Greed as in people that abondon all morals for material and money.
If someone is both they will continue to live with only one of those.
Just curious what leftists target more.
Religious extremism specially Abrahamic ones because they(all) believe in gospel truth, Despite all the evidence. They also want to enforce laws based on gospel truth. While greedy can be reasonable.
Greed as in people that abondon all morals for material and money.
Its called materialism and is related to Philistinism
Schopenhauer defined philistine as
he is a human being without intellectual needs. Several things follow from this: first, in respect of himself, that he remains without intellectual pleasures, according to the already mentioned principle: ‘There are no true pleasures without true needs.’ No keen urge towards knowledge and insight for their own sake animate his existence, nor one towards actual aesthetic pleasures, which are definitely related to the first urge. Such pleasures as are imposed on him by fashion or authority, he will dispose of as quickly as possible as a kind of forced labour. Real pleasures for him are the sensuous ones alone; in them he finds compensation. Accordingly, oysters and champagne are the highpoint of his existence, and the purpose of his life is to acquire everything that contributes to bodily well-being. And he is lucky enough if this purpose keeps him busy! For if those goods are already conferred on him in advance, he will inevitably fall prey to boredom, against which all possible means are tried: ballet, theatre, society, card games, gambling, horses, women, drinking, travelling, and so on. But all of these are not sufficient to ward off boredom, when a lack of intellectual needs makes intellectual pleasures impossible. Hence a dull, dry seriousness, close to that of animals, is characteristic of the philistine. Nothing delights him, nothing excites him, nothing rouses his interest. For sensuous pleasures are soon exhausted; a society made up of philistines just like him soon becomes boring; card games finally become tiresome. At most, he is left to enjoy the pleasures of vanity in his own way, consisting in his exceeding others in regard to wealth, or rank, or influence and power, by whom he is then honoured, or in associating with people who excel in such things and thus basking in[366] the reflection of their splendour (a snoba). – From the fundamental qualities of a philistine we have described it follows secondly, in respect to others, that, since he has no intellectual, but only physical needs, he will seek out the person who is able to satisfy the latter, not the one who can satisfy the former. Hence among the demands he makes on others, the least will be that of predominant intellectual abilities; on the contrary, if he encounters these, they will arouse his dislike, even his hatred, because in reaction to them he has only an annoying feeling of inferiority and, in addition, one of dull, secret envy. This he carefully hides by trying to conceal it even from himself, which is why it sometimes grows into a secret rage. Therefore, it will never occur to him to measure his appreciation, or deep respect, in accordance with such qualities; this is exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, and power and influence, which in his eyes are the only true merits in which he wishes to excel. – But all this follows from the fact that he is a human being without intellectual needs.
This question is separating one and the other - both are bad - but I think religious extremism is powered by extreme greed causing extreme poverty and vulnerability.
So actually, maybe I do have the answer. Get rid of extreme greed, and religion does not go extreme.
Even the crackpots calling for genocide won’t get a voice.
Correct me if I’m wrong but even Hitler employed the tactic of blaming the Jews for the poverty (and other things) in Germany. But in reality it was the Great Depression. Germany was one of three nations that had the highest unemployment in the (western) world.
Yes, Nazism wasn’t a religion but a cult. But religions can involve a god, many gods, or idolise an object or a person. Hitler was it. He was like a war god.
Exactly what I was thinking. Selflessness = solution to everything.
Both religious extremism and greed are superstructural, not the base. Leftists target the base, as the superstructure is shaped by the base and in turn reinforces the base. Move onto socialism and communism, and the oppressive superstructural elements of today will also fade.
Tf, ideology is always base
Move onto socialism and communism
Is this base or superstructure or hypocrisy?
Sure, Artha influence all those “superstructure”, but ideology is always base.
Ideology is superstructure, not base. The ideology of capitalism, for example, is largely liberalism, which justifies it. Socialism and communism are modes of production, their ideologies are things like Marxism-Leninism.
Either I fail to understand you or You are word playing, your conclusion about questions like, capitalism being bad or good is your ideology. Without ideology as base, you don’t know how to use resources(including efforts, time) based on which values.
Taking into account that you are communist & common thing i heard about communist is they want to remove all classes. Criticism to that is there are natural classes, stupid & wise, brave & coward, old & young and natural instincts like greed, fear. These will naturally demand more share for their higher abilities. With time, there will be classes again.
Capitalism is a mode of production, so is socialism and communism. These are real, material things, and form the base structure of society. Ideology is how we interpret these things, we don’t decide them based on ideology. Ideology is a reinforcing aspect of the superstructure that justifies the mode of production, but it arises from material conditions.
