Reform or Revolution? Vivek Chibber on Confronting Capitalism, Market Socialism, Bolshevism

Vivek Chibber, author of the new Jacobin book Confronting Capitalism, joins Jen Pan to explain what we can learn from both the Bolshevik and social democratic past to more effectively challenge and overcome capitalism in the 21st century.
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[@JohnT.4321]

The concept of central planning is that the workers themselves would set up an economic organization for the sole purpose of planning. They would elect representatives from all sectors of the people's industries or Socialist Industrial Unions to form an Industrial Congress. The planning would involve computers and feedback from every community to ensure production and distribution would flow without all the shortcomings that comes from capitalism.

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

I know right? Leaving the economy up to the "market" has never fucking worked. I like Chibber but he has some fucking dumbass takes, like his anti-Gramsci bullshit.

[@GhostOnTheHalfShell]

Well, the first question is where does *central planning* matter, where is it useful? trans national infrastructure, yes. some sectors like energy, for some things. The problems of concentration of decision making are similar to concentrations of political and economic power. In short aggregate but only as much as needed.

[@mohinderkumar7298]

In real "central", organization and grassroots feedback involvement is the core of centre and central.

[@JohnT.4321]

@@GhostOnTheHalfShell kzbin.info/www/bejne/fIOsqHimacZofLM

[@FourtyParsecs]

Sigh. Yeah. Planned vs market was last century's thing. We have computers and science now. The time in human history where we didnt know if we'd have enough crop yield to feed people is over. The time in history where we bartered with each other over value is over. We have everything we need for a POST-SCARCITY society. If you don't plan that shit you're simply being cruel. Honest to god I don't know why this is an argument. Capitalism is mostly planned already. And the parts that aren't are struggling. Furthermore, it's creating artificial scarcity just to have markets in the first place. Why in the world would we keep this shit? Now, there's nuance. I dont mean "trade", as in you can't have your local ice cream shops or girl scout cookies. What I mean is whether society itself is going to be subjugated to markets. I absolutely love Chibber, read his stuff and continue to gain a lot of knowledge from the man. But, no, just no. Markets are dieing and in no way are they are future. If that's the case, we're probably already extinct.

[@nathanngumi8467]

"You didn't have to convince working class people to fight for working class interests. Today you do have to convince middle class people to fight for working class interests." "If God hands you a social order that is breaking down, and the working class is not organized, it will be some other class that takes advantage of it." Profound insights that are often ignored by many today.

[@samuelangus1]

the middle class is not a class. It's a sociological term.

[@fremandn]

@@samuelangus1 Would changing middle class to PMC make it work?

[@nathanielibrahim3492]

This episode is so refreshing, not in its emotional appeals or radical statements, but in its practicality. Chibber's descriptions of the ways we can move forward make socialism seem really possible, and it's not always easy to feel it's possible in the heart of capitalist realism.

[@cobraflunkie]

I agree. Very refreshing and sensical and echoes my feeling in the subject matter. I think a lot of leftists need to take heed of what he’s saying. He is being very practical without all the pompous idealism that some on the left have.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

"Planning didn't work." Talking about mass economic planning, ignoring those who did it didn't have advanced computing, and then hedging the bet by saying "Well, democracy didn't always exist and then it did; so never say never." We definitely could use algorithmic planning, through the tracking of purchasing and census data.

[@aaronblain6377]

It worked quite well considering most of it was done with pencil and paper. A national economy could easily be planned on a normal computer nowadays.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

@@aaronblain6377 Exactly! The criticism of planning is out of date, purely because it is only based on lack of advanced computing, not that the old model didn't get results, but it is wildly different today.

[@aaronblain6377]

@@noheroespublishing1907 People calling themselves "Socialists" invoking Von Mises . . . *facepalm* Here's a bit of what Cockshott has to say: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5enYXaLmriWqc0

[@voxomnes9537]

I'm reminded of what Allende's government - before it was couped - was able to achieve with cybernetics from '69 to '72.

[@FourtyParsecs]

Yeah, I really don't know what he's talking about here. He's maybe speaking to some kind of audience or something? Markets are failing all over the replace. Constantly in crisis. And everything they can actually do for us can be better done through algorithms. If we have a full on revolution and the socialists get all the power and they ignore all science, all technology, all history and everything and are like "Ya know what? Fuck it, back to markets, people!" then I'm gonna burn everything down. No. Just no. Markets are fun when it's your tiny home town bakery shop. But we need to get serious when we're discussing global systems here.

[@Tychoxi]

planning is a necessity. we have ran this earth to the bedrock.

[@andreadaerice]

Another excellent discussion from Jacobin. This channel is so valuable to us all.

[@buck13horn]

Two questions for Vivek: 1) Did "planning" fail in the USSR from the beginning (under Lenin and Stalin) or did it fail as a result of the counterrevolutionary regimes of Khrushchev and his successors? 2a) Granted its domestic successes, what does the willingness of European social democracies to abide and even support the imperialist wars of the capitalism, not only in the early 20th century leading up to WWI but, post-WWII, as seen in the NATO membership of contemporary social democracies? 2b) Is this just instability due to private ownership of capital or is there something about social democracy that sacrifices internationalism for nationalism?

[@Arjava.]

Great questions Robert! I think you know the answers 😉

[@lunaridge4510]

---Did "planning" fail in the USSR from the beginning (under Lenin and Stalin) No, no, this one didn't not fail; people in the labour camps worked real hard and finished their 5-year plans in 5 weeks. ---or did it fail as a result of the counterrevolutionary regimes of Khrushchev. . . Wow, this a first for me! Hrushev was a 'counterrevolutionary'? Is that what he did in 1956? And we thought it was the other way around--- us stupid brain-washed Soviet kids. I clearly remember uni students saying Hrushev "let us taste a whiff of freedom," (for a short time, of course). He saved the lives of thousands of Jewish doctors opened the gates of the camps. Where do men like you come from? What dark corner of the universe you crawl from? 1960s France? Please, oh, please, do not tell anyone you are a socialist or a communist, keep that a secret.

[@tomspaghetti]

So glad the audible version of this book came out! Confronting Capitalism is a must-read!

[@TennesseeJed]

"all are free, or none are"

[@SacClass650]

I don't want criminals to be free.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@SacClass650 Agreed, but we do need some reform of imprisonment of some types of crime.

[@aaronblain6377]

Yeah that's why we need Social Democracy. More crumbs for workers in the core while the bottom half of humanity gets plundered.

[@voxomnes9537]

@@SacClass650 Have either of you heard of abolitionism?

