Why Conservatives Will Never Get Marxism? w/ Ben Burgis

[@c-r]

They don't want to debate marx, they're taking stances that allow them to dismiss it from the conversation, which is effective as conservative propaganda has put it in most people's heads as "the other evil ideology", simple as.

[@j0j0dartiste21]

Depending on what conservative you speak of, it's the only evil ideology from which all others spill out from.

[@c-r]

@j0j0dartiste21 yeah that's true, I'm pretty sure your average conservative thinks they hate nazis though, they just think of them in a very isolated historical way. They may as well be orks from lotr to them for the relevance they ascribe them beyond an analogy for "bad guys". Not referring to the worst offenders from the death cult mind you, more like your sorta shitty uncle kind of con.

[@Riskofdisconnect]

​@@j0j0dartiste21 that "national socialism was an outgrowth of marxism" talking point blows my mind every time I hear it

[@miskatonic_alumni]

​@@RiskofdisconnectEspecially when the actual propaganda produced by the nazis makes their opinions on socialism and leftist ideas in general very plain. Hitler said in numerous speeches that the left would lead Germany to "Bolshevism" and "slavery" if they won. Hitler also talked about Christianity and tradition in the exact same tones used by modern conservatives.

[@JStack]

It's requires reading comprehension, empathy, and a willingness to accept what you know may not be right. If you're a conservative, by definition, you lack those 3 things. Square peg round hole. Ironically a lot of them would be much happier if they just let a cylindrical peg into their round hole

[@nickdipples8562]

If you call "NatCons" "NatCs" instead it all becomes a lot clearer...

[@joefrancis759]

3:55 impossible not to hear rmbrown''s "IT'S IN THE BIBLE!" right there

[@jimandskittum]

Weird! It sounded like a crystal flute to me.

[@wilhelmmischief8416]

@@jimandskittum What Marx was most interested in proving is that my booty hole is waxed down.

[@jayradical953]

​@@wilhelmmischief8416 I'm in Miami hoe

[@jimandskittum]

@@wilhelmmischief8416 I never touched no pee pees

[@ScottM5.0]

Kinda bummed he never added Candy O saying, “…insert the dildo.” or Benny Papino saying, “…penis & balls.” Bubba Tubb, Bubba Tubb!

[@atwarwithdust]

NEWSFLASH (for right-wingers): There were socialists before Marx!

[@fabiantombers4966]

Always nice to see y’all on the screen together ❤

[@samuelrosander1048]

Good point at the end about people not reading Marx while still trying to explain Marx to other people who haven't read Marx. That's kind of the point. They look at Wikipedia articles, hear some inadequate (and often wrong) explanations from people who self-identify as Marxists, and then think they know enough to tell others what it's about. They're loke "good Christians" who let their pastors tell them what the Bible says, read some cherry-picked quotes, and then do/believe as the pastor says. That's how Stalinized MLs can believe that they're actually Marxists and/or Leninists, or how Maoists think they're Marxists and/or Leninists. Completely different takes on what it means to be a Marxist and/or Leninist than what Marx and Lenin themselves wrote, and they support those takes with "you should read Marx/Lenin and " or "her-a-derp muh democracy" (actual response some moron gave to my nuanced "statism isn't socialism" critique of a video). It's true that if you want to understand Marxism then you need to read Marx and Engels (not just the parts you're told, but the entire documents that the parts you're told are contained in), but Marxists also need to learn to put Marxist terms into common language for people who aren't Marxists. "Dialectics" is not a term people should use (and in fact it is far too often used to mean "relationships" or other things that discount the fact that it's a word that revolves around discourse due to its base term: dialect). "Materialism" can easily be misunderstood. Using plain every-day language is important for connecting with plain every-day people, which is kind of the point of any socialist movement...unless you're one of those who thinks "we need leaders to lead us to socialism because we're too incompetent and stupid to do it ourselves." You know, like a lot of self-identifying "Marxists" (like Maoists and Stalinized MLs) say. "Democracy can't work," according to them. "What about all of the reactionaries? They shouldn't have a say," according to them. Just more regurgitation of elitist talking points with socialist-sounding frills.

