falcon2424 posted:This group seems so broad that any "shared identity" would depend more on the propaganda than common, immediate interests. Well, I'm describing how the second wave of feminism operated, so I guess that "common, immediate interests" is bullshit. Furthermore, all classes are, in a real sense, artificial creations of propaganda. This formulation is no less real than national identity, religious identity, ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, veterancy, shared industry...
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Dec 11, 2015 19:12
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Effectronica posted:Well, I'm describing how the second wave of feminism operated, so I guess that "common, immediate interests" is bullshit. Or Chinese calendar animals. But anyway, continue setting your sights on the Indonesian small shop owner.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:30
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asdf32 posted:Or Chinese calendar animals. The atomistic view of humanity is one that is necessarily at odds with all hitherto existing human societies, and so it must be firmly rejected.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:32
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Peztopiary posted:You don't actually believe this because you're alive instead of the alternative. Can't even revolt against yourself, though you're certainly revolting. While you're probably right in that I don't actually believe this, even if I earnestly did "Why don't you kill yourself" isn't exactly the greatest argument, since that kind of belief is predicated on things becoming more terrible, something which an alive human can contribute to much better, what with their continued using of resources.
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Dec 11, 2015 20:36
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Effectronica posted:Well, I'm describing how the second wave of feminism operated, so I guess that "common, immediate interests" is bullshit. I agree that all classifications are artificial. They're bright lines that people use to make sense of a fuzzy reality. But "all models are wrong" doesn't mean that they're all equally wrong. The question is what common-experiences the category is intended to capture, and how well it goes about capturing them. If you're doing this for politics, it also matters how much you can do with the solidarity. I'm saying that "class" defined as broadly as you're doing, doesn't seem especially useful. I'll concede that it's a thing people could use to divide themselves. But so is everything else. I don't really see the comparison you're trying to draw with Feminism. Is it deeper than, "both things involved groups?" One obvious difference is that second-wave Feminism pointed to a whole bunch of immediate common interests. Women, across religious, ethnic, and class lines, could benefit from changed laws around domestic violence. They all had an interest in more equitable divorce & custody laws. They could all be sexually harassed by their peers in the workforce. Fighting for these common interests bound the category together. Once enough progress was made on the concrete policy stuff, the movement seemed to fracture. There were (and are) critiques along the lines of "Solidarity is for White Women." The idea is that people will pay lip service to the group. But, when it comes time to act, the energy was only there for things that help people's immediate self-interest. So, the elite pushed "Solidarity" when the efforts would help them, but seemed to care less when it came to stuff that was specifically for less-privileged women. It seems like your grouping would skip that first step; there just aren't that many laws that will benefit both a salaried VP of Marketing, and a Bangladeshi factory worker. If anything the Bangladeshi factory has a lot more common interest with the Bangladeshi shop-keeper.
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Dec 11, 2015 20:55
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CalmDownMate posted:Please continue to tell me how well your strategy has loving worked for improving the conditions of the working class in any country on earth. Thanks. Have you considered the possibility that there may not be a solution (not a rhetorical question, there's a good chance you have considered this)? I used to think along the lines of the poster you replied to - since working within the system has a 0% chance of working, there is no choice but to work outside of the system (i.e. some form of revolution). But in recent years I've realized that real life is not a book or movie and that it is entirely possible that there simply is no path to a good future where poverty is mostly eliminated, etc. So, as I see it, the two options go like this: 1. Work within the system. 0% chance of leading to the sort of good future I mentioned, but will at least slow the rate at which conditions deteriorate (or even offer some improvement). 2. Work outside of the system/revolution. Low chance of leading to good future - may also be 0%. If it doesn't work, it is likely to make things even worse than the status quo. Since there's no way to know just how low/high the chance of a revolution (or similar action) succeeding is, it's pretty much impossible to know for sure which of these is the better option. If you're looking solely at the "expected return", acting within the system is probably the better choice. Despite this, however, I'm extremely hesitant to outright recommend this course of action since it pretty much guarantees a bad outcome; even though the chance of revolutionary activity resulting in a positive outcome may be tiny (or even zero), it at least offers some possibility of working. It's sort of like if a person with a terrible disease has two options for treatment: palliative care that might ease the pain some but offers no chance of recovery, or a experimental treatment that has a tiny chance of curing you, but also will likely make you feel far worse in the process. (None of what I said above makes accelerationism a good idea, though.)
