commiewithoutorgans [he/him, comrade/them]

Then what are yours? We can work from there if you’d prefer: I’m familiar with lots of philosophers of lots of traditions who’ve talked about such

Edit to add: something a lot of Marxists understand in relation to 'we have different definitions" as an attempt to avoid the discussion about the real material thing. Even if definitions are different, we both are attempting to articulate about SOMETHING. That thing doesn’t change when the word used for it does. I’m describing very real phenomenon, and I’m sure you have a phenomenon in your head too. We can discuss those, and it doesn’t matter what they’re called. Otherwise, this just ends all discussion with both able to walk away feeling that they’re right while there is still likely a huge contradiction between the phenomenon that needs explored

Sorry may seem like I avoided a lot for what you said, but i more just didn’t actually disagree and realized our only real disagreement was one of the first things I said days ago lol

Ok so I think we just started at different reasons for beginning the analyses, because I’m not in disagreement with anything you said basically anywhere. My point from the beginning (that China has determined that it must strategically act as it is) begins already at the assumption that our Chinese comrades are making the analyses that are needed to reach that conclusion. This assumption is not based in any sort of unpenetrable philosophical claim, as you pointed out well. But I think there is enough evidence for it to be worth assuming for strategic purposes. Going into a deep discussion about whether they are correct at the most basic level of analysis is maybe too far for me to try at the moment as a learner of mandarin also, but reading works of Chinese comrades, I have trust that their analysis of their own conditions is better than mine. I don’t disagree about how we should assess that for our own movements, and honestly think we should be skeptical of the support of Israel for exactly those reasons, I just don’t find it fruitful to use it as a “GOTCHA” to China about universal values, because that is most often based in having a distrust which I find as unfounded as blind trust (the distrust that China is off of the socialist path because it trades with reactionaries/settler colonists).

I was speaking muchhhh more colloquially everywhere than I think you realized, which seems to have added to difficulties. Should do better at that

My point at the beginning about the interests being represented is a sort of philosophical underpinning, though, where we might disagree. I do see the trend of interests of proletarians overtime aligning within a set of conditions and aligning towards socialism. When mistakes are made among the masses, we can be critical, but even those mistakes will be overtaken by advances and fixed by the same process as long as the class’s interests are represented. Here I am making a more philosophical stake in the ground, and I do think that, if the Chinese proles are wanting to trade with everyone and not go to war with anyone, that it might not be the fastest path to communism but it will eventually reach there faster than doing the bidding of the capitalists. (Here I am making an anti-accelerationist claim for places which have already seen a revolution that’s been upheld). Here we may disagree still and I’d enjoy reading your thoughts.

I disagree with this. Not with Engels, but that this is really an answer to the above question. In fact, basically the only mention of anything relevant to this specific question is Engels claiming that they are kinda opposites in that democracy requires the subordination of the minority to the majority in a democratic vote. It is the basis for much understanding of authority in general for Marxists in a tactical sense, but we should legitimately stop using it as the end of all discussion about the concept itself and how it relates to others. Even on hexbear we’ve got anarchists who disagree despite having read Engels.

To add on here, the fact that liberalism is a bankrupt ideology which is fully represented by the US including its worst aspects can really not be shown in a comment in such a thread. Domenico Losurdo, in one of my favorite books ever, spends hundreds of pages detailing this in “Liberalism: A Counter History.”

A much more easily digested but still incomplete essay can be found here: https://redsails.org/between-liberty-and-slavery/

Not really disagreeing with the other comrade there, but more adding for clarity: the word “authoritarianism” seems to attempt to distinguish some state (all of which are entirely defined by the fact that they have authority over the land/people to utilize violence in implementing the state’s dictates/laws) utilizing it’s authority vs not utilizing it, but the claim we make is that this distinction is meaningless and undermines itself always.

The fact that is that we can’t blow up pipelines because of property rights or else we will have violence done to us (put in prison, or killed if resisting that). This is authority over us. Chinese companies are not allowed to escape regulations within China without significant punishments (see the death penalties for CEOs who break environmental, finance, or labor laws). This is authority over them. These 2 examples are only distinct in who has the authority and who is prioritized in the interaction. But 1 is called authoritarianism and the other isn’t. Or compare: in the US, police who hurt journalists, imprisoned them, and saw absolutely no authority punish them vs the USSR, where those who has collaborated with the Nazi’s in WW2 were punished by being placed in a penal colony in Siberia to work in a mine. Again, the only real difference in authority is for whom and against whom.

I for one would prefer a world where oil company’s property rights were not protected by any authority until astonishingly large changes were to be made for the protection of our environment, and I see the interests of ONLY the capitalist class represented in that authority. Most cases where authority is utilized can be easily tied to the direct interests of a group of people. When a group of people have shared interests based in the basic structure of our economy (private property rights and the ability to profit being the basis here mostly, as well as the ability to sell your labor power as a worker), we call that a class. This is why we say that authority is always performed in the interests of a class (because all actions and decisions of the state either align with or against those interests, even if mostly tangentially or aligned with multiple at once).

