My opinion hasn't changed after reading this thread.
Meanwhile the more state-centric ones tend to be really evasive the moment you question the details beyond "capitalism is bad". Which is ironic when a state-centric approach strikes me as much more feasible in modern society.
My opinion hasn't changed after reading this thread.
I'm Chinese, our history is 4000 years of toppling the guy on top whenever we got tired of him.
Violence is the truth of politics, people want to accuse socialists of not respecting realpolitik? This is what socialist realpolitik looks like.
I need an example of this to look over, because the precise reason I'm not an ancom is because I thought their ideology was too hand-wavey. So, evidently, I missed the ancom manifesto where their plans are laid out, and they're more cohesive than my plans.
Yeah I'm a statist, it is one of my larger failings as a leftist, I do not see a way to resolve the problems I want to resolve (most notably imperialism and climate change) without a state.
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I'm not going to try to convince you your nation isn't nice to live in, or that it is/isn't a capitalist utopia, or even deny that I (a US citizen) wouldn't like to live there. I just want to show you the socialist perspective on socdem "working", you can decide for yourself if this perspective is meaningful or not.
Reddit - Dive into anything
To this explainer, I'll add that your socdem parties are the remnants of your history dabbling with socialism. And the US currently has no such history, setting aside all the pinkos we killed in the McCarthy era.
I kind of figured this is what you would say... And I mean sure, I guess that's true on some level, but it would be nice to really get into the specifics. For example, I'm from Finland. We were under Swedish rule for hundreds of years, then under Russian rule, until we got our independence in 1917. We're a pretty measly country overall... How much of our GDP would you say is a result of "exploiting the global south"? We've never done imperialism, but I guess the claim is we benefited indirectly from imperialism done by other Western countries like France and the UK?
I think your hypothetical future victims would prefer to live in an imperfect capitalist system than be liquidated in the revolution to achieve your desired equilibrium.
Okay? Are these "victims" slave owners? I do not respect the rights of slave owners.
Liberals poster mulling over which drone strike to defend online: it's political necessity, you just don't understand, we need to do this or we'll lose votes
Socialist poster mulling over which slave owners need to be violently overthrown: wow tankie much? did you consider the feelings of the Victims of Communism?
As someone else mentioned, it's clear we need to focus on outcomes over ideologies. Justified or no, the well is thoroughly poisoned at this point. Relying on and invoking old terminology or symbolism will only be a distraction at best.
Anyway, with all the studies in the US showing that people actually want socialist policies, it's all a matter of marketing. The far-right seems to do a good job of hijacking legitimate unrest and frame themselves as the solution in a clear act of deception. It's always a bit unnerving to talk to people who sound like they could be leftists if they followed some of their logic to their natural conclusions, but then somehow swerve in the complete opposite direction. (Unfortunately, racism and xenophobia usually play a big part there.) At the very least, many are receptive to language pointing out the inequities everyone is aware of. You'd think with how tired people seem to be of established ideologies that someone would be able to exploit that, break down that barrier, and simply focus on what people want without being a smokescreen for conservatism.
I guess I'm personally a mix of things, but at the end of the day, I'd ultimately identify as an anti-capitalist.
Anyway, with all the studies in the US showing that people actually want socialist policies, it's all a matter of marketing. The far-right seems to do a good job of hijacking legitimate unrest and frame themselves as the solution in a clear act of deception. It's always a bit unnerving to talk to people who sound like they could be leftists if they followed some of their logic to their natural conclusions, but then somehow swerve in the complete opposite direction. (Unfortunately, racism and xenophobia usually play a big part there.) At the very least, many are receptive to language pointing out the inequities everyone is aware of. You'd think with how tired people seem to be of established ideologies that someone would be able to exploit that, break down that barrier, and simply focus on what people want without being a smokescreen for conservatism.
I guess I'm personally a mix of things, but at the end of the day, I'd ultimately identify as an anti-capitalist.
As another Finn, IMO we pretty much made our wealth from our forests pre-WW2, then after that growth was heavily influenced by lucrative dealing with the Soviet Union that wanted to have Finland as "showcase to the west". Then came the EU and fully participating in western markets.
So, we pretty much lucked out and were small enough to leverage a natural resource. In addition to domestic efforts we essentially have both Soviet largesse (paid by Soviet citizens) and western markets (fueled by wealth looted from the global south) to thank. And of course Lenin in his moment of lenience.
yea I can see how you can come to that conclusion.
