All art organisations, throughout history (as far as I know) have required markets or wealthy private intrests to make money or fund them, just like Disney today or wealthy donars from history (like the robber barrons in america and aristrocrats in france, Britan and Italy) Soo, how to art, under socialism??

Hoping for some helpful thoughts and opinions. I joined the SWP a couple of years ago after going to a few public meetings. I had always been interested in anti-capitalism, anti-fascism and a generally fairer society. That said, I had no idea the SWP existed until I met some members at an Extinction Rebellion meeting.

Anyway, I became an SWP member and have enjoyed the sense of community and been inspired by learning about the history of socialist movements. I’ve been to protests with the SWP and promoted their events.

But some aspects feel jarring, I have mentioned mutual aid support for our local community before and I was met with revulsion. During a discussion about the genocide in Gaza, it felt that the atrocity was being used to push forward the SWP’s agenda rather than raising consciousness for the horrific events taking place.

I have also seen other socialists complaining online about some SWP behaviour (e.g., going to protests and seemingly claiming responsibility for organising the event or using the event to recruit).

I feel that in the current political climate, doing something is better than doing nothing even if I don’t agree with the SWP on all their views, but I sometimes wonder if I am being taken advantage of.

I am wondering if anyone has views on socialist groups/organisations or even better experience of the SWP. I’m feeling disillusioned and I have shamefully pulled back from protests and other events because I don’t know what to do about my SWP membership.

Thank you for reading.

I've been thinking about it recently, in this day and age, is an armed revolution necessary in every case, or if it's a democratic do we still breed weapons to defend it?

Does that mean we will arrive inevitably to a dictatorship? Also, can a revolution be counterproductive if it fails? For example how in Italy Germany and hungary failed

revolutions led to fascist regimes? And most importantly is leftist unity necessary for a revolution, perhaps mediating between the anarchist and the authoritarians? I'm still new to socialism and I'd like to hear your prospectives

To my understanding the symbol first emerged Russia to symbolize a workers-peasant alliance. That being said doesn’t it go against orthodox communist ideas by promoting two classes (workers and farmers) when the goal of communism is a classless society?

What's the best response to a person who believes socialism and communism are the same? I know they are different ofc. I think people get confused when they are used interchangeably by many.

As of 1975, Chinese library classification listed books on Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism under Category A, with Stalin's works uniquely classified as A3.
I noticed that the Marxism-related books in the libraries of my city are sparse, consisting mainly of works glorifying Deng Xiaoping or what I consider to be Mao Zedong's revisionist distortions. I wanted to increase the presence of Category A books, so I checked for recently published works in this category.
My findings revealed that while the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin continue to be published and republished, Stalin's writings have not been published since the era of Deng Xiaoping. Only biographies that portray Stalin as a mythical figure or satirical novels from a Western or Chinese socialism perspective are published.
So, returning to the original question—what conflicts exist between Stalin's ideas and socialism with Chinese characteristics that have led to the cessation of his publications?

Second Thought

Yukopnik

Hakim

GDF

Hassanabi

These are people that have assisted in my understanding of Marxism and relevant theory and contextualizing it according to current events.

Please give me your criticisms.

And feel free to suggest others!

I have a pretty good life. What does socialism have to offer me that would convince me to support it?

Despite clearly being a settler colonialist project in the Middle-east and Lenin denouncing the Zionist Ideology as retrogressive, why did the USSR under the Stalin administration become the first country to grant de Jure recognition to Israel in 1948?

seems to me like a big fat lie.

Literally just saw a comment on a youtube video saying ""I can't wait until I finish this raft so I can finally escape all this capitalism". What no one said, ever."

Except tons of people already do that. There's this weird notion that people don't flee capitalistic countries like America/Canada and yet everywhere I go, I hear people saying they want to move to Europe because America is just expensive and bad to live in in general compared to other developers countries. Myself included.

While I am not "building some raft to finally escape this capitalism" I do frequently think about selling all my shit so I can get out of this country.

