this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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Yes, the one you just learned happily funds genocide - just like it has for more than a hundred years now.
You mean... apart from something that can be called democratic with a straight face?
Yes, all true. How do we realistically move forward? Out of a liberal democracy into a better form. Without making conditions worse for people.
Did you happen to notice what Palestinians had to recently go through just to make people in the US's blinkers fall off?
There are no magic wands that will make this happen without things getting much, much worse. Of course, that doesn't mean things won't get much, much worse anyway.
Heartbreakingly, they will continue to go through it. No one will be better off with the current administration.
I suppose by your logic we have to go through fascism to achieve something better than liberal democracy. I just don't think it's better to go through fascism or necessary to achieve the larger goal.
I still believe it's the only logical step forward into a socialist society.
Accept the liberal carrot and you won't get the fascist stick. If the carrot is rotton to the core, just pretend it isn't. Easy, no?
I honestly don't know how to engage with what you've just said.
Are you not satisfied with the completely predictable spoils of liberalism? The rich gets richer, the poor gets poorer - and the only thing liberals will tell you to do about it is to vote for them in the next election ad nauseum.
The capitalist order only allows you to engage in two seemingly contradictory but, in reality, complementary, ideologies - liberalism and fascism. That is how it protects itself from you.
Inside this paradigm, no actual fundamental change is possible - it is only the measures that the status quo takes to protect itself from threats (ie, you) that really changes. Sometimes, when you're lucky, this measure might take the form of Keynesian economics - such as the New Deal, for instance. Sometimes, it's a brutal fascist regime. It all depends on what is most convenient to the status quo under given conditions.
You can tell which you are getting by seeing how good the carrot is.
Thank you for clarifying what you meant. I agree with all of it, especially that we are inside this paradigm.
Yet my question still feels unanswered. The carrot, if I'm understanding correctly, is liberal democracy. We (from the perspective of the capital class) are the pigs threatening to eat the carrot.
Using your analogy, how would we achieve a less exploitative relationship with the capital class?
No. We (from the perspective of the capital class) are the pigs rejecting the carrot... therefore, it is only the fascist stick that can now protect the capitalist order.
Nothing new about this - it's essentially what happened after WW1.
You're essentially asking how we stop a serial abuser from being a serial abuser.
There are two ways, of course. You either remove the victim, or you remove the serial abuser.
Somehow, I don't think the former is an option.
I think I got it now, from your perspective liberal democracy is only this abusive dynamic. A dynamic, in your estimation, that can never lead to a more equitable and democratic system.
Which system could we expect to live under that would reform or dismantle the capitalist order? Dystopia?
I only ask, if it can't be done under a liberal democracy, what system would this task require?
We have seen all kinds of attempts to "reform" capitalism - from Lenin's "state capitalism" to the US's New Deal to our current "Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics" All of them leaves the door open for the eventual re-establishment of the capitalist mode of production and it's inevitable class domination.
We require a system of direct democracy. Some will call that anarchism, or socialism, or "council communism"... but it will all boil down to the exact same thing.
Last two questions and I'll be done bothering you.
Do you believe we can achieve those systems with our current world order? (Liberal-facsism)
How do you implement direct democracy and scale it without interference from the capital class?
I'm a big fan of anarchism and socialism but, it's still my opinion that the best way for us to achieve those systems are a transitionary period emerging from a liberal democracy. I feel all other ways will be orders of magnitude worse for humanity.
Yes. But only in the chaos caused by the disasters this world order itself inflicts on the world.
You can't. It has to be done with the understanding that the capitalist class will do it's utmost to destroy you.
This was fundamentally my argument. It would be preferable for things to get better under liberal democracy.
That isn't the case and by many people's estimation could never be the case. This is juxtaposed with the idea things can only get better with the degradation of the current world order.
Thanks for talking with me. Best of luck in the coming years.