[@sonarbangla8711]

Jen Pan, why do you worry about what October has taught us, I found CPC experience much more rich and illuminating. Digging the past can take you where you didn't want to be. This is because when you like to live in the past, you fail to appreciate what struggle Stalin went through to create the magic that still keeps him alive. You will fail to account for the years of British plan to unseat Stalin and the many conspiracies Stalin had to fight and stay awake and appreciate what he had to go through to achieve the miracle we call Bolshevik Revolution. Tomorrow Xi will meet Putin in Samarkand to create history and SCO, by no measure to be ignored. US and EU are shaking, like seeing their end, reminds me of Stalin's days.

[@alexross5714]

This interview is really outstanding, as it takes a deep dive into the question of what it means to be a socialist. Especially recommended is everything after 26:45.

[@coolmodelguy6304]

Spot on. Some of the best content I have ever watched concerning creating a better future.

[@TheMikerophone]

Council syndicalism will be a system where labor unions have replaced political parties as the primary mode of democratic representation. In that society, the primary political dynamic will be between the federation of trade unions as they existed under capitalism, and the Syndicalist union that will be the revolutionary political vanguard instead of a political party

[@13strandquistc]

What labour unions?

[@jonathankammer9078]

10:19” come on Vivek. Central plans can now be run on algorithms using data inputs about resource levels, industrial capacity, and people giving constant real-time feedback about needs and wants, their consumer choices informed by predictions about how these choices will impact their communities and lives, and with industrial and consumer goods production based on all existing data modulated by considerations for sustainability etc.

[@deathmagneto-soy]

Started reading The Class Matrix after seeing Vivek's interview on The Majority Report a few weeks back. Can't quite put my finger on why but something in the analysis keeps drawing my mind back to Adam Curtis.

[@tomt55]

Excellent discussion. Vivek Chibber is always important to listen too, as a pragmatic way to confront capital. Peter Joseph's resource based economic ideas are also worth exploring. It would be great to have a discussion between some of the premier Marxists, Socialists and Peter Joseph or a representative of resource based economics.

[@skywalker541]

RBE Is just a description of advanced stage communism but without any revolutionary, transitional, or theory of development. It's not serious and PJ is a grifter.

[@SolidAir54321]

I also though Peter Joseph's book was interesting. Also check out Yanis Varoufakis and Another Now. It's not the same as Joseph at all; just another capitalism alternative.

[@ubuntu94]

It would be great if Vivek could talk about existing examples of left leaning cadre deploying governments, one example being the ANC (African National Congress). South Africa is suffering because of the government's absolute pursuit for power. Healthcare is failing, Education is failing, Police are inept and corrupt, infrastructure is falling to pieces.

[@AQuietNight]

Jen would appreciate the negatives of central planning when she comes up with an idea for Blueberry-Shrimp-Pepperoni flavored ice cream and the central planning bureau says "no".

[@jimlabbe8258]

To gain a foothold is state power that you can actually build on towards a more democratic and egalitarian society (without elite capture) seems to make participatory structures in government or in unions an absolute imperative.

[@speleoth]

The bourgeois state has innumerable invisible connections with Capitalists and the market. To argue against smashing the bourgeois state entirely and building anew a proletarian state is to act in tacit complicity with all of these links between the present bourgeois state and Capitalists. Reading State and Revolution absolutely clarified this position for me! Strongly reccomend for other Jacobin subscribers.

[@aaronblain6377]

Lenin wasn't right about everything, but history has refuted this Kautskyist approach again and again and again. Read Lenin for yourself folks and see if anything sounds familiar: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKPJfYSprrqMn8k

[@bermo6066]

Read "The State And Capitalist Society" by Ralph Milliband right after though.

[@luker.6967]

Can the bourgeois state be smashed though? If the answer is not yes then your position is useless.

[@yoavpekelman7000]

@@luker.6967 Of course they can be smashed, just look at all Marxist Leninist states in history

[@coolmodelguy6304]

@@luker.6967 - Yes, it can be smashed. What is necessary is the political equivalent of a shaped charge to open a wide enough breach in the fortress bourgeois state, then take over its functions. What has always plagued us is the bourgeois state system operates without system limits. No system can operate without upper and lower limits, which explains why every many human civilization has at some point, ceased to exist.

[@pjacobsen1000]

I'm from Denmark and I remember the 70s (as a child) when we had so many socialist parties running for parliament: Socialist Peoples' Party, Left Socialist Party, Denmark's Communist Party - Marxist Leninist, Socialist Workers' Party, Communist Workers' Party. There were so many of them because they were all very ideological and they couldn't agree on which doctrine to follow and thus often split up. There were great debates about who was on the right path: Lenin? Stalin? Mao? Khrushchev? Some felt only Albania's Enver Hoxha was right. For a short while, some even felt Pol Pot had the best vision, though that view only lasted until they discovered what actually happened in Kampuchea. Most members of these parties were highly educated academics. Danish workers almost exclusively voted Social Democrat. Denmark's love affair with socialism started to wane in the 80s. Society changed, workers had achieved much through their labor unions: Good salaries, 6 weeks paid vacation, full health care and pensions, etc. But industry jobs became fewer and office jobs became more common. People working in offices were less inclined to fight on the barricades; their jobs were comfy, safe and there was always free coffee in the break room. Eventually, some people decided that there was less reason to join unions. Workers sent their children to (free) colleges or other tertiary education. Today, the only socialist parties left are the Socialist People's Party (which my sister has voted for all her life, I think) and the Red-Green Alliance. It's called the alliance because it absorbed all the old socialist parties that never got voted in. Today, the Social Democrats are more of a centrist party, and the Socialist Peoples' Party has basically taken over the platform that the Social Democrats had in the 80s: Less inequality, more focus on environment and climate, less stress in people's lives, lower expectations in schools, more free time. Unlike in the 70s, today no political parties campaign for a workers' revolution. There simply aren't enough workers and the few there are don't want a revolution. They'd much rather go on a two week vacation in The Mediterranean or Thailand.

[@alexross5714]

I'm not well informed about Denmark, but I was surprised to learn that the service sector accounts for 80% or Denmark's economy. I was less surprised to learn that economic inequality, which has traditionally been low in Denmark, has been slowly increasing in recent decades. Could this be a manifestation of why Vivek says social democracies are politically unstable, because the capitalist class will fight to reverse its losses and reclaim its diminishing political and economic power? Also, I wonder if the massive service sector could be interpreted as an "offshoring" by Denmark of its industrial needs and the exploitation that goes along with that, in order to reduce the domestic political consequences...? Lastly, it sounds odd that the red-green alliance would campaign for "lowering expectations in schools." Are those your words or theirs, and how does this demand resonate with the public?

