[The Immortal Goon]

I see you keep on misrepresenting my points in order to opt out, very well. Suit yourself but don't force on me something that I never said or meant, for starters I never said, "I don't want a Stalin did x,y,z response." It seems that your hatred for Stalin indeed got better of you, what I literally had said was that "spare me Stalinist x, y, z mmkay"rant" i.e. I don't want your internet armchair psychology that has nothing to do with the "facts" and arguments that I have presented and not that I won't hear anything about Stalin. Can you spot the difference between what I actually said and what you are saying I said?

In honesty, I'm not sure how you can think that, "spare me Stalinist x, y, z mmkay 'rant'" was supposed to be so clear that it had something to do with my, "internet armchar psychology" or anything else other than a list about Stalin.

Also, I already explained my points about "selective quoting" (in a very specific context regardless of you trying to ignore that and the context was Lenin liking Stalin or not and all I had said that in this context both kind of Lenin quotes are easily available and quoting them isn't really helpful but yeah people on "misrepresenting mission" don't care for contexts etc, right?) numerous times, which was again a very small part of my argument, you can keep repeating same thing while pretending that I haven't addressed it or I am against quotes or something like that.

Is there somebody that is [i]for[/] selective quoting without context? I assume you're talking about the Last Will, since you brought it up, is there something in it about Stalin that is unfair to use as a quote?

So, yeah if you want to opt out, do so but don't try to force on me something that I never meant or said, probably if your responses hadn't been so emotionally charged up, you could had differentiated between, "Stalin x,y,z" and "Stalinist are x, y, x" because seriously these two statements clearly have two different meanings

I think any objective reading would not lead to me being the emotionally charged one here...

[I mentioned you challenged that the west preferred Stalin to Trotsky]What? Where? I challenged you when you tried to imply that west and Stalin were cahoots.

Yes, I completely forgot the total love story that existed between USSR and West during Stalinist era temporary fractured by ww2. There was completely no antagonism towards USSR, no cold war etc.

Many people are making that argument [Stalin=bad] and no Kobe explicitly said that he doesn't wishes to defend Red Terror. I have to ask you here, have you even read the thread properly?

...I was going to ask you the same thing. I'm not sure who these many people are, but I haven't run across them. Kobe doesn't share my understanding of the Red Terror, but it seems to me that he was open to it in the case of Lenin, at least.

There you go once again twisting my argument, What I had said was that USSR under Stalin and Lenin was not identical not that they were two different system, please quote me saying that if you are not indeed misrepresenting me. States evolve, they don't remain in a stasis

So it's not hard to like one [Lenin] and not the other [Stalin]

By my count, you have already misrepresented 5 of my arguments while addressing none of the actual points made, quite telling, won't you say? Plus I like how you are playing "You know me" card when you don't give two shit about that yourself.


But whatever that's all from me, I have no wish to continue here while you keep imagining things that I am saying.

You seem to be trying to make this all very personal...

[fuser]

In honesty, I'm not sure how you can think that, "spare me Stalinist x, y, z mmkay 'rant'" was supposed to be so clear that it had something to do with my, "internet armchar psychology" or anything else other than a list about Stalin.

Yes, the sheer surprise of me distinguishing between Stalinist and Stalin. Because hurling present day Stalinist who have nothing to with this thread is totally same thing as criticizing Stalin. C'mon this is a very poor defense, you made a mistake and that's it. Because calling out on present day Trotskiayites who became neo con is totally a legitimate criticism against Trotsky, right, TIG?

Is there somebody that is [i]for[/] selective quoting without context? I assume you're talking about the Last Will, since you brought it up, is there something in it about Stalin that is unfair to use as a quote?

I am not sure why people are loosing any strand of how an argument arose. Did I told you to not use it as a quote? Can you quote such quote of mine. Of course you can't, I don't why you insist on this piss poor tactics of Strawman against me. To remind (I don't know if it will actually work as it hasn't up till now), you said Lenin said that Stalin wasn't fit to rule at many places, to which I replied I wasn't aware that Lenin said as such anywhere other than his last testament. How did you made up above argument from that? And then you complain when I call out on your misrepresentation of my position.

I think any objective reading would not lead to me being the emotionally charged one here...

Of course if you say so and as you say other people obviously are or probably such armchair psychology is a poor debate tactics that you shouldn't have brought in first place. people who jump in a thread throwing random insults towards non existent people in a thread that has nothing to do with any argument made is as "emotionally charged up" as one can get.

[I mentioned you challenged that the west preferred Stalin to Trotsky]What? Where? I challenged you when you tried to imply that west and Stalin were cahoots.

Yes, I completely forgot the total love story that existed between USSR and West during Stalinist era temporary fractured by ww2. There was completely no antagonism towards USSR, no cold war etc.

And quoting this texts prove that I was saying West didn't preferred Trotsky over Stalin or anything like that, wait.........what? I am surprised that I have to spell it out but no it doesn't.

I was going to ask you the same thing. I'm not sure who these many people are, but I haven't run across them. Kobe doesn't share my understanding of the Red Terror, but it seems to me that he was open to it in the case of Lenin, at least.

He became only after you started arguing with me. He literally said, he don't wish to defend Lenin's red terror and and then completely changes his position saying that he was defending (while no one was actually attacking it) it in spirit, no consistency at all.

You seem to be trying to make this all very personal...

Sure if you say so, Internet armchair psychology ftw.

I take it as that when called out for your failure at actually addressing my real points instead of misrepresenting them and creating straw-mans, this is the excuse you came up with.



