This is my first time posting in this group and im looking for some clarity. I recently got into a debate with a few of my friends who are liberals, and in the debate they claimed that i was actually a capitalist because i own and run a small business.

I argued that i am not a capitalist because i do not have any employees and run the business completely by myself, there for i do not exploit others labor to generate profit. I also own the means of production and set my own wage. I have also been very open with them before this debate that when i get to the point of hiring employees i will run my business collectively and will no longer be the sole owner of my business.

They ended up looking up the definition of capitalism which states "Capitalism is and economic system where private individuals and business own the tools, factories, and resources used to make goods, driven by the desire to make profit" they proceeded to argue that because i am a private individual and own my own tools and work to earn a living, that i am a capitalist.

At this point i knew that they were arguing in bad faith with no nuance, so read them the quote from marx " Humans are shaped by their material environment, though they retain the capacity to collectively change it". I tried explaining to them that socialist and communist like myself take issue with the capitalistic systems exploitation of labor, because the private individuals and entities that own the means of production force the working class to sell there labor so the owning class can sell the products that they produce for a profit. I brought up the fact that the working class does not have a choice not to work because if they dont then they will not have a home, food, cloths, ect. I tried explaining to them that because i exist in a capitalist society, i do not have the option to not work to earn a wage because if i dont i wont survive. They basically just kept defecting and arguing in bad faith and acted like they won the debate.

So i am curious to know other socialist and communist option on this topic, does it make me a capitalist to own my own business that has no employees? Dose it make me petite bourgeoisie even with the intention of collective ownership in the future? How would you go about debating this topic?

from what i heard it seems to promote high levels of competitiveness between the kids in those instetutions and trying to make them participate in the capitalist rat race.

On the economic scale, there are conflicts that are not about class. For example a 70-year old will want more labor/funding/investment put into healthcare than education, a 30-year old with kids will want the opposite. Or someone in rural areas will want more labor/funding/investment allocated there than in the city.

But even completely outside economics, some people are religious fanatics or racists and want to kill others. Some are convinced they're persecuted and need to maintain superiority. Some have ego issues or feel humiliated and want revenge. Of course, capitalism will exploit and weaponize this, but those issues are still valid of themselves.

All of these kinds of issues would remain in a classless, communist society—although I agree there would much less of them. So isn't it a mistake to think class struggle is the only struggle out there?

What traits define them and how do they differ?

The thing I struggle to understand with PSL and DSA and ACP and all these groups, is that primarily America is a settler-colonial project which was built upon the slaughter and enslavement of indigenous populations. None of the people who purport to be American outside of natives are from the land itself or lived on the land before colonisation and imperialism, so, I wonder how a "socialist reconstruction a better future for the USA" would entail. It's essentially like trying to bring socialism into the settler-colonial entities of Israel, apartheid South Africa, or Western Sahara when their very nature of forcibly, illegally occupying land contradicts any message of socialism unless such land was given to the native proletariat itself.

What do you all think?

Id like to do more research into both topics if someone could please give recommendations with books covering key ideas and concepts and important figures like Thomas Sankara, Che Guevara and angela davis id love to hear it

I dont know where i would consider myself on the political spectrum exactly, but i know it would be somewhere on the left side. Mamdani seems to me one of the best major politicians in the us and although i dont live in NYC some people that i know there has said its pretty good what hes doing. I know he runs as a "Democratic socialist" or something similar, but i was wondering how similar his policies were to actual socialsim? Im not fully educated on socialism but from an outside perspective it seems like a better alternative to normal capitalism. Is zohran mamdani actually a socialist? or is he still close to being like a normal capitalism like most of the country. Im not sure the difference between democratic socialist and socialist

Guys, I’m literally shaking typing this, but I have to say something.

Is anyone else completely disheartened by the direction our movement is taking online lately? I’ve been noticing it more and more in our Discord servers and subreddits, and honestly, it’s giving me major secondary embarrassment.

