/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6282261]

>considering yourself a socialist or communist
>still drinking alcohol

What's the deal? Alcohol and other drugs are tools of oppression to keep the lower classes down.

[Anonymous No.6282277]

Because it is a pleasant anaesthetic which is preferable to the other methods they would use to keep the lower classes down if they went teetotal.

[Anonymous No.6282283]

>>6282277
The proletariat is more likely to revolt in the face of unpleasant means of control in contrast with bread and circuses though. Alcohol is the grease that keeps the wheels of capitalism and oppression turning.

[Anonymous No.6282296]

>tfw bourgeois
>tfw sipping on some fine wine

[Anonymous No.6282299]

Has anyone else noticed that Taoism is a tool for controlling/manipulating the lower class?

[Anonymous No.6282313]

>>6282261
The Comfortable Communist. Great book idea. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.6282314]

>>6282296
>tfw the bourgeois sip on fine wine while my fellow self-proclaimed "communists" waste away while polluting their veins with liquor and other mind-numbing drugs
>tfw the people who should be my comrades are playing right into the hands of the capitalist elite

[Anonymous No.6282321]

>>6282299
OP here, I agree with this too. Not just about Taoism though, most religions in general are used as a tool to subdue and pacify the working classes.

[Anonymous No.6282332]

>>6282321
Yeah, I agree with that. In my opinion, religion's primary purpose is to help cope with the knowledge that we all die.

[Anonymous No.6282337]

>>6282332
Forgot my self-aware fedora tip:

*tips fedora*

[Anonymous No.6282358]

>>6282299
care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.6282383]

>>6282299

All philosophies can be turned into means of oppression, including Marxism, by linking to them, through argument, practices that lead to oppression, and vice versa. Buddhism deployed in a consumer society is disruptive, in a society of deprivation, it is oppressive. Egoistic hedonism in a serfdom is disruptive, in a consumer capitalist culture it is oppressive.

The only thing that truly matters as far as Marxism goes is praxis. This is why nearly every Marxist project so far has failed. If you go back to Marx you see that his method is very historical for this reason: philosophy has to be examined in conjunction with history. You have to come to self-consciousness about your place in history if you want to truly change the world.

[Anonymous No.6282394]

I want to die as soon as I can but I'm too much of a coward to commit immediate suicide.

Alcohol and tobacco give me an alternative solution. Plus I like being drunk, so fuck off.

[Anonymous No.6282412]

>>6282383
OP here again, I find that a lot of the problems that modern communist movements are having are direct results of romanticization of early communists and their aesthetics and goals. I myself have even been doing that to an extent in this thread by posting old propaganda posters.

Communism needs to adapt to the modern world though. The proletariat are no long confined solely to sweaty factories, but can now be found behind desks and even in cubicles in front of a computer.

Technology is useful and will be indispensable for building the future. Our main goal these days should be to keep the people who work with technology from falling under the sway of capitalists who tempt them (and have honestly proven better at coercing them).

[Anonymous No.6282422]

>>6282299
Yeah, I figured that out a while ago. It's like Christianity minus the morals and afterlife.
>hurt good and bad are just words
>hurt just wander the Dao

[Anonymous No.6282432]

>2000+16-1
>communist
tell us about your other hopeless dreams OP I need a larf

[Anonymous No.6282433]

>>6282321


that's the best thing about it.

[Anonymous No.6282434]

>>6282394
Looks like you've fallen for the capitalists' tricks. They've got you paying them for your own slow death, while simultaneously anaesthetising yourself to keep you from threatening their schemes—advertently or otherwise.

At the same times the drugs you consume to ease your pain only lower the quality of life thus making you even more dependent on them. You can still escape this vicious cycle though, comrade.

[Anonymous No.6282448]

>>6282432
Read the thread, I'm as critical of modern alleged "communists" as you probably are.

I don't deny that it's probably a hopeless dream these days considering that most of my would-be allies have been completely subdued via capitalist baubles and poisons.

Maybe within a century or so it will happen though. All I can hope for is to possibly lay a foundation for future generations.

