DBWI: What if the United States had survived into the 21st Century?

So, what do you think would have happened to Bernie Sanders (the President of the Northeastern Federation from 1992 to 2006) in a scenario where the US survived until the 21st century via adopting EF-style reforms?

He would have been an underwhelming socdem in an even less supportive society? The only reason anyone would care about him is if they were a leftist themselves.

Jog my memory, what was it that caused all those presidents to succeed each other?

Frankly, this is revisionist history, and not the good kind. Yes, the USA always had its social divides, but that's natural for large bourgeois nations, and the USSR was even worse. At least the USA never turned to ethnic cleansing to deal with its divides. Or are you saying that that's a better model than corruption and interest groups? Also, the USSR wasn't beating anyone 'diplomatically', it was just setting up puppet regimes.

Next, the USA wasn't fascist. Fascism is a very specific phrase with a distinct meaning, and whatever you want to call the US, it wasn't that. Also, don't call it 'crony capitalism' or 'neoliberalism' or whatever half-baked substitutes for 'capitalism' you want to use. This is the hell of capitalism, and it's still around, stronger than ever, really. Also, they way you talk, it sounds like you're reading straight out of a Soviet history book. That's not history, what you're describing, not even historiography. It's storytelling, and propaganda. As we Californians call it, it's Pravda.

The reason why five presidents succeeded one another were the assassinations and power struggles, and no, the USSR has never been free of those, either.
 

iVC

Donor
Jog my memory, what was it that caused all those presidents to succeed each other?

The reason why five presidents succeeded one another were the assassinations and power struggles

Official version according to the year 2008 'House Divided' political history almanac says that only one president was assassinated by own security service. What happened later is at best described as ripple effect in line of succession with VP, Speaker, State Secretary and Treasure Secretary to be briefly declared as presidents only to resign several hours later due to realising their only chance to stay alive would be to stand aside from the total chaos in the capital.
 

iVC

Donor
Alienation comes from labor specialization and surplus value being stolen, and as I've covered earlier in this very thread, both of those things exist in the USSR, dipshit. You can't fix that by just giving workers a few bourgeois privileges.

Ok, let's discuss this.

According to Marx, the theoretic basis of alienation, within the capitalist mode of production, is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think of themselves as the director of their own actions. Employed worker is no more creator or author which has right to participate in production planning or in the process of determining the quality of end product. He also has no right to define his relationships with other people -- it's the job for the Boss.

That all offer the worker little psychological satisfaction if ever any. Their human and creator potential as a person became wasted constantly. "Labor is external to the worker" -- that was the motto of the alienated work.

Current internal economic style of socialist bloc countries is based on the self-autonomy and self-administration of workers collectives. Every man is guaranteed the right to choose his working style, to choose his methods of work and thinking. Blue collar, white collar and scientist communities are able to communicate directly with the Cybersyn and OGAS systems and promote their own vision in style of 'direct socialism' and 'self-administration'. Labor specialization still exists as it's the way to provide effectiveness but human desire for self-actualisation and self-expression would never be suppressed again! 'Do what you want and in style you want, with a bit of pre-planning and age of information and cyberscience, socialist society will always find a way to utilise your efforts'. -- I do not remember exact author of this motto, but it ideally suited the task of defeating the labor alienation.

ven if we buy that somehow, giving the proles the ability to choose their bourgeois leader (as if that wasn't a claim of the old USA) nullifies bad leadership in these clearly bourgeois states...if the 'low-level soviets' could take away Zhirinovsky, they would have done it by now. It's rhetoric. Lies. Pravda, as we say in California.

Are you the Blanquist, aren't you? :) Your speech reminds me about the Paris Commune activists, not about the modern socialism of our century. Grassroots movement is now at its peak, why do you despise it so much? You're electing somebody who is well-known to your local commune as the bright and democratic man. You wouldn't elect anyone unknown to you in person. Then couple of locals who had been elected works for some time in the local council. After all one of them is re-elected to the higher tier soviet. Then cycle repeats itself until we reach the soviets of republican level. On each level there are elected persons who is personally tied with everyone from the previous-level soviet council.

Gosh, sometimes I feel you do not have any friends you could recommend to your local community council as future active and faithful representative. You're always voting for someone who is well-known to you. Not somebody from another city, not somebody from another industry unit, not somebody from another countryside. And only after he spent enough time working along other elected representatives, they can promote someone for higher-level soviet council. And of course, right to revoke your representative is essential.
 
