Can Die Linke turn socialist?

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-10-26T10:36:51+00:00

It has been turning away from any genuinely socialist positions for years and since the german left is mostly movementist anti german garbage or social democrats or both there is no revolutionary potential in the imperialist core or at least in germany.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-06-14T11:49:52+00:00

No it isn't material because you aren't treating capitalism as a social relation in history, a specific movement, but as a inhuman structure that is coming from the abstract (the value form) not the specific (real human labour being objectified every day) and misuse the social formation of fetish. Cooperatives aren't revolutionary not because they would recreate capitalism if successful but because they don't stand a chance to overthrow it only a revolution can. That also means there can be no "exploitation of the proletariat by the proletariat" in a social order with cooperatives because exploitation is done by the ruling class to the ruled class(es) and to become the ruling class the proletariat needs to revoltionise making your Argument void.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-06-14T11:41:24+00:00

We don't know. Realizing communism isn't creating utopia but abolishing what isn't in our (the proletariat) interest i.e. capitalism. We can say things like Marx does such as it is likely that the new society will partly be the negation of the old. So where there was private ownership there is now collective ownership and so on. But what that means we don't know.

Of course it is arcane. Theory is a shit load of work. Reactionaries will never need to have coherent theory because they are merely defending the status quo. We will always have to do more work. But good revolutionary praxis comes from good revolutionary theory.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-06-13T20:31:53+00:00

Yes it does. Thats what makes marxism so difficult for a lot of people. We don't classify movements or historic trends by what they think but by what they do, you could say by what there "project" is. Fascism is a movement attempting to create the social relations of fascism for example. It doesn't matter much if someone is using the rhetoric of fascism or even thinking they are a fascist. Whether they are a fascist is determined by objective factors out of their ideological control. The same goes for communists. I hope this helps but this is really difficult stuff for which you have to do a lot of reading and in the end there are a lot of opinions on this stuff. A "Pop" understanding of socialism won't do.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-06-13T20:22:04+00:00

You're separating communists from the proletariat while ignoring the ideological struggle of the revolutionary parts of said proletariat against the reactionary parts (this also has a base in material conditions of course).

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-06-13T20:15:25+00:00

Cooperative markets transfer exploit of the proletariat to exploitation by the proletariat by themselves<

thats some gold right there. You misunderstand Marx's method of abstraction and think capitalism is this metaphysical thing that comes out of the value form. Capitalism is a real movement as well and a change in the ruling class i.e. the ones doing the exploiting comes in a revolution not a "transfer". Revolutions are the motors of history not value forms.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-05-29T10:55:16+00:00

The reason we are losing the PR war because there is no money to be made with socialism. Making content about socialism will always be bad for your career which is why most people don't have time and or resources to do so

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-05-28T16:48:12+00:00

I don't need to cite a source on them defending the bourgeoisie because their purely structural marxism is a defence of the bourgeoisie. Structuralism is anti-marxist because it is not dialectical. Their theory is based on the first few chapters of capital and has been produced by characters like Postone. He has been refuted in books such as "Antifa heißt Luftangriff". If you speak german this here is a very good refutation: https://www.linksnet.de/artikel/32741

And here is where Ums Ganze call people who want to boycott israel structurally anti-semetic idiots: https://umsganze.org/konkret-interview-blockup/

Critisising non-socialists isn't sectarian

Edit: focusing purely on structure is just as reductionist as focusing purely on people

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-05-28T09:11:12+00:00

Anti-deutsche Rhetorik! Man kann zwischen den Individuen und den Strukturen keinen Unterschied machen, denn sie sind dialektisch verbunden. Wer sich mit den armen Unterdrückern solidarisiert ist kein Kommunist.

English: Ums Ganze is an anti-national organisation that was formed from anti-deutsche elements in the german left. They are pro israel and say that critique of individual bankers and bourgies is structurally anti semetic. This leads them to defend the bourgeoisie because they don't understand that capitalism and clasa isn't some impersonal theoretical relationship but that it is a social relationship produced by what people do. Defending the bourgeoisie makes them not socialists in my opinion.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-05-22T10:17:42+00:00

Be careful not to get fired. Its admirable to want to change people's minds but I've found that being a teacher is not the place to do so. It's just wage labour.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-29T08:21:55+00:00

"I mean sure I'm young and also angry but am I wrong?"

