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Did you all notice that week or so of utter shock from federated Lemmy liberals when they saw takes to the left of themselves?
(hexbear.net)
I don't just mean outrage or regular rage, I mean shock that someone was to the left of "legal weed and free college but only for those that operate a successful business for 3 years in a disadvantaged community" 
takes.
I think federating took them by surprise, looking back. For about a week, those smug liberals were at a loss to even fathom what Hexbears were saying, and could only chant bullshit about how we're Russian/Chinese bots.
Sure they still do that but they've slightly adapted to Hexbear presence.
Respectfully, Capital is probably the absolute worst starting point for socialist theory.
Something like the Manifesto, The State and Revolution, or even Blackshirts and Reds would be much better starting points IMO
Am I an anrchiddie if I say the conquest of bread is a good starting point?
Yes. I'm not sectarian to anarchists in general, but conquest of bread is basically a fantasy novel taking itself seriously. It isnt grounded in any research. If you like the ideas presented in conquest of bread, that's fine, but it doesn't actually go into how those ideas can be achieved, outside of mostly "people will just spontaneously do it"
CoB is based on economic research, not magic, but absolutely is utopian in basically eliding the problem of "how would this ever be established?"
My partner double checked a bunch of the numbers he cited and he plays very loosey goosey with it.
I'm ML and haven't read Kropotkin, but i think his idea of mutual aid as a part of evolution is really valuabe, since social darwinism has so poisoned lib thought especially in the US that most USians don't differentiate between Darwin's actual scientific theory and social Darwinism, to the point of believing "survival of the fittest" is a Darwin quote.
The book to go for then would be "Mutual Aid: A Factor in Human Evolution", right? As far as I know, Conquest is mainly a utopian socialist thought experiment about how production (using technology and figures of his time) could easily provide for everyone with much less work. I think it's valuable, just has different subject matter.
Yeah that's the one i was thinking about. Thanks.
It honestly really irritates me how influential social darwinism has been in the US and i really wanted to rant about it lol
I used to say the same thing, now i just point people to Graeber or Zinn and let them radicalize on their own, if they identify as liberal and want reading recommendations. Debt: The First 5000 Years did more to push me leftward than State and Revolution. I assume this would be true for most people who aren't familiar with the context of the soviet revolution.
Capital is a great starting point if the person is a big NERD
Totally with you on that. The Capital is a "colossal" starting point. And lot's and lot's of theory has been written since 1894.
On the other hand, Blackshirts and Reds is an awesome place to start.
is an eye opener for libs who want to read. At least in my experience.
Daddy Lenin too. In my case, I started with "Imperialism..." at the University and it was the kicker to my freefall into becoming a
.
The critique of the gotha program is very short and makes some good points about materialism.