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Dec 11, 2015 21:13
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falcon2424 posted:I agree that all classifications are artificial. They're bright lines that people use to make sense of a fuzzy reality. But "all models are wrong" doesn't mean that they're all equally wrong. There are a whole bunch of immediate common interests for all people who live off labor as opposed to rent on capital as well. Increasing the share of capital in national income and increasing the importance of inherited wealth hurts all of those people. Furthermore, all of the people involved are hurt by foreign asset accumulation by the rich countries as well- it depresses wages and salaries in the rich countries through offshoring, it deprives the ability of people in the poor countries to determine their destiny. These are two gigantic common interests. You're also making a false comparison- a shopkeeper is someone that derives most of their living through labor, rather than rents on capital.
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Dec 11, 2015 21:16
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Effectronica posted:Well, I'm describing how the second wave of feminism operated, so I guess that "common, immediate interests" is bullshit. Effectronica posted:There are a whole bunch of immediate common interests for all people who live off labor as opposed to rent on capital as well. If so, the question is how the "labor / capital income" line groups people who've got common policy goals. I'm saying that it's too broad to be particularly useful. Jackie Chan and the Bangladeshi factory worker both sell their time. But they don't have that many common interests. If we're talking about organizing around real commonalities of interest, I think we'd do better by just looking at total wealth and income levels, regardless of source. The guy making 10M/year has different interests than the Midwestern professional making 100k/year. The professional is, in turn, different than the rural factory worker who's pulling in $25k/year. Effectronica posted:Increasing the share of capital in national income and increasing the importance of inherited wealth hurts all of those people. Furthermore, all of the people involved are hurt by foreign asset accumulation by the rich countries as well- it depresses wages and salaries in the rich countries through offshoring, it deprives the ability of people in the poor countries to determine their destiny. These are two gigantic common interests. Do you have some specific shop in mind? If not, that's a weirdly specific assertion. What prevents a shopkeeper from making at least 50% of their income from their access to capital? You need to have stock in order to sell things. Or, for that matter, from hiring a couple people? More generally, these 'immediate' interests seem like they're just PR contortions. Like, sure, we can talk about "share of income for labor," just like we can talk about "share of income for women." But unless you've got a proposal that impacts both female VP of Marketing and female convenience store employees, you're in the "Solidarity is for White Women" trap. People can write articles about unfairness in the boardroom. That might move the "income for women" metric. But it's not like that will trickle down to the woman working split shifts at a Target. The metric is concealing the very real differences within the group. It's the same with "Share of Income for Labor." I'm sure that a VP of Marketing would be happy to appeal to 'Worker Solidarity' when he's opposing salary caps for executives. After all, it'll mean more income for workers. And isn't that what we care about?
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Dec 11, 2015 22:03
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falcon2424 posted:Well that's a 180. Just to make sure I'm tracking, it looks like you're now conceding my point that "common, immediate interest" are key. No, I don't think so, because that ignores systemic factors in favor of some grotesquerie, whether of the David Brooksian "social class is like high-school cliques" or the naive "money is what is evil" kind. quote:Do you have some specific shop in mind? If not, that's a weirdly specific assertion. What prevents a shopkeeper from making at least 50% of their income from their access to capital? You need to have stock in order to sell things. Or, for that matter, from hiring a couple people? Well, sure, if by "shopkeeper" you mean someone who doesn't actually keep shop but merely owns it, you can say that shopkeepers make their living off of rents on capital. It's a fairly nifty rhetorical approach, to presume that entrepreneurial labor isn't actually labor. The problem, though, is that you look at these things as programs aimed at some particular goal, rather than as an umbrella for a wide variety of goals. So, for example, you take the presumption that feminism ought not to exist, because there are aspects of feminism that are not universal to all women. And you take this and apply it to the idea of "solidarity" among a Marxian or post-Marxian working class, concluding that it shouldn't exist because not all its aspects would be universal. Of course, the basic issue is that this ignores the structural component. Executive compensation is not really a big deal compared to the problems and distortions associated with wealth and capital ownership. An aerospace engineer getting paid $120,000 a year isn't, in any real sense, any more of a cause of the problems associated with the increasing influence of inherited wealth and the increasing foreign ownership of the poorer countries than a grocery bagger making $20,000 a year, because the problems have to do with wealth and not income.
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Dec 12, 2015 00:51
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Effectronica posted:The problem, though, is that you look at these things as programs aimed at some particular goal, rather than as an umbrella for a wide variety of goals. So, for example, you take the presumption that feminism ought not to exist because there are aspects of feminism that are not universal to all women. And you take this and apply it to the idea of "solidarity" among a Marxian or post-Marxian working class, concluding that it shouldn't exist because not all its aspects would be universal. I haven't presumed anything, or weighted in on the necessity for feminism. That's well outside the scope of this thread. You said that your idea for using a "solidarity" ethos to convince workers to help one another would play out like 2nd wave feminism. I said that 2nd wave feminism was politically successful when looking at specific policy proposals that helped women generally. The third wave exists partly because this 'solidarity' broke down when the movement turned to policy proposals were less universally applicable. Unless you disagree with my history, I think it's unclear what you invoked 2nd wave feminism.
