If you have to defend Nazi’s because the SC will give them a more favorable decision then the legal system is already fucked beyond repair.

This is true for board games as well. The classic example being Monopoly.

They were actually banned from reddit for posting “John Brown was right” memes implying that the radical abolitionist was correct to kill slaveowners. They can be excessive and annoying but they’re certainly not fascists.

I somewhat agree. I do take issue with the notion that the Nordic working class has been bought off though. That makes it sound like they’re conscious advocates of imperialism which I don’t think is generally true. Rather I’d argue that free from hyper exploitation, they can’t develop a meaningful class consciousness. As such, it’s difficult for them to see how their long term interests are put at risk by the capitalist system and how a socialist system could maintain their high standard of living without requiring imperialism.

I doubt the Nordic working class are receiving a meaningful share of the value stolen through imperialist means. Instead, I think the Nordic bourgeoisie are able to accumulate wealth without having to hyper exploit their local populations thanks to imperialism. This ameliorates the local class antagonisms and creates the superficial appearance that a capitalist system can maintain a stable high standard of living for the working class.

Of course, if imperialist exploitation can no longer ameliorate said antagonisms, class conflict will re-erupt in Nordic countries. The danger here is that parts of the working class may be convinced that their standard of living is predicated on imperialist conquest which is the basis for fascism. The good thing is I don’t actually think that’s true. A more reliable way for Nordic workers to maintain their standard of living would be for them to suppress the interests of their local bourgeoisie and transition to an actually socialist model.

Saying the Democrats control the republicans is silly but saying that they use the republicans as a threat to stay in power is indisputable. They literally funded pro trump candidates in republican primaries under the assumption they would be easier to beat in the general election.

Well Marx used the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” to describe how a transition would work in opposition to what he saw as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.

However, if you’re talking about people like Stalin or Mao, you’ll find self proclaimed communists with a wide variety of opinions on the subject. That’s in part because gets difficult to sort propaganda from the truth of the matter. I also mean both western and communist propaganda. To have a guy going by “Joe Steel” as the leader of your republic of socialist workers councils isn’t exactly a subtle attempt to get buy in from working class people.

Yes, most communists and especially Marxists believe communism must necessarily be fully democratic. It’s certainly true though that there is much debate about what types of democratic structures to use. Although most communists would probably agree that it would require a lot of trial and error to find an ideal system.

That said, communists generally seek to disenfranchise owners of capital from the decision making process up until the point they no longer exist as a class. Therefore in the transition to communism, full democracy may not be realized. This is the given reason for why Marxist Leninist countries generally suppress opposition parties but may allow for political affinity organizations around identity groups that suffer under capitalism, ie worker, youth, women’s organizations, etc.

Communist theory explicitly tries to dispel the idea that political and economic structures are separate things. As such, communists intend to create democratic structures that can distribute resources in place of undemocratic market relationships which empower owners of capital.

Liberalism on the other hand believe that market relationships are inherently democratic. Therefore they may think that any attempt to replace them with a planned economy are undemocratic regardless of how such planning would be decided upon.

You’re right, nobody has ever cared about Marx. No communist revolutionaries anywhere have ever called themselves Marxists. If they did, then their projects must have surely collapsed by now. That’s because Marx was very clear that his political theories were not made to be adaptable or revisable based on new information and changing conditions. No, that would be far too scientific for someone we can agree was clearly an idealist.

This is under the assumption that there is a surplus in society that can satisfy the needs of everyone. Marx’s point is that technological development and industrialization could make this possible. As such, the need to motivate people to work harder is not necessary.

Prior to such a surplus existing, the distribution of goods would be more akin to “From each according to their ability, to each according their contribution”. That ensures people are motivated to maximize their productivity as long as that’s still necessary.

I think what people don’t fully understand is that Marxism is meant to be scientific. That means that there will likely be many imperfect and failed attempts at building a socialist society before one comes along that is stable enough to outlast outside interference from capitalist states.

As such, most people I know who like the USSR are also it’s biggest critiques. Unfortunately, there is so much misinformation about the USSR that most discussions about it online are just about delineating truth from propaganda.

Tell me you haven’t read Marx without telling me you haven’t read Marx.

Seriously though, Marx is like the guy you go read if you want a ruthless critique of idealism. I’d go so far as to say it’s the reason his theories became so popular in the first place.

The existence of state run social services and regulations does not mean a country is not fully capitalist if you’re using Marx’s understanding of what capitalism is. Additionally I think there is a misconception that communism depends on altruistic behavior. It really doesn’t.

Things got much worse for most citizens of the USSR after it collapsed and state industry was privatized. Life expectancy dropped pretty severely. It shouldn’t be surpassing that anyone who suffered under that economic collapse would tell you the USSR was better.

I believe the writers actually wrote much of the story line for the entire show before filming the first season. As such, it’s probably one the most internally consistent time travel stories. That said, I do think season 3 gets bogged down by all of the exposition needed for the story to actually make any sense.

I believe Netflix actually has a website with the timelines for each character so you don’t get confused. IIIRC you can tell it what episode you’re on so you won’t get any spoilers.

Think about it this way, if you were a Chinese citizen would you rather work in a harsh factory setting or work as a subsistence farmer and risk starvation because it didn’t rain enough one year? Because that was literally the choice. There were no other options.

The reason why the Chinese government maintains a high level of support from Chinese citizens is not because they’re great propagandists. Rather it’s because hundreds of millions of people went from extreme poverty as peasants to living stable middle class lives within a few decades.

Why do you see that as such a bad thing? Would you prefer all these people remain in poverty as they have in other countries such as India or the Philippines? I don’t get it.

Then why isn’t India doing as well as China economically? They had the same chance to undercut US labor costs in order to industrialize. However, they could not capitalize on that opportunity as successfully as China did. It’s almost as if Chinese economic policy and central planning played a large role in their development. It’s also pretty clear that China is actually become less dependent on US demand as their own internal economy grows.

This isn’t a one time experiment either. Vietnam is following a similar path and has grown much faster than many comparable south east asian countries.

Nazis took nothing from the left wing other than some rhetoric they used to gain popular support from the working class. Their politics were more inspired by European colonialism than anything else. Lebensraum is basically just manifest destiny applied to Europe.