Official version according to the year 2008 'House Divided' political history almanac says that only one president was assassinated by own security service. What happened later is at best described as ripple effect in line of succession with VP, Speaker, State Secretary and Treasure Secretary to be briefly declared as presidents only to resign several hours later due to realising their only chance to stay alive would be to stand aside from the total chaos in the capital.

Well, that's the 'official version', but it's bourgeois history, and the fact that President Cooper wasn't the only President shot says a lot.

Ok, let's discuss this.

According to Marx, the theoretic basis of alienation, within the capitalist mode of production, is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think of themselves as the director of their own actions. Employed worker is no more creator or author which has right to participate in production planning or in the process of determining the quality of end product. He also has no right to define his relationships with other people -- it's the job for the Boss.

You're an idiot. Co-ops and self-exploitation don't fix alienation. Alienation describes the inversion of the world by the capital relation that makes people's work confront them like an alien force - work that still exists under your so vaulted co-op economies. Next time you claim to have read Marx, maybe actually skim through some of his work for once. This is basic Marxism.

That all offer the worker little psychological satisfaction if ever any. Their human and creator potential as a person became wasted constantly. "Labor is external to the worker" -- that was the motto of the alienated work.

True, and yet none of this has changed in the 'socialist' countries - that I have explicitly debunked earlier in the thread as clearly capitalist.

Current internal economic style of socialist bloc countries is based on the self-autonomy and self-administration of workers collectives. Every man is guaranteed the right to choose his working style, to choose his methods of work and thinking. Blue collar, white collar and scientist communities are able to communicate directly with the Cybersyn and OGAS systems and promote their own vision in style of 'direct socialism' and 'self-administration'. Labor specialization still exists as it's the way to provide effectiveness but human desire for self-actualisation and self-expression would never be suppressed again! 'Do what you want and in style you want, with a bit of pre-planning and age of information and cyberscience, socialist society will always find a way to utilise your efforts'. -- I do not remember exact author of this motto, but it ideally suited the task of defeating the labor alienation.

Self-autonomy, self-administration...self-exploitation, more like, you give the proletariat some traits of the bourgeoisie to hide the fact that you haven't even come close to doing away from the value form. Even your fucking paragraph here betrays your true intentions. You divide the proletariat into blue collar, white collar, and scientist groupings. Do you know what the name for that is? Labor specialization, a necessary trait of capitalism. OGAS and Cybersyn are not socialism, you cannot have 'socialism in one country', and any actual Marxist analysis would show that the 'socialist' countries you praise are just capitalist, as they're chained to the value form, among other things.

Still, you prove you have no idea what labor alienation is.

Are you the Blanquist, aren't you? :) Your speech reminds me about the Paris Commune activists, not about the modern socialism of our century. Grassroots movement is now at its peak, why do you despise it so much? You're electing somebody who is well-known to your local commune as the bright and democratic man. You wouldn't elect anyone unknown to you in person. Then couple of locals who had been elected works for some time in the local council. After all one of them is re-elected to the higher tier soviet. Then cycle repeats itself until we reach the soviets of republican level. On each level there are elected persons who is personally tied with everyone from the previous-level soviet council.

No, I'm not a Blanquist. I describe myself as a left communist, you'd probably call me a Bordigist - which I would object to, given that most of his later crap was the epitome of the academic, armchair revolutionary. The modern socialism of our century is just capitalism, you goddamn moron. Socialism is not some marginally better form of capitalism to be planned by an almighty Leftist elite...socialism is the real movement for the abolishing of the value form through worldwide revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat is the revolution itself, nothing more, nothing less.

Also, I don't elect anyone, since soviet politics don't matter and California doesn't have communes. Even if it did, I still wouldn't care, because you just don't get that you're still living under a bourgeois system, following bourgeois norms, and you can't destroy the master's house with the master's tools. So I don't really bother voting - all changes usually get undone based on the whims of the market, anyway. This is a pretty common left communist position, we are opposed to parliamentarianism in all its forms. Whether I know the politician or not doesn't matter, it's still just 'nicer' capitalism, and as for the USSR...that's literally not how it's structured at all, it's still a dictatorship falsely claiming Lenin's (and, yes, I do have some respect for Lenin)'s theory.

Gosh, sometimes I feel you do not have any friends you could recommend to your local community council as future active and faithful representative. You're always voting for someone who is well-known to you. Not somebody from another city, not somebody from another industry unit, not somebody from another countryside. And only after he spent enough time working along other elected representatives, they can promote someone for higher-level soviet council. And of course, right to revoke your representative is essential.

