[Ummon]

I am hardly a member of a global elite. I am not very affluent. The point of such policy is to lower global birth rate through women's education while simultaneously creating more educated people worldwide so that we can tackle problems like climate change and solve them. That is something that is in the best interest of everyone not some particular constituency, from some particular nation, who is a member of some particular social group. It is also compassionate because it seeks to reduce global violence against people who have no advocates within their own communities like women who are living in ISIS controlled areas or the LGBT community in Jamaica. Brexit was irrational in part because it is going to cost the UK billions in science funding and may lead to many scientists leaving the UK for greener pastures.

[The Immortal Goon]

The political left is globalist and tends to ignore problems that come along with it. I don't know why exactly.

Oh, that's garbage. More than a hundred years ago, the left was addressing just this:

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and “spheres of influence” of the big monopolist associations expanded in all ways, things “naturally” gravitated towards an international agreement among these associations, and towards the formation of international cartels.

This is a new stage of world concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher than the preceding stages. Let us see how this supermonopoly develops.

...A struggle began for the “division of the world”, as, in fact, it is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller “oil trust” wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a “daughter company” right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other hand, the Deutsche Bank and the other German banks aimed at “retaining” Rumania “for themselves” and at uniting her with Russia against Rockefeller. The latter possessed far more capital and an excellent system of oil transportation and distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in 1907, with the utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the alternative: either to liquidate its “oil interests” and lose millions, or submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very disadvantageous agreement with the “oil trust”. The Deutsche Bank agreed “not to attempt anything which might injure American interests”. Provision was made, however, for the annulment of the agreement in the event of Germany establishing a state oil monopoly.

Then the “comedy of oil” began.

...It is not without interest to observe that even then these leading British bourgeois politicians saw the connection between what might be called the purely economic and the socio-political roots of modern imperialism. Chamberlain advocated imperialism as a “true, wise and economical policy”, and pointed particularly to the German, American and Belgian competition which Great Britain was encountering in the world market.

...In order to finish with the question of the division of the world, I must make the following additional observation. This question was raised quite openly and definitely not only in American literature after the Spanish-American War, and in English literature after the Anglo-Boer War, at the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth; not only has German literature, which has “most jealously” watched “British imperialism”, systematically given its appraisal of this fact. This question has also been raised in French bourgeois literature as definitely and broadly as is thinkable from the bourgeois point of view. Let me quote Driault, the historian, who, in his book, Political and Social Problems at the End of the Nineteenth Century, in the chapter “The Great Powers and the Division of the World”, wrote the following: “During the past few years, all the free territory of the globe, with the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe and North America. This has already brought about several conflicts and shifts of spheres of influence, and these foreshadow more terrible upheavals in the near future. For it is necessary to make haste. The nations which have not yet made provision for themselves run the risk of never receiving their share and never participating in the tremendous exploitation of the globe which will be one of the most essential features of the next century (i.e., the twentieth). That is why all Europe and America have lately been afflicted with the fever of colonial expansion, of ‘imperialism’, that most noteworthy feature of the end of the nineteenth century.” And the author added: “In this partition of the world, in this furious hunt for the treasures and the big markets of the globe, the relative strength of the empires founded in this nineteenth century is totally out of proportion to the place occupied in Europe by the nations which founded them. The dominant powers in Europe, the arbiters of her destiny, are not equally preponderant in the whole world. And, as colonial might, the hope of controlling as yet unassessed wealth, will evidently react upon the relative strength of the European powers, the colonial question—“imperialism”, if you will—which has already modified the political conditions of Europe itself, will modify them more and more.”

Insofar as the proletariat proves incapable, at a given stage, of conquering power, imperialism begins regulating economic life with its own methods; the fascist party which becomes the state power is the political mechanism. The productive forces are in irreconcilable contradiction not only with private property but also with national state boundaries. Imperialism is the very expression of this contradiction. Imperialist capitalism seeks to solve this contradiction through an extension of boundaries, seizure of new territories, and so on. The totalitarian state, subjecting all aspects of economic, political, and cultural life to finance capital, is the instrument for creating a supernationalist state, an imperialist empire, the rule over continents, the rule over the whole world.

The leftist simply acknowledges this process exists and does not place some kind of moral magic upon it. It's how we fight, and since we are in an international world, we have to accept it.