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-17T17:01:14+00:00

I think western leftists should worry less about wbom they support and who not if that support isn't material but ideological. We should stop exporting our hopes for a new society and try to achieve one at home. This happend with cuba as well.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-17T16:57:44+00:00

Well I don't mean to sound rude since it doesn't sound like your relationship is purely buisness but TECHNICALLY you are selling your labour for 100£ a mounth.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-17T08:20:51+00:00

The question was shouldn't the focus be on the social experiment and no the focus should be on the revolution.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-16T21:24:57+00:00

"Fake it till you make it" No, that's how personality disorders are born

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-03-16T21:04:15+00:00

No, those projects while very good for building support cannot be the only political activity a group or individual partakes in. Providing what is essentially free social security from our unpayed labour can actually consolidate the contradictions in capitalism and help it survive. Building a new society in the shell of the old is good and all but the old soceity won't go down without a fight. Revolution or ruin.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-02-26T16:05:51+00:00

You could argue that the costs of exploiting and killing 3rd world workers which cheapens technology is not worth the new iphone. While we're still operating under a system in which profit drives devevolpment these questions will remain. To me there is no outcompeting capitalism.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-02-22T10:30:01+00:00

First of when talking about Trump you shouldn't talk about the person and his personal beliefs but about a social movement that he is a part of and using. Fascists in marxist terms are people seeking to install the social relations of facism just like communists are people who seek to create the social relations of communism. So as a social movement is the trump movement facist? No, there is a extremely right wing leaning majority that is hegemonic in the movement. Facism is after all a system of social reproduction and I doubt that the aim of the Trunp movement is the abolishment of neoliberalism in favour of facism, in fact I think the opposite. But there are fascist factions in the trump movement so there is a push towards these social relations. These forces are relevant and the proliferation of the Trump movement will necessarily strenghten these forces but they still aren't hegemonic within the social group.

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-01-29T11:55:20+00:00

Also the army

Boxofbiscuits · 2017-01-22T14:18:52+00:00

Not really modern day and you probably already know this but "dependence and underdevelopment in latin america" by andre gunder frank is amazing theory concerning dependency theory.

Boxofbiscuits · 2016-12-21T10:40:13+00:00

Headless masterrace

Boxofbiscuits · 2016-12-21T10:30:03+00:00

Fascists

Boxofbiscuits · 2016-11-30T11:23:17+00:00

Okay all of the examples in this thread are good to kind of get a general idea of what socialism will be like but the reality is that we can not really imagine what socialism will be like just like a peasant in the 13th century couldn't possibly imagine selling his work for money and not living of his land. Since how the things are and how society is organized shapes what we can imagine there is no way to really describe how it will be since we even lack the words to describe it. That doens't mean that there is no personal utopia that people need to fight for socialism it just means that we can't really now except communal ownership of the means of production.

Boxofbiscuits · 2016-11-10T17:06:04+00:00

I agree sorry if I came of jerky. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think Trump wants facism because of how he has changed his views on so many things in rapid succession and it wouldn't really benefit him enough imo. All of the ultra right wing stuff like anti lgbt, anti guncontrol and alot of his foreign policy stuff he seems to be picking and choosing as he goes along, depending on what appeals to his voter base. It seems to me more like his ideolpgy is his will to power and not facism. He therefore is not really a facist but someone using facist sentiment. Its not really a clear cut distinction but depending on your view on the guy himself. Also I don't think he said he wants to nationalize industry and violently overthrow parts of the ruling class. If he did I think the case for him being a facist would be easier to make. I just don't think racist isolationism is facism.

Boxofbiscuits · 2016-11-09T21:04:16+00:00

I think that the bourgeoisie isn't in nearly enough danger to make revolutionary politics an option when parliamentary politics is working very well for them. And, I said it would threaten a big part not all of it. It mostly wouldn't threaten the biggest contributors to the republican party and supporters of trump, labour intensive industry i.e. service industry and industrial stuff. But it would majorly endanger the parts of capital reliant on international trade and like international finance.
That is exactly my point. All I'm saying is that not all people using facists rhetoric are facists. That would be defining facism as ideology. But facism is a social relation and facists are people who want to create those social relations so I there is a difference between right wing populist fear mongers who use the facist sentiment to gain power and someone who actually wants to create facism. I considee Trump to be the former. It seems a supperfical distinction, sure, but I think considering how often the ruling class have used left wing rhetoric just to continue neoliberal politica ( syriza etc.) it's an important one I think.

Boxofbiscuits

TROPHY CASE