12-17-2016, 07:41 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-17-2016, 09:48 AM by FireIceTalon.)
(12-17-2016, 06:41 AM)Archon_Wing Wrote: Wow. I'd thought I'd never see more people willing to say that. Not willing to get into this debate, but you have my respect.
Well, quite a few communists feel that the welfare state only strengthens the capitalist system and thus reject more short-term goals for the working class. I firmly disagree with this position though, because it inadvertently puts the blame on the welfare state instead of on capitalism itself. In other words, if we abolished capitalism, we wouldn't need a welfare state to begin with! Abolishing the welfare system though, will not abolish capitalism or its evils. I've been accused by some comrades as being Reformist or a social democrat, but this slander is frivolous since I support welfare gains only as temporary measures and not as an end, nor as a method of trying to gradually reform socialism into existence. I adamantly support Luxemburgs position of revolution as being the only way to bring about socialism and eventually communism.
But to allow people to suffer for the sake of ideological purity is pretty cruel, and thus why I am in favor of social gains and benefits as long as capitalism exists. Besides, workers obtaining reforms also allows them to see the limitations of said reforms.
I've made it quite clear by now that I am as vehemently anti-capitalist as you can get, and that socialism cannot be obtained through reform. But within its context, the gutting of the welfare state and austerity that has become commonplace nowadays, has been a most devestating experience that has put many working families in dire straights, and misery. Its hard to prove directly, but I bet one of the leading causes of clinical depression and drug use is being poor, living from paycheck to paycheck and suffering from financial insecurity. Even though its for different reasons, communists who oppose the welfare state are almost as bad as the liberals/conservatives who oppose and dismantle it all the time.
Quote:You certainly have more faith in humanity than many here, but we will see if it pays off.
Maybe. But I question it all the time. Seeing all the bad shit that goes down in the world, its impossible for me not to. I haven't officially been diagnosed, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have mild-moderate depression, and I'm pretty certain I have anxiety - though part of that is from being on the spectrum. Today some white kid that plays on a high school football team who raped one of his teammates, a mentally disabled, black kid in October of last year got off by pleading to a lesser charge and only has to do 300 hours community service. If the situation had been reversed, we all know there would have been jail time for the black kid. Its disgusting, and shit like this REALLY makes me question my faith in humanity.
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"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (on capitalist laws and institutions)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (on capitalist laws and institutions)