[@perrymason866]

Ahh shit, I am so embarrassed to say that I’ve not read Marx. That being said, I believe that socialism should include everybody - just as you’ve said here. The idea that those who are currently misplacing their anger cannot be convinced to democratically take down these systems is probably how the whole thing goes wrong. We should be empowering others, not shouting them down. Thanks for a really well thought out comment!

[@samuelrosander1048]

@@perrymason866Marx is a rough read, but the secret to understanding Marx is to ignore all volumes of Capital completely. Capital is just a deep-dive critique of capitalism (he steel-mans capitalist ideas, then shows how they fail), not an explanation of what Marx advocated (which also means that the Labor Theory of Value...was being critiqued, not supported), yet that's what people point to as his most important work and how to best understand Marxism; a better read is "Value, Price and Profit," which Marx wrote for to counter some common capitalist arguments (some still peddled today!) while he was still working on Volume 1. In fact, a lot of the well-known works of Marx and Engels are mostly just critiques of capitalism or critiques of what other people said/wrote. "Critique of the Gotha Programme" has some important stuff, but it's still primarily a critique of what other people wrote. Marx wasn't always super clear in what he wrote. His writing style is sometimes hard to follow, arriving at the point through examples rather than blunt statements, or else just being really wordy (listen to ME say that...) and overly punctuated. One of the most interesting works that brings his more important ideas concerning socialism and communism together isn't even the Communist Manifesto, but "Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy," where he responds to Bakunin (an anarchist) criticising him as being a statist; the Manifesto has a lot of good stuff that people should try to understand, but it's still just a statement of intent to fight capitalism. It's a very short read (maybe a couple of pages if you were to print it out), but very enlightening if you use the context of other stuff he had written to help interpret some of the less obvious responses. A couple of the most obvious responses are these (B = Bakunin's remark, M = Marx's response): B: The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government? M: Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune. B: and look down on the whole common workers' world from the height of the state. They will no longer represent the people, but themselves and their pretensions to people's government. Anyone who can doubt this knows nothing of the nature of men. M: If Mr Bakunin only knew something about the position of a manager in a workers' cooperative factory, all his dreams of domination would go to the devil. He should have asked himself what form the administrative function can take on the basis of this workers' state, if he wants to call it that. Those two say a LOT about Marx's ideas, from Marx's own hand, which rejects the claim that he wanted state control. Looking at "The Civil War in France," you can catch a glimpse of what such a government might look like as it starts out (the section titled "The Paris Commune" focuses on the commune itself and the intended organizational structure, but it takes a bit of sifting to really get a good picture). It's hard not to turn this into an essay (okay, a BIGGER essay), but if you want to learn more about Marx, with works linked in the text so you can read for yourself exactly what I'm quoting (important if you're trying to learn about Marx because a LOT of people either don't provide citations, or else cite OTHER people who quoted Marx and use those secondary sources as canon), and put into the context of building a socialist future, I've got a blog and supporting website that focuses on general steps we as individual non-elites can take based off of conditions in the United States right now (neoliberal capitalist society). There are small tidbits of theory from Marx, Engels and Lenin throughout the first 12 posts, but after that I go into the theory more explicitly by responding to common "it sounds good in theory, but" arguments and pointing to some other things that are regularly ignored/forgotten concerning Marx, Engels and Lenin. Actually, the example system I use in post 12 is based on a marriage between Marx's description of the Paris Commune's intentions and the system that the Zapatistas created and have been using for the past ~25 years. Spaces added to prevent a link because YT: https: //samuellrosander. wixsite. com/buildingsocialism/blog

[@joshuabauman3209]

It's embarrassing how little they actually engage with the material.

[@iRandom-sy]

Always enjoy your discussions 🙌🌷

[@mere_cat]

I liked David’s impression of a Jordan Peterson fan. Spot on.

