I am a Marxist, yes.

Hexbear doesn’t praise Putin, but they do praise Xi, quite a bit.

Ah yes, if a Communist is young, they are naiive, and if a Communist is older, they are cyncial and regressive.

The double-think is strong with you.

On the other hand it’s been about 20 years since I read the work of Marx and Weber. I had classes on social stratification, feminism, materialism, and conflict theory. I’m pretty rusty.

Critique of the Gotha Programme is a quick read on how Marx envisions the transition to Socialism and eventually Communism.

How do we put the genie back in the bottle when we released it so very long ago? Let’s try looking at children. Education would certainly help, but can you teach empathy without the help of the parent(s)? Even if the parental figures teach empathy and structured education enforces these teachings, we come to secondary groups. This would be groups like the child’s friends or peers.They are considered more important to childhood development after a certain age (12? Not the same for everyone of course maybe an average). If the members of these secondary groups do not value empathy, the child who was taught it by their parental figures and enforced by education will begin to value it less.

This is a very ideas-focused view of society. Largely, culture and values are shaped by Material Conditions amd Mode of Production. This is the concept of Base and Superstructure, the base being the material conditions and mode of production, and the superstructure being ideology and culture.

We move beyond class society through collectivization and Socialism. This society then moves on to Communism.

I don’t know the answers. Believe me I want fully automated post-scarcity space communism. I really want it. I just can’t see the way there.

Believe me, everyone wishes we could jump hundreds of years to higher-stage Communism. Anarchists even think we can approximate that now, which is a whole other school of thought. However, Socialism is a drastic improvement on Capitalism, and lower-stage Communism is a drastic improvement on Socialism as well. Progress should not be impeded because the target is far away, especially if the process of building it is itself progress.

China takes a dub.

Some instances on Lemmy are going through a Red Scare, I doubt they can explain.

Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ca tend to be right-leaning even if they have some Leftist comms. The fediverse still appeals to leftists, but liberals have their own enclaves.

According to Harvard in 2020, 95.5% do. That certainly isn’t 100%, but it’s pretty high, I would say.

You are the perfect person to ask, because you claimed Communism cannot work because “power corrupts” and “human nature.” I am not saying you are a Capitalist. Your ideas regarding Marxism are immaterial and vibes-based, which is why I am trying to get you to take a Materialist stance.

Why does power corrupt? How can representatives be held accountable? What determines “human nature?”

1. Power itself does not corrupt. People generally act in their material interests, and in Capitalism, this is dominated by the profit motive, like all class society. The bourgeoisie are focused on making profit, no more and no less. The Capitalist State is molded by the class in power, ie the bourgeoisie, and thus serves the interests of Capital. In an alternative, collectivized system, these same dynamics would be abolished, with a different set of challenges taking their place, such as the question of allocating labor.

2. Representatives can be held accountable via democratic measures, ie a representative democracy. Worker councils and parliaments can handle coordination and check against corruption.

3. Human Nature is determined by material conditions. Humans are thought to be competitive naturally because Capitalism is competitive, even though the average worker does not care, only the bourgeoisie do. In different Modes of Production, “Human Nature” appeared very different. In primitive Communism, for example, Human Nature was cooperative and communal, class society arose from technological advancements like the agricultural revolution.

You need organization, yes. What is “fair?” Why can’t there be democratic processes keeping these people in check? What does “human nature” have to do with this, does the local post office go rogue?

I understand that the basis of Capitalism is that it isn’t fair in any way, shape, or form, but why does that mean it’s better?

Why would “power corrupts” mean Communism can’t be fully implemented? What on Earth are you talking about, specifically?

Lemmy is a federated Reddit-style Social Media platform like Mastadon is to Twitter/X.

Your instance should be one focused on that which interests you, like Lemmy.ml for FOSS and Privacy, or programming.dev for programming, etc. Shop around and find one with a good community you like that is federated with instances you also like. This means your Local Feed will have your interests.

You want one that is federated with other instances you want to see, so you can browse All for general content.

Finally, you can manually create your own feed by subscribing to communities you want, and browsing by Subscribed.

1. Why are people stupid and lazy? Is this a new thing? Why are conditions worsening?

2. Correct.

3. Correct.

4. Kinda vibes-based but strikes the target. It’s less that lying is encouraged, but that profit drives the system and money greases its wheels. Follow the dollar.

Kind of. American Proletarians have a unique position of enjoying the benefits of a super-exploited class of domestic immigrants paid lower wages via threat of deportation, and Imperialistic hegemony, but are also enslaved by vast amounts of debt. This is very different from standard Capitalism, but not quite feudalism. It depresses the revolutionary potential of the American Proletariat for as long as Imperialism is the status quo.

What problems are there with the solutions he gives? Welfare Capitalism solves none of the problems with Capitalism Marx describes.

In what manner has Marx been wrong? Where in the history of Marxism has democracy not been core to the central ideas of it, especially when compared to Capitalism?

The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).

The ideas that people have are shaped by their Material Conditions, and people generally act in their best interests. People will buy what is available in the market, and Capitalists work to accumulate more and more money in an M-C-M’ circuit.

The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?

These are 2 questions.

1. People generally don’t run Socialist services as frequently because in the framework of Capitalism, it is excessively difficult to gain the Capital necessary to start one, and furthermore the people with access to Capital continue to act in their own interests and accumulate more profit off of ownership.

2. People do not care where their commodities come from, largely, as they work for their income and thus their access is limited by the money they have.

These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.

This is known as Mutual Aid, which is a big cornerstone of Anarchism. The issue is that Anarchism generally relies on individuals making the right decisions due to their horizontal structures and has issues with scaling horizontally. These structures tend to have great success locally, such as Food Not Bombs feeding people, but without strong organization scaling becomes difficult and action becomes unfocused.

So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?

Why don’t you think Capitalism could be abolished via revolution? It’s been done before.

Secondly, it is not simply capable of being replaced entirely via parallel systems because that depends on individuals outcompeting the immense resources of the Bourgeoisie. It’s certainly possible at a local level, but at a state level takes enourmous power and unity.

Read Marx, everyone.

America is a one party dictatorship, and in typical American extravagence, it has two of them.

Here’s how Bernie can still win

He slipp