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Leftist Infighting: A community dedicated to allowing leftists to vent their frustrations

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The purpose of this community is sort of a "work out your frustrations by letting it all out" where different leftist tendencies can vent their frustrations with one another and more assertively and directly challenge one another. Hostility is allowed, but any racist, fascist, or reactionary crap wont be tolerated, nor will explicit threats.

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Roderic Day talking about {Hexbear} (hexbear.net)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2331989

I don’t really think he knows this site’s culture at all. No one is dissuading people from reading theory lol

Yey or ney for him?

As someone said in the post

As far as I can tell, he's a guy who spends all his time posting about how all leftists do is post.

~~And this ain't the first time, Roderick's a bit terminally online, arguing against other progressives like JT (Second Thought) and Michael Hudson....~~

Edit:

Ok I've made a right-deviationist mistake in saying that Michael Hudson is a progressive, and indirectly agreeing with the views of the former....

I've not investigated into JT's MMT videos nor looked carefully into Hudson (I thought he was also against capitalism, turns out, only finance and feudalism..., just cares for industrial capitalism)

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

And this ain’t the first time, Roderick’s a bit terminally online, arguing against other based progressive like JT (Second Thought) and Michael Hudson…

Why shouldn't he? Hudson's following reproduces Industrial Capitalist apologia in the same way that fed Social Chauvinism in Europe prior to WW1 (and during the height of Imperialism's African carve). I can see the consequences of Hudson in the patsoc space. Second Thought's video on MMT was uncritical and like Hudson reproduces petty booj cope about "the economy" and reform.

Hudson and ST are Marxist educators, they should be criticized so that their performance at that role can improve. If we are giving these people a living as revolutionary educators, shouldn't they be held to the highest standards?

The western left has a deep cultural lack of seriousness (I wonder why that is?). Memes and jokes are fine but bigotry and anti-intellectualism shouldn't be passed off as jokes to avoid criticism.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Michael Hudson is not a based progressive, he is a PB academic with a long background working for banks and other capitalist institutions. He posts his work on the literal fascist website Unz review (which he still does years after being notified it was a literal fascist website in case he was unaware) where the comments there are full of people picking up on his fascist and anti-Semitic dog whistles and running with them. All his focus on "finance capital" is quite interesting when you look at his writing about Jesus being killed by Jewish financiers and how his solution to fight finance capital is essentially empowering industrial capital. What other groups were very pro industrial capital and focused heavily on Jews as a financial elite? Probably some of the ones who are big fans of Unz Review, so Hudson seems to have chosen the right place to voluntarily publish his work online.

He was raised by Trots and his hyper focus on economics allows him to avoid any revolutionary analysis; Hudson is essentially pushing a patsoc/demsoc narrative about "fixing" the US economy by trying to roll back finance capital and do some New Deal shit which is caping for capital, not fighting it.

There may be value in his knowledge as an economist but he's absolutely not based or someone I would look to for any info outside of very specific economic data that also isn't super relevant in any organizing arena I've ever seen.

As far as Roderic Day goes, I'm not on social media to know about how terminally online he, his posts, or personality are, but I have read a few of his essays which I found very well done and informative.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

how his solution to fight finance capital is essentially empowering industrial capital. What other groups were very pro industrial capital and focused heavily on Jews as a financial elite? Probably some of the ones who are big fans of Unz Review, so Hudson seems to have chosen the right place to voluntarily publish his work online.

He was raised by Trots and his hyper focus on economics allows him to avoid any revolutionary analysis; Hudson is essentially pushing a patsoc/demsoc narrative about “fixing” the US economy by trying to roll back finance capital and do some New Deal shit which is caping for capital, not fighting it.

The hell? I screwed up in thinking that... he may have abhored Larouchites, but I guess his economic policy and thinking is Larouchism...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

He has been given a lot of space on many leftish / left adjacent platforms over the last several years which has given him a lot of credibility. I was very surprised to see Ben Norton giving him space on his channel for instance, someone I typically trust more than the majority of other influencers/journalists.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

MH is very good at explaining how things currently work and why. I don't think he can be ignored for that because there aren't many who can or are willing to share his insights. That might be why he gets airtime. He does allude to being a Trotskyist. And he clearly knows Marx. But I've never really heard him say anything that I'd consider to be Marxist in terms of what comes next or how we get there. I always thought he was a bit vague on that but I haven't read all his works.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And he clearly knows Marx.

I’m reading Capital right now, and it does not sound like he’s read it. Shouldn’t he know about TRPF, the origin of value, and the inherent contradictions (not someone managing it wrong) of capitalism? It doesn’t sound like he does.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm unsure what you've read or heard that gives the impression that MH doesn't know about those things.

I don't see how he could reach some of his conclusions without having understood Marx. You've got to remember that there's a lot that people can take from Marx, and there are fierce differences of opinion within the tradition.

