The United States is not trembling on the precipice of a communist revolution.
:heartbreaking:
In fact, the U.S. electorate evinces a strong bias toward the status quo...
read settlers
This fondness for stasis can’t be written off as false consciousness alone. America’s political economy condemns a minority of its population to unremunerative labor and/or penury. And our nation’s exceptionally low life expectancy bespeaks its profound social pathologies. Nevertheless, median real household income in the U.S. is about as high as it has ever been, having risen from $60,313 in 2012 to $70,784 in 2021. That leaves the typical U.S. family more prosperous, at least by one plausible measure, than roughly 90 percent of all humans on the planet today (and 99-plus percent of all who have ever existed).
:pinker:
The most damning feature of the present economic order may be the threat it poses to Earth’s climate and ecosystems. And climate change does inspire public concern. But in a 2022 AP-NORC poll, voters were nearly twice as likely to name “gas prices” as a top priority as they were to name any subject related to climate or the environment
:this-is-fine:
Given these realities, intraleft debates over revolutionary versus “reformist” theories of change always strike me as anachronistic cosplay, a bit like model U.N. for enthusiasts of the late-19th-century Social Democratic Party of Germany. Whether one is a stalwart communist or a squishy social democrat (like myself), the fundamental political task seems the same: to narrow the gap between utopia and reality through legislative reforms. Ideally, these reforms would also ease the path to more thoroughgoing progress by, say, strengthening the labor movement or other left-wing institutions. Extra-electoral political activity — from community organizing to civil disobedience to strikes — may be integral to securing such policy advances.
The basic project, however, is to minimize needless suffering within the constraints imposed by the existing constitutional order and political economy while simultaneously chipping away at those constraints. Any attempt to abruptly circumvent those strictures by challenging the government’s monopoly on violence will run into the buzz saw of the modern security state or the overwhelmingly counterrevolutionary sentiments of a prosperous and propertied American middle-class.
:maybe-later-honey: excuse me we are chipping away rn
But some on the left disagree. Or at least they argue as if they do.
Such leftists disparage efforts to advance progressive goals through incremental reform on the grounds that doing so will not “liberate us from capitalism” or overcome that system’s fundamental logic. Their rhetoric implies that some alternative, easily discerned course of action would meet that Herculean standard. But they rarely bother to specify their program in any detail, let alone subject it to the same scrutiny that they apply to proposals for reform.
what no theory does to a mf
One problem with such ultraleftism is that it is annoying. Another, more significant one is that the compulsion to denigrate the stakes of ordinary politics and the merits of actual reforms tends to blur the analytic vision of otherwise insightful intellectuals. There is value in understanding how our economy’s undergirding logic might circumscribe or subvert particular avenues of reform. Inattention to such dynamics can undermine policy design. Dyspeptic Marxist intellectuals can therefore serve as useful critics even if they wish to keep mundane “bourgeois” politics at arm’s length. If such thinkers allow their antipathy for reformists to distort their comprehension of reality, however, they lose their utility.
:wojak-nooo: Noo these critiques are wrong they cannot be recuperated
this article long af im done
The United States is not trembling on the precipice of a communist revolution.
Uncle Sam commands the most powerful military in human history, and its rank-and-file exhibit few socialistic sympathies; U.S. precincts with military bases backed Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
Ah ok so in fact the US is on the precipice of a fascist revolution, got it thank you mr Levitz.
I'm reading up on the Paris Commune right now. France had the largest, most well equipped land army in western Europe in 1870, but in 1871 Paris functionally established socialism (although it lasted for only a few weeks). History comes at you fast.
Well, there's the lack of a Prussia-sized component here that would be the problem...
Well, that certainly puts the "Please, Xi" meme in a new light, doesn't it.
True, it is an extremely imperfect comparison. But as capitalism accelerates even faster in the US, more and more middle-class people are getting radicalized, which I don't think the upper classes grasp at all.
To try to get the comparison within the realm of distant possibility, the US Military wouldn't need to get its ass kicked in a conventional war per se. Just caught with their pants down in some region of the world and so thoroughly humiliated that "we just withdrew" won't cut it like it did for Afghanistan/Vietnam.
The most obvious way that could happen is MBS and Saudi Arabia threatening to end the petrodollar, along with other realignments. If the dollar actually started losing its value, the USA would start a war somewhere - that's an existential threat. If America goes to war with Iran, it will lose catastrophically, and Iranian assassinations might destabilize the US government.
The 'middle-class' understands now, more than ever, that there is no actual benefit to working hard and being loyal, which means that it is rapidly disintegrating into a lumpen-proleterian mindset. Reactionary, but not reactionary in defending the status quo.
Uncle Sam commands the most powerful military in human history
Absolutely no way is the US military the P4P GOAT. No way we could do what the Mongols did.
Love when the supposed “most powerful military in history” fucks up withdrawing from a war so bad that they need to negotiate a ceasefire around a single airport in order to get out and still ends up killing civilians
The virgin most powerful military in history vs the chad :technical:
Batu Khan: "Omae wa mou shinderu" moves army 100 miles in a single day
When was the last time the US 'won' a war, against a roughly-evenly-matched opponent, without being on the same side as the Russians? Would it be the Spanish-American war?