[@davidluckens3479]

I found this discussion to be very useful,thanks.

[@nicholasjones3207]

What’s a good intro text, or do I have to dive into Capital?

[@somefunification]

Ben is a radlib though

[@DarkPuppy9]

Ben not carrying water for his transphobic friends in this interview

[@juleswinnfield8556]

Surprisingly. He's a coward. Zero respect.

[@woody40000]

To be fair to Ben Vaush is a youtube streamer and I think he is banned on Twitch.

[@danielcrafter9349]

Ben Vaush???

[@moodycxnt]

The biggest problem with well-meaning streamers who, often times may actually be right about things, is they tend to spend so much of their time streaming and involving themselves in their communities (for better or for worse) that their learning stagnates, eventually they are left in the dust.

[@bradweinberger6907]

Bad ideas plus time does not equal good ideas

[@rickyr1528]

I'm an uneducated lefty so hopefully someone could explain to me the issue David and Ben have with people saying "the fire department is socialism" to promote communist ideology. Isnt nationalization of public services the goal here?

[@ColorMatching]

Depends on who you ask. There are many types of socialism. Marx would say that nationalization is not socialism, but free associations of worker-controlled businesses is a start.

[@Riskofdisconnect]

Do the firefighters own the fire department collectively? Do they have democratic control over how the fire department is run? Generally not. Despite the fact that the US is a representative democracy that doesn't give the community or the workers actual control of the government owned agencies, such as the fire department, which is the problem. Unless you're super authoritarian/state socialist the goal isn't necessarily nationalization but community ownership, operation, and accountability. The modern fire department is a great example of how cooperation and work without profit is a good thing, but it's not really socialism. The firefighters are still paid by wage and have no ownership over their means of production, which still alienates.

[@samuelrosander1048]

