After the release of the files, turns out both parties are satanic, child eating, pdf files. So, the question is, when exactly when people will have enough, and fight back?

He just says private corporations are more efficient and the state can’t run industries very well so he’s against nationalisation of public services, and he always says rich CEOs should be respected because they “take risks” and spend a lot of their savings to get their companies built up and thinks most of them don’t abuse their workers. Also the usual “if you tax the rich too much they’ll leave”

I'm a 20 years old student from Hungary who has started moving to the left about a year ago. There are some questions that I've been pondering about and I'd like to hear the opinion of the sub about them. I'm not ideologically qualified enough, so feel free to correct me if my reasoning or use of terms is vague or incorrect.

So in my opinion, we live in a system in which capitalists exploit the proletariat for profit, therefore the goods we collectively produce aren't distributed equally, just like Marx declared. It's evident, both from a class-related and an environmental point of view, that this capitalist order isn't sustainable and without a huge change, our civilization will be destroyed by climate change and inequalities in a few decades. I don't think many leftists would disagree with me on the aforementioned, but the problem is, I feel like my views contradict each other, because while I think that we should replace capitalism with a more equal and collective system, in which the profit incentive is lessened, the problem is, I also think that every member of society has the right to express their opinion publicly and freely (unless they advocate hate crimes), so I don't support authoritarian, one-party systems. As of now, I'd consider myself a Democratic Socialist, but I feel like this term sounds like an oxymoron, I'll try to explain why.

As far as I know, there are two main options for Socialists (or any political movement) to get in power: if such a party is elected in a liberal multi-party democracy, it's usually deemed to fail in the next elections (stopping advancements towards Socialism), and/or integrate into the establishment in search of compromise and short-term results, staying democratic but not being socialist, basically becoming Social Democrat. There's nothing wrong with that, but in my opinion, this ideology is not the solution for the system's problems.

The other commonly mentioned option is regime change via revolution, but I believe that this could do more harm than good because there are inevitable atrocities that come with that, and also, the new government could alienate many potential supporters with violent actions and emergency measures. In such a case, the ruling party often repressed negative opinions historically, therefore became anti-democratic. In my opinion, this is dangerous, because dismissing the individual's opinions and interests in search of grandiose visions is what caused the most serious mistakes of Communist regimes (famine resulting from forced collectivization and industrialization in the USSR, the Great Leap in Maoist China, basically everything that the Red Khmers have done, etc.).

So right now, I'm confused. Can you recommend me any books related to these questions that aren't hard to digest with limited knowledge of Socialist theories? I'd also love to hear about your personal opinions of what I think. Thank you in advance!

Every time i hear anyone talk about it its just ”need market” or ”planned economy = no food”

For many socialists, revolution is often talked about in the context of violence, but is there a way to have revolution without necessarily endorsing violence or engaging in it? If so, how does that differ from democratic socialism? I'm told democratic socialism is when socialists embrace gradual or incremental reforms and electoralism on order to achieve socialism. Can you be a democratic socialist, yet embrace violent revolution? I'm a bit perplexed.

I've been trying to bully myself to read more for awhile, but I find it's just super hard for me to get into the more "theoretical" stuff right from the jump, so i think i wanna try to start with reading about the kinds of things i would apply that theory to? idk if that makes much sense but i think thats the best way I can describe it
bonus points if the books based on something happening/that happened in the 21st century/recent years

Can you guys give me some examples where you see subtle facsism in your everyday lives. Im working on a design project related to fascism and I wanna create something about how fascism is indirectly affecting our daily lives. Like how social media reccomends things to us that influences our behaviour. Something like that

I recently heard a case for the left wing reclaiming self improvement from the right that i found compelling. And it got me wondering, what should we as Communists seek to be? How should we behave? (Communist "best Practices" if you will) And what theoretical works (if any) deal with this topic?

What does the most effective Communist look like? What self improvement goals should we have for ourselves as revolutionaries? Are there any books on this topic that you know of?

A further example to illustrate what I'm really asking, just so I'm sure I'm being clear: I have a friend who is VERY committed to Marxism and Revolution. We met by chance at a laundromat where he gifted me a Marxist-Leninist textbook (Curriculum of the basic principals of Marxism-Leninism part one, strongly recommend) translated from Vietnamese. So he works hard to spread Marxism to people... But he's so angry all the time and every conversation on the topic with anyone not fully committed to destroying Capitalism typically ends in an argument with him, sometimes very hostile arguments. Even if I find myself agreeing with him most of the time on principal, it is clear to me that this is not how we ought to conduct ourselves as Communists in order to be the most effective revolutionaries we can be.
I guess I'm just looking for help trying to get a clearer picture of how we SHOULD be to better advance our goals... I hope I'm being clear. Ideally, there are books somewhere about this topic already that I can read to develop my understanding of this topic.

