zapata [he/him]

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: October 12th, 2020

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  • Engels was obviously overly-optimistic in thinking that universal suffrage would necessarily bring about the success of a workers' party, which would eliminate the need for workers to support the less reactionary bourgeois politicians. The task is, as we all know especially after the defeat of Corbyn, St Bernard etc. a lot more complicated. In the same way, mutatis mutandis, one ought to electorally oppose Trump to give the working class a more favourable environment "for its existence, for the air it needs to breathe." It sounds goofy to use those lofty words to describe voting for a piece of shit like Biden but it's the strategic choice you're unfortunately confronted with.




  • zapata [he/him]topodcasts*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    What is to be done indeed. What do you propose? Armed proletarian insurrection when the left can't even get enough people to vote in a primary for a nice old man promising universal healthcare?



  • zapata [he/him]topodcasts*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    "está claro que si la burguesía logra mantener el capitalismo aquí, y el golpe trumpista es derrotado, no será acumulando otros diez millones de votos para el candidato burgués más tradicional…"

    No estoy de acuerdo. El éxito de un golpe trumpista, lo cual sería difícil de llevar a cabo, no es una conclusión inevitable. Por lo tanto, no sería una pérdida de tiempo votar por el candidato burgués viable de oposición en los "swing states."

    Puede ser que no haya entendido tu argumento, pero Chomsky no está diciendo que la izquierda debería castrarse, convirtiéndose en lacayos del DNC. Engels argumentó, como he citado anteriormente, que los trabajadores deben apoyar a la burguesía contra sus elementos más reaccionarios mientras se aseguran de luchar por sus propios intereses ("remain true to itself"). Qué hay de malo en este argumento?


  • zapata [he/him]topodcasts*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    Yeah he says that bc he rightly recognizes that the rules of the game under Trump are worse for the left than under his opponent. I was responding to TemporalMembrane's argument that voting doesn't matter because it doesn't challenge the bourgeois order. If this is the case then why give a shit one way or the other about Chomsky advocating to vote for the lesser evil given that he clearly supports extra-electoral politics that everyone on the left agrees we ought to pursue. Incidentally, Engels adopted a position quite similar to Chomsky's:

    "[The proletariat] cannot require that the bourgeoisie should cease to be a bourgeoisie, but it certainly can require that it practices its own principles consistently. But the proletariat will thereby also acquire all the weapons it needs for its ultimate victory. With freedom of the press and the right of assembly and association it will win universal suffrage, and with universal, direct suffrage, in conjunction with the above tools of agitation, it will win everything else.

    It is therefore in the interests of the workers to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary elements, as long as it remains true to itself. Every gain which the bourgeoisie extracts from reaction, eventually benefits the working class, if that condition is fulfilled. And the German workers were quite correct in their instinctive appreciation of this. Everywhere, in every German state, they have quite rightly voted for the most radical candidates who had any prospect of getting in."


  • zapata [he/him]topodcasts*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    Famously cringe-lib Engels had the same position as Chomsky :)

    "The bourgeoisie cannot win political power for itself nor give this political power constitutional and legal forms without at the same time putting weapons into the hands of the proletariat. As distinct from the old Estates, distinguished by birth, it must proclaim human rights, as distinct from the guilds, it must proclaim freedom of trade and industry, as distinct from the tutelage of the bureaucracy, it must proclaim freedom and self-government. To be consistent, it must therefore demand universal, direct suffrage, freedom of the press, association and assembly and the suspension of all special laws directed against individual classes of the population. And there is nothing else that the proletariat needs to demand from it. It cannot require that the bourgeoisie should cease to be a bourgeoisie, but it certainly can require that it practices its own principles consistently. But the proletariat will thereby also acquire all the weapons it needs for its ultimate victory. With freedom of the press and the right of assembly and association it will win universal suffrage, and with universal, direct suffrage, in conjunction with the above tools of agitation, it will win everything else.

    It is therefore in the interests of the workers to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary elements, as long as it remains true to itself. Every gain which the bourgeoisie extracts from reaction, eventually benefits the working class, if that condition is fulfilled. And the German workers were quite correct in their instinctive appreciation of this. Everywhere, in every German state, they have quite rightly voted for the most radical candidates who had any prospect of getting in."

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/02/12.htm?fbclid=IwAR11eYPsh2tNuzxO97zztPlicSn3fLlIYVVlRC7aNeBSonYUHEn5NDyRUkg


  • Engels had the same position as Chomsky :)

    "The bourgeoisie cannot win political power for itself nor give this political power constitutional and legal forms without at the same time putting weapons into the hands of the proletariat. As distinct from the old Estates, distinguished by birth, it must proclaim human rights, as distinct from the guilds, it must proclaim freedom of trade and industry, as distinct from the tutelage of the bureaucracy, it must proclaim freedom and self-government. To be consistent, it must therefore demand universal, direct suffrage, freedom of the press, association and assembly and the suspension of all special laws directed against individual classes of the population. And there is nothing else that the proletariat needs to demand from it. It cannot require that the bourgeoisie should cease to be a bourgeoisie, but it certainly can require that it practices its own principles consistently. But the proletariat will thereby also acquire all the weapons it needs for its ultimate victory. With freedom of the press and the right of assembly and association it will win universal suffrage, and with universal, direct suffrage, in conjunction with the above tools of agitation, it will win everything else.

    It is therefore in the interests of the workers to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary elements, as long as it remains true to itself. Every gain which the bourgeoisie extracts from reaction, eventually benefits the working class, if that condition is fulfilled. And the German workers were quite correct in their instinctive appreciation of this. Everywhere, in every German state, they have quite rightly voted for the most radical candidates who had any prospect of getting in."

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/02/12.htm?fbclid=IwAR11eYPsh2tNuzxO97zztPlicSn3fLlIYVVlRC7aNeBSonYUHEn5NDyRUkg