#Reformism

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS, SOCIALISM A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. ... The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie. A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economic relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government. Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois Socialism. It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class.

-The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels

#reformism #the communist manifesto #quotes #i'm not sure the tone of all of this is obvious but i'm trying not to really do commentary on this rn just get ppl to read things #bookblr #thatdiabolicalfeminist

[femsolid]

“Women also need to distrust men by giving up the expectation that men will be kind and “give us our rights.” When a woman proudly says that her husband lets her do something, she is admitting that he controls her. Recent history provides an example of the same phenomenon at a societal level in the United States: the Supreme Court, which had ruled that women could legally obtain abortions, presumably due to the right to privacy, then compromised that right by giving states the legal power to control women’s access to abortion. Women need to take the position that our rights are our rights and men cannot give women what is already ours. This may mean that women will have to engage in civil disobedience to protest unjust laws that men make with respect to women’s rights.”

- Loving To Survive by Dee L. R. Graham

This was written in 1994...

#quote #loving to survive #reformism #abortion #mp

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Sam Marcy

While carrying out the struggle here with the deepest-felt sympathy for all victims of the coup, it is also the responsibility of the working class leaders to explain to the advanced elements the disastrous consequences of the policies of Allende and the parties in the Popular Unity (UP) coalition, particularly the Communist Party.

The revolutionary cadres in Chile must rebuild, reconstitute themselves, and create a transition to socialism built on reality, on the armed working class. We look forward and pledge ourselves to building a movement in solidarity with the resistance movement in Chile. In the heartland of the imperialist culprits, that is our duty.

#Chile50 #Chile1973 #Sam Marcy #imperialism #Marxism #counterrevolution #Salvador Allende #Augusto Pinochet #socialism #communist #reformism #revolution #Struggle La Lucha

[anarchistin]

The reality is that the future never comes, but is rather the ideological justification for the suppression of our desires and revolutionary change today. Tomorrow becomes just the romantic notion of accepting subjugation today.

— Bryan Hill

#marxism leninism #socialism #reformism #stageism

[ivie-online]

for some reason tidbits from liberal social justice books (democratic party expanded universe fix-it fics) just pop into my head like that’s so raven visions but anyway i’m now thinking about the author who advocated for increasing the salaries of certain public servants significantly, so they’d be less vulnerable to bribes/corporate interests.

as if making ~$400k (current highest-paid federal public office in the US) would be enough to stop actual billionaires & trillionaire corporations from buying handfuls of congresspeople with the ease & general air of an 1880’s fisherman picking up salt taffies to take home to a favorite niece

#ubi #incrementalism #reformism #also #the 2020 elections cost over $14 billion #ivie

[katchwreck]

Green capitalism is the contemporary attempt to dissolution of the working classʼ, but not the bourgeoisiesʼ, solution for a commonly livable future; an episodical adaptation of the conversion of the oh so now revolutionizing status quo.

#thoughts #capitalism #marxism #the irony lol #imperialism #Capital accumulation #socialism #reformism #communism

[bluepecanpie]

as a retrospective, occupy wall street was the endpoint of the kind of ‘horizontalist’ politics that was popularized with the anti-globalization movement. the involvement of adbusters in establishing the initial ows is more than enough to show us how direct this influence is. underpinning the anti-globalization movement in the global north was a reliance on the framework consecrated by liberalism, and idealist notions that democracy had been distorted from its optimal function by the presence of trans-national corporations bypassing the power of the state. the idea that in the first instance, the state is an instrument of class power - specifically the power of the bourgeoisie, in the capitalist epoch.

occupy’s failure, is the shared failure of that anti-globalization movement, and in between - that of the arab spring, which had seemingly exhausted imagination for another kind of social modality other than one informed by neoliberalism - islamist or not. even the anti-globalization movement came to fore as a sort of post-cold war rebuke of state socialism and the vanguardist politics used to set it up, only to fumble once confronted with the hard power of the state and especially great power conflicts - in a way that ‘actual existing socialist’ states could not do. the occupy movement also forgoed the kind of deep organising that could actually build class consciousness and galvanise the working class into making demands.

i’m not saying that the occupy movement was bad, or counterproductive: it politicized a generation of people, and broke out of this anhedonic, apathetic morose typical of atomised subjects under neoliberalism. I’m just saying that it was no threat to the ruling class, to any corporations, to anyone wearing the robes of institutional power. pro-ows assessment would rather we think how well ows spread and that was the real victory, like there wasn’t a demand for the neoliberal epoch - whether it was explicity stated or otherwise.

#occupy wall street #ows #occupy movement #anti-globalization movement #adbusters #horizontalism #socialism #anarchism #reformism #arab spring #neoliberalism #class struggle #state socialism #working class #organising #marxism #direct action

[apas-95]

- Clara Zetkin, The Struggle Against Fascism

#zetkin #fascism #voting #vote #reformism

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1441502919291858946

It’s not that the individual people who choose to try to change the system from within just uniformly have bad intentions from the start, it’s that the nature of the SYSTEM is to require a thousand compromises on any counter-hegemonic values to succeed within it at all.

People who go in the political system with good intentions are either spat back out disillusioned, kept in minor bureaucratic positions with no real power, or so completely compromise on their initial values in order to succeed that they totally betray those intentions.