I can't really say I'm the biggest fan of that. I'm more of a pacifist and I think there's too many issues that could arise from that.
I'm also terrible at ideology, I'm unsure of so many things.
i don't have the answers, but all i know is that i want future & wiser generations to be empowered to solve the problems
i think that's more likely with tech-dominated neoliberalism rather than my country's (USA's) theoretical implementation of socialism. your political landscape may be different.
i'll gladly admit that corporations that want to sell computers & phones & ads & software & entertainment getting rich instead of the business that want imperial expansion for territory & labor is just an accident, and not the inevitable course of capitalism. but as long as that accident is what has happened, there is hope for the future as long as access to information / education / markets is increasing globally
things like the environment & climate will need global solutions & cooperation & technological advances. i'm less interested in best-case scenarios offered by ideologies and more interested in avoiding worst-case scenarios by giving even more power/control to politicians
if a non high-tech industry had all the money/power, then i'd probably have a different perspective. if our politicians weren't 50% racists & 98% dumbasses, i'd also have a different perspective. but we aren't solving shit. we can only set up the future. call it defeatist if you want, but that's my reasoning
i think that's more likely with tech-dominated neoliberalism rather than my country's (USA's) theoretical implementation of socialism. your political landscape may be different.
i'll gladly admit that corporations that want to sell computers & phones & ads & software & entertainment getting rich instead of the business that want imperial expansion for territory & labor is just an accident, and not the inevitable course of capitalism. but as long as that accident is what has happened, there is hope for the future as long as access to information / education / markets is increasing globally
things like the environment & climate will need global solutions & cooperation & technological advances. i'm less interested in best-case scenarios offered by ideologies and more interested in avoiding worst-case scenarios by giving even more power/control to politicians
if a non high-tech industry had all the money/power, then i'd probably have a different perspective. if our politicians weren't 50% racists & 98% dumbasses, i'd also have a different perspective. but we aren't solving shit. we can only set up the future. call it defeatist if you want, but that's my reasoning
I mean it's hard to track overall how much GDP is related to what, but Finland was never in the same situation of something as other countries like Venezula, as it had significantly more GDP before it became independent/adopted Capitalism/Socialism
We can see that Finland's GDP was equal to post Industrial revolution EU15 before the revolution(which is probably significantly higher than countries like Venezula at the time) where it dipped a bit then mirrored the EU15 after WW2. So before becoming independent it seems Finland had benefited a lot from Imperialism, and then was able to maintain that.
I'm not trying to say fuck Finland, as I don't really know that much tbh. But if we are going to do a comparison of socialism/capitalism it should probably between two countries who had some level of equivalent situations between them. China and India imo is probably the closest
The claim seems to be that the basic structure of international trade under capitalism is exploitative of workers in poor countries in a way that it would not be under socialism. Like, your standard of living is dependent on people in other countries working in conditions you would find intolerable, on other countries giving up natural resources to you in a way that you wouldn't want your country trading to others, and also there's exploitation in the usual socialist sense where even though you're not paying much a large share of even that is going to people not doing any actual labor.
That seems basically true as a criticism of the status quo, as far as it goes. What I don't think I've seen is a good explanation of how socialism would prevent this.
lol, please define "slave owners." The fact that you are already devaluing the lives of others in your hypothetical is deeply concerning and does not bode well for this revolution.
User banned (2 weeks): Violent rhetoric and personal attacks over a series of posts
Your national pride and joy, Nokia, once profited off of child labor in African cobalt mines, pretty sure they stopped though. So there's that. Otherwise, yes, you're a beneficiary of the entire global north economic ecosystem even if you don't directly do the imperialism like your neighbors.
Plight of African child slaves forced into mines - for our mobile phones
By Charles Lavery Their bodies caked in dirt from the river beds they are forced to work in, African children are enslaved in lethal mines to power our love affair with the mobile phone. The child miners of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) risk death to dig for a highly dangerous ore used...