[@pjacobsen1000]

@@alexross5714 "Economic inequality": Yes, that has been increasing for several decades. At the end of the 70s, Denmark was in seriously financial difficulties. Our expenditures were unsustainable. A new government instated 'belt tightening' policies, which were obviously very unpopular at the time, but it brought us back from the precipice and in the decades since, foreign debt has been almost eliminated, domestic debt has been reduced to very healthy levels, unemployment is lower than ever and we can afford the social services we love so much. "Lowering expectation in schools": I got that straight from the party's platform. They feel children are being overextended leading to stress and a society that is too focused on competition. As the party platform states: "Let children be children". "Off shoring": Yes, Denmark has little industry left (though still some). As you guessed, most production has been off-shored. It started with apparel and shoes in the 80s and continued from there. At the same time, Danish brands of electronic goods and other products were not able to compete with East Asia, so most of those have disappeared. We now buy Japanese and Chinese brands. The industry that has stayed behind is in sectors where we actually can compete, with wind power turbines as a prominent example.

[@alexross5714]

@@pjacobsen1000 Thanks!

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Yugoslavia had some kind of market socialism. It worked quite well as far as I know.

[@helengarrett6378]

I certainly don't want to replace my boss with a political boss. There must be a mechanism that can control the inevitable abuse of power and elitism in government. More input from the working people has to temper that tendency to corruption, to deviation, to elitism. The idea of a cadre is both enticing and frightening because it will inevitably become a manipulative propaganda machine. If my needs aren't in sync with the current dictate I'm going to be suppressed...AGAIN! My instinctive response is More bottom up democracy not just a "trained" cadre that imposes top down dictates. I dunno. I'm working through all of this, as are you. I'm up for ideas. But I do know what I don't want. I don't want private ownership of major anything. I don't want to have politicians defending their mistakes with the whole power of the state behind them. I want to be able to organize, dissent and have some power in the hands of working people. I want people to own the means of production, not the state. I want more cooperative ownership and not state ownership of the profits of enterprises or private ownership of them. The outline here sounds oh so USSR. I definitely don't want state ownership and management of media, in other words information. There ARE things to learn from the USSR but a bunch that is awful. I'm half in and a whole lot out of this outline. Going to read his book to clarify my own mind on his ideas.

[@leant6487]

Co-operatives are market enterprises and without appropriate mechanisms will inevitably lead to one group siphoning off and exploiting another one, but to have such an appropriate mechanism will require the state anyway. Furthermore, co-operatives hamper and curtail democracy, the point is to capture state power for the entire class, not divide up economic questions amongst different factions with varying degrees of power. Co-operatives are essentially primitive formations from the age of feudalism and should be avoided as much as possible (except for cases like farming perhaps).

[@helengarrett6378]

@@leant6487 I cannot disagree more. As long as workers have masters, be they capitalists who own the means of production or politicians in far of places who own the means of production, we working folks won't be free. Our lot in life will be to draw wages decided by others. We will be watched and managed by people who do not actually produce. They manage but they don't work. Nope. I'm looking for more say in what happens to me and the stuff I produce while I'm at work. I want the profit from my labor to be distributed among those who work where they work. I can't imaging a system without the state for SOME functions. Folks also need organization and so does the economy. But it makes no sense for someone far away to tell me to make widgets that will bring in less profit than gizmos we currently produce that has a good market and pays me well. Those conflicts need consultation, negotiation and concensus. I want a say in all of that.

[@MatheusLegenda]

This is a very good discussion with Vivek, but behind the two alternatives of market socialism and social democracy, he should also consider participatory economics, in which there would exist all of the assorted types of cooperatives but where rather than them necessarily competing against each other, they would be coordinating with each other on pipelines as well as doing cooperative economic planning with the larger society.

[@AlternativeMediaJointCenter]

We aim at revolution in the context of change but through all reformist means possible!

[@goodluck5642]

How are we talking planning without talking cybersyn? Planning will bring about things that would seem like pure magic to us now

[@goodluck5642]

I wanna hear about labor vouchers wtf. I do appreciate the discussions post-left characters produce but only because people make better points in the comments

[@OldNeoMatrix]

State subsidies are equivalent to state central planing. Question is who owns the state polititians, people or capital (in the terms of election funding / lobbying).

[@pwp8737]

Excellent discussion. Made me subscribe to Jacobin Magazine.

[@jonathankammer9078]

Decommodified housing. No housing market, all people housed with dignity.

[@jancoil4886]

The problem might be unsolvable. It centers on data/information. Not just the ability to collect but to do analysis that is accurate and timely. Any central planning scheme will face this obstacle because of the vast amount of data that can be collected. Instead of an entire planned economy, it might be better to plan key parts that all of us rely on: housing for example. We have decades of experience with all sorts of housing: private, public and military. This wouldn't be easy but taking a small bite of an apple is easier than trying to devour the whole thing at once.

[@robertjenkins6132]

The interviewee uses the term "middle class" several times. Has he seen Second Thought's video titled "Why You're Not “Middle Class”"? That video argues that there are two economic classes: the working class and the capitalist class.

[@voxomnes9537]

I think he might mean the middle-income strata of the working class. Eiether that or the stratum of the working class that has some set of distinct interests from the rest of the working class that will need to be confronted at some point.

[@NathanWHill]

Paul Cockshott is good on this. Many people are paid for their labor rather for their ownership of the means of production but earn more than the average hourly value added in the economy. Such people are not capitalists but still benefit from exploitation.

[@philipganchev2306]

The best developed decentralized planning economic model is participatory economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel. It avoids both centralized planning and markets.

[@AQuietNight]

The Bolshevik Revolution forwarded one great advance: name calling. It produced one of my favorite insults: A Trotskyite Contrabandist.

[@hughmac13]

One among many others. I tend to be partial to "Titoist," just because of how it sounds.

[@rustylidrazzah5170]

Does capital exist without the state enforcement of property rights?

[@AQuietNight]

Yes but the capitalist will just have to hire a bunch of arm breakers to enforce ownership. Thus, job creation showing trickle down economics does indeed work.

[@rustylidrazzah5170]

@@AQuietNight what do they pay them with if the state doesn’t exist to coin money?