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Dec 12, 2015 01:51
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falcon2424 posted:I haven't presumed anything, or weighted in on the necessity for feminism. That's well outside the scope of this thread. I didn't say that. I used 2nd-wave feminism as a model for how such a movement would be built. Furthermore, I disagree with your history because it neglects the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s and early 1990s.
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Dec 12, 2015 01:56
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Also most recent elections have been more about turning out the base rather than convincing an increasingly small "independent" center. Given how well Trump energizes the base (and Hillary doesn't appear to), well... Let's just say I'm certain you'll be sleeping well tonight. Just because you repeat something a lot doesn't make it true.
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Dec 12, 2015 04:55
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computer parts posted:Just because you repeat something a lot doesn't make it true. Of course. So here are some articles for you:
Now what about my claims that Trump appeals to the base and Hillary does not? Well the former should hopefully be self-evident from all the focus that's been given to Trump's strangely solid base of support, so I'm instead going to focus more on Hillary's lack thereof:
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Dec 12, 2015 05:49
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Might, Might, Might. So far all you've proved is that the media likes Trump more, which is self evident for trivial reasons.
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Dec 12, 2015 06:12
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Obdicut posted:Name one time accelerationism has worked anywhere. 2008. Republicans controlled congress starting in 1994 and every branch of government by 2001, and in the next 7 years they flushed trillions away in endless pointless grinding wars, destroyed as much regulation as they could, and by the 2008 election the economy was in a shambles and the country was burning down around us. And it ushered in Democratic supermajorities and the first black President. ...And all the gains were promptly blunted by the next election because Bush did the bare minimum to save us from depression by bailing out the banks, and instead of learning, the reactionary voters just needed someone to get on TV and tell them it was poor black people who engineered the collpase
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Dec 12, 2015 06:12
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VitalSigns posted:2008. Republicans controlled congress starting in 1994 and every branch of government by 2001, and in the next 7 years they flushed trillions away in endless pointless grinding wars, destroyed as much regulation as they could, and by the 2008 election the economy was in a shambles and the country was burning down around us. And it ushered in Democratic supermajorities and the first black President. It didn't work, though, because the GOP got two terrible supreme court justices out of the deal, and maintained or increased state control. They didn't lose everything they gained, by a long shot, in 2008.
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Dec 12, 2015 14:37
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Oh okay I got one: the 1933 Enabling Act. The NSDAP kept increasing its share of the electorate. When the SDP finally agreed to give them absolute power, in just twelve years the NSDAP was disgraced and their political philosophy discredited and would never have influence in Germany again. Wins all around for the German people, can't argue with results!
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Dec 12, 2015 14:57
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I wouldn't call starting and losing a giant war, 7 million dead Germans, millions more used as slave laborers by the Allies for several years, the permanent loss of the Prussian heartland to Poland, occupation, the Morgenthau Plan, the indignities of the denazification programs, several million more Germans ethnically cleansed from surrounding countries, and a 45-year partition in which a third of the country was a brutal Stalinist police state to be a "win for the German people". It was the worst thing that ever happened to them, only balanced out by the fact that the things they did to others were worse still. They didn't even get rid of German fascism, it's still kicking. Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 20:10
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Effectronica posted:No, I don't think so, because that ignores systemic factors in favor of some grotesquerie, whether of the David Brooksian "social class is like high-school cliques" or the naive "money is what is evil" kind. No, grouping a 100k+ 24 year old tech worker with a sweatshop worker really doesn't make sense and the ideology leading you down this path is dumb. Money, however earned, is exchangeable for capital and able to be passed down as inheritance and/or privilage. Now it's worthwhile to analyze the implications of capital ownership at a systemic level, but categorizing individuals by income type is nearly useless when it's even possible, which it often isn't in 2015 because of the realities of modern finance.