Finland is one of the best actors in a field of bad actors, I don't deny this. I'm not going to dig into your GDP to divide it between ethical and unethical. My enemy is global capitalism, not Finland. 1) GDP is a bad measure of pretty much everything 2) it's a lot of work for very little payoff 3) dividing capitalism into ethical and unethical bits (eg ESG investing) is a game for reformists to play so I'll leave it to them. As Finland was technically under the sphere of influence of the USSR, I'm okay with extending the same amnesty I offered to Grath and ex-East bloc countries if you want it. I'm just a poster on the internet, I have no real sway over global socialism.
FWIW I use your Helsinki approach to homelessness a lot in my polemic against US homelessness.
'It’s a miracle': Helsinki's radical solution to homelessness
Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally
www.theguardian.com
Part of my distaste for private property comes from appreciating the power of our NIMBY landlords.
People who own slaves? What is this, what's going on? Do I need to convince you some people need to be killed in pursuit of justice? You're an American, it is in our history. Civil War, WW2, etc. Yeah bad guys need to die sometimes, if I can avoid innocents I'll try to, but the very labeling of one group as innocents implies labeling another group as non-innocent, which involves "devaluing the lives of others". Or are you a pacifist? Is that what this is? You want me to consider pacifistic socialism? Sorry, but no, I already did at the start of my journey into leftism and decided it doesn't scale. Hell, I gave up pacifism in my liberal days.
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This isn't 1860, you're talking about instituting a revolution in the Western world where slavery is illegal. So, which slave owners are you killing outside of some secret criminals evading the law? Or does your definition of slave owner mean something else entirely?
I agree (On climate change, not imperialism; the idea of resolving imperialism with a state is an oxymoron) but that was just the general trend I noticed online. I can't think of any specific examples from this board, but I'll look for them.
Again, this isn't about how feasible it seems to me. It's just conversations get really ugly the moment you have to talk about the transition state.
Oh so because it was abolished there are no slaves anymore. I must've imagined Jim Crow, the PIC and Libya, etc. There, are you happy, or are you trying to bait me into an incriminating statement because I find it hard to believe a man of your obvious education can genuinely think "slavery is illegal so there are no more slaves".
Well technically in U.S.A slavery is legal and still used in Prisons. But a lot of corporations make use of slave labor
‘We know most global companies have modern slavery in their supply chains’ | Reuters Events | Sustainable Business
Slavery is the greatest of humanity’s evils, yet it has permeated our daily lives, right down to the chopped spring onions in our salads and the tinned tomatoes in our children’s pasta sauces. The UK broke new ground in 2015 when it brought in the Modern Slavery Act, requiring all large...
The same companies that didn't actually hire more Black people? Some of the same companies that work with police to help track Black people? How exactly did these companies "help" BLM?
Some of the same companies that allow people to freely spread hateful and dangerous anti-Asian rhetoric?
I also like the idea that the companies that helped prop Trump up should be commended for 'ending' him after he already lost
For me because while it's wonderful in theory there's not a single example of a fully socialist or Marxist system that has been successful. I'm all for socialized systems in conjunction with regulated capitalism (though you have to be careful to avoid regulatory capture which can make things worse).
I'm also someone who's willing to admit a Nordic model won't work on somewhere like the United States. Principally to some degree sure. But it's a much larger and diverse place in nearly every conceivable way so the same structures really cannot successfully apply in many cases.
I'm also someone who's willing to admit a Nordic model won't work on somewhere like the United States. Principally to some degree sure. But it's a much larger and diverse place in nearly every conceivable way so the same structures really cannot successfully apply in many cases.
Prison Labor Is on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic
States like California, New York, and Arizona have relied on prisoners to continue working, with little pay and in precarious conditions, during the coronavirus pandemic.
theappeal.org
Slavery in the 21st century - Wikipedia
For whatever reasons (I know the reason), "Walk Free Foundation" does not qualify prison labor as slavery.
Anyway this thread is about the place of socialism in modern critiques of capitalism, I would not want to turn it into a litigation over my political extremism and I'll leave this as my last post on the topic. Still, I could not really bite my tongue after reading "in the Western world where slavery is illegal". What slavery that doesn't happen in the Western world usually serves Western economic interests through the magic of globalism.
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I tap into the thread just as you're tapping out. :-(
For me it's basically that from what I've seen, more people who've experienced living in socialist or communist countries say it sucks compared to what I hear from people in capitalistic countries.
