Communism

When we think of "criticism and self-criticism", we often think of criticism we've been brought up to live with: the kind that simply seeks to destroy, or the kind that's naturally antagonistic.

It took me a while to truly understand what criticism means for communists; incidentally, working on ProleWiki helped me a lot with that.

Criticism is through other words the process of struggle (again a word that seems strong but that you might be more familiar with).

Criticism is not necessarily meant to be aggressive or even find faults. This, in my opinion, is actually counterproductive and even a deviation from what criticism is for us communists. You might know this better as constructive criticism.

Likewise, self-criticism is not necessarily you belittling yourself and listing all your bad traits.

I think we look at the pictures of struggle sessions in the early PRC, and we look inwardly at what the word "critique" means to us in late-stage capitalism, and we kinda form a nebulous idea of what that is and run with that. After all, "communists ruthlessly criticize all that exists", right?

I think however that criticism can be done with care, and is more productive that way. This is because the purpose of criticism isn't, like I said earlier, to necessarily find faults with what you did or what your org does.

A mistake I see often is to think of criticism as your chance to start blasting whatever woes you can think of, and the other party has to sit there and take it because you're doing it marxistly.

Criticism has to be productive and lead to action; it breaches from theory to practice. Practice then makes good on the criticism, changes the state of things (dialectics, if you are not at the stage you can tell readily yet), and then further criticism can happen.

The point of criticism, the whole reason we are doing struggle sessions in the first place is precisely to enact the best praxis we can, and do so quickly. We are not in a position right now as communists that we can build a party in a hundred years. We need to build it now, and for that we need effective praxis. This is the whole point of doing struggle sessions and crit and self-crit.

This is something both parties in a struggle session must first understand and mutually acknowledge. The critic is not here to disparage your efforts, but to help them reach their higher potential. You are not here either to shield yourself from all criticism on the basis that you're too proud to hear it or that your successes outweigh your shortcomings -- I prefer *shortcomings * to "faults" or "issues". I also prefer challenges instead of saying something is impossible; a challenge can be overcome.

Some criticisms we've dealt with on ProleWiki for example was super simple. It wasn't even a disagreement, which can happen sometimes and doesn't mean your idea is necessarily wrong or misguided, just that it's perhaps not fully realized.

Sometimes, we offer up ideas and then debate them in what I think is the ideal struggle session. Nobody necessarily disagrees or thinks "it's a stupid idea, why did you even bring that up, this'll never work": that would not be criticism, that would be cathartic bashing. A criticism has to offer a solution or, at the very least, seek improvement selflessly.

I myself have often debated ideas editors proposed not because I thought they wouldn't fit or we shouldn't follow up on them, but just trying to help them make sure they've covered all their bases and have thought about all questions before they proceed.

Thus the goal is to reach the full potential of our ideas so that we issue the best praxis once we get down to work, saving time and effort.

I'm talking about very practical critic self-crit here because that's mostly where I employ it, but this works also in more theoretically grounded struggle sessions, where you discuss strictly theory and which line is correct. By my own conclusion of what criticism is however, criticizing a party line that the party refuses to change (and calling attention to that fact) would not be criticism, but I think it is -- it is the most important criticism we can make as marxists, in fact. So remember that this is a model and not the final analysis.

The process of criticism acknowledges, weighs, analyzes, and then **acts. **

Acknowledge criticism that applies. The point is to make you stronger, even if it hurts to hear (it shouldn't if you follow the basis that it's done in good faith).

Then, weigh it: is this something we were aware of? How dangerous is it? How difficult would it be to overcome, and is there something more urgent we need to look at first?

Analyze before acting: what can we do about it with our current resources? Is it realistic to? Propose some solutions to the problem that was brought up.

And finally, deploy all of that to act on the criticism and improve. I guarantee you in one year, you'll have forgotten people made the criticism, but you'll remember forever that you did improve with it, and that you are in a much better position after it than before.

The dialectic between teacher and learner is one of great importance but is often misunderstood or, perhaps in more weighted terms, is not brought to its full potential by the teachers.

This permeates in the marxist environment, which is the only one I'm concerned with currently, where teachers do not realize their role and full capabilities as such. It remains by and large -- in my experience only -- as not a dialectic, but a unidirectional conveyance.

The teacher speaks, and the learner listens. This is the metaphysical model.

But are we not all being taught, and thus learning, at any time? From discussions I've had where I started in this metaphysical "authority" role of the teacher (a role most people, me included, subordinate themselves to rather easily as what they think a learner should be) and ended up learning more than I taught.

