I mean I don't believe in the Marxist progression of history, it doesn't stand up with modern evidence. It's more of a practical matter: if you want something to be a certain way you've got to make it happen. You'll of course have to compromise at points, but don't start with the compromise
I forgot the comm this was in. Alright, the Paris Commune is an example of the manner in which prefigurative communism fails, as the communal society was not able to resist capitalist encirclement even remotely. It's the classic example of the problem with utopian projects.
The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. They have no ready-made utopias to introduce par décret du peuple. They know that in order to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that higher form to which present society is irresistably tending by its own economical agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of historic processes, transforming circumstances and men. They have no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant. In the full consciousness of their historic mission, and with the heroic resolve to act up to it, the working class can afford to smile at the coarse invective of the gentlemen’s gentlemen with pen and inkhorn, and at the didactic patronage of well-wishing bourgeois-doctrinaires, pouring forth their ignorant platitudes and sectarian crotchets in the oracular tone of scientific infallibility.
Frankly it's this kind of thinking from folks like garbageshoot that makes me not want to identify with Marxists, it's really common, especially in places where communists dominate the left for Marxists to lose sight of the radical nature of Marxism and just seek to set up a really thorough social democratic state.
It's less common on this site but I run into it a lot irl and it's why I usually say I'm an anarchist or an autonomist Marxist when I think you need both, and feminism, and 4th world nationalism, and he black radical tradition.
A prefigurative politics is essential. In parliamentary proceedings you always get less than you aim for; even in a revolutionary uprising there are counter-revolutionary forces pushing back against you.
You can't just say "relax, man, the contradictions will resolve themselves". You actually have to go out and agitate for them! It is not utopian to say that on the line from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2), there is going to be at least one point where the slope is (y2-y1 / x2-x1). What is utopian is thinking that we can engage with the world within the "acceptable" window (range of slope) of what currently exists, and expect to get somewhere new with it. The human brain has limitations to what it can imagine, that are tied to what the individual's full range of experience is! The wider and more groundbreaking the range of experience, the more we'll be able to imagine.
Actually run lots of different tests to see how things work. *Expand your empirical basis as well as your theoretical basis. There you go, some real "scientific socialism".
I don't think prefigurative politics really makes sense, it's utopian almost by definition. A DotP is not prefigurative in any meaningful sense.
I mean I don't believe in the Marxist progression of history, it doesn't stand up with modern evidence. It's more of a practical matter: if you want something to be a certain way you've got to make it happen. You'll of course have to compromise at points, but don't start with the compromise
Paris Commune
What about it
I forgot the comm this was in. Alright, the Paris Commune is an example of the manner in which prefigurative communism fails, as the communal society was not able to resist capitalist encirclement even remotely. It's the classic example of the problem with utopian projects.
Marx literally said that the Paris Commune was a thorough example of the DotP, but go off king
Frankly it's this kind of thinking from folks like garbageshoot that makes me not want to identify with Marxists, it's really common, especially in places where communists dominate the left for Marxists to lose sight of the radical nature of Marxism and just seek to set up a really thorough social democratic state.
It's less common on this site but I run into it a lot irl and it's why I usually say I'm an anarchist or an autonomist Marxist when I think you need both, and feminism, and 4th world nationalism, and he black radical tradition.
Calling oneself "person's name"ist is offputting to me regardless of tendency.
A prefigurative politics is essential. In parliamentary proceedings you always get less than you aim for; even in a revolutionary uprising there are counter-revolutionary forces pushing back against you.
You can't just say "relax, man, the contradictions will resolve themselves". You actually have to go out and agitate for them! It is not utopian to say that on the line from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2), there is going to be at least one point where the slope is (y2-y1 / x2-x1). What is utopian is thinking that we can engage with the world within the "acceptable" window (range of slope) of what currently exists, and expect to get somewhere new with it. The human brain has limitations to what it can imagine, that are tied to what the individual's full range of experience is! The wider and more groundbreaking the range of experience, the more we'll be able to imagine.
Actually run lots of different tests to see how things work. *Expand your empirical basis as well as your theoretical basis. There you go, some real "scientific socialism".