[Anonymous No.6282496]

>>6282358
I was mostly referring to how a decent portion of Taoism hinges upon "going with the flow". I think that going with the flow is great, but Taoism, any other "go with the flow" ideology, is inherently vulnerable to exploitation by people whom desire to pacify the lower class.

Just my $0.02 though. I think Taoism is great by the way.

[Anonymous No.6282503]

>>6282448
>these days
>Not always

[Anonymous No.6282522]

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH LITERATURE

[Anonymous No.6282528]

>>6282496
I'm not arguing with you but there is a lot more to Taoism than "going with the flow." That would be similar to characterizing communism as "sharing" I think people who think that passive acceptance=Taoism are easily manipulated no matter what class they are.

[Anonymous No.6282578]

>>6282528
Eh, admittedly I haven't read the Tao Te Ching in a while. Memory is fuzzy; I should have mentioned that in my first post.

And yes, I'm backpedaling because you insinuated that I'm easily manipulated.

Fuck, did you just manipulate me?

Ha

[Anonymous No.6282590]

>>6282503
You're exactly right, the communists of the past were doomed to fail too since they got overeager for revolution and tried to set up working communist systems before they had the technology necessary to support such a thing.

This is exactly why any modern communist movement that draws too much influence from our forerunners is doomed to fail. It didn't work back then and it definitely isn't going to work today in a completely different world, technologically speaking. My fellow communists need to catch up with modern civilization.

It doesn't help though that a lot of them today are just disgusting crypto-capitalist hippies. At least our communist forefathers had some dignity and weren't so easily persuaded by the allure of capitalist distractions.

[Anonymous No.6282594]

>>6282261
But I don't drink.

[Anonymous No.6282596]

>>6282590
You're never going to succeed. Communists are all delusional.
Are you even a member of the working class?

[Anonymous No.6282597]

>>6282594
Good, this message wasn't meant for you then. Keep up the good work, comrade.

[Anonymous No.6282613]

>>6282596
>You're never going to succeed. Communists are all delusional.

You're sort of right, the only thing holding our movement back is ourselves. As I've explained above I'm not exactly satisfied with the way contemporary communists/socialists do things.

>Are you even a member of the working class?

Yes, but I'd say the definition of "working class" has expanded since the days of Marx so maybe not by your standards.

It's not just manual laborers and such anymore.

[Anonymous No.6282621]

>>6282522
I'll take 'Who is Marx?' for 1000, Alex.

[Anonymous No.6282624]

>>6282613
Kek, you're just like every other Marxist. Enjoy your delusions of revolutionary grandeur and your Che Guevara shirts.

The day the workers of the world unite will be the day the sun sets in the north. The day a classless society exists will be the day there's one man left on Earth.

[Anonymous No.6282641]

>>6282624
>Enjoy your delusions of revolutionary grandeur and your Che Guevara shirts.

You aren't even reading what I'm posting, this is exactly what I'm criticizing.

I've already said that communism is essentially an impossible pipe dream in today's world. It was in the past too, only then it was due to technological limitations and now it's due to base human behavior.

I only hope that it can become a possibility within the next century or so, before capitalism becomes too unsustainable.

[Anonymous No.6282644]

>>6282522
jesus christ it'll be okay. Why do you put this much stock in a fucking weeaboo image board? Go read a book.

[Anonymous No.6282649]

>>6282641
It's always been due to technological limitations AND human behavior. That you don't understand this is the reason I'm calling you delusional.
Communism is always going to be an impossible dream.

[Anonymous No.6282662]

>>6282641
He's a meme poster who has probably never even read Marx, much less Pikkety. I wouldn't argue with him comrade.

[Anonymous No.6282668]

>>6282649
>It's always been due to technological limitations AND human behavior.

Wrong, in the past human behavior actually led to attempts at communism but they were ultimately held back by the technological limitations of the time (further amplified by the fact that none of the nations that revolved were even industrialized yet). Today we have the exact opposite problem, we have the technology but are being limited by capitalist bread and circuses.

The only communist state that I would say has managed to be successful against all odds is Vietnam, and even they just ended up becoming pseudo-capitalist.

[Anonymous No.6282671]

>>6282668
>revolved

*revolted lol

[Anonymous No.6282674]

>>6282668
Keep dreaming, buddy.