Edit : At this stage I shouldn't even bother, I am going to leave you guys at arguing against my non-existent arguments while completely ignoring real arguments presented, this has turned into a shit thread and I am out of it.

[Decky]

Ignore him Fuser, Trots will be Trots.

[ComradeTim]

And yet we wonder why the Red Dawn hasn't arrived yet...

[Frollein]

Nonsense. People are guided by biological urges and cultural brainwashing. People act in self-interest all the time (some argue that no action is selfless), but as far as people's identifications go, it has much more to do with cultural brainwashing than anything else. For instance, Catholics identify with the church before they identify as anything else because that is how they are raised. Protestants identify more with their congregation and their family because that's how they are raised. Atheists have a different set of identifications altogether. Many grow up and despise their parents and blood relatives. Don't confuse your own personal preferences and beliefs with "natural" inclinations. There are none except to eat, to hydrate, and to procreate. Other than that, when we talk social structures they are confined to the realm of culture.

People were organizing in groups defined by blood relations long before industrialism or feudalism. It goes back to before written history. Tribes in the amazonian forest who had no prior contact to the "cultural brainwashing" are organised in clans. Yes, it is the natural way, how do you think societies formed? Clans, tribes, alliances of tribes. The nation may be a recent common denominator that replaced the multiethnic empire, that doesn't make it unnatural. It just extended the ability of people to identify with a group to the next level.

As far as "the greater good" it only exists in the minds of people that believe in goodness as a quality that people can have. It is a contradictory notion to that of "self-interest", which states that no greater good exists to individuals, only that which benefits the individual.

I wasn't talking of moral concepts of "good" vs. "evil"; I was referring to "good = advantageous to my group/me". That's the definition of self-interest.

Ah yes, common language and customs. Things that have only existed for a few centuries. Things that were gotten at gun-point (or sword-point). A concept that had to be invented in order to keep the peasants in line and give more power to the absolute monarchs. That's what you're talking about, right?

Language was invented by the monarch? Interesting theory. As for culture, its forming is way more complex and organic than you claim. I'm not going into 30+ pages to explain it here, I suggest you go to your nearest library and read some books on ethnology.

At one point in time magic was self-evident. Marxists do not concern themselves with self-evident truths. As far as what the European worker and the Asian worker have in common, it's simple: without either the work would not get done. With proper organization they would be able to do everything the capitalists and the banks supposedly are responsible for without the constant leaching of capital and the constant false-scarcity that the system is predicated on in order to improve the material conditions of a select few.

The ones with the proper organization become entrepreneurs, or do you think spring fully formed from the abyss of hell onto this world? What the European and the Asian worker do not have in common is a shared experience - neither is part of the lived reality of the other. Sure, they both work, and they may both suffer from the same systemic disadvantages; but that's an abstract reality, nothing that translates into identification. The one you work with side by side is your comrade (just like soldiers in a war who share that experience form a bond), but the one at the other side of the planet? He's just a cipher.

Also I laugh at the idea that people who know what it means to do an honest day's work don't identify with hard workers all over the world. The resentment burns like a fire through the working class towards anyone who doesn't know an honest day's labor. The problem is that they are easily tricked by cultures and nations into believing that the ruling class has their best interest in mind just because they speak the same language. Nor do the poor always identify with other poor, because the proletariat's hate for the lumpen can be greater than their hate for their masters. After all, the lumpen has never had an honest day's work or contribute much of any value to society. Nor further does someone fighting to survive identify with anyone, as hunger is its own passion.

So the working poor are able to be solidary across the globe, while the non-working poor are not? My, aren't we a bit elitist here? Anyway, what the "honest" worker hates is the ruling class of his own nation, not the ruling class of another nation, because it's in his own home where he's having problems, and he's concerned with his own problems only, not the problem another worker may have with another employer half across the globe. It's only the book-socialists who have the time (and money) to worry about problems that don't concern them personally.

Don't be ridiculous. You're the one that's dreaming if you think capitalism has anything at all to do with human nature.

I wasn't talking about capitalism, I was talking about nationalism vs. internationalism. A nation can organize its economy in a number of ways.

That's why this whole idea of self-organization is in itself complete fabrication. Self-organization is a bourgeoisie phrase that means organize the way that society tells you or we will kill you or imprison you with no questions asked. Society is the rule of warfare. Every peaceful society does not last because one day an ambitious society comes along, swallows them up, rapes their women, re-names the country, changes the language, and then pretends that nothing ever happened.

Where did I write that this process of self-organization resembles a Hippie commune? I said humans are hierarchical, of course that means that some give orders while others follow them. Oh, and name me one totally peaceful society that was raped by a (presumably white) evil, warfaring society. Note: one totally peaceful society, not one that was engaged in tribal warfare against the other stone-age tribes in the vicinity (until the bad white man came along and busted their tradition of stealing each others women and eating the brains of the killed adversaries).

Try to understand this: nation-states have been around for maybe four hundred years. In that time the only action they have ever been good at is expansion.

Ok. The Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, The Hapsburg Empire (to name only three) were not nations. Guess what they were good at? Expansionism. I have no idea why you think imperialism is the same as nationalism. A nation is one way to organize people into a political entity. It's neither inherently good nor bad.

As far as them knowing about socialism in the middle east, please. They haven't even mastered the idea of the nation-state.

So mastering the concept of the nation-state is a prerequisite for understanding socialism?

