Far-left definitely isn’t that - “we’re gonna make sure everyone’s needs are met” is literally a general leftist thing. Assuming you’re trying to portray tankies and fascists, a more accurate depiction would be “we’re gonna make sure working class needs are met with an iron fist and extermination of anyone potentially rebellious”.
That being said, holy shit there are so many bad takes in this thread
Respectfully, I don’t think tankies are the farthest left, or even left at all. They seem far too concerned with statism and too unconcerned with uplifting the worker.
I also think that there is space for more than one type of far left.
EDIT: Witness below: a lengthy conversation about states, colonialism, whose team is worse, and other masturbatory topics. What average worker is going to engage with this ideology? Dorks.
I also think that there is space for more than one type of far left.
Yeah I did want to originally include this in my original comment - there’s ideologies like Anarchism that is also far-left, and same can be applied to the right, with their ancaps and libertarians though both of those are rarely ever referred to as far-right (wonder why’s that).
Not just tankies but ml. We should all be working towards communism generally. No question. And ML governments have helped industrialize their regions as capitalism did. Again no question. But in that process the ML governments have been oppressive and violent as most capitalist. Combined with the fairytale of the administrative state magically withering on it’s own. It’s safe to say that the vanguard of Marxist Leninism the Soviet Union splintered and fell to fascism of the administrative state. With China repeating their mistakes. Making they’re already unaccountable administrative State even more unaccountable. Appointing their president for life even as he moves into the Forbidden City and The Emperor’s Palace. Now largely emperor in all but name.
Honestly I think the reason they get shown so much is because there’s not a lot of other clear iconography relating to the left. There’s the upgrades fist. But it has been adopted for a number of other groups and movements. Outside of that most of the truly recognizable ones were adopted by the leninists.
i think whats missing from most anti-ml takes here is colonialism and the overbearing influence of the west everywhere else.
china wouldnt be able to break away from the washington consensus like it does if they didnt have enough force to show and use whenever necessary to keep it at bay.
likewise with pretty much every long lasting, large scale socialist experiment so far. people forget what happens to the likes of allende when they try funny business and can’t back it up with actual force.
i also have a problem with using ‘tankie’ for serious discussion because its a meaningless word at this point.
If things were perfect they would be perfect. However that’s circular reasoning/tautology. Everyone struggles with factors internal and external. And ultimately it’s not someone else’s responsibility what they do. So bringing up the West in a critique of marxist leninism he’s largely pointless and at best only a crutch. Because yes we can absolutely critique the west or similar things. The fact that they do them doesn’t make Marxist leninism better by comparison.
And let’s be clear. China and the Chinese government needed no help exploiting their proletariat for the benefit of the ascendant bourgeoisie. The West did not force that or cause it.
My critique of marxist leninism is not a defense of capitalism or the west. I see them as largely equal and opposed. Yes the West has been shitty to countries that have adopted Anti-Capitalist Stances. And I absolutely believe it is largely unwarranted and counterproductive.
Where it is warranted ironically one only has to look to Vladimir Lenin to understand why. The forceful annexation of much of Eastern Europe post World War ii. The division of Germany. No one from the West forced that. Remind me. Former Soviet block countries, what were their General feelings about the Soviet Union and Lenin / Stalin after it dissolved? I remember even until recently A lot of them tearing down statues of those men. Was it because they love them so much and wanted to have pieces of them in their house to worship? It wasn’t because they failed to deliver on their promises, and were largely hated and despised by survivors and family of people marched off to Siberia to die was it?
You’re suggesting that is simply a necessary evil on the long road to real socialism? Marx said there needs to be 100 years of capitalist industrialization before a communist revolution can succeed (which I disagree with, but let’s roll with it). China was able to enact a successful revolution without waiting 100 years of wage slavery, only to then become a wage slave accepting nation? To what end is this benefitting the proletariat? China doesn’t have free higher education, and they don’t have fully free healthcare.
Meanwhile, Anarchists in Spain were able to liberate the working class and eliminate money mid-revolution. They lost the war due to lack of access to weapons/logistics, but nothing about enacting those social revolutions seemed to be terribly detrimental to their efforts.