Not an expert on that war but I'm pretty sure the dying days of the Spanish empire was hardly on level the industrial output/military power of the 1900s US
Didn’t they invade Grenada and Panama? And Libya was utterly destroyed, which seemed to be their main goal and no one genuinely believed in a friendly aftermath unlike Iraq
"Oh your governor beheaded my envoys? How about I fuck up all your shit" Genghis Khan in a letter to the Shah, presumably
The US dominates global finances because their military can and is willing to commit some of the most horrific atrocities to keep people in line. But in times of actual warfare - they can’t seem to control or change their targets for a very long time.
:lenin-confused: : "Hey succdems how's that
protection of capitalismreform going?":wojak-nooo: : [hundreds of whiny paragraphs]
I had honestly, kind of solipsistically forgotten that so many people genuinely believe in that garbage. They must not be having a great time right now, damn
"Blaming the serial killer inside your house is not an alternative to securing it"
Correct, dipshits. It's not an alternative, it's step one. Fucking libs I stg
Coming back because this sentiment is so fucking cowed yet smugly self-satisfied, truly the two flavors that make up the reeses peanut butter cup of liberalism.
:stop-posting-amogus: "Sergeant, we're taking fire! We gotta shoot back!"
:geordi-no: "Hold on there, private. Blaming this problem on the enemy is not an alternative to solving it."
Most rebellious liberal opinion: “I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think Jeffery Dahmer was messed up”
Eh who cares. This guy's throughline argument that we need to pursue reforms up to the point that revolution becomes possible is basically the same Luxemburg makes in Reform or Revolution, and the rest of it is just wonkish jacking off that no one except other wonks will ever read.
Shit's boring, this guy's boring, let's all just go for a nice hike outside instead.
The United States is not trembling on the precipice of a communist revolution.
Uncle Sam commands the most powerful military in human history, and its rank-and-file exhibit few socialistic sympathies; U.S. precincts with military bases backed Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. America’s civilian security forces — which is to say its roughly 665,000 police officers — are even more hostile to the left than the troops. Our nation’s most heavily armed private citizens, meanwhile, would by and large prefer a Hobbesian war of all against all to a Marxist government. Should America’s constitutional order ever give way to an extralegal power struggle, an overwhelming force of arms will be arrayed against the radical left.
If you pinkos keep complaining, the troops I'm masturbating to are gonna slaughter you
[Dylan Riley] asks incredulously why investors would “tie up capital in vastly ambitious projects, to promote the green transition” that “will have long time horizons and uncertain returns?”
This is an odd question given the existence of venture capital. In any case, the answer is fairly straightforward: The exorbitantly wealthy can afford to throw money at risky, long-term investments in the hopes of securing windfall returns
Yeah, but those self-same venture capitalists don't. They throw money at risky, short-term investments with the blind naivety of someone for whom gambling is a game where you always win money and someone else looses.
"False consciousness is pinko bullshit." [Literally one paragraph later] "Here is a list of climate-related items that the average voter is confidently wrong about, to the direct benefit of capital."
That's a whole lotta words
Too bad I'm not gonna read em
:gigachad-hd:
Good things the socdems have done since coming to power in 2021 in Germany:
- Raising the minimum wage from 9€ to 12€
Bad things the socdems have dome since coming to power in 2021 in Germany:
-
Having their coalition partners sabre-rattle at every possible step.
-
let the libertarians water down every reform proposal ever to the point of uselessness.
-
shut down nuclear power plants in favor of coal power and natural gas imported from the United States.
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anti-inflationary measures which have been let expire and delay the implementation of watered-down replacement measures.
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persistent inflation at 9%, complete passivity towards capital and price raising.
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business-as-usual in terms of environmental protection.
-
moves towards further privatization of healthcare and the railways.
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completely fail the goal of construction of social housing by simply ignoring this campaign promise.
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complete lack of crackdown of far-right structures inside of police and military except for the one adventurist monarchist coup d'etat attempt.
the red terror will need to set up an assembly line where these dipshits get swirlied, shoved in a locker, and shipped to a gulag
Calling anything left of social democracy "ultraleft" is bullshit. That said, ultras are a real problem (see the anecdote from a recent Chapo interview about adventurist Weathermen disrupting an SDS meeting as they were discussing practical ways to disrupt aid to the U.S. war machine), and there are some good points here:
Given these realities, intraleft debates over revolutionary versus “reformist” theories of change always strike me as anachronistic cosplay, a bit like model U.N. for enthusiasts of the late-19th-century Social Democratic Party of Germany.
100% correct. You can learn from history, but there is nothing to be gained from endlessly relitigating pre-WWII German politics. That effort should be spent learning/discussing today's political landscape.
Ideally, these reforms would also ease the path to more thoroughgoing progress by, say, strengthening the labor movement or other left-wing institutions.
This is the synthesis between "you can't social democracy your way to communism" and "there is no realistic path to anything besides incremental reforms in the immediate future." You make socdem reforms to lift the boot an inch off the neck of the working class, organize more with that additional flexibility, reform your way to another inch, use that, then keep going until you can build a real national movement.
they rarely bother to specify their program in any detail, let alone subject it to the same scrutiny that they apply to proposals for reform
Also a fair criticism of the left. A lot of leftists and leftist orgs do not have a clear plan on getting from here to there. They do other things well, but that one is pretty important.
Not in any meaningful sense, if at all. The interview was with someone who was involved in campus organizing against the Vietnam War and then union organizing later.
