LoomingMountain

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1155

Yes I understand the development of state capitalistism to build up production forces on the road to socialism. It's still not an answer qs to why billionaires should exist.

Thanks. I'm not one for techno-optimism but maybe it has some good ideas.

It's an arbitrary number because it's a number people can latch on to. A billion dollars... or yen.... or euro.

Yeah theory, everyone just always assumes someone needs more theory. Assumes the person hasn't read theory. And it's a divergence strategy: uh oh, don't know, more theory!

What are we going to do with billionaires after the revolution comrade?

Just because they seem willing to do more than us, ans I don't argue that thet do because they do, I can still criticize them for not taking that decision. Billionaires have no need of existing.

What I don't like about the PRC is that it didn't make into law that there can't be billionaires. Whatever you think of China, whether it's socialist, or state-capitalist, or capitalist in economy with socialist social relations run by a communist party, the fact that there are billionaires, even when they are kept in check by the government and do not control the state apparatus, I think it would have been an amazing precedent to say that billionaires should not exist. Every penny above 1 999.999.999 yen or dollar or euro (already a ridiculous amount but ok) should flow back to the people. It undermines the socialist project that I want to believe China is still building.

I know this has nothing to do with the article. I just wanted to say this.

Really wish we wouldn't because that money could be used in our country. People duying on the street from cold, malnutrition, homelessness. But we're sending money to a country that's doomed to fail its war effort and last year vetod a very generous peace deal that Russia proposed. Screw that.

Okay that's a good reason to get rid of the ram for sure, if it is a danger to the child. How about keeping one sheep for good luck, cuddles and floofyness? (I'm being stupid. I realize life on the commune is guided by more realistic principles than floof and cuddles)

So can't you just get rid of the ram, then? Instead of all the sheep?

I agree with your first two paragraphs. I disagree with the third. I do think it is more difficult, especially in European countries and definitely in the US, and definitely to go towards a socialist revolution (which is the one, I think, we fight for). I also think you are underestimating the effects of the red scare.

I do agree that Second thought should not start spouting reformist nonsense like voting will suddenly work or something, but I haven't heard that from him.

I agree that the theory is not obsolete nor has the danger passed. I am not dismissing it because it was written 100 years ago. But I'm specifically commenting on your saying that we shouldn't align with those groups and that is true, but we should also recognise the material conditions as they are today and not in 1918: vehemently anti-communist, with social media as an important stepping stone (both fascist and socialist), and an interconnectrd world that seems more complex than ever before (I' not saying it is, the world has always been comex, but it seems that way because we get i formation from all over). So the theory should also adapt.

I just bought a book called: socialisme, seks en seksualiteit. I think you would like it. It's essays from 1999 by dutch and Belgian marxists on the topic.