[@AQuietNight]

@@rustylidrazzah5170 What was always used... gold

[@rustylidrazzah5170]

@@AQuietNight gold was used when there was a population of less than 1 billion. Gold had no utility in things like catalysts, computer parts, or medical equipment. Chances of people accepting it as payment, knowing it has a relative use value, is highly improbable. And you have to go back hundreds of years for gold to be an actual currency. It was the standard for currency most recently, not the currency itself. Without a state to produce a currency that uses gold as a standard it isn’t feasible for there to be enough gold to circulate in a market economy.

[@AQuietNight]

@@rustylidrazzah5170 Gold was money... until the Chinese started to produce fiat currency. The fiat money of today used to be a promissory note to pay in gold. The value of gold adjusts over time. 1 oz used to be worth $20/oz and that would be a double eagle coin in the U.S. Then it became $35/oz then ended at $42/oz before the U.S. dropped the gold standard. Today a one ounce coin would be worth $1700. Of course, we could go back to using beaver pelts.

[@Vhbaske]

The Russian Revolution changed many things that were needed to be corrected at their time. The first was the overthrown of monarchies in many countries. Second, to advance from feudalism to liberal capitalism in the countries that needed it. Third, to implant liberal humanistic philosophies everywhere. The world became many steps ahead from the feudal and primitive ideas of past times. There are many aspects in which Soviet and cooperatve movements have helped to develop a better world. China had slaves in the first half of the 20th Century. No one would like to resurrect those old ideas and lead the world to become like in pre modern times

[@ArticBlueFox96]

If democratic socialists and leftists are going to preserve the State to defend against counter-revolutionary forces and mediate large social movements and interactions, then we should still keep in mind the anarchist principle of limiting hierarchy, and I believe the key to doing that is to abolish the most significant forms of state violence, which would include police, prisons, borders (at least borders that limit movement of people and goods should be replaced with open borders), and the standing military (which should be replaced with a purely reserve military, or at least the standing military should be as small as possible while still being effective). As for markets, you cannot completely eliminate markets (even states the engage in planned economics exclusively develop a black market), but historically many societies kept the market small and regulated, and had many sectors of their economy planned alongside other economic models (like gift economies), and the sectors most key to the thriving of the society were generally planned (including the social safety net, which should meet all the basic needs, necessities, and simple wants for everyone to live a decent life in their society without being required to work or meet any other condition besides being a living person). We should seek to have a mixed planned-market economy, using AI planning, central planning, local planning, indicative planning, and have a small, weak, and regulated market. The market that exist should rely upon cooperatives and usufructs to ensure market power rests with workers.

[@camadams9149]

Reform is always the only viable answer. Revolutions just lead to the most extreme side winning, which is why they always fail.

[@kace999]

If you don't have planning and rationing the ecosystem will inevitably suffer the same fate it is now suffering under capitalism.

[@saramuhumphries9225]

👍💐

[@jonathankammer9078]

Rolling back the structural power of the employers… how is that going in Europe these days? At this point, the project for winning deep social democracy will be hard enough that we might as well just organize and fight for socialism.

[@developmentcom]

In terms of having a political party fully committed to labor? I think that we would need that party to be funded by predominately unions. The USA is very far away from having a structure like that in place. It could take decades.

[@luker.6967]

And we need union leaders that aren't dems in disguise.

[@-sunrise-parabellum-]

Coming from one of the most unionized countries in Europe with strikes every week, no, unions are not the answer nor do they have any innate qualities that help with the organization of a coherent, stable leftist political movement

[@developmentcom]

@@-sunrise-parabellum- Yes, I understand. Unions are the solution to all of the USA's political and labor issues. It has an extreme lack of union influence and labor is worse off for it, even if unionization means some trade offs and imperfect solutions. America needs to catch up.

[@-sunrise-parabellum-]

@@developmentcom I agree that America needs unions in order to improve working conditions, that much is undeniable, and can be said about any country. But saying they will somehow bring you closer to socialism or at least to building a coherent leftist political movement is dishonest at best and historically ignorant at worst

[@developmentcom]

@@-sunrise-parabellum- - I wasn't suggesting that a political party solely funded by unions make a "coherent political left". What I am saying is that having that party would mean more pro-worker policy and influence in Washington. I'm not talking about completely eliminating corruption.

[@aerobique]

✊🌐

[@pinchofganja]

What does Vivek have to say about MMT?

[@Q-154]

Hopefully he’ll say it’s trash, but I doubt it.

[@groovalotfunk4147]

Best takes on MMT come from Varn Vlog

[@Musterprolet]

Bourgeois

[@AlternativeMediaJointCenter]

We do have market socialism in China; why did the guest tell that there are none????

[@AQuietNight]

Nazi Germany was doing market socialism.

[@AlternativeMediaJointCenter]

@Russ Ingram yes, it is

[@Comrade_Broski]

China has SOME market socialism, it needs a LOT more. Why did the guest fail to mention it? IDK but maybe because he's a capitalist?

[@dameongeppetto]

No, you have state ownership of private businesses and property. China is closer to a fascist state than a socialist state.

[@Holland1917]

Socialist Alternative is a cadre built and based organization. DSA is not. It seriously shows in what they achieve in comparison to DSA

[@reginus]

What have they achieved?

[@bermo6066]

@@reginus One city council seat with a declining margin of victory every election.

[@Holland1917]

@@bermo6066 it’s not about elections…. Didn’t u watch any of this video? Ur a perfect DSA paper member

[@mcmcmcm6520]

I don’t see socialist alternative accomplishing much.

[@Musterprolet]

Arent they trotzkyite?

[@StanKindly]

Where does climate emergency fit in to all this? Or immediate man-made environmental disaster(s) like nuclear events i.e. Ukraine right now?

[@targetfootball7807]

Sounds a lot like exactly what the Chinese and Vietnamese are doing. 😅. But I would have to agree with this guy's approach.

[@dameongeppetto]

Authoritarian one party states are not an example of central planning. Which do you prefer: an ethno-nationalist state (China, who wants a Han supremacy similar to the alt-right in the US) or a weak skinned kleptocracy (Vietnam) which jails noodle vendors for making a video imitating Salt Bae?

[@targetfootball7807]

@@dameongeppetto Authoritarian? One party? They have representation from all over the country. Each representative votes for the next level. They are multitudes in one government. The highest levels of the economy are controlled by the state. Not oligarchs. If you allow the oligarchs to rule you don't have a government at all. You have an unaccountable class - very few people making all the decisions. Governments ARE accountable. They're not anonymous rulers. People can't even say China without adding 'Authoritarian' China. Compared to who? Decisions have to be made for the benefit of all. As such, their decisions have been lifting China. And the rest of the world too. As for Vietnam, they came back from being bombed into the stone age. Don't talk to me about street vendors being arrested. U.S. prisons are full.