It's common to see Socialists (and I'm only applying that label to people I've seen identify themselves as Socialists) be very supportive of sex work, but my understanding is that one of the core tenets of Socialism is that all labor done under capitalism is involuntary because it's done under the threat of starvation. Wouldn't this mean that all sex had during sex work was consented to under coercion, making it either rape or "rape-adjacent"? Would this mean that through a Socialist lense sex work is especially exploitive and evil?

Just to be clear, I'm not a hater of sex work, I just feel like it's hard to reconicle it through a Socialist point of view.

I know these people exist because that’s what I would do, and surely there’s gotta be at least some other people in the world with my mindset. Will there be some tangible method of enforcing it? Or will people just be left to take what they want at their own judgment, which would reward selfishness because those who are willing to take more would get more? This is a genuine question, I’m just confused as to how it would work.

I am quite literally a communist. Due to the nature of the industry I work in I have a total of 3 options to produce money for myself, however I'm struggling with the ethical understandings that I have and what I have to do to be able to make money and survive.

Option 1. Work for an employer and be poor.

Option 2. Work for myself and lack a healthy work/life balance while breaking my body (what I'm currently doing(

Option 3. Hire employees and play the capitalist game I've been born into, in turn completing the cycle of exploitation which I despise to my core.

I want a comfortable standard of life for my family and that includes being able to spend time with my loved ones What would you? And if you've been here what have you done?

I’m looking for good music that fits the vibe of reading Marx. What do you listen to? All apologies if this is the wrong place for asking this question.

I would like to read theory but I find it really intimidating. I was wondering if there’s any leftist historians who’ve made videos summarizing the important points from Marx, Fanon, Kropotkin, Goldman, Gramsci, Baldwin, etc.

I would also love overviews of various historical conflicts like the Vietnam war and the Troubles in Northern Ireland from a leftist perspective. I have come to the realization that I am pretty ignorant about the history of a lot of other countries (I’m American), and I want to correct this, but it feels overwhelming.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

I have been told many times that I am a fabian socialist because of my ideology so I wanted to confirm if it is or not? And if not then which ideology?

I believe in:-1:- presence of a confederate government and a state government on participatory democracy and local councils on direct democracy. 2:- I believe in presence of judiciary, executive, legislature and media as independent as possible and transparent. 3:- I believe that the executive must be handled by president and legislature should be handled by prime minister. 4:- presidential rule:- A:- president would be elected by direct democracy. B:- division of the nation into 5 units politically in terms of parliamentary representations like north, south, West, east and centre. These divisions would have 4-5 confederate each with a representative figure (o) for each division. C:- vice president and (o)s would be choosen by representative democracy by representatives of respective divisions. D:- a retired Chief justice, head of the state media, a representative of prime minister from parliament would also be a part of the presidential council. E:- representative of all police force would be present too. F:- country would be devided administratively in:- Districts (with 7 representative members from each district 1: a retired district court judge, 2: a women representative, 3:- a minority group representative, 4: oppressed segment representative, 5: head of the local body, 6: opposition leader in the local body, 7:- local police chief and a separate but not a part of the team local media representative) (elected by direct democracy) => many districts would unite to become confederation state (same a 7+1 member representation (elected by representative democracy {rd}) => many confederation would make a divisions (same 7+1 rd) => representative council (made up of vice president as head and auditor and those 5 Os) => president (direct democracy) Level 1 President 1:Retired cheif justice, 2: field Marshal 3: representative post, 4: head of state media, 5: attorney general, 6: research organisation head, 7: head of CBI, 8: prime minister representative & a seperate head of ec.

Level 2 Vice president { North (o), south (o), centre o, West o, east o all with 7+1 member team) solicitor general, head of division police force, environment and community welfare (a council of independent ministers for each community who could function independently but they have to choose a team of 3 additional solicitor general to head them according to the law as head)

Level 3 Head of the confederation head Council of ministers and their departments, DGP, advocate generals, head of confederate state media

Level 4 No head (technocracy) each department running independently. Looked after and checked by all 3 above levels. 5 members from each department to help on matters related to their departments.

