askchapo

join Democratic Socialists of America

it's full of demsocs

shitting on the DPRK and China as a western "leftist" is basically a sign of willful ignorance. those people can be dismissed as lazy and racist for not doing the homework of reading the history of how those states were forged in the fires of resistance to western capital formations and aggressive imperialist encirclement.

to criticisize these countries with the same ahistorical talking points of western capitalist media is to repeat the lies a sadistic abuser tells about the survivor who has successfully resisted their abuse and found an admirable way to thrive.

native English speakers purporting to be leftist who can't even bother to listen to a few episodes from the season of Blowback about Korea should fuck all the way off. I have nothing but contempt for them and they are no different than avowed fascists, imo.

Many westerners come to socialism not out of necessity, but out of disillusionment. We are raised with the idea that Liberal Democracy is the best system of political expression humanity has devised. When confronted with the reality of its shortcomings, rather than narrowly discard liberalism or electoralism, the western anti-capitalist tends to draw sweeping conclusions about the inadequacy of all existing systems. Curiously, though it would at first seem that such denunciations are more principled and severe, they are in fact more compatible with existing and widespread beliefs about the supremacy of the western system. That is to say, when a Marxist-Leninist asserts the superiority of existing socialist experiments, they are directly challenging the idea that westerners are at the forefront of political development. By contrast, the assertions from anarchists and social democrats that we need to build a more utopian future out of our current apex are compatible not only with each other, as discussed earlier, but also do not really offend bourgeois society at large. They in fact end up not sounding too different from the arch-imperialist Winston Churchill holding forth on how ours is the worst system, except for all the others which have been tried. Western chauvinists, consciously or unconsciously, struggle with the idea that they should study and humbly take lessons from the imperial periphery. [15] It is much easier for the chauvinist, psychologically, to position oneself as at the very front of a new vanguard.

from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

My question: What constitutes a "real" Democracy? Is it leadership changing hands every few years? We don't have that in the U.S. Is it secret ballots? All the nationa above have that. Is it that the people's votes and voices actually change the government actions? We saw this in China unfortunately when people demanded ending the COVID lock downs early. It was the wrong thing to do but done for the right reason.

My view is that the most important definition of democracy is the one that highlights why people value it in the first place: the majority of people getting most of what they want, most of the time.

I think the way I've phrased it is quite generous, and allows a democracy to be pretty badly flawed and still count. As far as I see it, without most people getting what they want most of the time, democracy is basically the worst form of government. You as a citizen have more work to do, just to still not get the shit you want!

To me, that implies a consequentialist attitude towards it. Basically, democratic systems and processes are only valuable to the extent that they produce democratic outcomes (most people getting what they want). Maybe I'm losing my own thread, but as I'm defining it, a literal monarchy could be a better democracy that one with a "democratic system," if the monarch in question was better about pursuing the interests of the majority of citizens. But, it would still be desirable to have a democratic system in place rather than one that will change with the whims of the next ruler, on the basis that it could more reliably produce democratic results.

I think it's also important to consider the "ranking" of democracy compared to other values. To me, it seems clear that democracy (most people getting what they want) is good, but democracy doesn't validate every shitty thing a bunch of people want to do. Consider a bigoted population democratically deciding to purge a minority population, or the citizens of an imperialist country democratically backing a war.

Critical support doesn't require DPRK et al. to be "real socialism" etc.

The initial response:

The seasonally conscripted slaves who built the pyramids got free housing provided by the state and more consistent meals than the average free Egyptian. When will you be rebranding yourself as a Marxist-Leninist-Amenhotepist?

Socialism is not about simply providing a baseline of material security for the exploited worker, It's about ending that exploitation altogether. The only way to do that is to put the ultimate power of decision making, in all aspects of life, in the hands of the laboring majority - something North Korea (and every 21st Marxist-Leninist state) utterly failed to achieve.

I can't say I'm surprised to see you romanticize and white wash a cultish hereditary monarchy, given your frequent vocal support for the capitalist imperialist dictatorship in China, but I am a little sick of not seeing anyone push back against it. We are the democratic socialists of america, not the autocratic capitalists of america.

The subject takes pride in not having any relationship with the entire historic concrete movement of the working class socialist and liberation revolutions. They take pride in not having any theoretical or political connection to the revolutions in China, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique and Angola. They are, instead, proud of the supposed purity that their theory is not contaminated by the hardship of exercising power, by the contradictions of historical processes. Being pure is what provokes this narcissistic orgasm. This purity is what makes them feel superior.

from Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture by Jones Manoel

What constitutes a "real" Democracy?

This is a tough question, but I've come to the conclusion that the only way to know if a Democracy is "real" or not would be to a) study whether or not that government's policies follow the opinions, desires, and needs of the people it represents, and if that data is unavailable then a half decent substitute is b) asking the people themselves if they consider their system democratic.

oh hey look at that a study that suggests that the United States is not democratic and oh hey what's this it's a study that shows Chinese people have extremely high satisfaction and confidence in their democracy.

Now to be clear this stuff does not prove anything, it at best suggests something. In an ideal world we would have dozens of data points like these on every country to compare and contrast, but we don't have that which is where Marxism-Leninism comes in for me to fill in the gaps. They call it scientific socialism for a reason, after all!

You could join the PSL instead? (Party for Socialism and Liberation)

the way how people talk about it, you'd think the only qualifying metric for a democracy is dissatisfaction.

Oh, is this population broadly satisfied with their government? Something like 90% approval? Nope, just authoritarianism! Those people are either too scared to speak out or don't know any better. Real democracy is when everyone (except private industry leaders) is unhappy with the outcome.

DPRK is the only remnant of Bolshevism left in the world

uncritical support for the DPRK in its heroic struggle to liberate occupied Korea from the genocidal American empire

In evil communist country they move homeless people to concentration camps outside the city just to appease foreign politicians and not look bad on the national TV.

Sure, there isn't socialist nation. And ideal democracy is one where you control your time (by, e.g. electing your boss, and collectively electing working hours).

If you have a state department radlib, arguing with them is pointless, focus on goals

What constitutes a “real” Democracy?

In ML theory, and pre-liberal classical political theory, a "democracy" would be a state ruled by the lower classes/poor. A "democracy" would be very close in meaning to "dictatorship of the proletariat" (or you could say that DotP is democracy in the age of capital). That's basically how most elite political theorists used the word for a long time. They considered it synonymous with "mob rule" and looked down upon it.

The exact details of how the lower classes maintain their power or make decisions is irrelevant. That changes based on situation to situation.

In the DSA meeting can you call someone a fed? Or do they take it as a compliment? Cause like tbsi one for sure has disgruntled former member turns who informs vibes. But also, I dunno if the DSA does stuff they need to worry about being informed on.