[@dameongeppetto]

@@targetfootball7807 you can pretend China has representation, but it is Fake News. China is a one party state full of corruption and nepotism, just like in capitalist democracies. Instead of oligarchs they have government dynasties. China is 100% an authoritarian regime. I would tell you to go see for yourself, but they aren't approving visas as easily to foreigners anymore. Vietnam is probably closer to a communist form of government, but their leaders are just as corrupt. FYI, I am not trying to make you mad or start a fight, I simply tired of this leftist meme ideology that China is a good socialist example. The US and China can both be bad at the same time. It is not a binary US good/China bad or US bad/China good.

[@targetfootball7807]

@@dameongeppetto what works? How many presidents you want? 10? 12? Will that make a difference? No matter what they do you will say they're corrupt. The west will say they're corrupt. You think it's easy to govern one and a half billion? How are they corrupt? Bribery? The communist leaders taking bribes? Or are they fighting bribery? Plenty of evidence they're fighting bribery. Plenty of evidence they aren't allowing oligarchs. Undue influence destroys governance. They make progress continually. I've been around their cops. Lived with their people. On the ground level they're just as free as anyone. They are fighting poverty logically and consistently. A long way to go, yes. Nothing is perfect. Life takes constant readjustment They're trying to reduce the cost of living, not increase it. It's industrial socialism. Market socialism where they control how much market share their billionaires can rest from the people. If this system isn't designed and performed well none of that can happen. As this man describes in his speech is what they're doing. That's the design of their system. It's what Marx recommends.

[@dameongeppetto]

@@targetfootball7807 that is what the CCP propaganda tells you to believe about China. Their government is not a form of market socialism but rather state-run capitalism. Bribery is how business is done in China and much of Asia. I am not saying China is all bad, but if you believe it is a good example of Marxist ideology in action you are deluding yourself or seeing things with rose tinted glasses. They have made great strides in remediating poverty, but ever since Xi took head of state they have been sliding fast into unadulterated authoritarianism. I missed the writings by Marx where he talked about engaging in cultural genocide to maintain a homogeneous population is the way towards freeing the proletariat. I am sure Marx also wrote somewhere about how censorship and suppression of free speech is what we should strive for. Vietnam is way closer to a real attempt at socialism, but if you read all of their educational material you will find that most of their "socialism" is nationalism wrapped up in a pretty bow. Both China and Vietnam treat their leaders like gods where anyone questioning anything they dictate is not only discouraged but punished. Their children are being taught to worship their dear leader not to be free thinkers. I appreciate the dialogue, even if we don't see things in the same light.

[@samuelrosander1048]

You don't need people to be fanatics. You need bottom-up democracy. When Marx (and later Lenin) wrote about the "withering away of the State," it has to be acknowledged that it isn't a top-down thing, but requires bottom-up democracy. In order for the state to "wither" away, it has to have its power stripped from it over time (hence "wither") and be returned to the people, resulting in the people themselves performing the functions of the state, whether we're talking about the record-keeping of bureaucracy or the communal arbitration of a judiciary. That's not to say that there is no more state, but that it ceases to be a central authority above the working peoples, and instead becomes a communal authority made up of working peoples. "Endless meetings" and other anti-democracy arguments are BS cop-outs to avoid actually thinking about things with any sort of honesty. You don't need to hold a city-wide meeting to decide on the color of a particular shop's uniform; they can make those decisions within the shop. You don't need to hold a city-wide meeting to decide on who in neighborhood X will be keeping an eye out for trouble (state police are not needed if a community takes over the job. See "The Civil War in France" for how that worked out); the neighborhood, on its own, can decide things like that. There are infinite things that need a decision made, but you don't need to involve everyone who has nothing to do with it to be part of the process. Stuff can get done on an individual level (which is why teaching AND reinforcing "social responsibility" and "social accountability" is important for any system not based on a strong state) without involving the whole community, though individuals will undoubtedly bring up recurring issues so that they can be addressed with rules, volunteering, or even assigning tasks...but all of that would be done democratically at the lowest possible levels, not through top-down mandates. All of that requires that the entire movement be based in building democracy at the lowest levels first, because in order for democracy to be viable, and therefore make "withering away of the State" a possibility, democracy (not just voting, but also/especially being part of the whole process of discussion and coming up with solutions) has to be normal practice for everyone. The fact that people, especially on the left, don't want to intellectually engage with the concept of bottom-up democracy beyond strawmen and caricatures, is really disturbing. It makes me wonder what they think they're really fighting for. A "wise ruler" state that has some democratic components and hopefully does what's best for everyone? Interviews like this, where pro-social (and often totalitarian) statism is passed off as "socialism/communism" and socialism/communism is passed off as "anarchism," are really disappointing. It's like these people think that they're the first ones to come up with their arguments. A "planned economy" doesn't mean "the State plans everything." That is, definitionally, "statism." That is NOT socialism or communism, and is not related to what Lenin OR Marx advocated for...or wrote about. Look at their own words, and whenever they talk about the socialist/communist "State," they do it in terms of the proletariat in a revolutionary democracy (or equivalent for Marx). Marx lived long enough to see the Paris Commune, which had councils for workplaces and for the community as a whole. "The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time." Its economy, therefore, was not planned by a central authority, but by the working people via democracy. Lenin wrote much the same: the "planning" *MUST* come from the soviets working together to 1) understand the needs of their communities (whether we're talking about factories, farms or whatever else), 2) understand what each community provided that could be distributed to others, and 3) work out networks and then deal with any additional surplus. (Granted, Lenin didn't write it out that way, but the intent of mutualism and "democracy from below" was clear.) People who talk about "planned economies" with so limited a view as Vivek do far more harm than good by relegating economics in an apparently socialist system to a very specific and *STATIST* (and therefore anti-socialist) approach. Like they took their cues from capitalists in building arguments against statism and believed they were talking about socialism. Again, a disappointing interview with a guy whose points suggest that he believes "socialism" means "when the state does stuff" and "anarchy" means "when the proletariat is constantly moving against the state to affect change," or some other nonsense.

