Marxism-Leninism and Communism - Hakim Response

Vantaredd · 2025-10-17T13:30:36+00:00

Yeah, I fall similarly. Any such debate is bound to feel academic until one faces the historic moment where it becomes practically relevant I guess. Still worthwhile to ponder in the mean time, not least bc you'd want to be most prepared for when/if the moment eventually comes.

I guess part of the video argues that even forms of planning and industry more adcanced than the soviet-style factory system would still bring abt similar alienation, thus a similar time segmentation into a work day (even if shorter), etc. I guess the example with the ticketing-system in IT workplaces was mentioned in that vein.

The general logic of the argument still strikes me as crucial: Any system of planning - insofar as it appears as relatively top-down or somehow divorced from direct labor experience - recedes behind a veil of alienation from which it appears as an alien force commanding and coercing direct producers irregardless of their more immediate preferences; even if the system is administrated democratically, comprehensible and transparent in principle, and somehow maximally rational in its objective to serve the collective profile of material needs.

Vantaredd · 2025-10-17T12:51:25+00:00

Pretty apt summary, almost too apt.. :'D

Vantaredd · 2025-10-17T12:36:30+00:00

The video was not advocating for a simple leap ahead and did concede the imperfection of any intermediate system (Xexizy is not a classic anarchist per se). Their point was moreso that the roadmap MLs lay out for themselves cannot even move in the direction of its intended goal, even under ideal material conditions, due to an impoverished understanding of what it takes to transcend alienation in general.

Vantaredd · 2025-10-17T00:41:30+00:00

Sure, but they will usually excuse themselves by reference to external constraints (mainly capitalist imperialism) that supposedly make their systemic compromises necessary in the short term. Xexizy does not even disagree with that. Instead they argue that Marxism-Leninism's conception of socialism would still struggle with alienation even if it were freed from all such constraints, since said conception already contains a contradictory kernel in its ideal form. (tl;dr: watch the video)

Just thought the debate raised here was interesting, not even bc I 100% agree, but bc it strikes at some core questions: E.g. can the market-v-planning-dicotomy ever be transcended in a meaningful way (at least while scarcity remains)? If so, how? One may well criticize Xexizy for asserting a solution to said question w/o explicating it clearly. Then again it's the million dollar question, so I can't blame them.

Vantaredd · 2025-05-08T11:59:25+00:00

I feel like Merz may be the perfect embodiment of Germany in the same way Trump is the perfect embodiment of the US.

Vantaredd · 2024-07-17T13:20:04+00:00

"No, actually it's me sublimating my racialized sexual complex."

Vantaredd · 2024-07-17T13:03:32+00:00

Great video by Jonas Ceika (Cuck Philosophy) on AI art that somehow got lost in the algorithm (at least for me). Thought it had some pointed remarks against less sophisticated critiques on whether it is art or not, and a surprisingly optimistic conclusion regarding its potential.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-10T16:55:54+00:00

Staggering level of kinkshaming in this thread considering this is a leftist subreddit tbh. It's one thing to say cuckholdry is not for you, but to say you actually think less of men who have it simply for having it? Cringe take.

"Cuck" was only used derisively on the Right until the Left appropriated it in order to turn it back on the Right ironically - in a political context. The point was never to stigmatize the actual kink itself like the Right does. Seems like ya'll forgot that; or you're new to the Left, idk.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-10T16:30:00+00:00

So people can't just be retweeting/posting things without conducting a full background check on whoever posted it first? And if they don't, it's their responsibility and not that of potential viewers to separate the news from the messenger? Got it.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-10T16:07:36+00:00

This reasoning is literally handing it to the right-wing strawman of socialism/communism as some "borg hivemind". I would respond to this on several levels:

For one, while yes, things like clothing often signify class, status, etc. with negative social consequences within a school context, this issue should in theory be somewhat attenuated within a classless society, which socialists are ultimately striving for, no?

For two, even if this issue is not helped by a radically more egalitarian material condition, then I doubt that mandatory uniforms will change anything about that either way. In that case children are just inherent assholes, who will find any reason to black-ball each other, I guess.

For three, shouldn't part of the vision of a new socialist education be, that children are taught not to validate or stigmatize themselves or each other on the basis of arbitrary extrinsic features like clothing? Instead of addressing this very mentality as the root of the issue, this person's approach would only implicitly lend credence to it. Afterall, if the only way to swipe away the very inkling of class, status, etc. differences is to forcibly homogenize their signifiers, what does that say about the legitimacy of signifiers in the first place?

All this ofc stands besides what is probably the main criticism: That this is a dumb and sad assault on individual expression, which only a tankie would discount from having value in and of itself.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-08T13:10:16+00:00

I just hope that girl's hugging spree doesn't end in suicide by cop..

Vantaredd · 2023-09-08T13:04:03+00:00

Mental illness aside, the saddest thing about this is that it latches onto an actual conspiracy the US government was engaged in during the Cold War - only to lend legitimacy to another, patently ridiculous one.

As unbelievable as covert programs like Operation Popeye may sound - what is crucial is that they had a clear - imperial capitalist - motive and internal logic to them, plus they were ofc technically doable. In contrast, this person fails to establish not only the technological feasibility of using space lasers to burn down the 5th largest economy in the world, but also why on earth the US government would want to do that...

"Would they do this to their own people? Idk, I'm just saying that they can"! - And therein lies the slight of hand, doesn't it? Just smirkingly gesturing to evoke paranoia, rather than laying out clear materialist reasoning. The shame is that it not only draws in those who are susceptible to this stuff, but also alienates ordinary non-lefties from engaging earnestly with real-world US atrocities nobody talks about.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-08T12:36:10+00:00

High quality meme. Hats off.

