Don’t know why he wastes time criticizing him since JT doesn’t do anything wrong. Also really funny that him and other commenters are complaining about The Deprogram being like Chapo.
Upon deeper research, it turns out Day used to post on the subreddit to dunk on BadEmpanada, which is funny since Day himself has strong BadEmpanada vibes.
We’ve been trying the succ dem slow pipeline for 200 years in the West and it hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time for a different strategy than slowly “waking” up Liberals with social democracy, because all evidence shows that most just remain social democrats
Oh, and you’re saying a Maoist style insurgency has worked incredibly well in the imperial core as well?
None of these strategies have ‘worked’. But one of them gets people in the pipeline, the other doesn’t do jack diddly shit unless you are already there. Getting people to even think about this stuff critically at all is a win and if you don’t think it is, I highly suggest you go and talk to some people outside of the leftie political sphere, who have zero idea of what any of this shit is.
Where did I suggest Maoist insurgency? Is that really the only options in your view? Guerrilla war immediately or succ dem reformism?
The high water mark of leftism in the west was during the Great Depression when there was a large and powerful unionized working class involved in a central Marxist party, a party that worked with the global proletarian movements abroad. That is the style to emulate, not weatherman adventurism or Berniecrat social imperialism
No, I’m being flippant, which isn’t helpful. I’m sorry, I’ve been unnecessarily combative.
Reform or radicalism will not come until there is a consequential enough war-tien deprivation to actually affect the generalized working class in the U.S., whatever form it takes. Currently, modern unions will roll over if they receive even a portion of the pressure that they received in the 30’s. They can make all noise they want, which is good, but they are not going reach anything close to a ‘high water mark’ unless the actual historical material circumstances support it. They can and historically have, been bought off. Maybe it could support a previously unknown radicalism of MMT socdems, maybe it could support a core Maoist resurgence, maybe it could support a radical unionism. My personal belief is that it will come from emergent historical forms of organizations, but we just don’t know which ones yet, so it is pointless to fight about it.
Ultimately and personally, I think the Marxist view of the monetary economy is superior and more historically analytical, but I also genuinely don’t think it matters that much where we are at this point historically. Personally, I’ve been able to turn many libertarian socialists into more Marxist thinkers using MMT as an entry point into structured economics. It’s not an entry point for libs or socdems, it’s an entry point for libertarian socialists. I support your view here, it would be nice if JT self-crits and discusses those problems in a later post. I just don’t think we’re at a point it matters to argue about it, imo any systemic thinking ‘at all’ is good. Propoganda is propoganda is propoganda. I could be wrong though.
Not to debate the larger point but actualy yeah the most successfull and theatening to the status quo socialist movement in the US, the Black Panther Party, was organized mostly along Maoist lines and influences in practice
people just get trained in Marxism right away. Why can’t we just do that and skip the cringe stage?
A multitude of strategies is a good thing. Different tactics work on different people.
We’ve been trying the succ dem slow pipeline for 200 years in the West and it hasn’t worked.
Tell that to all the people here who started their journey to radicalization because of . Also, JT doesn’t advocate for succdemery, he explicitly states it’s not socialism and actual socialism is what’s needed. The fact remains, one of the best strategies for getting people in the core to even begin questioning the water they’ve been swimming in their entire lives is to meet them where they’re at, then go from there.
I admit I don’t know enough about MMT and am willing to learn about where I’m wrong. But from my limited understanding, MMT is narrowly just theory about how economics works without anything prescriptive to say about revolution. You can recognize that MMT explains a lot of the things that western “economists” are utterly blind to (and outright refuse to look at) and still be a dedicated Marxist/ML. Doesn’t even Michael Hudson talk a lot about MMT? Should we write him off as not worth paying attention to because of that?
I don’t know what JT’s views are on MMT, and I am skeptical it even matters. But I do know he’s not a social democrat, he’s a radical Marxist and has openly and frequently said so. If I remember right, even said so here during the last AMA.
because all evidence shows that most just remain social democrats
Two things about this
- Them being social democrats is still probably a marked improvement on whatever they were before. Having more people advocating for social programs is not bad. Even if they are not Marxists.
- The number of people who move from the pipeline from social democrat to communist is not immaterial. The other poster mentioned former Berniecrats who are now communists and you ignored it. And the amount of “I used to be a liberal, then I started watching Contra points, now I’m a communist and I hate her” Ive seen is pretty remarkable. Like that wasnt my journey (I was a communist before Breadtube or leftist podcasts were even really a thing, my radicalization was more social in nature) but its still apretty common one. Just saying “it hasn’t worked” when it demonstrably has for a not insignificant number of people is strange to me.
For the record, I’m not advocating AGAINST trying a more agressive strategy where we try to pipeline people without a stop at the socdem counter. But diversity of tactics is fine. Folks like JT are not useless and definitly aren’t doing harm.
(ik I said disengage on the other topic, but this is a new topic, but please dont get aggressive again)
Them being social democrats is still probably a marked improvement on whatever they were before. Having more people advocating for social programs is not bad. Even if they are not Marxists.
I disagree specifically for western imperialist nations. Social imperialism is a particularly pernicious and stable form of imperialism that shares the stolen spoils with the entire imperial population, making revolution and anti-imperialism more difficult. Social Democracy is a superior form of capitalism that is more stable and more likely to defeat communist projects and competently manage empire without internal crises.
The number of people who move from the pipeline from social democrat to communist is not immaterial. The other poster mentioned former Berniecrats who are now communists and you ignored it. And the amount of “I used to be a liberal, then I started watching Contra points, now I’m a communist and I hate her” Ive seen is pretty remarkable. Like that wasnt my journey (I was a communist before Breadtube or leftist podcasts were even really a thing, my radicalization was more social in nature) but its still apretty common one. Just saying “it hasn’t worked” when it demonstrably has for a not insignificant number of people is strange to me.
Lets the succ dems preach the succ. Communists should be preaching communism. That way our hands don’t get tainted by their shit when it hurts the global proletariat over and over. The pipeline could still happen without communists lying and pretending to be social democrats. We don’t need to do their social imperialist work for them. JT is a communist right? A marxist? Why is he spreading non-marxist concepts?
I basically agree with the second part actually, communists should probably not waste their time that way. You make a good point.
But as a disabled person who relies on social programs to have housing, food, and healthcare, I find the idea that policies that help vulnerable people in western imperialist nations are actually a bad thing because it stabilizes capitalism a particularly toxic idea that I see far too often. The idea that people like me should be made to suffer more so that communism can happen sooner seems outright sociopathic to me. And I’ve never understood the argument.
And don’t tell me that barely surviving on barely functioning social programs is me enjoying the spoils of the third world. I’m not living the high life lol. I’m living a terrible existence actually.
Like, be honest with your intentions here. Do I deserve housing, food, and healthcare NOW. Or should I wait until communism happens (which probably wont happen in my lifetime, especially if I dont have housing, food, and healthcare) to have those things?
I think communists should should focus on doing things that help the proletariat in their countries, to win over those people. Whether thats direct action/mutual aid or by advocating for social programs. Like I’ll tell you honestly, when I hear communists say things about this about the social programs that I require to live, I do not feel cared for by my comrades. I feel abandoned and set aside. If we aren’t fighting to make things better for the vulnerable, then what is the point of all this? Obvbiously the real way to help the vulnerable a communist revolution, but I dont see whats wrong with making things better in the short term as well.
If worrying about my own material conditions and ability to survive is a bad thing, I’d love to know why. Because I literally would not be alive without social programs.
