3 Weapons of Marxists (by a former communist)

[@beefcakepantiehoes]

And how many indigenous peoples and native cultures have been annihilated by capitalist, colonial nations?

[@locky7347]

There is no market demand for annihilation of cultures, explain how capitalism and not governments have done that

[@cade8857]

@@locky7347 there absolutely is. there are so many examples of us imperialism exploiting economically inferior countries in order to further their economic interests. the phillipines? france has and still is occupying africa and instilling pro western politicians in order to enforce complicit trade that benefits france, uk, and us. colonialism and imperialism are the product of capitalism because the profit motive encourages countries to exploit foreign nations/workers in order to secure a greater profit dividend.

[@iwontcomment]

@@locky7347 there is of course a market for exploitation and for taking valuable resources. Did you even think for a second before commenting or is it all based off feelings for you?

[@locky7347]

@@iwontcomment No need to insult, lets not get into a competition about how emotional the other person is getting. Im talking specifically about culture, not resorces or exploitation or anything else

[@iwontcomment]

@@locky7347 Sorry. But still you skipped the most important part of his question: "people". And yes "technically" there is no market for "annihilation of cultures", it's just a side effect of the other immoral things being done for profit. Just like how there's no market for polluting air.

[@eduardorpg64]

I always thought Marxism as “if I don’t have a jacket, I don’t want anybody to have a jacket”. I see the appeal in the phrase “if I have a jacket, I want everybody to have a jacket”. Don’t get me wrong: I still dislike Marxism. Awesome talk, Nikos!

[@nikos_1717]

Thank you Eduardo! Nicely put..envy is a big motive for many.

[@blessedandbiwithahintofmagic]

Legit unironically the first one is so many conservatives - the spite is insane.

[@novinceinhosic3531]

>former marxist >rambles at a libertarian think-tank Sure, buddy!

[@Petros_Michalakopoulos]

@@novinceinhosic3531 He is not libertarian; he is an objectivist. In many videos, he bashes libertarians in a disingenuous way. Probably, he learned all his disingenuousness from his Marxist past.

[@nikos_1717]

@@Petros_Michalakopoulos Au contraire, I always pay intellectual tribute to many libertarians who were pivotal in my intellectual development, I have excellent relationships with many libertarian groups, I speak to their conferences, I have publicly celebrated Milei's achievements etc. When have I been disingenuous to libertarians? Honest criticism, yes. Disingenuous, never.

[@Petros_Michalakopoulos]

@@nikos_1717 Appreciate you answering my comment and sorry for my late reply. In the video libertarian apologists for Putin, your criticism of the Rothbardian position was disingenuous. Firstly, the pro Putin position of the libertarian party is deeply anti libertarian if judged from the libertarian Axiom of the non aggression principle, since Putin is an aggressor in actively undermining property rights. Maybe some of the leaders of the party call themselves Rothbardians, but their position is against his Ethical position. Hans Hermann Hoppe had a speech about the Russian conflict where he brought up arguments against both sides. Just saying they are the good guys and they the bad is intellectually lazy and puts the “good” guys out of the responsibility of acting towards the threat in a way which would cause no war. Secondly, the whole criticism of Rothbard is based on guild of association and cherry picking by not showing the full scale of his arguments which could have resulted in a more fair and honest criticism. Thirdly, saying the American government makes wars and expands its military complex due to egalitarian reasons is taking into account only the reasons they present, not the real reason, which is expansion of power and world dominance. Governments always fabricate Moral justifications for their actions.

[@ctrlaltcreate4099]

I agree massive and meaningful victory needs to be won on more foundational, less tread philosophical soil of aesthetics and morality. Instead we are baited into bickering on academic minutia, relatively speaking, on economics and politics, as is exemplified in the comments. This is wasted focus as those arguments have already been won and can't be proved further. The "freedom movement" already has the best in class product, what it needs is a marketing strategy. Love this talk, thank you for your service, Nikos! o7

[@nikos_1717]

Thank you!

[@albionicamerican8806]

First of all, Karl Marx's own life shows that socially damaging immigrants are a real problem, since he and his BFF Friedrich Engels migrated to the UK circa 1850 and spent the rest of their lives there. And secondly, we got "Marxism" as an ideology because Engels was a competent businessman & investor who used his money & business skills to develop & market the ideology like it was a company's product, with Marx as the company's brand.

