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Formerly called the NCS, this is a place for communists and socialists to talk about communism and socialism. 

Tags: Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Political, Left 

Reply MCS: Marxism, Communism, Socialism
Labor Socialism Revolution in the Near Future

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zipspeed

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:44 am


Do you think there will be a labor socialism revolution in the near future?

I don't think so because I am living in P. R. China; ironically the living condition of its labor class is much inferior to its capitalism counterparts. Whether another revolution will happen in these countries like USA or UK is rather dubious.

So if a revolution does happen, it could be less possible lead by figures like Linen or Mao. Their time have passed.

In China, the communism ideology is a compulsory part of one’s education. After six years of learning, I have got some doubts. Communism is a theory mainly built by Karl Marx, a Germen in several centuries before. I assume that he had successful estimated the social condition of HIS SOCIETY. But whether the conflict between labor-class and capitalists is the main social conflict today?

Personally I agree with the final objective of Communism, an ideal society without inequity. But today the boundary between classes is more and more unclear. I do not think there will be another October Revolution today because there does not exist a class which another hates. An alternate would be like a Cyberpunk society, which is certainly more positive than what we consider today. Great corporations will find the most goods for its people and all nations, religions and inequities finally die.

What do you think, my comrades?
PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:38 am


Problem is, production for most major US corporations gets outsourced, ironically enough, to China. Upon closer examination, this creates more social problems, because it removes jobs from the US, which in turn causes unemployment, and the chain reaction follows. Eventually things could get interesting.

I personally discovered works of communist ideology on my own, stumbled across Marx while teaching myself political philosophy for use in debate, and realized that I agreed with him. Sure, the Industrial Revolution is over, and new advances have made some of the issues he faced obsolete, but the whole world isn't like that. A small portion of the world's population controls a great part of the world's resource, and not everybody lives like people in the US or UK do. There is incredible poverty in the modern world, but people in the US are generally blind to its existance, because they have never personally seen or experienced it.

Lady Merewyn


Dark Undead Lord Takai

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:38 am


The next major Revolution will be unlike anything we've seen before due to capitalism's development of the "Global Marketplace". I no longer see the class struggle confined to one state, but the struggle of nations themselves. For example, I don't think Africa can develop as long as the US and Europe are as developed as they are. USA is boursiouse(sp) and Afrika is proletairiet(sp... I'm such a bad commi for not knowing to spell THOSE words cry ). The revolution will be international, just as Lenin thought. He predicted wrong and I think that feudalism was fought in that cold October, not capitalism. The revolution is coming we must all prepare.

By the way... Gaia isn't blocked by the "Great Firewall of China"?... cool.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:14 am


It could very well be that the NCS isn't, but other portions of Gaia may be.

I would stay away from broad generalizations like "Africa is proletarian" for the most part africa is actually petty bourgeois (as many people just farm). Sure imperialism is a factor, but that doesn't stop africans with the proper money supplies to enter into the ranks of the bourgeois. Our struggle has always been an international one from the start.

One would note that at the same time as the Russian Revolution, copy-cat revolutions occured in many nations (but were put down). Note also that the USSR fermented revolution in South East Asia, and supported the regimes of Allende, Sandina, and Cuba. The russian revolution just didn't spread to western europe (and was stemmed in fact by Stalin with his neutering of the Comintern). The Russian revolution also openly acknowledged that it was fighting Feudalism (the idea was to skip capitalism).

See places and people don't develope on a strict scale, in 1917 Russia had some sections that were VERY well organized and industrialized, and large portions of Russia were still essentially feudal.

Any new revolution will, like Lenin said, likely occur in third world nations, or France, becuase of France's strong socialist history.

So far, since the fall of the Soviet Union, we've seen the rise of Venzuela, Bolivia, the return of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Zapsistas conquest in Mexico, Lukashenko in Belarus (as well as a maintainance of 80% socialization), and a Maoist insurrection in Nepal, as well as the KPRF (Communist Party of Russia) gaining seats and % of the vote every election it sits.


If anything the "global marketplace" has reinvigorated socialism and the working class, and better connected it.

As for China. I know people across the board are very unhappy, due to low living standards amidst large amounts of economic growth, improper operation of democracy, and market liberalization. Could Mandel's revolution occur? I don't know, I don't know much about the situation on the ground in China, or how effective a people's movement would be due to the current situation there.

34616782446782 b76


Lady Merewyn

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:18 pm


REDGallenger
It could very well be that the NCS isn't, but other portions of Gaia may be.

I would stay away from broad generalizations like "Africa is proletarian" for the most part africa is actually petty bourgeois (as many people just farm). Sure imperialism is a factor, but that doesn't stop africans with the proper money supplies to enter into the ranks of the bourgeois. Our struggle has always been an international one from the start.

