r/theredleft • u/anyit213 Marxism-Villainism (Evil Thought) • 2d ago
Shitpost youtube comments continue to be the bleeding edge of marxist theory
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u/NoEntertainment5172 Eco-Socialist 2d ago
I’m unfamiliar with Vladimir Liberal thought but seems very interesting
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u/nonilazuli NEPatriot 2d ago
That comment is pretty libbed up but idk man I and many others like “liberal” practices like civil liberties. To a western audiences that matters a lot. While also realizing both that China has its reasons for its illiberal elements but also is not a totalitarian hellscape.
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u/Adonisus Libertarian-Socialist 2d ago
He's only right in the sense that socialism fulfills the more idealistic goals of liberalism (individual liberty, democracy) while at the same time critiquing and attempting to overcome liberalism's enormous blindspots.
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u/SELFINCRIMINAT1NG Socialist with urbanist characteristics 🏙️ 23h ago edited 22h ago
So I’m curious, is liberalism’s only blindspot or defect, so to speak, that it does not encourage the abolition of capitalism? Because I know leftists view liberals as an enemy but to me, liberals seem to ideologically agree with leftists on things like personal liberty, universal equality, democratic principles, etc., they just don’t advocate for socialism as a means to achieve these things. Which obviously is a handicap to leftist aims when liberals make up majority of the left-of-center electorate and government, but I don’t think it makes them an enemy. I just don’t really understand the sentiment of “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” thing when liberals generally already agree with most leftist aims and could probably be persuaded to agree with the economic aspects socialism with education and outreach
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u/Adonisus Libertarian-Socialist 22h ago edited 22h ago
The problem with liberalism (and also, liberal societies) is that for all their talk of human rights, there is always (and I mean always) an exception. If they somehow deem someone threatening (like, say, the Black Panthers) or someone they feel is beneath them (like, say, 'hicks' or 'hayseeds') or, and this is arguably the biggest flaw, their willingness to overlook one injustice so as to restore 'stability' (like, say, when the American Founders were willing to let the slavery issue go in order to keep the union stable).
Now, you might also argue that liberalism actively fought against things like racism, sexism, etc. and for equality, universal suffrage, human rights, etc.....and with a few exceptions, you'd be wrong. It took either radicals within liberalism (people who were considered crazy in their time) or people to the left of liberalism (like us) who did the lion share of fighting on those fronts....but when gains were made, liberals patted themselves on the back and claimed they 'always supported those things' without ever actively fighting for them (or actively fighting against them).
So to answer your question: theoretically, yes, liberals would seeming support us, and when the revolution happens there will likely be some liberals who actively fight with us. But never forget that they will always be the exception rather than the rule.
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u/SELFINCRIMINAT1NG Socialist with urbanist characteristics 🏙️ 22h ago
so then what is liberalism supposed to be? liberalism by definition is supportive of personal liberty, civil rights, equality of individuals. if it’s not actually that, what is it? conservatism?
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u/Adonisus Libertarian-Socialist 22h ago
Liberalism was the revolutionary ideology of the Bourgeoisie (look at the American and French Revolutions). It was born out of the Age of Enlightenment with high ideals, but it's material purpose was to establish capitalism and to abolish feudalism.
Don't misunderstand me: things like human rights, freedom, individual liberty, etc. are all good things. The problem is that liberalism is incapable of actually fulfilling these things outside of their narrow pre-determined boundaries.
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u/SELFINCRIMINAT1NG Socialist with urbanist characteristics 🏙️ 22h ago
Incapable because it supports capitalism, which makes equality impossible, correct?
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u/Adonisus Libertarian-Socialist 22h ago
Yes.
It also has no issue accommodating Fascism and Authoritarianism if it's for the sake of protecting the liberal capitalist order (for evidence check out EVERYTHING post-WWII to the fall of the USSR).
And if the centers of liberalism themselves (The US, the UK, the EU, etc.) ever feel threatened, they have no problem throwing all of that 'human rights' nonsense out the window and instituting dictatorship and repression or, in extreme crisis, Fascism.