They are glorified petro-states that keep the ruling class in power via social control and constant threats of violence, all empowered by Western companies and powers that just want the sweet economic lubrication of crude oil. That's essentially the only way that the map stays the same, constant violence and oil. We all know that the way those states are organized has nothing to do with unified tribes and everything to do with how the maps were drawn in the first place. Why do you think they are hotbeds of violence?

Mostly because the borders were drawn by the colonial powers without any regard to tribes and their religions, languages and cultures. You may study Iraq for your education.

Of course the nation-state is inclusive of its members, but what makes you think that blacks were regarded as members of the nation? They were not white, they didn't speak the language when they were brought here from Africa and they certainly didn't share the culture (and by the way, they were captured and sold by African tribes who profited a lot from this business). Neither did the English see the Scots as members of their nation, etc. And why would they? If I view all humans as members of my nation, it's not nationalism anymore.

So to summarize: the nation is inclusive of everyone except most of the people on the planet and a large percentage of people that live inside the boarders of the nation-state. You know, everyone.

Duh. The nation is inclusive of all of its members. Its ideal is a culturally homogenous population. It can tolerate foreigners up to a point, that doesn't mean it has to give them the same privileges.

[KlassWar]

Ignore him Fuser, Trots will be Trots.

Can we just confine the Trotsky-Stalin beat-the-dead-horse contest in SN-RF so we don't make a mockery of ourselves in public?

[kobe]

Fuser, I see you cannot even establish what we were talking about and in what order. So I will not continue with you. So call this a concession.

People were organizing in groups defined by blood relations long before industrialism or feudalism. It goes back to before written history. Tribes in the amazonian forest who had no prior contact to the "cultural brainwashing" are organised in clans. Yes, it is the natural way, how do you think societies formed? Clans, tribes, alliances of tribes. The nation may be a recent common denominator that replaced the multiethnic empire, that doesn't make it unnatural. It just extended the ability of people to identify with a group to the next level.

Spare me the anthropology lesson. Any social construct that came in the final minute of the final hour of human history (metaphorically speaking) is not "natural", it is "social". There are not very many natural constructs. Language and tools are considered the only "natural" constructs, and even those are highly cultural. It is very easy to understand that a nation is a "social" construct. More importantly it is an organization only possible when it is encouraged and enforced by the state.

I wasn't talking of moral concepts of "good" vs. "evil"; I was referring to "good = advantageous to my group/me". That's the definition of self-interest.

Again, there is no greater good than that which benefits the individual. So if you believe that the nation is morally good, then argue that. Otherwise I don't see how a worker should see being a wage slave as the greater good. Even if we follow your argument that workers are not inherently international because the German worker does not care about the conditions of the Asian worker because he does not want the Asian worker to reduce his wages, then it follows that the Asian worker would desire internationalism because he wants to improve his wages. Your argument is contradictory.

Language was invented by the monarch?

Standardized language, yes. Go to that library you suggested to me and you will see the truth in that statement. Language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

As for culture, its forming is way more complex and organic than you claim. I'm not going into 30+ pages to explain it here, I suggest you go to your nearest library and read some books on ethnology.

Oh so, culture grows out of the ground and has parents? No it is passed on by our parents through social constructs. No need to explain, I have written ethnographies so I already understand the basis of this claim. Your view is mere ideology, not accepted by anyone except conservatives.

The ones with the proper organization become entrepreneurs, or do you think spring fully formed from the abyss of hell onto this world? What the European and the Asian worker do not have in common is a shared experience - neither is part of the lived reality of the other. Sure, they both work, and they may both suffer from the same systemic disadvantages; but that's an abstract reality, nothing that translates into identification. The one you work with side by side is your comrade (just like soldiers in a war who share that experience form a bond), but the one at the other side of the planet? He's just a cipher.

That's your belief. You're free to believe it but it is nothing but rhetoric. If countries portrayed their history accurately more people might understand why these nation-state constructs are so destructive. Maybe go to the library and read some history books and you'll see how much the ruling class ever cared about the workers. When the nations want to fight, who occupies the trenches? The workers. Who benefits? The ruling class. That's what all workers of the world have in common. We fight the fight, we do the work, we are born into toil and only a few will not die in it. The most rutheless and backstabbing, they will be called entrepreneurs and we will celebrate them.

So the working poor are able to be solidary across the globe, while the non-working poor are not? My, aren't we a bit elitist here? Anyway, what the "honest" worker hates is the ruling class of his own nation, not the ruling class of another nation, because it's in his own home where he's having problems, and he's concerned with his own problems only, not the problem another worker may have with another employer half across the globe. It's only the book-socialists who have the time (and money) to worry about problems that don't concern them personally.

What happened to unity?

Also yeah, sometimes the non-working poor don't deserve any pity. Sometimes they do. When they act as counter-revolutionaries, no one likes "beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements". You're the elitist one in the literal sense since you want the elite to have the most say. That's really all you are saying. Support for nationalism is support for capitalism is support for hierarchy, class, and anti-worker mentality.

You even imply here that you see the working poor and non-working poor as the same, which really betrays your elitism. Just because some don't have much doesn't mean they are not working harder than another who doesn't have much. As someone who has seen and lived it, I'll tell you there is a huge difference between someone who grows up to be a drug dealer and someone who grows up to be a plumber or a janitor. Don't kid yourself for one second.

I wasn't talking about capitalism, I was talking about nationalism vs. internationalism. A nation can organize its economy in a number of ways.

A German advocating national socialism? That doesn't seem right...