I make no war upon patriotism; never have done. But against the patriotism of capitalism – the patriotism which makes the interest of the capitalist class the supreme test of duty and right – I place the patriotism of the working class, the patriotism which judges every public act by its effect upon the fortunes of those who toil. That which is good for the working class I esteem patriotic, but that party or movement is the most perfect embodiment of patriotism which most successfully works for the conquest by the working class of the control of the destinies of the land wherein they labour.

To me, therefore, the socialist of another country is a fellow-patriot, as the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy. I regard each nation as the possessor of a definite contribution to the common stock of civilisation, and I regard the capitalist class of each nation as being the logical and natural enemy of the national culture which constitutes that definite contribution.

Therefore, the stronger I am in my affection for national tradition, literature, language, and sympathies, the more firmly rooted I am in my opposition to that capitalist class which in its soulless lust for power and gold would bray the nations as in a mortar.

It's nonsensical that the rightest listens to his master explain that the left is the one committing the master's crimes by pointing out that they are occurring.

[Ombrageux]

I must protest. Most leftist groups outright advocate internationalism and, therefore, open borders, notably concerning immigration. The far-left has always been objectively allied with international high finance on this question. Both the Marxists and the bankers have always had a visceral hatred for the existence of discrete nations. (Which is not necessarily too surprising, if one studies the matter closely.)

True, the left is ambiguous on free trade: the far-left generally opposes free trade agreements, all the while opposing protectionism as "nationalist." Really their position is only negative on this: opposing free trade, opposing protectionism, but vaguely paying lip-service to internationalism. Chomsky, for instance, has supported EU free trade on grounds that it respects workers' rights, etc.

The right has a positive vision however: the good that is peoplehood. And - except for a few diaspora minorities - you can't have peoplehood and nationhood without borders, without markers defining the in-group, without, in general, a common language and a high degree of relatedness. A nation is but a big family, the largest kind of family humans can actually identify with, with all that that entails in terms of tjat beautiful thing: solidarity.

The bankers and bolsheviks allied to destroy Western and European nationalism during World War II. Now, Bernie Sanders is endorsing the Goldman Sachs candidate, Hillary Clinton. The first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce, as the ol' guru said.

[noemon]

More than a hundred years ago, the left was addressing just this:

Problem is none of these people occupy the left wing of any parliament, the people who do occupy the left side of modern parliaments are the official and relevant Left and not some dead Soviet guys from an era long gone.

[Donna]

Problem is none of these people occupy the left wing of any parliament, the people who do occupy the left side of modern parliaments are the official and relevant Left and not some dead Soviet guys from an era long gone.

Indeed. TIG is a remarkable political historian, I will give him that, but he is simply describing what the Left used to be like. The international socialist project no longer exists; it has been replaced with a project of reflective liberalism that retains a teleology aimed at deconstructing essentialism.

[The Immortal Goon]

I must protest. Most leftist groups outright advocate internationalism and, therefore, open borders, notably concerning immigration.

We are internationalists because internationalism happened. I'm sure it would be a lot of fun to get into tree forts and pretend we have cut ourselves off from the world, but that is simply not reality.

Capitalism created the global world. It created two global classes we Marxists prefer to deal with reality.

Both the Marxists and the bankers have always had a visceral hatred for the existence of discrete nations. (Which is not necessarily too surprising, if one studies the matter closely.)

In that sense, we both look at the world and how it actually exists instead of what our feelings are. This is true.

True, the left is ambiguous on free trade: the far-left generally opposes free trade agreements, all the while opposing protectionism as "nationalist." Really their position is only negative on this: opposing free trade, opposing protectionism, but vaguely paying lip-service to internationalism. Chomsky, for instance, has supported EU free trade on grounds that it respects workers' rights, etc.

Free trade agreements, protectionism, and the like are all dependent upon economic reality. And the economic reality of the global world today is capitalism. These kinds of agreements, like a century ago, are in the service of perpetual and global capitalism which we oppose:

Let us assume that all the imperialist countries conclude an alliance for the “peaceful” division of these parts of Asia; this alliance would be an alliance of “internationally united finance capital”. There are actual examples of alliances of this kind in the history of the twentieth century—the attitude of the powers to China, for instance. We ask, is it “conceivable”, assuming that the capitalist system remains intact—and this is precisely the assumption that Kautsky does make—that such alliances would be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in every possible form?