[@leonsteffens7015]

Why is collective ownership of the means of production considered a form of altruism, while volunteering the value generated by waged work to your employer isn't? We live in communities in which goods and services are exchanged, regardless of how one chooses to do so. If I voluntarily cede some benefit for myself so that someone else can have it, I have been altruistic. Employers have leverage over workers which can compel them to accept unfair compensation for what they produce. Why, then, is the upkeep of _that_ system imperative, while one in which work is compensated for 'differently', isn't, even if such a society were predicated on immense welfare payments to collective benefit? 'Because one has a higher death toll than the other' insinuates a false premise. There exist no arguments that socialist reform is *guaranteed* to lead to mass death. Neoliberal irresponsibility is a mechanism for its stability, because it can always disown its structural effects, choosing instead to blame individuals which compose it. On the other hand, socialist failures are immediately read as an indictment of the system itself. In both situations, a worker is expected to be altruistic towards someone. I would much rather be altruistic to the benefit of someone unfortunate than someone fortunate. Even granting the preposterous claim that altruism is insidious, clearly _wasted_ altruism is more so.

[@tinyf666]

i don't think that ceding your own benefit for somebody else can be considered altruistic if it happens under coercion? If altruism refers to the psychological tendency for humans to work for the benefit of others, i don't see where being in an employment contract fits into the picture. Being employed isn't a choice the overwhelming majority of people make, but a coercive circumstance posed upon them by the organization of society. But furthermore I don't believe altruism in that sense is in any way feasible principle for social and economic organization i.e. the functioning of society. I don't believe that communism, primitive or modern, is predicated on altruism but the association of men for their material interests. As Slavoj Zizek remarks: "Egotism, or the concern for one's well-being, is not opposed to the common good, since altruistic norms can easily be deduced from egotist concerns. Individualism versus communitarianism, utilitarianism versus the assertion of universal norms, are false oppositions since the two opposed options amount to the same in their result."

[@fich001]

lmao being employed is coersive circumstance? so before this system you could just live free without needing food or shelter? you think that in any other system you wouldnt have to work in order to live? do you think that food is just naturally available everywhere in nature without work? and if you think that you do not need to work to get it, who would then do the work so you could live? and how would that be fair?

[@tinyf666]

@@fich001 no but i do think you might not be the sharpest pencil in the box.

[@fich001]

@@tinyf666 hah is that the best you can do?

[@tinyf666]

@@fich001 the best i can do is tell you what i think of your response

[@Petros_Michalakopoulos]

I read one economics book before I read the Kapital and you could see the economic fallacies from page one. Many smart people engage in philosophy and science but don't engage in economics. So they are completely blind in this area. In other words, they see a cake and say everyone should have an equally large piece, while not understanding that with this method you get a very small cake overall instead of a huge cake “unequally” divided.

[@novinceinhosic3531]

Name a couple of fallacies.

[@Petros_Michalakopoulos]

@@novinceinhosic3531 his whole theory of value starts from a wrong axiom. That work is what gives value. Starting from the wrong axiom and building upon it results in a catastrophe.

[@novinceinhosic3531]

@@Petros_Michalakopoulos quote Marx where he states that work gives value.

[@Petros_Michalakopoulos]

@@novinceinhosic3531 Are you kidding me? his whole labour theory of value is stating that the value of a good or service is determined by the amount of social necessary labor required to produce it. Have you actually read Das Kapital?

[@novinceinhosic3531]

@@Petros_Michalakopoulos I know his first volume like the back of my palm. Where have you find him ever stating that "labour gives value"? He states something totally different. >value of a good or service is determined by the amount of social necessary labor required to produce it. This is something different than what you said about "labour giving value" and it's still wrong. He says that value IS the average socially necessary labour-time to produce it, not that the labour gives value, he is explicite that not any kind of labour produces value into a commodity.

[@radidani1]

Could you please give me the name of this Ayn Rand book and that where I can find it? I did my research on her but I have never read any of her books. Thanks!