Where did I write that this process of self-organization resembles a Hippie commune? I said humans are hierarchical, of course that means that some give orders while others follow them. Oh, and name me one totally peaceful society that was raped by a (presumably white) evil, warfaring society. Note: one totally peaceful society, not one that was engaged in tribal warfare against the other stone-age tribes in the vicinity (until the bad white man came along and busted their tradition of stealing each others women and eating the brains of the killed adversaries).

Well the society I pictured in my mind was the native people of Britain, who saw numerous incursions multiple times that completely changed the language and culture.

I meant externally peaceful society. I said "society is the rule of warfare" for a reason. I never said hierarchy doesn't happen, only that unhierarchal societies are quickly swallowed up by warring societies.

Ok. The Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, The Hapsburg Empire (to name only three) were not nations. Guess what they were good at? Expansionism. I have no idea why you think imperialism is the same as nationalism. A nation is one way to organize people into a political entity. It's neither inherently good nor bad.

Sure. I didn't say other societies didn't engage in expansionism, just that the Nation has been really good at it and you can't name any supposed national construction that hasn't engaged in expansionism and war over territory that existed before the end of WW2.

So mastering the concept of the nation-state is a prerequisite for understanding socialism?

Certainly helps if you are organized into nation-states to understand the nation-state, which is what they are organized into.

Mostly because the borders were drawn by the colonial powers without any regard to tribes and their religions, languages and cultures. You may study Iraq for your education.

We all know that the way those states are organized has nothing to do with unified tribes and everything to do with how the maps were drawn in the first place. Why do you think they are hotbeds of violence?

Duh. The nation is inclusive of all of its members. Its ideal is a culturally homogenous population. It can tolerate foreigners up to a point, that doesn't mean it has to give them the same privileges.

Be racist to foreigners because your nation is privileged. Didn't that idea start a bunch of wars in your neck of the woods? Didn't it cause colonialism and imperialism? How many more economic exploitations must the world suffer until we end the concept entirely?

BTW:

what the "honest" worker hates is the ruling class of his own nation

Clearly those that do the bulk of the work do not feel included if they hate the people that they are supposed to feel a familial bond with. So which is it, all-inclusion or class conflict?

[Frollein]

People were organizing in groups defined by blood relations long before industrialism or feudalism. It goes back to before written history. Tribes in the amazonian forest who had no prior contact to the "cultural brainwashing" are organised in clans. Yes, it is the natural way, how do you think societies formed? Clans, tribes, alliances of tribes. The nation may be a recent common denominator that replaced the multiethnic empire, that doesn't make it unnatural. It just extended the ability of people to identify with a group to the next level.

Spare me the anthropology lesson. Any social construct that came in the final minute of the final hour of human history (metaphorically speaking) is not "natural", it is "social". There are not very many natural constructs. Language and tools are considered the only "natural" constructs, and even those are highly cultural.

Given that we have evolved the brain that we have, our culture and society is a natural outgrowth of our biological makeup. Or do you want to argue that only instincts are natural? And living in groups based on blood relationship didn't come in the final minute of human history, it was there from the beginning. Otherwise chimpanzees, wolves or elephants live in "unnatural" social constructs, too.

It is very easy to understand that a nation is a "social" construct. More importantly it is an organization only possible when it is encouraged and enforced by the state.

If people feeling affinity to their own ethnicity was only possible by state intervention, how come that they were organizing themselves along these lines in - for example - the Habsburg Empire or (the Polish minority) in Prussia?

I wasn't talking of moral concepts of "good" vs. "evil"; I was referring to "good = advantageous to my group/me". That's the definition of self-interest.

Again, there is no greater good than that which benefits the individual. So if you believe that the nation is morally good, then argue that.

I don't have to argue that the nation is morally good, since I never made that claim. Belonging to a group helps the individual to secure his self-interests in most cases, if only by the power of numbers. In other cases, he has to postpone or sacrifice his self-interest for the group interest, or face eviction, because if there is no common interest, the group falls apart, and with it, the power it has to gain advantages for its members. So, sometimes the individual will step back and not insist on putting his interests above those of the group, because preserving the groups acting power will pay off later. That's the "greater good", and if you'll pretend again that I'm talking of morals, after I told you twice that I do not, I will simply ignore you.

Even if we follow your argument that workers are not inherently international because the German worker does not care about the conditions of the Asian worker because he does not want the Asian worker to reduce his wages, then it follows that the Asian worker would desire internationalism because he wants to improve his wages. Your argument is contradictory.

Where would the Asian worker lobby for higher wages? In his own country. Would the German worker help him? No, and it's not even for economical reasons - they're just not interested in what's going on in the rest of the world. If the German worker would read about the Asian worker's struggle for higher wages, he'd probably comment "good for them" and turn the page over for the sports column to see how his club scored. Because he's feeling infinitely more connected to and interested in "his" club than he is in some foreigner's politico-economical struggle. And you need no theories to prove that, just some observation skills.

Language was invented by the monarch?

Standardized language, yes. Go to that library you suggested to me and you will see the truth in that statement.

But I wasn't talking about standardized language and neither were you. In order to standardize something, that something has (with variations) first to exist. Language is built into the human brain, we need no monarch's edict to start talking.

So the working poor are able to be solidary across the globe, while the non-working poor are not? My, aren't we a bit elitist here? Anyway, what the "honest" worker hates is the ruling class of his own nation, not the ruling class of another nation, because it's in his own home where he's having problems, and he's concerned with his own problems only, not the problem another worker may have with another employer half across the globe. It's only the book-socialists who have the time (and money) to worry about problems that don't concern them personally.

