SweetLava

Marx states, [emphasis mine]

The character of creditor, or of debtor, results here from the simple circulation. The change in the form of that circulation stamps buyer and seller with this new die. At first, therefore, these new parts are just as transient and alternating as those of seller and buyer, and are in turns played by the same actors. But the opposition is not nearly so pleasant, and is far more capable of crystallisation. The same characters can, however, be assumed independently of the circulation of commodities. The class-struggles of the ancient world took the form chiefly of a contest between debtors and creditors, which in Rome ended in the ruin of the plebeian debtors. They were displaced by slaves. In the middle ages the contest ended with the ruin of the feudal debtors, who lost their political power together with the economic basis on which it was established. Nevertheless, the money relation of debtor and creditor that existed at these two periods reflected only the deeper-lying antagonism between the general economic conditions of existence of the classes in question.

Does, then, this imply also a relationship in capitalist society where debt and finance play a role in the proletarianization of the so-called middle-class (or petty-bourgeois)? After all, you start a small business to jump into self-employment or to make others work for you, and when you inevitably endebt yourself (your business) to achieve success, are you not at risk of proletarianization if the business fails due to unpayable debt?

Or is the force of the haute bourgeoisie a greater factor in proletarianization, thus making the difference of the petty-bourgeois business owner being in debt or not aside from Marx's argument? Surely Marx would've remarked, at some point or another in his writings, the relevance of this if it was actually central to capitalism.

tl;dr - I do NOT like Christian Zionists, give me the resouces to understand and address their bullshit

The Christians followers of this have been talking about the "end times" with very little explanation. I tried looking into their most recent ranting and raving about the red heifer theory, but I was shocked to find that the most popular results were from people who genuinely believe that shit.

I want an explanation for this insane theory. There's something deeply antisemitic about it and I want to get to the bottom of it.

I don't want to criticize this belief by brushing it off as a bunch of loonies, dismissively pointing to the beliefs as not worth my time. I want to know exactly what it is so I can properly address it, at least mentally.

What does finance capitalism serve? When look at the progress of original capitalism, when compared to feudalism especially, there were some clear long term benefits. But what has the capitalism of the neoliberal era done?

Doesn't the existance of the US and UK in the neoliberal era for so many years just mean that we found a way to be fascist while maintaining the liberal-democratic order and bourgeois freedoms?

Or could a modern socialist state wield the teaching of financial capitalism in a progressive manner that can be seized for the benefit of the people without such a socialist state being imperialist or engaging in un-fair or un-equal exchange across borders?

To get straight to the point, I've been trying to move right back to reading from the original Marxists, esp. Marx and Engels themselves.

I think the online left and people organizing in real life are not paying enough attention to the trends at hand. Some people we are calling comrades today are going to be fascists, and I believe as undisputed fact.

People are making reference to an "industrial" versus "financial" capitalism, or reference to a so-called PMC class, or reference to a "critical support" of countries like Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and many others. I see a lot of talk about multipolarity and geopolitics.

At first glance, this doesn't look harmful, but if we go back in time and imagine similar debates as though it were still World War I? These would be the ones first to try to pull a Mussolini and jump from Communist and anti-Imperialist to writing fascist theory.

As these perversions of Marx continue, I really do fear that a lot of middle-class (and those middle-class falling to proles) will see this and end up re-inventing fascism.

There is far too much crude and vulgar anti-capitalism, anti-liberalism, anti-imperalism. It's a grave error. Liberalism is born out of the French Revolution and brought us progressively towards radical socialism and Communism. Capitalism, for all its faults, brought us progressively towards alternative structures and the ability for workers to seize mass production for their class. Anti-imperialism, for some of its faults, brought us the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, and Korean revolutions, all but one with total victory.

But I hear people calling themselves anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, anti-imperalist as if there was nothing more behind those words. We're in World War III it seems, but people who are clearly infiltrated and have a lack of understanding of serious conflicts are running left-wing parties. What are they doing? Who is there to critique them? Over the years we've had to deal with nonsense from the IMT, Midwestern Marx, the Black Hammer Party, PCUSA, and so on. There is no working class party with the tools and experience and support base to properly analyze and critique them.

I think we need to request of working class parties a way to redefine the use of anti-imperialist forces and the idea of nationalism and ideas of "oppressed nations" and the way the Global North and Global South are organized. To be blunt, Palestine is one of the only places on this earth where a real national liberation would be legitimate. From so many years of a weakened leftist movement, it looks like decades of work are going to be put in to fix it.

I get the idea that Cuba and North Korea are the last breath of Communism on this planet and, for how much of a fight they put up, they are still struggling. Hard. N. Korea is reliant on Russia. Cuba is facing so many leaving the country while their economy hasn't fully recovered, and they are turning to private sector to fix problems while still under a painful embargo. These are not pleasant places to live and I can't think of anyone in the real world that would see this socialism and decide it's the way to go. So much progress is squeezed into these tiny countries and there's nothing to show the world for it. On top of that, if Palestine doesn't get a real success in the near future, we are pushed even further back in terms of progess while the leftist movement is barely getting back to development.

I am still Marxist-Leninist, but I hope people understand that the mistakes of leftist movements today are going to be the framework for fascists tomorrow. I won't lose hope, but a lot of people will.

Who is going to be the one to transform the contradictions of today into the working class movements of tomorrow, speaking figuratively?