This all just has very little to do with any understanding of democracy. The initial term of democracy was basically where everyone votes, but this term is not really used in the contexts we are talking about anymore and is restricted to small groups. We now usually understand democracy as either the sort of chauvinist version westerners use (where being a republic with votes where American observers are allowed is really the only criteria) or just a system which is able to take input from its people and perform in a way which the people approve. Whether this is direct voting, voting for a representative, or public caucuses and discussions is less material than the fact that the information is utilized and the outcomes desired are reached. (Edit addition here, something I thought of while responding elsewhere that fits here well: when authority is used to dictate a majority vote onto a minority, its precisely democratic in a simple sense and authoritarian in every sense. It’s why I support a democracy which first has intense debate about what interests and results will arise from policy before it’s ever up to vote and implementing it once there’s a lot of consensus among parties. Cuba is the best example of this, but Vietnam, China and the USSR are also fine examples)

On these standards, both the USSR and China (as well as most other major socialist countries commonly called undemocratic) are much more democratic than the US or any western state. The approval ratings (even by western polls within these nations) are much higher than western nations. This is because both the authority and democracy is oriented towards workers as opposed to the owners (meaning that private property and owners/management profits is not prioritized over the workers/people who work for wages).

Like this one maybe, with the lead up to it (idk how to link the whole thread tbh): https://hexbear.net/comment/3738759

I think you should likely expand more on this. Your replies are kinda low effort dunks, and we should be clearer about the why’s in such a thread where we are defending ourselves.

Don’t just describe a contradiction but how the world can be understood through that contradiction and its various aspects. Linking on authority is, of course, always relevant to these claims, but try just a bit harder or don’t post onto such a thread, imo. Or just link to another comrade talking about the exact thing, because I’ve read like 50 better explanations/replies in the past week from hexbear comrades.

You brought up the military and it’s emblematic of how you misunderstand the way exploitation and expropriation work by individualizing everything and lacking knowledge about the concepts of rent-seeking and exploitation generally. That’s why it was quoted.

I agree it’s a tangent at this point and that’s why I would like to stop discussing it here, but I think it’d be fruitful to understand how these concepts are related in a thread dedicated to such. It wasn’t a tangent when you used it as an example for “getting ahead” because it’s genuinely how you understand people could get ahead or avoid pitfalls of poverty. That’s why you used it.

It is a genuine way to avoid poverty for some (for others they end up homeless anyways because war is traumatic, even for the oppressors), but this getting ahead (usually by having some capital built up to let your “money work for you”) is always done by profiting off of others through rent-seeking, exploitation (paying less than the value produced), or expropriation (plain theft or contribution to global theft from imperialism). Working hard is something we love and encourage people to do to help their countries and themselves as much as they want or can, but that’s not what you’re really describing here, or you’re discounting the labor which is terrible and hard which doesn’t get the priveleges we got (think of any country in the Global South where miners work at least 10 times as hard as us and get almost nothing for it, or even the cleaners who are almost always POC in America who get underpaid under the table but work harder than us).

I assume much of this rubs you the wrong way because these seem unrelated and terrible mischaracterizations. to you. But I assure you, these ideas are founded in hundreds of years of theories, data, and experiences which we’ve read about to conclude this. Maybe you disagree even after understanding it completely, fine, but it’s fairly obvious to those of us who’ve read both liberal philosophers and economists and Marxists that you don’t understand what us leftists are saying.

I also did not say that everyone has to see combat, I actually disagree with that as well as the original poster. The point is that an active military which isn’t doing that is still the threat at all those places. Threats of violence are violence in themselves, and it helps a lot in the expropriation to have 90% not active while *the military as a whole is still killing lots. (Edited to specify that it’s the military as a whole, not the 90% outside of any active fighting because it was unclear for readers)

Now I’ll leave the discussion and disengage because you don’t want me here. You can reply if you want and I’ll stay quiet or start a thread where I’ll contribute.

“without any actual research into the topic” I’d give some recommendations for some heavy or light reading which I’ve done to come to this conclusion, but with this part of your comment, I don’t think it matters to you at all and isn’t worth me collecting links for.

Instead, and in order to maintain a bit of order in this thread not intended for such long tangents, I suggest we do this: would you like to explain to me how you see being a soldier of the US or European armies functioning in local and global socio-economic processes? Let’s start a thread wherever you would prefer to have a good discussion on this. I can’t do anything but throw a bunch of sources at you without better understanding what you think yourself. If you can start this thread, I’ll take you seriously and collect the sources to help you understand this conclusion, and hopefully some comrades with a bit more knowledge than I have will also come and match your level of respect that you project there.

It’s not tangential, it’s the primary function of the military of the US at this point. Kill at the periphery in order to expand the markets to cheap labour once that war is over and project the threat of violence everywhere else to maintain that position (like coast guard and military in allied countries). The free education is, once again, because the war profits are much higher than even the exploited soldiers produce for the empire. That doesn’t make it ok, but it’s good to clearly understand that the soldiers are exploited for the “value” captured from wars through the expropriation of the lands at war (look at theft of oil in Syria and Iraq for the easiest examples). Soldiers could, theoretically, be paid much more if capitalists didn’t primarily take the value taken. The whole process is horrific and everyone involved guilty for the horrors. That’s how soldiers get free education, though, by being exploited for their “work” of theft through expropriation

“for hours” lol fuck off loser it’s the fucking internet, where interactions take a while.