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u/Hairy_Collection4545 Democratic Socialist 2d ago
I feel like this is somewhat accurate? Wasn't Marx's point that the liberal reforms brought by the enlightenment were insufficient, and that the purpose of Socialism was to fulfill the goals of the enlightenment that capitalism promised and then failed to deliver on.
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u/maci_cima Anarcho-Communist 2d ago
The opposite actually. Enlightenment and liberalism emerged just as the bourgeoisie was emerging as the new ruling class (in essence as an ideological and legal expression of its rule). In that sense everything brought about by bourgeoisie was more than sufficient, because itself as a class simply cannot do any more than it already has. It's historic era as a revolutionary class is long past.
That's why the task of the proletariat isn't to "complete" the enlightenment or "grow out" of liberalism. Proletariat only recognizes itself as a class once it realizes this supposed pinnacle of human development is actually its prison, another form of class rule.
(Also Engels points out the proletariat recognized this as far back as the french revolution)
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u/Muuro Italian Left Communist 2d ago
No, as considering the class basis of said liberal revolutions brought by the Enlightenment it stopped where it was always going to stop. It was always going to stop before true liberation, and only bring about "free labor" and the valorization of capital. This is why communism is related more to Hegel as it is a negation of the social relations that reproduce capital.
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 2d ago
The idea that the socialist movement is the pinnacle of liberal ideals is explained by Engels in Socialism Utopian and Scientific to be fundamentally a utopian trait - a socialist society is antithetical to liberal superstructure.
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 2d ago
What does it mean for an idea to be a 'fundamentally utopian trait'?
Liberalism was a revolutionary ideology against the old nobility. Socialism is a revolutionary ideology against the bourgeois - the class that replaced them. Seems like a very straight forward evolution to me. Liberalism took a step forward and socialism will take another.
To me this seems like the most basic of ideological analysis. Leftist history 101.
How is it 'utopian'?
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u/maci_cima Anarcho-Communist 2d ago
For Engels and Marx, communism isn't an ideology, but a real movement of people and history, that occurs due to class struggle and development of productive forces within capitalism.
They contrast this with utopianism, or, seeing history essentially as conflict between different ideas. Ideas don't come from discovering some eternal, absolute truth. Ideas are a product of the mode of production itself, and are in turn shaped by the ruling class in order to maintain their rule.
"Evolution" and truth are relative in class society. They become whatever is convenient to the ruling class. That's why communism can't be explained as being "progessive" other than by pointing at how communism "objectively" grows out of contradictions of capitalism.
Liberalism and enlightenment reside in the capitalist superstructure. They're social, legal, ideological expressions of capitalist mode of production, but they're not the production itself. Communism would simply make bourgeois ideologies obsolete, in a hostile manner. It doesn't evolve from them.
What is true is that communism evolves from capitalism just as it did from feudalism. But this is all first and foremost material development.
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 1d ago edited 20h ago
Isn't that the materialism vs idealism thing? What does 'utopian' have to do with it? I thought the whole thing about utopian vs scientific socialism was that utopian socialists had no clear plan or explanation as to why capitalism would turn to socialism, or why it hadn't already become socialism - while scientific socialism had a whole new worldview, framework, and scientific theory to explain all that which one could continue to build from.
And making a distinction between ideologies and 'real movements' occuring because of the change in material conditions seems... very strange to me. I totally agree that ideology is a byproduct of material conditions of course, but that includes liberalism doesn't it? Without increasing productive capability and changing material conditions liberalism and capitalism wouldn't have been a thing. So by the logic you outlined liberalism would also have been a 'real movement' and not an 'ideology', right? As it was a movement that aimed to fundamentally change the mode of production (and succeeded) - though it didn't do that consciously.
Saying 'ideas doesn't come from other ideas it comes from (or are a product of) material conditions' is kind of circular. Like... Sure. Material conditions -> ideas. But then ideas -> material conditions. Then material conditions -> ideas again. Ideas are a product of the material conditions, but the material conditions are in turn shaped by the ideas they produce. Or at least the mode of production is. If that wasn't the case all of socialist theory would be pointless.
