[Gletkin]

New leftists don't believe that socialism can work. Old leftists believe socialism can work.

If by "new left" you mean things like Tony Blair's "New Labour" of the '90s, then yes.
If by "new left" you mean the '60s New Left, then it was more "ultra-left infantilism".
The '60s NL wanted socialism naoooo....
A classic example was what happend in France in '68. By agreeing to the elections, the French New Left believed that the French Communist Party had saved de Gaulle's bacon at a time when it seemed like he had actually fled the country and left France without a government. Thus selling out "the revolution". De Gaulle's party won an outright majority of parliamentary seats, which of course he displayed as a "popular mandate" to triumphantly return and "restore order". The PCF "sabotaged proletarian revolution" in defense of "bourgeois democracy".

Of course, the PCF's general retort was something along the lines of the NL being just disaffected bourgeois idealists who seriously misread the situation.

There were also a lot of wildcat strikes by workers dissatisfied with the leadership of the CGT. It wasn't all "renegade bourgeois" students.

When we speak of the intellectual descendants of the New Left of the 60s and 70s, and their rejection of the Soviet model, I think the main rejection was the rejection of the authoritarian nature of the Soviet system. That authoritarian aspect was and is irreconcilable with the concept of individual liberties and basic human rights.

This "pro-Sovietism" was also seen as constantly overriding local workers' interests in favor of Soviet foreign policy.
They more or less agreed with George Orwell's criticism of the pro-Soviet parties in Homage to Catalonia.

[mikema63]

First of all, you would have to understand that the concepts of "collective" and "ownership" and "private" and "property" are all culturally relative, and they do not mean the same things to you as they do to indigenous people.

That doesn't mean we can't recognize it as a collective system.

Secondly, indigenous governance systems are diverse. Not only will each one have its own particular definition of these words, but some will have collective ownership while some won't, some will have private property and some won't, and most of the time, the relationship with the land will be far more complicated than simple ownership.

So she's only anti-capitalist insofar as it's not native people being capitalists.

[ComradeTim]

Interesting. So your wife does not believe one way of organizing society is better than any other as long as they are traditional, akin to the way William Sumner formulated his ethics of Societal Relativism? Does that go for all of us or just Native Americans?

[Pants-of-dog]

That doesn't mean we can't recognize it as a collective system.

True, as long as we keep in mind that it will not have the same Marxist implications it does in the Western world.

So she's only anti-capitalist insofar as it's not native people being capitalists.

Well, when native people engage in capitalism, they don't steal land from native people, appropriate native culture for their own ends and perpetuate the ongoing oppression of native people, like modern global capitalism does.

This "pro-Sovietism" was also seen as constantly overriding local workers' interests in favor of Soviet foreign policy.
They more or less agreed with George Orwell's criticism of the pro-Soviet parties in Homage to Catalonia.

I have yet to read that.

[mikema63]

True, as long as we keep in mind that it will not have the same Marxist implications it does in the Western world.

Marxism is mainly a form of analysis.

Well, when native people engage in capitalism, they don't steal land from native people, appropriate native culture for their own ends and perpetuate the ongoing oppression of native people, like modern global capitalism does.

If somehow all the tribes got land and power back the capitalist ones will inevitably seek to oppress other tribes.

[Piccolo]

I almost completely agree.

When we speak of the intellectual descendants of the New Left of the 60s and 70s, and their rejection of the Soviet model, I think the main rejection was the rejection of the authoritarian nature of the Soviet system. That authoritarian aspect was and is irreconcilable with the concept of individual liberties and basic human rights. This is definitely the case with me, as I was raised by hardcore Leftists, who were also hardcore anti-authoritarians.

Mind you, there are also people like my wife, who are just as anti-capitalist as any Stalinist but are not leftists. They come to be anti-capitalist because they are anti-colonialists and anti-imperialists, and they are simply smart enough to realise that capitalism goes hand in hand with these things. But they are not Marxists, and the struggle they fight is not the class struggle.

Would you say your wife is a communitarian? I see communitarians on both the Left and the Right (perhaps more so on the Right) but they are all very critical of capitalism.

I actually waffle between socialism and communitarianism. Instinctively, I am probably more of a communitarian than a socialist, but I cannot think of developing a communitarian system without overcoming capitalism and replacing it with another system that could work in the modern world. I eventually came to see socialism as that "new system."

As for the USSR, I admire the accomplishments of the USSR and other historical Marxist-Leninist states but I agree that the authoritarian nature of these states created problems and made them repressive and eventually caused them to revert to capitalism when their elites decided to abandon state socialism. What bothers me about the New Left, though, is the wholesale dismissal of the Soviet experience as something completely negative. This complete rejection of real-world socialism is what has caused so many on the New Left to downplay economics in favor of liberal social issues that are well within the capitalist mainstream.

