Why are there people who believe that this is a bad thing, and is it a bad thing? What is bad about it if at all?

once the global south kickstarts revolution en masse, how can socialists in the u.s. realistically offer support when all we've seen from them this century is theoretical debates ad infinitum instead of praxis, bark no bite 'nonprofit' orgs already infiltrated by gov intelligence, stratified rainbow coalition, ineffective protests with no ulterior strategic wins, 0 mutual aid safety net(works) for the lumpenproletariat on strike, unionized complacency, myopic class war focus that doesn't reckon with anti-Blackness, 2nd amendment apprehension and the ouroboros of a mutually beneficial corrupt two party system that co-opts any trending leftist mode of thought?

North Korea is not a socialist state

bad actor

decades of propaganda

Why weren’t there any successful socialist revolutions in industrialized countries like Marx predicted?

thread went surprisingly well all things considered

People mostly believe this is a bad thing due to decades of intense propaganda. But with the renewed labor movement in the United States, I think you're seeing a shift in people's perspectives on that.

Beyond that, there were bad things that happened in Marxist-Leninist states to workers, such as in the Soviet Union and China. The Great Purge, the human toll of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, all racked up heavy body counts. The numbers are usually very distorted in the west as a tool for anti-communist propaganda, but a lot of that s*** did in fact happen.

Rather than viewing this as a detriment to socialism, I view it as a byproduct of both the conditions these countries were under at the time, and a microcosm of the times themselves. It's my personal conviction that Marx was centuries ahead of his time, and while I am proud of the Soviet Union and Maoist China (I don't hate modern China either, but I don't consider them really socialist), I believe that humanity can advance upon their platforms. Societies such as Cuba have demonstrated that revolutionary socialist systems of the 20th century can be modernized on their own explicitly Marxist terms as well. It was a miracle that socialism even took root in 1922, and I believe we will see an even stronger wave of revolutionary action in the future.

Marx

Honestly, from my perspective, we just gotta let s*** fall apart some more. If we refuse to vote for either of the two major parties, are doing organizational work across socialist or decolonial lines in a way that is disruptive to the politico-economic status quo of the country (i.e. running with a socialist party, organizing a trade/tenants union, an explicitly socialist community defense organization, teaching theory to workers), and are generally mindful of our consumption habits, trying to reel in how much we support products made in the global south through exploited labor, that's about all we can realistically do within the imperial core itself for now. S*** is just gonna need to get a lot worse to get people mobilized and radicalized.

There are, from my perspective, a lot of reasons for this. I'll try to break them down:

1) Propaganda (Wealthy countries have massive resources that can be allocated to propaganda efforts to scare people away from, or manufacture consent for, anything. Ever since the Soviet Union, even to this day, there's effectively a budget within the bourgeoisie that goes to propagandizing workers against socialism. It predates the USSR as well, but it really ramped up once the country got established.)

2) Nascent liberal democracies (At the time of socialism's proliferation as an ideology, which is some time during the 1840s and into the 1910s, liberal democracies were still considered very radical political institutions, and many developed western countries were either pursuing their establishment or enjoying their newfound "democracies". The appeal of armed struggle in the developed world thus declined due to the existing popularity of liberal democracies, coupled with their relative newness as an existent political force. Many people were also just fatigued by political violence.)

3) A kinda sad reality for the human race (Marx thought that enough workers in any capitalist country with a well-developed proletariat would see through the grift of bourgeois society. He thought it was practically inevitable. He was partially right. Many people did come to see the grift for what it was, but many could care less because their material needs on a day-to-day basis are being met by bourgeois society. Sadly, it seems that if proletarians are afforded a comfortable enough material standard of living through a reasonable (40-50 hour) work week, they really don't consistently care about revolution.

As animals, we are instinctively primed to ensure our survival, and to view "the elements" and "the unknown" as hostile to our survival, by virtue of either not understanding or not knowing what something is. While many of us can either see the big picture or are morally repulsed by the shortcomings of bourgeois society (both ideally), many folks don't initially, and have no desire to learn. Their needs are met, the system works well enough for them, they are able to live their lives in peace and comfort, and if they are upset about some social/political issue, they have the illusion of a democratic system to engage with to pacify that anger. And unless what they're angry about is making their stomach growl or putting them out on the street, the anger will never be enough to drive these types to revolution.

Revolutions take place in places where people are the most desperate. Poverty and struggle seems to bring humans together. The middle-class lifestyle and even the material standard of living the majority of Americans across class lines have access to (thanks to exploiting the global south and colonizing indigenous land) is good enough to pacify most people. We're not as rational as we wish we were collectively.

@Ulyanov_ spill the beans about the goat Paulo Freire

so ur trying to f***

settle down sir

because of extremely thorough and violent suppression of them

Can you be a socialist if you got a small circle

Just saw The New Jim Crow on my TBR list

It's a long list but I'll get to that book

Y’all got bad b****es?

Do I have to be social to be a socialist? What if I’m an introvert

Is there reading or essays that kind of explain the dumbass truth that being socialist doesn't mean to be broke or not wanting to earn more in life.

Everyone thinks that if you want to be socialist you aren't allowed to enjoy life or have items to yourself

I'd honestly just read Marx. He distinguishes very easily between asceticism and socialism. Socialism has never been traditionally conflated with living a mediocre, overly modest, and/or precarious life. It just is also not about luxuriance and domination. Socialism is mostly meant, above all else, to transcend capitalism upon it reaching a very mature stage of development. Otherwise capitalism will, as we are seeing now, either destroy our planet, or our species, or both.

We do but they might either be insane or serially unfaithful so tread lightly

why

Don’t feed the troll I’m surprised bro ain’t banned for flooding every single thread with this dumb s***

Oh boy here we go again

I mean, I've never seen the account give a half decent reason. Just throws out the ole "fuck u I don't like u"

why would you even entertain it when you know its gonna be some butthurt irrelevant bullshit