Cowbee [he/they]

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn’t matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my Marxist-Leninist study guides, both basic and advanced!

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: December 31st, 2023

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  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlChoose Wisely
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    5 hours ago

    The HK riots were western-backed, fighting to remain under British colonialism. Since the HK riots, things have cooled down considerably, with the majoriry favoring the transition due to improving economic conditions and the benefits of being better-integrated into the socialist economy of China.



  • I think it’s a bit of that, but also more nuanced. Gramsci points out that anarchism does not necessarily have a solid class basis, though it’s common among classes like the petite bourgeoisie, it also attracts proletarians and other classes opposed to the present bourgeois state. After socialist revolution, proletarian anarchists overwhelmingly side with the socialists, as the new proletarian state no longer oppresses them, while petite bourgeois, bourgeois, etc. anarchists continue to oppose the new socialist state.

    Anarchism is, essentially, loosely linked by the desire for class freedom against an oppressive class state, not by a proletarian world outlook like Marxism-Leninism. The Russian revolution largely mapped out how Gramsci described, with “Red anarchists” joining the soviets, leaving the remainder to be seen as the new totality of anarchists that occasionally fought the soviets. This form of historiography hides the actual left unity that happened, the working together of the majority of anarchists with the Marxists, and pit them as bitter enemies when class interests brought the majority of anarchists together with the Marxists.



  • To add onto the Zapatista point, even actual self-described anarchists like in Catalonia developed vertical organizational elements during the Spanish Civil War out of necessity, and were more effective for it. Their reluctance to do so at first actually hindered them. Contrast that to the Red Army, which started off more horizontal but adapted much quicker, and we can see that the Red Army’s success in the Russian Civil War can be partially attributed to their flexibility when encountering new material conditions.




  • Edit: To be clear: I prefer socialism. Not whatever feelgood capitalism, but make it green on the left is.

    The PRC has a socialist market economy, not “feelgood capitalism.” The commanding heights of industry are publicly owned, the working classes have control of the state, and this combination is what allows for the PRC’s strong movements towards electrification, combatting desertification, and uplifting the working classes. China in many ways is advancing towards what Solarpunks reportedly want, a green economy directed towards working class interests.




  • Having a mix of people commenting with different viewpoints already contributes to this, but there’s also many people that scroll locally exclusively. There’s also differences in admins and moderators, their rules and preferences, etc. This itself forms its own culture. It isn’t the absence of culture, but the presence of a unique, blended culture, which isn’t inherently better or worse.

    .world is widely federated, but it also selectively defederates from communist instances, and bans people for being too critical of Zionism. This influences Lemmy.world’s culture greatly despite relatively broad federation.



  • The problem is that all of those “nicer parts” are used to justify and support the elephant in the room, the right to private property. Liberalism has been used historically to justify slavery, genocide, imperialism, and more. Liberalism cannot be removed from its economic basis, the economic basis is the driving force for the ideology. It’s individualism taken to an anti-social level.



  • Gotcha! For what it’s worth, neutrality doesn’t truly exist. What we think of as neutral is really that which conforms to our pre-existing beliefs. Our language, culture, norms, etc. reinforce this idea of what is “neutral,” which in reality is a comparison to these subjects. With that being said, I would think of it more in terms of what you want to see: broad federation, selective defederation, etc., as well as what each instance is like to browse locally. All have their own vibes, Lemmy.zip isn’t “vibeless” just because it is broadly federated.

    Just a tip!



  • Regarding point 1, this is relatively true.

    Regarding point 2, all of these states are “authoritarian,” the difference being which class has authority, and which classes has authority imposed upon them. Cuba, the PRC, and Vietnam are all socialist countries with the working class in charge of the state, while France, Europe, and the US are all imperialist countries/regions where capitalists control the state and impose their authoritarian rule upon the working classes.

    Regarding point 3, this could be a possible explanation but requires actual backing.

    Regarding point 4, it’s important to compare not just systems dogmatically, but against peers, and what came before. Germany, the UK, Austria, etc. are all imperialist countries, and thus have greater access to resources. It matters both how much resources you have, and what you do with them. Socialist countries have more pro-social policy that stretches resources farther.

    In total, it certainly is propaganda in that it’s trying to convey a specific point for a specific aim, just like your comment can be considered propaganda. You offer some decent ideas of how to improve the data, but you also insert your own biases without backing them up, and run into metaphysical errors regarding how these are compared (such as ignoring levels of development and imperialism).