[Anonymous No.6282710]

I don't think alcohol keeps the lower classes down except for the ones who are really alcoholic.

[Anonymous No.6282712]

>>6282434
Uh huh, and you're going to sit there and pretend like Socialism and Communism don't exploit workers?

Right, we'll all just plow fields and be equals. There won't be any resentment toward the people who get cushy jobs in high positions from the people who bust their balls every day to feed the rest of us. That's because there won't be any class, because class is only inherent to Capitalism and inequality doesn't exist except as a byproduct of stripping the worker away from the means of ownership and production, right comrade? Someday we'll truly eradicate class, but only after we've killed all the Capitalists and assumed control. At that point, no one would ever dream of being ambitious enough to replace them.

You know what, you just reminded me of another reason I like being a drunk. It reminds me why I'm not a naive idealist like you.

Now pour me another or leave me alone to die slowly in peace, you clueless faggot.

[Anonymous No.6282734]

>>6282422
Chinese scholar here. Taoism could almost be described as the antithesis of Christianity. You have no clue what you're talking about. They're nothing alike.

[Anonymous No.6282740]

>>6282412
Poster of that.

We'd get along.

Lots of very dull folks in this thread.

>>6282590
>You're exactly right, the communists of the past were doomed to fail too since they got overeager for revolution and tried to set up working communist systems before they had the technology necessary to support such a thing.

Exactly. Marx said things happen in stages. You need to pay attention to the stage you're in, the historical context. You need to develop towards communism, not institute it yourself by force.

[Anonymous No.6282742]

>>6282734
Yeah, it's Christianity without the morals or afterlife, or in more obvious terms that others have already used ITT, alike only in that it occupies the lower classes while the upper classes do as they please with their labor power b

[Anonymous No.6282745]

>>6282710
If you're male and have more than two drinks a day I'd say you're an alcoholic (same if you're female but with one drink a day).

Approximately 6% of deaths globally (or roughly a little over 1/20) are attributable to alcohol (http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics).). Not to mention the devastating effects it has on social harmony as well, according to that same source approximately 10% of all American children grow up with an alcoholic parent.

This is purely anecdotal but I think it's also worth noting that political radicals, especially radical leftists such as communists, seem especially prone not only to alcohol but also harder and more damaging drugs.

If you consume intoxicating substances you are only damaging our cause and feeding the corporate capitalist system and thus are no comrade of mine.

[Anonymous No.6282746]

>>6282712
>people who get cushy jobs in high positions

You really don't understand communism if you think there'll be "high positions."

[Anonymous No.6282752]

>>6282261
>Alcohol and other drugs are tools of oppression to keep the lower classes down.
Pulling the bourgeois conspiracy card, I see.

[Anonymous No.6282767]

>>6282746
So there will be no positions of leadership? People will simply do what is best for everyone of their own accord and without management?

Furthermore, there will be no disagreements to be mediated? No one to say, "The buck stops here," and make a final determination? No differing plans for the best course of action?

Just harmony among those plowing the fields, which evidently we'll all be doing.

[Anonymous No.6282769]

>>6282742
No, it's not even like Christianity stripped of the morals or afterlife. Traditionally in Chinese culture (though not so much these days), the people adhered to Confucianism throughout most of their lives. Taoism has typically been studied by the privileged or the old and retired. Confucianism is more like Christianity than is Taoism, which, unlike the other two, is actually liberating.

[Anonymous No.6282789]

>>6282767
Taoism was encouraged by some ancient leaders in Asia due to the fact that it encouraged the populace to just relax and wait for things to get better instead of revolting or otherwise actually trying to change anything.

[Anonymous No.6282794]

>>6282789
Meant to be a response to >>6282769

[Anonymous No.6282812]

>>6282767
There's a difference between an abolition of career politicians and total anarchy, which is more what you describe. Everyone will have a say in decisions in the same way that everyone will have a share of what they produce and a share of the responsibility for producing it. That's what it means to have a stake in society.

Of course, all I've said here is more or less equivalent to describing democracy as "majority rules." Obviously "democracies" in practice have a much more complex polity that includes career politicians, hierarchical governments, separation of powers, etc. If you are interested in specific descriptions of how shared stake in society would be practiced under functioning socialism, you will find them in sympathetic literature. Everything from philosophical manifestos to genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.6282813]

>>6282742
This is the dumbest post I have read on /lit/ in my entire 2 years here.