I also tend to think humans are by default selfish and greedy, and capitalism basically runs on that stuff, so I think a regulated capitalist system will get much farther than a socialist system.
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... not all slavery is illegal in the Western world, though?
So once the slave owners are gone who's next in the list of people to be overthrown?
I doubt you're going to achieve a particularly great amount by getting rid of them unfortunately.
Well technically in U.S.A slavery is legal and still used in Prisons. But a lot of corporations make use of slave labor
‘We know most global companies have modern slavery in their supply chains’ | Reuters Events | Sustainable Business
Slavery is the greatest of humanity’s evils, yet it has permeated our daily lives, right down to the chopped spring onions in our salads and the tinned tomatoes in our children’s pasta sauces. The UK broke new ground in 2015 when it brought in the Modern Slavery Act, requiring all large...www.reutersevents.com
Do not ever tell me what is slavery and who is a slave owner.
Your definition of slavery and slave owners is vague and shifting. I'll take the example Doukou posted concerning "modern slavery" in supply chains. Slavery in historical context is defined as "the state of a person who is held in forced servitude." So unless someone is being forced into labor, ie against their will. Then they are not a slave. Does that slavery still exist in the modern world? Yes. But, it is NOT widespread in the West and is severely punished. As posted earlier, it is more common in the developing world, not to the levels of colonialist slavery, but still a noticeable concern.
This then gets to the question of who is a slave owner. In your previous link, you provided a 13 year old article about forced child labor to mine Coltan in the DRC. Now, who is the slave owner in this context? Is it the actual slaver that is forcing these children into the mines under the threat of violence? Is it the person the slaver sells the mined Coltan to? Is it the corporation that buys the Coltan to use in their production? Is it every employee of said corporation? Is it the consumer that buys the end product? Or is it all of these people? Who dies in the revolution?
Now you say, hey now your definition of slavery is too strict, there is debt slavery; slavery of the those trapped by debt. Okay, who are the slave owners there? The predatory bankers that lend out high interest loans with the knowledge the borrower can never pay it back forcing them to work the rest of their life? The landowners who control property prices which price out the majority of individuals from ever owning land without going into debt slavery? Or the small business owner who pays his employees minimum wage because that's what he can afford at the moment? Or is it all of them as well?
Very quickly your revolution seems to be liquidating pretty much anyone it feels like under loose labels of being a "slave owner" or supporting a "slave owner." And that's why I don't subscribe to your rationales. Words have meaning, choose them carefully.
Nothing. Which is why I became an Anarchist (though I'm still working out what type I am).
That goes without saying; at least the former acknowledge things can't go on as they are, even if their solutions will do very little or nothing. As far as people who actually get airtime go, ones who flat out treat the current system as some sort of end-point are ironically the ones most likely to make many feel an actual bloody revolution is the only way forward.
That goes without saying; at least the former acknowledge things can't go on as they are, even if their solutions will do very little or nothing. As far as people who actually get airtime go, ones who flat out treat the current system as some sort of end-point are ironically the ones most likely to make many feel an actual bloody revolution is the only way forward.
This one is a bit more complicated.
First, the vast majority of revolutions face counterrevolutions, sometimes they are internal, sometimes they are external (US-LatAm, Vietnam, etc). There is no revolution where everyone is on board, such a revolution is a fairy tale. I will leave the fairy tales to others more optimistic than I.
The, so far, best institution for resisting a counterrevolutionary regime change/coup attempt is the state.
Second, I'm in the US, which is known for doing imperialism/funding counterrevolutionaries as part of its imperialism. I specifically want to take the interventionism of the the US foreign policy blob "off the board" so to speak. And this means inciting the patriots, the nationalists, the neocons, foreign conservative powers etc. to mount a counterrevolution. As per above, the best way I can think of to resist this specific threat is a powerful state.
Third, the vast majority of Americans believe in state power. I do not believe I will turn them into anarchists overnight. Thus, the state will need to remain as a transitional institution. It is not because I love the state, but because the people love the state and I need to follow the will of the people (except the revisionists who I need to ignore) like a good little socialist revolutionary. This is where I depart with most idealist anarchists I've encountered. They believe they will get everyone on board. I assume I will have enemies.
Ugliness is unavoidable in politics, you can either choose the passive ugliness of voting for a reduction of drone strikes 10% YoY or the active ugliness of determining what needs to be done to end the strikes by force.
