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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer more advanced reading lists regarding Marxism if you’d like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must do so.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
I think an underrated piece of theory that the right-wing seems to understand and utilize more than the left is Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. They seem to be very good at recuperating our theory and twisting it to their own ends, while we on the left struggle to détourne their words and ideas in a way that promotes leftist thought.
I think media theory in general is a big aspect where the left is losing.
EDIT:
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others.
Also, one of the best ways to survive a fight is to escape it. If getting armed isn’t practical, a high-powered flashlight that can temporarily prevent an assailant from seeing you clearly enough to attack and approach is a good move. A group with laser pointers can work, too. Can be quicker and more accurate than pepper spray, but more effective at long range than close.
That’s an interesting point! I agree that Capital does a great job of subverting, de-fanging Leftist theory, co-opting it and churning out opportunism. “Hollywood Resistance,” if you will. I think Lenin said it best in The State and Revolution, at least with respect to Marxism specifically but applicable broadly:
What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this “doctoring” of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers’ unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!
Also good point with respect to Self-Defense!
Also, I wonder if we should be considering the move to organizing on secure channels instead of in the open in places like here on Lemmy? Like Matrix has end-to-end encryption out of the box and its at least similar to Discord.
Depends on the purpose. For organizing? Yes, I agree. For agit-prop? Lemmy instances vary in security. Some instances have Matrix rooms as well.
In this critical time, I do think it is important for well-read leftists to channel the defeat liberals are feeling right now and try to push them to read more and take a more active role in politics. That becomes harder in Matrix rooms vs open federated servers.
I very much agree. The key part at this moment in time is to craft an appealing narrative that’s at least as palatable as what the right is peddling. What’s happening is that people in the mainstream are increasingly becoming disillusioned with the system, and they’re starting to become open to new ideas as a result. They’re going to start shopping around and settle on a narrative that makes sense to them as an explanation of what’s going on and what needs to be done to make their lives better.
The right has been doing a really good job convincing people of their narrative because a lot of it builds on the existing tropes, small government, more personal freedoms, etc.
The really challenging part for the left at this time is to come up with a narrative that’s easy to digest, that inspires people, and gives them a long term vision for the future. It has to be a long term vision, something people feel that’s worth fighting for, even if there’s no quick reward on the table.
That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about things in those terms before. I am wondering whether part of why the right seem to be so good at recuperation is that the right (in particular, fascists) benefit from capitalist support. Money and media have a lot of power; I weep for the people who were indoctrinated to hatred to the extent that they voted against their own interests. The scales are tipped in the right’s favour in that regard. What do you think?
(I haven’t read Society of the Spectacle yet, in case that addresses some of what I’m saying)
Tangentially related, but I’m reminded of this quote from Disco Elysium:
“Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.”
The scales are heavily tipped in Capital’s favor, not necessarily the Republicans alone.
The left inherently recuperates through political education, but cannot do much about the society of the spectacle without winning revolution, as it does not have cultural hegemony. Debordists would traditionally go on mindfulness field trips and such, which is fun, but not really building power.
The left needs to build: it needs more and members. This means political education and doing organizing work, with everyone levelling up skills, planning and executing actions, recruiting, studying, and running education programs for the recruited. And all of this means nothing without the context of an organization, so join one that looks good and revisit your decision every few years as you develop politically yourself.
This is the real answer. When we are stressed, depressed, anxious, and feeling hopeless, we can either turn inwards and retreat from society, or we can lean into our friends, family, and community.
If you have no community, now is the time to build it. A lot of liberals will be desperate, and that means it’s a great time to shake off the lies of individualism (we are all individuals part of a community) and develop the truth of community. Otherwise this cycle will continue the way it always has.
I agree 100%. This is a painful day for liberals, and an important opportunity to analyze what went wrong and how to fix it going forward. Voting blue and going to brunch is not enough.
Also, a reminder that community can start with just one other person, you don’t need to personally create a large organization overnight.
Spontaneous revolution/organisation for revolution has been promised for a long time, and is no closer to happening.
I am not advocating “spontaneous” organization or random revolution. I am arguing for joining orgs and building Dual Power. As for revolution, the US is a pot of an unknown liquid constantly heating up as Capitalism decays. The boiling point is unknown, but the fact that conditions are worsening and contradictions are sharpening at increased rates means it still is likely to come.