[Anonymous No.6282826]

>>6282812
You're being naive. From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs has proven to be a flawed theory.

Humans are selfish and panicky. Deep down you are too. At the first you feel slighted or there are shortages, you will do what you can to get ahead of others. I'd like to believe in the goodwill of others, but it's a fucking fairy tale. History has shown as much.

The best you can hope for is Democratic Capitalism with Socialist leanings where needed (IE: govt. handling social issues related to health and security). Similar to what the Scandanavian countries have implemented. That's the best this world is going to get, at least in the near future. There's no use fighting for a cause that will never win. Fight for a system you can actually institute, which makes sense to most people, instead.

[Anonymous No.6282829]

>>6282826
You can't reason with him, he's read too much Marxist literature.

[Anonymous No.6282834]

>>6282826
Do you think there could be some heretofore unthought of system that is better than fascism, capitalism, communism, democracy and the rest combined?

[Anonymous No.6282840]

>>6282834
Possibly. But that ain't the reality in which I'm living. I don't have a crystal ball to see beyond into the future beyond my lifetime, so who knows?

For my intents and purposes, I tend to agree with Churchill's assessment that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those that came before and all those that are likely to come after.

[Anonymous No.6282844]

>>6282834


yeah feudalism

[Anonymous No.6282858]

>>6282826
Why would there be shortages of essential (and even some "luxury") goods and services? Most of the millions of people living in first world countries have never experienced a shortage of food, clean water, medical supply, etc. And good luck finding a place anywhere on earth with a shortage of smartphones or televisions. When people who live in rich countries don't have access to those things, it's not because of a "shortage" of supply, but a personal shortage of money. Lots of people can't afford to buy as much of all of those things as they need, but not because there aren't enough of them to go around.

Obviously not everyone who wants a Porsche 911 can have one, but maybe everyone can have a bicycle at least. "Hybrid socialism" doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't come with the political trappings of late capitalism. There's nothing inherently counter-revolutionary about trading money for scarce luxuries. If you are an accomplished artist and people are willing to pay you millions of dollars for your paintings, you have every right to buy an expensive, rare car, or even start a Formula 1 team and build your own cars, if you want to! And if I design amazing high-performance cars and sell them for millions of dollars to other rich people, I have every right to buy your paintings!

We have, or should strive to have, the resources and infrastructure to produce as much as everyone needs while continuing to have the necessary excesses to indulge in those luxuries and many others. Thus the "demise of socialism" turns from a problem of "selfish human nature" to a practical problem of supply that can be, and to a large extent already has been, overcome. The Scandinavian societies you mention are examples of rich countries that have begun to implement this, but there's no reason it shouldn't be much more complete.

But that's all economics. I'm still concerned about the career politicians and such things as I mentioned earlier. A workers' revolution demands more than just free food and iphones.

[Anonymous No.6282863]

Chomsky still goes on pub crawls in Dublin and he is 86

[Anonymous No.6282864]

>>6282858
>He doesn't realize how naive he is
>He doesn't realize this naiveté is what's wrong with the left
Do you think we live in a post-scarcity utopia or something?

[Anonymous No.6282866]

>>6282745
Well I'm female and have about three drinks a day, but I pretty much never even drink to tipsiness, so I don't think so.

Radical teetotalers are no comrades of mine, you're a crypto-liberal who would have been out with the old maid progressives of the early 20th Century while the workers laughed at you.

[Anonymous No.6282869]

>regulating your behaviour entirely on political/economic ideology

[Anonymous No.6282872]

>>6282858
Dude, you are so brainwashed I don't even know where to begin. I'll only say that there is a lot to pull apart in this post and I don't want to put in the effort needed to argue with you.

Good luck fighting your fight, brother. I was once a teenage rebel with these same ideas and assumptions, so I sympathize.

[Anonymous No.6282875]

>>6282866
Are you attractive? Because if you're female and attractive (and young) you can basically drink as often and as much as you want and be the apple of everyone's eye.