Level 5 (most important and most functional one)

Equal representation Elected head of blocks in district, retired district court judge, women representative, minority section representative, if any oppressed segment than it's representative (particular to rural area), head of local police, head of local media, youth leader, public prosecutor

In my above model level 5 is the most important and functioning model for executive and administrative purposes as every law and act done by this level 5 let's name it council be very important as would done by direct democracy. Level 5, level 4, level 3 would work in coordination even though it's level 5 and 4 whose work would be given most importance. Level 3, 2, 1 would act as representative and check the progress and interfere only in disputes and would often start huge welfare programs, government projects etc. All above levels would not work as a power hierarchy but as a representative figures and check and balance figures because even the level 1 would be checked by media, judiciary, and legislature.

Welfare programs would have an equal representation of administration, local council, people affected group representative. This would be highly decentralised and working would be done at lower levels while above levels would maintain the balance.

Legislature and parliament would run like earlier.

Taxation:- a minimal tax everyone would pay for military, army, police, hospital and schools. One could subscribe to additional leisure and public services tax according to their need and can leave any time.

Market:- mixed economy with government giving an option of unions and coorporatives even syndicates (here government would just give and keep an idea on the table and it's on workers to be a part of it or not which was formed by the government), strict job security and labour laws, environmental sustainability, presence of msp and mrp, PSUs handle natural resources and give it to private firms on market prices, PSUs would have local community representation too. It's on state to convert more than 90% jobs in market to organised and secure jobs. Here according to the expectations it would be the workers who would gradually take up the control of production as the government would give them equal representation with business owners. Economic perspective:- primary sector:-

natural resources:- it would be handled by public sector units (PSU). this psu would be comprised of 75-85% work force from that particular area. 15-25% of work force would be comprised of allocators and interns. THE allocators would be a council of 18 members 9 members comprising from the origin place community and surrounding communities {group a} and 9 members from welfare confederation {group b). task of group a is to look if the requirements of local and surrounding communities are met or not. while other 9 members work would be to transport and distribute the resources according to the needs of other community. the remaining surplus would be used for further community welfare. environment sustainability will be kept in mind. full transparency would be kept. those members can be recalled if not working properly. Once the resources are extracted the allocators group b would give allocation plan to all communities( here it signifies community council that administrates every district the)WHICH would be talked, discussed and after consensus would be accepted or rejected accordingly and the further plan would be made keeping consensus and concerns in the mind

In terms of the secondary sector:- we would allow private factories but I believe in making corporatives and unions equal to the capitalist. For example:-1:- each factory owner would have to guarantee and give timely wages (which would be very high), job security, brilliant job conditions, proper transport and whatever they are producing like computers, mobiles, textiles or other stuff first the products should be distributed among the workers (in this system let's take an example of an ac if a factory is producing an ac then they would have to provide that ac to each worker in the factory:- like per couple 1 AC and per 2 KIDS 1 ac if it's single child than too 1 AC. if the compony is producing luxurious cars that may be very high so at least the factory would have to provide a 1 time money to workers that would range from 5-10% of the car. then per year the bonus would be of 5% price of the car. many people would be thinking this would lead to factories throwing workers out. so to prevent this before bringing this law we would have a survey done of the workers in each factory and once the law is passed then no factory can remove a worker as before bringing this law we would form huge unions of workers. some may say that how would the capitalist earn profit with it and continue the factory work. if the capitalist fails to earn the profit then his factory would be taken up by the worker unions and it would be under the confederation to earn profit and distribute it among workers and other public projects once needs are met while the capitalist would get a pension once his factory is ceased (inspired from doctrine of lapse)

other important problem is how to get so much people into workforce while also having enough revenue to support the structure. here we would take support of technocrats and we would incentivise the development of such innovations that would increase the efficiency of a worker and decrease the physical labour. these incentivisation can be done by giving rewards.

