Wanted to take a second to make some positive cases for why we believe in Scientific Socialism/Anarchism. We spend a lot of time belittling historically illiterate smug lords (which is awesome) but I think it’s important to take a second to appreciate why these ideas resonate with us so much and why we find these ideas so important that they are worth fighting for online and IRL. I’ll go first;
Demystification: that’s a big thing for me. The imperial core is a place that is full of institutions that, can technically be understood, and yet do not make a whole lot of sense in their function. Health insurance companies are a great example of this. The entire process of acquiring and using insurance in the U.S. is a Kafka-esque beauracratic nightmare. And at every step there are individuals who are happy to help you understand the process, and yet even once you gain the understanding they impart, it all still feels wildly inefficient and punitive. Even to a very young person, it doesn’t make sense. It is Only beneficial In comparison to the monstrous social violence of medically induced poverty. Meaning it only makes sense when you accept that violence as a necessary societal inevitably.
So growing up in the U.S. you are faced all the time with complex and baroque financial institutions and practices that society insists you understand even if doubt persists that what you are understanding doesn’t really make sense. Ultimately when this practice confers practical economic benefit the cognitive dissonance is assuaged and is even completely resolved in some individuals. Credit cards and credit scores are another great example of this.
Understanding Mystification as a Marxist term finally gave me the vocabulary to understand this phenomenon and hence be less bothered by trying to make sense of things that I understand and yet don’t make any sense.
Another big thing: The labor theory of value; perhaps my understanding is too cursory but when I tried reading Capital this part really stuck with me because it is profound even though it seemed rather obvious to me from my lived experience.
Without trying to get out of my depth In philosophical jargon, my understanding of the LTV is that the value of currency is derived from the surplus value generated by the application of labor to raw materials. I know the states ability to enforce the transaction is also key. I welcome any clarification/insight on LTV.
The point I’m trying to make about LTV and why I find it profound and worth Blooming about is that it means that as workers we generate the force that actually changes the world. That force is labor. It’s not money, It’s not Gold, it’s not big ideas from big job titles. It is the people who turn the earth, teach the young, or just sell their labor hours doing any number of things.
It’s easy to be pessimistic in the face of the incredible accumulated political power the west still holds. Yet we should have hope, because the power that money has is only ever borrowed from labor. Under that framework it becomes a struggle to organize enough unalienated labor hours to put towards building something better.
Our labor hours are the most important building block we have towards revolution. That is the real “capital” that reshapes the world. The struggle is to take as many back from your boss as you can, and if you can, invest those hours into something bigger than yourself.
That’s what gets me blooming. Constructive feedback always welcome (would love more insight on LTV)
What makes you feel hopeful about communism/anarchism?
when i was a kid i was told god made us all equal and to love each other. i dont believe in god now but i have the same values. also the propaganda never stuck with me.
I’m a leftist because my goal is the improvement of people’s lives.
Marxist materialism is the only ideology that seeks to properly explain a methodology for doing that, one that is without “it’s complicated” bullshit to explain away gaps or holes. Frankly if an ideology tries to explain something away or avoid addressing contradictions I toss it in the trash.
when I had to stop repressing and admit I was trans to myself, the fact that so much of the world wanted to do violence to me meant reconsidering my politics and admitting that I was lying to myself about how effective liberalism actually was.
I choose my politics like I choose the football team to support: just pick the one my dad/grandpa liked
Grew up in a pretty traditionally conservative family and environment. Had several terrible experiences with the American healthcare system. My family, despite being bad, at least mostly legitimately believed that we shouldn’t hate anyone else (excepting maybe gays and atheists lmao), so I wasn’t the worst off. Early teen years I nearly got dragged into true chud shit, gamergate, etc. Luckily I kinda snapped out of it.
I got my mind on the right path when I learned about what Liberalism was from Victoria 2 of all things. Really opened me up to looking at politics in reality. Then I started to realize the socialists of that game were the good guys. Seeing them support healthcare was a brain changer. Slowly picked up more and more socialist ideas, and began identifying as a “fellow traveler”, and from there became more and more fed up with liberals and conservatives.
I’ve voted for fucking Jeb (2016? primary, in a closed state), Hilldog, and Bernie like 3 times. Now I’d only vote for Parenti, the ghost of Lenin, and all of the politicians to slip on a banana peel.
One thing that hasn’t changed is I feel like I always liked John Brown. Even as a chud I saw him as a true believer in personal freedom, someone actually getting shit done. From little seeds
.I was one of those well-meaning libs. All the supposed organizations libs run just want to collect money off of you. The proper leftist orgs actually want you to help.
The only thing stopping the world from being a safer, more fulfilling, more nurturing place for all humans is that the system we live under is purposefully designed to let the greed of the few thrive on the needs of the many.
Someone doesn’t need to be pulling a trigger to be causing someone else’s death, someone doesn’t need to be cracking a whip to be causing suffering and pain. Social violence is violence, and should be combated and disrupted at every turn.
I have children, which let’s me get a super up close look at what genuine goodness looks like in a way I never experienced before.
And then when I’m out in my community or with strangers I can see it. Sometimes it’s subtle or hard to translate. But sometimes it’s blaring. People are generally good and want to take care of each other. Some through empathy and some through shame, but good nonetheless.
As long as I keep seeing that I will remain hopeful.
That’s beautiful comrade o7
This resonates with me. People, in my experience, want to help each other. Capitalism does its best to suppress that
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I was raised Catholic and the concept of stewardship got lodged in my brain. Any religiosity faded over the years, but that concept stuck around and gradually morphed from “care for the earth because it’s god’s” to “care for the earth because all of humanity needs it.”
I read The Jungle in middle school and the “trivia” that everyone missed Sinclair’s whole fucking point got lodged in my brain.
I was a basic lib for a number of years, and then Trump happened and everyone pointing out that 80% of his horrible shit was just carried over from Obama so why didn’t you oppose him too, and I decided huh, maybe I do. Maybe the meatgrinder was the friends I made along the way and I need new friends with a better idea of the future.
I want better for everyone and this is the only way to do it
I’m not an intellectual or whatever, I was just raised by a super lib mom who made it clear from the jump that Bigotry Is Bad. Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. It’s all evil and it all needs to be fought. I just kept going further left as I found new forms of bigotry to oppose and eventually found myself in good company.
The ideal value at the core of my being for as long as I remember has been: “Be excellent to each other.”
In my teens as I began to become aware of myself as a political actor I adopted libertarianism because the problem was that the government was getting in everyone’s business and preventing everyone from being excellent to each other. In my 20s I started to grow up to the fact that there are some bad actors who don’t want to be excellent to each other and that the system can only work if you have rules and mechanisms in place that will ensure people have to be a minimum amount of excellent to each other. In my 30s the illusion finally broke and I came to the conclusion that the system itself not only encourages but indeed is built on exploitation and will never allow anyone to truly be excellent to each other. I’m still working on educating myself both in theory and history and am largely embarrassed but for all my frustration with the world leftist ideals have given me more moral clarity and confidence in how I view the world than I ever have and I don’t feel the same kind of maddening anxiety trying to square circles I always did as a lib.
I love my motherland. I love China.
All of the dysfunction in the American system compared to the (still quite dysfunctional, but somehow less so) Canadian system really calls into question American narratives.
