• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    The Communist Manifesto isn’t what I’m talking about. The CM is a worker pamphlet, not an explanation of Marxism. The Principles of Communism is a much better introductory work, and for Marx himself, Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit are excellent texts describing Capitalism. I would also add Socialism: Utopian and Scientific for an introduction to Historical Materialism, and the failures of Utopian Socialists like the Owenites.

    Lenin is absolutely worth reading, he was the leader of the first genuine Marxist state, and his contributions to Marxist theory are critical. Specifically, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism furthers Marx’s analysis into the modern era of Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism, which Marx was only alive to see the very beginnings of before he passed away.

    • seapat@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Do you mind explaining to me how monopoly capitalism is aka imperialism?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        The best way is reading the text I linked over it, which includes proof, analysis, and far more information than I can put in a single comment.

        However, the extreme shorthand, is that competition results in monopoly, and monopoly seeks new international sources of raw materials and labor that is cheaper, using predatory loans and exporting industrial Capital directly.

        The US, for example, has huge influence over the IMF, and makes the bulk of its value by producing in the Global South and lobbying to keep wages low.

    • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      That sure is a lot of stuff to read and i bet its dry lecture. To be honest, i won’t start looking into them, so thus far you have me. Maybe it’s ignorant but Lenin, for me, goes in the same pot as Stalin and Mao and the baddest of them all from Austria. I don’t know if there are good ideas in their writings/ methods/ ideologies…what i know is that these are people who abused their power. They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them…so i don’t know if their works and deeds are a thing to build upon.

      I not very educated on the matter but i’d think that “Post-growth” in capitalism maybe is a solution or at least a way to a solution?

      Capitalism sucks, yeah. They steal from you, yeah. Thing is that this happens in every system as long as humans are involved. So maybe we as a hole have to go through somekind of capitalistic-cataclysm, which i don’t want for me or my kids, but has to happen none the less to come up with something neither Marx & Co. or capitalists envisioned as of yet.

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Honestly, if you’ve got the time and the capability I would recommend reading at least Capital 1, it’s incredibly well written.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        That sure is a lot of stuff to read and i bet its dry lecture.

        It isn’t, haha. Pretty easy to read!

        To be honest, i won’t start looking into them, so thus far you have me. Maybe it’s ignorant but Lenin, for me, goes in the same pot as Stalin and Mao and the baddest of them all from Austria.

        Bold claims for someone who refuses to even look at the text, let alone read it. Additionally, equating the Communists to the Nazis is in fact Nazi Apologia.

        I don’t know if there are good ideas in their writings/ methods/ ideologies…what i know is that these are people who abused their power. They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them…so i don’t know if their works and deeds are a thing to build upon.

        Do you know that? You evidently don’t read, so where do your ideas come from? Imagination?

        I not very educated on the matter but i’d think that “Post-growth” in capitalism maybe is a solution or at least a way to a solution?

        What on Earth is “post-growth Capitalism?” Where did you pull that from, and why do you already think it capable of being a solution?

        Capitalism sucks, yeah. They steal from you, yeah. Thing is that this happens in every system as long as humans are involved. So maybe we as a hole have to go through somekind of capitalistic-cataclysm, which i don’t want for me or my kids, but has to happen none the less to come up with something neither Marx & Co. or capitalists envisioned as of yet.

        How, exactly, are people “stolen from” in Socialism? You don’t know what you’re talking about, but you sure do have strong opinions about it.

        • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Well I compare the extreme left with the extreme right since it is basically the same imho. Different reasoning for the mindset of “what’s not with us is against us”.

          Communists committed the same crimes as the Nazis so of into the same cell and the key is best disposed of.

          And the other big problem with pure socialism:

          Why hasn’t it worked yet? No Utopia as of yet, only repression, human rights violation and death.

          It’s as if the human factor is the point where there is change needed, not the system itself.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            Well I compare the extreme left with the extreme right since it is basically the same imho. Different reasoning for the mindset of “what’s not with us is against us”.

            No offense, but this is a childish view of politics. The extreme left is categorized by trying to care for the entire population, the extreme right is categorized by intense nationalism, xenphobia, and brutal class stratification.