I just like, don’t believe it. Capitalism is hundreds of years old, and it’s only gotten stronger.
Why do you believe it is stronger? The fact that Capitalism’s decentralized markets result in centralized monopolist syndicates is exactly why Marx predicted Socialism to be the next stage in Mode of Production. Marx said it best in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Lenin further analyzed these monopolist syndicates and described why we are seeing dying, decaying Capitalism in his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Once competition begins to die out, the Rate of Profit sinks and these Monopolist Syndicates strangle each other. The only way to fight this rate of falling, other than further automation which further lowers the rate of profit, is joining each other in ever larger syndicates, which is not infinitely replicatable. Capitalism is in its death throes.
A good, quick read if you don’t want to dive into books is the article Why Public Property?
I mean, the idea of socialism has certainly seen setbacks since the end of the last century, hasn’t it? While gross inequality is still a huge problem, and I hope it will be solved somehow, the Lenin/Stalin version of socialism feels like it has basically lost.
A good, quick read if you don’t want to dive into books is the article Why Public Property?
I hadn’t seen this one before, thanks for that. There’s some great examples in here, on the subject of monopolies.
This phenomenon only continues to be proven true over a century later. The United States today has a far greater concentration of industry than it did during Lenin’s analysis. The small business sector has also consistently been on the decline. This is an observable reality. [Accompanied by a graph]
Monopolies and particularly oligopolies are having a moment, but the chart only goes back to the 70’s, and implicitly shows total company number going up (why is hard to say, it’s a paywalled article, and they mixed data from two other sources). If you go back further, I think it would look pretty different - the old gilded age ended, Standard Oil was broken up, and some of the giants of the postwar era got knocked down a peg or more. Further, the trend is pretty uneven by sector. Mom and pop shops are dead now, but independently owned franchises and publicly traded whatevers are hella dominant, and contractors (or “contractors”) are everywhere.
A clear modern example of this would be the smartphone industry. Competition has made cellphone manufacturing more and more complex over time. A cellphone these days is far too complex to be created by a small business. One requires access to enormous factories, machines, and supply chains. According to The Wealth Record, “the net worth of Samsung is pegged at $295 billion.” This is roughly the amount of capital one would need to acquire to even begin to be a serious competitor to Samsung.
I actually know quite a bit about semiconductor manufacturing. It may be the most capital intensive endeavor of all, but you don’t quite need to be Samsung to do it. If you want to build your own at scale, a fab might be “only” a billion dollars. That’s a lot, but many startups have raised it (for other things), so it’s a different story from being Samsung on day 1.
If you just want your chip design made, it’s way easier. TSMC exists to build other people’s designs. Companies like Sam Zeloof’s new enterprise exist for small scale printing of your prototypes. Most of the basic design tools can be found open source.
The network effect has made some genuine monopolies and definitely many oligopolies, but other things are less affected. Individual rich people get rich by chance (if you don’t mind me introducing my own source, which happens to be my favourite one).
All this to say, I don’t think concentration is going to kill capitalism in the near future, or even come close.
It is easy to look backwards at prior systems, such as the feudal economic system or the slave economic system, and then figure out how that system developed into the system afterwards. Adam Smith, for example, already explained in detail in his book Wealth of Nations how capitalism developed out of feudalism long before Marx.
It’s a tangent, so I’ve separated this out, but this is also an interesting claim. The end of feudal economics is an actively researched bit of history, and was far from neat and tidy. IIRC some of those old fealty-type agreements lasted into Marx’s time, if being mere formalities by their end. And I’m not sure why we (correctly) decided slavery was bad after doing it since before recorded history, either.
Socialism hasn’t been perfect, the only people that think leftists are arguing for perfection are right-wingers. Marxism-Leninism is still correct analysis, and the USSR was still a massive improvement on existing conditions. It has not “lost,” it is continued by Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, and more. Blackshirts and Reds debunks a lot of common anti-communist myths.
One thing you seem to be misunderstanding is the idea that because there are mom and pop shops, that there aren’t fewer and fewer, with decreasing portions of the overall share of Capital. The barriers to legitimately compete with these megacorporations like Samsung are getting higher, you can’t legitimately compete with their resources and design work.