You didn't actually clarify what you mean by slave owners. Is it perhaps because you know that you would be 'baited into an incriminating statement?'
I can make it easier if you like.
Are business owners slave owners?
Landlords?
Minority business owners and landlords?
Where are we drawing the line on not being deserving of rights?
I think emphasis on revolution is kind of a Leninist bias. Revolutions happen, but I don't think pre-emptively advocating for one is very useful. It also seems like the way it has manifested in the history of the socialist movement is often at odds with how Marx described his own theory of social change. I'm neither a Marx scholar nor do I think he is a prophet, but since he heavily influenced a lot of revolutionary socialism I think it is notable. Marx's historiography suggested that social change occurred when the "social relations" of a society act as a "fetter" on the "forces of production", which is all the accumulated productive capacity of a society. He believed capitalist social relations were such a fetter, in the sense that he thought the industrial economy could support people in a much more abundant way (not on the sense of Star Trek abundance, but at least in the sense that he believed there was a way to turn the productive capacity of society towards more directed goals of ending poverty and such).
But, that analysis implies that there is an existing alternative to compare the present state of affairs to. John Locke wrote of property norms he was familiar with because they existed alongside noble privileges, and the parliament was an institution that evolved and expanded out of what was initially the consent building between members of the elite to consent building amongst all property owners, including the commoners. When Sieyes wrote "what is the third estate?" his answer was it is everything, that the third estate (most importantly the educated, the property owning and the professionals) ran all of society and only tolerated the unearned privileges of the French nobility. Which is all to say that the alternative was plain to these people, it was there. It had evolved unconsciously within the old society.
Many self-identified Marxists now say like Sieyes that the proletariat also runs all of society and are the "revolutionary subject", and so they often advocate for revolution as soon as possible, the direct route to socialism. But the problem is this perception just isn't shared for generally not insensible reasons. The proletariat doesn't generally experience itself as truly "running society" in the course of its social existence, and to the degree that it does, it actually believes it does so through the representative government. So if wealth inequality is high, the proletariat isn't NECESSARILY revolutionary, as it can just as easily end up agitating for a new government that keeps everything the same but raises taxes. The proletariat doesn't have a strong sense of its own agency outside of this. Much like how unions function, it sees itself as one end of a fixed bargaining arrangement. The medieval towns also found themselves in such arrangements with the crown, often buying charters and rights from the monarchy to protect them from the petty lords, waxing and waning in their independence as some monarch may decide they'd prefer direct control or that they'd rather defer to the authority of lords and bishops over some sorry town. But the towns didn't conceive of this as a political struggle for the abolition of the monarchy as a political principle, they were simply trying to exist in the most beneficial position they could in this social arrangement, and the burghers would often ally with lords and kings willingly to best maintain their autonomy and wealth.
But what really upset medieval social relations was the weakening of the authority of the lords across multiple fronts, the peasantry, the monarchy and the towns. The peasants by various means won more freedom of movement and labor, the monarchy appropriated more political and juridical authority, and the towns became intertwined with the central monarchy through the bargaining above the heads of the nobility and eventually mostly found themselves directly controlled by the monarchy and supplying bureaucratic labor to the state for their own administration (as the state functions of the monarchy had ballooned with its own power). This created a perfect storm of an existing alternative to the political privileges of the nobility and monarchy. In effect, as Sieyes claimed, a growing stratum of the common class in England and France (let alone America, where it was quite clear), felt that it was running society in its image, making the nobility superfluous. They were the state bureaucrats, they ran the commerce, they leased agricultural lands from the nobles and operated them with labor increasingly paid in various forms of wages. So when the nobility or monarchy did something to really upset this group and refused to change, they revolted in the name of abolishing the political rights of that social class.
For the proletariat, I don't think anything like these circumstances exists and generally am skeptical they can exist. The proletariat revolts, but like Kropotkin said they often revolt still in the ideological grip of representative democracy. They elevate or passively assent to a group of representatives, like a revolutionary party, to do what is best for them. If they don't, they may attempt to revolt again and do it over. But the aims of the revolt are usually purifying the democracy of "corruption", or simply any kind of material relief. That relief is often redistribution and new social programs, while leaving the general structure of society as is. The proletariat doesn't imagine itself a unified or discrete social interest, a thing worthy of governing. It is the object of governance, it wants to be treated fairly within the scope of capitalist social relations. Mark Fisher called this kind of dead end ideology "capitalist realism".