            Communists committed the same crimes as the Nazis so of into the same cell and the key is best disposed of.

            No, they did not. Read Blackshirts and Reds. The Communists and the Nazis represented entirely different groups, and the Communists dramatically improved the lives of their citizenry while the Nazis brutally crushed them.

            And the other big problem with pure socialism:

            Why hasn’t it worked yet? No Utopia as of yet, only repression, human rights violation and death.

            It has worked and continues to work. Read more than US state propaganda. Utopianism is anti-Marxist, Marxists advocate for Scientific Socialism.

            It’s as if the human factor is the point where there is change needed, not the system itself.

            This is Idealism. What’s considered Human Nature is expressed and reinforced by the system itself, the Mode of Production.

            Read a book sometime.

            • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              “It has worked and continues to work. Read more than US state propaganda. Utopianism is anti-Marxist, Marxists advocate for Scientific Socialism.”

              Yeah…the DDR worked so well they had to build a wall to keep people from leaving the country.

              UdssR worked also so well that the ex-member nations would rather burn than return.

              North Korea is such an awesome system it also hinders it’s people at leaving. Oh and the regular parades to praise the leader… much social yeah.

              Uh and China…nice place to live? Yeah, I sincerely believe that but you say something, anything against the system? Ups…bye bye social points. And the internet is totally not censored. Tian’anmen square? Nothing ever happened!

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                Yeah…the DDR worked so well they had to build a wall to keep people from leaving the country.

                Yep, people would get free, high quality education, and then go to the west to make more money.

                UdssR worked also so well that the ex-member nations would rather burn than return.

                Wrong, actually. The vast majority regret the fall of the USSR and say they lived better under it.

                North Korea is such an awesome system it also hinders it’s people at leaving. Oh and the regular parades to praise the leader… much social yeah.

                None of this is a point other than saying you aren’t allowed to emigrate, which isn’t even entirely true.

                Uh and China…nice place to live? Yeah, I sincerely believe that but you say something, anything against the system? Ups…bye bye social points. And the internet is totally not censored. Tian’anmen square? Nothing ever happened!

                1. Social Credit is largely a myth, Capitalist countries have worse systems.

                2. Capitalist internet is also censored.

                3. Tian’anmen Square in April 1989 was actually peaceful, the conflicts and deaths happened outside the square itself, hence why there’s a western myth that the CPC is somehow covering up a mass-Maoist protest against Dengist reforms, when the CPC acknowledges that hundreds of people were killed that day in the areas surrounding the Square.

                Please, read. Anything.

                • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Yep, people would get free, high quality education, and then go to the west to make more money.

                  So you shoot them for leaving the country because they got education in your system? Yeah…very social of you.

                  Wrong, actually. The vast majority regret the fall of the USSR and say they lived better under it.

                  Nostalgia: A mood triggered by discomfort with the present and filled with an indefinite longing, which is expressed in a return to a past time that has been transfigured in the imagination and whose fashion, art, music, etc. is revived.

                  i bet we’re far better of than the UdssR was. Again: you don’t comply? Ok Gulag for you!

                  1. Social Credit is largely a myth, Capitalist countries have worse systems.
                  2. Capitalist internet is also censored.
                  3. Tian’anmen Square in April 1989 was actually peaceful, the conflicts and deaths happened outside the square itself, hence why there’s a western myth that the CPC is somehow covering up a mass-Maoist protest against Dengist reforms, when the CPC acknowledges that hundreds of people were killed that day in the areas surrounding the Square.
                  1. maybe, ok. I don’t see what the benefit is from that being a hoax.
                  2. well you can look up nearly all warcrimes ever committed. Try using chinese Google to look up their warcrimes…whoops nothing there. Uighurs? No…nothing happening.
                  3. Really dude? the Massacre is a myth or at least the covering up of it? C’mon…pray tell me you believe at least the moonlanding was a real thing
                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    2 months ago

                    So you shoot them for leaving the country because they got education in your system? Yeah…very social of you.

                    The East was basically funding the West’s education for skilled labor, so the West got all of the free advantage from the East’s social programs.

