"They Live" is a fun movie, and like Marxism, it certainly taps inot the vague, nearly universal "everything is wrong" vibe that affects nearly everyone but especially young adults. Other examples: The Matrix. Philip Dick and Stanislaw Lem (perhaps the most underrated SF author ever) made careers out of this emotion. For a modern incarnation on Netflix, check out Black Mirror, particular "15 Million Merits"[1]. Powerful stuff.
When I step back and look at the world, for all of our terrible mistakes, we (the western capitalist states) really are the good guys, because personally and politically, overwhelmingly, we really do despise the despots, and the racists, and the needless violence and barbarism that rises to power in too many places in the world. More than once we've spilled blood and spent money not to benefit ourselves, but to stop something evil from happening to others. And no, this doesn't excuse the fact that we've spilled even more blood for our own selfish ends, be they resources or the assertion of misguided idealism.
Consumerism, unlike unjust war, is a trickier beast to slay. Why? Because it's good in one important way! Consumption really does drive an economy, which is good for people's bellies, and well-fed people are pretty happy (watch Triumph of the Will[2] and notice how often Riefenstahl shows food and people eating). The urge to consume, and all the messaging that goes into it, are manipulative, but it manipulates us into wealth. (Heaven help us all when even the elite can't ignore the externalities of this approach, particularly WRT climate!) We will soon see if virtual goods can thread this needle.
>Once we’ve put on the glasses, what do we do? Where are the aliens, and how do we start killing them?
As anti-authoritarian as I am, I still can't get behind killing anyone. Maybe it's naive, but I really believe in non-violent (not passive) resistance. Ghandi, MLK, Aung Yung Suu Kyi - they show us the remarkable power of patience, love, and unyielding persistence.
> When I step back and look at the world, for all of our terrible mistakes, we (the western capitalist states) really are the good guys, because personally and politically, overwhelmingly, we really do despise the despots, and the racists, and the needless violence and barbarism that rises to power in too many places in the world.
The history of western capitalist states has largely been one of rampant colonialism. [1] Post-WW2, the U.S. has overthrown countless governments, often democratic ones, to install regimes that would carry out U.S. policy, and serve western national and corporate interests. [2]
> As anti-authoritarian as I am, I still can't get behind killing anyone.
Except for the covert coups and the mass genocides. Those are nothing to worry about and can be written off as "misguided idealism", since we "really are the good guys".
I am not a cold war historian. Let's take something more recent, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There was a great deal of killing in that war, and all of it under false pretenses in the service of the neocon idea that overthrowing Saddam would have a domino effect in the region, and create a democratic, liberal middle east free of it's oppressive dictatorships.
It was wrong, it was stupid; but the goal was right. The various Arab Springs proved that. Governments in the middle-east are terrible and oppressive. And sure, these sick states exist because of historical western imperialism and the aftermath of WWI, and are more recently maintained by oil revenue. Fine. The fact remains that democracy is better and ideally there would be democracy (and yes, capitalism) in the middle east.
Maybe I'm totally wrong. But my personal experience here was good, and it doesn't seem evil to give other people the same benefits I got. My parents were poor high school graduates who created a small business that put me through college and made them wealthy. Western capitalism gave them that opportunity. It also gave them the ability to worship how they wanted, and encouraged them to tolerate, and appreciate, people of other races, creeds and religions. If there's a nation or a system of government that gives those benefits without any of the drawbacks, then I'm all ears, programmarchy! The incompetent and frankly evil ways in which we've tried to protect and spread that system are shameful, but it doesn't undermine the value of the system.
(This assumes, of course, that our goal is to spread our way of life throughout the world, and not just consolidate control of natural resources for the Fatherland's inordinate consumption, a la Rome).
I'm not sure anyone tried a really Marxist society on any scale. I think the hippie communes were getting there. Any communist/marxist country (basically any country with the word "Democratic" in its name) was basically state capitalist. The state (a small number of elites) owned the means of production with the people as inefficient, unmotivated labor.
