I saw someone (probably on here) call Marxism Leninism “militant anti-imperialist social democracy” in a positive way. I think if you are strict about socialism meaning abolition of the value-commodity form, i.e. what Leninists call the higher stage of socialism, it’s not a very strange thing to say. Just have to remove the value judgement from it.
ML is an ideology/theoretical framework that is not itself relations of production and is aimed at producing a socialist relations of production, so I think it’s still a bit silly.
Good summary of many leftcom positions, I think. As far as I can tell, it’s mostly this kind of rigid “this is my definition of socialism, anyone who does not instantly implement it is not a socialist regardless of the material conditions they are working in” stuff.
I would like to meet one of these people in person. I mean, I’m sure they’d be horrified at me since I’m very opposed to dogmatism, am not a Marxist, and simply believe that working and oppressed people must seek to elevate themselves via attaining political power. If there is some version of Marx out there that is more concerned with forming a utopia where no form of exploitation takes place, they can keep him! I’ll stick with reading the notes of the revolutionaries that have actually done something.
True I think the fact I can just tell them “look, I’m not a Marxist, I’m a Catholic that dabbles in Marxist texts and I’m not interested in upholding any kind of ideological purity” instead of telling them that actually I read Marx right and they read him wrong would make them less angry.
I saw someone (probably on here) call Marxism Leninism “militant anti-imperialist social democracy” in a positive way. I think if you are strict about socialism meaning abolition of the value-commodity form, i.e. what Leninists call the higher stage of socialism, it’s not a very strange thing to say. Just have to remove the value judgement from it.
ML is an ideology/theoretical framework that is not itself relations of production and is aimed at producing a socialist relations of production, so I think it’s still a bit silly.
Good summary of many leftcom positions, I think. As far as I can tell, it’s mostly this kind of rigid “this is my definition of socialism, anyone who does not instantly implement it is not a socialist regardless of the material conditions they are working in” stuff.
I would like to meet one of these people in person. I mean, I’m sure they’d be horrified at me since I’m very opposed to dogmatism, am not a Marxist, and simply believe that working and oppressed people must seek to elevate themselves via attaining political power. If there is some version of Marx out there that is more concerned with forming a utopia where no form of exploitation takes place, they can keep him! I’ll stick with reading the notes of the revolutionaries that have actually done something.
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True I think the fact I can just tell them “look, I’m not a Marxist, I’m a Catholic that dabbles in Marxist texts and I’m not interested in upholding any kind of ideological purity” instead of telling them that actually I read Marx right and they read him wrong would make them less angry.
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i mean, the bolsheviks were the revolutionary wing of the social democratic party, so sort of true