where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.
EDIT: i just added the link
Funny, I wouldn’t consider myself an “Orthodox Marxist,” I’d say that my positions have been influenced more by Lenin, if anything I tend to view Marx as somewhat dated and inaccessible. I just mean to say, a lot has happened since Marx was alive and it’s important to look at what has been tried and what has succeeded and failed rather than rigidly adhering to, well, “Orthodox” Marxism.
so you’re a simple leninist?
I would still call myself a Marxist-Leninist. Lenin was obviously heavily influenced by Marx, and it’s not like I have a particular problem with Marx. And I would say that Lenin is also a little dated, less so than Marx, but no matter who you’re talking about, they existed in specific material conditions and their ideas do not necessarily apply to all times and places - that’s a big part of what Marxism-Leninism is all about, adapting policy to specific material conditions, and not adhering rigidly to theory.
Really, the specific label is not that important. An ideological label is only a rough descriptor of a person’s views, and there can be a lot of differences between people who use the same label, because it is not trivial to figure out how to adapt their ideas to the modern day. Marxism-Leninism gives people the gist, without worrying about the obscure nuances of terms like “Orthodox Marxism” or “Centrist Marxism” that most people won’t be familiar with.
I definitely agree with this - the point of Marxism is that your exact policies should depend on your material conditions. The Bolshevik Party is a good example of this. At some points, they advanced workplace democracy; at others, they returned Bourgeois managers to the factories. At times they supported individually owned farms, and at others forcibly collectivized ones, and at still others allowed for privately owned plantations. Lenin called for the party to participate in Bourgeois elections, but the vast majority of Bolsheviks took the ultra-left position and boycotted them. Sometimes decentralization is preferable - but centralization is often necessary! These are all dialectics that cannot be resolved dogmatically.
do you have any videos on marxist theory that i can watch without losing focus quickly?
Luna Oi! - How to think like a Vietnamese communist - an introduction to dialectical materialism (40 mins)
Michael Parenti for short attention spans (10 mins)
i went with the shorter 10-minute one (with subway surfers), and i think michael parenti has a point: if you look past the authoritarianism of countries such as cuba, china, vietnam, laos or north korea, you’d find that there’s much more to these countries than their government; pyongyang is a pretty interesting city - it had an unfinished hotel that looks pretty cool, some of the apartment buildings reminds me of those eastern kentucky university dorm buildings in richmond, ky, and mount paektu is beautiful. cuba, china, vietnam, laos also have beautiful sceneries.
one thing you have to know that you DON’T see anyone begging for money or runaway people asking for sex because socialism helps solve economic inequalities by giving production to the people. seriously!