[@helengarrett6378]

You know, I'm not particularly sophisticated about my socialism. I'm just a working class women who spent a lifetime just about killing myself to raise two kids single-handedly and making rich people richer with my hands and my mind. It was hard, damned hard. At the end of it I live on Social Security and a $165/month pension and am anticipating a $300/month rent increase in January. I'm already sweating over current inflation. Your analysis makes the most sense to me but I also have known so many lazy jerks and vicious office mates that would gladly stab another worker in the back for a kind word and no financial reward from a superior. If I could trust everyone around me to be upstanding, hard working and honest I'd trust the state to wither away and leave every decision to the community. But I know there will still be jockeying for position, for power and for recognition just as there was in all the union jobs I worked where I had a hell of a time convincing others to be responsible and not blame the time clock because they overslept. They blamed the union for the clock and therefore for the need to be timely to work. People do need organization and rules. Peole are not used to making sensible decisions. We have a long way to go before we can have the ideal totally democratic, bottom-up kind of social structure. In the mean time, I am working toward that goal. Every chance for unions is a good one. Every organization working for better benefits, less poverty and hope is good. I would like my teenage grandkid to have the chance to own the profit from her labor and decide how her community is organized and governed. I hope that she doesn't end up in communities like some of the Southern towns I've seen in my life that are about forcing everyone into the same God-fearing, restrictive, self-satisfied little pattern. I never fit into that pattern. She won't either. While I like the idea of teaching a new way of functioning with a trained cadre I also fear the repression that could bring. While I want to profit from my labor I certainly will fight internal power cliques that inevitably arise. While I like the community policing itself, I fear repression and bigotry in some communities. So I like what you posted but right now, this minute I am into simple education mode. The word Socialism makes too many propagandized and unsophisticated people break out into a sweat. Let's forget about theory and schism in Socialism, in Marxism, in the wild blue yonder and talk in simpler everyday terms about what it is like to work together for our best interests in the social justice groups we belong to, in the unions we need and in business we can start ond run communaly. We need experience being cooperative, not competitive. The state has a place until we all learn bit by bit a better way of dealing with life and each other. When we are ready for those soviets and a truly communal structure Hooray! We are not there. Let's be practical right now and stop carping about theory. This country is up against fascism and climate change and is mired in a kind of ubercapitalism that is eating working folks alive. Oh how much work there is to do!

[@samuelrosander1048]

@@helengarrett6378 Totally understandable position. Theory is great, but it doesn't get the work done and scares people away because "socialism bad." Rather than go into a lengthy step-by-step "this is how to start building solidarity" spiel, I'll offer the short version aimed at people who are already socialists (looking back, yes, this is the short version, but with the intent more fully explained): Unions are a great first step. They're a tool for winning concessions from the bosses, but they don't really go much further than that. You know capitalism and neoliberalism have atomized society even as they socialized the labor (and other things, like the costs of war), so one of the jobs of the socialist is to work on reversing that atomization. Socialists focus primarily on workplace *solidarity*, i.e. working towards the same goals, but they typically leave out reversing social atomization, which goes on both in the workplace community and in the living community. De-atomization requires relationship-building. You are probably very familiar with the scene of going home and never speaking to your neighbors beyond an occasional greeting, whether you live in an apartment complex or a house of your own. People just want to relax when they get home because of the stress of their working life. Whether that's your own experience or what you see others do, that is a form of social isolation that weakens communities to the point where "solidarity" in the living place (a core requirement for a real democratic system like socialism) is almost nonexistent. Building worker solidarity isn't just about getting people to vote for the same things or recognize that they have a shared interest, but also about building relationships so that the work of building a democratic, cooperative, and mutualistic future is even plausible. Towards that end, the first steps in that direction are talking to your neighbors so that you all know each other, and then moving progressively towards building cohesive communities. In real terms, that means, after getting to know each other with some regular conversations about personal stuff like hobbies and family, you invite them to BBQs or potlucks where you can all have a comfortable excuse to just socialize. Over time, include more neighbors, leaving controversial issues out of it as much as possible so that you can first build a rapport. When you're all comfortable enough around each other, and know and have some respect for each other, bring up stuff like helping each other watch children, or basically anything that leads into mutual aid networking. Building mutual aid networks helps to alleviate the stress of living in a capitalist society, but it also brings people together to work towards a common cause: mutual support. But building mutual aid networks is only part of it. The goal is also to build the communities into democratic units. As you start suggestion things leading to mutual aid, also talk about how to manage it. Rather than putting the burden on the shoulders of an organizer or someone nominated, suggest that everything be democratic so that everyone knows without question how funds and resources are being used, on top of having a say in that distribution/use. Not only does it provide that transparency, but it also gives people the first taste of democracy that they will likely have ever had, as well as the opportunity to offer other ideas that might benefit the community. And not just the adults. It's just as important, if not more so, that the children old enough to understand what's going on be included in the process of democracy so that they a) grow up understanding how it actually works, and b) develop a sense of identity that involves active participation in a healthy community. More than anything else, that fact of *normalized* childhood participation will help push the movement forward, because as they grow up knowing and practicing actual democracy, they will be that much better equipped to argue in its favor within unions and elsewhere, recognize and talk about the problems of capitalism, etc etc etc. But it all starts with building relationships. Unionization is great, but without the de-atomization efforts of relationship-building, it will only result in concessions that merely alleviate some of the issues that "someone else" will handle *for* the union members (not all unions are tight-knit. Many are basically the same as our political system, where people are elected to do the job of running the union, and the members have little to no say in any of it beyond voting for who will rule). Democratization and community-building within the union is necessary, just as it's necessary within the workplace and the living community. While none of the theory of Marx, Lenin etc (that I can recall reading, but my memory isn't great) explicitly discusses the relationship-building aspect, it does support the democracy-building aspect. Building the future that they write about as the goal, where social responsibility and democracy are the norm, requires that community-building, which requires relationship-building. In real terms, putting aside the "this is how to do socialism" talk that puts non-socialists on guard, all of this is nothing more than bringing people together to recognize and support common interests. Whether in a deep red or deep blue or purple area, a lot of those interests are shared, and the act of building relationships and communities without actually hinting at socialism will bridge a lot of the gaps via first-hand experience. It won't change the most bigoted or cultish groups, but it is a good start that will have long-term benefits. Full disclosure, I'm a shut-in. My brain and will got broken to the point that the most I can contribute to the movement is online posting. I can't practice what I preach. You've got infinitely more real experience than I will ever have within the movement, so your perspective will be more grounded. All I can hope for is that the ideas I put out help the movement in some way, and help to clear some of the muck piled on it by anti-socialists and opportunists over the last century. In the end, what you do and have done is far more valuable to the movement, so thanks for your work.

