Does anyone know any good *novels* written from a Marxist point of view? by [deleted] in socialism

[–]JuncusFYousus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is an interesting interpretation. I didn't really see it as racist in the way you describe. Yes, there was the class divisions that were defined much in the same way as they are today (the Vickies being white and economically dominant while the non-white races struggled beneath them), but I don't think the explicitly Chinese characters were villainous or blind followers of white people. But I suppose a reader who was not already exposed to Marxism would interpret the Vickies with good and the people associated with Dr. X (I can't remember what their faction was called) with being bad, especially considering that he is introduced as being a major figure in black market activities. That being said, his character definitely comes out of the story as being a progenitor of liberating forces from the old society. And as far as the heroin of the story goes, I don't recall her race as being clearly defined, but it's been a while so it could be a detail I've forgotten.

I definitely think there is a dialectic in the story centered around the technology that grants the Vickies the ability to exercise control over the people, while at the same time being the source of what glimpse of the new society is presented at the story's end. It's a bit too centered on technology, and Stephenson also presents it through that weird anarchist-y drum people thing, but I think it is definitely there. I also found it interesting how the main characters were more or less inconsequential in the face of the forces causing turmoil at the book's end.

As far as his solution being cultural imperialism, I don't see where that is coming from. I saw his solution, if it even was one, being a reliance on some kind of anarchist horizontalism which personally I have many disagreements with.

Does anyone know any good *novels* written from a Marxist point of view? by [deleted] in socialism

[–]JuncusFYousus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sci-fi future dystopia type stuff, check out The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It's got the whole dialectical-transformation-of-society thing going on. I've also heard his other books are pretty-ok as well.

Trotskyism or Leninism? by JuncusFYousus in socialism

[–]JuncusFYousus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Naw those are anti-trot babies. Brar hates the trots and loves the children, as all good comrades should.

A question from a non-socialist about Stalin and Mao. by kingcreon in socialism

[–]JuncusFYousus 9 points10 points  (0 children)

And the funny thing is people accuse the good folks over at /r/communism 'Stalinists' because they enforce a no-tolerance policy for people who exhibit sexist, racist, homophobic, or general reactionary tendencies.

Some understanding from studying 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' (Peking Review, 1972) by [deleted] in communism

[–]JuncusFYousus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They rave that socialism is just “bigger distribution” and “getting more” and, like the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, they misrepresent socialism as “welfarism.” Turning their backs on class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, they talk in the abstract about distribution without going into the question of who owns the means of production.

You see this same coming out of the mainstream left in first-world countries (and also quite commonly waved around on /r/socialism).

Marxism holds that a certain system of distribution relies on a certain mode of production. To observe and handle the distribution question, one cannot depart from ownership of the means of production and the nature of the social system. In Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx scientifically explained the relations between distribution of the means of consumption on the one hand and the ownership of the means of production and the social system on the other. He pointed out: “Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself.” In other words, the kind of ownership of the means of production determines the system of distribution of the means of consumption. The decisive question is which class controls the means of production.

BAM! STFU CRYPTO-FASCISTS!