So to me the goal is to create something, an alternative, that feels itself to be an interest worthy of governing, that experiences its own structure and way of living as an alternative. To me that is the worker coop right now. Any given worker coop isn't operated by ideologues or revolutionaries, but neither were the medieval towns, neither were the early state bureaucrats appointed by skill and education from the common class. They became that way as they grew under the noses of the monarchy and nobility, as they saw themselves in relation to a larger whole, as more of them assumed a vantage point that gave them clear vision of the whole pie and what was at stake.
As worker coops grow I think they will become a distinct interest group, and their interests will be intertwined with traditional working class interests, but as the thing the working class can escape to in a time of crisis and intolerable denial of political choice. We have already seen the dilution of traditional capital's authority in the form of the growth of the public corporation. Baronial families of private capital gave up control of their companies to a broad public market to raise capital (which I'd roughly analogize to nobility and monarchy shooting itself in the foot by short-sightedly selling off noble titles, selling freedom to peasants, cutting up holdings and accepting money payments for feudal service etc.) which resulted in "managerial capitalism", the increasing administration of large companies not by a small set of owners and their chosen few, but by managers appointed by many small owners. The cattle were openly running the farm, questions of what ownership meant in relation to these corporations started to be asked. Prominence of terms like "stakeholders" and beliefs in smoothing out relations between management and employees spread for a more technocratic and practical approach to business.
I think much like centralized monarchy this all has the possibility of being a paper tiger, rather than being in the midst of the dark age of central power and defeat in front of victorious big capital, the seeds of the dissolution of what exists were sown as the bargain of its temporary glory. The economy has become increasingly professional, educated, increasingly corporate, and aspiration to ownership of income generating assets has spread with the growth of the financial markets. Payment in stock and ESOPs have become fairly common, and in general I think the increasing appeal of worker cooperatives among many online socialists of probably a middle-income pedigree is reflective of their sense of self-worth and general entitlement to a professional career. More and more cities have quietly passed ordinances in favor of worker coops, because city officials are generally bemused by them and just see them as pro-business or community wealth building vehicles. NYC has been expanding its worker coop programs for a couple of years now, casually allocating more of the budget to it each year. During the Trump admin, the SBA even opened itself to loans for worker coops, but there are still some structural hurdles there that the cooperative lobby is trying to restructure. To me similar changes in favor of labor unions are almost inconceivable because of the huge structural lobby against them.
The political struggle is intertwined with private and interpersonal economic struggles here. Building models and starting up more coops, creating networks of support, connecting capital with those who need it and sharing experience while also lobbying local governments will all help grow the sector. And as it grows its lobby will grow, and eventually it may reach a critical mass where politicians are working at the behest of the coops and the working class who may see some wealth and control for itself in the coops, and on the other end is the lobby of traditional capital. These two won't always disagree, but they're structurally antagonistic. The growth of coops could stand to raise the standards of the labor market, as well as shrink markets for equity. The coops also smooth out returns to capital across more members, so that they're less likely to support policies that strictly benefit capital at labor's expense.
Like Samoyed though, I see all of that stuff as a speculative transitional strategy, one that kind of has an inertia to it and takes advantage of the present situation. I don't have a strong vision of what it is transitional towards, just that I think if employment is eventually abolished there will be a much greater equality of interests among the general population, and some public services that are hard to get now will either arise out of the private cooperation of the cooperatives in federations (Mondragon built its own unemployment and healthcare service for the group) or will arise out of mutual desires to curtail the effects of market competition on social life in some areas (the inability to shorten work weeks for instance, which could hurt competitiveness unless everybody does it). There will still be international and regional political struggle, but the barrier of private exploitation will be gone. It was easier to convince the British public that slavery was bad than it was to convince the British state or the slavers, even if they benefitted from the products of slavery. I think once you disempower and/or abolish the exploiters of national and international labor (capitalists), there will be more opportunity to appeal to people's sense of decency as the more diffuse economic returns of socially deleterious trade or industry begins to not seem as indirectly valuable as compared to people's actual values or perceived material benefits from alternatives, and the propaganda of the ruling class is dulled by their waning economic power.
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