[@nikos_1717]

'Atlas Shrugged'. Enjoy!

[@theonetruepyro]

What an intellectually dishonest and and inane speech. As a supposed former Marxist himself such things like the change from a modernist to an anti-modernist stance in mainline Marxism should be apparent to him given that he LITERALLY lists the names of the theorists which initiated this break in the video itself. Furthermore, he overlooks how Marxism turned Russia into the 2nd most powerful state in the world in the 80s from the feudal backwater of Europe that it had been since the 16th century. Additionally, he overlooks the decisive role the Soviet Union played in the 2nd world war which very likely would have ended not so favorably for the Allies had they not intervened. Not to mention how infamously Greece, his own country, has been handled by the bankers of international capitalism since the 2000s. Of course communism in name, which it was most certainly not in practice, has done bad things over the years but let’s just overlook centuries of capitalist horrors because Stalin said a few bad things and was a fallible man. If you count the death toll of capitalism I can guarantee you it is in the billions.

[@nikos_1717]

You got me at 'Stalin said a few bad things'

[@novinceinhosic3531]

​@@nikos_1717so conveniently sensible, aren't we?

[@Orson2u]

“centuries of capitalist horrors” - you’d better specify what “centuries” your claiming unless you insist in being laughed at! It didn’t get going until steam power was invented by James Watt.

[@theonetruepyro]

@@Orson2u even at your own estimation that puts us at about 3

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

USSR went from agrarian to industrial in part because this process was already happening yet in Czarist era, so it will happen anyways, and because the USSR industrialized in the backs of millions of slaves in the gulags and the millions starved to death. Without mention that the USSR just continued the imperialist colonialist stance brought by the Czarist Russia, Stalin forced mass deportations and demographic movements to have russian colonizers fifth columns as an excuse to military invade their colonies--excuse that was used by Putin in Ukraine invasion for example.

[@YassenChapkanov]

As an anti-marxist communist I have to say this: 1. Marxism is not appealing because of some moral imperative. The moralisation of what Marx considered a scientific theory is a sociological phenomenon stemming from the rational conclusion of his world building and the decline of religious and spiritual maps of meaning. The unity of so many insightful (but still partially wrong ideas) in a single philosopher affects the way every bit is contextualised. If the ideas of Marx were written by several different philosophers one or two of them would be justifiably famous while the rest would remain obscure alongside his worst ideas. 2. What is scientific about Marxism is not the critique of capitalism (although it is correct to a significant degree). It's the implementation of dialectics in a materialistic framework. This allows us to make predictions and measure results but every attempt is constrained both by which aspect of reality we chose to incorporate in the predictive algorithm of our choice and by our inability to take into account the cascading consequence further in time from each seemingly insignificant inaccuracy. It's imperfect and constantly requires adjustments like any other scientific tool we have. 3. The artistic boom following the popularisation of Marxism is to be expected both as a result of such an inspiring grand narrative and stemming from the fact a large portion of leftist artists were actually able to survive while doing what they love precisely because of the economic security socialist states give them. If you guarantee a decent minimal standard of living in capitalist societies and let people pursue their creative uniqueness without worrying about food you will see more pro capitalist poems. Nothing strange or evil here. 4. No you don't have to attack this morality. All you have to do is reframe it. As I said it's not really Marxist in the traditional sense. In my opinion objectivism is the most internally coherent moral philosophy but it clashes with our genetic predispositions for developing collectivist instincts. We are a social species and it makes no sense to encourage individuality when it is at the expense of the collective just like it makes no sense to suppress it without a social benefit (something all governments inevitably do to a certain extent). I think Nietzschean philosophy can be a good way to build a bridge from the excellent conceptualisation of purely negative moral responsibilities provided by Rand to the highest ideals of communism

[@nikos_1717]

Despite my disagreements, I appreciate the comment, as it's a rare one based on actual knowledge of the ideas you're talking about, and serious engagement.

[@Freddy-Da-Freeloadah]

@20:00 "Rand has given us a heroic vision..." No not really. It's a lot of satire, SATIRE OF HEROISM! Sad IMHO

[@nikos_1717]

I've heard every type of criticism or smear of Rand. First time I hear that she doesn't give a heroic vision.