In other words, the way we interact with production shapes our experiences, and thus the way we think and act, not the other way around.
As for class, you’re extending its meaning beyond its intent. It refers to relations to production and distribution, communism fully acknowledges the differences in people’s abilities, wants, and needs. A classless society is one in which all production has been sublimated into collectivized and planned production with equal ownership, ie one economy collectively run and planned.
Is one not the result of the other?
Some folks might be on some prosperity gospel bullshit, but I don’t think Elon, Zuck, et. al. believe in a power above themselces.
The other uses the one as their main tool for spreading propoganda no?
Greed 100%. Religious extremism only hurts a minority. The people trapped in the cults, the family members of the 50’s dad hitting them with the bible, victims of crusade/jihad style atrocities etc.
Which is awful but manageable.
Greed is definitely, definitely definitely going to end our entire species, probably only a couple generations away.
Greed causes way, way more suffering in the world.
Greed.
Religuous extremism is already on its way down and unlikely to ever go up again.
I would rather religion doesn’t exist any more, not just religious ‘extremism’, that sounds very subjective
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both both is good
The priority for me is any authoritarianism. Authoritarianism by itself is extremist; wanting a world liberated of that is not.
Surveillance capitalism, religious fundamentalism, it’s all the same to me: they seek to control people and the flow of good life standards, away from the masses, towards their leaders.
Surveillance capitalism does so by selling your private data to the highest bidder, and these will use it to spy on you, bribing, harassing, and corrupting lawmakers into creating a surveillance state - a perfect recipe for authoritarianism to pop its head up. They direct attention away from the oligarchs so that we do not combat them.
Religious fundamentalism sells your personhood to the strongest converters, to those that strip you of autonomy; such groups thus also spy on you. They always look for the downtrodden, weakest and most vulnerable, to direct their hatred for their current situation away from the true source – oligarchs.
So for me, I’d say there is no difference and this question is meaningless: it’s asking for the difference between a golden apple/window and a golden cross. At the end of day, both cannot be eaten, but all buy it up blindly.
To be clear, all states are authoritarian. Since states are an extension of the ruling class, it’s better for the working class to have that authority, at least until classes are gradually abolished and all property sublimated into common ownership, at which point the state withers away as it has nothing else to uphold.
I do not for a second trust the state to wither away when a vanguard party is in power. I’d rather skip that phase entirely before it can corrupt politicians.
Sure, gradual withering would be nice, and ideal; but is there any socialist state that ever actually turned communist? in that there’s no significant bureaucracy, no surveillance, where there’s no democratic centralism*, and where workplace democracy is everywhere?
* western parties also do this, called party whips.
The state withering isn’t a deliberate thing, and it has never been so. The state withers with respect to property sublimation into common ownership. Even into communism, as a stateless society, administration and planning will still exist. On an extreme length of time, these will fade into habit, but as a state is chiefly an instrument of class oppression, without class distinctions there is no class to oppress.
When people say that the state can be abolished on an immediate scale, they are speaking of a different concept entirely. Anarchists wish for full decentralization and horizontalism, while Marxists advocate for full collectivization and planning. In the eyes of the Marxist, anarchists would retain class as ownership is local, and this basis will give rise to the state and capitalism to re-emerge.
So, to answer your question, no, no socialist society has made it to the fully global, collectivized, classless society. That’s a bit like asking if a baseball player grew up to become a baseball team by themselves, that’s the wrong question. The correct question would be have socialists maintained socialism, and managed to provide dramatic improvements for their people because of it? And the answer to that, is yes.
Side note, whips are a form of party discipline, but not the same as democratic centralism, where there is diverse discussion but unity in action.
Except that with anarchocommunism, there is no class to speak of, as ownership is not private, but common; and neither transferrable (to the next generation) nor accumulatable.
If a larger whole - which is far stronger than an individual -, can decide for the person, then the state and correspondingly, capitalism will return, because they can override the individual, while not giving them an option to do otherwise.
Henceforth there absolutely can be repression without class distinction. If anyone ever has more power than others, and can misuse it, you bet some will.
I do think that some societies have achieved collectivisation and classlessness, such as the Zapatists. They have managed to do so without getting vertically organised - an incredible accomplishment.