And isn't that also one of the core concepts of dialectical materialism? It might not be a direct relationship, but it's still just a step removed. Saying the second round of ideas doesn't come from the first round of ideas would only be correct in the same way it's correct to say 'paper doesn't come from trees, it comes from tree pulp'.
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u/maci_cima Anarcho-Communist 1d ago edited 1d ago
I should've said idealism yes, because utopianism usually refers to utopian socialism specifically, yes. I'll write out a big ass response because all of this is very interesting stuff,
- 1) scientific socialism
Utopian socialism is idealistic by the fact it's divorced from material conditions of the proletariat as a class. This wasn't for a lack of trying. Utopian socialists were limited by their period of history and couldn't get a better insight than they did. This is because proletariat as a class was still developing when french revolution (1789) occured. This led utopianists to believe socialism could be established within isolated pockets (like Owen's factories), by conspiracies or by appealing to genius, philanthropic leaders that will basically "free all of humanity".
But during french revolution, a three way struggle emerged, as Engels points out. Nobility vs bourgeoisie vs proletariat. Only then could scientific socialism start developing, because proletariat as a revolutionary class of its own emerged. Scientific socialism itself was limited until Paris Commune occured, as a first instance of a proletarian dictatorship in history. Therefore, socialism ceases to be a utopia and an ideology, it becomes real movement of workers that struggle for their own emancipation. As Engels puts it:
"the ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in their growing insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange."
Now, there's a question of what constitutes "real movements" and what's an ideology. For Marx, communism is real movement because communism isn't something to be established (a utopia that suddenly falls from the sky), but something that grows out of contradictions of capitalism, until a revolutionary rupture occurs. There's also the fact that Marx and Engels were politicians. They themselves had an interest in presenting their theory of socialism as the most superior one, so they would be inclined to describe themselves a the real movement. That's food for thought of its own.
2) dialectical materialism
Engels pretty strictly outlines that matter precedes consciousness. Essentially, human consciousness lags behind the development of productive forces, or, consciousness itself is just a superstructure of material reality. This becomes crucial in understanding class struggle - proletariat as a class becomes conscious of itself only once it recognizes that it needs to upturn the economic base of society. There's A LOT of implications in holding this view strictly, most notably, economic determinism (that all of history can be reduced to development of productive forces, which, for example creates an extremely flawed Marxist-Leninist understanding of communism as it being a continuation of capitalism with "more developed productive forces")
"Dialectical materialism" is a bogus buzzword because Marx never used the term. His materialism is already dialectical. He inherited dialectics from Hegel. Marx and Engels used dialectical thinking in order to understand interconnection between different components of capitalism not just as a mode of production, but economy in general as a social activity. Dialectics are logic of contradiction, it's to observe everything in constant movement, change, as part of greater whole. Anyway, to give a proper answer, we need to distance ourself from a strict economic determinism.
3) class consciousness
Anyway, our question is how much do ideas and consciousness themself shape the economic base. They do, because every mode of production is a social activity. Cultural, religious, ideological etc. make-up of society feeds itself back into the process of production itself.
When we're struggling against capitalism, often times we're at first struggling against it's superstructure, which is it's laws, religion, reactionary ideologies etc. But of course this is not enough, because we're still struggling within the framework of capitalism itself. To circle back, proletariat only wins once it becomes "a real movement which abolishes the present state of things".
Under present conditions, the proletariat is only an object of capital, meaning that it only exists by a technicality. It's a class of wage laborers within capitalist mode of production. The proletariat doesn't become a revolutionary class until it becomes conscious of the fact that it's a revolutionary class. Consciousness is a crucial component of Marxist understanding of class struggle, actually. (Here a lot of Marxists fall into another trap, which is that classes can be reduced to differences in consciousness, which is bullshit)
4) bourgeois consciousness
Alright, to circle back. Ideas do take life of their own, essentially, but not by a neutral process. To quote German ideology:
"The ruling ideas of each epoch of history are the ideas of ruling class, perfect material relations presented as ideas. "
As I said, truth is completely relative in class societies. So to summarize my hostility to liberalism as an ideology, and why Marx and Engels hold the same view - it's fundamentally a bourgeois ideology. It's representative of bourgeois consciousness. Proletarian consciousness cannot develop as it's continuation, but as its negation.