The question has only to be presented clearly for any other than a negative answer to be impossible. This is because the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question.

Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German “Marxist”, Kautsky, “inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist” alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within world economics and world politics.

The idea counter to Lenin—that these back and forth battles about trade agreements—constitute some kind of natural state of affairs, one that can be evened out and fixed, has been disproven over and over. What you suggest that we are guilty of is something that we specifically reject:

But in order to pacify the workers and reconcile them with the social-chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie, over-wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from another, separates the present peaceful (and ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-imperialist) alliance of all the powers for the “pacification” of China (remember the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion) from the non-peaceful conflict of tomorrow, which will prepare the ground for another “peaceful” general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day after tomorrow, etc., etc. Instead of showing the living connection between periods of imperialist peace and periods of imperialist war, Kautsky presents the workers with a lifeless abstraction in order to reconcile them to their lifeless leaders.

Problem is none of these people occupy the left wing of any parliament, the people who do occupy the left side of modern parliaments are the official and relevant Left and not some dead Soviet guys from an era long gone.

Certainly you wouldn't leave the only legitimate description of reality to exist strictly in the hands of parliamentary politicians, would you?

Indeed. TIG is a remarkable political historian, I will give him that, but he is simply describing what the Left used to be like. The international socialist project no longer exists; it has been replaced with a project of reflective liberalism that retains a teleology aimed at deconstructing essentialism.

Indeed. The socialist project has been systematically rooted out and destroyed by the very reactionaries that now stand over its stabbed corpse, knife in hand, and proclaims, "A knife wound just appeared in his neck!"

Which is a flowery way to say that the same problems debated here and the proposed solutions were offered over a century ago. And the reactionary view won. To what avail? Ye won the war and are stuck with all the problems we were trying to solve.

But, in my view, this does nothing but to prove the validity of the left. Eventually history our time will come again. And if we are defeated again, then we will again be in the same situation with the same reactionaries debating the same policies as if they were novel solutions. But, history working the way that it does, we shall win and have civilization—or the shit house will burn and there will be more savagery.

[noemon]

Certainly you wouldn't leave the only legitimate description of reality to exist strictly in the hands of parliamentary politicians, would you?

Of course I would within this political context. The only valid current and relevant political reality is the one occupied by the present representatives of that reality. That is the only reality that matters. When we talk about SYRIZA, Labour, Hollande, the SPD, we talk about the current political reality of the Left, a reality in which those Lenin quotes bear no relevance whatsoever and as such they are redundant and distracting.

[The Immortal Goon]

The only valid current and relevant political reality is the one occupied by the present representatives of that reality. That is the only reality that matters.

But there are Leninist representatives in office today in every inhabited continent on the planet.

[noemon]

Can you quote a single politician in office in Europe and the US in a leftist party that does not support immigration and open borders?

[The Immortal Goon]

Can you quote a single politician in office in Europe and the US in a leftist party that does not support immigration and open borders?

Why would I do something to undermine my own position?

In that sense, we both look at the world and how it actually exists instead of what our feelings are. This is true.

...Free trade agreements, protectionism, and the like are all dependent upon economic reality. And the economic reality of the global world today is capitalism. These kinds of agreements, like a century ago, are in the service of perpetual and global capitalism which we oppose

We simply have a broader view of things and these discussions about trade and whatnot are part of the capitalist mode of production. That is not a good or a bad thing, but a fact.

[noemon]

Another fact is that the entire apparatus of what we call Left is for open borders and pro-immigration, something which you called "garbage".

[The Immortal Goon]

Another fact is that the entire apparatus of what we call Left is for open borders and pro-immigration, something which you called "garbage".

Surely whatever kind of argument you're failing to make does not mean you can't scroll up and see what happened.

I did not say that, "the entire apparatus of what [you] call the Left is for open borders and pro-immigration" garbage. I called this garbage:

The political left is globalist and tends to ignore problems that come along with it. I don't know why exactly.

I then went through and explained, with extensive citations, that the political left for more than a hundred years simply accepted the reality of global capitalism without endorsing it as a system.

Then you said:

The only valid current and relevant political reality is the one occupied by the present representatives of that reality. That is the only reality that matters.

Which I showed to be false as:

there are Leninist representatives in office today in every inhabited continent on the planet.

Then you changed tactics and accused us of being for the global capitalist order:

Can you quote a single politician in office in Europe and the US in a leftist party that does not support immigration and open borders?