Also yeah, sometimes the non-working poor don't deserve any pity. Sometimes they do. When they act as counter-revolutionaries, no one likes "beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements".

Yes, I know, socialists are fond of putting the "counter-revolutionaries" against a wall and find purges and gulags necessary or even laudable, but then turn around and accuse nationalists of racism and genocide. It's laughable.

You're the elitist one in the literal sense since you want the elite to have the most say. That's really all you are saying. Support for nationalism is support for capitalism is support for hierarchy, class, and anti-worker mentality.

You also support hierarchy, one where the workers are on top and the entrepreneurs are at the bottom (or in mass graves); you also pit the classes against each other - so you support the same things you accuse me of, you just have different priorities. And I haven't said anything about who I want to have at the top of the hierarchy; so far, we have only talked about whether people organizing themselves along national lines, i.e. language and culture, is coming more naturally to them than organizing along class around the globe.

You even imply here that you see the working poor and non-working poor as the same, which really betrays your elitism. Just because some don't have much doesn't mean they are not working harder than another who doesn't have much. As someone who has seen and lived it, I'll tell you there is a huge difference between someone who grows up to be a drug dealer and someone who grows up to be a plumber or a janitor. Don't kid yourself for one second.

It was you who made the distinction between the working and the non-working poor, after your lofty claims about international, nay, universal solidarity. So actually, you're more elitist than I am here. And my father is working class, so don't tell me that I don't know firsthand what honest work is. And no, I'm not naturally a socialist, wonder why that is? According to you, that would be inevitable, considering my family background.

I wasn't talking about capitalism, I was talking about nationalism vs. internationalism. A nation can organize its economy in a number of ways.

A German advocating national socialism? That doesn't seem right...

There is also ordoliberalism. Besides, if you need a lecture on how socialist national socialism was after the purge, just ask FRS or Rei. And stop putting words into my mouth. I wasn't advocating any economical model, and you weren't referring to national socialism as an economical model, either. If you think that calling me a Nazi, however slyly, will get you any brownie points here, you are mistaken. It won't turn me into a puddle of guilt and self-loathing, either.

Where did I write that this process of self-organization resembles a Hippie commune? I said humans are hierarchical, of course that means that some give orders while others follow them. Oh, and name me one totally peaceful society that was raped by a (presumably white) evil, warfaring society. Note: one totally peaceful society, not one that was engaged in tribal warfare against the other stone-age tribes in the vicinity (until the bad white man came along and busted their tradition of stealing each others women and eating the brains of the killed adversaries).

Well the society I pictured in my mind was the native people of Britain, who saw numerous incursions multiple times that completely changed the language and culture.

You made a universal claim based on a single culture, then.

I meant externally peaceful society. I said "society is the rule of warfare" for a reason. I never said hierarchy doesn't happen, only that unhierarchal societies are quickly swallowed up by warring societies.

And I asked you to provide an example for this mythical society with no hierarchy and no raids on their neighbouring tribes. Hell, you even have long-standing feuds between villages, where the young men steal the maypole and such crap. That's how humans are - territorial, tribal. No amount of manifestos will change human nature.

Ok. The Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, The Hapsburg Empire (to name only three) were not nations. Guess what they were good at? Expansionism. I have no idea why you think imperialism is the same as nationalism. A nation is one way to organize people into a political entity. It's neither inherently good nor bad.

Sure. I didn't say other societies didn't engage in expansionism, just that the Nation has been really good at it and you can't name any supposed national construction that hasn't engaged in expansionism and war over territory that existed before the end of WW2.

Iceland.

Mostly because the borders were drawn by the colonial powers without any regard to tribes and their religions, languages and cultures. You may study Iraq for your education.

We all know that the way those states are organized has nothing to do with unified tribes and everything to do with how the maps were drawn in the first place. Why do you think they are hotbeds of violence?

Nice that you agree with me then.

Duh. The nation is inclusive of all of its members. Its ideal is a culturally homogenous population. It can tolerate foreigners up to a point, that doesn't mean it has to give them the same privileges.

Be racist to foreigners because your nation is privileged. Didn't that idea start a bunch of wars in your neck of the woods? Didn't it cause colonialism and imperialism? How many more economic exploitations must the world suffer until we end the concept entirely?

I like how you put words in my mouth and then argue against them. Doesn't mean I'll play, though.

what the "honest" worker hates is the ruling class of his own nation

Clearly those that do the bulk of the work do not feel included if they hate the people that they are supposed to feel a familial bond with. So which is it, all-inclusion or class conflict?

Didn't say that the two are mutually exclusive. That is your talking point or did you never have quarrels in your own family? But I hope you stood together when people outside your family were mobbing your little brother, because that's what good families do.

[Frollein]

I don't want to double-post, but the edit button on my last post is gone, perhaps because it's been a day since I last posted in this thread?

Anyway, just to illustrate my point that the worker feels more connected to his country than to his fellow workers around the globe:

Why workers vote for Front National

A new “state of the nation” tome, L’Insécurité culturelle, by analyst Laurent Bouvet, has caused a storm in Paris salons by suggesting that the country’s working class is ready to vote FN in droves because it has been abandoned by the left and deceived by the country’s Socialist government.

Bouvet accuses the left of sparking an identity crisis – “cultural insecurity” – among its core blue-collar electorate, by almost exclusively focusing on the problems of minority groups instead of French society as a whole. This has left the workers feeling cast adrift and alienated, he says.