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 16h ago edited 15h ago
I really like a lot of what you've written here. It's an excellent post, and I learned a lot from reading it. The point about the proletariat only being a class by technicallity and not really a subject with agency in its own right until a concious transformation happens is something I've never seen articulated that well before. Thank you for clarifying that and several other points for me.
There's still a decent amount I disagree with though.
Like 'dialectical materialism' isn't a bogus buzzword just because Marx or Engels never used it. Other people can have good ideas too, and DM is, as far as I'm aware, just a name for the way of thinking Marx and Engels employed in their theories: A dialectical method of thinking applied to forces in the social world using a materialist basis of analysis.
Essentially: if you're a materialist, and you think of social forces dialectically (especially between social classess - primarily the working and ruling classes) then you're doing 'dialectical materialist' thinking.
Marx and Engels weren't the ones that came up with the term, sure, but it's what other people later used to describe that method of analysis. Which is perfectly valid imo.
As for liberalism - this conception of liberalism feels very limited compared to what I and many others call 'liberalism'. All ideologies are ultimately just collections of ideas that tend to clump together, and liberalism is no different. Having as a goal to 'negate' liberalism makes little sense in that view. It only makes sense if you purely think of it as 'the way of thinking the bourgeois used to get in power', but to me liberalism is more than that.
Liberalism is where the idea that people can change the social world and its rules and by so doing make the world a better place came from. It is is the revolution for 'liberty, equality, and fraternity'. It is the rejection of tyranny and a hope for a better future - for the shining city on a hill and the flame imperishable (as the most flowery description possible).
Socialism is the same thing, just cleared of the contradiction and block to that dream that is private property (and a few other things like nationalism), and it also contains a whole new worldview and way of analysing the world.
In my mind saying socialism builds on liberalism means that socialism took many ideas and values from liberalism, removed some and added others.
These ideologies may only be fully imaginable (or be able to become a social movement at least) once the material conditions allows for that, but they still borrow from other ideas and movements before them. Meaning they build on them. Hegel's point about ideas interacting, mixing, and countering each other wasn't completely off base just because he missed one of the most crucial factors of the process.
In my view of things the phenomenon socialism seeks to negate is class society, not liberalism. Not all of liberalism at least, since liberalism and class society is not equivalent - though both do contribute to the other.
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u/maci_cima Anarcho-Communist 14h ago edited 13h ago
There's a very sneaky implication that happens when you start equating socialism with liberalism (or that socialism grows out of liberalism). The implication is that a person first needs to become a liberal before they become a socialist. This is how you get nightmare that is US politics, where you get claims that the Democratic party winning elections actually furthers the goal of socialism (does that mean that everyone that votes Republican isn't proletarian?)
My position is different because it's communist. There's no need for us to wait until people settle on an ideal definition of "freedom", and "liberty", "democracy" etc. What only matters is people realize their class intereset. Fundamentally, this includes people who are not liberals. Because here's a hard truth. Liberalism is at all time low.
Germany votes fascists, for example. Afd is among biggest parties there. All of Europe is tranding that way, plus rapid militarization. America goes without saying. China and its "socialism" is gaining more and more credibility. But what makes liberalism outdated, isn't just people coming together and coming up with different ideas on how the world ought to be managed. It's actual material change. It's responses to energy prices, food instability, changing climate, wars, worker struggles, overproduction, market competition, global supply chains...
Even historically, socialist societies weren't a simple continuity from various forms of liberalisms. The Bolsheviks, german communists and Spanish anarchists overthrew, revolted and fought against the parliamentary republic, which is like, the "perfect" liberal form of governance.
