A place to ask questions of Lemmygrad's best and brightest
Yes. Three problems:
I am going to move anyway, but not to a socialist country (for now).
Where are you moving?
Scandinavia, most likely Sweden.
Edit: lmao at the downvote
I would love to live somewhere like China, Vietnam or Cuba having spent some time in and experienced a bit of all three. Lovely countries with lovely people. That being said I feel like it’s my duty to hash it out in my home country of Canada. Unless stuff really goes to shit and I have to escape on asylum or something for my political views I want to do my best to try and contribute to improve things in my community.
For much of my life I’ve dreamed of moving away to almost anywhere else from the frozen backwater I call home but as I’ve gotten older I’m more invested in trying to get stuck in there and be involved in shit and contributing to positive change.
You just voiced all of my thoughts. I’m also Canadian and even though I’ve thought of leaving many times I know I can’t, not only because moving is expensive but I also believe it is my duty to stay.
Until, like you said, I am forced to leave; whether that’s due to war or having my citizenship revoked and being deported I will remain and do my best to improve the lives of the people here.
Also, the snow doesn’t bother me as much as others, and I honestly can’t imagine winter without it.
Of course. Cuba would be great, my only issue is that I'm not too fond of high temperatures like in the Caribbean. But that will be a problem in the future anyway.
I'd probably only do it for survival reasons or temporarily for learning. I've considered moving a lot in my life (specially fooled by brain drain Western propaganda), but the whole process is too costly and risky, and doesn't help make my country a better place.
If I get the conditions to afford moving elsewhere, I would also likely have the conditions to live a comfortable life or try to make a change here.
But it's always good to learn some Chinese and Spanish as backup ;)
To echo some Canucks below, I would probably realistically not leave unless it was all-but guaranteed fruitless death to not, in which case it'd be a toss up between Mexico and Cuba. I have grown attached to the USA, all my friends and family are here, and I feel an overwhelming sense of duty to foment revolution here. I would love to visit and experience AES countries, though, and I am encouraging my friend to move to China because his genius lies in highly developed fields, his contribution to humanity would be best actualized there.
Part of me still wants to stay and fight in the U.S., but more and more I believe that its the equivalent of trying to stop a tsunami with a riot shield. And I feel incredibly guilty for feeling this way, but I am hoping/planning to permanently move to China one day.
Every single day in the U.S. is like gambling with your life. I don't want to suffer and die in this fascist shithole, and I know that I can still help people no matter where I go. But I feel that I owe it to my family and my SO to get us to a better and safer place.
Serious question - what problems do you hope to escape by fleeing to China?
I ask because it seems clear to me that China is authoritarian state capitalist rather than socialist, and while some things (e.g. Healthcare costs) are far better in China, the overall situation seems materially worse.
I think until we have a communist state to point to, the best move would be to a socdem country.
incredibly guilty for feeling this way
If it makes you slightly less guilty, the US is actively suppressing any opposition (see the Black Panther Party).
I know that, but I always believe in standing up and fighting.
I plan to fight for revolution in the US until it is too dangerous and the revolution turns out to not likely succeed. I am already working towards becoming a candidate member with PSL. Because I want to be a computer hardware engineer working in the semiconductor industry, China may be my best option. This is why I am going back to school next year to get my bachelor's--so I have a viable Plan B just in case.
Every day I daydream about moving to China. There are too many barriers to making that dream a reality though. I wouldn't want to make my SO feel isolated and illiterate. If only there was a socialist country that primarily spoke English.
I have spent some time in a couple of them, and a possible future career option is actually a transfer to China. It is part of the reason I took the job I have now. I have been studying chinese specifically in case that pans out.
I am sure there would be considerable adjustments, I have lived most of my life in Japan at this point, but I would definitely welcome the opportunity.
May I ask what do you do for a living?
I work in hospitality IT, probably not a field I would generally recommend to most people normally but the head regional offices for Asia are located in China.
I have tried during covid. I was told you have to be a Chinese national to apply.
Not necessarily, from what I understand having a very important job or education is a gateway.
No, that’s what I was specifically told by the recruiter. I was perfectly qualified for the job, even a bit over-qualified.
