Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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rant:
I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷
It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism... I say this because I've been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!
/rant
What economic model do you believe in?
I can't really say I believe in a specific model, but to my knowledge, and for the current version of our world, welfare states seem to be doing the least worse currently. But really, I think our world is kinda too fucked up right now to be able to have any good social-economic system (in terms of maximum equality and minimum suffering, I guess.)
Ideally, I'd prefer no state, only local communities managing themselves (something like city states, maybe?) and their relations to other communities... but I know it's just a dream, at least for the foreseeable future, considering the current realities and the ass-people in power. Because that would need many really peaceful, non-greedy and non-selfish people, which... well, never mind.
P.s. Sorry for the pessimism, and I might be wrong of course, which I really hope I am.
You're describing communalism, if you're interested.
Thanks. Maybe, kind of. My knowledge on the topic is limited, but I think communalism (or some version of it) could involve some form of loyalty to one's ethnic group or community, which absolutely disagree with.
Social responsibility: Yes. But loyalty, especially towards something ultimately meaningless such as ethnicity: No.
My values are respecting individual choices, rights and well-being of others (which also entails some responsibility).
I completely agree. However, as I understand, the tradition as it stems from Murray Bookchin explicitly condemns this arbitrary categorisation.
Your describing a Soviet you filthy commie.
But for real what your describing is communism as marx originally thought of it. The one example marx gave as a model for what communism would be was the Paris commune which adheres to a lot of what you said. Most leftist agree that that's the end goal it's just a matter of how to get there. Lenin originally pitched the Soviet Union as just that, a bunch of local councils(soviets) freely cooperating and making there own rules. He saw how the Paris commune's openness and military indecisiveness led to it being brutally suppressed though and wanted an interim top down dictatorship and rapid brutal industrialization to handle this threat. The threat never went away though, first with the Nazis almost annihilating them then the u.s. pointing nukes at them, so neither did the dictatorship.
Their end goal was still avowedly the same though, and communism, to me at least, is about that goal. Their are a bunch of different theoretical paths to it, and there's tonnes of infighting as to which ones the best, but all communists agree that the commune/Soviet/city state should have all the power.
Thanks for the explanation.
The problem is exactly the "how", as you described. And personally, I don't really have any idea, since all the possible ways seem to involve somehow contradicting that goal "temporarily" (by using violence, limiting individual liberties, etc.), which I don't like. I think maybe over time, (a very long time, perhaps?) the way of thinking of human societies will slowly (and through a painful process) shift to that direction (and maybe not! who knows!).
Either way, life is painful and world is cruel.
Reformism is the term for a path to socialism without the use of violence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformism
Lenin did not seize absolute power out of some lofty ideal of protecting the workers. He was very motivated about reclaiming the Russian Empire and murdering any workers or separatists that were in his way. Even contemporary communists like Rosa Luxembourg recognized that. Lenin and Stalin had over 20 years to dismantle the state before the Nazis became a threat. Not to mention, the original plan was to ally with the Nazis! The leaders never had any interest in helping workers.
On your first point you should read the question of nationalities which Lenin wrote shortly before his death. He clearly wanted to take down the tsarist apparatus after all the existential threats to the Soviet Union were gone.
Where did Luxembourg say Lenin was trying to recreate the tsarist empire? She was critical of the Bolsheviks authoritarianism but If anything she was also critical of the Bolsheviks limited allowance for nationalism and would've suppressed nationalism further, she was a strict internationalist.
If they did dismantle the state apparatus before the Nazis came what do you think would happen? The Soviet Union was barely able to turn the tide of the war with a united front and 20 years of intense, brutal industrialization. If they had dismantled the state and Russia was just a bunch of rural locally run villages in a loose confederation in 1939 the Nazis would've steamrolled over them and genocided the population.
Lenin is not the first leader to whitewash imperialism.
That's pretty similar to the social democratic system that they had in Sweden before the 90s. Many critical services were government agencies, such as the railroad, the phone network, and the pharmacies. Health care and rental housing were handled by the municipality or the county.
And they got the idea from URSS
I'm sure that it could be argued that Sweden had Soviet influence, there was definitely a soviet-backed communist party in Sweden from 1917 until 1977.
But at the same time, Swedish Social Democracy is a completely separate ideology from Soviet Communism, and the parties that implemented these "folkhemmet" policies were 100% hostile to the Soviet Union and any Soviet influence. Sweden has never had any system of communism, nor any USSR-friendly prime ministers or ministers.
Specifically, Per Albin Hansson's "the people's home" ideology that he advocated for as prime minister was a reformist, anti-marxist form of social liberalism.
I would say you are somewhere between arnachism and socialism with that view but I am no expert ether!
Those two have big overlaps. "Libertarian socialism" used to be another term for anarchism.