Corporatives and syndicates:- in each category and product corporatives would be formed like Amul and dabbawala of Mumbai. These corporates would provide essential and authentic services to the people at low prices and would give competition to the capitalist. People would support these corporatives because of products and emotions.

By above ways instead of directly abolishing capitalism and facing some armed intervention in large scale from other capitalist countries and government we may face smaller hurdles and because of strict rules and competition capitalism would fall by it's own method that it advocates for.

For the tertiary sector:- we would allow entrepreneurship like digital stores and individual shops and also the corporatives. In the case of agriculture: in particular my country I have seen farmers owning small plots to landlords owning large plots. In Mao Zedong the Chinese government held all land and all produce. If we redistribute land and let people cultivate what they want or according to the council there might be some problems in it as farming is an intense labour and also emotions are attached to it. So I think that we must let the farmers keep their small plots and if a landlord is a white collar clean person. If there is any malpractice, ill treatment is done by the landlord to a poor person as a penalty we can take his land and redistribute while letting him have at least 25-40% land. I advocate for employing a planter SYSTEM. in this system we would make a team of 3-5 individual who would have expertise in agriculture field in engineering, biochemistry, genetic, SOIL and wether. these 5 individuals would be given a residential vehicle with an atv and they would BE given a task to take care of a given area and farmers involved in that area where they would help them with every stuff related to agriculture. state (welfare consideration) would organise markets where once the council and state would buy an amount of need+30% from farmers at msp with a formula of swaminathan committee it would share the required one to the council and community and take the rest to other communities. while farmers would get the opportunity to sell that surplus above msp+50% to foreign players.

Religion:- state would stay out of religion but can interfere in some violent situations.

Public services:- managed by all 5 levels in particular level 235.

Presence of strong military.

Presence of jails and even death row and life imprisonment (14 years).

Presence of government safety nets and welfare programs but they would be managed on local level 5 with help of 4 and taken care by level 3 and 2 while level 1 would be to look after level 2345 and represent the nation.

Individual rights won't be compromised over community and personal and property rights would exist. Ones rights won't be taken because of societal tolerance. Rule of law on everyone. Rehabilitation would be main goal but punishments would exist like rehabilitation and bail is rule and jail is exception

Economic sustainability and technological innovations for peaceful living with nature would be valued.

Possession of marijuana would be decriminalised.

Okay with LGBTQ community

Against political authority and hierarchy. Would propose system of delegates instead of representatives once the desired status of living and development is reached.

Against regionalism, religionalism and identity based society and discrimination. Advocate for more on geography.

There would be high taxation on luxury properties making it hard to maintain them.

I don't know much about this but I've heard both of these and just trying to understand.

It seems to me that there's a pretty large overlap between socialists and atheists but I've noticed that alot of religions have beliefs that could be interpreted as aligning with socialist values. An example of this could be the how in Christianity, Matthew 19:24 talks about how "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the Kingdom of God."

Hi everyone, Thave a question about combating far-right movements and personalities. Are there any platforms, courses, or resources available that provide practical techniques and methods to effectively confront and discredit extreme right-wing ideologies and individuals? I'm specifically looking for strategies that provoke critical thinking and challenge extremist views. Your insights and recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

I'm a trotskyist with marxist leninists leanings. I know that ideology difference significantly from that of Chomsky. My ideology is based largely on the works of Marx and Lenin, which i am given to understand that Chomsky is not a big fan of Lenin.

Anyway, I've been considering reading manufactured consent. Is this book particularly filled with Chomsky's own ideology? If it is, ik that i may before disinterested with it fairly quickly. So i wanted to ask.

Any insights into this question are appreciated. TIA

Edit: i just noticed now the typo in the title. Rest assured, i am embarrassed lol.