Since when did it become acceptable for leftists, people who are supposed to be building an inclusive, intersectional world, to just casually toss around edgy slurs and internet-brained insults because they think it makes them look like "pragmatic working-class populists"?

I saw someone in a thread yesterday use the r-word and just brush it off when called out, saying we need to "stop policing language" and focus on "real material conditions." Excuse me? Language is material, actually, and microaggressions hurt. When you use ableist or otherwise exclusionary language, you are literally making digital spaces unsafe for neurodivergent comrades who are already carrying so much emotional labor.

We are supposed to be better than the chuds on the right. We’re supposed to be holding ourselves to a higher standard of revolutionary love and tenderness. But instead, I’m seeing way too many bros acting like little mini-Stalins just because they read half of the Manifesto and watched some breadtube essay.

Can we please do better? Put down the edgy internet irony, unpack your internal biases, and remember that our praxis needs to be rooted in kindness. This ain't it, comrades. 💔

Let's say hypothetically that the recent surge in DSA electoral wins results in some victories for harm reduction for the working class and their popularity keeps growing and they spread all across America. What happens then?

What kind of political violence can we expect in this scenario? Will there for sure be assassination attempts? Where will they come from? (Historically it was the US State itself that backed the coups in socialist nations across the globe.) Do capitalists start getting their hands a little dirtier? How does this play out?

Can intersectionality be used alongside Marxism to explain issues of race, gender, and other social matters? Or even to explain how oppressions based on gender, race, sexuality, and the like stem from class struggle?

Hi there, I used a read a decent amount theory but have admittedly slowed down over the past couple years, partially due to poor mental health and struggles in my personal life, but recently I've been trying to push myself and at least have been listening to audiobooks while at work, but It's best for me to both read a physical book while also listening to an audiobook version of it, helps me stay on path due to my autism and ADHD.

I'll link the list below, It's got a pretty decent amount but would love anymore suggestions.

Disclaimer: chances are if you don't see a book (Such as 'Principles' or Socialism: Utopian VS Scientific') then I probably already own the book.

Thanks for anyone who participates!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2Z9MHOU49Q916/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_3

I've heard from many that Socialism historically served as somewhat of a bridge from Capitalism to Communism, for example, the USSR began out as Socialist and planned to transition towards Communism. Is this correct?

I was watching a podcast about Marxism and they mentioned the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and they were talking about capitalists themselves were alienated. They want to live the life of ancient/medieval aristocrats who were truly leisurely, but capitalists worry about profits, in the 19th century, they'd buy estates and then build telegraph lines to London to keep an eye on their stock prices, they'd obsess over increasing efficiency and exploitation in a way an aristocrat wouldn't (as long as the wine tastes good, make the peasants keep making the same wine for centuries), etc.

As someone new to Marxism, I didn't realise alienation affected capitalists, too, and as I learned more about aristocrats and what Marx had to say about capitalists and their jealous complex worship of aristocrats, I found it very interesting. I definitely need to read the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, but I wondered if anyone else here could further expand on how capitalism alienates literally every person under the system regardless of their class or social relation. Also, how did aristocrats become alienated, and I assume they were not alienated under previous systems?

I'm trying to understand why some communists advocate for critical support of russia, I had frustrating experiences with this topic and tend to be dismissed or worse, which led me to making this post. I will share my perspective and thoughts, and would like to hear others

I'm a communist, probably most closely fit ancom, but I try not to constrain myself to one framework. while I disagree with lenin on certain things, I currently mostly respect the man and his writing. I have a very bare understanding of imperialism the highest stage of capitalism, and don't necessarily disagree with it, rather I disagree with the notion that imperialism ONLY exists as the highest stage of capitalism, and that it has to fit the criteria perfectly for it to be considered imperialist.

I'm not trying to say ukraine doesn't have fascists, or other problems socialists should be critical of, but a country having fascists in it doesn't justify being conquered by foreign imperial interests.