Oh my God, I feel like I'm talking to a My Little Pony character. No, the problem isn't that I don't have friends. I have friends fine. It's just that I don't participate in bourgeois politics since there's no point, and this is still just a 'nicer' capitalism created by academics and students who don't realize what being a worker is actually like.

Here in the proletariat, your 'socialism' doesn't mean shit.
 

iVC

Donor
@RiverDelta , 1 hour of human labor is still equal to the 1 hour of human labor, so first the contribution one makes is not distinguished and differently valued from any other. Socialism is free activity in free association in which labor regains its creative essence, thanks to overproducing. Labor regained its creativity, agency, and complexity the variation in the activities and the skill. We're off with the dehumanization of workers.

But it seems we are talking past each other. Labor specialization as you describe it is still a necessity in many ways. You can't know everything right? Also on some level, people seem to gravitate towards areas of interests and become experts in those areas and or have unique proficiency and skill. So there is something about specialization which also doesn't seem to be necessity, but a human want/desire and part of the diversity of humanity.

Currently achieved 'socialism' is a merging of gendered, skilled/unskilled, manual/mental labor, along with ability of a worker to do potentially any job they want. Individual workers can be reassigned to different jobs with much ease. I don't know how it's possible to totally abolish the every sign of division of labor, but at least modern socialist economy doesn't have permanent roles in the division of labor.

Marx once said 'In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner'.
Isn't that enough for you or you'll continue to demand abolishing the very existing of a different professions?
 

iVC

Donor
President Cooper wasn't the only President shot says a lot.

I tend to agree with you due to contradicting archive data. Couple of incidents with hunting rifles, house-held pistols and unfaithful wives always looked like a smoke screen. Dukakis case was a real tragedy and accident, though.
 
@RiverDelta , 1 hour of human labor is still equal to the 1 hour of human labor, so first the contribution one makes is not distinguished and differently valued from any other. Socialism is free activity in free association in which labor regains its creative essence, thanks to overproducing. Labor regained its creativity, agency, and complexity the variation in the activities and the skill. We're off with the dehumanization of workers.

But it seems we are talking past each other. Labor specialization as you describe it is still a necessity in many ways. You can't know everything right? Also on some level, people seem to gravitate towards areas of interests and become experts in those areas and or have unique proficiency and skill. So there is something about specialization which also doesn't seem to be necessity, but a human want/desire and part of the diversity of humanity.

Currently achieved 'socialism' is a merging of gendered, skilled/unskilled, manual/mental labor, along with ability of a worker to do potentially any job they want. Individual workers can be reassigned to different jobs with much ease. I don't know how it's possible to totally abolish the every sign of division of labor, but at least modern socialist economy doesn't have permanent roles in the division of labor.

Marx once said 'In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner'.
Isn't that enough for you or you'll continue to demand abolishing the very existing of a different professions?

...No, this would actually be fine for me. I admit that I'm still learning as far as Marxism goes, but as far as I can gather, this seems to be pretty legitimate. Good job, though, in citing something that isn't relevant, because this model of division of labor would be completely acceptable...in a socialist society. Not, however, in a capitalist society, and it is capitalist societies that are allegedly (According to you) using it.

Currently achieved 'socialism' does not exist. It's chained to the value form, still has alienation, still has private property (sometimes, but not always, in the duplicitous form of collective property, which fails to abolish property at all as a concept)...See this comment I posted earlier on the USSR for my general problems with AKSHUALLY EXISHTING SOCIALISM.

Okay, for one, the Soviet state acts as a capitalist and the collective farms and peasants with their individual plots (private property is enshrined by law in the form of "collective" farms) also act as capitalists. Markets still exist in the country, even a "free" market, and if you don't believe that the Soviet Union has a black market I really don't know what to tell you. Also...Yeah. There's still a need for surplus extraction, which is a characteristic of the capitalist economy. Besides, capital still runs Russia and the other Marxist-Leninist "radical" social democracies. The law of value makes itself known through shifting changes in prices and wages and on what's produced in the country.

Labor is still alienated and there's a constant drive to push down wages and make labor more productive along the very same lines that countries like the United States did, and unemployment is often widespread in the country, dependent on economic downturns. On top of that, there's conspicuous social differences, wage differentials, and division of labor.

The Soviet Union and really Marxist-Leninist (Can we just call them Stalinist? After all, we know who really turned Leninism into Marxism-Leninism, and it wasn't Lenin or Marx) are oppressive capitalistic states. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Although, I mean, at least the old boss didn't claim to be the ultimate expert on Marxism or anything. Speaking of which, left communists aren't hipsters - left communism is a long and storied intellectual tradition that seems to be the only ones to have any idea what Marx is actually trying to say.

