bro kind of forgot to mention that you also have to develop the productive forces, production is the chief determinant force of development of society.
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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GenZedong
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For sure, I notice that a lot of people in the west don't actually understand the fundamentals of what an economy are. It's not GDP, or stock markets, money supply, or all the other junk people tend to talk about. What actually matters is resource and labour allocation. You have a certain number of people living in the country, and these people have access to the resources that are available to them. The job of the economy is to manage allocation of labour to transforms the available resources into things people need to live. If the economy isn't allocating labour in a way that results in people having their needs met, then you start having problems.
Feels like a bit of a bad faith critique, given that this is an extremely short clip with no context.
What he is saying is not wrong, but i do think it's the wrong answer to the question he was asked.
Not mentioning production on a question about transition to socialism is just a plain bad answer.
It's not clear to me from the clip that he was asked any question at all. The question he states at the beginning could plausibly be purely rhetorical.
That said, it would not be surprising if he were to stress the struggle against counterrevolution but had little to say about the development of productive forces. Sison is a Maoist, and Mao and his intellectual descendants are much more voluntarists than they are stagists.
Remember the good old days, when the Anglosphere had the productive forces, and all we needed to do was seize them?
Not to dox myself, but I'm less than a century old. I don't know what it is like to live through those times.
Imagine being able to buy a house within 2-3 years of working on a single wage and being able to afford to have a family comfortably.
Idk I didnt live through it either but the above social contract was at least present for white people between 1950-1990
I feel like his answer was shaped by the context of the conversation but yeah I have also come to expect people to not respect the need to bolster industrial and technological capabilites. I don't know anything about Sison so not talking him specifically.
This is my main problem with global south leftists and self-proclaimed communists, production is largely ignored. The right wing has managed to use this against the left, it is a common talking point throughout latin america that the "right is production and left is parasitism" and rarely does the left confront this narrative.
That's a good point, do you know how one might phrase or introduce it? I feel like just using the word 'economy' makes people think of something nebulous (it's the invisible hand of the free market, don't ya know? how does it work? in mYsTeRiOuS wAyS) and the vocabulary I'd use to try to explain or express what the productive forces are also kinda seems out of place.
I always throw a "historical and dialectical materialism" by stalin recommendation. There is a section that clearly explains why production is the chief determinant force in development, what are the productive forces (tools+people) and what are the relations of production.
honestly super impressed with stalin's writing in general, kinda unbelievable that someone could be so good at as many things. i've met savant's and their fantastical ability is typically restricted to a narrow domain, for some it's almost as if they don't have any special ability, and they could likely choose an area and excel at it. maybe not the absolute best, and still really really good.
It is not surprising at all that there was a need for a gigantic campaign to discredit him, his works and style of writing streamlined marxism and are very important to read for people starting this journey.
IMO Historical and dialectical materialism has to be one of the first recommendations to newbies.
Almost like he founded a dead end Maoist movement whose greatest accomplishment was banditry in the mountains or something.
The NPA didn't succeed in the revolution, but they still provide a lot of support to rural population, in healthcare notably. We have to give them that.
I've heard a lot of negative things from communist friends in the Philippines about them, though they do provide support to rural populations, they're no Shining Path.
I don't have communist friends in the Philippines, so I don't have the insights that you got, most of what I know about them is from the documentaries "Inside the New People's Army" and "Revolution Selfie", which might present a idealised view of their revolution. But I know that their split with PKP was rather dirty, and the bombing Plaza Miranda was a terrible accelerationist move.
Other than their support to the rural population, I appreciate their effort to try to preserve the environment from companies known to disregard it by sabotaging their operations, and also their support for LGBT rights.
I'm open to hearing more about the criticism Filipino communists have towards them.
I have heard the opposite with then environment, they're well known for taking bribes from corpos who mine the areas they control. They're obviously not going to mention this in their own documentaries about themselves.
From what I've heard, they are generally what gives communism in the Philippines a bad name. They're seen as harassing people in remote villages, making them a part of the "revolution" whether they want to or not. Like most Maoist groups, they don't seem to respect the people's right to neutrality. They also spend a lot of their time on PR for random westerners on the internet, a lot of blogs and stuff advertising how well their latest raid of a military convoy went. They feel very...I don't know if LARPy is quite the right word, because they are out there actually doing things, but they seem very focused on adventurism and "being the heroes" rather than organizing the people. This is all second hand knowledge, and my mates could be wrong about them, but they have gotten into some pretty damn heated discussions about the uselessness of the CPP with terminally online western Maoists who seem to think that they're seconds away from liberating the entire country, when they aren't. They're a tiny group hiding out in the mountains, that only continue to exist because the government doesn't view them as a big enough threat to actually bother stamping them out.
One of the biggest reasons I dislike Maoism is because I've seen far too many Maoists accept everything their PR department says at face value, and rejects the actual opinion of the people of the Philippines. Communism is a people's movement, and if a communist movement loses the support of the people, they can't ever hope to win, no matter how "universal" their PPW is.
Does anyone know the source for this clip, as in what news media establishment is Red? It's the logo/animation-thingy in the top right corner. I can't really read the instagram tag either, idk maybe I should get new glasses 🤓
Pretty sure the tag is revolutionaireenhied