One of the most common misconceptions is that nationalization = socialism, state = society. While there are many types of socialism, there are many ideas that claim to be branches which are not. "Authoritarian/state socialism" under any name is not a branch of socialism because it rejects the fundamental concept of the "social" part of the "ism," namely mass participation in democracy. Some branches of socialism barely qualify because of how they limit democracy and "social" ownership/control. So here's a simple way to understand what is being discussed... Imagine a pyramid, with "state," "private," and "social" respectively at each corner. In fact, look up "triangle color gradient" images and that'll help with the visual. For any policy, group of policies, idea or anything else, place it on that triangle based on what it favors by answering these three questions: 1) Who makes decisions? 2) How do they make decisions? 3) In whose interest do they make decisions? Are the decisions made by the whole of the society, by a government, or by private individuals within society? Are the decisions made by common democracy, by exclusive (excluding people not of this select group) democracy, or by autocratic dictate? Are decisions made to benefit the masses, the government, or private individuals? By answering those questions you can place ideas/policies etc closer to one corner or another. Some may lean towards two corners equally or unequally, or even be so devoid of character leading to the other corners that they almost perfectly draw towards just one. The corners, based off of the labels, would be capitalism in the "private" corner, statism in the "state" corner, and socialism (or other leftist ideas) in the "social" corner. When it comes to "socialism," "communism," "anarchy" and other far left ideas, the answers must lean heavily towards the following: 1) The masses of the society make decisions. 2) They make decisions through common democracy. 3) They make decisions to benefit the society. It's not some utopian "everyone is selfless and always makes good decisions" fantasy, but putting the right and power to decide (and discuss) on issues which affect them, rather than abdicating that right, power and responsibility to "someone else" that they might or might not elect, and probably won't have the ability to control. To address the specific question of the fire department and socialism, answer the questions and you'll have the answer. 1) The government makes decisions. 2) They make decisions through a mix of exlusive democracy and autocratic dictate. 3) They make decisions to benefit society, but sometimes give too much weight to private interests. With those answers you can see that fire departments lean heavily towards statism, and while they may drift towards socialism because of the interests they serve, they also drift towards capitalism because of how departments are influenced by capitalists. There are other questions that could/should be asked, such as "who owns" and "who enforces," but those three are "good enough" to get a reasonable idea of whether something is socialist or not. Contrary to Maoists, Stalinized "Marxist-Leninists" (who interestingly reject the fundamental arguments of both Marx and Lenin) and others who self-identify as socialists, communists etc, "statism" is a valid thing to point to. Lenin called one version of statism "state capitalism," but context that a lot of Maoists et al ignore has him differentiate between state-controlled capitalism and society-controlled capitalism (Lenin's "state capitalism" of the USSR would have had the masses making the decisions AS the state, not having the state as a separate entity making decisions on their behalf. He contrasted that to Germany's system of state/private control, which I'll quote below). ----- To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany. Here we have “the last word” in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organisation, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place of the militarist, Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state, but of a different social type, of a different class content-a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism. Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution. We Marxists have always spoken of this, and it is not worth while wasting two seconds talking to people who do not understand even this (anarchists and a good half of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries). At the same time socialism is inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state. This also is ABC. -Lenin, "Tax in Kind" ----- What he's saying in that excerpt (read the whole thing, but focus on what he's trying to say, not what someone else wants you to believe he means. Even me) is what he says in a lot of other documents: the proletariat itself must rule the state, not the other way around. The proletariat must take upon itself the responsibilities of governance so that the state becomes obsolete over time. Initially they must centralize industry and everything else, but simultaneously they must democratize so that "the state" doesn't become an organization apart from the masses of society, but rather the organized society itself. Not "democratize" by electing "someone else" to make decisions, but by incorporating all of society into the decision-making process. (Maoists don't do that. They, like every other statist, keep decision-making among the masses to a minimum and use various excuses for why that's "necessary," or in their word, "correct.") Marx and Engels wrote similarly about nationalization (read "Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy" and "The Civil War in France" by Marx). It's not about investing power into the state machine, but centralizing everything so that the whole proletariat can more reasonably keep accounting and take control; it's far easier to have nation-wide accounting and control of the distribution of resources, standards of labor, living conditions etc if there aren't countless small-and-larger businesses with their own systems that have no responsibility to abide by the mandates of society, but that nation-wide accounting and control must be done by the people, not some "state" above them. Again, Maoists and the rest conveniently leave that part out, and then "herp-a-derp muh democracy" at anyone who points to the discrepancy between their "socialism" and the fundamental ideas of socialism that separate it from other "isms." Okay, I've referenced the "fundamental" thing twice. What is it? The one thing that all branches of socialism have in common, that qualifies them as a branch of socialism at all, is summarized by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on socialism: "The bulk of the means of production is under social, democratic control." There are many types of socialism, but if they don't meet that standard, then what is the reasoning behind claiming that they're a type of socialism other than to appeal to the ignorant masses that "this system is better than traditional capitalism because it's good for the people, which means it's socialism"? Socialism has always referred to a type of society that uses social, not state or private, governance. They may have different policies and ideas on how to do things, but their core principles of social, democratic control were largely the same. This is actually why I don't like Richard Wolff. He's done a lot of videos where he mentions or talks about "types of socialism," but it's really that appeal to the ignorant viewer to say "this system isn't as bad as capitalism, and it benefits the people, so it's a type of socialism," despite him explicitly stating in longer lectures and probably books that it's really "state capitalism" or other "not socialism" systems. Anyway, lengthy as it was, I hope that helps understand what makes socialism different from "fire departments and roads." It's not about if something benefits society, but who holds the right to make decisions (which you could say includes who owns the stuff), how they make decisions, and in whose interests they make their decisions. If "the people" in "rule of the people" (literal translation of "democracy") isn't "everyone in the society without exception or privilege," then it's not socialism because it doesn't meet that single common standard of socialism. Just remember that "the state" and "the government" are NOT "the people" or "the society." They may be somewhat elected, but the people/society have no real control over them, are not consistently and fully informed by them, etc etc etc, and that's leaving out the many influences that private capitalist interests have over society through media manipulation, government manipulation, etc.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Presumably they're anarchists? Socialism isn't just one thing, it's a whole family of schools of thought.