And no: my question centered around the abolition of class and the state, which together would constitute communism for me. But the harsh reality is that without abolition of capitalism and all authority, socialism will never achieve free communism; oligarchs will either try their hardest to regress it into a free market, or use the power to repress. While building enough homes and raising life standards is good, it is not satisfactory enough when there’s no possibility for criticism after decisions have been taken. What freedom, what socialism is there, when one cannot criticise and be a free queer?
Your metaphor thus wouldn’t hold exactly; a better analogy would be that of the baseball player not using his prowess to harass other teammates into giving him gifts and doing as he says; and instead, the baseball player actually cooperates with everyone, sharing equally; because if he does so, so too will he receive equal positiveness back.
So, I’m inclined to beg to differ. Regression and repression is the mantra of an authoritarian. I reject the chances of such a path and prefer a direct path to communism.
Whips are indeed the same: as in parties often discussion is still permissible, but when it comes to votes, the whip forces aside freedom of decision. I view it as a tool of authoritarianism.
What would be most ideal, is to make the ‘equilibrium’ situation as close to anarchocommunism as possible, if not the same. The more attractive for oligarchs to give up their wealth and class distinction altogether, the better.
Anarcho-communism repeats petite bourgeois class relations, wishing each cell/commune/etc to be equivalent worker/owners while rejecting collectivized global ownership. As each cell has different resources and geography, each will have greater or lesser development, giving rise to further social striation.
Having individuals not capable of going against the collective interests of humanity isn’t a bad thing. Capitalism cannot return from a fully collectivized global economy without ecological disaster or something equivalent.
The Zapatistas explicitly reject the anarchist label, and still have class, for what it’s worth. Zapatismo is its own thing, and while they reference anarchism and Marxism-Leninism in their founding, they prefer their own terminology as it is the basis of a decolonial struggle.
Your insistence that any and all leadership will always revert to capitalism or private interests being upheld isn’t true. It isn’t backed up by historical evidence, nor theoretical, it depends on an idealist notion of matter having an inherent “corrupting” quality.
All AES states wish to spread socialism, but all exist under siege and threat from capitalism. Simply “sharing” will not spread socialism and result in communism, that completely erases the millitant role of capitalist nations against socialist states.
Ultimately, there is no direct path to communism. One cannot abolish the state and class without collectivizing all property globally, and this cannot happen without building it. There is no A to Z shortcut. Anarchism itself isn’t the same as the Marxist conception of communism, it’s based on individualism and horizontalism, rather than collectivization and democratization.
Democratic Centralism is a critical tool for practice, any group that cannot act in a unified manner and allows itself to fall into factionalism will fracture and buckle, failing to meaningfully challenge capitalism. Even some anarchist orgs are adopting democratic centralism as a matter of practicality.
Capitalists will not willingly give up their privledged positions, socialism has only truly come about in a lasting fashion through revolution.
Having individuals not capable of going against the collective interests of humanity isn’t a bad thing.
Until that “collective interests” becomes an authoritarian force. I think you don’t understand me. I reject seeking to achieve communism through a dictatorship; it can only be done fully democratically, through and by the people; not through any vanguard.
Anarchism isn’t per se based around individualism - it is based around the rejection of the state altogether. Anarchocollectivism exists; but I do not subscribe to that school of thought.
You also say that it’s not rooted in historical evidence etc. that any and all leadership will *always* revert to capitalism or private interests being upheld… one would have to be more than blind to not see it; the Soviet Union and the PRC for example, are perfect examples of state bureaucracy. What communism, when Stalin murdered critics such as Trotsky simply because they didn’t fit his agenda? What non-capitalism when wages still exist? Or let’s look to social democracy, which is still susceptible to capitalist meddling, as with the murder of Olof Palme? Or to look at the dozens of coups by the capitalist US?
The facts are crystal clear: blindness for the bad side of leadership is blindness away from communism.
Zapatists also do not reject anarchism - they’re literally named after one and in contrast to marxists-leninists and adjacents, actually uphold the freedom of communism.
Democratic centralism is a tool for dictators. Point said. It is an attempt to establish and reinforce a state, and so I reject it.
There also, in fact is a direct path to communism. That is; setting up grassroots organisations, working together with each other. Giveaway stores, federation among all who adhere to a gift economy and workplace democracy model, and so on. When a tailor gives a farmer clothes, and the farmer the tailor clothes; and so on. It’s a simplified explanation, but Kropotkin’s good material to read.
Capitalists will not give up their position willingly, that is true; they will do what seems most advantageous or prestigious to them, is what I perceive. When we change the system to change what is advantageous to them, they are also forced to change along or perish.