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Dec 12, 2015 21:18
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Effectronica posted:I didn't say that. I used 2nd-wave feminism as a model for how such a movement would be built. Furthermore, I disagree with your history because it neglects the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s and early 1990s. I don't think the feminist movement is a great analogy for Marxist revolution. Feminist theory (including the 2nd wave) has influenced women globally, but tangible improvements to living conditions took different paces and forms in different countries. For instance, it was a century between US and Saudi women's suffrage. Is global conversion from capitalism to socialism supposed to happen on a time scale that long? If not, what does the transitional stage look like? Saeku fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 22:46
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Patrick Spens posted:Politics you silly whiner. And you don't need to convince the reactionaries, you just need to convince enough other people that they are wrong and should be ignored, and lo, progress will happen. I'm right! *fails to convince reactionaries* *Marches to my death 'neath the yooge and luxooorious Zyklon showerheads*
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Dec 13, 2015 02:23
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Woolie Wool posted:I wouldn't call starting and losing a giant war, 7 million dead Germans, millions more used as slave laborers by the Allies for several years, the permanent loss of the Prussian heartland to Poland, occupation, the Morgenthau Plan, the indignities of the denazification programs, several million more Germans ethnically cleansed from surrounding countries, and a 45-year partition in which a third of the country was a brutal Stalinist police state to be a "win for the German people". It was the worst thing that ever happened to them, only balanced out by the fact that the things they did to others were worse still. Yeah but the fascists don't have any political power. The rest of the stuff you said are wins because millions of dead countrymen in the worst catastrophe in history means I get to pat myself on the back for being right and all those people deserved it for not fighting fascism hard enough or for supporting it (which is different than what I am doing because I am voting for fascists ironically). Now that we've established that it works, let's kill 10% of Americans and destroy our country in the worst disaster ever so we can finally build up a kinda centrist Christian Democrat coalition here in 
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Dec 13, 2015 02:28
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Does it count as accelerationism if I think Trump taking the GOP nom is good for America long term, as well as (probably) good for the GOP? Trump represents that part of the electorate that any government/society basically has to totally ignore or marginalize in order to function, that the GOP has been playing for votes since pretty much the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I can think of no better way to relegate these people back to the edges of society where they belong, than to have a referendum, in the form of a Presidential election, on what they represent and who they are as people, and have the result of that referendum be that they get utterly loving annihilated in the general. That said, I'm actually not so sure that they would be annihilated in the general, but without putting up the stakes, it isn't a referendum.
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Dec 17, 2015 13:33
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Kilroy posted:Does it count as accelerationism if I think Trump taking the GOP nom is good for America long term, as well as (probably) good for the GOP? That's a fair and interesting question. I have no idea if the Trump nomination would solidify the racist base and make them dig their heels in even more after his embarrassing defeat, or if seeing him go down in flames would actually convince them they're outside the mainstream. It might make things worse.
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Dec 17, 2015 14:37
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I'm not sure what effect it would have on his core supporters other than it would alienate them from the GOP enough that they wouldn't be a reliable source of votes for them anymore. And if the GOP establishment has any sense, or survival instinct, they'll not try to draw water from that well for another 25 years. It's basically the endgame of the Southern Strategy and the end of the Nixon era, if we're lucky.
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Dec 17, 2015 14:48
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The likely outcomes to a Trump nomination losing in the general are: 1. The Business wing having significant clout to ignore the others during the next cycle. 2. The people who backed Trump trying (and failing) to justify his loss with the Business Wing folks staying home instead of voting for him. 3. D&D getting another reason to indulge in their alcoholism because "x% of the country still voted for Trump  ". The above results would probably still happen in a GOP or a third party Trump run, but in the latter you have the people from #2 having a more convincing argument (although not really still, because it'd be Trump that split off and doomed the conservatives).
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Dec 17, 2015 14:48
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Marginalizing people is never helpful. Instead we should embrace them and change them. Yes America can use nuclear weapons and kill millions of people - but we need a clear and positive ideological reason for it. Trump supporters don't know reason beyond fear and greed.
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Dec 17, 2015 14:56
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McDowell posted:Marginalizing people is never helpful. Instead we should embrace them and change them.
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Dec 17, 2015 15:03
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Kilroy posted:Trump supporters are mostly just older people who were around when there was more lead in paint and in gasoline and stuff. And I guess maybe some of their kids. Has anyone actually done a demographic profile of Trump supporters? I know on the other side the age gap has been shown for Bernie. e: this is what I can find: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/09/who_are_trumps_supporters.html quote:First, that most of his support comes from candidates already in the race and not from newly inspired voters. Second, his campaign drew from both the front-runners and the second-tier candidates and hurt Ted Cruz among the front-runners and Rick Perry among the second-tier candidates the most. computer parts fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Dec 17, 2015 |
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Dec 17, 2015 15:04
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computer parts posted:Has anyone actually done a demographic profile of Trump supporters? I know on the other side the age gap has been shown for Bernie. quote:In terms of demographics, Trump’s supporters are a bit older, less educated and earn less than the average Republican. Slightly over half are women. About half are between 45 and 64 years of age, with another 34 percent over 65 years old and less than 2 percent younger than 30. e: lol
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Dec 17, 2015 15:08
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Kilroy posted:Trump supporters are mostly just older people who were around when there was more lead in paint and in gasoline and stuff. And I guess maybe some of their kids. I know you're not being serious, but any reasonable person should have no problem putting these people in a corner and just pretending like they don't exist, forever. And for their part they're used to not being taken seriously by anybody in their day-to-day life, so it's not as cruel as it sounds at first, either. Nah just marginalizing them feeds their persecution complex. They need to understand that they are stupid and juvenile and should sit down and shut up.