[@branamcs]

How dare you make fun of the guy who lost his mind from drinking apple cider and the other guy practicing his hatchet Kung fu in his yard.

[@jamesmcelroy5830]

No

[@MyceliumNebula]

is it like illegal to dumb shit down or something lol

[@ywtcc]

"There's no such thing as bad publicity" - PT Barnum If you define Marxism as an analysis of the political economy around class, then I think you'll find a surprisingly large percentage of Conservatives are practicing Marxists! The difference is these kinds of Marxists look at this analysis as a prescription rather than as a criticism. Call them counter Marxists if the name of Fascist has become unpopular to describe the position. This is in opposition to Liberal Capitalism, which rejects the Marxist analysis. Liberal Capitalism is perfect with no unintended consequences. There's any number of ways "wokeness" can be criticized. (I define "wokeness" as an awareness that Civil Rights was passed into law 60 years ago, and powerful parts of society still haven't gotten the message). So why criticize "wokeness" as Marxism? Why keep bringing up this guy Marx that, along with Lincoln, had something to do with the founding ideology of the Republican Party in the USA and the Labour Party in the UK? I don't know, there's something fishy about this politics. It looks an awful lot like psychological projection. Maybe there's something to be gained from good faith Marxists calling it out as such.

[@j0j0dartiste21]

It's a thought-terminating cliche. Their explanation begins with "Marxism" and ends with "bad" with nothing in between.

[@ywtcc]

@@j0j0dartiste21 I don't disagree with you in most cases, but it begs the question: What's the history behind this peculiar verbal tic? And do we have an analysis for the psychological and sociological motivations behind it? If the meaning on an individual level is as simple as "bad", then maybe the meaning on a social level (as a means of discrediting an opponent) is more relevant. It's remarkable we have this poorly defined tool of verbal bullying in our political language, it does deserve an explanation for its usage and historical effectiveness. This tool was used to jail and deport people, and have them declared terrorists in the not too distant past.

[@Riskofdisconnect]

​@@ywtcc Is it not common knowledge? "Marxism bad" has been continuously drilled into the skulls of every American through school and media indoctrination for decades. It's such a trite point that Marxism and Communism are definitionally bad for most Americans older than 40. Saying "Marxism bad" is like saying "pink is the girly color" to these people, it's just a 'fact' they accept without reason or basis.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Marxism and conservatism are actually both modernist ideologies, so they do have a bit in common. Of course one of them wants to kill poor people so that's kinda bad.

[@j0j0dartiste21]

​@@ywtcci would say it's primarily about self preservation and narcissism.

[@dreigivetimpoolmassivewedg7646]

If not for Sam I'm 100% sure of it that Matt would be a Dore, Kasparian, Burgis type.

[@nathandrake5544]

That's incredibly silly

[@SynesthesiaBoy]

How?

[@passive_aggressive_regressive]

Does Matt think he looks good with that prepubescent facial hair?

[@bsorofman]

Everybody go read a book! Now that I've done some praxis, I'm going to go watch more KZbin.

[@TheJesselopez1981]

Free, Marx books online. Thats socialism.

[@Comradedax1988]

The most leftist of audios.

[@jthadcast]

two classes, it was a fine idea at the time now it's a brilliant mistake.

[@johnnyjet3.1412]

The Book of James!! - Hey rich boss who mistreats his workers, god in going to turn all of your gold into rust !! - and the verse that the conservatives really hate - you can't get into heaven on grace alone, you need good works !!