I understand what you’re saying, I just reject it. You put the role of the individual over the collective in rejecting a socialist state as a method of reaching collectivized ownership, and conflate democracy with dictatorship without basis.
The vanguard exists whether formalized or not, all it is is the most advanced politically of the revolutionary class. As there is a difference between a first year medical student and a seasoned surgeon, there will always be differences in political skill among the people. The advantage of formalizing the most advanced is that it becomes visible, democratizable, and accountable, rather than shadowy and elitist.
We can learn a lot from the experience of the feminist movement in structure, actually, where the initial rejection of formalized structures resulted in counter-productiveness. Jo Freeman’s The Tyranny of Structurelessness is an excellent overview of this.
Democratic Centralism just means individuals are beholden to the collective decisions of the group, and are expected to uphold them. It’s the best tool for using the working class’s best advantage, our numbers, into one aligned spear, rather than a formless blob lashing out in different directions. An example of the benefits of aligning is the LGBTQ+ movement, the TERFs end up being less effective because fighting for the liberation of all unites greater forces, and that’s ignoring the evils of transphobia.
I understand where you’re coming from, I used to be an anarchist myself. I suggest you actually make it an effort to engage with Marxism-Leninism and the theory and practice of Marxist-Leninists. If you want a place to start, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list.
Edit: saw your addendum on the USSR and PRC. Both are excellent examples of the working class in power achieving dramatic results and improving the lives of the working class. Tripling of literacy rates, doubling of life expectancies, achieving dramatic improvements in science and well-being, fighting sexism and racism.
As for Trotsky, he was assassinated because he was organizing terrorist groups against the USSR after being bitter that his suicidal plan of Permanent Revolution, that saw the peasantry as an enemy of the proletariat, lost out democratically to Socialism in One Country. It wasn’t because he was just a critic, he was a traitor and a terrorist.
The Zapatistas do reject the western label of anarchist. They have horizontalist structures but reject western labelling.
The EZLN and its larger populist body the FZLN are NOT Anarchist. Nor do we intend to be, nor should we be.
Over the past 500 years, we have been subjected to a brutal system of exploitation and degradation few in North America have ever experienced.
It is apparent from your condescending language and arrogant short-sightedness that you understand very little about Mexican History or Mexicans in general.
Our struggle was raging before anarchism was even a word, much less an ideology with newspapers and disciples. Our struggle is older than Bakunin or Kropotkin. We are not willing to lower our history to meet some narrow ideology exported from the same countries we fought against in our Wars for independence. The struggle in Mexico, Zapatista and otherwise, is a product of our histories and our cultures and cannot be bent and manipulated to fit someone else’s formula, much less a formula not at all informed about our people, our country or our histories. We as a movement are not anarchist.
We see narrow-minded ideologies like anarchism… as tools to pull apart Mexicans into more easily exploitable groups.
But what really enraged [us is] the familiar old face of colonialism shining through your good intentions. Once again we Mexicans [find ourselves put into a position where we] are not as good as the all knowing North American Imperialist who thinks himself more aware, more intelligent and more sophisticated politically than the dumb Mexican. This attitude, though hidden behind thin veils of objectivity, is the same attitude that we have been dealing with for 500 years, where someone else in some other country from some other culture thinks they know what is best for us more than we do ourselves.
Once again, the anarchists in North America know better than us about how to wage a struggle we have been engaged in since 300 years before their country was founded and can therefore, even think about using us as a means to “advance their project.” That is the same exact attitude Capitalists and Empires have been using to exploit and degrade Mexico and the rest of the third world for the past five hundred years.
Even though [you talk] a lot about revolution, the attitudes and ideas held by [you] are no different than those held by Cortes, Monroe or any other corporate imperialist bastard you can think of. Your intervention is not wanted nor are we a “project” for some high-minded North Americans to profit off.
So long as North American anarchists hold and espouse colonialist belief systems they will forever find themselves without allies in the third world. The peasants in Bolivia and Ecuador, no matter how closely in conformity with your rigid ideology, will not appreciate your condescending colonial attitudes anymore than would the freedom fighters in Papua New Guinea or anywhere else in the world.
Colonialism is one of the many enemies we are fighting in this world and so long as North Americans reinforce colonial thought patterns in their “revolutionary” struggles, they will never be on the side of any anti-colonial struggle anywhere. We in the Zapatista struggle have… asked the world to… respect the historical context we are in and think about the actions we do to pull ourselves from under the boots of oppression.
Mutual Aid is a good thing, but it does not create a fully collectivized and planned economy.