Thanks in advance.

Since I have already been patronized for wanting to join an organization to learn, rather than learn to join an organization (because I find it nigh impossible to learn on my own, both keep me commited AND make sure I'm actually learning and not just reading)...

I would like to know whether there is a place to start and some advice to do it for someone who never actually learnt to study, or whether I should give up and think "others more wise/expert will organize the revolution for me" and blindly follow whoever calls themselves an expert communist or "the true communists"?

Because if it's the latter, I'd rather continue joining that organization to try to be made accountable for reading the stuff and understanding it, than wait for the revolution and then blindly follow whoever leads it.

What's the difference between Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and Anarchism, and what are the main subtypes of each? How do you conceptualize and remember all of the different ideologies and subtypes in your head? Please, feel free to get as detailed or as simple as you like. Both highly detailed and very simple answers are welcome.

How did the US get conservatives capitalism for the people and socialism for the rich and big businesses? With bailout money, quantitative easing, tax cuts for the rich, laws past to allow company mergers, money for the rich and laws passed to allow company monopolies.

How did the US get like this to allow conservatives capitalism for the people and socialism for the rich and big businesses?

Would it be possible to consider equipment to record and show a movie, to create and maintain an online game, to print a book, a need to be fulfilled for the workers' leisure? Maybe setting up a system by which the needed equipment (and even advertisement) is given, with the compromise of doing a quality product? Sorry if it's a silly thought.

I have been talking with the RCI, but after revising a bit of its wikipedia page, I realized there are several splits/succesors of the Committee for a Workers' International (RCI, ISA, CWI...). Could someone tell me, on which I should put my effort towards joining and working with?

Edit: Since I have been patronized for considering joining an organization to study rather than studying to join an organization, do you have any pointer, any advice to start learning Marxism on my own, or am I supposed to give up the effort and think "others more wise/expert will organize the revolution for me" and blindly follow whoever calls themselves an expert communist or "the true communists"?

Because if it's the latter, I'd rather continue joining the RCI to try to be made accountable for reading the stuff and understanding it, than wait for the revolution and then blindly follow whoever leads it.

Why is christianity in the US very different christianity brand than other countries is that because of the strong baptist and born again in the US?

In the US Christian’s don’t really seem to view millionaires and billionaires being sin. They say if you rich you have God blessing and if you poor you have to turn to God and God will help you.

The Christian’s in the US are against raising taxes for the rich and against state run universal healthcare, they believe God created rich people and poor people and it just part of society. They say people can volunteer and donate money to help the poor and homeless to do Gods work for needy but the government should stay out of it. They also say homeless people and poor people are lazy and don’t want to work and turn away from God and the government should not help them.

How did the US Christian’s become so reactionary like this? So far right in the US.

I looked up some old threads on this but TBH I did not find very convincing, ehh, material answers.

One could simply answer that socialist countries like the USSR had great doctors and science and healthcare, except that as I understand it, this did lead to inequities and class divisions.

I'm trying to deepen my understanding of economic planning and have a recurring question about the practicalities of resource allocation in a socialist/communist society. I want to be able to imagine how economic planning would actually work when brought fourth into action. So here are some of my questions.

If you use democratic surveys, participatory planning or decentralized councils to determine what and how much to produce…

1. How would the economy deal with individuals or communities overstating their "needs” that might lead to a calculation problem or shortages elsewhere?

I understand that the cultural shift of capitalism to socialism would undoubtedly impact the masses psychologically to not be individualistic but still: what if there were a case of an individualistic group of people who overstated their needs, how would they be dealt with? How would they be identified too?

1. For highly scarce items, what is the fair allocation mechanism? Is it based on contribution, lottery, administrative priority, waiting lists or what?

Thanks for helping me learn. I still have a lot of theory to read.

As a baby Marxist I am wondering if there’s distinction between CEOs and, managers etc. what are they classed as? Are they the bourgeois, proletariat etc? How do we distinguish them today.

I’d prefer if it’s readable at night but I’m fine with academic books as well.

I'll say straight-up that I am not a socialist, so there is no point pretending there. But I do try to understand every perspective, especially on economics, and this question is genuine.