[Anonymous No.6282876]

>>6282866
Wanna meet up for a drink?

[Anonymous No.6282884]

Capitalism is the best system we currently have to implement.

The only major problem is with the excesses; it goes too far.

If we found a way to restrain capitalism we would be living in a bretty good society. Easier said than done though.

[Anonymous No.6282885]

>>6282869
>Not being a psychopathic psycbophant for the Glorious Leader and the Party
It's like you don't get the appeal of Marxism

[Anonymous No.6282895]

>>6282812
>There's a difference between an abolition of career politicians and total anarchy, which is more what you describe. Everyone will have a say in decisions in the same way that everyone will have a share of what they produce and a share of the responsibility for producing it. That's what it means to have a stake in society.

Vague bullshit.

Give me detailed model for how the post-capitalist economy will work and I'll make a judgement.

[Anonymous No.6282897]

>>6282884
The problem is inequality. Especially in a global economy where the gap between have's and have-not's can no longer be ignored. The impoverished are no longer unaware of how the other half live and they're not as easily tricked out of their representation.

Those restraints are coming, it's just a matter of time. But overthrowing Capitalism altogether, like this faggot OP suggests, is foolish. We still need some means of producing things with a degree of spontaneity rather than always chasing to meet quotas for the essentials.

My hope is that, long after I'm gone, better automation will correct scarcity or at least off-set it a bit.

[Anonymous No.6282907]

>>6282864
I think we have a surplus of essential resources per capita in the developed countries, which is true. Even if we allow for nuanced factors that I'm surely overlooking (distribution? Who knows. But let's say that there's some reason I'm wrong about the above), there's no reason we couldn't or shouldn't have a "post-scarcity utopia." I'm arguing that the establishment of the infrastructure to achieve that, including dismantling establishments that benefit from the opposition of it, should be a priority of the left.

>>6282872
Fine. I don't know I'm right. I think most people agree that issues like "wealth inequality" and "stagnant wages" are important, but if there were an obvious and practical solution, why wouldn't we implement it? So reasonably it seems like it must be much more complicated than anything someone could write about in a few thousand words. But I'm just exploring an idea to which I don't see any downside.

[Anonymous No.6282912]

>>6282897
>you were born too early
>you will never live in a post-scarcity society largely run by automation

[Anonymous No.6282917]

>>6282907
>there's no reason we couldn't or shouldn't have a "post-scarcity utopia.

[Anonymous No.6282924]

>>6282895
>Vague bullshit.
I agree. I'm not smart enough to design a robust and resilient system of laws, even though I know what values I feel they should enshrine. Many authors with socialist leanings have attempted to do this, and their ideas are probably not flawless either.

If nothing else, I admire the founders of the United States for designing such a powerful and long-lived constitutional system, even if it was too vague to resist almost immediate perversion.

[Anonymous No.6282929]

>>6282907
>I think we have a surplus of essential resources per capita in the developed countries

Where do you think that comes from? Capitalism has made that possible by allowing Colonial nations to go into the colonies and set up means of cheap labor and the extraction of natural resources at virtually no cost.

The reason the West lives a first world existence is precisely because they do it at the expense of the third world. If you're sincere about Communism you would be freeing the billions in factories, oil fields, and mines across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, to be set loose upon the West.

[Anonymous No.6282930]

>>6282917
Why?

[Anonymous No.6282933]

>>6282924
You sound like a dumb and self-righteous 16 year old.

[Anonymous No.6282935]

>>6282875
So what, what's your point? My being the apple of everyone's eye has nothing to do with my point, which is that if you start telling the workers to stop drinking or else you'll excommunicate them from comradeship, you'll look like a sanctimonious bourgeois. Workers drinking together are at their peak of solidarity.

>>6282876
I have a bf

[Anonymous No.6282948]

>>6282930
Because we don't have the technology and your vague assertions that we have the resources don't have any data to back them up. If you provided data and not just posturing I might give your vague ideas more thought.

[Anonymous No.6282955]

Reminder that all attempt at political or social change is pointless because it will never be stable or permanent and you won't live to see the change you instill.

[Anonymous No.6282961]

>>6282955
Ten bucks says Lenin thought the social change he instilled was permanent and that's all that matters to him, but yes you are right really.