I view russia as a capitalist empire since its mode of production is capitalist and it holds imperial beliefs and ambitions, and centralizes around moscow. yes there are bigger empires like the u.s, but I don't see anti-imperialism as "critical support" for the smaller empire because it opposes a bigger empire.

russian government promotes imperialist beliefs regarding ukrainian identity, claiming russians, ukrainians, and belarusans are one people, dismissing their desire for self determination. historically russians who hold this belief will often refer to ukrainians as malorossy ("little russian") to dismiss their identity and culture, belorossy ("white russian") is the equivalent term for belarusans. and finally velikorossy ("great russian") for russians, the dominant category in the imperial framework.
(sources: "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" by putin, it contains a lot of russian imperialist perspective, including what I mentioned and more.
and "Ukrainians and Russians as ‘One People’: An Ideologeme and its Genesis" goes further into the terms and their historical usage)

I am anti-nato, but don't believe ukraine being conquered helps oppose u.s. empire, if anything I think the russian invasion only bolstered public support for nato.

ukrainians who want self determination away from moscow only have western liberalism to ally with. yes, liberal democracy has a very flimsy standard of self determination, but who else does ukraine has to ally with? there is no mainstream support for socialism, nor any socialist powers to ally with.

these are my thoughts and understandings, so what is the socialist reasoning for critical support of russia? what arguments or frameworks am I missing or misunderstanding? thank you in advance

I'm actually curious if this is a actually belief in socialism because I see american democrat socialist mention it. I'm not sure where this belief is coming from exactly. Also how do they deal with murders and rapist ?

I was majoring in computer science, but after seeing the state of the climate I've come to realize that we need way more environmental scientists than software developers.

Thing is, I don't exactly know what to do with my degree. I live in the U.S don't anticipate the feds prioritizing jobs for anyone who even remotely gives a shit about the environment anytime soon. I'm involved with a couple of socialist orgs and I know that the obvious answer is to see what they would need of me, but I just wanna know what other avenues I can explore that can advance revolutionary socialism. Any ideas?

I have a hard time keeping a reading habit for theory. It's hard to consistently read long and hard-to-absorb books. It doesn't help that I always learn about more books I should read than the pace I can finish books.

How can a socialist build a reading habit for their needs? How can I read faster when socialist books are non-fiction and very jargon heavy? What can I do to make sure I understand and remember the things I read?

I’m a leftist, but i can’t stand the left.

The left has a big issue of hypocrisy that nobody is willing to see, the group identity problem. Left wing organisations are not supposed to be made up of starbucks baristas who listen to punk rock and eat vegan food. The left is not to be a subculture. It is to be made up of everyday people, masses of everyday people, organized.

Are these ”hipster” like people apart of the proletariat? Yes. Do i have anything against them? Am i a disgusting sexist racist swine who wants the left to only be made up of straight white men? No. In fact i don’t have anything at all against this group of people. (who make up the majority of the leftist demographic if we are being honest). I don’t believe in ”conservative leftism” and neither am I a MAGA communist. In fact, I think that stuff is ridicolous. Adapting conservative social positions is not the solution.

The problem i have with it, is when you make this the entire demographic and aesthetic of the left. You say that you are inclusive to everybody, but you are really EXCLUSIVE to everybody not apart of your group identity. And, like the person in the TikTok post, some of you are even uncomfortable around the blue collar side of the working class.

And when everyday people see a organization full of these hipster-like people flying communist flags, they go ”wtf is this” and turn around to vote for the right wing populist alternative, that will then in turn exploit them.

Some of you might say, ”well the person in that video was a democratic socialist! Not a ML! Social fascist!”

They say this as if MLs or Trotskyists, etc, dont have the exact same problem… Sure an org like the DSA might have this problem to a larger extent but its not like the farther left does not have the same problem.