[@louisonduchatteau1513]

1 comment for the algorithm

[@jonathankammer9078]

No labor market! No one that wants to work for the good of themselves and their communities should go without a job,

[@joseluisaguilaralonzo6374]

viva México,vivan los niños(as)👦🙌💚👏muchachos(as)GENIOS....Excellent reflection... Sistema & Laws do no fail,MEN USE them AGAINST HONESTS PEOPLES OR FAMILIES,MEN ARE THE CORRUPT ONES WHO HIDE IN SYSTEMS & LAWS TO ENRICH THEMSELVES WITH THE EXTERMINATION OF PEOPLES OR FAMILIES,LEANDING THEM TO MISERY. por nuestra raza hablará el espíritu y la educación

[@jonathankammer9078]

What is your strongest argument against vanguardism, Vivek? Just that it is less democratic? What is fantastic about a dictatorship of the workers, a workers state?

[@jonathankammer9078]

@TheDrewSaga you misread me. Vivek says that anything more than social democracy under capitalism is a “fantasy,” and that’s what I meant. I’m critiquing what I hear are his limits. He is advocating for the organizing to get social democracy, not the organizing to win socialism, even though he thinks a lot about it.

[@gf.calabretta]

F4WP ✌🏽

[@mjleger]

I haven't read the book, but the chess analogy on the cover of Vivek Chibber's new book is potentially misleading, that is, unless the Queen at the centre is like the minotaur in the Labyrinth - something that you cannot get rid of ( money ) and must keep a distance from. But the minotaur in this conversation is Revolution, or revolutionary spirit, and I don't think the term and what it represents is served very well here even though I agree that there is no problem working incrementally through workers' organizations and state mechanisms. When it comes down to it, even bourgeois liberal capitalism is capable of delivering material goods and we know very well Marx's comments on this. For Lenin, the vanguard is not a sect or secret cabal within the organization, the vanguard is the Party and the Party's purpose is the political organization of the various workers' unions across nation states. The term vanguard should retain its generic sense as those who struggle on the front lines against capitalism, and that can be at all levels of society - as opposed to the bad rap the term tends to get with bohemian and countercultural types who resist anything that is top-down, even if that means accepting capitalism as the supposedly most democratic political formation. Giving a bad rap to vanguardism will not eliminate challenges for the leadership ( which is not really an issue when there is no mass organization to speak of, unless you consider the DSA to be the mass organization in question ), purges ( i.e. from the electricians' union if someone knows or understands or believes something that the other electricians do not, or pretend that they do not so as to remain credible ), exclusions, intrigues, etc, and even defamation - making it seem like someone is saying something they are not in fact saying - especially among intellectuals where one issue leads instantly to so many, and sometimes, almost magically, all of the others. Scapegoats are created, false flags against newly designated "internal enemies" are devised to create cohesion around certain leaders or agendas, etc. We saw this for example with the efforts of some DSA members to give a bad rap to Adolph Reed or people randomly going after Michael Tracey as though he is Pol Pot. With Marxist dialectics as a method there is plenty of opportunity to use and abuse doctrine and to make it seem as though small differences are major and insurmountable. The reviewers of New Left Review, who after all cannot publish everything that is sent to them, practice this art of doctrinal inconsistency as a matter of course. Left squabbling gets inflated with academic egos and when reputations or careers are at stake. So what Chibber says here about the left having become professionalized and middle class, which I completely agree with, only inflates these kinds of problems. Who is "in" and who is "out" can have as much to do with managing the perception that certain leaders or intellectuals have the correct stance. The fact of the matter is that there never was a blueprint for revolution ( except maybe for developmentalists within Stalinist parties ) - not 100 years ago and not now - and this is central to Marxist dialiectics as a key component of historical materialism. My recommendation is for the left to stop reducing notions of materialism to so-called concrete and pragmatic considerations. The left does this for reasons of proselytism but also due to doctrinal confusions and competing views about strategy. It's one of the reasons why Stalinism went awry and why so-called Western Marxism developed. It's not that practical issues are not paramount to politics, they are! It's that what is concrete in Marxist method is the totality of material relations within the processes of universal history. Particulars within this global, historical situation, like this or that nation-state, candidate, leader or teacher, are made abstract through the capitalist conditions within which they exist, which is why there is plenty of room for reification (and as Chibber says, and as I wrote on my blog about the SEP/WSWS, totemism - and we should add, taboo). A genuine Marxist is fine with social democracy as part of strategy but not as a general outlook or even as an understanding of Marxism, which is revolutionary and communist in character. You can try to adjust original sources through historical experiences and adapt them to what people today want to hear, like Chantal Mouffe does or like Hardt and Negri often do, or on the black left like Keeanga Yahmatta-Taylor and RDG Kelley. In that regard I much prefer the Reeds, Fields sisters, Chibber and WBM. I can appreciate fast talk, which Slavoj Zizek does better than most, but it does not serve anyone to refer to revolution as friday night fantasy, zealotry or sectarianism. Also, the use of the term fantasy without recourse to psychoanalysis is problematic and fails to explain much. Consider also that liberals and rightists consider all variants of leftism as fantasy, drivel, marginality, zealotry, etc, so why use this enemy tool against comrades we should be in solidarity with ( and Chibber is correct here to say he does not want to take away anyone's small beer - good for him, he's not a champaign socialist, or whatever the equivalent is now - season's basketball tickets ). ( See also David Harvey's recent Democracy at Work podcast [ September 9 ] in which he discusses the false pressure to either talk or fish - which as I've written and said a million times was not a problem for Marx and Engels - this taunt coming especially from the activist and neo-anarchist NSM sector, which, as Chibber says, and Zizek has said a million times, is an unrealistic expectation that asks working people to be constantly mobilized on every front ). There is no longer a USSR and Communist Republic of China that acts as a pressure on capitalists and encourages social democratic welfarism. The fact that Scandinavian-style social democracy is being dismantled is evidence of that fact. It's a constant battle. The increased pressure on the left creates a double bind: fantasies of revolutionary ambition as well as lowered expectations, with for example approval of the supposed labour agenda of the Biden administration. This is like those who argue that Obama saved the auto industry. What these New Democrat administrations due is restructure to chip away and dismantle. One question that was not addressed in this interview is whether or not and to what extent the Democratic Party is a vehicle for social democratic reform. A recent essay by Branco Marcetic in Jacobin seems to think so. There is money, careers and institutional power in and around the Democratic Party. Those are practical and concrete issues are they not? So maybe the Queen on the cover of the book is the Democratic Party. A good leader, in my view, would know who to play and not to play that game of chess. That's why Chibber comes across here, typically enough for someone with his acumen, as an anti-vanguardism vanguardist. As a cultural theorist, I've written about this same set of problems in the art world, in "Brave New Avant Garde," "Vanguardia," and in two edited volumes ( with 100 world-class contributors ) in "The Idea of the Avant Garde and What It Means Today." These were produced to help shift postmodernized New Social Movement culture from culture wars and horizontalism towards a more leftist universalist approach. Since then I've been literally attacked and received very little thanks or appreciation. So why do I it? And here's my point. Leftists are motivated by more than material incentives and higher wages. Anyone who has been around academia long enough understands how the material incentives of high salaries negatively impact the quality of research and teaching. You see the same thing in the cultural sector and in everything else where profit is the motive. We struggle then so that we and others can cease to struggle needlessly, because we want to live in the kind of world that is not organized around material incentives - or as John Adams said to the French aristocracy ( in the TV series I'm watching ), we study war and agriculture etc so that later our descendants can study literature and music. It that utopian? A pipe dream? A bourgeois fantasy? I can understand that people do not want to go out on a limb, but when people like Bhaskar Sunkara admonish the left ( in a mainstream source like The Guardian ), saying that too much socialism ( rather than too much neoliberalism ) leads to Trump authoritarianism, you start to wonder who or what you're dealing with. I say this with no offence to the diversity of Jacobin and Catalyst contributors, many of whom I can agree with about many things.