I reiterated that the political left for more than a hundred years simply accepted the reality of global capitalism without endorsing it as a system:

We simply have a broader view of things and these discussions about trade and whatnot are part of the capitalist mode of production. That is not a good or a bad thing, but a fact.

Which brings us up to speed.

[noemon]

I then went through and explained, with extensive citations, that the political left for more than a hundred years simply accepted the reality of global capitalism without endorsing it as a system.

Your citations are irrelevant and distracting as they are not communicated by any relevant Leftist party today.

Then you changed tactics and accused us of being for the global capitalist order:

I did not change any tactics, you claimed that there are Leninist parties that communicate the Leninist citations you provided and I asked you to provide evidence by citing a politician in the modern day and age who communicates those things and you refused to do that further confirming your contradiction.

I reiterated that the political left for more than a hundred years simply accepted the reality of global capitalism without endorsing it as a system:

I don't see the relevance here. The Left has endorsed an open border policy.

[The Immortal Goon]

Leninist party

Your citations are irrelevant and distracting as they are not communicated by any relevant Leftist party today.

I mentioned there were Leninist parties on every inhabited continent on the planet. Seeing as how you had difficulty thinking of one, there is a link above.

I don't see the relevance here. The Left has endorsed an open border policy.

This is irrelevant to what I was saying...

[noemon]

I mentioned there were Leninist parties on every inhabited continent on the planet. Seeing as how you had difficulty thinking of one, there is a link above.

The Communist Party of China is not either in the US or in Europe which is what I asked you as this is the reality that matters to us Europeans and Americans in here.

This is irrelevant to what I was saying...

So we are in agreement that the European leftist apparatus has endorsed open borders?

[The Immortal Goon]

The Communist Party of China is not either in the US or in Europe which is what I asked you as this is the reality that matters to us Europeans and Americans in here.

No, you asked for the other side of that coin that didn't have to do specifically with Leninism:

Can you quote a single politician in office in Europe and the US in a leftist party that does not support immigration and open borders?

If you want a Leninist party that is in power in Europe, there are many. Here's a Trotskyist one in Ireland.

So we are in agreement that the European leftist apparatus has endorsed open borders?

Accepted reality? Sure. That doesn't mean an endorsement of the capitalist system though.

[noemon]

No, you asked for the other side of that coin that didn't have to do specifically with Leninism:
If you want a Leninist party that is in power in Europe, there are many. Here's a Trotskyist one in Ireland.

What I asked is very simple and very obvious, which leftist party should workers concerned with immigration turn to in our societies? That is the only question that actually matters.

You have not provided any evidence that this minor Irish party even satisfies this major current issue that troubles the working class in our societies.

[The Immortal Goon]

What I asked is very simple and very obvious, which leftist party should workers concerned with immigration turn to in our societies? That is the only question that actually matters.

Just because you retroactively imagine that you asked this, does not mean it was obvious that you did.

But, again, I would answer with the same answer that I've been giving:

We are internationalists because internationalism happened. I'm sure it would be a lot of fun to get into tree forts and pretend we have cut ourselves off from the world, but that is simply not reality.

Capitalism created the global world. It created two global classes we Marxists prefer to deal with reality...In that sense, we both look at the world and how it actually exists instead of what our feelings are. This is true.

...The idea counter to Lenin—that these back and forth battles about trade agreements—constitute some kind of natural state of affairs, one that can be evened out and fixed, has been disproven over and over. What you suggest that we are guilty of is something that we specifically reject

We simply have a broader view of things and these discussions about trade and whatnot are part of the capitalist mode of production. That is not a good or a bad thing, but a fact.

In short, a Leninist Party.

[noemon]

In short, a Leninist Party.

It should be obvious to you that is not a satisfactory answer. People want a party that represents them in the here and now, I do not see any leftist party in Europe that represents this major issue in a way that satisfies those Leninist quotes you provided.

[Donna]

But, history working the way that it does, we shall win and have civilization—or the shit house will burn and there will be more savagery.

The latter is actually closer to the wavering organization of reality. The hypothesis of communism is dependent on a corpuscular concept of matter that is very much out of date and, like the hypothesis of communism itself, is suspended in scientific immaturity. This is why the reactionaries will always win because 'savagery' will always emerge from the ebullience of reality, consistently necessitating hierarchal symmetry.