Finally, your mark on the presence of new modes of production emerging from the old is a misconception of the Marxist argument. What is Socialism? explains that in further detail, and Productive Forces explains societal progression. Slavery resurging was an aspect of settler-colonialism, a notion that remains to this day, this was not a resurgence of old pre-feudal economics.
Feudalism was status quo in most of the world since the dawn of civilization and it was replaced in many parts of the world.
Yeah, and I’m still not sure how that happened or if democracy is here to stay, honestly.
I can’t really see things going back there economically, though - modern technology is just too good, and isolated illiterate peasants can’t make it.
Edit: Unless we really fuck up and cause nuclear winter or something. I suppose if we’re starting from scratch being agrarian again is on the table.
Lack of hope is a benefit, but not for you. People thought that a revolution was impossible even before the 20th century, and still, 1917 happened.
For a while, and then it failed. Meanwhile, the Western world got more and more free market.
Yeah, and we need to make it last next time.
Well, to go back to my OP, good luck with that.
Infinite growth is impossible on a planet with finite resources
That’s not the problem with Capitalism, the problem with Capitalism is that decentralized markets through competition result in monopolist syndicates. The endpoint is one single, centrally planned monopoly, at which point public ownership and central planning along democratic lines is critical. We don’t have to wait for that point, but Capitalism cannot last beyond it.
Correct. In the long run every sector is going to end up like agriculture in the Midwest - all the land is in use, it’s just a matter of planting and harvesting the same way each year.
After ww1 there was one socialist country.
After ww2 one third of humans lived in a socialist country.
That number has risen since. Capitalism is slowly making its way off the stage of history.
No, no it hasn’t risen since - unless your definition of socialism has expanded far more than I agree with. Meanwhile, economies elsewhere have gotten more and more market-oriented and financialised.
Pretty sure most of that is just him advocating for mutual aid/defense networks at the local level should the rule of law (lol) break down
Nah, I am directly advocating building Dual Power along Marxist lines. I am a Marxist-Leninist.
- Joker laugh HAHAHAHAHAHA
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Get organized. Nobody ever won their rights by voting, they won by getting together with their neighbors and coworkers and standing up to capital. Unions used to be a major political player in the US, but capital has almost completely destroyed them, with the help of the dems and the repubs. The working class has been hypnotized by trinkets into ceding all political power. We need to claw it back.
Please actually do this. Not on the internet. Join a local activist chapter. Go to the meetings. Use your speaking voice. Contrary to what politicians and corporations tell you, it is possible to organize society in a way that does not result in oligarchy.
I don’t think you mean me specifically, but the only reason I’m awake right now is that I went to an impromptu meeting in a park with like 40 people to begin strategizing. We talked about how we felt, our goals, our needs and what we could offer. In the end, we started some new group chats around specific topics. It really fucking helps with anxiety and doomerism to talk with like minded folks and design actions for dealing with a world that is a bit more fucked up today than yesterday.
I didn’t mean you specifically but I’m so glad that happened! I’ve recently left the US but while there I was active with DSA, labor organizing, and a local urbanist collective. My biggest gripe with the American left was always their insistence on throwing their weight behind this or that Democrat. Maybe now it will finally be clear that mass mobilization is the only way forward. We did this in the 1930s and we can do it again today.
Arm yourself. If they get violent, I’m returning the favor.
My wife and I both came to the same realization on our own. We need a firearm with stopping power when the Criminal in Chief’s jackbooted thugs come for this liberal poisoning the blood of our nation.
I used to be a firearm salesman. If you have any questions, I’m available.
What rifle and in what caliber do you most recommend for home defense and cheap, relatively plentiful ammo that is shortage-resistant?
I am considering a cheap Palmetto State Armory AR kit chambered for 5.56 NATO rounds so I could also fire .223s. Is brand particularly important, or are most ARs on the market good enough for practice and emergency use?
For anything but super-precision shooting a PSA will work fine.
I’m also a huge fan of red-dot sights for people who don’t want to spend 5 grand on ammo perfecting their shot. If you have a trigger pull that consistently makes you miss low and left, you can just adjust the dot to compensate instead of training for a better trigger pull. It’s not what I’d recommend for someone to take up shooting as a hobby, but for quick results with less training and money (ammo adds up faster than the cost of the optic FAST), it’s a good shortcut.