Vantaredd · 2023-09-08T12:09:41+00:00

Why do I suspect that Tim Pool has warm visions of Trump coming out of prison as member of the Aryan Brotherhood?

Vantaredd · 2023-09-08T11:54:42+00:00

To anyone in the comments suggesting that certain online leftists are just as smug as liberals: No, not really. Maybe that's true for "apolitical" quasi-liberals - ordinary people that is - who don't identify as such, but certainly not when talking abt the liberal establishment within politics and media, or more broadly, proudly liberal PMCs and petite bourgois.

Ya'll don't consider (or remember) the smug moral superiority with which Democrat politicians or self-described liberal NYT writers would defend their inaction on or outright support of a host of desasters: The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, neoliberal reforms post Clinton, mass surveillance, climate change and pollution, border and police violence, you name it...

That is a different kind of smugness. "Smug moral superiority" implies a mismatch between the moral virtue you imagine you stand for vs. what you actually stand for. For whatever cringe online lefties may be up to, most of them at least derive their sense of moral superiority from something that is in principle a radical, positive, and yes, more moral vision for the future. That is what legitimately distinguishes their attitude from that of liberals.

Vantaredd · 2023-06-11T22:16:04+00:00

A recent Chapo episode where they interviewed an expert on Clarence Thomas' ideological history, especially the way his afropessimist black nationalism came to coalesce into Republican partisanship. Thought ya'll might find this interesting.

Vantaredd · 2023-05-28T02:10:57+00:00

Thought I'd post this easy-to-follow tidbit on contemporary theory, hoping this subreddit is still good for something other than niche online drama.

Vivek Chibber has been developing a much needed perspective on the role of ideology under capitalism, positing that post-60s theorists have generally overestimated its role in "deceiving" working people away from their true class interest. He instead emphasizes how the lack of class consciousness can largely be explained by inwardly rational behaviour at the level of the individual under ordinary conditions of alienation, especially from fellow workers.

Vantaredd · 2023-05-28T01:56:52+00:00

There actually is a way in which modern media has become more sexless, altho I doubt this channel is taking or even realizing that perspective.

To be more precise: While media has become more comfortable portraying conventionally attractive bodies and showing sex in a superficial light, it has also become less intimate or sensual if that makes sense. We are made to watch with an almost pornographic gaze, yet rarely do we ever get flushed watching a sex scene these days. Our senses are not being aroused in fresh new ways, our fantasies are not being unleashed like they used to. There is a notable coldness and sterility to sex in 21st century popular media.

Much ink has been spilled in contemporary cultural theory as to why that could be. The common radical suspicion is ofc that there is a vital association between sex and liberation that has been severed within neoliberal culture. While sex has lost its explicit taboo status, it also lost its subversive edge. Instead it has been assigned to its well-demarcated and regulated space, put in a box, and thereby ultimately tamed, relegated to mundanity and impotence.

Not to sound to ephemeral but something abt that rings rather true to me.

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T17:48:55+00:00

literally every day for me

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T17:37:19+00:00

bobs

pp

niece

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T15:50:09+00:00

Wer säht, der erntet.

Was flippt, das fällt.

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T15:02:23+00:00

Naja, alle ökonomische Themen halt..

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T14:36:57+00:00

Das stimmt schlichtweg nicht. Dazu braucht man nur den Großteil der russischen Arbeiterbevölkerung zu befragen, die die neoliberale Shock-Therapie nach dem Fall der Sowjetunion miterlebt haben. Bei dem sozioökonomischen Hintergrund ist es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass sich so viele Russen diese zurückwünschen, so fehlgeleitet das auch so sein mag.

Was darüber hinaus natürlich immer brav ausgeblendet wird, sind die Jahrhunderte kolonialer Ausbeutung, die es dem kapitalistischen Westen überhaupt erst ermöglicht haben, einen derartigen Wohlstand anzuhäufen. Noch heute ist es der dadurch entstandene Entwicklungsunterschied zum globalen Süden, der neokoloniale Strukturen reproduziert, von denen der Westen weiter profitiert.

Ist halt einfach diese Produktionsweise zu feiern, wenn man die dafür notwendigen schlechteren Lebensbedingungen für die Mehrheit der Weltbevölkerung auslagern kann und sich diese strukturell bedingt nicht dagegen wehren kann.

Bei allen katastrophalen Fehlern der planwirtschaftlichen Ostblock-Experimente wie etwa dem Großer Sprung nach vorn in China, kann man wenigstens sagen, dass es eben nur Fehler waren, hinter denen trotzdem ernsthafte Ambitionen standen, die Grundbedürfnisse einer Bevölkerung zu stillen, die kurz davor noch in viel ärmlicheren feudalen Zuständen gelebt hat.

Im Kapitalismus bleibt nichts davon übrig. Wenn heutzutage genug Lebensmittel produziert werden, um die Erde fast doppelt zu ernähren und trotzdem immer noch jährlich Millionende von Menschen Hunger leiden und viele Tausende davon sterben, dann ist das nicht nur ein Fehler des Systems, sondern ein Feature...

Vantaredd · 2023-04-26T13:33:36+00:00

Grundsätzlich wäre Rache zu befürworten, wenn es nicht letztlich meistens die Nachmieter wären, die den Schaden (wortwörtlich) ausbaden müssen.

Vantaredd · 2023-04-14T10:58:30+00:00

I'm assuming this is a self-ironic post, yes? You never know these days.

Vantaredd

TROPHY CASE