China seems to have willfully become capitalist itself (pretty lame of them), so, at least from the average worker’s standpoint, it seems relatively inconsequential whether they are a wage slave in mainland china, or in any other capitalist country.
To the contrary of your contrary. The French revolution. One of the most influential formative revolutions that helped influence and shape Karl Marx’s philosophy and much of marxist thought. Showed otherwise.
Sure sometimes Force can be needed to break free. But if you need Force to govern you are doing it wrong.
the french revolution didnt have a previous, but strong empire trying to stop it at all costs. you are subestimating neocolonialism. my country has a history of being interfered with by the empire at the hint of wanting free. and that won’t narrow it down.
there is a reason one country in the planet spends almost as much as everyone else combined on their military
I understand your definitions, but I I think many Americans don’t use the same definitions. OP is pointing this out.
If we look at specific issues it’s easy to see. If I say that we should have universal health care, or UBI, many people would say that I’m way far out on the left. What if I said that we shouldn’t allow people to be multimillionaires? Would that make me way far out on the left? Again, to a lot of people yes.
So your definitions might be reasonable, but they aren’t universal, and I think if you keep that in mind you can appreciate OP more.
I think the issue is not so much definitions, but who actually has a voice. Currently in US politics the far left does not wield any influence, but the far right does hold some sway over the Republican party.
I suppose some on the right toss out accusations of being far left, but that’s just empty rhetoric.
If I say that we should have universal health care, or UBI, many people would say that I’m way far out on the left.
Just to support your point (and for the benefit of others not from the US), even people who are sympathetic to your views will often use the adjective “radical” when describing them if you espouse such beliefs. Everyone who votes R will cal you a radical and a high percentage of democrats will too.
And that’s before you even get to the stuff about overt wealth redistribution.
Bernie Sanders is the radical left to a great many in the US. (personally I consider him just the right amount of left 😁 )
Far-left definitely isn’t that - “we’re gonna make sure everyone’s needs are met” is literally a general leftist thing. Assuming you’re trying to portray tankies and fascists, a more accurate depiction would be “we’re gonna make sure working class needs are met with an iron fist and extermination of anyone potentially rebellious”.
That being said, holy shit there are so many bad takes in this thread
Respectfully, I don’t think tankies are the farthest left, or even left at all. They seem far too concerned with statism and too unconcerned with uplifting the worker.
I also think that there is space for more than one type of far left.
EDIT: Witness below: a lengthy conversation about states, colonialism, whose team is worse, and other masturbatory topics. What average worker is going to engage with this ideology? Dorks.
Yeah I did want to originally include this in my original comment - there’s ideologies like Anarchism that is also far-left, and same can be applied to the right, with their ancaps and libertarians though both of those are rarely ever referred to as far-right (wonder why’s that).
Not just tankies but ml. We should all be working towards communism generally. No question. And ML governments have helped industrialize their regions as capitalism did. Again no question. But in that process the ML governments have been oppressive and violent as most capitalist. Combined with the fairytale of the administrative state magically withering on it’s own. It’s safe to say that the vanguard of Marxist Leninism the Soviet Union splintered and fell to fascism of the administrative state. With China repeating their mistakes. Making they’re already unaccountable administrative State even more unaccountable. Appointing their president for life even as he moves into the Forbidden City and The Emperor’s Palace. Now largely emperor in all but name.
Honestly I think the reason they get shown so much is because there’s not a lot of other clear iconography relating to the left. There’s the upgrades fist. But it has been adopted for a number of other groups and movements. Outside of that most of the truly recognizable ones were adopted by the leninists.
i think whats missing from most anti-ml takes here is colonialism and the overbearing influence of the west everywhere else.
china wouldnt be able to break away from the washington consensus like it does if they didnt have enough force to show and use whenever necessary to keep it at bay.
likewise with pretty much every long lasting, large scale socialist experiment so far. people forget what happens to the likes of allende when they try funny business and can’t back it up with actual force.
i also have a problem with using ‘tankie’ for serious discussion because its a meaningless word at this point.
If things were perfect they would be perfect. However that’s circular reasoning/tautology. Everyone struggles with factors internal and external. And ultimately it’s not someone else’s responsibility what they do. So bringing up the West in a critique of marxist leninism he’s largely pointless and at best only a crutch. Because yes we can absolutely critique the west or similar things. The fact that they do them doesn’t make Marxist leninism better by comparison.