[@samuelrosander1048]

No, they are fine with that verse. That's why they do philanthropy and volunteer work. They just disassociate their support of harmful stuff (like capitalism, patriarchy etc) with the fact that they do some "good works," and think that they're righteous because of it...but then, patriarchy and other harmful systems are considered "righteous" in the Bible, and the Bible is all about personal/individual salvation rather than building good societies for their own sake and to benefit the society, so Christianity and other similar religions aren't exactly super compatible with socialism or socialist arguments. Some easy burns, but they've got plenty of material that makes those burns moot.

[@jthadcast]

wait so god is a capitalist?

[@samuelrosander1048]

@@jthadcast Not sure how you got that out of it, but...no. The Bible focuses on personal/individual salvation, not social welfare or public good or anything like that. It is full of support for patrairchy and other harmful behaviors, even in the New Testament (where the kinder, gentler stuff happens). Jesus says to treat each other better, but the focus is still all about personal/individual salvation, not creating a better society. That's why Christianity and other religions aren't all that compatible with socialism, but they're great for capitalism and other top-down systems; it lets people feel like they're righteous for all of their philanthropy and volunteer work despire the kind of society they support with their OTHER beliefs (patriarchy, anti-LGBTQ, capitalism, etc) and behaviors.

[@jthadcast]

@@samuelrosander1048 define "mistreat" in the sense of the bronze age bible. here i'll help, don't maim just beat slaves, don't rape someone's wife only the unmarried are fair game, feed your workers on sunday. it's freaking late-stage capitalism necessary for the revolution. turning gold into rust, buy a steel factory make garbage, give a moderately substandard wage, add inflation, add abundance, add planned obsolescence for stable consumption with a pipeline to the landfill. destroy the planet because of course we just need greater production for the workers' surplus, and everyone profits with infinite growth. it's all trash theory that's fine for self-mastibatory political theorists.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

Y'all really need to be promoting/cooperating with the KZbinrs Socialism For All Fellow Traveler Luna Oi Finnish Bolshevik Democratic Marxist 01 Balkan Odyssey or all three of "The Deprogramed" crew to name a few.

[@plusixty8992]

these all seem like tankies

[@laredolassoo]

In minecraft

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Tankies get out.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

'Thought Terminating Cliches" are a hell of a drug.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

​@@noheroespublishing1907 It's not a thought terminating cliche to point out that someone denies genocide and supports fascistic regimes.

[@Adam-Friended]

Why spend so much time debating definitions? Yes, many conservatives demonize "marxism" reflexively, but so what? The critique is that viewing the world through the oppressor/oppressed lens creates negative stereotypes. The lens might be useful in situations where there is literally tangible oppression, but creating a stereotype that men are oppressors of women, or white people are oppressors of black people is going to erode social capital across society. You guys are arguing that you shouldn't call that argument "cultural marxism" but who cares? Why not discuss that idea and let us know your perspective on this lens on the world and the cultural situation it creates.

[@Dhovakim]

Sure, but i see this kind of discussion is the precondition to opening up to the kinds of questions you bring up. People everyday are trying to broaden their understandings, so I don't think discussing definitions is necessarily useless

[@plusixty8992]

Because by demonizing it people will believe there is no value in it and not learn about it. So to differentiate what a conservative is eluding to when calling something they deem bad as marxist the left needs to say hey, there complaints are with XYZ not marxism. XYZ is actually removed from marxism. Here is a closer and more proper understanding of Marxism. Then the discussion can begin on XYZ without the baggage of defending marxism arbitrarily through it.

[@carlos_herrera]

'Why not just accept the mischaracterization of your views by your ideological adversaries and talk about your issues through their framing?'

[@dreigivetimpoolmassivewedg7646]

​@@carlos_herrerawhy not discuss your views in an everyday/practical matter instead of trying to show everyone how well read and smart you are? These are by far my least favorite types of leftists. Nobody cares about you reading Marx, folks want ideas that can lead to healthcare and safety nets etc. I can hardly understand Matt or Burgis half the time. Meanwhile Seder does a great job explaining why we need uni healthcare and the likes....but you do you and try to sound profound lol.

