Yesterday I had argument with Cowbee about this here. This seems like hijack of word “base” to support their propaganda like many others Words Which Defy Dictionaries. Base, is always ideology. Sure their so called “base” influence upper ones, but it is not the base. Base is something core, without it the thing cannot function. can human live without ideology? Without right or wrong?
It make sense to base our self on other ideologies but not on ideology of means of production or ownership first.
If you think this is misunderstanding, please explain your argument in simple language without using communist jargons if possible.
I suspect hardcore communists doesn’t want to admit flaws instead they blow up dust of words to cover. I also suspect that i can be wrong or half understood the argument or using wrong definition of terms, that’s why i am posting here
I recommend not attempting civil discourse with tankie scum. They always use every opportunity to speak to muddy the waters and sow chaos.
Ditto with fascist scum. Best to just enjoy Kropotkin’s works.
Anarchy and solidarity forever
I don’t quite get your question, but It’s not bullshit, I believe that the terms were first coined by Marx (if memory serves). The base superstucture model is just a model by which to view the world, in that it explains (to some degree) how sociocultural/economic and other phenomenon arise from the means and relations of production, which is definitely true to some extent. But no model is perfect and it’s not the only model. The world is pretty complex and people can and do take actions that defy this model.
Source, I tagged along with an anthropology course where this was covered. So I definitely don’t know everything there is to know.
How could we look at social dynamics? One way is Dave Snowden’s Cynefin. From that perspective, complex systems have actors, constructors, and constraints. The three of them are called ACTANTS. How do ACTANTS relate to base and superstructure? Well, each ACTANT of the system could be classified as base or superstructure.
Why am I saying that each ACTANT could be classified as base or superstructure? Because we should be open to the possibility that there are different ways of looking at the same thing in the world. We can look at a mountain from the north, from the south, from the base, or from the peak. Similarly, we can look at social relations as base and superstructure or as complex Cynefin systems (or other points of view!).
How do you know whether to classify ACTANTS into base and superstructure or not? Context. Use the pragmatic criterion: Is it helpful to classify the ACTANTS into base and superstructure in this particular context?
I posted a longer response but I think it didn’t get through or something.
Basically, I look at this from the point of view of Cynefin, and Estuarine Mapping. If you look at base and superstructure elements, you can look at them as ACTANTS of the system.
Whether you choose base-superstructure or Cynefin just shows that sometimes we can describe the same phenomena in different ways. And I take this idea from both Mary Midgley and Donna Haraway’s positioned knowledge.
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It kinda is.
There exist a hierarchy of needs, it’s a subjective one but all people share a large part of it. There also exists a very objective and measurable hierarchy of production.
Interpreting that as “low-herarchy factors are X” is useless and dishonest unless X means “things we need to prioritize in a crisis”. And saying any of that comes from Marxism or any kind of communist theory is just bullshit.
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I posted here because of doubt, not because of i hate commies.
Rather than polluting post, you should have just ignored it
and you troll, you created account 1 hr ago.
I don’t want to have an account retard I just want to read the fucking news
The difference between Nazis and communists is that one of them lost a world war. You should not give them the time of day.
Yeah chief I don’t agree with your witticism here.
Call me crazy, but I think people who want to improve the world somewhat based on an economic and sociopolitical analysis of a pretty smart dude who’s work still shapes our economic understanding even in the most pro-capitalist reaganist fringes today do in fact have a few more differences with people who built an ideology based on using a merged government-corporate state apparatus to exterminate jews, queers, slavs etc. to create more living space for their specific ethnicity.
I also think you don’t actually have to pretend like Nazis and communists are equal or even close just to be able to criticize the imperialism and many mistakes and general dysfunction of the USSR, tankies and general bad faith argumentation like in OP probably done by a random putlerist fascist russian shill/bot or like a 14 year old who skimmed a wikipedia info box on dialectics once.
Communists are why we have unions, minimum wage, universal healthcare, welfare, safety nets, 5-day work week etc. Fascists are why we have the Holocaust, and I guess now also no jimmy Kimmel.
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Communists are why we have unions, minimum wage, universal healthcare, welfare, safety nets, 5-day work week etc.
If by “communist” you mean leftists in the west, then yes.
But if by “communist” you mean those who supported USSR and PRC, Lol no, their shit end up failing and USSR’s successor state is now an oligarchy and modern PRC is an authoritarian state-capitalist regime, with most of the negatives of America, but worse. Seriously, I know the US’s labor rights are atrocious, but PRC is a whole another level; no unions, no workplace safety, no overtime bonus, long hours, minimal breaks, most places have zero paid vacation days, and its a stuggle to even get an unpaid sick day. I mean there is a lunar new year bonus (symbolicly representing the boss giving you a Red Envelope), but that doesn’t mean shit when pay is already low, so the its just posturing. And healthcare in mainland China isn’t free, its basically equivalent to the US for the most part, but you also need the money ready for ER, many hospitals make you pay first before getting treatment, not the “bill you later” that the US does.