And let’s be clear. China and the Chinese government needed no help exploiting their proletariat for the benefit of the ascendant bourgeoisie. The West did not force that or cause it.
My critique of marxist leninism is not a defense of capitalism or the west. I see them as largely equal and opposed. Yes the West has been shitty to countries that have adopted Anti-Capitalist Stances. And I absolutely believe it is largely unwarranted and counterproductive.
Where it is warranted ironically one only has to look to Vladimir Lenin to understand why. The forceful annexation of much of Eastern Europe post World War ii. The division of Germany. No one from the West forced that. Remind me. Former Soviet block countries, what were their General feelings about the Soviet Union and Lenin / Stalin after it dissolved? I remember even until recently A lot of them tearing down statues of those men. Was it because they love them so much and wanted to have pieces of them in their house to worship? It wasn’t because they failed to deliver on their promises, and were largely hated and despised by survivors and family of people marched off to Siberia to die was it?
quite the contrary.
force is needed because things arent perfect, hence why i say the analysis misses neocolonialism.
Why, after that force is used to successfully establish themselves, those countries never actually empower the lower classes?
China has been secure on the world stage for decades, yet their people still work as wage slaves for the benefit of the western bourgeoise interests.
take a look at how quality of life, health, education and most aspects of society improves vastly under socialism.
also take a look at the time scale at which such things happen.
we also have capitalism.
The Foxconn building had to put up nets around their building because so many employees were committing suicide due to their extremely poor working conditions.
You’re suggesting that is simply a necessary evil on the long road to real socialism? Marx said there needs to be 100 years of capitalist industrialization before a communist revolution can succeed (which I disagree with, but let’s roll with it). China was able to enact a successful revolution without waiting 100 years of wage slavery, only to then become a wage slave accepting nation? To what end is this benefitting the proletariat? China doesn’t have free higher education, and they don’t have fully free healthcare.
Meanwhile, Anarchists in Spain were able to liberate the working class and eliminate money mid-revolution. They lost the war due to lack of access to weapons/logistics, but nothing about enacting those social revolutions seemed to be terribly detrimental to their efforts.
China seems to have willfully become capitalist itself (pretty lame of them), so, at least from the average worker’s standpoint, it seems relatively inconsequential whether they are a wage slave in mainland china, or in any other capitalist country.
To the contrary of your contrary. The French revolution. One of the most influential formative revolutions that helped influence and shape Karl Marx’s philosophy and much of marxist thought. Showed otherwise.
Sure sometimes Force can be needed to break free. But if you need Force to govern you are doing it wrong.
the french revolution didnt have a previous, but strong empire trying to stop it at all costs. you are subestimating neocolonialism. my country has a history of being interfered with by the empire at the hint of wanting free. and that won’t narrow it down.
there is a reason one country in the planet spends almost as much as everyone else combined on their military
Are you fucking kidding me
I understand your definitions, but I I think many Americans don’t use the same definitions. OP is pointing this out.
If we look at specific issues it’s easy to see. If I say that we should have universal health care, or UBI, many people would say that I’m way far out on the left. What if I said that we shouldn’t allow people to be multimillionaires? Would that make me way far out on the left? Again, to a lot of people yes.
So your definitions might be reasonable, but they aren’t universal, and I think if you keep that in mind you can appreciate OP more.
I think the issue is not so much definitions, but who actually has a voice. Currently in US politics the far left does not wield any influence, but the far right does hold some sway over the Republican party.
I suppose some on the right toss out accusations of being far left, but that’s just empty rhetoric.
Just to support your point (and for the benefit of others not from the US), even people who are sympathetic to your views will often use the adjective “radical” when describing them if you espouse such beliefs. Everyone who votes R will cal you a radical and a high percentage of democrats will too.
And that’s before you even get to the stuff about overt wealth redistribution.
Bernie Sanders is the radical left to a great many in the US. (personally I consider him just the right amount of left 😁 )
Look at the neck of the chad. He has a commie symbol so its clearly that far out. Not just universal health care or UBI
Allllllll the fucking idiots of all political flavors descended on this thread, fucking hell
Dumbest takes I’ve seen in months, and they’re all different takes.