Sorry to let down many on Lemmygrad and Hexbear with this statement, but neither the rise of China nor the fall of the US will be way to success. Those are just inevitabilities based on present conditions, but the events alone aren't going to do much. The fall of the US might even put hell on some of the most vulnerable people on earth. And the rise of China isn't going to inspire much except a vague sense of "economic stability and prosperity".

At this point, my position is almost right in the middle, right between the average (in-practice) Marxist-Leninist and the average (in-practice) ML-Maoist. My views are starting to diverge a little too much from what I see online, but my views are still useful in real life situations and among the real world, which is a good sign, but it doesn't even look like half the people calling themselves some form of leftists are even trying to understand what they are doing. The world is moving too fast and too dangerously for so many people to make these deadly errors

As I talked about in one of my last posts, there was some concern that the modern leftist movements had infiltration issues with LaRouchites, Duginists, and other concerning viewpoints.

These were my exact fears and this website has published an article recently that proves some of my fears as based in reality.

Is anyone familiar with this magazine and its related party? They are not pro-NATO and also not on the side of Ukraine during this Russo-Ukraine War, and these points are valid.

(Archive Link Below)

https://web.archive.org/save/https%3A%2F%2Fsocialistmag.us%2F2024%2F02%2F18%2Fthe-fascist-mimicry-of-anti-imperialism%2F

As pointed out by Georgi Dimitrov, the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International defined fascism to be "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital". Yet, so many fascists claim that fascism and their movements are there to stop finance capital.

One instance I would point out here is that Michael Hudson has done a lot of writing on finance capital. When these discussions come about, you can see fascists by the dozen coming to agreement with someone who almost talks like a Marxist. It goes without saying that Michael Hudson has been hosted, on Geopolitical Economy Report, with Pepe Escobar, a journalist who has made mention to philosophical discussions with people like Alexander Dugin. Interestingly enough, Pepe Escobar has specifically mentioned, in an interview relating to geopolitics (of the current Israeli situation), that he would suggest reading a text about Jewish people. This book was anti-semitic in ways I have never seen before. Relating back to Dugin, I'm at a point where I see "geopolitics" or "multipolar" and assume some relation to the man, so I was already highly suspicious anyway.

So the question is: why do so many reactionaries and fascists try to claim the fight against finance capital is their fight? I haven't seen any evidence that fascists actually do anything to stop finance. It all gets blamed on immigrants or Jewish people or something else.

----------Unrelated Rant Starts Here----------

Additionally, what is the deal with all the attemps to form some type of red-brown alliance of sorts? Everything left-wing in nature always seems to hold mention, directly or indirectly, to something that comes out of the LaRouche or Dugin playbooks. These people aren't even Communists, they're just fascists.

The worst part is that we know American fascism actually claims to be uniquely American and thus not fascist at all because American fascism just isn't European. Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost like a competent Mussolini, yet purely electoral and allowed Communists to exist (but under scrutiny and surveillance), and even had a real plot against him by real fascists. On the opposition, it looks like we even have people reading Marx and Engels and Lenin at length, but still co-opting the messaging to do some PatSoc/NazBol/Duginist/Strasserist/etc. adjacent work.

If you sit in pro-China spaces too long, you find a bunch of fascists. If you sit in anti-China spaces too long, still fascists everywhere. If you speak up for Korea, same thing, attacked by anti-Communists on one end and your message is co-opted by neo-fascists claiming Korea is an ethnostate or a PatSoc state, and worthy of praise, on the other. These are the same tactics NazBols would use for recruiting back when Stalin was running the USSR, claiming Stalin as one of their own.

Now we have more anarchists and other leftists attacking Communist spaces for holding a bunch of "tankies" and people like us are getting lumped in with Jackson Hinkle and Haz.

If reading all the theory doesn't solidify our principles, if our organizations are still infiltrated heavily, if our message is dilluted by opportunists, and if we have people engaging in real-life praxis still falling victim to cult-like behavior and taking on fascist-adjacent viewpoints, then what do we have?

and I won't ignore people trying to minimize this either. If you look at any left-wing organizations in the "West" (yet another euphemism I hate since it just sounds like right-wing garbage pitting East against West, or Atlanticist fascist against Eurasian fascist), we notice that there are no serious organizations like there used to be. Definitely nothing like the Black Panther Party is alive today.

Then look at how quickly the fascists switch up and adhere to their new lines, like it was a script. From pro-Ukraine to pro-Russia; from pro-Israel to pro-Palestine; from anti-China to pro-China or vice versa. People who were screaming about Communists and (((globalists))) taking over the WEF and the global institutions are now celebrating Javier Milei's election in Argentina. When leftists bring up international orgs ran by the US? Well, the fascists already had their anti-WTO, anti-World Bank, anti-NED, anti-IMF lines ready to go, getting their voice out and their opinions boosted while the legitimate opposition was censored or removed.

Sorry for the rant. I just need someone to make some sense out of all this. It feels like the internet has been stuck in psyop mode for so many years that every form of opposition left, right, and center, has been infiltrated to the point of never challenging anything. Weird times lie ahead.

I read someone online scoff - at least the digital version of scoffing - at Stalin for his Lassallean tendency. What does that mean?

While reading Lenin, he quoted Lassalle to introduce his work What is to be Done?, so I figured there must be a connection with the early Bolsheviks and this socialist.