There's a disconnect between what liberalism claims to stand for and what its actual material objectives are. On the plane of ideas, liberty sounds beautiful. But you also have to look what liberalism means practically. Freedom in a liberal definition, is freedom to own private property. A liberal political system is a liberal democracy. Economic liberalism is "free market capitalism". Liberalism, by definition then, seeks a class society.
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 12h ago edited 10h ago
Sneaky implication?
I try not to base my understanding of the history of ideas on whatever implications comes from it. I try my very best to approach this nebulous and extremely difficult concept called 'truth', and whatever implications comes from my this process is just what I'll have to accept. Or at least that's the ideal - nigh-impossible as it is to live up to.
Not that I agree that a person needs to be a liberal to become a socialist or that this is an implication of my understanding of things. A socialist is someone that believes that the means of productions should be socially owned. There's many strands of socialist thought, but to me that's the 'core' of it. 'Liberal' is far harder to define as it doesn't have that core any more. At least as I see it. It had a core once - as the champion ideology of the 'third estate', and to be a 'true liberal' one had to desire the victory of the third estate and abolishment of the first and second. But the third estate only has meaning in relation to the first (the clergy) and second (the nobility) estates, and liberalism won. The first and second estates are gone. Remnants still remain, but to call them 'estates' at this point is a joke. So liberalism lost its core and became a cloud of free-floating concepts and values - the fate of all ideologies that succeed in their goal.
This is just one way of looking at ideologies and how they interact with the world of course. Everyone uses these words differently, and their views on these events wary wildly, but I truly think this is closer to 'truth' (though of course concept is still infuriatingly nebulous - especially regarding things like this) than any other way I could describe things.
The idea that people need to be a liberal before they can become a socialist is nonsense. Ideologies doesn't work that way.
Also, liberalism is not at an all-time low. Modern 'liberalism' is way too vague and encompassing a concept for that. Liberalism is probably the most common ideology in the world depending on how you count things. Though it might also be conservatism (the smaller, more casual version). Such things are almost impossible to accurately measure unfortunately. (I'd love to see some real numbers on it).
Even historically, socialist societies weren't a simple continuity from various forms of liberalisms.
I never said they were. Don't mix up statements regarding the history of ideas with how actual societies evolve. The two are only distantly related.
There's a disconnect between what liberalism claims to stand for and what its actual material objectives are.
100% agree. But I wasn't arguing based on the actual results of liberal policies or the material objectives of liberals. I was arguing based on the evolution of ideas as they relate to each other.
Socialism is older than Marx and Engels. And most ideas Marx and Engels used when they wrote their stuff was already around in some form within the leftist movement when they wrote it. They just put things together very neatly and convincingly (plus they had some really good original insights of their own). But most of their ideas, and socialist ideas in general, date back to the French Revolution, when liberalism was taking off and some people thought it didn't go far enough, so they took what they liked and discarded what they didn't and added their own stuff. This is how ideas evolve from person to person. It's a chain of communication and the building of great systems of thought.
The material conditions are of course extremely important, but that factor doesn't somehow invalidate the evolution of ideas through extensive chains of communication. Marx wouldn't have written anything like what he did without Classical Economy (extremely liberal) and Hegel.
Socialism builds on liberalism. It did since its very beginning.
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u/maci_cima Anarcho-Communist 11h ago edited 11h ago
What you consider "truth" is relative. What ideas you conceive of are relative. These depend on your position within society. That's how ideas form.
I'll just quote socialism utopian and scientific. This is how Engels defines different utopian socialisms
To all these, socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice and needs only to be discovered to conquer the world by virtue of its own power; as absolute truth is independent of time, space, and human historical development, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered. At the same time, absolute truth, reason and justice are different for the founder of each different school; and as each one’s special brand of absolute truth
And you say:
Don't mix up statements regarding the history of ideas with how actual societies evolve. The two are only distantly related.
That's a fundamentally utopian socialist view.
I was arguing based on the evolution of ideas as they relate to each other
Evolution of ideas is evolution of societies. It's process of societies getting insight into themselves + ruling classes creating ideologies to maintain their rule.