[@stathisath]

Every comrade can share his opinion, so long as it's the right opinion. Viva la revolucion cabrones! Very well put Nikos, I feel you...

[@CapitalistSpy]

Indeed, we, classical liberals to libertarians to objectivist, we don’t share our opinion and/or we disagree with each other publicly. Wonder why we can’t get traction

[@doofmoney3954]

@@CapitalistSpy We' get lost in telling people they're wrong so we never get the opportunity to describe what's right

[@CapitalistSpy]

@@doofmoney3954 bang 🔥 Thanks Negative message is indeed repealing. Positive message about « our desired future » would be 300% more effective.

[@nikos_1717]

Viva! Thank you!

[@novinceinhosic3531]

​@@CapitalistSpy get and average job and pay rent and have some medical costs upon that too. Then you see the appeal.

[@LordChlCha]

Great and very informative!

[@nikos_1717]

Thank you!

[@altaydogahan342]

I never considered it like this, as in attacking it from its morality. It really is built off of a facetious view of altruism that is crude and naïve. Great speaker. Geia sas apo tin Kypro.

[@nikos_1717]

Γεια σας, και ευχαριστώ!

[@bjrnhagen4484]

As an active practitioner of youth culture since I was young, I remember a friend of mine asking, _why is everyone who approaches us, from established institutions, such as galleries, theaters, leaders of youth centers, researchers, etc., communists?_ Today, I know why. I remember being hired as an instructor at a summer camp once, organized by a youth centre, and in a spare moment I visited the rap workshop, the instructor there gave a lecture about how companies exploit their workers. This was long before I became politically interested, but I remember thinking it was strange. Shouldn't these youngsters learn to rap?

[@rogan7019]

Hip-hop and rap originated from the Black culture of resistance through radicalism, if you paid attention to the workshop instead of whitewashing it as "youth culture", you might have heard that part

[@iwontcomment]

@@rogan7019 nah he's right, they can't learn 2 things at one place. Also the less educated they are the better for profits. Next thing you'll tell me is that you want to teach people to be just and kind to each other at school when they should be only learning math

[@Alecl.]

@@iwontcomment I don't really get what you are saying at the end, from my interpretation, you're saying that we should only be taught 1 thing in 1 place; Ex being only taught how to read in a reading class, being taught how to do math in a math class. If this is your argument, I personally disagree (I think that there is more nuance to that situation), but I could be misinterpreting your argument very poorly, which in that case, can you please elaborate further.

[@nikos_1717]

My experience with cultural institutions is the same. Just visit the bookstore of any museum in England.

[@bjrnhagen4484]

@@rogan7019 You don't go to a rap workshop to listen to political ideology. At that point in the workshop it was neither about Hip Hop nor rap, but about political propaganda intended to indoctrinate kids. Who, by the way, had no idea what they were being told. Had the instructor talked about the social conditions under which Hip Hop arose, things would have been different, nothing unreasonable about that. However, that's not what he did. He lectured them about ideology, more precisely _Marxist theory of exploitation._ It is one thing to point out difficult conditions, another thing is to explain why it is so. Imagine it had been someone else who had led the workshop, and explained that the social conditions were due to a lack of economic freedom, property rights, and not to forget how destructive the war on drugs is. Would Hip Hop then suddenly be a capitalist movement?

[@sergio-179]

Да здравствует свобода! 🐍

[@ownificationify]

Translation: “I WAS AN IDEALIST.”

[@nikos_1717]

Still am, if by idealism we mean taking ideas and ideals seriously.

[@ownificationify]

@@nikos_1717 you’ve never had a materialist understanding of the world?

[@novinceinhosic3531]

@@nikos_1717 He calls you an ideal in the sense of you believe in the mind-body dualism.

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

@@ownificationify I never knew a single marxist that was "materialist", nor even Marx. If marxists were proper materialist (and actual practitioners of the theory-praxis premise), they would abandon marxism when empirical evidence falsifies marxist stance--it already happened with some ex-marxist that turned out to be another thing, both left or right. But that doesn't happen because marxism is a secular messianic religion, not science.