Buenas noches camaradas, I was wondering if you had any opinions on the prominent professor Kohei Saito, who wrote works such as Ecosocialism and Marx in the Anthropocene. From what I understand, he uses the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) to explain that Marx eventually came to admit that Capitalism was not a necessary stage on the way to Communism. Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks!

like, lets say I work and save up enough money to start a business, 50k for example.

if I bring on a second person to perform some labor me, I would have to give them 50% of the business?

Is that how this interaction is envisioned to work in socialism?

if that is the case, what about my 50k investment up front? should the person who is coming to work for me not have to buy out some portion of that initial investment from me?

(Redirected from r/Socialism101)

I have a group of friends who seem to be very vocal about certain opinions that they hold, and these often culminate in a denial of left-wing views. However, whenever they bring up these issues, the reasons they are opposed to them seems to boil down to annoyance. Topics such as Israe/Palestine, trans rights, the use of protest, etc. In their opinion it seems annoying that people bandwagon on current political issues are annoying, so they must be wrong. Has anyone else encountered this within their friend groups or others whom they are close to? How can I broach this topic with them in the hopes that they engage with the topic more critically and seriously? It seems as if they are unwilling to engage in a deeper level.

I don't know if this is the proper place to ask this but I don't know where else I should post this.

So I recently ran into the problem, that I wanted to read "The National Question" by Rosa Luxemburg but the only place where I could find it was the Marxist Archive since it isn't a proper book but a collection of translated articles. Therefore I pasted it all in a word document which has about 120 pages.

The problem is, that I can't really properly read long and complicated texts on a phone screen or monitor and need it in paper form. However, if I were to print it out, it would cost about 30 Euros which isn't really ideal.

Did any of you also run into this problem and figured out a way to have the work in paper form without having to spend 30 Euros just to print it out?

I have noticed that a lot of socialists would support any party which opposes

US or British imperialism. Does it mean that you would support nazi Germany,

which clearly opposed imperialists?

I don't really have a major position on it, I just want 🍉 not to be blown to bits or starved. That being said, why is support for Palestine a socialist issue? I am not talking about human rights, war, or civilian casualties. I am asking why it seems to be a pro-leftist cause economically.

Reactionaries would be screaming "woke" if George Orwell lived today

[Clarification: when I talk about hedonism, I am referring to the moral/philosophical ideology of making choices based on what would maximise pleasure and minimise pain, most often on an individual level]

{TLDR: I have ADHD and PDA autism and am fundamentally incompatible with capitalism as a system and unable to achieve happiness under the current societal system because it was set up to work against people like me, which is why socialism would work so well for me, but I feel like I should not become a socialist because I am a very individualistic person motivated only by my own self interests and I support socialism purely because it would benefit me more than capitalism, and not out of concern for the greater good like other socialists. Socialism is a very selfless ideology and I am following it for very selfish reasons, which means that my worldview and opinions directly contradict those of everyone else in the socialist community, and it feels like there is no place for people like me under socialism. But I also have no place under capitalism and never will. I don’t know how to proceed and don’t even really understand how individualism can inherently conflict with socialism when it was my individualism that led me to socialism in the first place. End of TLDR.}