[Anonymous No.6282962]

>>6282935
My point is no one wants to drink with me, let alone listen to my smelly drunk ass rant about life, because I'm miserable and I don't have tits. Camaraderie is easier for some than others.

Check your privilege before that next drink you didn't pay for arrives.

[Anonymous No.6282967]

>>6282929
Because of that unrestrained extraction and exploitation, the rich countries have now established enough of a surplus to sincerely investigate alternatives. Maybe we can find ways to create that value with minimal human impact. I hope we can. Those solutions will be scalable, and their products will allow their application to be extended to all the people of the world.

The stolen wealth of neocolonial capitalism gives us both the ability and the responsibility to correct its wrongs.

[Anonymous No.6282971]

>>6282962
Kek, are you one of the whiny /r9k/ faggots who unfortunately browse this board when you're not too busy shitting yourself in front of your mother?

[Anonymous No.6282973]

>>6282933
Why does that bother you?

[Anonymous No.6282979]

>>6282866
>Radical teetotalers are no comrades of mine, you're a crypto-liberal who would have been out with the old maid progressives of the early 20th Century while the workers laughed at you

Except all the early communists were teetotalers, read a history book. All the secular members of the temperance movement were communist. Alcohol was banned in post-revolutionary Russia for almost a decade and several more major temperance movements cropped up there over the years even after that.

You're a degenerate, and if not capitalist in ideology you are in action.

[Anonymous No.6282980]

>>6282967
>The stolen wealth of neocolonial capitalism gives us both the ability and the responsibility to correct its wrongs.
>ability
This seems like an assumption that needs backing up.
>>6282973
If you're representative of the average leftist or Marxist, then it's reason enough for me to want to distance myself from your movement.

[Anonymous No.6282982]

>>6282962
>>>/r9k/

[Anonymous No.6282984]

>>6282962
lol wtf are you talking about? Workers drinking together is often an all-male affair.

[Anonymous No.6282985]

>>6282948
I'm refuting the earlier claim:
>Humans are selfish and panicky. Deep down you are too. At the first you feel slighted or there are shortages, you will do what you can to get ahead of others. I'd like to believe in the goodwill of others, but it's a fucking fairy tale. History has shown as much.
My argument is that the obstacle is not "human selfishness" but a much more practical and solvable problem of resources. The question of whether or not we have the "technology" to provide all essentials to all people today is irrelevant. If resource availability is the only obstacle, I argue that we ought to be trying to overcome that.

[Anonymous No.6282989]

>>6282866
>wants to ban alcohol
>"liberal"

Holy shit Americans are retarded.

[Anonymous No.6282993]

>>6282924
Why should I join your revolution if there's no guarantee things will get any better?

Even if things aren't perfect, it's too nice and cozy in the western world for a revolution. I actually agree that we could do better than capitalism. But nobody is going to take the plunge.

I like David Schweickart's Economic Democracy as a idea for how a socialist society could function. If a party advocated it, I'd vote.

[Anonymous No.6282994]

>>6282979
Alcohol as community bonding has existed since before private property, babe

[Anonymous No.6282996]

>>6282971
If it makes you feel better to imagine me that way, then sure, that's exactly who I am.

The point I'm making to you is that there are sub-classes within classes. Being an attractive female in any class, whether working or bourgeois, makes you more desirable and easier to commodify in a system where all things are themselves commodities (even labor, beauty, and lifestyle). You can pretend like alcohol isn't a destructive force, to some extent, in the workforce but that hardly makes it true. And, furthermore, you being a young attractive female (if you actually are and aren't trolling) are probably the person least equipped to speak for the "solidarity of workers" created by drinking.

[Anonymous No.6282998]

>>6282769
>In 2009, for the first time women (and ethnic minorities and people living overseas) were officially recognized as being descendants of Confucius.[57] These additions more than tripled the number of officially recognized descendants of Confucius.[57]

[Anonymous No.6283002]

>>6282989
>Most progressives, especially in rural areas, adopted the cause of prohibition.[46] They saw the saloon as political corruption incarnate, and bewailed the damage done to women and children. They believed the consumption of alcohol limited mankind's potential for advancement.[47] Progressives achieved success first with state laws then with the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919. The golden day did not dawn; enforcement was lax, especially in the cities where notorious criminal gangs, such as the Chicago gang of Al Capone made a crime spree based on illegal sales of liquor in speakeasies. The "experiment" (as President Hoover called it) also cost the treasury large sums of taxes and the 18th amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1933.[48]

[Anonymous No.6283006]

>>6282994
>Alcohol as community bonding

Yeah, bonding under capitalism.