Many people tried Marsism on a scale, but non of them managed to scala so it changed. By this very effect marxist are able to say 'marxism was not realy tried at scala'.
> Any communist/marxist country (basically any country with the word "Democratic" in its name)
Democratic is much older then marxism. Dont spread lies.
> was basically state capitalist
Revolutionarys with the EXPRES goal of marism took power and then transform them self into dictatorships. These dictatorships are then named 'state capitalist' to avoid self reflection on the marxist parts. How can a system that was created by stealing and centralising everybodys private property be capitalist, thats the exact opposite.
Just because the state is dominated by a elite and this elite has simular powers over property (right to profit, controll and transact) it is not in any way capitalist.
> people as inefficient, unmotivated labor.
The labor was unmotivated and inefficient because these countrys did a horrible job at building a system that provided for the very people they clamed to protoct and thus these people were very much in the mood for another change. As response to this these marxist revolutionary quickly turn into 'state capitalist'. The Communist policys of 1919-1921 where so terrible that lenin, trosky and bukharin agree that they had to come up with something diffrent as fast as possible, whitch lead Bukahrin to rewritte the hole system in the next 2 month and the NEP was born. This NEP was very much a return to pre 1917 (and people in ruissa had jokes about this) and it was a system that was completly unable to reach the partys goal (rapid industrialisation) anytime soon.
So this is just on example, Bukahrin had for years thought about how he would like a economic system to work, in a couple of month in 1921 he rewrote his ideals to something that was in many ways a return to zarist economics. Ideal fall out of the window when you need to stay in power and that is exactly why 'real marixm tm' has never been tried in the view of marxists.
>> Any communist/marxist country (basically any country with the word "Democratic" in its name)
> Democratic is much older then marxism. Dont spread lies.
That isn't what the quote you responded to was saying. It means "If the country has the exact string 'Democratic' in its name, it was/is communist/Marxist". For example, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
> These dictatorships are then named 'state capitalist' to avoid self reflection on the marxist parts.
This is dishonest, because it means Marxism can never fail: If it fails, it's "state capitalist" (a nonsense category), and was never Marxist to begin with! It's just a lie to keep Marxism from ever looking bad.
Practically speaking, whenever communism or some flavor of it was tried in scale they ended up running a large monopolar corporation, which they called "the state". It was state capitalism because the state owned all the capital.
Capitalism, is short for "private capital" a strange form of communism where anyone can own the means of production if they figure out how to.
The United States, for all its flaws, is really the only country where ANYBODY, and I mean ANYBODY, with enough gumption can become a major owner of capital.
When I step back and look at the world, for all of our terrible mistakes, we (the western capitalist states) really are the good guys, because personally and politically, overwhelmingly, we really do despise the despots, and the racists, and the needless violence and barbarism that rises to power in too many places in the world. More than once we've spilled blood and spent money not to benefit ourselves, but to stop something evil from happening to others. And no, this doesn't excuse the fact that we've spilled even more blood for our own selfish ends, be they resources or the assertion of misguided idealism.
Consumerism, unlike unjust war, is a trickier beast to slay. Why? Because it's good in one important way! Consumption really does drive an economy, which is good for people's bellies, and well-fed people are pretty happy (watch Triumph of the Will[2] and notice how often Riefenstahl shows food and people eating). The urge to consume, and all the messaging that goes into it, are manipulative, but it manipulates us into wealth. (Heaven help us all when even the elite can't ignore the externalities of this approach, particularly WRT climate!) We will soon see if virtual goods can thread this needle.
>Once we’ve put on the glasses, what do we do? Where are the aliens, and how do we start killing them?
As anti-authoritarian as I am, I still can't get behind killing anyone. Maybe it's naive, but I really believe in non-violent (not passive) resistance. Ghandi, MLK, Aung Yung Suu Kyi - they show us the remarkable power of patience, love, and unyielding persistence.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8