“The economic crisis, unemployment, social problems, globalisation make people afraid, but if it was just about economics we would see these people voting for the radical left, which they are not,” Bouvet told the Observer.

Bouvet is a political science professor and member of the leftwing thinktank the Jean Jaurès Foundation, which advises the Socialist party (PS) and aims to “promote the study of workers’ movements and international socialism and promote democratic and humanist ideas”. He says his latest, decidedly politically incorrect, message is one the left does not want to hear.

Bouvet says PC blinkers have prevented the Socialists from addressing working-class anxieties about immigration and the rise of Islam – even in its moderate form – in areas where the so-called Français de souche (born-and-bred French) find themselves outnumbered by those with a different religion and cultural habits. Branded les petits blancs (white trash), and accused of racism or patronised if they express their fears, they have turned en masse to the FN, he says.

“With no political offer from the left, working-class French people feel they have been abandoned economically, socially and culturally. The FN has stepped into the breach: it says to these people: ‘you are the most important and we will fight for you’.

“The left is trying to make up to what it calls ‘real minorities’ who it believes are discriminated against. In doing so it has become indifferent, even scornful, of the wider French working class. They say to these native French ‘you have not understood, you are racist and sexist’, and so these people have said, so be it. They are ready to admit voting FN because the left has abandoned them and the FN is interested in them.”

Bouvet is particularly scathing of the Socialist “ideas laboratory” Terra Nova, unveiled before Hollande’s successful 2012 presidential election, which suggested the Socialists could win by emulating Barack Obama’s mobilisation of the African, Latino and female vote, and by abandoning its traditional alliance with the middle and working classes.

In a document entitled The France of Tomorrow, Terra Nova said the country would be “younger, more diverse, more feminised”, and declared: “The working class is no longer at the heart of the leftwing vote”.

François de Closets, 81, a former AFP journalist and essayist on French society, agrees with Bouvet’s analysis that the French “political elite” has ignored and, worse, scorned the working classes.

“For the left, for the bobos (bourgeois bohemians), only the gay or ethnic minorities were interesting. It is fascinating to think that a whole generation of researchers whose job it is to observe French society has through ideological blindness not seen this section of France in danger of being attracted to Le Pen,” de Closets said in a recent interview.

“Since the 1990s we’ve seen the workers vote for the FN,” he added. “The party is a chameleon that feeds on anger, discontent and fears. The FN saw the increasing irritation of the working classes faced with immigration.

“When you are on high, well-placed, with a recognised status, the fact of being French doesn’t add much and you can, as an intellectual exercise, consider yourself post-national or European. France is only where you were born. But when you at the bottom of the ladder, poor, in a precarious situation, all that remains is your country. National identity doesn’t have the same significance for a bourgeois or for a proletariat,” de Closets added.

Imagine that: a member of the working class who is also a patriot! Even more, a member of the proletariat being more patriotic than a bourgeois? Unthinkable! Naturally, by virtue of his class, he must feel closer to the immigrants flooding his country than to his own countrymen - after all, the immigrants are just as disenfranchised as he is, natural brothers*) in the class fight against the bourgeoisie...

*) Not sisters, though, because we don't do feminism in Islam.

[kobe]

Given that we have evolved the brain that we have, our culture and society is a natural outgrowth of our biological makeup. Or do you want to argue that only instincts are natural? And living in groups based on blood relationship didn't come in the final minute of human history, it was there from the beginning. Otherwise chimpanzees, wolves or elephants live in "unnatural" social constructs, too.

Yes, animals exhibit learned behavior that is not biological/natural. That is why anthropologists and naturalists no longer consider tool-making a uniquely human phenomenon. But your argument is essentially that anything that emerges from us must be natural because it emerged from us. Not so, or we could consider industry natural.

Anyway this idea that natural-ness is a property to be valued is subjective anyway. "The natural way" as you define it is to be in a constant state of subjectivity, so I do not subscribe to "the natural way".

If people feeling affinity to their own ethnicity was only possible by state intervention, how come that they were organizing themselves along these lines in - for example - the Habsburg Empire or (the Polish minority) in Prussia?

You are moving the goalposts. Nation-state is not the same thing as feeling ethnic affinity. Furthermore the Habsburg Empire just shows that you don't need to form nation-states in order to have civic unity. Kind of contradicts your thesis.

Belonging to a group helps the individual to secure his self-interests in most cases, if only by the power of numbers.

If numbers are your only argument, there are far more workers in the world than members of your nation.

In other cases, he has to postpone or sacrifice his self-interest for the group interest, or face eviction, because if there is no common interest, the group falls apart, and with it, the power it has to gain advantages for its members. So, sometimes the individual will step back and not insist on putting his interests above those of the group, because preserving the groups acting power will pay off later.

Again, there is no greater good than that which benefits the individual.

...if we define that greater good as "self-interest". To expand on this idea: if you argue that self-interest is why we organize into groups, ie not a moral greater good but a greater good that interests the self, then the idea that toeing to the desires of people above his station because they believe it will benefit the group contradicts this. Really what you are saying is not that it is self-interest that should be desired but group-interest. It is not the individual needs that you are arguing for (self-interest), but the needs of the group (collective-interest). You say that these needs trump that of the individual "because if there is no common interest, the group falls apart, and with it, the power it has to gain advantages for its members". This means that you never are arguing for self-interest and always are arguing for collective interest.

