Comment on Lemmy's gaining popularity, so I thought new people should see this.

• JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Seriously? I’m not trying to convince you, I’m trying to convince the people reading us. That’s the way a forum debate works! But I admire your earnestness.

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  • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My biggest issue is with these two statements:

    But the fact is that capitalism won the economic battle, for better and (I agree) for worse.

    Attempts to replace it completely, in an interconnected world, invariably end in disaster or (China) in a reversion to capitalism.

    For the former, I disagree because AES states still exist, and Marx’s analysis has retained it’s usefulness at full capacity.

    For the latter, most AES states were and are dramatic improvements on previous conditions, such as the fascist slaver Batista regime in Cuba compared to now, where life expectancy is 50% higher than under Batista and disparity is far lower.

    As for the PRC, it isn’t correct to say it “reverted to Capitalism.” It’s more correct to say that Mao failed to jump to Communism, and Deng reverted back to a more Marxist form of Socialism. The Private Sector is a minority of the economy in the PRC, the majority is in the public sector. Here’s an excerpt from Engels in The Principles of Communism:

    Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?

    No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

    Mao tried to skip the necessary developmental stage. Marx wasn’t a Utopian, he didn’t believe Socialism was good because it was more moral, but because Capitalism creates the conditions for Socialism, ie public ownership and central planning, through formation of monopolist syndicates. Marx says as much himself in Manifesto of the Communist Party:

    The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

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    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do you not think your remarks have a bit of a religious flavor to them? Quoting a couple of eccentric academics from 150 years ago as if transmitting their divine revelation. Defending your interpretation of their holy words as if you were a lawyer or a priest. Why not just look to first principles instead, to the values you considerate important, rather than citing a gospel like this?

      I must admit that I am puzzled by people’s determination to defend the record of communism. It’s not worth defending. There are much better ideas for how to replace capitalism, though - spoiler - none of them involve a bloody revolution. This doesn’t mean that Marx had nothing interesting to say. Of course he did. His description of society was revolutionary. But the prescription was disastrous and I feel we would do well to just move on from it at last.

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      • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Do you not think your remarks have a bit of a religious flavor to them? Quoting a couple of eccentric academics from 150 years ago as if transmitting their divine revelation. Defending your interpretation of their holy words as if you were a lawyer or a priest. Why not just look to first principles instead, to the values you considerate important, rather than citing a gospel like this?

        I quoted both Marx and Engels, while linking modern analysis and theory at the end. Marxism has a long history with numerous writers, when you say the PRC has “reverted to Capitalism” it’s important to point out that they have more accurately reverted to Socialism. Marxism isn’t a religion, it’s a method of analysis.

        I don’t know what you mean by “look to principles instead.” I have values and principles, I desire humanity to move beyond Capitalism and onto Socialism because Capitalism reaches a dead-end when it gets to the stage it is at today: dying Imperialism and Monopolist Syndicates devoid of competition. Socialism is how we move beyond.

        There are much better ideas for how to replace capitalism, though - spoiler - none of them involve a bloody revolution

        I have yet to see anything succeed in replacing Capitalism without a revolution, so I’m curious what you are referring to.

        This doesn’t mean that Marx had nothing interesting to say. Of course he did. His description of society was revolutionary. But the prescription was disastrous and I feel we would do well to just move on from it at last

        Again, post-revolution, Marxism has dramatically improved conditions compared to previous squalor. It isn’t correct to say AES states have been disastrous, especially when comparing to the horrendous pre-Socialist conditions.

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