But go with a quality red dot like an Aimpoint or Holosun that won’t require you to take 20 seconds getting the dot up and running if you need it. An aimpoint can run for a year+ turned on, so you just leave it on and change the battery on your birthday, whereas others like a holosun are motion-activated, so it automatically turns on when you pick up the gun and turns off after a few hours without movement. Same thing - change the battery once a year.
The cheaper bushnell, vortex, swampfox, etc optics are fun for the range, but you can easily leave them tuned on and have a dead battery in a week, or you may have to turn them on and set the brightness every time you pull the gun out, which takes time.
5.56 is plentiful and relatively cheap, though it does tend to be the first to disappear from shelves when there’s a scare. From 2020-2022 it was hard to buy. It’s also a little faster with higher penetrati9n than I’d like for indoor use. I like 300 blackout in a short-barreled rifle or AR pistol a lot for up close since it’s less likely to kill the neighbor, and all you really need is a different barrel for it to work in an AR - it even uses the same mags. It’s also amazing with a suppressor, as the cartidge was developed by a supressor company specifically to be supressed. But the ammo is also expensive and less-plentiful.
Thank you so much for the reply! That is extremely helpful.
I’ve been thinking about a Henry, due to not just living the style but also reliability, ease of repair, availability of ammunition, stopping power. However I know practically jack shit about guns, so I would appreciate any advice as to whether any of that is true or practical.
The nice thing about lever guns is that a lot of them can share cartridges with revolvers, such as a 357 mag, 44 mag, 45 colt, etc.
But they’re not actually as reliable compared to a modern semi-auto as people think, and when they do jam, they jam BAD.
Unlike a semi-auto, user error is also likely to cause a malfunction. If you change directions on that lever at the exact wrong time, you can end up having a double-feed that requires you to dismantle the receiver to clear it.
That being said, I do love them. I would probably look at a Winchester or one of the newer Marlins, though. Marlin (among others) was terrible for a while when they were bought out by a investment group that made awful guns, but they went into bankruptcy and more Ruger is taking over Marlin, and Ruger has an excellent reputation for affordable quality.
But if you’re looking for the shared pistol/long gun commination, I’m actually a bigger fan of a modern pistol caliber carbine like a Ruger PC Charger, Sig MPX, Kel Tec Sub2000, or CZ Scorpion Evo.
There’s also the newer Henry Homesteader, which has a more traditional look but is a semi-auto 9mm.
For repairability, nothing beats the AR platform. They can also be a fun project. You can buy a lower receiver (the frame that is legally the gun) through a firearms dealer, and get the rest of the parts online and build yourself a reliable, affordable custom firearm set up evacuate how you want it in whatever caliber you’d like fairly easily. There’s only a few tools needed, like punches, screwdrivers, and pliers. A castle nut wrench is helpful but not entirely necessary.
And then you’d know exactly how to fix everything.
To go that route, I’d recommend starting by buying a pre-made upper receiver from Palmetto State Armory in whatever caliber, style, and barrel length you want. Longer is typically more powerful and accurate with a longer sight radius if you aren’t using optics, but it is heavier and harder to maneuver in a tight space. Then, get a matching lower (different ranges of calibers use different-sized lowers) from a dealer and a Lower Parts Kit (trigger, assembly pins, etc, all bundled together), bolt, and stock. It takes about 30 minutes to assemble for a beginner if you watch a YouTube video first.
Don’t go under 16 inches, though, unless you really understand the laws regarding the differences between hand braces and stocks as well as the difference between an AR pistol and a Short-barreled rifle. A short-barreled rifle (designed to fire from the shoulder with a barrel under 16 inches) a controlled weapon like a machine gun, silencer, or grenade and requires special permitting that takes like a year to get as well as a $200 tax stamp, and unless you buy it under a special trust only you can have posession of it.
Anyway, I’m rambling. In short, for an effective firearm for defense from 2-legged threats, I don’t recommend a lever gun. They’re super fun, and I love all of mine, but they aren’t what I keep in my quick-access safes in the bedroom or the hidden sage in my car.
My personal defensive guns are a pump shotgun for the house, and automatic pistols (a little pocket-carry 380 for concealed carry when I can’t hide a hoslter and a 9mm for when I can) and a braced AR pistol in a hidden safe in my van for if things go really south. Braced pisyltols are in a legal limbo right now since they were essentially banned by the Biden administration, but the Courts have frozen the rule, so I don’t super recommend building one right now.
