Comment on Evil Bisexuals
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 days agoThis is why the distinction matters. AOC isn’t a traditional socialist. She doesn’t espouse Leninist or Stalinist ideology.
The field of socialist political theory doesn’t begin with Lenin and end with Mao. You have plenty of rival and parallel traditions, from Eugene Debbs to Peter Kropotkin to Murray Bookchin to Richard Wolff.
Lenin got the (relative) benefit of a very specific moment in a very specific region. Russia was on the cusp of the industrial revolution just as its aristocratic government had overcommitted to a horrifying military campaign that hollowed out its national leadership. This, in a country where a couple of super-cities dictated the political fortunes of the largest contiguous sovereign landmass on earth.
No shit AOC isn’t Lenin. We’re never going to get another Lenin, because we’re never going to see a mass labor movement catch on at the tail end of WW1 in Petrograd just as the diesel engine is becoming popular. This isn’t even about ideology, it’s about material conditions.
And this isn’t directed towards you. It’s just frustrating.
I mean, I agree, but for slightly different reasons. People keep casting back 100 years and saying “Ah, but you’re not trying to unionize the steelworkers from inside a sealed boxcar, so you’re not doing socialism correctly”.
But when you crack the hood on AOC’s Green New Deal and peak inside, that’s exactly the sort of shit Lenin would have championed. Massive economic modernizations that accrue wealth directly to the working class as social unit? A sprawling state-directed bureaucracy to manage the industrial reforms? Decoupling a critical domestic utility from the private sector while drastically increasing productivity to make the commodity virtually free at point of use?
That’s So Lenin!
I’ll spot you that AOC’s aged like milk. She came into office leading a parade of angry activists to Nancy Pelosi’s front door and came an inch shy of nailing 99 Leftist Theses to her front door. Now she just blows up my phone with annoying donation requests and does stupid Twitch streams repeating hashed over health care talking points for the 90th time.
But slapping the “DemSuc” label on her, because she’s not chanting chapter and verse out of the Little Red Book while wearing a Mao Suit is just getting hung up on bullshit aesthetics. The least Lenin thing she’s done is lose. But its not for lack of trying. It’s certainly not for lack of ideology.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 days ago
First, I have to say: that was an exceptionally well-written response. Concise, thoughtful, nuanced, and actually engaging with the substance of what I was saying. That is a refreshing departure from what I usually encounter on this platform, where discussions like this tend to devolve into people rudely dismissing the argument, accusing someone of being a simp, or throwing around “straw man” as though identifying a logical fallacy somehow constitutes a rebuttal. I genuinely appreciate the effort you put into your response.
And honestly, I generally agree with you.
The crux of my argument was intentionally simplified because the audience I am usually engaging with isn’t particularly familiar with the distinctions between the various schools of socialist thought. A significant portion of the people I encounter who describe themselves as socialists are actually advocating for social democracy without realizing that there is an important distinction between the two. That’s ultimately where most of my engagement on this subject comes from.
I’m not trying to argue that socialism begins with Lenin and ends with Stalin or Mao. Obviously, there are numerous socialist traditions that predate, coexist with, and directly oppose Leninism. Your point about material conditions is particularly well taken. Political and economic systems don’t develop in a vacuum, and attempting to judge every form of socialism through the lens of 1917 Russia is just as reductive as pretending Leninism represents socialism as a whole.
Where I think our distinction is primarily one of emphasis is that I’m interested in making sure people understand what they’re actually advocating for. If someone tells me they support universal healthcare, strong labor protections, substantial redistribution, public investment, and a robust social safety net, I’m perfectly happy to explain that they may actually be describing social democracy rather than socialism. If they then tell me they genuinely support social ownership of the means of production, that’s a different conversation.
Ultimately, my goal isn’t to convince everyone that socialism is inherently evil or that capitalism is inherently good. It’s to inform people about what these systems actually mean and the differences between them, so they’re not inadvertently advocating for something they haven’t actually considered.
And this is where I think the historical record matters. Social democracy has been implemented extensively and has produced some remarkably successful societies. Democratic socialism, at least in the sense of substantially restructuring ownership of the economy while retaining democratic institutions, has not been implemented on anything approaching the same scale. Whatever one’s theoretical opinion of democratic socialism, we simply don’t have the same empirical evidence demonstrating that it works.
So when someone says, “I support socialism,” I think it’s entirely reasonable to ask what they mean by that.
And honestly, I hope more discussions about this subject could look like this one. We can disagree about definitions, historical traditions, and economic models without immediately turning the conversation into a confrontation. I’d much rather have someone make a nuanced argument like yours and force me to refine my own position than have someone simply dismiss it because they don’t like the conclusion.
That kind of discussion is actually useful.