[@basedneeble7350]

What Vivek sees as the mechanism for change for the short term is incrementalism, or reformism which in reality is almost just as rare a phenomenon as revolution. When was the last time capitalism made major reforms for the working class? The civil rights era. Especially in times of crisis, like now, there is nothing on the table for reforms for the working class. The demands of the working class will always outreach the limits of private property and we will always face economic and political crisis. Everything under reformism is temporary. You cant make it concrete, therefore it will be rolled back in times of economic and political crisis that is almost certain.

[@borisnegrarosa9113]

This guy is a dreamer. Keep dreamin

[@sarahjames5176]

"the way the DSA represents the working class" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💀

[@matasuki]

You can't reform the system. The only way out if through. Accelerate the process.

[@dr.zoidberg8666]

Idk about your context, but in my country it's very clear that accelerationism will produce fascism, not socialism. Now, 20 years down the line demographics suggest that might be different but then again waiting 20 years isn't exactly accelerating. Imho, the clearest path towards socialism in my particular context is to allow the dialectic sharpen naturally (as it already is), organizing, aiding, & educating along the way so that we're prepared when the revolutionary moment does come.

[@Tychoxi]

yes sure when you are heading towards the precipice the solution is to step on the gas. socialism is when everyone dies.

[@siriuslyspeaking9720]

@@dr.zoidberg8666 Sounds like an evolutionary process to me, but I also think we should be able to consciously/willfully speed that process. I imagine, that is why there exist the term 'Democratic Socialism'.

[@matasuki]

@@dr.zoidberg8666 I feel like all the marching and organizing always gets absorbed by the system (Justice Dems being a big example) and they get distracted by cultural issues. It feels very non serious most of the time. There is no fighting the system. And because people won't revolt and always vote to protect the system, it's seems unlikely anything will ever change.

[@siriuslyspeaking9720]

The question is evolution or revolution? We have to resume the evolution process and end the revolution cycle.

[@TennesseeJed]

I am afraid change will only come after calamity and much suffering. Seems to be the Homo "sapiens" way, not very wise if you ask me.

[@lunaridge4510]

@@TennesseeJed True, we are not a very wise species---when we act alone. We were designed by the Gods of evolution to be a pack animal, thinking & acting as one. This way of life has been taken away from us. Presently, a calamity of cosmic proportions is around the corner. Literally, this winter. And no one, except for organized fascism, is ready for it.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@lunaridge4510 Yes, we evolved in tribal groups where the leader might have been smarter and stronger, but they weren't orders of magnitude stronger like today's corporations. I am not humiliated by the fact teams of lawyers and bankers has outthunk me, but I am humiliated that they think I ain't smart enough to know it.

[@lunaridge4510]

@@TennesseeJed We hadn't evolved this way with smart/strong leaders, that's not our real history. We evolved --- in small groups or even very large ones--- where leadership was consciously and continuously controlled by the group to prevent the grab of power and all decisions were made together. "The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity." David Graeber and David Wengrow.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@lunaridge4510 👍

[@Comrade_Broski]

"I think it's a mistake to rule out capitalism", "I think we need to be conservative", "We need to nationalize the media", "The (answer) is incrementalism" -- Jesus Christ, this guy is an incrementalist, capitalist reformer. lol if capitalism-lite is what Jacobin is pushing, I am seriously going to lose all faith in Jacobin as any kind of voice for anti-capitalism.

[@Zakdayak]

Yeah. They're larping.

[@philipganchev2306]

Yes, Jacobin is reformist (anti-revolutionary) and market-friendly. They have often said they prefer looking at the Scandinavian examples over the Russian Revolution.

[@tc7500]

More blah blah blah wonderful Utopia!

[@Musterprolet]

market socialism is a joke

[@gutphish8300]

What’s up with this third way shit

[@alloomis1635]

get democracy. write a new constitution, with initiative, step by step. how to get democracy? write a letter to every politician in your constituency, with 'or else' at the end. in it demand effective and accessible power of citizen initiative. if that doesn't get results, give up or organize militias, depending on how angry you are.

[@tormunnvii3317]

Vivek's vision wants the worst parts of historical Socialism (Hierarchal Party + Market Economy). Not worth fighting for, sorry. Just join an existing Socdem party if you want that.

[@jonathankammer9078]

Vivek why push the notion of incrementalism when you really just mean to say that we need massive working class socialist and communist organizing in order to win? It seems to me that if we wake up tomorrow and all the working class organizing has been magically accomplished and we have won state representational power and deep programs of social democracy, you’d none the less still argue that revolution to make a socialist workers state is a pipe dream. Like, we’re likely going to be comrades for life, but why be so down on the prospects of mass international worker solidarity? Our material conditions are unique in history, and we have before us a failure of capitalism to manage the climate crisis, we have tools of mass communication on our phones. I don’t think you take seriously enough how our increasing digital communication and data collection and processing technologies impact the potential future of socialist organizing as western capitalism and imperialism crumbles.

[@shtefanru]

Petrified left dreaming about the revolutionary subject.. Boring 😑