[Pants-of-dog]

Interesting. So your wife does not believe one way of organizing society is better than any other as long as they are traditional,

No, that would not be correct.

It would be more correct to say that she believes that indigenous people need to have their own independence to decide how they want to organise their societies, and decide for themselves what is better. Indigenous people also have debates about about which way of organizing society is better, and some think it is the traditional way and some do not. Their struggle against capitalism stems from the fact that global capitalism stops indigenous people from being sovereign.

akin to the way William Sumner formulated his ethics of Societal Relativism?

I doubt it.

Does that go for all of us or just Native Americans?

I have no idea what you are asking.

--------------------

Marxism is mainly a form of analysis.

...and a descriptor for a certain spectrum of ideologies.

If somehow all the tribes got land and power back the capitalist ones will inevitably seek to oppress other tribes.

Maybe. Maybe not. That is not the point nor does it influence the anti-capitalism of indigenous people.

---------------------

Would you say your wife is a communitarian? I see communitarians on both the Left and the Right (perhaps more so on the Right) but they are all very critical of capitalism.

I actually waffle between socialism and communitarianism. Instinctively, I am probably more of a communitarian than a socialist, but I cannot think of developing a communitarian system without overcoming capitalism and replacing it with another system that could work in the modern world. I eventually came to see socialism as that "new system."

No, I would not say that my wife is a communitarian.

As for the USSR, I admire the accomplishments of the USSR and other historical Marxist-Leninist states but I agree that the authoritarian nature of these states created problems and made them repressive and eventually caused them to revert to capitalism when their elites decided to abandon state socialism. What bothers me about the New Left, though, is the wholesale dismissal of the Soviet experience as something completely negative. This complete rejection of real-world socialism is what has caused so many on the New Left to downplay economics in favor of liberal social issues that are well within the capitalist mainstream.

To be honest, I don't really have much knowledge or opinion of the Soviet system. My leftist influences are almost solely Latin American.

[Dagoth Ur]

First of all, you would have to understand that the concepts of "collective" and "ownership" and "private" and "property" are all culturally relative, and they do not mean the same things to you as they do to indigenous people.

Our western words for extant social forces don't render indians immune to them. The Ancient Sumerians didn't call their private property "private property" but that doesn't change that they had it. Furthermore indians are aware of western philosophy at this point and truly there is no return to innocence.

[Pants-of-dog]

Our western words for extant social forces don't render indians immune to them. The Ancient Sumerians didn't call their private property "private property" but that doesn't change that they had it. Furthermore indians are aware of western philosophy at this point and truly there is no return to innocence.

Yes, indigenous people now know about and understand European notions of property and ownership, etc.

That does not change the fact that there were and are indigenous systems of governance that indigenous people can use, and that these systems have similar but different meanings for these words.

[Dagoth Ur]

What it doesn't change is that marxist use of terms like collective and private property apply just as well to indians as they do europeans and asians. Trying to act like indigenous culture is incomparable to other world cultures is just abject nonsense.

[Pants-of-dog]

What it doesn't change is that marxist use of terms like collective and private property apply just as well to indians as they do europeans and asians. Trying to act like indigenous culture is incomparable to other world cultures is just abject nonsense.

I disagree.

I think concepts such as private property are culturally relative and not objective.

For example, European peoples speak of private property as a right. Many indigenous groups do not have rights. They have reciprocal obligations.

Can you imagine how you would think of property as part of a set of obligations rather than a right? How would you then describe ownership of the means of production?

[Gletkin]

I have yet to read that.

.....the tactics of the Communist Party elsewhere, especially in France, have made it clear that Official Communism must be regarded, at any rate for the time being, as an anti-revolutionary force. The whole of Comintern policy is now subordinated (excusably, considering the world situation) to the defence of the USSR, which depends upon a system of military alliances. In particular, the USSR is in alliance with France, a capitalist-imperialist country. The alliance is of little use to Russia unless French capitalism is strong, therefore Communist policy in France has got to be anti-revolutionary. This means not only that French Communists now march behind the tricolour and sing the Marseillaise, but, what is more important, that they have had to drop all effective agitation in the French colonies. It is less than three years since Thorez, the Secretary of the French Communist Party, was declaring that the French workers would never be bamboozled into fighting against their German comrades; he is now one of the loudest-lunged patriots in France.

The clue to the behaviour of the Communist Party in any country is the military relation of that country, actual or potential, toward the USSR. In England, for instance, the position is still uncertain, hence the English Communist Party is still hostile to the National Government, and, ostensibly, opposed to rearmament. If, however, Great Britain enters into an alliance or military understanding with the USSR, the English Communist, like the French Communist, will have no choice but to become a good patriot and imperialist.....