Yes PRC bad. USSR bad.
Buuut, the USSR did have free housing, free healthcare, free bills, free and quality higher ed, plenty jobs in STEM, while yes, also having horrific repressions inside and imperialist ambition outside too.
The successor state of the Soviet Union is as much a product of soviet corruption as it is a product of IMF’s “shock therapy” that forced rapid privatization in the name of capitalism and cuts to public services in a country that was basically near 100% public services, which led to widespread poverty and the well-connected cashing in their political capital for all the country’s resources, industry and infrastructure, creating the oligarch class and setting up an electorate primed for brainwashing with populist strongman rhetoric and a government ready to be inevitably influenced by the oligarchs, and when capitalists control the government the only result is fascism.
I don’t care so much what the underlying thought is. Millions died when either got into power. Learning from history neither should get another opportunity.
Millions are dying now due to the dudes in power now. Billions more are suffering. Once the palantir sell-offs are complete in the west and the democracies of Europe are left with no assets and not what few they have now after decades of trickle down, there will really be no turning back from the cyberpunk dystopia, and then many more will perish.
I think a better world is worth fighting for.
Fascists are why we have the Holocaust
That was surely done by Nazis, if not what is difference between Nazi & fascist? You are criticizing him for comparing unrealistically then you are doing it yourself
Communists are why we have unions, minimum wage, universal healthcare, welfare, safety nets, 5-day work week
You are saying this like it is very good thing, without any defects. When Society is too used to these safety laws. What do you can do in emergency? You will say it is our birth right, as consequence you will suffer decrease in performance, which may can result in defeat in war. By which your whole society including these benefits will collapse.
Just my guess, because of minimum wage, your country probably is importing immigrants & immigrants students in order to make them work illegally, as cheap labor, natives are not willing to work for cheap, your businesses are going to foreign countries for cheap labor. The whole thing could have been prevented if there would not been strong minimum wage laws. As result work conditions would have suffered but as group you could have increased performance. but probably, in your country, you have no trust in leaders, political parties and organizations. Who would rather get torture than to betray their people. Probably there are not many, Which is result of inferior culture. That’s why you think you always need all these restrains & you assume powerful always take advantage. Or maybe your view of complete lack of hurt is blinding you the damage of all this.
Lol I see. Don’t right-wing propaganda shills these days have access to DeepL or something? Your grammar is fucking awful.
Just for the record for lurkers ITT: I am an immigrant and I came to ze west originally on a student visa, no one “imported” me, finding a job was nigh impossible because no we don’t work illegally because the risk of losing a visa is very high and there are strict limits on jobs you can do, when and how long, including both by profession and by income level, often far above median and only if the corpo has the license and paperwork which all cost fuckloads for them, and finding a job out of that limited pool as a fresh grad was hell on earth.
The only reason I could even get to that stage was because my parents were fairly well off and across the 7 or so years before I became independent the costs of immigrating were in the hundreds of thousands on them. I had to leave the nest at 13.
When I started working I had to pay double tax for healthcare through visa fees first, then off my income tax as normal, and it took 13 years to get a permanent residence permit on the “10-year route” due to other hidden requirements during which I lived in permanent fear of deportation, the only reason I did it was genuine fear of persecution in my country of origin for being LGBT due to the fascist government there.
I’m sharing this here because the general public’s idea of immigration is often well - nuts, and completely out of touch with reality of immigrants, so hopefully now if you didn’t know, you know better.
Not the person you replied to. Just want to share:
I wasn’t born in the US, I came to the US legally and I have citizenship now. I still feel afraid of being denaturalized and deported under this current regime.
It really sucks that my two plausible choices are Authoritarian State-Capitalist PRC, and the other other choice, USA, has now become a Hyrbid Regime undergoing autocratization. Wish I could go to the EU but its unrealistic. There’s just so frequent racism/xenophobia in the US, but I also despise PRC, since people are even more conservative than here in the US. Can’t think of any place that truly feels “home”, I have this feeling of being “unwelcomed” anywhere I go.
The world is just an unwelcoming place right now, perhaps always has been. Worst comes to worst maybe we can hack it somewhere remote heh
Unlike Nazis, communists do have free groups such as anarchocommunists and so on, that are not authoritarian.
