The John Brown questions is a useful one because I think a century after the fact, it is very easy for us to see the atrociousness of slavery and the very overt, ongoing violence that was required to maintain that institution.

Depending on how you view John Brown, it seems clear (to me) that he didn't choose violence. It was the people doing nothing that were choosing the violence by letting slavery continue to exist. If you ask John Brown or any other true abolitionist I think they would immediately tell you that a peaceful end to slavery would have been the ideal outcome. But when that was clearly never going to happen, I consider the blood of Harper's Ferry to be on anyone who was not actively support abolition. I do not put that blood or choice on John Brown (or those that fought with him).

To quote Engels, when asked "Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible?"

or Castro:



Capitalism, in the time since slavery, has very effectively exported the violence and savagery requires to maintain itself far away from the imperial core. The violence we see on a daily basis, as objectionable as it is, is orders of magnitude less than the violence continuously being inflicted on the global south.

Similar to slavery, I believe with the benefit of centuries of hindsight this will become apparent. But because it is the world we live and grew up in, and thanks to unending propaganda, we look at what is happening in the world (or don't thanks to the exportation of violence I mentioned before) as "normal". So when the call to opposition crops up people go "well I'm not down for violent opposition" as if the ruling class didn't make the choice already everyday for the past 300 years.

I was never accused of saying something racist in that thread (and it is/was 90% liberal posters). It seems difficult to state a fact of that case and be racist, but I guess that depends on the standards of who is calling it racist.

This thread is for people in the POG community.

This rule hasn't changed since the last time you were told not to post here.

Like I think a lot of people view "doing nothing" as being non-violent. Capitalism is violence. Every day that it exists is violence. There is no "non-violent" option. There is no option that does not come with death. Just like doing nothing about slavery was choosing violence, doing nothing about capitalism is choosing violence. It is imperialist propaganda to paint, for instance, the forceful overthrow of the Batisa regime, which ended slavery in Cuba, as the "violent" path. That was the path that ENDED violence.

That really needs to be the starting point.

The reason job automation is an inevitability is because machines cost less than people. It’s simple capitalism, dude.

are you agreeing that your use of "conspiracy theory" was objectively wrong?

let's start there

iirc it said libertarian communist or something like that which is close enough but I'd rather describe my political ideology as sauron zerg

it's all about the power of the people in mass

I am a trotskyist apparently

Just finding out all the different categories available is the best part of this test.

Are you fighting capitalists now birdman? Or part of the machine?

I dont buy in to capitalism as a just system, but, I'm not motivated beyond the power of my vote and my wallet to fight capitalism. I think this makes me a hypocrite too which isn't soemthing I'm proud of

it’s not really about hypocrisy

that wasn’t the point i was trying to make

it was about viewing movements like the cuban revolution, russian revolution, etc as being the less violent options to doing nothing

the overthrow of the Batista and regime, which undoubtedly required violence, and was less violent than allowing that regime to continue

This is hilarious coming from a guy who wants to outright ban abortion. How many times has THAT worked in the last 200, 150, 100, and 50 years? But you still out here tryin’.

Remember the time you argued against the minimum wage because something something black people?

Or the time you wanted to punish poor people by deducting the cost of their voter IDs from government assistance?

Or the time you said raising taxes was racist against white people because white people are richer?

There are sooo many I’m forgetting too Lmfao

ditto for the russian revolution, vietnam war, korea war, etc

Ok fair.

The justification of revolutionary violence is a fine balance.

Revolutions bring huge risk of unjustified violence through instability, regardless of the good intentions.

The French revolution, stalin and pol pot all show how revolutions can magnify violence.

Let’s say Birdman succeeds in guillotining all the rich. Now how do you plan on accessing their assets, much less redistributing them?

are you asking me to map out what would likely be a generations long struggle to transition from capitalism to communism?

Killing all humans is likely less violent than not killing all humans. #antinatalism

Possibly ridiculous sentiment but also seems obvious.

this is kind of where you lose me

“revolutionary violence” is an idealized category. not one that exists in the material world. so you are going to make a lot of errors trying to create that bucket and throw stuff in there

i wouldn’t call the khemer rouge “revolutionary” at all. for starters they were back by the CIA

and if you are saying the french revolution, as violent as it was, as not worth the cost, then I think you have a lot of work to do to say you’d rather have a despot continue to rule france and it’s empire

I assume we are going to disagree on Stalin since what you know about him you learned from the CIA/nazis whereas that is usually not my go to source for historical analysis

That makes sense.

Everything I've read suggests the khmer rouge, pol pot in particular, took advantage of revolutionary fervour. Whether or not it was cia backed, the people were fighting.

When do you think the revolution ended?

The french revolution was taken advantage of inumerous times by multiple different forces creating more and more violence.

I've not heard this before.

What sources do you use?

This sounds like why you're a Trotskyist.

In regards to guillotining the rich, redistributing their assets— in order for this to happen there would have to be a mass overthrow of the power structures, it’s not an uncomplicated situation and will require elegant solutions. If humanity can proceed to that point, I will hope it will be because the collective is capable of stepping up to the mandates of the situation to establish a compassionate and improved status quo.

I see the potential in humanity, but I’m aware I don’t live the society for which that potentiality is imminent. If the “how” of it all were simple and apparent, I would shout it from the roof tops or hop on a soap box, but it is my belief that the solution will be born out of the necessity of a society that recognizes the need to cast capitalism into its final grave.

Even just broad bullet points would be something because I feel like we often reach this point in discussion where I say Okay Birdman I’m ready to enlist but you have yet to even give a basic 101 on how this transition from Capitalism to Socialism actually occurs in practice.

You don’t have to be motivated for bloody revolution and the overturn of the status quo to read books.

You can resist an unjust system in more ways than revolt and defiance. If you aren’t proud of it, just read and learn and question— it doesn’t harm anyone for you to keep learning.

Then let’s talk about particular structures in isolation for a moment and see if we can get anywhere.

What, for example, would need to happen regarding our current banking system? That seems like a good place to start given that we’re discussing economics and that’s where we hold all our liquid assets.