Enjoy poisoning your body with a drug that makes you stupid and paying megacorporations for the privilege to do so, fellow "communist".

[Anonymous No.6283014]

>>6282996
Your sex has zero to do with your class, except incidentally. Class is completely a matter of economics. You think being better equipped to get a job as a waitress or prostitute puts me in some superior economic class?

[Anonymous No.6283016]

>>6283002
>thinking progressive = liberal

Further confirming my statement that Americans are retarded and don't even know what words mean.

[Anonymous No.6283018]

>>6282985
I don't think you understand human nature. People are inherently selfish, flawed, etc. If you don't think the Revolution is always doomed to eat itself you should read more theory and learn some history. You're an idealistic fool.
>>6282996
>>>/r9k/

[Anonymous No.6283021]

>>6282299
Wrong. It rejects both progress and identity, and says the best government avoids interfering with the lives of others, and stops others from interfering with the lives of others.

[Anonymous No.6283023]

>>6283002
To be fair, you're talking Pre-Depression Era politics. Things have shifted since then.

Americans like to drink, we're just uptight about it. We like to make an event of drinking ("I'm going out tonight to get drunk!") and treat it like a substitute for other social engagements. In other countries it's not uncommon for people to casually drink at lunch on a workday. We'd crucify that person in America.

[Anonymous No.6283024]

You will never change the system anyway. The way i see it, we have dug ourselves into a hole that we won't ever (well, maybe not ever, but not for quite a long time) get out of. The west largely pushes individualism as one of the highest vales. This means that people will never work on enough of a mass scale to change much to a significant extent. People just splinter into various factions and ideologies all fighting each other, this combined with the other dominant idea of democracy, means that change isn't possible. Too many people think differently and fight each other. The best you will see is compromise and concessions that will ultimately make no one happy.

[Anonymous No.6283026]

>>6283006
I will.

Fags like you are part of the reason the working classes are choosing the far right over the far left across Europe.

[Anonymous No.6283028]

>>6283006
Alcohol as bonding has is not a product of capitalism, it predates class. In itself it has zero to do with capitalism, it can be produced and marketed by capitalism, capitalism can give us an imperative to enjoy it, but that doesn't make alcohol tied to capitalism by some sort of essence.

[Anonymous No.6283029]

>>6283024
I can't help but notice that you've got a lot of opinions and no solid arguments.

[Anonymous No.6283033]

ITT: Everything wrong with the left

[Anonymous No.6283035]

>>6283016
But I do drink casually. I have beer with breakfast and cheap wine with lunch and dinner.

[Anonymous No.6283040]

>>6283014
No, I think you're being a woman has certain benefits at the bar. Again, it's especially advantageous to be attractive because you can better determine your value, as an otherwise underprivileged member of society given the gift of beauty that others cannot possess or earn unnaturally, in a society that uses capital as a measurement for all things.

For every whore in the world there's a coal miner too. But a coal miner has never received money for being pretty.

[Anonymous No.6283041]

>>6283026
The far left doesn't follow through on what it stands for, so there's that too.

[Anonymous No.6283049]

>>6283040
I almost never drink at a bar, except when I go out with my bf, and I pay for the drinks half the time.

A coal miner hasn't had to be literally sodomized and stick a penis in his mouth to get by, and I'm sure plenty of coal miners prefer their jobs to that.

[Anonymous No.6283051]

>>6283028
Before capitalism it served as a tool for feudalism, and so on and so on.

The point is that it's a valuable tool for making the masses passive and submissive.

>>6283026
So they're choosing the far right because the far right is offering to further sedate them in place of liberation?

