In the past I’ve heard the second opinion primarily from people who say that a system is intended to work in the way that it does. Which makes the statement tautological: The system is working exactly as it works. I find this view unconvincing.
There is a difference is saying “I does what it does” and “what it does is per design”. The latter assigns a responsibility.
In OP Aziraphale gives socienty the responsibility to fix a broken system incrementally and Crowley gives the people in power the fault of intentionally creating a bad system and calls for revolution.
But you don’t need to misuse language to assign responsibility. It is their responsibility for breaking the system. Saying the system was always designed for this removes responsibility.
The system being broken by design doesn’t absolve anyone acting within it from the responsibility of their actions. No one is forcing anyone to game the system as effectively as possible to the detriment of the majority. Acknowledging the system itself is fundamentally broken is pointing out that its design rewards bad actors; bad actors are still acting badly and are responsible for those actions.
these are not two sides. The system is working as some intend so needs to be dismantled, at least large parts of it, to fix it.
People always forget, nuance exists.
Lemmy politics i find a bit confusing and maybe i dont understand it very well but all forms of black and white communism /marxism-leninism always seemed to have lead to totalitarian states… like correct me if wrong, its fair and completely normal to say that whatever the west amd especially countries like USA an UK are bullshit and need to dismantled atleast large parts of it… but i dont understand why they jump instantly to models of china and Russia… like i said maybe i dont understand it well enough…
The vast majority of Marxist-Leninists in the west only gradually come to understand and accept existing socialism, like the former USSR and current PRC. It’s usually a years, even decades-long process of studying Marxism-Leninism, existing socialism, and peeling back layers and layers of anti-communism instilled from birth.
AES countries are not “totalitarian,” at least not evenly. They have all been dramatically liberating for the working classes, while being horrfying for capitalists, landlords, fascists, slavers, etc from their prior systems. In the west, we get an exaggerated boogeyman version of these countries beamed into our heads, from the ruling class perspectives, to prevent us from seeing how we could benefit by learning from them.
Marxism-Leninism is by no means black and white. Nuance is build into Marxism, its key philosophical outlook is dialectical materialism.
Thanks for ur perspective, i think they r fair points, but you are giving up a lot of personal liberty and freedom of expression if you are OK with systems of something like PRC, but i suppose that can be classified as a choice However I think that the censorship that goes around such countries also makes it harder for us to know anything other than for example China might want to show us, we dont really have much idea of how internal dynamics work there and if u choose to believe personal testimonies its not pretty…
I’m not a capitalist, the amount of freedom I’d have if I lived in the PRC would increase dramatically. Despite popular misconception, we do have a good idea of what goes on in China. They have english-speaking news like CGTN, their processes are observed and reported on, and if you believe personal testemonies it’s actually fantastic:
The problem is that western media obfuscates or slanders a lot of this reporting. It’s a much more insidious form of censorship, it pretends it doesn’t exist. China controls and censors the speech of capitalists and wreckers, yes, and this is approved by the vast majority.
I dont think even you would agree that china is democratic tho… not to say the west are perfect democracies, and the data u provided reflects people thoughts… the china one raises some questions…
Fun graph.
Is it okay to say otherwise? No repercussions to saying anything bad about the government? Or even perceptions that there may be repercussions?
I say this wittingly at risk of suffering the same heavy downvotes as the responder who merely concluded “the china one raises some questions…”. Someone (or more ideally everybody) needs to stay curious and question things…
Depends mostly on who you are. Capitalists and celebrities are more restricted and censored, but for the working classes that doesn’t apply nearly as much. People in China do genuinely support their government, and this is proven by consistent polling by western orgs showing over 90% support.
The Case for a Third Reconstruction
The scale and depth of the attack on our institutions means that there is no simple way for a pro-democracy coalition to flip the lights back on after Trump. We need transformative thinking.
Trump is normal for America and how America acts around the world, you guys are just upset it is happening at home now and not Iraq.
I don’t really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn’t even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?
you guys are just upset it is happening at home now and not Iraq.
Can’t argue with you there, but that’s also part of what makes me question who’s best interest would be dismantling U.S. democracy instead of dismantling specific agencies within the government, with no plan for where we go next?
