Communpedia talk:We are all leftists

STALINISTS?
I don't accept that Stalinists may come in here and write that "Stalin is a god" or things like that.
 * They may not write such things, just like Trotskyists may not write "Trotsky is a god" or things like that. But they may make leftist contributions to our project, just like anyone. 00:11, 24 July 2011 (MSD)
 * No, no they can't. Just like Castroists can't say "Castro is a god". Hs.png Your Commie comrade, Rebel Fighter! (call me!) 04:54, 25 July 2011 (MSD)
 * Not? I got that impression when I read about Stalin. It seems like you really MEAN that Stalin is a god. A young communist 17:36, 4 August 2011 (MSD)

Social democracy
I am a little uncomfortable with the section: "Reconciliation of social democracy and communism ". I think that significant change is unlikely to be achieved using the reformist approach, and furthermore, most social-democratic parties now have fallen to a rather low state: eg, the Labour Party in Britain or the NDP in Canada; they're more state-capitalist than anything. And I'm afraid that I agree with the right-wingers' criticism that social democratic governments tend to over-regulate everything: socialism is about collective ownership of the major means of production, not about requiring a license to brush your teeth. There is a major class issue when social-democrat parliamentarians, who are mainly from middle and upper class professional backgrounds, pass laws telling working class people where they can smoke, how they can build their homes, where they can camp, that they need helmets to ride their bikes, etc., and when they require working class people to deal with the bureaucracy, sometimes requiring advanced levels of literacy, to obtain licenses or permissions for all kinds of fairly ordinary activities. If you've been to university, you can do your own taxes; lower-class people tend to be intimidated by, or unable to understand, the forms, and pay ten percent to an accountant to do it for them. It's class-biased, and the same dynamic plays out time and time again in the interactions between ordinary people and modern governments. Social democrats are often oblivious to this and other working-class realities.

Now I'm not saying that conservative (or "liberal") parties are innocent when it comes to regulating or restricting the freedoms of the common person -- read the last few chapters of Capital --, but I'm saying that the social democrats have not broken with this mold. In general, I think the criticism of social democracy is that it's still pretty much bourgeoisie. I like all kinds of people, and communication with social democrats is a good thing, but I don't want to end up at some half-way position between communism and present-day social democracy. Tribal 15:19, 21 September 2013 (GMT)
 * One needs go no further than Bill Clinton or Tony Blair to see how thoroughly compromised moderate leftists can be; however, neither of those men are Marxists, or ever claimed to be. Social democrats who are Marxists, and serve at the pleasure of a proletarian constituency are another matter. As to middle-class and professional backgrounds, in a developed society a talented worker who pursues specialized training or education often nominally falls into those categories; the question is whether they retain or acquire a proletarian consciousness which reflects their social origin or objective situation (An associate at a law firm, or an adjutant professor, is certainly vulnerable to exploitation. As to whether smokers can abuse non-smokers in the workplace with second-hand smoke... (from "organic" "natural" tobacco, of course) User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:11, 21 September 2013 (GMT)


 * I'm not a big fan of second-hand smoke either (though I may never have had the "organic" kind). The thing is that, in my experience, smoking is more prevalent among working-class people. So, broadly speaking, lower-class people smoke, while upper-class people don't smoke, and pass laws against it. Seems kind of skewed.


 * You raise the interesting issue of whether a modern engineer, lawyer, accountant, etc., working for a set salary from a corporation is a proletarian. I'm not sure. Maybe some of our theoretical categories need to be modified. If we arrive at a fully automated society in which all material commodities are produced by robots, there could still be "haves" and "have-nots" among the human population -- those who receive lavishly of the products of the robots and those who receive almost none -- but the "have-nots" wouldn't technically be proletarians anymore because they don't produce anything. -- Tribal 20:06, 21 September 2013 (GMT)


 * We remain the people who design, maintain, and operate the robots. The upper classes have better health habits because they have had the opportunity both formally and informally to become educated regarding risks. It is becoming clear to me that the cornucopia of goods and services resulting from advanced automation is better than the little that can be produced through drudgery. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:37, 21 September 2013 (GMT)


 * I don't think the smoker/non-smoker issue is really relevant here. It would be a bit stereotypical to say that most smokers are poor. And I believe the right to health is more important than the "right to smoke". You can smoke as much as you want in any place where your second-hand smoke doesn't affect others. 22:36, 24 September 2013 (GMT)