[Anonymous No.6283055]

>>6282993
>it's too nice and cozy in the western world for a revolution
I agree that this is a difficult problem. It's hard to fix something that's only a little broken without making it a lot worse. Just try fixing a small bug in a GNU/Linux installation and you'll see what I mean. That's why I'm very interested in hearing about "iterative" approaches that promote revolutionary goals without requiring a specific revolutionary event.

[Anonymous No.6283061]

>>6283051
Alcohol doesn't make proles passive and submissive, babe.

[Anonymous No.6283063]

>>6283061
Yes it does.

[Anonymous No.6283065]

>>6283055
Establishment of a dual power system followed by a subsequent dismantling of the now obsolete capitalist state.

[Anonymous No.6283080]

>>6283061
It really does, it also puts a huge unnecessary strain on any nation's healthcare system that uses up valuable resources and makes it more difficult to provide care to people who need it for things beyond their control as opposed to things that are the result of stupid life decisions (i.e. literally drinking a weak poison every day).

[Anonymous No.6283100]

>>6283080
And this is why Communism can never work, Comrade.

You want to say we're all in this together until someone chooses to live a life that doesn't conform to the standards you've established as the proper way to live. As a result, you can castigate them for taking away from the collective and make them a pariah. You can do this with all things that involve thought and action, not just drinking, and bring forth justifications to enforce justice against those who do not abide.

Like it or not, the appeals of Democracy and Capitalism are that they allow individuals to exercise choice and constantly assert their individuality. Although it cuts both ways and those consequences are usually encumbered individually as well.

[Anonymous No.6283128]

>>6283100
Communism entails individual responsibility even more than capitalism. An individual has a duty to the society they benefit from, and society has a duty to every individual.

However, if you choose to literally drink poison until it starts to kill you and then expect society to bail you out at the cost of the lives of people who didn't make stupid decisions, you have failed in your individual duty to society.

Crypto-capitalists like you who only nominally support communist ideals because they don't want to work and want society to pay for all their mistakes are the worst kinds of people. At least people who support capitalism ideologically sometimes manage to accomplish things.

[Anonymous No.6283146]

>>6283128
Why should I have faith in, and follow diligently, a society that will abuse me for one false step? Who is the state to determine what I should find important?

The state's job is to use my tax money for greater purpose (like caring for those who've destroyed their lives via alcohol) not to moralize and decide who does and does not deserve compassion based on pragmatic usefulness.

You would have been glad to drive Boxer to the glue factory, wouldn't you?

[Anonymous No.6283152]

Been talk of how the masses engage in 'bread and circuses' in this thread, but isn't that exactly what you do/are doing?

I bet very few of you too none are politically active. 4chan itself is a circus. Literature and art in general is essentially just escapism.

[Anonymous No.6283155]

>>6283152
This

[Anonymous No.6283162]

>>6283146
>one false step

Drinking poison every day of your life until it ruins your body when all the evidence is constantly available and even being shoved in your face that it's dangerous and will kill you is hardly "one false step".

You're making a constant and continuous decision to ruin your own body and mind with alcohol consumption. It's not a mistake, it's a constant decision that you have to keep making every day.

>The state's job is to use my tax money for greater purpose (like caring for those who've destroyed their lives via alcohol)

Utilizing resources to save degenerate alcohol addicted scum who intentionally destroyed their own bodies instead of using them to save people who are sick for reasons beyond their own control is hardly a "greater purpose".

[Anonymous No.6283163]

>>6282834
Technocracy

[Anonymous No.6283168]

>>6283152
Just trying to reach a mass audience. Class consciousness is impossible without dialogue.

[Anonymous No.6283181]

>>6283162
You can do both, moron. And technically alcoholism is itself a sickness and addiction may as well be a disease.

But nevermind all of that. How about this:

Your society is boring. You're boring and way too rational. No one wants to live in your boring society where alcohol is a "poison," and sex should only be used to create more industrious citizens eager to work.

Half the reason so many people have disengaged with politics in first-world societies is precisely because they see them as amoral, even corrupt, institutions trying to dole out advice on how to best and most efficiently live life, all while pretending not to profit from their efforts and turn a blind eye to their sufferings. What you're suggesting would only create more ennui among people, not cure it.

[Anonymous No.6283188]

>>6283168
Whose class consciousness is being expanded or created by this thread?