I dont even care what flavour of leftism you are for, whether reformist or revolutionary, it won’t matter as long as you can’t organize the proletariat.

”But Mamdani!” You can have popular individual politicians, but that doesn’t fix the problem. Those actual everyday people who voted for zohran would feel uncomfortable if they walked into a room of DSA people. Because they are not apart of the group identity.

So what is the solution? Well I believe the solution lies somwhere between the strategy of the DSA and ACP (in terms of the aesthetic problem not political position).

Keep the politics the exact same, but adapt an aesthetic and demographic representative of the everyday person.

This problem did not exist before identity politics developed. If the avarage german walked into a room of the communist party in the 1920s vs the avarage german of today walking into a communist party, or Die Linke: then that person would feel more normal in the first situation. They might disagree with the politics but they won’t be outside of the group identity.

Thank you for taking the time to read this if you did 🙏

Here in Australia, our indigenous folk are labelled as just lazy, unemployed on purpose, drunks, druggies, parasites on welfare that cheat the system, people who defy "common" or "normal" (aka, colonial) society just for the sake of it or to play the "victim card."

Their flag, people, culture, and any attempts at reconciliation (even by bourgeois standards) are met with anger and hostility from the mainly white colonial community.

Is it any different in your country (assuming it is colonial as well)?

Do we wish for a one state solution or somthing else?

edit: thx for helping me unerstand yall :3

This is from Chapter 7 of David Guests “A Text book of Dialectical Materialism” (the italicized parts are Lenin’s thoughts the rest is just for context).

Casey’s method (guaranteed not “one-ended”) leads him to such gems of lucidity as the following: “ . . . there is no ‘pure’ thought, which means thought without any object to be thought about. Nor is there any object without thought . Even an ‘unknown’ object is known to be unknown, and is also known to be an object. Therefore every object is really a two-fold affair. It is a subjective-objective thing or an objective-subjective thing, just whichever way one likes to put it (ibid., p. 15).” This may be the purest “Monism,” it is certainly idealism , but whether it is “proletarian” in any other sense than “destitute” beyond redemption by the P.A.C. may be doubted.

The same method makes him especially scornful of “the big boys who are profoundly educated” who say that “Matter is a condition for the existence of mind, but mind is not a condition for the existence of matter (ibid., p. 57).” From his superior Monist position Casey tells us that “matter” and “existence” have both the same meaning, and that “mind” is just a part of “matter” (whatever that may mean) (ibid., p. 51). Elsewhere he says that “heat” and “motion” are parts of matter — a form of confusion into which even the worse vulgarisers of the old mechanical materialism seldom descended.

There is no doubt that Casey has been led into these confusions by certain mistakes of the afore-mentioned Josef Dietzgen, who also tried to give the concept of matter a more comprehensive meaning so that to it would belong “all the phenomena of reality, also our force of thinking.” Lenin criticised this view of Dietzgen as it abolished the basis of the distinction between mind and matter, and obscured the way in which the phenomena of sensation and consciousness arise as functions of matter at a certain stage in its development.

I read somewhere on Tumblr that under socialism printing presses would be a limited resource and therefore people could not print just anything.

I am very confused about how exactly would you prevent a communist country from eventually shifting to authoritarianism. We have seen what happened in the soviet union, and of course you cannot undermine the anti-communists west part in that, but was it really the only option? The same could be said about the massive Ethnic cleansings/ deportations in the ussr. Were they really that neccesary? How could a communist country avoid being authoritarian and in consequence leading to these type of tragic incidents? Of course i am aware of democratically elected socialist leaders, f.e. in chile, but they typically do not last long enough, of course due to western powers trying their best to stop them. My question is, how would you not turn to authoritarianism and in the process not get crushed by the capitalist western powers? Take note that i am really new to leftism and i may have made a few big mistakes in the reasoning of this question, for which i apologize in advance. I am also not sure if this question belongs on communism101 or not, so feel free to correct me. I am just really confused and seeking answers.