This is what makes it a system! It’s not about bad individuals, it’s the very nature of centralized power to organize itself in a way that protects its existence as centralized power. It’s a network of social relations that require a new level of buy-in for each level of power.

Someone could genuinely approach that system with good intentions, goals, and values, and it won’t matter. The political system isn’t a singular, passive machine that operates solely at the behest of whoever is at the helm, it has a massive and complex ecosystem of its own.

Success and failure in that ecosystem, like all ecosystems, is absolutely dependent on one’s ability to adapt and acquiesce to the demands of that system. It requires compromise on values that should never be compromised on and the stakes are people’s lives.

The calculus in that system, regardless of initial intentions, will ALWAYS go from “how do I work to promote this value?” to “how to I keep my power?” It does so by necessity. Anyone in the political system not prioritizing the latter question will not succeed within it. Period.

Nearly all people are masters of self-deception, and it is entirely likely that some politicians who are prioritizing their own power believe that doing so is what will allow them to stay in the game long enough to promote a value in some form or another, but it IS a deception.

In that situation, people then just equate their ability to keep power with advocating for values. Power, regardless of the rhetoric employed to obfuscate it, becomes the end in and of itself. It becomes the primary value to which all else is subordinate.

For clarity: I think that anyone who makes those compromises in order to prioritize their own power is a fucking bastard who is, rightfully, our enemy. And many certainly don’t even start with good intentions. My point is to illustrate that corruption is a feature of the system.

#repost of someone else’s content #twitter repost #butchanarchy #reform #reformism #liberalism

[redsolon]

A reform is only radical if it shifts the balance of power. Does it seize and collectivize capital? If not, does it make it easier to seize and collectivize capital? If not, does it make it easier to argue for the seizure and collectivization of capital? If not, then it's not revolutionary.

#socialism #communism #Marxism #social democracy #reformism

[liberashen]

“The mechanics of political democracy works in the same direction. Nothing in our times can be done without elections; nothing can be done without the masses. And in this era of printing and parliamentarism it is impossible to gain the following of the masses without a widely ramified, systematically managed, well-equipped system of flattery, lies, fraud, juggling with fashionable and popular catchwords, and promising all manner of reforms and blessings to the workers right and left—as long as they renounce the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of bourgeoisie.”

— Lenin.

#lenin #vladimir lenin #marxism leninism #lenin: imperialism and the split in socialism #quote #liberation #socialism #communism #reformism #revolution #radicalism

[socialistcurrent]

Stanning AOC and the other near-useless progressive liberals at this life-threatening historical juncture is a mistake. Doing it because you think they represent the most viable alternative to unfettered capitalism is a big mistake. And doing it because revolutionary socialism sounds cool but you think is just the Soviet Union repeated is CLOWN SHIT Reject liberalism, don't keep all your eggs in the reformism basket, put on your adult pants, and embrace the universal tool of Marxism to end capitalism

#aoc #the squad #bernie sanders #progressive #liberal #reform #reformism #reformist #democratic party #democrat #democrats #revolution #revolutionary #socialist #socialism #capitalism #capitalist #class traitors #democratic socialists #communism

[femsolid]

“Legislators are perhaps the least likely of all men to have something noble left to appeal to. Even if this weren't true, such "appealing" not only demeans and humiliates women, reinforcing our view of ourselves as vassals, but it also reinforces men's unconscious conviction that they are god Himself, or, at the very least, god's trusted stewards. Because it perpetuates the God/worm paradigmatic thinking that is the basis of patriarchy, slaves lobbying their masters for freedom has always been a deeply lamentable, dangerous waste of time.”

- Going Out of Our Minds by Sonia Johnson

#quote #going out of our minds #sonia johnson #reformism

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Iroel Sánchez

The people are risking their skins to bullets in the streets for a president who was not up to his task. Will this struggle result in the end of the oligarchic control over the politics and resources of Peru? Hopefully, but there does not seem to be an organized political force capable of doing so, and only a radical change in the rules of the game could allow it.

Trying to change something while not bothering those who control the media and those from the North who have been removing and installing governments in many Latin American countries for more than a century always ends in the same place: defeat.

#PeruCoup #imperialism #oligarchy #Latin America #Pedro Castillo #protest #reformism #media #Struggle La Lucha

[importantangeldefendor]

After great political thought I've decided I'm a reformist

A revolution is both tremendously unlikely, would be incredibly negative and might not even be worth it

And also very likely to *lose*

As sad as it is, you and your polycule of socially anxious jrpg nerds would not be able to do shit in a violent conflict against the government (which is what a revolution... is)

This isn't an endorsement of the current system in any way shape or form but it is an acceptance of the reality of the situation- that violence will be pointless and that boring shit like "voting" and "organizing" will do infinitely more then saying "wow I hate the us senate ):"

Finally Hopefully your beef with the government and capitalism or whatever is that it denies the dignity of human life- and I truly hope that a conflict where you have to take life is something you *dread* not hope for

#leftism #reform #anti revolution #reformism #politics

[ilona-mushroom]

Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.

#socialist #socialism #communism #anti capitalism #the belief that we won’t work under capitalism genuinely makes me so mad #like #you realize the goal of social reform is to abolish imperialism right? #there won’t be good just showing up out of nowhere without slavery and/or imperialism