.....The Daily Mail, with its tales of red revolution financed by Moscow, was even more wildly wrong than usual. In reality it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain. Later, when the Right-wing forces were in full control, the Communists showed themselves willing to go a great deal further than the Liberals in hunting down the revolutionary leaders......

.....The often-repeated slogan: "The war first and the revolution afterwards,"...was eye-wash. The thing for which the Communists were working was not to postpone the Spanish revolution till a more suitable time, but to make sure that it never happened.

[Dagoth Ur]

I think concepts such as private property are culturally relative and not objective.

Nothing social is objective sure but private property was held by many native americans, albeit in novel ways. Researching the various methods of property ownership in pre-colonial America would be very interesting. Too bad most of that history is effectively erased.

For example, European peoples speak of private property as a right. Many indigenous groups do not have rights. They have reciprocal obligations.

Europeans only invented rights in the last few centuries. However this is immaterial to private property itself. However its exclusive ownership is justified (which within the vast majority of history has been with religious and tribal rationales not through liberal rights).

You cannot turn back the clock though and you cannot return to old novel forms. American indians are liberal capitalists by-and-large. You will not get them to return to actual tribal existence. Inb4 you say indians are different than everyone else.

Can you imagine how you would think of property as part of a set of obligations rather than a right? How would you then describe ownership of the means of production?

It would require actual practice to define. Indians aren't immune to the forces that caused all the rest of us to accept the two-class paradigm (which in fact they have totally accepted).

[Pants-of-dog]

Nothing social is objective sure but private property was held by many native americans, albeit in novel ways. Researching the various methods of property ownership in pre-colonial America would be very interesting. Too bad most of that history is effectively erased.

I think a lot more of it was saved than we think.

Europeans only invented rights in the last few centuries. However this is immaterial to private property itself. However its exclusive ownership is justified (which within the vast majority of history has been with religious and tribal rationales not through liberal rights).

Europeans only invented capitalism and Marxism in the last few centuries, yet you assume those are objective and universal truths that describe all cultures. For example, you assume that all cultures have a system for justifying exclusive ownership. I do not think that is the case.

You cannot turn back the clock though and you cannot return to old novel forms. American indians are liberal capitalists by-and-large. You will not get them to return to actual tribal existence. Inb4 you say indians are different than everyone else.

I have no intention of turning back any clocks or returning to some imagined existence. Indigenous systems of governance do not exist solely in some mythological past.

It would require actual practice to define. Indians aren't immune to the forces that caused all the rest of us to accept the two-class paradigm (which in fact they have totally accepted).

I have no idea if people have India have accepted the left/right paradigm. I know that some of the indigenous groups of the Americas are (while not necessarily immune) not beholden to European concepts concerning ownership of industrial processes. I think this is actually far more common outside of the Western world than we think.

[Dawaldo]

Concerning the original topic, I think people here will find these two books enlightening: The Philosophy of Revolt and The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist? Another book worth looking into is New Theories of Revolution by Jack Woddis which is a Marxist critique of the positions of Fanon, Debray and Marcuse although I do not think it is online.

[Iron Ant]

I am a Cherokee Indian, and as such i have an exceptionally hard time on the concept of ownership of land.

I can understand utilizing the land for the benefit of people, but complete ownership?

[Rich]

What do they want to replace capitalism with then?

It depends on who they are. My wife wants to replace it with indigenous governance systems.

What like the Nazis or the British national party?

[quetzalcoatl]

I am a Cherokee Indian, and as such i have an exceptionally hard time on the concept of ownership of land.

I can understand utilizing the land for the benefit of people, but complete ownership?

Capitalism is totalitarian in nature. Everything you see around you (sun, sky, breeze, grass, and trees) must eventually be owned, monetized, and subjected to market forces. Your thoughts are intellectual property. Your DNA is a natural resource to be exploited by those who have the will to do so. Even your own your own body is property (contingently owned by you): this property may (like any other) may be bought, sold, or traded away. None of this is new or even exceptional. These concepts are inherent in capitalism's structure (which is to say, capitalism is always evolving in this direction). Admittedly its advocates are not always comfortable expressing them in explicit form.

[Iron Ant]

Actually, proper capitalism is not totalitarianism in nature. That is corporatism.

Any government and economic system can be abused and turned into a totalitarian regime.

The last act of ANY Democracy is to elect a dictator, and liberty ends with thunderous applause.

It also ends when people realize they can vote away other people's money.

[Lexington]

Actually, proper capitalism is not totalitarianism in nature. That is corporatism.

How do you stop capitalism from becoming corporatism?