I have more guns (like 60 of them, lol) in the home safe, but most of them are range toys or hunting guns. My precision rifle that’ll take off a gnat’s wings at 300 yards is fun, but a $7,000, 20lb bolt-action rifle with a $3500 scope (the industry used to give me a bunch of freebies - do not ever spend that kind of money on a single gun) isn’t a practical weapon.
Finally - whatever you go with, you need to shoot it. A lot. If you have a $1,000 budget for the whole thing, buy a $200 pistol and $800 of ammo to train with. You can train with cheap shit, but make sure to buy defensive ammo to keep for emergency use. Defensive ammo is really, really expensive (often several dollars a round), but you want the bullet to do it’s job, and (more importantly) stop moving when it hits something. If you have to use a gun defensively, you don’t want to shoot through 4 walls and kill the neighbor.
That’s super helpful information, thank you very much!
It’s precisely what the 4th amendment is for. Defending ourselves from tyranny.
I’ve decided to start going back to the range and practicing with my pistol again. Considering getting a concealed carry permit just in case things get bad enough where I feel I’ll need to defend myself while out and about. I don’t think things will get that bad, but better safe than sorry, right?
One of my best friends is a martial arts instructor and she said she’ll give me free self defense classes. I’m small and weak, so I need every advantage I can get.
I don’t know… revel in the fact that you are living (so far) through an event that could be epoch defining? Not everybody gets a front seat to history. That’s, uh, about all I’ve got for now. Sorry.
In times of struggle, it becomes more important than ever to get organized and read theory.
Any particular theory you have in mind, if you don’t mind me asking?
How familiar are you with leftist theory? I’m openly a Marxist-Leninist, I have an introductory reading list targeting general inquirers, but I don’t know what specific questions you have so I can’t give targeted recommendations.
Do you want the general list, do you have any questions about Marxism, or do you have specific interests in specific questions about theory? I’ll do my best to help.
With no other information, my go-to is Blackshirts and Reds. It helps us understand what fascism is, who it serves, where it comes from, and how to banish it forever. It also explains how Communism and Fascism are mortal enemies.
Thanks. I’m passingly familiar with Lenin and the New Economic Policy but I’d like to better understand the key differences to Marx’s Communist theory that it had/s. Also, without wanting to be controversial, a good piece about China. Is it Marxist / Communist or not - or is it more complicated than that?
Excellent questions.
Lenin isn’t a divergence from Marxism, Lenin is an application of Marxism to the era of Imperialism, with more clear analysis of Monopolist syndicates based on empirical evidence. The NEP isn’t a divergence from Marxism. Critically, Marxists believe that Capitalism gives way to Socialism because markets coalesce into Monopolist Syndicates over time, prepping themselves for central planning and public ownership. Russia was underdeveloped, it did not have these monopolist syndicates, the NEP allowed markets under State control to exist and naturally form these syndicates. Arguably, Stalin ended the NEP too early, which is an entirely different nuanced argument.
Why Public Property? as well as Productive Forces are two excellent essays on the subject of Scientific Socialism.
The PRC is Marxist-Leninist, or more accurately Socialist with Chinese Characteristics. The PRC “traps” its private sector in a birdcage model and, following the previous statements, increases ownership as monopolist syndicates form. Half the economy is publicly owned and centrally planned, with a tenth in the cooperative sector.
Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism is another fantastic essay on the subject.
“Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.”
- Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done? | Audiobook
It’s time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let’s get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
- Friedrich Engels’ Principles of Communism | Audiobook
The FAQ of Communism, written by the Luigi of the Marx & Engels duo. Quick to read, and easy to reference, this is the perfect start to your journey.
- Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the “left” and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous “Yellow Parenti” speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
Ugh, philosophy? Really? YES!
- Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy | Audiobook
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don’t be intimidated!
- Friedrich Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific | Audiobook
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous “Utopian” Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That’s right, it’s time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it’s mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
- Karl Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital | Audiobook as well as Wages, Price and Profit | Audiobook
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
- Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism | Audiobook
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
- Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution | Audiobook
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn’t possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
- Vladimir Lenin’s The State and Revolution | Audiobook
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
- Vikky Storm and Eme Flores’ The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto | (No Audiobook yet)
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of “gender.” Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
- Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth | Audiobook
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism’s dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
- Leslie Feinberg’s Lavender & Red | Audiobook
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It’s not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
- Mao Tse-Tung’s On Practice and On Contradiction | Audiobook
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
That’s incredible - thanks. The idea of the ultimate endgame of capitalistic monopolies looking suspiciously like communism always confused me as it seemed they were just doing the communist legwork before the state intervenes. I’ll probably have a go at section 2, Engels / DiaMat, fairly soon.
