“X is theft” is a strange one, since stealing is a very common example of a thing that is morally ok in some circumstances, and the people making that argument on the left are usually pretty pro-theft.
I thought people said that to appeal to libs who think all stealing is wrong?
it doesn’t help that Marx himself delineated several types of value and then explicitly just said “uh this gets weird let’s just treat all of these as the same for the next few tomes”
I like to explain what a social construct is by saying that law and money are social constructs. They may not be things that naturally exist and are purely artificial, but they both have very real impact on everyone’s lives.
Yeah the terminology is rough. Trying to define words while at the same time explaining concepts just muddles the whole argument. I think there is a strong case to be made for Capital and The Conquest of Bread to be revised into modern terminology/concepts and lay speak.
We really need to perma-pin a thread full of good, modern theory. Stuff that’s still truly radical, but easier to digest than eight thousand pages about linen.
Strong agree with that, I have some friends that are baby leftist but getting them to read hundred year old books isn’t going to happen. If you have some recommendations that would be great.
Maybe something like Jason Hickel’s The Divide? It’s a relatively short read, it’s not difficult, and it does a great job of explaining why the current divide between the first and third world exists and has some possible and not entirely unrealistic but still radical solutions for it.
Actively trying to tell people voting doesn’t matter (which, yes, we all know is true). It puts sympathetic libs off. It’s frankly bad messaging. Also. If it doesn’t matter why do you care if someone votes?
I mean this is an example of that. Voting does matter, it’s just that it can’t be the end-all, be-all of your politics. Most politics takes places outside of the ballot box and most of our work should too, but the “voting doesn’t matter” left sound like idiots because people experience material differences in their lives depending on their elected officials.
Leftists who believe voting does not matter are to the right of leftists that understand it does.
Leftists who believe voting does not matter are to the right of leftists that understand it does.
I don’t really think right/left are the right terms for this, tbh.
Voting doesn’t matter in some places, depending on how the votes are counted. If you’re in an area where one party always wins, your vote will achieve exactly nothing, and voting can actually be significantly difficult (especially for lower-income people). Other than that, agreed.
Does voting matter when the available choices are different flavours of right wingers?
Local politics are one place where voting can actually matter quite a bit.
Hate to burst your bubble here but local politics are just as hopeless as national politics. The same structures are still in place (exhausted workers trapped in ideological prison / good old boys network / who’s counting the votes? / omnipresence of police and heavily armed reactionaries / threat of lawsuits or capital flight if any reforms actually go through) and quite effectively prevent things from changing. Source: am recovering local politician. If this were untrue, some leftwing reforms at least would have succeeded somewhere, but I can’t think of any (correct me if I’m wrong).
:geordi-no: voting doesn’t matter
:geordi-yes: voting isn’t nearly enough, organize!
I think expressing the idea that both sides are the same and that no matter what big business always wins is a pretty valid argument that even a lot of libs are starting to agree with. That said, you’re right about the fact that we shouldn’t be pushy about it or try to get people not to vote because it will only alienate the average person.
i also think “both sides are the same” is a poor argument that puts people off. the easy responses are to call you an enlightened centrist (yeah, i know, but people do it all the time), or just to point to some small differences between the parties as if these are major ideological divides, and ultimately its easy for people to dismiss you
“they are both ultimately in service to the same interests” seems to me a much better argument
I mean getting people not to vote quite literally only helps the fash, of course the left shouldn’t be doing it. The left should be pushing people to do more than vote, not less.
“Your boss does more than vote, your landlord does more than vote, your insurance company does more than vote, and you need to as well if you want to beat them.”
The left needs to push “both sides are bad” (which is true), not "both sides are the same (which is false).
Pushing people to do more is absolutely good but first you have to get them to believe that’s there is a reason they should. Pushing people not to vote isn’t going to help but clearly stating that no matter who’s in charge the government doesn’t care about them is an important first step to getting them to see the need for more direct action. “Fortunately” Biden is really helping on that front.
Both sides are bad is true but shallow. “Neither side will give you what you need to live and thrive. Alone you are powerless, together we can demand and not beg” is much more powerful. Getting into the details of what we should demand is best kept for more committed comrades. (it’s communism)
I’ve always phrased these things as “voting is important but insufficient” and “dems might be less actively hateful but they ultimately answer to the rich too” and [insert that chart of rich vs poor getting their favored policies passed]
Voting takes like an hour tops for most people and does have effects, what you want is for people to start thinking of voting as the bare minimum of political acts instead of the pinnacle.
I think it’s worse than bad argumentation, there’s an attitude online that not voting is a kind of praxis, as if getting voter participation rates low enough in itself will have some kind of effect on the electoral system.
The real pill is that obsession with electoral politics is like putting a muzzle on your brain, it makes you ideologically unequipped to engage in effective political action. If instead of arguing online about who to vote for, you argue online about whether to vote, you’ve only experienced a surface-level shift in your thinking.
Yes, you are right, but still an easy formular. Alternative formulation could be socialism for the poor, consequences for the companies.
We need people to actually understand what socialism is (I find that it’s already plenty easy to explain as just economic democracy), and we definitely shouldn’t be associating it with bad things.
we definitely shouldn’t be associating it with bad things.
Sure we should tell what socialism is - and communism for that matter, which is precisely the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence - but we can be aware of context and that not at any time the most precise academic Marxist definition is needed, but in communicative processes often that which connects to the other or the audience.
I also believe that action and collective action and the theory circles within those movements are what gives people words for what they experience in the workforce. There is the place in my opinion - in those different social relations - to find clarity that you don’t find or strive for in most online posts or arguments. As nothing radicalizes as much as work and collective action which creates an actor in a conflict that is powerful.
Especially when it’s easy and true to say “corporate welfare” or “corporate handouts”.
Welfare is good too though but has the same problem of being a dirty word because of Reagan’s “welfare queens”
I guess handouts would be a decent one because it implies it being undeserved. Or maybe just corporate rigging/cheating. The SEC exists so clearly there’s some rules of capitalism that exist at least for the rest of us.
“ML worked in third world colonized countries so it will work in first world colonizer countries”
No one (serious) is saying that, though. Strategies need to be adapted, no one is attempting an alliance of the workers and the peasantry is 21st century America/Europe.
MLs, for example, are well aware the Russian and Chinese revolutions were different due to the different conditions. The same applies to all other revolutions, past or potential future.
Edit: I want to edit this to say that if this is meant to be a third-worldist point, yeah, I don’t have a lot of hope for revolution in the imperial core before the global south throws off imperialism either.
Isnt that argument marginaly more valid than "X it will work in first world countries despite it not really working in first, second or third world countries in the past "