[@ownificationify]

@@2fiafisdoafw34 sure bud

[@FinnishNationalist123]

Commie cope in comments

[@nikos_1717]

Massive cope.

[@CapitalistSpy]

❤❤❤

[@agsoutas]

Δημήτρης Μητροπάνος! (Ωραία μουσική, κακές ιδέες)!

[@nikos_1717]

Έτσι! Αγαπάμε Μητροπάνο, παρά τις ιδέες!

[@nickyd922]

Name a single place where communism has been implemented? Stalinism was a dictatorship, China is an autocracy. Words matter

[@oscarpaez123]

They did apply collectivism and attempted to crush private ownership. Lenin did it, Stalin did, causing famine. They both considered themselves Marxists. Remember, Communism, like the Apocalypse, comes at the end of history. That is why they implemented socialism, because it was the previous historical stage to Communism. This allows Communists to say “it was not truly Communism.” Remember, Marx provided little practical guidance on how to build such a society leaving the door open for interpretations, including Lenin and Stalin. You gotta also remember that many Marxists developed Marx’s ideas in various directions. This also points to tension in Marxism between tradition (something revolutionaries don’t like) and development. I get it though, it is difficult to separate Marxism from Stalin and Lenin. I get the sense that it is to preserve the intellectual and moral integrity of Marxism. I’ll give you a quote from a tsarist political prisoner that was in prison with Stalin in his young revolutionary years “Looking at that low and small head, you had the feeling that if you pricked it, the whole of Karl Marx’s Capital would come hissing out of it like gas from a container. Marxism was his (Stalin’s) element, there he was invincible. No power on earth could dislodge him from a position once taken, and he could find an appropriate Marx formula for every phenomenon.”

[@-C0ns1an1ine-]

Same will say: name where Islamism is implemented!? Or something like that. communism is magic word, which will never happen and you always can say, name it!

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

Where is the union of theory and praxis? You're idealist.

[@fuowl666]

"iT wAsn'T reAl cOmMuniSM"

[@nikos_1717]

Lenin's war communism wasn't communism apparently, Stalin's collectivisation wasn't communism either, Yugoslavian model wasn't communism, Mao's Great Leap Forward wasn't communism, Hoxha's Albania I'm sure wasn't communist either, the DDR model of more consumer goods-socialism wasn't communism, Cambodia's egalitarianism wasn't communism for sure...all these societies built by communists based on communists blueprints somehow weren't communism. Ok, what is communism then?

[@agsoutas]

Θυμάμαι τους καθηγητές μου στο γυμνάσιο που στην πλειονότητα τους ήταν κομουνιστές ή έστω άκρο-αριστεροί.

[@handsfortoothpicks]

Stalin an Mao arent communist

[@-C0ns1an1ine-]

Of course, they are. wtf??

[@handsfortoothpicks]

@@-C0ns1an1ine- Stalin literally killed all the communists within the USSR and kicked them out of the comintern before destroying it. Mao followed in Stalins lead. Is that communist?

[@-C0ns1an1ine-]

​@@handsfortoothpicks I like how you wrote "literally killed ALL communists" but after Stalin there were plenty communist and USSR did not collapsed. I don't know how to answer that, read history.

[@antalpoti]

@@handsfortoothpicks yes, it is communism. this is a cheap sleight of hand all of you apologists are doing. "b-b-b-but that wasn't *real* communism, because it wasn't the utopistic society we were promised". no, comrade, that was the realest communism possible.

[@handsfortoothpicks]

@@-C0ns1an1ine- "but after Stalin there were plenty communist" Just because they called themselves that does not mean they were. The statement "read history." is so, so much more laughable considering you actively ignore history. You completely ignore why Stalin killed the communists, the main one being the conflict between the internationalists and the nationalists. Stalin and his posse believed in "Socialism on one country", a complete rejection of the Marxist principle of proletarian INTERNATIONALISM. With SOIC, Stalin allowed the communist parties to align with the "national bourgoeisie" of individual countries, aka class collaborationism. A rejection of the class struggle of the international proletariat. Is it communist to adopt bourgeois ideas? " USSR did not collapsed." By then the USSR changed its constitution and governance, for example, the USSR criminalized homosexuality despite the communist line on the family being a private thing between individuals.