Critically, Revolution is required to achieve Socialism, the Means of Production, once developed, need to be siezed by the Proletariat, and the only way is through struggle. Marx puts it especially well in Manifesto of the Communist Party:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
I do recommend starting with Politzer, philosophy may seem boring but in AES states they teach Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, because it makes understanding the rest of Marxism far easier. Politzer is clear and extremely easy to understand, and his work is immensely practical, though I won’t decry Engels’ work on Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, it’s in my list for good reason. It’s essential.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Wow. What a resource. Thanks for putting this together in such a sharable format!
Thanks! I take theory seriously, and if you check my history all I have been doing is trying to lead people to Marxism, haha.
I want to point out that I just modified it, adding The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto.
Up until the last week or so, I always used to say that even if I’m having a hard time, I am not ready to die. I want to see what happens next.
I no longer want to see what happens next, I see no good outcomes at all for the future of the world, not just the US.
That’s incredibly grim and it disturbs me - whilst I do (kind of) see where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna try and give you counselling or advice. I’m neither qualified nor know anything much about you to do that. I sincerely hope that in a decade or so a happier you looks back on the immediate future (as it is now) and just takes a deep breath and puts it down to another blip in humanity’s long and winding road. That would be nice.
The federal gov has been nuked, act as if only your state legislature exist, organize unaligned party.
Not so much advice as a selfish request: please try to stay with us. I mean that both figuratively (i.e. mentally checking out and becoming hollow) and literally (i.e. existing in this world). It’s a selfish request because though I’m not even American, I am one of the countless people who are scared shitless today. I don’t know how we will make it through this, but I know I can’t do this on my own.
If you’re here, scared with me, then I am not alone, and neither are you. It’s a bit trite, but it helps me somewhat.
It’s a bit trite
I don’t believe this is trite at all. This is how we do it. We do it together.
You’re right, and thanks for checking me on that. On reflection, I said it was trite because I think I felt uncomfortable with the level of vulnerability I was feeling when writing that comment, so I tacked that onto the end. The vulnerability came from a place of “who am I to give advice when the advice I’m giving myself hardly feels sufficient, because my inner monologue is basically a screaming possum most of the time”. Lots of people are feeling similar, which is why I made my original comment in the first place.
I think a lot of us are struggling under the pressure about not knowing how to cope with this dreadful situation, and for me, that meant feeling like I needed to come up with the perfect words that would be useful for everyone who is struggling. It is sufficient for me to go “for me, this is a useful way to think (and other people may do also)”. It’s silly for me to dismiss myself as trite just because I feel like I am only valid if I have a Solution. As you highlight, this is a collaborative process, so muddling along together is how this goes.
Your fear is understandable and valid, this is a dark timeline and a really bad outcome.
But being afraid and panicking cannot possibly help anybody, least of all yourself.
Take a few days if you can to reset mentally as much as possible.
Then, get to work building resistance, it’s more critical now than ever. Find a leftist org near you and get involved. DSA, a local anarchist group, a worker co-op that needs volunteers, a democratic socialist org, anything leftist that is doing real work locally.
If you can’t donate your time, donate your money. If you can’t donate either of those, then help them spread the word on your social media. Post all their links and use your social media to advertise their events and meetups, help make people aware.
On the personal side, protect your health. The conservatives largely want to demolish healthcare, especially for underprivileged folks. Your health is so critical, especially now.
Quit your vices or at least, reduce them:
- Quit smoking/vaping.
- Stop drinking, at least heavily if you do.
- Stop eating junk food/candy.
- Get in shape, hike, calisthenics, walk, bike, etc.
It will not only help protect you from an administration that wants you to have less coverage if you’re sick/injured, it will help your mental health and save you money, sometimes tons of money.
Final advice for money, save it as much as you can. Practice frugality, get together with friends to cook and share meals. Get involved socially with people, learn about your community, build solidarity.