One would note that at the same time as the Russian Revolution, copy-cat revolutions occured in many nations (but were put down). Note also that the USSR fermented revolution in South East Asia, and supported the regimes of Allende, Sandina, and Cuba. The russian revolution just didn't spread to western europe (and was stemmed in fact by Stalin with his neutering of the Comintern). The Russian revolution also openly acknowledged that it was fighting Feudalism (the idea was to skip capitalism).

See places and people don't develope on a strict scale, in 1917 Russia had some sections that were VERY well organized and industrialized, and large portions of Russia were still essentially feudal.

Any new revolution will, like Lenin said, likely occur in third world nations, or France, becuase of France's strong socialist history.

So far, since the fall of the Soviet Union, we've seen the rise of Venzuela, Bolivia, the return of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Zapsistas conquest in Mexico, Lukashenko in Belarus (as well as a maintainance of 80% socialization), and a Maoist insurrection in Nepal, as well as the KPRF (Communist Party of Russia) gaining seats and % of the vote every election it sits.


If anything the "global marketplace" has reinvigorated socialism and the working class, and better connected it.

As for China. I know people across the board are very unhappy, due to low living standards amidst large amounts of economic growth, improper operation of democracy, and market liberalization. Could Mandel's revolution occur? I don't know, I don't know much about the situation on the ground in China, or how effective a people's movement would be due to the current situation there.
Not to mention that from what I've observed it would seem that the communists/socialists may be gaining ground again in Ukraine, as the coalition that overthrew them is falling to pieces.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:20 pm


Dark_Lord_Takai
By the way... Gaia isn't blocked by the "Great Firewall of China"?... cool.
I've been thinking all day, actually.

Lady Merewyn


Dark Undead Lord Takai

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:55 pm


All we can do is sit and wait, for did not Marx say that it will not be a revolution of the few but all, and communists would carry through.

Unlike Lenin, who believed a small group of devoted revolutionaries could achieve their goals. (For the record I agree with Lenin)
PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:54 pm


Dark_Lord_Takai
The next major Revolution will be unlike anything we've seen before due to capitalism's development of the "Global Marketplace". I no longer see the class struggle confined to one state, but the struggle of nations themselves. For example, I don't think Africa can develop as long as the US and Europe are as developed as they are. USA is boursiouse(sp) and Afrika is proletairiet(sp... I'm such a bad commi for not knowing to spell THOSE words cry ). The revolution will be international, just as Lenin thought. He predicted wrong and I think that feudalism was fought in that cold October, not capitalism. The revolution is coming we must all prepare.

By the way... Gaia isn't blocked by the "Great Firewall of China"?... cool.


Well, most of Chinese does not know the site, I guess.

zipspeed


Lady Merewyn

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:33 pm


zipspeed
Dark_Lord_Takai
The next major Revolution will be unlike anything we've seen before due to capitalism's development of the "Global Marketplace". I no longer see the class struggle confined to one state, but the struggle of nations themselves. For example, I don't think Africa can develop as long as the US and Europe are as developed as they are. USA is boursiouse(sp) and Afrika is proletairiet(sp... I'm such a bad commi for not knowing to spell THOSE words cry ). The revolution will be international, just as Lenin thought. He predicted wrong and I think that feudalism was fought in that cold October, not capitalism. The revolution is coming we must all prepare.

By the way... Gaia isn't blocked by the "Great Firewall of China"?... cool.


Well, most of Chinese does not know the site, I guess.
That's awesome. Please do be careful though.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:02 pm


unfortuantely takai, what you put foward is what as leninism, is actualy blanquism.

blanquism: a small revolutionary force can take and hold power until the rest of the people rise up and join them.
leninism: only a dedicated group of revolutionaries can succeed in keeping their ideology and spread it to the proletariat. in such a way, will the revolutionary party lead the revolution, not accomplish it all on its own.

Le Pere Duchesne
Captain

Beloved Prophet


Dark Undead Lord Takai

PostPosted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:09 am


Gracchvs
unfortuantely takai, what you put foward is what as leninism, is actualy blanquism.

blanquism: a small revolutionary force can take and hold power until the rest of the people rise up and join them.
leninism: only a dedicated group of revolutionaries can succeed in keeping their ideology and spread it to the proletariat. in such a way, will the revolutionary party lead the revolution, not accomplish it all on its own.


Oh... thanks for that. Didn't Lenin also say something about imperialism being the final for of capitalism?
PostPosted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:36 am


Well, clearly he missed out on a new stage, but at the time imperialist monopoly was the highest stage of capitalism (we see now only a slight modification- that being imperialist transnational monopoly). So he is still, in essence, correct, it is merely the status quo that changed (national monopoly to international monopolies with no nation).