  • Yep! Been reading Gramsci lately, and he puts into words this phenomenon really well:

    The widespread prejudice that philosophy is something very difficult because it is the intellectual activity of a specific category of specialist scholars or professional and systematic philosophers must be destroyed. To do this we must first show that all men are “philosophers,” defining the limitations of this “spontaneous philosophy” possessed by “everyone,” that is, of the philosophy contained in: (1) language itself, which is a totality of determined notions and concepts and not simply and solely of words grammatically void of content; (2) common sense and good sense; (3) popular religion and therefore also in the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of perceiving and acting which make up what is generally called “folklore.”

    Having shown that everyone is a philosopher, even if in his own way, unconsciously (because even in the smallest manifestation of any intellectual activity — “language” — is contained a definite conception of the world), we pass to the second stage, the stage of criticism and awareness. We pass to the question: is it preferable to “think” without having critical awareness, in a disjointed and irregular way, in other words to “participate” in a conception of the world “imposed” mechanically by external environment, that is, by one of the many social groups in which everyone is automatically involved from the time he enters the conscious world; [3] or is it preferable to work out one’s own conception of the world consciously and critically, and so out of this work of one’s own brain to choose one’s own sphere of activity, to participate actively in making the history of the world, and not simply to accept passively and without care the imprint of one’s own personality from outside?

    Note 1: For his own conception of the world a man always belongs to a certain grouping, and precisely to that grouping of the social elements who all share the same ways of thinking and working. He is a conformist in relation to some conformity, he is always man of a mass or a man of a collective. The question is this: of what historical type is the conformity, the mass of which he is a part? When his conception of the world is not critical and coherent but haphazard and disconnected he belongs simultaneously to a multiplicity of masses, giving his own personality a bizarre composition. It contains elements of the cave-man as well as principles of the most modern and advanced learning; shabby, local prejudices of all past historical phases as well as intuitions of a future philosophy of the human race united all over the world. Criticizing one’s own conception of the world means, therefore, to make it coherent and unified and to raise it to the point reached by the most advanced modern thought. It also means criticizing all hitherto existing philosophy in so far as it has left layers incorporated into the popular philosophy. The beginning of the critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, that is, a “know thyself” as the product of the historical process which has left you an infinity of traces gathered together without the advantage of an inventory. To begin, then, it is necessary to first compile such an inventory.

    Note 2: Philosophy cannot be separated from the history of philosophy nor culture from the history of culture. In the most immediate and pertinent sense one cannot have a critically coherent conception of the world — that is, one cannot be a philosopher — without being aware of one’s conception’s history, of the phases of development it represents, and of the fact that any conception stands in contradiction to other conceptions, or elements of other conceptions. The correct conception of the world answers certain problems posed by reality which are very much determined and “original” in their actuality. How is it possible to think about the present — and a well-determined present at that — with a philosophy elaborated in response to the problems of a remote and often outdated past? If this happens it means that one is an “anachronism” in one’s own time, a fossil and not a modern living being. Or at least one is “composed” bizarrely. And in fact it so happens that social groups which in certain ways express the most developed modernity, are arrested in other ways by their social position, and so are incapable of complete historical independence. [4]

    Note 3: Given that language contains the elements of a conception of the world and of a culture, it will also be true that the greater or lesser complexity of a person’s conception of the world can be judged from that person’s language. A person who only speaks a dialect or who understands the national language in varying degrees necessarily enjoys a more or less restricted and provincial, fossilized and anachronistic perception of the world in comparison with the great currents of thought which dominate world history. His interests will be restricted, more or less guild-like or economistic, and not universal. If it is not always possible to learn foreign languages so as to put oneself in touch with different cultures, one must at least learn the national tongue. One great culture can be translated into the language of another great culture, that is, one great national language which is historically rich and complex, can translate any other great culture, i.e. can be a world expression. But a dialect cannot do the same thing.

    Note 4: The creation of a new culture does not only mean individually making some “original” discoveries. It means also and especially the critical propagation of truths already discovered, “socializing them” so to speak, and so making them become a basis for vibrant actions, an element of co-ordination and of intellectual and moral order. The leading of a mass of men to think coherently and in a unitary way about present-day reality is a “philosophical” fact of much greater importance and “originality” than the discovery by a philosophical “genius” of a new truth which remains the inheritance of small groups of intellectuals.