I may know dialectics well. But I may not know economics well. A learner is a fluid thing, it goes through stages back and forth. I teach dialectics to someone, and I learn economics from them. By asking their questions, they help me refine my understanding -- and capabilities to teach -- of dialectics further.

The teacher should explain, promote, make considerations. The learner should retain, evaluate and analyze.

This requires for the learner to understand that their role is not simply to nod along and retain everything from the authority, and for the teacher to be open to changing their mind and methods.

The dialectic (contradiction) is resolved when the session gives birth to a new third thing, in this case similarly to the "original" Ancient Greek dialectic, and both parties come out with a third new idea that did not exist previously. The learner has learned and taught, and the teacher has taught and learned in a way they both further their understanding of the topic.

It can then repeat with the learner being able to become a teacher (in any capacity) and the teacher having refined what they will say (and how) to the next learner.

I see the complete opposite too often; marxists that would rather confirm their biases, eschewing their own capabilities as teachers (and learners -- many think of themselves too highly to still be "learners") and completely smothering any potential their interactions may have had as a teaching opportunity, at least dialectically.

You see this most often on social media, where the order of the day is to make cheap jokes, quick "stream of consciousness" quips, and confirming one's own already formed beliefs.

In this role, they are being metaphysical (or at the very least undialectic). It's not bad for the sake of it and me being able to use the jargon; it's a malformed process because dialectic cannot take place, and cannot make things advance. Thus they remain stuck where they were exactly before: further confirming their belief that their tendency/ideas are the best, and working not to advance that tendency or idea, but to disprove that any other is good.

Declaración Partido Comunista Americano

La noticia de la semana no es que Biden haya reconocido que no está para dirigir un país, sino la creación del "Partido Comunista Americano", el cual estará activo tanto en USA como en Canadá, a partir del Partido Comunista de USA que actualmente no es mas que una organización de apoyo al Partido Demócrata.

https://acp.us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9dv9S2O-M

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1815155819245084672/pu/vid/avc1/1280x720/_rQs-wdyBChhXxcJ.mp4

@communism

#AmericanCommunistParty

Hey.

I put in the code, but it doesn't bring it up.

Can someone help fetch it for me?

Here (found these on a Discord I frequent):

Enjoy.

Looks like Latin America and my time in Bolivia.

Poverty is taken to be a homogeneous phenomenon irrespective of the mode of production that is under consideration. Even reputed economists believe in this homogeneous conception of poverty.

In fact, however, poverty under capitalism is entirely different from poverty in pre-capitalist times. Even if for statistical purposes poverty is defined as lack of access to a set of use-values that are essential for living irrespective of the mode of production, the fact remains that this lack is enmeshed under capitalism within a set of social relationships that are [unique] and different from earlier. Poverty under capitalism thus takes a specific form associated with insecurity and indignity that makes it particularly unbearable.

There are roughly four proximate features of capitalist poverty.

The first arises from the inviolability of contracts, which means that irrespective of their conditions, the poor have to pay whatever they are contracted to pay; this leads to a loss of assets or destitution.

In pre-capitalist times, for instance in Mughal India, [the tax was levied on produce rather than the land. In years of poor harvest, the taxation was scaled down accordingly]. Put differently, the burden of the poor harvest got shared among the producers and the overlord.

But, in colonial India, reflecting its capitalist ethos, the tax got levied on land; the contract between the producer and the overlord changed: the producer would be allowed to cultivate a plot of land provided he paid a certain amount of revenue to the State. This meant that in a poor harvest year, the burden of the poor harvest [...] fell exclusively on the producer. The destitution of the peasantry, that is, the transfer of peasants’ assets to money lenders followed from this. Poverty, in short, was associated with destitution which, therefore, tended to have a cumulative impact on the producers.

Put differently, [the producers' lack of access ro use-value (good, services) lead to a deprivation of their assets], which meant an increase in their vulnerability over time. There was thus a dynamic introduced into poverty.

The second feature of capitalist poverty is that it is experienced by individuals, whether individual persons or households. In a pre-capitalist society where people lived in communities, other members of the community, whether belonging to the same caste-group or simply to the same village, came to the help of the poor in particular years of bad harvests or natural calamities. Privations, in other, words were not suffered in isolation.

Under capitalism, however, when the communities are broken up because of the inexorable logic of the system, and the individual emerges as the primary economic category, this individual also suffers privations in isolation.

Non-Marxist traditions in economic theory fail to see this basic change because they are bereft of any sense of history. Marx had accused classical economics of this blindness toward history: the individual that emerged only at a certain point in history, was taken by it as having existed all along.

