Evergreen meme. 🇨🇺

Are you surprised that Marxists are on a thread on an instance with a lot of Marxists?

I don’t mean “historical source” as an old source, but one that acknowledges the history of the terms. Your beloved Wikipedia explains the origins of liberalism in the same way I did. If I point you to Chinese economics institutions that agree with me, you’ll dismiss them. Again, liberalism is not a science, it’s an ideology centered around the dominant mode of production.

Even Time Magazine, itself an intensely liberal publication, recognizes the role of property relations in what determines left and right, ultimately chalking up the modern US viewpoint implicitly to the Overton Window, a political outlook that centers the median of any given society, rather than property relations.

This is not the “same argument” that Trump voters made. Again, you rely on equating me to the far-right to emotionally attack me, rather than the logic of my arguments or the overwhelming fact that you only accept western, liberal publications, and precisely the ones that focus on the Overton Window when describing concepts as left and right instead of their origin as property relations. You’re making an appeal to authority as your only argument, yet you don’t accept non-western sources.

It’s clear that by avoiding the discussion that you aren’t a serious person. I accept sources that aconowledge the historical answers to the questions I asked you.

Again, for the 5th time or so, the categorization of “left” vs “right” originated in France. When debating the power a King should hold, those who were against the monarchy sat on the left, and those who wanted to uphold the monarchy sat on the right. Liberalism, therefore, was a historically progressive and revolutionary ideology, as it was anti-monarchist and pro-bourgeois property. It was left not because it was liberal, it was left because it stood for progression onto the next emerging mode of production, that of bourgeois property.

Now, however, bourgeois property is dominant. Kings hold nearly no power on the global stage. The question of which position is revolutionary, which position stands for progression onto the next mode of production, is to be found in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, not the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy as was found in the late 1700s. Liberalism is the status quo, as capitalism is the status quo. Socialism, whether it be Marxist, anarchist, etc, is the proletarian position, while liberalism is the bourgeois position, once revolutionary, now reactionary.

The publications that you listed, like Princeton, are portraying a narrow scope based on median viewpoints within liberal society. “Left-liberalism” is used in reference to liberals with socially progressive views, and perhaps supportive of some level of welfare expansion, but this doesn’t fundamentally change the property relations in society. It is “left” in comparison to conservativism (which itself is right-liberalism), but right wing overall.

Now, if you can make the case why you believe liberalism to be left, then please, do so, because you haven’t outside of linking liberals saying they are left in the context of a liberal-dominated society. Liberalism is not a science, it’s a viewpoint, so disagreeing with liberal economists is not the same as disagreeing with the CDC. The PRC’s economists are trained in Marxism, and there are far more of them than there are western liberal economists, so the argument that I disagree with economic consensus doesn’t hold water unless you take a western exceptionalist viewpoint.

Gotcha, I’ll keep those in mind, thanks!

Yea, all my pictures look a bit fuzzy due to being on my phone, a dedicated camera sounds great. I’m tight on cash now, though, so that’ll take a while.

I’ve been dabbling a bit, but I never thought to go out and intentionally do it, it’s always been incidental on my walks around where I live. I should try and expand it!

What does “left” mean to you? What did it originally mean when it first became a phrase, and how does that apply to modern times? Again, I may be a Marxist, but this is a dominant viewpoint outside of highly western, liberal publications, and it isn’t just Marxists that have this understanding of right and left. Trying to equate my logic to anti-vaxx movements is just a baseless jab that avoids answering the arguments I made.

I always recommend Blowback, and I’ve recently been getting into Rev Left Radio. The former is an excellent anti-imperialist podcast going over the crimes of the US Empire, the latter is a solid podcast discussing Marxist-Leninist history, theory, and practice.

These are all good points, but I do think it’s important for those with the capacity to join an org and get organized. Capitalism is the problem, and we cannot just wait for it to fall. It gets easier to topple over time, but if we never kill it, it will stay on life support.

The reason it’s a false dichotomy is because the implicit point of the OP is that revolution is necessary. The original commenter either didn’t pick that up or ignored it, centering voting as the primary means of political engagement without addressing the point raised by the OP.

Voting is a very small part of what the average person can do to use their political power.

Deeply unserious behavior. Again, see my comment here.

You’re extremely confused, I’m not blaming “low information voters” of any sort. Electoralism is not a valid path for leftism. I’m not using a money excuse, either, though your erasure of money’s influence on media is also oversimplified. You haven’t taken any steps back, you’ve invented a caricature of “the left” in your head and are acting like you’re the only one to see things as they really are. It’s very silly.

See my comment here.

There have never been left presidents in the US. Mamdani is not the leader of the revolution. You’re very confused about what’s going on, and you’re out of touch with why Trump won. It wasn’t “memes,” it isn’t some masterful play, nor are liberals left wing.

You need to take a step back and familiarize yourself more with what’s going on. Try to take a materialist outlook, not an idealist outlook.

No, lol. The Left is fine on the internet. You can touch grass and organize, and do online agitprop. Mamdani won because people are being radicalized. Even then, Mamdani doesn’t eliminate the need for revolution, not even close.

China’s working conditions are steadily improving, so that’s not really a big problem, plus a huge amount of commodities are either produced in the global south by imperialist companies from the global north outsourcing labor, or from imperialist countries using resources carved out of the global south. You can boycott the worst companies, but you are forced to interact with most under capitalism. Better to be made in a socialist country like China than directly support imperialism.

The best you can do is to boycott what you can, and join an org, so you can hopefully be a part of the solution. PSL is a good option if you live in the US, but do research on what orgs have local chapters for you.

No problem!

The Left is fighting an uphill battle. Capitalism is the status quo, and the US relies on imperialism using its vast financial capital and massive number of millitary bases to keep goods relatively cheap, but this is crumbling. Change works as quantitative buildup until significant, qualitative change. Orgs like PSL are growing rapidly. They are still small, but the rate of growth is large. Time is on the Left’s side.

Just look at Palestine, as an example. 5 years ago, the vast majority of the US was Zionist. Now, the majority oppose the genocide. Mamdani winning the primary in NYC shows that more overtly left-leaning individuals are valued over right-wingers like Cuomo. Change works on trends. History doesn’t reset every day, eventually water droplets bore through stone. The left has never been in the White House, it has always been a toss between the right amd the far-right, this isn’t a new struggle, but it’s one that is changing every day thanks to historical work.