I have no hope for the US, I would leave in less than a minute if given the opportunity, but moving out of the US is expensive, you need to pay a heavy fine just to denounce your citizenship. And that’s like not even step one of moving.
Yes
Which one?
Cuba
Why that one particularly?
No. Our mission as Marxism-Leninist is to do the revolution in ours countries. Go to live to a socialist country is a bad option to do that.
Our mission as Marxists-Leninists is to aid the worldwide expansion of communism and to defend the interests of the working class. There's nothing written forbidding you from crossing borders.
why would i do that if i can make my own country socialist? if the idea was just living in AES, i just move to another place
As a naive 20 y/o I "moved" to China and lived there for two years.
It really didn't feel like communism at all...
It really didn’t feel like communism at all…
makes sense because no country in existence has achieved communism
It doesn't feel like communism because it isn't - it lacks worker enfranchisement and decommodification... the two defining features of communism.
All it takes is one person to break trust, and lie about it. "You must do this for the motherland/community/people" etc.
It can be a good thing if the imperative originates from an honest person, but it can be very bad if it originates from a dishonest one or from a collective misunderstanding.
what?
If communism collapses under the weight of a single dishonest person, why do you persist with it? It would have zero chance.
China doesn't feel communist because it isn't - at least no more than the DPRK is democratic.
Capitalism is powerful in its short-mid term practical effectiveness, but has a kind of slow, long-term slide into brittleness and catastrophe. Socially, it's poor at meeting the underlying needs of people, and instead stuffs people with distractions, short term thinking, etc - which ultimately breaks it.
Communism is great at getting people on-board - it's hard to argue against from an emotional standpoint, because it keys in on deeper instincts that people have - ungrounded, but deeply important instincts. Unfortunately, it has the nasty tendency to go off the talks pretty damned quickly, so all implementations of it end up being 'pseudocommum'.
To be honest, I think communism has great ideals, but I think the practical reality of achieving it is incredibly unlikely, for this reasons I've stated, and others.
However, I think the ideals of it, and even moreso the underlying instincts that it keys in on are deeply important. But they cannot be achieved while sacrificing the individual for collective interests, as communism trends towards, nor by sacrificing collective for individual (or individual entity) interests, as would capitalism.
I believe that collectives that have a foundational focus on individual sovereignty are the way forward.
I think we're more capable than that, it's just that we're not putting in the groundwork.
Revolutionary communism fails because it doesn't level the wealth (and by extension power) inequality that exists under a capitalist system. This means that following the revolution, wealth and political power rapidly reconsolidate, and now you have a wealthy ruling class directing and backed by a corrupted state apparatus... Overnight autocracy.
If you transition via social democracy, eliminating the democracy-breaking wealth imbalance while setting up a robust welfare state that accommodates peoples' basic needs, there's less ability and less motivation to collapse into autocracy, and there will be more pushback from the populace against it because they have better lives, and more enfranchisement than ever.
If the collapse of communism into hellish autocracy is inevitable, you should be fighting it. If communism requires meaningful sacrifice for the bulk of the population that leaves them worse off, you should be fighting it. There's no point to any of this if everyone is worse off - I fight for communism because I want a better, freer, more prosperous society. I'm not sure I agree with the long-term focus on small sovereign collectives, because they'll naturally lead to commerce and comodification, then capitalist wealth and power consolidation without oversight at either the individual or collective level, but whatever sees us all better off.
Not just small sovereign collectives, but any collective (including the government). The key is for the collective, overall, to sustain the rights of any entity that is a part of it. That means sovereignty for all organizations, and sovereignty for each individual. But, that sovereignty ends at the boundary of another sovereign entity.
This isn't just s system of governance, it's a system of morality as well. You can do anything you want, but once it starts impacting others, you begin losing rights. Effectively, if you cannot come to an explicit consensus, implicit consensus is permitted. There are notable grey areas - and since consensus cannot be achieved there, they should be left to social involvement, or to diversity, to handle.
In history, the most egregious actions are those where collectives impose upon individual will, and vice versa. Establishing sovereignty rights is a moral foundation that can, to significant degree, mitigate that.
Nah. I'm right where I need to be.