And “gaslight” and “abuse”? Jesus Christ kid, that’s some shit. I’m not replying anymore, so goodbye, you are being ridiculous and pathetic.

Also they seem to have 7 likes on a lot of comments, or just above it. Get the feeling there’s some real bot/alt account stuff going on because I cannot imagine anyone liking it lol, let alone a consistent number as you go down the chain.

What more do you want than “I was exaggerating”? Once that was said, this whole BS could’ve just stopped. You then say “ok, now that we’re clear that you were exaggerating, how different are these articles?” But we never got there, because you derailed.

Request an edit if you really think it’s so misleading, I’m sure @meth_dragon@hexbear.net would’ve initially just edited if you were so concerned that this “lie” would mislead others. Now I doubt it, because you’ve proven to be acting in bad faith by not just accepting the explanation and continuing the initial discussion, but you had that chance.

We all understand how exaggeration works. @meth_dragon@hexbear.net linked the article, clearly indicating it’s not the same article with the same word as the exaggeration. After that, @meth_dragon@hexbear.net was willing to be clearer, but you had already removed the thread from being about the topic of whether or not this bias indicator has any value. Now it never returned to the point being obviously initially made

Were getting a bit long here, comrade lol. I can’t reply to all that at the moment, I just threw up in a train and realized I was sick at the same time. (I actually just realized I replied to you in a different threads moments before throwing up lol) About out of posting power for the day. Will respond later better though.

Boring bullshit

I think you both present a great explanation for the hexbear method as well as simultaneously a tiny improvement: we can follow up the criticisms of the western countries with a quick “so the problems manifests deeper than youre saying”

I’m also fine with how we do it tbh, just trying to always improve when possible.

Fully agree with the description. Fuck that lib. Keep tearing them apart til they apologize and edit.

In Dutch-speaking communities i still hear the American phrases a lot, but the equivalents in dutch rarely. But in international groups oriented towards my hobbies, dude is still used a good bit. But I’ll just stay alert, just wanted to hear a bit more from a trans-comrade who most definitely would speak frankly to me (I understand that in-person call-outs can sometimes be difficult for such “small” things). Gonna only use it as a phrase of exclamation among friends that know me well I think and continue checking up regularly on my comrades.

My claim in the first part is not a philosophical claim about the possibility of separate questions interacting, it’s that a judgement of existing socialism based on the dividing of some necessary or sufficient conditions as opposed to how these are intended to maximize the democratic process as a whole while integrated over time (meaning that these processes continually allow for the better development of all aspects of democracy. With the most portant being that the interests of the working class and desired results of the people are achieved. Any further division is unnecessary at this stage. Improvements are another, but the way you philosophically divide it is not something that hasn’t already been discussed as infinitum and understood by our Chinese comrades. This is what I intended at the beginning, though I did sloppily present that, including a use of “democratic centralism” without being clear that I meant “it’s against the principles and plans which have been determined best by democratic centralism incorporating the interests of about 18% of the world population.”

The fact that it’s not yet communist and/or fully worker owned is just unfortunately not yet relevant at all. It’s not philosophically incorrect, just divisive and not necessary, because the plan to arrive there has been clearly laid out. Is your critique on that plan then, or just the current state? The plan, unfortunately, currently includes being so protectionist that they can’t intervene against Israel and must include them in the global trading powerhouse they are developing. I say unfortunately, but know that I mean that I wish it could be otherwise but the scientific approach has led to that conclusion based on the failure of other approaches. I find it a conservative (here meaning not radical) approach, but conflict avoidance does currently entail trade with all States which are not currently threatening China, especially those in hotspots of western imperialism to drag them away from american-centric policies. China will eventually hopefully be able to utilize this dominance to push radically, and I will most definitely critique the approach if this doesn’t change once war with america is no longer a giant possibility.

I use immediacy to describe the time-aspect, and I don’t think I made that clear based on your response, so here my response may seem tangential but I think we are just not using the terms the same so I’m going off of my intended meaning and ignoring what I think was a response to something I didn’t mean. We have geographic and time variables at play (which affect each other in pretty obvious ways i think). Russia was presented with both immediacy and directness of the fascists at their border (and the USSR before them, of course). China with Israel has determined that both are not at play, that Israel is not a “becoming” problem for them as a possible war actor and is geographically not direct. “The omnipresence of mediation” how you use it here seems to be an almost trotsky-like position where all issues must be tackled simultaneously, which I can’t see concluding anything except for for the immediate attempt at the overthrow of all capitalist nations by every communist. I’d love it, but Stalin was, i think, proven correct that socialism in one country was necessary in those conditions (pre WW2, though I think we all usually agree he shouldn’t have stopped at Berlin lol) and therefore the omnipresent mediation does not supersede the immediacy or directness aspect.

Good Convo though, even though we’re talking a bit last one another. You seem more knowledgeable about the philosophical terms, and I appreciate your fairly clear usage. Still haven’t read grundrisse lol