There. See. It's not just Cybersyn or co-ops or whatever that make something socialist, and 'socialism in one country' is a filthy lie, anyway, given that socialism by definition is an international movement, and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolution are one and the same.

So, you seem to grasp division of labor in socialists societies.

Shame that that's all you seem to get about socialism.

Anyway, in case anyone wants to know what I've been doing, I got hit by a car driving at low speeds and broke a leg, so I've been taking sick days off of work. You know, reading, watching TV, using the internet. California's a great welfare state, but those never last, and the fact that it calls itself 'socialist' is just insulting more than anything.

At least California's pretty free, unlike some other formerly US countries. I can get, for example, Bordiga at my local library along with Marx. My sister, she keeps bothering me. She got incredibly successful as a webcartoonist and graphic novelist, but...yeah.

She was always a huge fan of the US, and until we learned not to talk politics, we didn't really get along very well. She voted Republican until it got to the point where voting Republican wouldn't do anything, was what you'd call a 'William F. Buckley' Republican on certain matters, though she leaned to the left on a few social issues and was pretty nice.

She's nice, I guess, we still talk, but she's fabulously successful and I'm...not. Honestly, the great and mighty Addison Hargrove has had to learn to hold her tongue more and more these days, but privately she keeps calling me and talking about how much she misses the old US, how much she misses having voted in the last decade of its existence. She's older than I am, I guess.

There was some black girl she used to hang around with, someone she'd hire to ink her writing, but I think as soon as the revolution happened and California split off, that black girl stopped really caring about Addison.

Fuck, I don't know, I'm just tired and my leg stings like a bitch.
 
Last edited:

iVC

Donor
At least California's pretty free, unlike some other formerly US countries. I can get, for example, Bordiga at my local library along with Marx.

I'm not familiar with everyday life in former USA counties (or states, call it whatever). I visited CONUS only once when there was an opening of Sacco and Vanzetti memorial in Boston, year 2010.
What's the main differences between life in NY-Massachusetts union and your California state?
 
Nixon best understood America's potential. Nixon would have kept us together.

(I know we're semi-sick of "only Sharon can go to Damascus" analogue attempts, but dammit it makes sense!)
 
Who thinks a Gandhi-like figure could have a led an internal peaceful "revolution" of some kind that saves us from falling apart?

Hey, I can dream. Right?
 
I'm not familiar with everyday life in former USA counties (or states, call it whatever). I visited CONUS only once when there was an opening of Sacco and Vanzetti memorial in Boston, year 2010.
What's the main differences between life in NY-Massachusetts union and your California state?

I never got all of the praise Sacco and Vanzetti got. Sure, they shouldn't have been tried, but why the memorial?

Anyway, NY-Massachusetts was more stably state-capitalist and served as a puppet of the Soviets for a while, and thus was Marxist-Leninist, before eventually breaking away It's liberalized somewhat economically, but it's not a great place to live, and seems entrenched with poverty despite the opulence New York City once represented. The Socialist Republic of California, comprising Nevada, California, Washington, and Oregon, was called the Left Coast for a reason, and seceded on its own. The USSR thus didn't bother puppetting it, even though the SRC started out as a utopian experiment based on Maoism, before that kind of collapsed and it became 'market socialist' due to better leadership by necessity.

I'm not sure what everyday life in NY-Mass is like, but in California it's ironically pretty similar to how it used to be. We listen to Hollywood, negotiate with nationalized insurance companies poorly, deal with the government's absurdly high taxes screwing over the poor, watch Hollywood movies, listen to music if we can, and work. Lots of work. As someone who does hard labor for a living (I'm part of a moving company) I can assure you that despite it being a co-op, alienation has not been dealt with at all in California.

In fact, the co-op status of many of the firms (As Marx said, the hell of capitalism is the firm) makes it worse. My votes don't mean shit, I always feel bad when we have to vote on who to fire, anyway, and I can't strike because it's worker self-managed. Co-ops are a thing that people who've never actually worked in co-ops actually think. Basically, this is just a slightly shittier version of capitalism with a welfare state.

Literally the exact same shit. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

So I had to watch my revolution degenerate into this shit, so you can forgive me for not being optimistic about your shitty 'akschually existing socialism'. I mean, at least my sister seems to be taking to it reasonably well, thanks to freedom of speech I can hear her bitching about all of the shitty nationalization and 'commie' stuff, but yeah, she's still a fabulously rich, critically acclaimed artist with a huge fanbase.

Anyway, yeah, that's California. Nothing's changed.
 
Top