this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Historically, the three arrows symbol has been used by groups attacking Socialists, hence why I added the slash. Overwhelmingly, those who use the three arrows, including those who originated the symbol, are Social Democrats. Social Democracy is not Socialism, it's Capitalism with larger and more robust safety nets, and as such said Social Democrats have historically had just as much problem with Socialists as they have with Communists.
This is without getting into my own personal analysis of Socialism, that being that any society dedicated to maintaining Socialism will almost certainly eventually move towards Commnism anyways. This is just historical contextualization. Three Arrows the YouTuber identifies as a Social Democrat as well, so this is again reinforcing the idea that I don't think someone who isn't a Socialist and doesn't support Socialism should be seen as an authority on analyzing whether or not a system is Socialist.
That's why I recommended a historian with a doctorate who wrote a famous book on precisely this subject. It's a quick, snappy read too.
The SPD, to this day, still works towards democratic socialism. It's been in the programme since the start. They have a lot of "belly-aches" along the way and they're often called traitors but, well, if they weren't leftists they could hardly betray the left, could they.
And Marxism-Leninism is state capitalism, not socialism. Maoism doesn't even have public healthcare, Bismark was more of a socialist than that.
"Democratic Socialism" is a bit of a misnomer. It usually means one of two things, achieving Socialism via liberal democracy (impossible, as was proven by Rosa Luxemburg) or creating a Socialism via revolution but recreating liberal democracy, and not Socialist democracy, which is contradictory. In reality, therefore, it remains a Social Democratic ideology that upholds Capitalism but wishes to expand safety nets, and therefore isn't Socialist at all.
As for State Capitalism, that refers to a specific period of time, namely the NEP. The economy of states guided by Marxism historically are guided by public ownership and central planning, which was core to Marx's conception of an eventual Communist society. "State Capitalism" refers to a specific formation where a Socialist State employs a market-focused economy and heavily guides it in a manner to achieve quick development, as Marxists believe public ownership and central planning is incredibly difficult to build "from the ground up" but that Markets readily create the infrastructure for public ownership and central planning through competition.
Err what.
Lenin's economy. Market-focussed. I'm just going to leave that standing there, uncommented.
See I don't even disagree, in principle, with the statement "The SPD does not know how to bring about socialism". Only Anarchists do. Thing is: The SPD's approach is still way more on the money than anything tankies have ever come up with.
With respect to Rosa Luxemburg, I am referring to Reform or Revolution, an excellent work.
For the uncommented bit, I am not sure the point you are making here. The goal of Socialism is not a fully publicly owned and planned economy, those are the means once industry has developed enough to make such a system practical. Russia was extremely underdeveloped when the NEP was employed. I think reading Marx might help you understand a bit more:
In a country where such a process hadn't yet become more developed, the Marxist answer is to create the foundations for public ownership and planning through a highly controlled and temporary market-focused economy, which was done away with.
The bit on the SPD is a bit silly, you claim that they are on the money yet have never created any form of Socialism, while Marxists have. You can be an Anarchist if you think that's best, that's your choice, but I recommend reading Marx if you want to better critique Marxists.
Liberals do not want to critique Marxism, they wish to endlessly dismiss it
Yep, eventually twisting into knots to defend movements that haven't accomplished anything as "truly practical."
Sure bud. Tell yourself that. While the USSR ultimately reached the stateless part, no actual groundwork for socialism was laid so banditry took over once the Bolshevik power structure collapsed. What followed was a free-for-all until the KGB got its shit together and... instituted imperialist nationalist capitalism. That organisation really hasn't changed since the times of the Tsar.
The Bolsheviks did not build resilience against any of that because building a society which is resilient against rule of minority groups seeking to exploit the masses would have undermined their own rule. The whole thing is inherently self-contradicting, Anarchists have been telling that Marx himself long before either of us were born so stop telling us to "read Marx". Rather, you read "On Authority" and identify the strawmen.
"Stateless" doesn't mean "governmentless," though the dissolution of the Socialist system nearly a century after its founding does not mean they never had a Socialist economy. Further, such a system did not "exploit the masses," it achieved massive working class victories such as free healthcare and education, doubled life expectancy, over tripling literacy rates to be higher than the Western world, and democratized the economy.
On Authority doesn't strawman anything.
According to the original socialist "state == hierarchical rule" definition, yes it does. Even Marx, even the Soviets, admitted that and did not confuse "real existing socialism" (sic) with actual communism.
Congratulations, you understand sarcasm.
Irrespective of the veracity of that statement: Not something I said. Not the point.
Maybe you would be able to spot the strawman if you tried less hard to misunderstand my previous post. Something about resilience against something? Necessary preconditions?
You're actually quite far off about Marx and the State, and are presupposing the Anarchist as the "legitimate" and "original." For Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other non-Anarchist Socialists, the state was the tool of class oppression. The goal of Marx and Engels in their analysis was to show that the centralization of Capitalism leads to public ownership and planning, not decentralization. From Engels:
Further along:
Anarchists seek abolition of hierarchy, Marxists seek abolition of classes. You can be an Anarchist, but don't distort Marx to suit your ends.