34616782446782 b76


Le Pere Duchesne
Captain

Beloved Prophet

PostPosted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:33 pm


you forget that the formulation fo imperialism is this:

a monopoly of finance capital backed by the military force of its state.

now to prove this, there are 4 huge financial organisations, that is, huge scale merchant banks, that own, either directly, or through what they own, every major company and corporation there is.
unfortunately, i dont know what they are, but they consist of 1 US, 2 german, and 1 japanese.
when you go to the top, both pepsi-cola and coca-cola amatil are owned by that one US bank... heh... funny...

Quote:
Didn't Lenin also say something about imperialism being the final for of capitalism?



ok, and now i will give the whole spiel about imperialism.

basicaly, capitalism, when it came into its own, free from feudalism, was based on the free market.
in a free market you have a number of business entities competing for the patronage of a limited population(in this case the population is the money, not the people.) eventually, the businessess that are good at making profit(through whatever means) will get bigger, the ones that are not so good, will not. in some cases, the owners of the failing or not-so-competitive companies will sell their business to the ones that are doing good, in other cases, they will get a loan from a financial institution.
eventually, this happens to all businesses of any economic worth, untill banks either own outright various companies, and therefor also the companies that those companies own, or, through giving loans, they hold a great financial importance for those companies and get to determine, in a more or less limited way, what that business will do. that is, what it makes/sells, who it gets its supplies off and so on.

from this, we see that even if the bourgeoisie itself doesnt actually shring in size as most assume should happen, what happens is that the capital of the majority of the bourgeoisie gets concentrated into fewer and fewer businessess.

and the state we live in is a bourgeois state.
it will defend and expan its interests in other locales through military might if nessessary.
but imperialism is BOTH of these things, that is, it is not just the monopoly of finance capital(the banks), but also when the world has been divided into either spheres of influence or outright political sovereignty of the majour economic-military powers.

this finaly happened between 1890 and 1900. after that, when the whole worl is dominated by one or another power, the only way to extend one countries influence is to take away from another.

but this is not for markets as the bourgeoisie say, no, not at all.
it is for cheap labour.

now yes, lenin did say that it was the highest stage of capitalism, and gallenger, i would like you to prove what this new period is... ive never heard of it befor, and i cannot see how the world has changed fundamentaly, that is, anything beyond who is dominant, and the tech we use.
PostPosted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:48 am


I'm not going to be overly technical here.


I don't deny imperialism as you can see.

I'll state imperialism to be Nationally based Finance and Industrial capital exploiting various outside entities for economic gain on the basis of monopoly. Whereby, war is the most used means of coercion or expropriation of imperialized entities.


But we can see that this has changed slightly.

Firstly, after the massive imperialist wars were fought, tinier imperialist wars of expropriation and political cliques were fought (for example the anti-communist wars, and the imperialist funded revolutions and coups in favor of pro(pick your imperialist) figures.

But the grand scale has changed mainly because the majority of classical imperialist powers (germany/France/England) lost or gave up many of their holdings internationally in favor of the two new great powers The USA and the USSR. As the USSR began to weaken and after its death we saw a real resurgance of Germany and other economies.

But all of this is standard imperialism.

What has changed is the character of monopoly and finance capital. The majority of imperialist powers no longer seek monopoly over specific nations (at least officially) but only over specific spheres. Hence why Venezuelan oil was monopolized by the US, and their arable land by the British for example- rather than all just one imperialist power. This is becuase the imperialist monopolies have, to some degree, decided that fighting various imperialist powers is a waste- and too dangerous. Instead they make pacts and trade offs, and moderately sovereign states pick how and by whom they are to be exploited in many degrees.

But why the change. Khrushchev would have said it was the balance of power- but now there is no balancing power. Today we see not national monopolies competing against eachother, but rather, titanic trans-national corporations who seek political influence in several states and have no true home state. Thus the transnationals have spheres of control not only in particular imperialist powers, they really act as the limbs of imperialism, and to a large degree control these monopolies independent of any authority- and sell their services to the highest bidder. Thus capitalism replied by establishing international bureaus for governining international capitalism, and it is only obvious that the Trans-nationals have conquered these bodies too.

The old monopolies also had limited spheres of influence, for instance German made cement. Now the transnationals- due to their pick and choose nature on monopolization and lack of ability to fight true wars against eachother, instead monopolize many firms, nations, and spheres of production/finance. A major transnational would be Bechtel corp- and it is entirely impossible to tell just what this corporation's purpose is; other than to monopolize as many foreign and local resources as they can.

Thus we see that the transnationals rather than acting in unison with various imperialist power's wishes, in fact, act on their own initiatives, and instead seek to influence the political spheres of various imperialist (and imperialized) nations. This is a new development since Lenin's times.

34616782446782 b76

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MCS: Marxism, Communism, Socialism

 
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