Yesterday I had argument with Cowbee about this here. This seems like hijack of word “base” to support their propaganda like many others Words Which Defy Dictionaries. Base, is always ideology. Sure their so called “base” influence upper ones, but it is not the base. Base is something core, without it the thing cannot function. can human live without ideology? Without right or wrong?
It make sense to base our self on other ideologies but not on ideology of means of production or ownership first.
If you think this is misunderstanding, please explain your argument in simple language without using communist jargons if possible.
I suspect hardcore communists doesn’t want to admit flaws instead they blow up dust of words to cover. I also suspect that i can be wrong or half understood the argument or using wrong definition of terms, that’s why i am posting here
Yeah chief I don’t agree with your witticism here.
Call me crazy, but I think people who want to improve the world somewhat based on an economic and sociopolitical analysis of a pretty smart dude who’s work still shapes our economic understanding even in the most pro-capitalist reaganist fringes today do in fact have a few more differences with people who built an ideology based on using a merged government-corporate state apparatus to exterminate jews, queers, slavs etc. to create more living space for their specific ethnicity.
I also think you don’t actually have to pretend like Nazis and communists are equal or even close just to be able to criticize the imperialism and many mistakes and general dysfunction of the USSR, tankies and general bad faith argumentation like in OP probably done by a random putlerist fascist russian shill/bot or like a 14 year old who skimmed a wikipedia info box on dialectics once.
Communists are why we have unions, minimum wage, universal healthcare, welfare, safety nets, 5-day work week etc. Fascists are why we have the Holocaust, and I guess now also no jimmy Kimmel.
Just to clarify, are you calling me a fascist/14 yo/etc? I’m a communist, I organize in real life, I’ve read more than wikipedia, and I’m a working adult. None of what I said that OP is quoting is particularly out of the norm for the Marxist understanding of base and superstructure, and it was all in good faith that I responded, I even clarified more over here. OP seems to be anti-union, anti-safety net, etc and came into a months old comment chain, and I still gave them a clear and coherent overview without copying and pasting dozens of Marx and Engels quotes to make my point.
No? I wasn’t responding to you lol wtf, re-read the thread, I’m responding to the same guy you responded to, who said:
Thought you meant the argumentation done in the OP being me, the one OP referenced by name and in the screenshot. Sorry for the confusion, thanks for clearing it up!
You are saying this like it is very good thing, without any defects. When Society is too used to these safety laws. What do you can do in emergency? You will say it is our birth right, as consequence you will suffer decrease in performance, which may can result in defeat in war. By which your whole society including these benefits will collapse.
Just my guess, because of minimum wage, your country probably is importing immigrants & immigrants students in order to make them work illegally, as cheap labor, natives are not willing to work for cheap, your businesses are going to foreign countries for cheap labor. The whole thing could have been prevented if there would not been strong minimum wage laws. As result work conditions would have suffered but as group you could have increased performance. but probably, in your country, you have no trust in leaders, political parties and organizations. Who would rather get torture than to betray their people. Probably there are not many, Which is result of inferior culture. That’s why you think you always need all these restrains & you assume powerful always take advantage. Or maybe your view of complete lack of hurt is blinding you the damage of all this.
Lol I see. Don’t right-wing propaganda shills these days have access to DeepL or something? Your grammar is fucking awful.
Just for the record for lurkers ITT: I am an immigrant and I came to ze west originally on a student visa, no one “imported” me, finding a job was nigh impossible because no we don’t work illegally because the risk of losing a visa is very high and there are strict limits on jobs you can do, when and how long, including both by profession and by income level, often far above median and only if the corpo has the license and paperwork which all cost fuckloads for them, and finding a job out of that limited pool as a fresh grad was hell on earth.
The only reason I could even get to that stage was because my parents were fairly well off and across the 7 or so years before I became independent the costs of immigrating were in the hundreds of thousands on them. I had to leave the nest at 13.
When I started working I had to pay double tax for healthcare through visa fees first, then off my income tax as normal, and it took 13 years to get a permanent residence permit on the “10-year route” due to other hidden requirements during which I lived in permanent fear of deportation, the only reason I did it was genuine fear of persecution in my country of origin for being LGBT due to the fascist government there.
I’m sharing this here because the general public’s idea of immigration is often well - nuts, and completely out of touch with reality of immigrants, so hopefully now if you didn’t know, you know better.
Not the person you replied to. Just want to share:
I wasn’t born in the US, I came to the US legally and I have citizenship now. I still feel afraid of being denaturalized and deported under this current regime.
It really sucks that my two plausible choices are Authoritarian State-Capitalist PRC, and the other other choice, USA, has now become a Hyrbid Regime undergoing autocratization. Wish I could go to the EU but its unrealistic. There’s just so frequent racism/xenophobia in the US, but I also despise PRC, since people are even more conservative than here in the US. Can’t think of any place that truly feels “home”, I have this feeling of being “unwelcomed” anywhere I go.
The world is just an unwelcoming place right now, perhaps always has been. Worst comes to worst maybe we can hack it somewhere remote heh
That was surely done by Nazis, if not what is difference between Nazi & fascist? You are criticizing him for comparing unrealistically then you are doing it yourself
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If by “communist” you mean leftists in the west, then yes.
But if by “communist” you mean those who supported USSR and PRC, Lol no, their shit end up failing and USSR’s successor state is now an oligarchy and modern PRC is an authoritarian state-capitalist regime, with most of the negatives of America, but worse. Seriously, I know the US’s labor rights are atrocious, but PRC is a whole another level; no unions, no workplace safety, no overtime bonus, long hours, minimal breaks, most places have zero paid vacation days, and its a stuggle to even get an unpaid sick day. I mean there is a lunar new year bonus (symbolicly representing the boss giving you a Red Envelope), but that doesn’t mean shit when pay is already low, so the its just posturing. And healthcare in mainland China isn’t free, its basically equivalent to the US for the most part, but you also need the money ready for ER, many hospitals make you pay first before getting treatment, not the “bill you later” that the US does.
Yes PRC bad. USSR bad.
Buuut, the USSR did have free housing, free healthcare, free bills, free and quality higher ed, plenty jobs in STEM, while yes, also having horrific repressions inside and imperialist ambition outside too.
The successor state of the Soviet Union is as much a product of soviet corruption as it is a product of IMF’s “shock therapy” that forced rapid privatization in the name of capitalism and cuts to public services in a country that was basically near 100% public services, which led to widespread poverty and the well-connected cashing in their political capital for all the country’s resources, industry and infrastructure, creating the oligarch class and setting up an electorate primed for brainwashing with populist strongman rhetoric and a government ready to be inevitably influenced by the oligarchs, and when capitalists control the government the only result is fascism.
I don’t care so much what the underlying thought is. Millions died when either got into power. Learning from history neither should get another opportunity.
Millions are dying now due to the dudes in power now. Billions more are suffering. Once the palantir sell-offs are complete in the west and the democracies of Europe are left with no assets and not what few they have now after decades of trickle down, there will really be no turning back from the cyberpunk dystopia, and then many more will perish.
I think a better world is worth fighting for.