So why do I harp on this? Because you have shown the contradiction in your own ideology. You tell the worker that loyalty to his nation will be better for him because the collective-interest is in his self-interest. If a worker can choose a different collective to belong to, one that is of greater number than the nation since "belonging to a group helps the individual to secure his self-interests in most cases, if only by the power of numbers", and the worker chooses a collective that is working towards his interests and does not have to balance the interests of the people that actually subjugate him, then on the basis of your own argument for the greater good, he should identify with that larger collective that only holds the interest of his class as supreme, not the interests of all the various classes, all of whom value different things.

To make the argument easier to understand, I will break it down:

1) Collective-interest and self-interest will be balanced in any political union.
2) Collective-interest is desirable because of strength in numbers.
3) Self-interest is desirable because there is no greater good to the individual than that which benefits the self.
4) Nationalism asks you to balance your interests with those that subjugate you, thus any balancing not in the favor of your class will be less in your self-interest and more in the self-interest of those that subjugate you.
5) Socialism/communism/international leftism asks you to balance your interests with the interests of others that are your equal, thus any balance between the collective-interest and self-interest will still benefit you.
6) The strength in numbers will always be greater within the international collective of workers than the national collective because of the relatively smaller size of nations to the international worker.

So greater good as defined as either collective-interest or self-interest will always be more served to the worker by socialism than by the nation-state, by going off those definitions. However if you happen to be a member of the bourgeoisie or petite-bourgeoisie, then actually your argument for the nation-state makes sense. There is no reason to pursue internationalism because your self-interest as a member of the ruling class will always be more served in a nation-state that's collective-interest by definition must be balanced in part with yours. Whereas if they came out and announced the association for international bourgeoisie or whatever they then acknowledge the class conflict and will see the safety of nationalism disappear.

So that takes me to this:

That's the "greater good", and if you'll pretend again that I'm talking of morals, after I told you twice that I do not, I will simply ignore you.

Now that I have explained the subtext behind me saying "there is no greater good than that which benefits the individual", "if you believe that the nation is morally good, then argue that." If you don't believe in the moral goodness of nationalism, then so be it. Neither do I.

Where would the Asian worker lobby for higher wages? In his own country. Would the German worker help him? No, and it's not even for economical reasons - they're just not interested in what's going on in the rest of the world. If the German worker would read about the Asian worker's struggle for higher wages, he'd probably comment "good for them" and turn the page over for the sports column to see how his club scored. Because he's feeling infinitely more connected to and interested in "his" club than he is in some foreigner's politico-economical struggle. And you need no theories to prove that, just some observation skills.

Sure, but it is only through state intervention that the sports club is possible in the first place. No one is denying the value of a functioning system of propaganda, and Football/other sports are great for building these types of allegiances.

Furthermore I just want to make sure we're clear on this: there certainly was a large and healthy international workers movement in the 20th century, and it was stamped out by force, propaganda, social pressures, political/legal persecution, and hatred for it still motivates political movements and serves as the effigy that keeps on burning. Brainwashing and propaganda should serve as no argument for or against any political system, and it is telling that state intervention is what prevented and by and large still prevents leftism. Ever heard of the term "cultural Marxist" or the charge of being a socialist as an insult?

But I wasn't talking about standardized language and neither were you. In order to standardize something, that something has (with variations) first to exist. Language is built into the human brain, we need no monarch's edict to start talking.

Shared language is standardized language.

By the way "language is built into the human brain" has to be a mistake. You can't possibly believe that. If you believe that I implore you to pick up a book about linguistic anthropology and stop assuming you know about language. Then pick up a history book and see how the standardization of language relates to the nation-state. You'll find out a lot about this concept you think you know so much about. Finally, yes I was talking about standardized language. Did you know that German has changed a bunch of times? Crazy that.

Yes, I know, socialists are fond of putting the "counter-revolutionaries" against a wall and find purges and gulags necessary or even laudable, but then turn around and accuse nationalists of racism and genocide. It's laughable.

Why don't you do a little research about the conditions of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century and maybe you'll understand why violent upheaval was not just necessary but laudable. Furthermore, why don't you look at what happened to revolutions that tried to be peaceful. They all ended up turning violent and being huge cesspits anyway. Sorry that socialists of the 20th century had a plan and weren't going to kowtow to liberal sensibilities. You'll find that it doesn't appeal too much to me. Again, we see that counter-revolutionaries like liberals, fascists, and conservatives are so quick to point to the brutality of the socialist movement and even quicker to try to sweep under the rug the fact that their "every life is sacred" rhetoric quickly buckles under the realities of their mode of production and history. Then it's all in the past, right? Once it's part of your history your whole nation loses accountability but gets to keep whatever they plundered.

The gall and hypocrisy of it makes me sick. Act again like you care about purges and gulags when you just spent so much energy arguing for the benefits of the nation-state, by pointing out ONE peaceful exception and ignoring the fact that nation-states have all tried to take over the world at some point. Talk about ultimate subjugation! I guess that was in the Native American's collective interests, Africa's collective interest, China's collective interest, India's collective interest, the Middle East's collective interest, the Philippine's collective interest, and the aborigines' collective interest. Maybe they should have formed a nation-state first, right? Oh they didn't have a state to intervene and make sure they had a nation? Huh funny how it didn't spring up naturally.