                    Nostalgia: A mood triggered by discomfort with the present and filled with an indefinite longing, which is expressed in a return to a past time that has been transfigured in the imagination and whose fashion, art, music, etc. is revived.

                    i bet we’re far better of than the UdssR was. Again: you don’t comply? Ok Gulag for you!

                    Yep, the Soviet system had better metrics than the Capitalist systems.

                    1. maybe, ok. I don’t see what the benefit is from that being a hoax.

                    Red scare propaganda, the US is preparing for war with the PRC.

                    1. well you can look up nearly all warcrimes ever committed. Try using chinese Google to look up their warcrimes…whoops nothing there. Uighurs? No…nothing happening.

                    You can search and even visit Xinjiang

                    1. Really dude? the Massacre is a myth or at least the covering up of it? C’mon…pray tell me you believe at least the moonlanding was a real thing

                    There was no massacre on the square. There was lots of fighting and killing in the surrounding areas, between a few hundred and couple thousand people died that day when adding up PLA and rioter deaths, but the fighting didn’t happen on the square. The west uses the fact that on Chinese sites there’s no mention of a massacre on the square to pretend the CPC is saying it didn’t happen anywhere.

      • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them

        This is what states do, they are tools of repression. You’ve basically limited yourself to reading from a subset of anarchists and no one else with this statement alone.

        • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I don’t see many central European states killing people for the reason of having different ideologies these days. And if they did their leaders wouldn’t be celebrated for the books they wrote.

          Without any kind of repressive system you’ll have anarchy.

          • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            I don’t see many central European states killing people for the reason of having different ideologies these days.

            Of course not, they are nestled comfortably within the imperial core, they can better-afford to export their killing (see Germany’s devotion to Israel). Most imperial core states are not like America, where protest leaders get lynched and then it gets called a suicide, because they rely on vassal states to be attack dogs.

            As their position in the core becomes less and less firm, you will find that their liberalism decays into something much harsher. This has already begun with growing fascist movements in Germany, France, Italy, and so on.

            Without any kind of repressive system you’ll have anarchy.

            Agreed, though this is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the particular structure of the society. However, in the meantime, it is also the socialist position that the state is repressive and, in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in, repression is necessary, it’s just a matter of who is doing the repressing and who is being repressed.

            • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Hm I’d say, as a central European, that our continent had centuries of war and destruction and we finally left that behind. And I have no fucking clue what the Imperial core is.

              Considering the Anarchy: I believe that people need to be governed over. No order, no civilization…

              • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                Hm I’d say, as a central European, that our continent had centuries of war and destruction and we finally left that behind.

                A lot of people throughout history have liked to believe that when they don’t have war, it’s because they are more enlightened than other countries. This is idealist and self-flattering nonsense. Central Europe, being all in multiple levels of alliance with each other and having buffer states to their east and south (some in those alliances, some just as lackeys to those alliances, notably Ukraine), they are in a very convenient position to declare themselves more civilized than those war-like brutes who live in the global south, etc.

                You’d think if merely having a history of going to war was all that was needed to become peaceful, Germany would surely be the most solid among you as being an enlightened nation (and I kind of wonder if you’re talking about Central Europe^tm because your German or Austrian), but Germany was glad to join the US for years in its blatantly imperialist war in Afghanistan, meanwhile the Germans could keep swilling their beer in their “peace” because they were invading from much further away than Afghanistan could hope to retaliate. Then again, I assume you’ll say that the higher level of development is because of Central European enlightenment too.

                And I have no fucking clue what the Imperial core is.

                Here you are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_countries

                Considering the Anarchy: I believe that people need to be governed over. No order, no civilization…

                We must consider why conflict emerges. Obviously in our current conditions, if you just removed government, things would immediately regress to feudalism, but why is that? Could it have something to do with individuals already having dictatorial power over others? Since surely they would be the new warlords. Could it have something to do with the development of production? Since surely the petty fighting would be, in part, due to resources already being too scarce for there to be enough to go around. Just some things to think about. Of course, you could say the socialist and even the anarchist don’t believe we should ever be lawless, but rather that the ultimate issue is being governed “over” rather than having people as a collective keep each other in line.

                I don’t think I’ll actually move the needle on this one though, whereas perhaps I could help you learn about what modern imperialism is, so I’m fine if we drop it.