Neo-classical economics [therefore] missed the contrast between capitalist poverty and pre-capitalist poverty, the former experienced by isolated and alienated individuals and the latter referring only to the deprivation suffered within a community and hence to a sharing of deprivation.

The fact that capitalism is characterised by alienated individuals (until they form “combinations” or trade unions which bring them together in common struggles against the system) and that it is these individuals who experience poverty, gives poverty an additional dimension; it is not just the lack of access to a set of use-values that constitutes capitalist poverty, but also a psychological trauma that goes with this lack of access.

This becomes clearer when we look at the third feature of capitalist poverty. It arises for two reasons: one is the low wages of those employed, and the other is the absence of employment. It is the reserve army of labour that is particularly afflicted by poverty.

In fact, in economies like ours, where the “employed” and the “unemployed” are not two distinct categories, but most workers barring a tiny minority are unemployed for several days in a week or several hours in a day, the psychological trauma associated with poverty arising from the inability to find employment, is all the more pervasive. The lack of employment appears as a personal failure on the part of the individual, as something that saps the individual’s self-worth, apart from causing lack of access to a given set of use-values.

The fourth feature of capitalist poverty is the opacity to those afflicted by it of the factors causing it. Poverty in the sense of a lack of access to a given set of use-values in a pre-capitalist society is palpably rooted in the size of what is produced, and in the share taken from it by the overlord. Indeed, this is visible to everyone: a bad harvest may reduce the size of the produce and hence accentuate poverty (even when the reduction in output is shared); likewise, a rapacious overlord may snatch so much from the producers that many of them are reduced to poverty even in normal harvest years. But why a person remains unemployed and hence poor under capitalist conditions, remains a mystery to the person himself. Likewise, why prices suddenly rise, pushing more people into poverty, remains a mystery to those afflicted.

[...] The war in Ukraine today certainly contributes to the world-wide rise in food prices that accentuates poverty even in a remote African or Indian village. The apparent opacity of the roots of capitalist poverty is linked to the phenomenon of global inter-connectedness under capitalism; that is, to the fact that global developments, developments in distant lands, have an impact on every village, no matter how remote.

These specific features of capitalist poverty have important implications, of which I shall draw attention to only one. Many well-intentioned persons, who would like to reduce or eliminate poverty, suggest [universal basic income]. This, of course, has not happened on the requisite scale anywhere, so that poverty continues as a social phenomenon [...]. Even suggestions for transfers are invariably for somewhat paltry transfers. But all this refers to poverty in the sense of inadequate access to a set of use-values, that is, poverty that does not refer specifically to capitalist poverty.

Even if sufficient transfers could be made and poverty in the sense of lack of access to use-values could be overcome, that still would not overcome capitalist poverty which also entails a psychological trauma, a robbing of self-worth through unemployment.

What is required is the universal provision of employment, education, healthcare, old-age security, and food, that would restore to people the dignity of being citizens of a democratic society; but this would involve going beyond neo-liberal capitalism.

It's no surprise that geeks, nerds, and gamers have a pipeline that leads them to the far right. I want to know if the reverse is true because I'm an angry gamer who ended up here on the left.

On a national level, a concrete example of socialist cooperation is the establishment of the Tiangong space station, established by [the People’s Republic of] China in 2021.

About that amazing accomplishment, Joshua Hanks describes in a WW article entitled “Workers power on display as Chinese astronauts arrive at Tiangong space station”: “Crews of three will rotate on missions lasting six months, and the station will be open to other countries. Seventeen countries have officially confirmed their participation, and astronauts from several countries are now learning Chinese. Astronauts from the European Space Agency have already trained on a mock Shenzhou spacecraft and could participate in future missions to Tiangong.”

Hanks continues: “Russia may pursue its own space station but is cooperating with China on other projects, including constructing a groundbreaking lunar base, which could host its first cosmonauts and taikonauts by 2030.” (workers.org/2021/06/57128/)

This rapid spurt of growth can be seen as well in other countries that are socialist or working toward socialism after a revolution changed those holding state power. These include [the Republics of] Cuba, Nicaragua, [the Bolivarian Republic of] Venezuela and [the Socialist Republic of] Vietnam, among others, despite continued interference by their [neo]imperialist oppressors to beat them out at all costs.