The language of Nationalism and Ethnicity is taking credit for the innovation and invention you had jack shit to do with and blame the dead for the intentional acts of brutality they undertook because of national interest and self-interest (in other words they believed they were better and they wanted to get rich). Then when socialists, who are not idealists and don't concern themselves with morality but effectiveness and material progress, for undertaking these acts without farce or face-saving, but only as a cold action of actual self-interest and actual collective-interest and not conjured up fantasies of those concepts, they are called brutal murderers. Furthermore the capitalists and nationalists get a pass because they can scapegoat Hitler, who luckily for the bourgeoisie also called himself a socialist, so it both absolves them and puts the blame on the Left! How fantastic.

Really all you are saying is that socialists were honest about what their past and the reasons why it was necessary, and capitalists/nationalists scream that they are about inclusion and that every life (born in their nation-state, everyone else can fuck off) is sacred!

You also support hierarchy, one where the workers are on top and the entrepreneurs are at the bottom (or in mass graves); you also pit the classes against each other - so you support the same things you accuse me of, you just have different priorities. And I haven't said anything about who I want to have at the top of the hierarchy; so far, we have only talked about whether people organizing themselves along national lines, i.e. language and culture, is coming more naturally to them than organizing along class around the globe.

More capitalist revisionism. Communism is the end of hierarchy. Capitalism is the perpetuation of the hierarchy in order to make the top more and more materially wealthy. Communism puts ownership of the means of production into everyone's hands, capitalism openly desires it to be owned by a small cabal at the top, whoever is the "fittest" to run it if you will. There is no denying either.

If you want to say that I desire those that work everything to own everything, I will not deny that. I fail to see that as hierarchy. I see it as self-ownership.

It was you who made the distinction between the working and the non-working poor, after your lofty claims about international, nay, universal solidarity. So actually, you're more elitist than I am here. And my father is working class, so don't tell me that I don't know firsthand what honest work is. And no, I'm not naturally a socialist, wonder why that is? According to you, that would be inevitable, considering my family background.

I never said socialism comes naturally. Socialism is a social construct, hence the name, mein Frollein. So is class consciousness for that matter, and rightfully so. It is something that must arise from the workers themselves; that is it must not be the idea of theory and academia but something that emerges after the work of propagandists and people that spread ideas. Anyone who believes otherwise fundamentally misunderstands Marxism.

The distinction between the working and non-working poor is IMPORTANT. It is elitist NOT to recognize it. It betrays that you see everyone underneath you as equal. Again, there are huge differences between the groups I mention and the proletariat. So please, stop confusing things.

There is also ordoliberalism. Besides, if you need a lecture on how socialist national socialism was after the purge, just ask FRS or Rei. And stop putting words into my mouth. I wasn't advocating any economical model, and you weren't referring to national socialism as an economical model, either. If you think that calling me a Nazi, however slyly, will get you any brownie points here, you are mistaken. It won't turn me into a puddle of guilt and self-loathing, either.

It was a throwaway joke, if you took offense at it my apologies. None was intended.

You made a universal claim based on a single culture, then.

No, just pointing out that the society I was thinking of was British, and that your instant leap to the coloreds just shows the true nature of nationalism: the lives of darkies don't matter, right?

And I asked you to provide an example for this mythical society with no hierarchy and no raids on their neighbouring tribes. Hell, you even have long-standing feuds between villages, where the young men steal the maypole and such crap. That's how humans are - territorial, tribal. No amount of manifestos will change human nature.

The first humans were nomads and scavengers. Why do you think there are so many humans all over the planet? Why do you think tribal groups do not do well in confined reservations and in the introduction of private property and artificial boarders. Stop making up your own ideas of social organization. There are books you can read if you want to find out about early humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalous_society

Nice that you agree with me then.

You agreed with me you just thought you didn't, but sure.

I like how you put words in my mouth and then argue against them. Doesn't mean I'll play, though.

That's a laugh. I just paraphrased what you said. That you should have systemic features against foreigners to maintain the privilege of your nation.

How about I put it like this: racism against foreigners is the entire system. That's why it's a nation-state.

Didn't say that the two are mutually exclusive. That is your talking point or did you never have quarrels in your own family? But I hope you stood together when people outside your family were mobbing your little brother, because that's what good families do.

Who would you have supported in the Spanish Civil War or the Russian Civil War if you had been a member of the respective nations at the time? I'll assume that it would be on the side of the right. Either way you would have supported the mobbing of the other part of your family because of a quarrel. But it goes deeper, because the Right in both those cases called for outside assistance. So it seems that the nation will support its little brother as long as he doesn't get out of line and doesn't get any crazy ideas about class subjugation and exploitation.

Lets be real here: in this metaphor you protect your little brother until he realizes that you're the biggest hurdle to his own happiness, then when he tells you that you're messing up his life you tell him to keep on working or you'll make him work.

...just as long as we're rolling with that stupid metaphor.

[leo_tolstoy]

I've been to Cuba and it wasn't pretty.
The houses were crumbling down, food rations lasted a week out of the month, people got paid $20 a month...
Im still open minded and willing to give other kinds of socialism a shot though.
Council communism seems interesting, my preferemce is anarchism although i see it as an ideal rather than something that can be carried out.

[UnusuallyUsual]

I've been to Cuba and it wasn't pretty.
The houses were crumbling down, food rations lasted a week out of the month, people got paid $20 a month...
Im still open minded and willing to give other kinds of socialism a shot though.
Council communism seems interesting, my preferemce is anarchism although i see it as an ideal rather than something that can be carried out.

Thank you for actually trying to give some kind of partial response to my original question. Almost nobody else in the thread even tried really sadly enough.