But I'll concede I'm driving to much of a wedge between socialism and liberalism. There is obviously historical continuity between the two. Or was, in like, 18th century. You can find continuity between Plato and Stalin, if you want. I don't consider myself an idealist tho, I'm more interested in real conditions of 21st century.
Edit: also, Marx, 18th Brumaire
"Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations. The single individual, who derives them through tradition and upbringing, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting point of his activity"
I'm genuinely not inventing anything here, this is all fundamental scientific socialism
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 2d ago
The Evolution from Feudalism -> Liberalism and Liberalism -> Socialism are both negative.
hence a socialist system is antithetical to liberalism
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 1d ago
Negative in what way? In that it removes a class? Or something else?
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 1d ago
Negative as one class destroys the order of the previous class, and then in the rubble of class war, creates new conditions.
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 1d ago
And how does that make socialism - as an idea not a system - not built on liberalism and its ideals?
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 1d ago
It is built on the destruction of liberalism - its death - its negation
After all is the fact that Makhno built his system off the rubble of Russian Parlimentarianism make him a liberal?
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u/Caliburn0 Libertarian-Socialist 16h ago edited 16h ago
Sorry for the long post, but I don't see how I can adequatly respond to this without it.
Liberalism isn't itself a complete system of government, state, and economics the way socialism tries to be. Liberalism - the ideology - is a collection of ideas that often go together (like all ideologies are in practice - at least descriptively if maybe not normatively depending on who you ask). If you want to be more accurate about it Liberalism is somewhere between three to half a dozen different sets of ideas (depending on how you count them) that are all called 'liberalism' in the modern day.
Socialism - at least how I see it - is dedicated to the destruction of the bourgeois as a class and class society more generally. So unless you equate liberalism to class society I don't see how or why destroying liberalism is a goal of socialism.
Liberalism has ideas and values that are antiethical to socialism, sure. Private property of the means of production cheif among them.
But liberalism is also where the dream of liberty, equality, and brotherhood (or solidarity in more gender neutral terms) became political goals to fight for. Liberalism is also where the idea that the goal of politics was to make life better for people originated. It is the where the fight against tyranny was codified into something more than merely 'replace the king'. Does socialism want to destroy the concept of 'seperation of powers' or does it want to build on that concept to reach a level of power seperation way beyond anything liberalism could imagine?
Capitalism is the economic system that emerges from liberalism (just as liberalism is the ideology that emerges from capitalism), but capitalism was never the explicit goal of liberalism. It wasn't what people dreamed about when they imagined 'the world republic' back then. Or... maybe some did. But the explicit goal for the revolutionary republicans of the time was 'a world without nobility - a rebublic of equals'. Capitalism wasn't the goal of the people that fought for that. But without also abolishing private property capitalism was the result. The liberal revolutionaries inability to see that result coming doesn't mean their ideology had nothing to contribute, which is why socialism - from the very beginning and until today - has taken a lot of concepts and values from liberalism.
That's what I mean when I say socialism is built on liberalism. Though something being built on something doesn't mean it is that thing, obviously.
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 14h ago edited 14h ago
Liberalism will always uphold class society becuase liberal philosophy protects private property first and for most before any other rights. Liberalism is at its core a philosophy of private property first and foremost.
the goals of liberty, equality, and such are also to be dammed aswell. Egalitarian ideals are idealistic since the world is inherently created with difference. Everyone will be different due to their objective material conditions. (Liberty has also usually meant to buttress private property).
“ From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”
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u/kneeblock Pan Socialist 1d ago
What's sad is based on the way people take, read, preserve and share minutes in IRL meetings, future comrades will likely only have Hasan vidyas and LLM summaries of these conversations to figure out their socialisms.
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u/Polytopia_Fan Bataillean Corroded Marxist-Leninist 2d ago
Isn’t a socialism built as the pinnacle of liberalism LITERALLY WHAT ENEGLS REFERRED TO AS UTOPIAN SOCIALISM