[@Adam-Friended]

​@@dreigivetimpoolmassivewedg7646 Exactly. The negative stereotypes this lens creates divides communities that would normally be united on economic issues. I don't want to argue over the labels we place on these ideas, the critique appears valid and does tangible harm on issues of economic fairness.

[@swarthyattire]

a

[@Lowe505]

im not into Marx but cool discussion. I still don't know what state mechanism transfers power to a the proletariat making it stateless though? Maybe im missing something.

[@plusixty8992]

horizontal power structures not vertical, power is not top down but bottom up, high organization but extreme democracy, in an anrchist view sometimes to a point where all must agree. Federalization of smaller communities. No businesses without democratic structures in place to give autonomy and say to workers. this leads to no state in the common sense. No classes (no donor class, to politician class etc all are on equal footing because of democratic workplace, economy etc) its hard to know tho the best ways these could be done as the experiments have been rather small.

[@Riskofdisconnect]

​@@GulfCoastGrit if you want modern examples of anarchist power structures you can look to the Zapatistas and Rojava. They are not specifically anarchist or identify as such, but the structures they use are overwhelmingly similar and very practical.

[@samuelrosander1048]

There was never supposed to be a state mechanism for that transfer, because the transition was never meant to be TO state power. That's what Maoists and other top-down "socialists" don't want people to really think about. The focus is always on "improve conditions as quickly as possible," but the socialist (and Marxist) context is consistently left out: the working people must be the ones to do it themselves. The transition from capitalism to socialism was always supposed to consist of centralization AND democratization, not just centralization, and democratization must be meaningful; merely electing "someone else" to make decisions for you is not democratization, but abdicating the right and responsibility of democracy, which is why people who say "our democracy" while talking about a republican form of government are delusional: it's not "our" democracy, but the democracy of the elite because we've abdicated our right to participate by voting for puppets of the elite to do it for us. (Even in countries like the USSR and China, the masses had no real control over their governments, so it wasn't "their" democracy, but the democracy of their party leaders.) One of the things that doesn't get enough attention, and actually is almost completely ignored, is how a socialist revolution is supposed to take control of the state and economy and then transfer power to the masses. There are vague hand-wave references to "democracy," but with no organizational structure to accept the transfer, the assumption is that "it'll happen when the people are ready" or some other nonsense. People might point to the party as the organization, but party organizations are not designed for that kind of broad power. In truth, the masses need to have some idea of how to organize into democratic units, and not just know about but practice it so that it becomes normal, or else such democratization efforts will always be pushed aside in favor of "improve conditions as quickly as possible" by the leading edge of the revolution. In short, this means that the revolution itself needs to happen long before it takes action against the state. The revolution needs to start building and normalizing democratic communities so that they can build the experience needed to take on the responsibilities of the state and the economy, whether abruptly or over time. To that end, I have a *very generalized/generic* blog explaining how we as non-wealthy and overworked individuals in a neoliberal society can at least start the ball rolling (spaces added to prevent a link): https: //samuellrosander. wixsite. com/buildingsocialism/blog It's a work in progress that's mostly lite on the theory (but there's a series of posts dedicated to it) and instead focuses on "what can you realistically do." Even if you don't want socialism it can still be useful for at least making positive changes where you are and, over time, beyond. (I'm currently procrastinating...err, "rationing my energy"...on doing a post about how to start a community-run business, using childcare as the example. Accounting for and explaining the laws/regulations, of course.)

[@PlatinumAltaria]

You don't have to be an anarchist to be a socialist though.

[@samuelrosander1048]

@@PlatinumAltariaAnarchism is when you seek anti-hierarchical government, so please explain in a way that doesn't describe statism with socialist talking points. Because statism isn't socialism, and is actually an opponent of socialism because of how easily it can be used to limit democratic efficacy by a relative few under the guise of "national security," "fighting the counter-revolution," etc. Most arguments I've heard follow along the lines of "democracy can't work" and various Aristotlean "we need people to lead us" beliefs.