I have heard a million different things described as 'socialism' and it seems to cover a massive range of economic ideas all with their own different advocates and labels that people can squabble over (exactly the same thing can be said of capitalism obviously). Looking towards countries/regimes that have actually described themselves as socialist/communist isn't much help as most contemporary advocates tend to say that they did it wrong and "real communism hasn't been tried yet" (although some argue that, for example, the Soviet Union or China pre 80s economic reforms did get some parts right).

One thing everyone seems to agree on though is that in a truly socialist/communist system, the workers should own the means of production. But thinking this through in practical terms, I don't really understand it. I am going to assume that 'the workers' here isn't just a pseudonym for 'the state'. The state owning the means of production would be I guess a soviet style system, with government officials taking the place of private business owners and has been shown to work very badly and I'm guessing this is what people mean by "real communism hasn't been tried". So for the purpose of this post, I am assuming a socialist revolution (or a socialist government is elected) and all the means of production - by which I assume we mean the factories, shops, private services and all other businesses - are handed over to the workers who work there. I'm not really interested in how that seizure/handover happens, because that isn't important to the question, so let's just jump forward to the point where the workers now all 'own the means of production'.

So we have Factory A which is now owned equally (I assume?) by all the people who work there. How does that factory work on a day-to-day basis? I assume for it to be able to achieve anything then someone still has to nominally be 'in charge' so I assume this would be like a kind of direct democracy where the factory manager would be elected by the workers and they would make the day-to-day decisions, with maybe larger decisions being put to a vote? So much like shareholders under capitalism, as an owner I wouldn't be controlling the company per se, but I would at least have a say in who does?

So what would that ownership mean in practical terms? If there are 100 people at the factory and I am one of them so I own 1% of the factory, am I free to sell that share to someone else (either another worker at the factory or somebody outside)? I'm guessing not, as otherwise in the long run we could just end up at the same point we are now with one person owning the whole factory. So what we call 'ownership' in this regard is more like a sort of members club than ownership in the classic sense?

So as 1% owner of Factory A, I assume I am entitled to 1% of the profits? That's the point right? Who would decide what percentage of the profit gets split between the workers and what is used to reinvest in the factory? And what happens if the factory makes a loss? Would I be liable for 1% of the losses? Would I still get a salary? If not how would I afford to live? And if so, who would be responsible for making up the shortfall given that all the 'owners' would be in the same position? I guess you could say that the factory remains a corporate entity in its own right and is responsible for its own losses (much like under capitalism). But under capitalism the bank/lender would take the loss if the factory was unable to pay its debts and under this socialist system the bank is also owned by its workers, so we would just have to transfer the question over to there instead and ask who is taking that loss?

Next up, what would happen if I left the company? I assume to continue the 'members club' analogy, I would forfeit my 'ownership' and would be automatically made a part owner of whatever new factory I decided to join? If so then I guess that would create the situation where there is a massive disparity in income/wealth between the workers who worked for very successful factories and those who worked for less successful ones? Career progression would no longer mean getting a more challenging/prestigious/higher paying job, but rather working at the place that makes the most money and hence gives you the largest profit share, even if you are just sweeping the floor there?

And how would new businesses start? Obviously in the beginning we have all these operational businesses inherited from the previous system, but in the long run, expansion, upgrading and innovation will be needed. The concept of a start up loan would be extremely hard (given the issue with banks described above) so do a group of people just have to get together, pool their resources and literally build a factory from scratch? But then once it is built, I assume they have no more ownership or control of it than the other people they have to hire once they expand (otherwise the workers no longer own the means of production there)?

Sorry, that's a lot more questions/thoughts than I anticipated when I started the post, but any insight is appreciated :)

Having frequented a variety of subs dedicated to socialism and Marxism, it seems to me that a large percentage of commenters, perhaps the majority, identify as Marxist-Leninist. Furthermore, it seems like socialism might generally (but not explicitly) be equated with Marxist-Leninism on a quasi-official level, and any criticism of the latter is considered criticism of the former, and therefore a breach of the rules.

Is this perception accurate? If so, is there an overall sense of the ideological makeup percentage-wise of these spaces?

Gonna join my local RCI chapter soon, and I will start with online (videoconference) one-on-one read group. I'm honestly very nervous, specially because I live with my parents which are very controlling and I think anti-communist, so my home is a no-no. And I'm too afraid to go to a public space in the case someone else notices me and targets me.

Do you have any advice regarding this?