Asking this for myself. I have recently begun looking into and learning more about socialism as a political ideology. I have always hated capitalism, but I have only now started to look into potential alternative systems. Socialism or communism seem to be the most ideal options for me so far, but I also have a lot of gripes with it not as a system but as it pertains to myself and my priorities, and all of these stem back from a fundamental difference in worldview. For vital context, I have PDA autism and ADHD and my brain works in a way that makes me fundamentally incompatible with capitalism as a system to a point where I was pretty much set up to fail from birth. I am incompatible with every fundamental aspect of the education system, the social hierarchy and social interactions, and any and every job under capitalism, even freelance ones. I would need massive unrealistic accomodations no employer would ever give me when they could just replace me, and nothing valuable to offer that can’t be found in another candidate, and I just know I will end up either on the streets or worse, but even in the very best case scenario where I actually got as rich as my dad is now and could somehow miraculously afford my own house, I would still be miserable every day of my life because the very STRUCTURE of life under capitalism, no matter how luxurious a life that is, as long as I have to get up and either go to a mind-numbing 9-5 or spend every waking hour looking after kids and doing household chores for the family, would be a hell to me. I need to have freedom and autonomy. I need to know that I’m not wasting my life away in an office, no matter how much I’m being paid for it. I need to know that I can call out if I’m burnt out and need a day off, and I’ll get it, no negative effects, no strings attached. I need to know that I can take breaks and I have time to myself with no obligations tying me down. I need to know that if I have a mental breakdown and need a few weeks or even a month off, I can take that without losing my job or my vacation time for the rest of the year. I need to be able to work under conditions I get a say in, or not at all. I need to be able to have off days and make mistakes without being punished for it. There are many more gripes I have with capitalism, and many more reasons why socialism would be beneficial to me, but all of them are to do with my own self interest. I am not selfless, I am not altruistic, I am not an activist, I am not concerned with the greater good, I am only concerned with my own comfort and self interest. I don’t want to instate socialism because of how it would benefit the world, I want to instate socialism because of how it would benefit me. I don’t know about socialism, but communism is also a very pro-social ideology, whereas I am a solitary misanthropist who is uncooperative, needs to have everything done my way, is introverted with social anxiety and is terrible at social interaction due to my autism, and hates doing ANYTHING in a group. In fact, a massive part of the reason I support socialism in the first place is because it would mean I could live a more solitary life as opposed to having to go to work in an office and be around others all day. If socialism were instated, I would be the person who stays at home all day, lives off UBI and makes silly little art pieces based on my own unrestricted imagination instead of what people pay me to make (I would probably offer requests as well at some point since I would have enough time to make art both for myself and for others because I wouldn’t be forced to work all day in a job I hate because you can’t live off creativity alone under capitalism). But I would most likely do whatever I wanted by myself and never talk to anyone again unless I felt like it or do anything for anyone again unless I felt like it. Which is kind of antithetical to the very idea of socialism itself, as it is meant to be focused around community, collaboration and the good of the collective. Because of this, when I enter communist or socialist spaces, not only does nobody share my mindset (in fact, they have the exact opposite mindset) but I see many, many posts directly criticising my mindset and people who think like me, basically saying it is an evil this community is working against. I see so many posts about the importance of community, and how bad individualism is. It feels like every second post is criticising the idea of individualism and that socialism is supposed to counteract it, but the whole reason I’m thinking about joining socialism in the first place is because of individualism and that socialism would be in my own best interest. And that means that I have conflicting views to the rest of the socialist community on just about everything but socialism itself. It makes me feel as though I do not belong amongst the community because my mindset is fundamentally contradictory to the socialist ideology, but I don’t understand how that could work since it was my own self interest that led me to socialism in the first place. But even though I feel as though don’t belong amongst socialists, I KNOW I don’t belong amongst capitalists, because as I said, capitalism was DESIGNED to work against people who think like me, and designed to set me up to fail, and I’ll never fit in under capitalism. But I also feel like I’ll never fit in with socialism either, even though I like the idea of it as a system to live under, my mindset is inherently contradictory with the ‘greater good’ focused mindset of the rest of the community. What should I do? How should I proceed and try to navigate these contradictions?

r/socialism_101 sent me here.

I'm sorry if this breaks any rules, I looked to the right, and it didn't seem to obviously break any of those.

I was hoping someone on here could point me to any streaming news sources that feature a very far left tone.

I work with this guy who insists on listening to this Alex Jones style conservative news crap ALL DAY.

"The t****ies are gonna take our guns!" ALL. DAY. LONG.

HR decided we can each listen to our own preferred news as long as it doesn't interfere with our work. So I'm hoping someone on here could point me in the right (left) direction.

I'd also like to add, I don't think it's coincidence that he started listening to this stuff religiously since I came out as trans, and I'm not the only one in the office who has asked him to listen to something else.