Because it kinda seems like those agencies would carry on doing whatever they want even after a union fully dissolves. They would just have fewer obstacles in their way.
When you think about how an American agency, for example, the CIA operates this playbook in other countries, what is their intended goal?
Their goal is to destabilize a country in order to remove any obstacles to taking full control. They usually achieve destabilization by undermining public trust in a system and the leaders of that system, so that the public will either dismantle the government for them or be less resistant once it is dismantled (see the Soviet Union in the late 80s). Once that happens, they already hold all the resources and power, and install somebody they already have lined up.
Considering that there seems to currently be a global campaign to spread disinformation and install far right leaders across the globe, it makes me question if this is happening everywhere bc global destabilization is the goal.
Currently, just about anywhere in the world, who holds the majority of the resources? The people or a small group of oligarchs? When destabilization happens and a local government collapses who has the upper hand when it comes to filling the power vacuum?
In socialist countries, the working classes are in control. We can learn from them.
No no no. In socialist countries, the Big Government is in control. There’s no freedom. Everyone lives in fear. You don’t even own your own toothbrush.
Anyone who supports socialism is a Tankie who just wants to kill rich white people for fun and doesn’t understand how awful their lives will be afterwards.
I genuinely can’t tell whether this is satire or not.
I don’t really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn’t even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?
- You don’t have a democracy, you live in a dictatorship of capital
- You never completed the second reconstruction, what makes you think you can handle a third
What makes you think oligarchs haven’t been continuing to undermine and dismantle the second reconstruction this entire time, and aren’t using their established global institutions (like banks, corporations, and conservative think tanks) to do exactly what they’ve been projecting and accusing progressives of doing?
Do you honestly think there isn’t a good chance a global cabal of far right conservatives might be ready to use their collective wealth and resources they hoard and pass down for generations to take full global control?
Or Steve Kangas on the Origins of the overclass and the crimes of the CIA
Better yet, let’s learn from the success of socialist countries and smash the capitalist state, replace it with a socialist one, and gradually collectivize production and distribution with a focus on meeting the needs of the people.
Ok, but how do we get there? How do we keep oligarchs, (like the ones who own Palantir and work with other oligarchs like Netenyahu using remote weapons of mass genocide to fight for them and gain ground in order to control others), from taking advantage of the power vacuum left by destabilization?
Again, taking cues from socialist countries, creating a mass working class party to overthrow and replace the state. We aren’t talking about just attacking with no plan going forward, but organizing directly so as to already have an organization in place. Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.
Which socialist country would be the best example?
Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.
The state, as well as the public and private military and resources they hoard and control.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and many more serve as valuable lessons for us. We can’t cleanly map their conditions onto ours, as the US is a dying Empire rather than an underdeveloped/agrarian society liberating themselved from colonialism like many of these countries were before socialism, but we can still learn from their methods.
As for the millitary, that’s an aspect of the state. Capitalists only control the resources they do because the state backs them up. Revolutionary history teaches us how this unfolds.
USSR
Uhh…
History should teach you that the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was traveling around Moscow and Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it never really gets talked about for some reason.
A conservative who essentially birthed Project 2025 and is famously quoted as saying “I don’t want everyone to vote,” was sneaking in computers and other electronics to Soviet dissidents while teaching soviet politicians all about American “democracy” just prior to the collapse.
Then he and several other members of Heritage were ready to fill the power vacuum and help establish the first go between for U.S. and Russian capitalist businesses.
“You capture the Soviet Union --I’m going to capture the states.”-Thomas Roe, Heritage Foundation board member and founder of the State Policy Network to fellow Heritage Foundation board member Robert Krieble.
In 1989, the Krieble Institute was created “to promote democracy and economic freedom in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.”
1989: A Republican in Moscow (WaPo article about Weyrich holding mock elections)
PBS Documentary about Weyrich and Krieble involvement in Collapse of USSR Playing For Power (2012)
I’m aware of the dissolution of the USSR. It lasted for nearly a full century, and the causes of its dissolution have been studied by every single communist party in existence thoroughly. They didn’t dissolve because a random far-right Statesian whispered evil things, that was a symptom of the dissolution.
Further, without the US Empire, there aren’t going to be nearly as many ways for the remaining capitalists to exert their will or coup.
