Cowbee

The hammer and sickle if nothing else should give it away. You can talk about other forms of Socialism if you want.

Left Unity isn't about being ride or die together, it's about aligning on issues you can and discussing issues you can't. Marxists and Anarchists, for example, have a different end goal in mind. Marxists want a centrally planned, publicly owned economy with a democratically controlled government, while Anarchists want a horizontal, decentralized network of cooperatives and Mutual Aid Networks. You're going to run into disagreements, because their analysis of Capitalism has different conclusions and as such their end goals are different.

That's why we need to work together on things we do align on, like Palestinian liberation, anti-fascism, and anti-Capitalism.

We should also read more theory. Having a better understanding of our problems and how we believe they can be fixed is the key to any struggle. I keep an introductory reading list for Marxism, if anyone wants I can link it.

Read the link, everyone knows that. You don't have a grand trump card in the wiki link. We are specifically referring to Marxist Socialism, not the nebulous historical usage of the term, because we are on a Marxist community.

No problem!

You're far out of your depth if you are linking the Wiki article on "Socialism" to a Marxist that is recommending a synopsis on Lenin to you.

If you want something a bit easier to get into than Lenin, I really like the article What is Socialism? It's a quick, 30 minute read. The gist of the article is that Socialism is about what is dominant within a system, in Socialism central planning, public ownership, and the proletariat at large are dominant, while in Capitalism the bourgeoisie, private ownership, and markets are dominant.

In the PRC, the public sector makes up half of the economy and is growing, and Capital is trapped in a bidcage model while markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, making themselves ripe for public ownership and central planning. The PRC is therefore Socialist.

Property speculation crashed. It wasn't a homelessness crisis, but an intentional popping of a speculative bubble because Capitalists got greedy and homes were too expensive.

Which is a systemic problem, no?

As much as you can try, debatelords will be debatelords. You can be 100% correct with flawless evidence and debate skills, and some will cry and bleat about whatever. Those people typically are never going to be convinced by some magic formula of debate or combination of words.

Instead, I meet people where they are at. I let them know I can try to answer any questions they have, I can provide a basic reading list, etc etc. I don't speak about what I don't know, I speak on what I do. I pick my audience based on those who are receptive. My goal is to educate those who want to be, and help guide radicalization, which happens without my will simply due to dying Imperialism every single minute of every single day.

At the end of the day, there will be debatelords, you can chuck Yellow Parenti and Blackshirts and Reds, but that's about it unless you have a lot of time and can debunk every bit of gish gallop so others watching can see. Other comrades are great at that, so I try to fulfil a gentler role that catches others.

Less a problem of lack of awareness, more systemic pressures against voting third party.

Marxists do be extremely particular, haha

Socialism hasn't been perfect, the only people that think leftists are arguing for perfection are right-wingers. Marxism-Leninism is still correct analysis, and the USSR was still a massive improvement on existing conditions. It has not "lost," it is continued by Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, and more. Blackshirts and Reds debunks a lot of common anti-communist myths.

One thing you seem to be misunderstanding is the idea that because there are mom and pop shops, that there aren't fewer and fewer, with decreasing portions of the overall share of Capital. The barriers to legitimately compete with these megacorporations like Samsung are getting higher, you can't legitimately compete with their resources and design work.

Finally, your mark on the presence of new modes of production emerging from the old is a misconception of the Marxist argument. What is Socialism? explains that in further detail, and Productive Forces explains societal progression. Slavery resurging was an aspect of settler-colonialism, a notion that remains to this day, this was not a resurgence of old pre-feudal economics.

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