We will get through this, I believe in you, and I believe in the human drive for true freedom, equality, and community. Don’t let that flame burn out, we’re in this together, and only together can we come out victorious. ✊
my dad always taught me not to let the workings of the world affect my personal mood
even if the world is going to shit, you can carve out a little slice of life for yourself and the people you love. take care of those people, take care of what you own, do the things you’re passionate about and let God worry about the rest
and I say that as an atheist. it’s a metaphor
A dad point of view, while precious in delivery, doesn’t really translate very well in this scenario if you’re anything but a cis white male. The cis white men will be fine like they have been fine for thousands of years.
i grew up an illegal immigrant in the US. we were poor and struggled but ultimately I had a good upbringing and I have a good life now.
the world is uncaring and unjust. you have to stick up for yourself and build something for you and the ones you love. nobody else will do it for you.
unless you are a silver spoon trust fund baby of course (which isn’t exclusive to any race or gender… although being straight & white definitely increases the chances). most of us don’t get that privilege
There are worse things in our daily lives. Like the giant pothole you hit on the way to the store. Your neighbors dog shitting in your yard. The stack of TPS reports your asshole boss left on your desk. These have a direct negative impact on your life. Regardless of their agenda, politicians will always have less impact on us than our daily does of regular human bullshit.
Pessimistic as that may be, there’s an upshot. As many times as that dog shits on your grass, you might watch your favorite baseball team win. Or for every TPS report, you have a real sincere laugh at the water cooler. Think about the scope. Keep it in perspective.
Note: This is meant for the people who leaned hard into the move to Canada meme last time. Obviously, there are people who’s lives will be irrevocably be changed. Check your privilege and fight for those who lack it. People of conviction don’t hide.
The other thing to remember is that trump is too retarded to pass legislation. She’ll be right mate.
He doesn’t write the legislation, his corporate backers do and he signs
He’ll executive action everything and bypass the legislature entirely. Who will stop him? The courts?
The Senate does not have a filibuster-proof majority. They could potentially end the filibuster, but given that it’s the Republicans’ favorite tactic, there’s a decent chance they might not. Especially since the less extreme Republicans can use it as an excuse to let bills they don’t like die without having to vote against the.
The House margin is likely to be thin enough that the moderate Republicans will vote down the crazies. So even if the Senate ends the filibuster, the most egregiously stupid laws should still be stoppable.
Trump still has the ability to do a lot of damage, and he probably will. But if the Republicans piss off people too quickly, they’re likely to tank in 2026, with there being a decent chance to turn both the House and Senate blue and lame duck Trump for the rest of his presidency.
It’s going to be rough, but do not abandon hope.
One thing I know I’m going to be doing is reading “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)” by Dean Spade. From the first two paragraphs of the first chapter:
Mutual aid projects expose the reality that people do not have what they need and propose that we can address this injustice together. The most famous example in the United States is the Black Panther Party’s survival programs, which ran throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including a free breakfast program, free ambulance program, free medical clinics, a service offering rides to elderly people doing errands, and a school aimed at providing a rigorous liberation curriculum to children. The Black Panther programs welcomed people into the liberation struggle by creating spaces where they could meet basic needs and build a shared analysis about the conditions they were facing. Instead of feeling ashamed about not being able to feed their kids in a culture that blames poor people, especially poor Black people, for their poverty, people attending the Panthers’ free breakfast program got food and a chance to build shared analysis about Black poverty. It broke stigma and isolation, met material needs, and got people fired up to work together for change.
Recognizing the program’s success, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover famously wrote in a 1969 memo sent to all field offices that “the BCP [Breakfast for Children Program] represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP [Black Panther Party] and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.” The night before the Chicago program was supposed to open, police broke into the church that was hosting it and urinated on all of the food. The government’s attacks on the Black Panther Party are evidence of mutual aid’s power, as is the government’s co-optation of the program: in the early 1970s the US Department of Agriculture expanded its federal free breakfast program—built on a charity, not a liberation, model—that still feeds millions of children today. The Black Panthers provided a striking vision of liberation, asserting that Black people had to defend themselves against a violent and racist government, and that they could organize to give each other what a racist society withheld.
People in your community already need help. You and your friends can start building a mutual aid network today, one that can help queer people, black people, and women in need. You can decide what kind of aid you can provide. Maybe you’re offering rides to airports to women who need to travel out of state for medical care. Perhaps you’re providing safe places and spaces for the Trans population in your area. Whatever it is, you’ll feel more connected and more in control of your community, and put out a positive influence within it.