It may be that this increased rate of growth and development based in a socialist orientation may even win out in the competitive race in space. Given the Chinese approach to developing helium-3 for inexpensive clean energy on Earth, Mayes stresses: “It is clear that a ‘Chinese dominant space frontier’ is, in fact, a future everyone should want. If our planet is to survive the climate disaster, it is imperative for the [neo]imperialists to lose the race to the moon.’

Explaining [the People’s Republic of] China’s intentions, Mayes writes: “Far from seeking to profit, China’s approach to international energy production is geared to protecting the planet. As [Carlos Martinez] explains when discussing China’s ‘green energy’ solution in his abundantly researched book [“The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century”], socialist China’s international humanitarian policies are aimed at saving the globe from climate catastrophe.”

In other words, mature international competition and cooperation must triumph over an immature [neo]imperialist orientation aimed at maximizing profits over providing for human needs.

communism is always the answer...

Sup fellas.

I'm a Spanish guy who, for the past decade, has been getting increasingly radicalized. I've been mostly so far interested in reading because I wanted to have a solid theoretical background and learn more about the Ws and Ls of communism, from a theoretical and a historical perspective, and while I'm still very much into reading socialist literature, I want to take the step to organizing and activism locally. I was just wondering if anyone here has any resources for any Communist/Socialist/Marxist organisation in Spain or with presence in multiple western-european countries that anyone can recommend me to contact.

Thanks a bunch!

Hi there folks,

While trying to learn about communism, I'm having problems finding literature that provides and example life under Communism. What I do find is propaganda either against or for it, involving unrealistic and bombastic content that is clearly not rooted in reality.

I'm not looking for historical content because I'm just trying to figure out what a life that the group is striving for would be like.

Thanks for your time!

Last week, I found a used book in a store, called "what the Soviet worker receives besides their salary" (or something like that, translated it literally from my language). It's a short, 40-pages pamphlet written in 1959 by the then Soviet Minister of Finance, A. Zveriev.

On a section regarding housing, the pamphlet claims: "The workers and employees of the USSR pay insignificant rent compared to that paid by workers in capitalist countries. If in the latter, the rent expenditure absorbs 25 to 30% of the family budget, in the USSR, the rent including communal services doesn't rise, on average, above 4 to 5% of the family budget".

Leaving aside how much they paid in the USSR for rent, I want to dedicate a moment to examine this 25-30% expenditure of the family budget in rent in developed capitalist countries. I looked up the data for my western-european, developed country, and for the bottom 50% of families by budget, the housing expenditure actually ranges from 45% to 35% of the family budget in 2023 (latest data available).

Let's forget about the fact that family budgets can't be compared from 1959 to now because nowadays there are more workers per household as a consequence of the mass-incorporation of women in the workplace and young adults staying with their parents because of housing prices. Even if we forget about that, after 65 years of technological and scientific progress, in which the population of western capitalist countries has actually stabilized, the prices of housing as a percentage of family budgets have risen by about 50%, compared to the numbers given in an anticapitalist pamphlet written by a literal Soviet finance minister.

There is no reason for this other than the commodification of a HUMAN RIGHT such as housing. If Cuba and the USSR solved housing for everyone 50+ years ago, there's no actual, physical or economical problem preventing us from doing so. It's purely a desired consequence of our current system.

Biden has done more to undermine the US empire in the last 8 months than Trump did in 4 years. Biden is exposing the contradictions of US empire in a way that Trump could never.

If Trump was president, then the mainstream narrative would be that the genocide in Gaza was simply because of Trump and Bibi's leadership. And you know what? Given how past presidents were able to rein in Israel when polite society started sympathizing with Palestinians, it would be believable. Instead, we get to see front and center, how a man that's been at the top echelons of us foreign policy for decades approves and supports genocide. This is the establishment's genocidal war.

In other words, Trump is perceived as an aberration, even when hes just continuing the same US foreign policy that weve been doing for decades. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is still framed as entirely Trump's decision, even though he was just enacting a policy that Biden voted for in the 90s. And of course Biden did nothing to reverse that move, or even try to extract concessions to move peace talks forward.

Biden is damaging the "international rules-based order" in a way that would make Dick Cheney blush. Bush at least tried to put a veneer of international law on the criminal invasion of Iraq. But it appears the US and Israel are ready to burn the UN to the ground in order to carry out this genocide. Trump would be doing the same exact thing, except he would also serve as a scape goat for the liberal order (just get trump out of office, and we can go back to rule-following)

Don't get me wrong, they're both excellent accelerationist candidates. The world is watching two senile, hateful, egotistical vile men fight for control of the empire as the world burns.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4651235

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman is what I'll be exploring.

Anyone want to read along with me?