Juice

Thanks for hearing me out comrade, I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to dialectics and I worry about people who use the term as a shibboleth without really understanding the methods. I don't think this is the case with you, you are open about your self criticisms which is the key to personal growth.

From my perspective, the Chinese project as evolved into something like trying to wrap a great socialist party around a capitalist economy in an effort to mitigate the disastrous consequences of capitalist development and prevent the state from becoming subordinate to market forces. Capitalism always requires a strong state in order to function. Western nations chop up state power so that market forces determine the agenda of imperialism. Socialist or burgeoning socialist nations seem to try to keep the state as strong and centralized as possible, while (somewhat attempting) discouraging the individual accumulation of political power to stave off corruption and consolidation of personal interest. This seems to be one of the main points of failure of this model, but the extent to which the country is successful is the extent to which they are able to persist and project the possibility of socialist society into the future.

I'm open to critique of this analysis as I'm aware of some assumptions present in my method.

these two concepts quite literally contradict each other.

Contradiction is the engine of history. Marxist analysis begins with contradiction. If you think socialism will be free of contradiction then you aren't using dialectical analysis, if you think capitalism is free from contradiction then you are completely out of touch. Capitalism is a system that thrives on contradiction.

I'm not arguing that China is "half socialist, half capitalist," I'm not qualified to make that determination, but it sounds overly simplistic to me. What I am saying is that two contradictory systems can exist simultaneously and may even be the driver to Chinas incredible and undeniable economic success. At the same time it is a country that is rife with contradictions. Resolving contradiction makes new contradictions. Our goal is not to create a society free of contradiction, this is mathematically impossible. Our goal is to create a more fair, progressive, industrious society where the rewards of work goes to the workers. In order to do this we will have to become adept, as China has, at managing contradiction.

Imagine hearing the opinion of an Australian "chief health officer" and not immediately dismissing it as dangerously irresponsible drunken ramblings.

Having Dirt_Owl reply angrily to your comment with one of their several custom emojis is one of the highest blessings that can be bestowed on a Hexbear

I think if you have the motivation for this kind of work then it is a worthwhile project. A lot of us at one time were well meaning, compassionate liberals we just didn't understand that capitalism was more than "just an economic system" or we associated lofty liberal ideals with private property, or we couldn't think dialectically and therefore weren't able to unite disparate social phenomena into a unified historical condition, or we were idealist or any number of obstacles that were placed in our way by decades of schooling and bourgeois news/propaganda. But in our hearts we knew there was something bad about capitalism, we were opposed to war and mass depravation for the enrichment of the powerful few.

The first time I tried engaging in a socialist space (on yuck) I was immediately banned for being a liberal. Like instantly and forever banned. I wasn't being racist I was just being like not a Marxist, and that was it. If someone had directed me to some resources or good faith explained something to me I might be like years ahead of where I am in my consciousness. But as a result I remained a liberal for a few more years until I got curious again. The next time, I was upset about the idea of a revolution and after being told to fuck off like 10 times, someone was like, "we don't want people to die we want things to change," which isn't a great answer but it gets at the truth in a way that stuck with me and gave me something to chew on.

I am anti sectarian to an extreme, definitely an antithetical reaction to perceived sectarianism in left spaces. I know the history and the betrayals throughout history, and am aware of the contradictions this introduces into our movement. I think if the historical conditions progress to a point to where we have to circle the wagons and push away revisionist, bourgeois adjacent socialist movements to seize power for the working class, like the Bolsheviks had to do in October, then we can make those determinations at that point. Until then we need to be drawing people in and engaging in good faith in order to grow a genuine movement rooted in the conditions and contradictions of the present, not the mistakes and tragedies of the past. This is why we study history and theory, so we can nimbly navigate the constantly shifting realities of revolutionary movement, not set up camp in the left-most position and alienate everyone else from our shared revolutionary vocation as members of the proletariat.

That pig built a movement on his balls

Turns out the coercive forces of capitalism also applies to anti-capitalists