Along the way, you should also try and educate yourself so that you can educate others.
Plenty of great advice here, but one more thing to think about is how such a large win for Republicans can be used against them a bit in the future. They won the Presidency and have majorities in the Senate, likely the House, the Supreme Court, and governorships. They have free reign to do what they want, which is scary, but it also means that they can’t blame the Democrats for any bad things that may happen in the next 2 years until the midterms.
Any law that passes with bad outcomes is solely their fault. If the economy gets worse, it’s all on them. If the deficit increases, they are the only ones to blame. If they don’t fulfill their campaign promises, it’s because they chose not to. If there is a government shutdown, it’s because they couldn’t agree on a budget. If bills aren’t being passed, they are arguing too much. They can’t even fall back on blaming the Democrats in the Senate because they have enough votes that they could cancel the filibuster while they are in office and reinstate it before they leave.
This means that you, and everyone else, can point out anything the government does that has a negative impact and say definitively that it is entirely the fault of the Republicans. If this is done frequently enough and loud enough, there may be enough frustrated voters to change the outcome the next time around. They will definitely do things that annoy almost every voter, whether they are going too far or not far enough in their agenda, and they can’t hide that it was only them that made those decisions.
The next time around. Sure, Jan. it’s over.
What were you doing from early 2017 to early 2021? I suggest you do approximately that, unless you’ve grown out of things you were doing at the time of course.
This is the conclusion I came to and what has kept me positive. Remembering that, while there was a ton of shit happening, I had plenty of happy memories from that time too. I finally made new friends after moving out of my hometown and I’m still friends with them to this day. I remembered all the great moments and memories I made during that time.
Go fishing.
For real. Take some time to focus on something new and “pointless”. Soak in some gorgeous views and learn about your local waterways. Reconnect with the land around you.
Life’s easier with a clearer head.
Although I agree with the rest of the comment, I would suggest a less brutal activity, such as a hiking or bird watching.
These also require less equipment.
Catch and release fishing is fine for the fish. If you gut hook them and they won’t survive, well, you eat that one, but it’s also easier to avoid that if you know what sort of fish you’re looking for and change your hook/lure accordingly.
I don’t really get how hurting an animal and then NOT eating it, just for fun, is better than killing for food
Well you don’t want to eat every fish you catch, that’s not good for the fish population. You want to ensure you’re only taking fish that have had a chance to spawn, determined by size.
The point is that torturing animals is something that we probably shouldn’t recommend.
It is yanking a water animal by their mouth into an environment they cannot breathe. And if memory serves, fish have a lot of nerves in their mouths so that hurts a LOT, and even released ones have a reduced survival rate.
That “fun and wholesome” activity causes a lot of pain and stress to the victims, so it’s kinder to recommend something less cruel. Like birdwatching and photography.
Y’all, I’m very very vegetarian, but knocking this dude for recommending fishing is silly. “Fishing or another outside activity that seems relaxing to you” is implicit. People have different morals regarding animals and consumption. I get where you’re coming from, but “birdwatching is also a great activity!” is a better and more positive response imo.
That’s implying that fishing is a great activity. That is about as okay as saying it’s okay that people chose not to vote.
I did not state it in a mean way, I simply said it in a way that says please do not encourage animal abuse.
I do not think it’s a good thing to encourage animal abuse, and I don’t think good people should be encouraged to continue normalizing it.
Please don’t ask people to stay silent about cruelty. That’s helps keep it normalized.
@tamal3 is right.
Fucking hell, people, go touch some grass, go meet real human beings. Not everybody adheres to the moral code you construct in your head, and that is FINE!!
feeling stressed? go harm animals for fun.
As long as you are not overfishing and destroy the ecosystem, those fish are going to die to some natural predators anyways imo
Soak in some gorgeous views and learn about your local waterways. Reconnect with the land around you.
Good advice while those things last I guess.
A republican majority lead by an authoritarian effectively ends any possibility that climate change can be slowed or reversed within any of our lifetimes. Don’t think of it as the hottest summer on record… think of it as the coolest summer of the rest of your life.
Thanks for sharing that article. I actually haven’t heard of Mike Davis before, but following this article, I am now reading one of his essays.