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Dec 17, 2015 15:16
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McDowell posted:Nah just marginalizing them feeds their persecution complex. They need to understand that they are stupid and juvenile and should sit down and shut up. For the rest of us, the effect is pretty much the same, and for them, they mostly won't know the difference. Everybody wins.
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Dec 17, 2015 15:30
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McDowell posted:Nah just marginalizing them feeds their persecution complex. They need to understand that they are stupid and juvenile and should sit down and shut up. If Trump wins the nomination there are too many Red Team voters for any idenitifiable group inside the team to meanfully realize they are outside the mainstream. Even an embarrassing loss will see 40% of the population voting for him which seems pretty validated to me.
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Dec 17, 2015 15:56
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ocrumsprug posted:If Trump wins the nomination there are too many Red Team voters for any idenitifiable group inside the team to meanfully realize they are outside the mainstream. Even an embarrassing loss will see 40% of the population voting for him which seems pretty validated to me. Which is why we should give them what they want - Daesh can be defeated in one day in a way that advances secularity and peace in the middle east and the world.
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Dec 17, 2015 16:01
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ocrumsprug posted:If Trump wins the nomination there are too many Red Team voters for any idenitifiable group inside the team to meanfully realize they are outside the mainstream. Even an embarrassing loss will see 40% of the population voting for him which seems pretty validated to me.
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Dec 17, 2015 16:33
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the other 20% stayed home because we nominated a Hillary-loving RINO who supports socialist health care, the media and the establishment crowned Trump because they were afraid of a True Conservative winning in a landslide.
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Dec 17, 2015 16:37
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Kilroy posted:Nah. 40% is Reagan-Mondale stuff. It's a blowout. They'll be thinking of that map filled with blue states for the rest of their lives, before they head to a poll on Election Day. Or rather before they think about heading to a poll and then find a better use for their time (cf cousins, above). And the fact that they will lose to Hillary loving Clinton will magnify that 100-fold. It's not enough to defeat the Republicans, we need to demoralize their base such that the party has to find a new one, and heal itself. It's no good to have one party in the US even remotely capable of governing. It is a blow out while 40% of the country agrees with them instead of 51%. Honestly I am not seeing how that will lead to a round of soul searching and coming to the conclusion that they are on the fringe of American society. The only people doing anything resembling introspection will be traditional mainstream Republicans, and they aren't really the problem.
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Dec 17, 2015 18:42
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The ones doing the introspective will be the ones bankrolling this. If far right candidates are proven unelectable, they will lose funding next time around.
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Dec 17, 2015 19:59
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im gay posted:Large portions of Earth will be uninhabitable in a few hundred years, nothing matters. Kill yourself or just have fun. Hahaha, you think it'll take anywhere near that long. I'm gonna vote hillary so at least gay people will be able to get married and a few dozen non-white refugees might be able to enter the glorious us of a while the ecobomy continues to collapse into rich people's mouths and the dead oceans reclaim florida and a bunch of poor people countries Woolie Wool posted:I wouldn't call starting and losing a giant war, 7 million dead Germans, millions more used as slave laborers by the Allies for several years, the permanent loss of the Prussian heartland to Poland, occupation, the Morgenthau Plan, the indignities of the denazification programs, several million more Germans ethnically cleansed from surrounding countries, and a 45-year partition in which a third of the country was a brutal Stalinist police state to be a "win for the German people". It was the worst thing that ever happened to them, only balanced out by the fact that the things they did to others were worse still. a small price to pay to keep those darn dratted leftists out of power!
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Dec 17, 2015 20:29
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ocrumsprug posted:It is a blow out while 40% of the country agrees with them instead of 51%. Honestly I am not seeing how that will lead to a round of soul searching and coming to the conclusion that they are on the fringe of American society. And 40% of the popular vote is not the same thing as 40% of the population.
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Dec 18, 2015 00:13
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