And there's a way of writing that doesn't use the jargon. I'd argue that approach can be a more effective way of communicating to a wider audience in many cases. Maybe that's where your critique is coming from?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My critique comes from hearing him say silly social-democratic things on the Geopolitical Economy Report. Also, arguing with Day. Look at this if you haven’t: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2680725 https://hexbear.net/post/1826437

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

We had an exchange in that top thread. I'm still unconvinced. A useful exercise would be to consider the extent to which Hudson's work displays an understanding and application of Marxism, rather than focusing on what he gets wrong, if anything.

It seems to need that there's a purity thing going on here, criticising MH for not doing XYZ when the real question is, okay, 'To what extent are his economic analyses correct/accurate?'

It's a leap to go from MH misunderstands Marx, to MH isn't a Marxist, to MH hasn't read Marx.

The second thread leaves me leaning towards my original position. That MH broadly knows what he's talking about and has clearly read Marx. I'm fairly sure that MH could go through Day's work and find faults based on his perspective; in the same way as Day can go through MH's work and find faults based on his perspective. But we couldn't conclude that Day hasn't read Marx just because MH would say he's weak on this or that aspect of Marx/ism. Day is generally good and I love redsails but he's not a final authority.

We all have to focus on something when we talk or write, which means deciding what to leave out. We all take different things from texts, too. It's a bit futile to conclude that someone else is wrong or hasn't understood something/anything just because they emphasise something different in an article or talk or take something different from a text than someone else.

Even some great Marxists have erred, spotted their errors, and changed their views. Including Marx and Engels. A more recent pair is Hindess and Hurst, who followed up a strong tract with an 'auto-critique'. Some go the other way, like Kautsky. It's dangerous territory to proclaim that someone isn't a Marxist or hasn't even read Marx on the basis of one-sided criticisms that emphasise errors or slips of which the writer/speaker may be aware. At the very least, we need to hear from the other side.

As for MH advocating reforms to reverse imperialism and return to industrial capitalism, I don't necessarily see it. There's another viable interpretation if you begin with the premise that MH knows Marx. Something like, for domestic progress to be made in the US, the US is going to have to retreat from neoliberal finance capitalism and move through a reindustrialisation phase under a socialist government as in China. Unless he's explicitly ruling out socialist governance, I see no reason to conclude that he must misunderstand the historical chronology.

I also don't see the issue with framing neoliberalism as a choice. There are a lot of factors that go in to making that choice, and there are myriad decision-makers. But it's not inevitable. If it's not a choice, the implication is that socialists may as well not bother fighting for a different future.

Advocating for a political economy with a better balance of industry/finance does not imply a belief that it's possible by flicking a switch like turning on a light. From what I've seen, I have no reason to believe that MH is a light-switcher.

Again, maybe I'm missing something, but I wouldn't be confident in claiming that MH thinks reindustrialisation is possible in the US as the US is currently constituted. I would give him more credit and assume he knows that shifting to a Chinese-style political economy entails massive change.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yay, he’s right. He’s a little too online, but principled. I may be why he knows about hexbear. Idk what he said about JT, but it was probably reasonable. I have my own criticisms of him, but he’s overall positive. Also, Hudson’s a total revisionist. I struggled against that stance and was defeated.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

It was about ST's MMT video, it was deserved.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

about JT

The MMT video....

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Imo its an L take, sure there are some childish hexbearers but there are many more promoting reading theory and organizing, they are actually very deep into das Kapital. Its a big community..

Although its kind of fun to poke our hexbear comrades from time to time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

the post in question only has 20 something upbeats, and like 60 comments

hexbear is suddenly a united front umbrella group and we all agree all the time.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think he expects too much from what at its foundation is a link aggregation website.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (7 children)

What he expects is for the western left to take itself more seriously if it's to have any success at all, and dodging critique by hiding behind "it's a site for memes" isn't doing any good to anyone that actually wants change.

Not "expecting too much" from a link aggregation site is like not expecting too much from any western communists. The masses are online and online spaces are not separated from "real" life like that. No one is saying we can't have any fun, but at the end of the day If we don't take ourselves seriously why should anyone else take us seriously.

While I do find lemmygrad a bit better than hexbear in regards to this, it also still has an abundance of low effort meme posts and a lack of serious discussion.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

i mean i think you can compare the thread hosted on a hexbear comm vs a thread hosted on the lemmygrad comm, i think we are much much closer to this level of seriousness desired. I still don't quite get why having less serious (silly, if you want) comms is a problem because you can just block those comms and never see posts from them again.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not about individual comms, and there is, of course, a place for being silly. The problem is that the "silliness" "spreads" to the entire site. Look at how people are "arguing" against Roderic's point on the hexbear thread about it, in what's supposedly a comm for critiquing bad takes. Most of the comments are random jokes, and most of the actual written out ones are blatant lies, strawman arguments, or similar (some of the really bad ones did get removed as far as I can tell). The same exact tactics anti-communists regularly use to shit on AES states or our ideology in general.

The actual origin of it is western anti-intellectualism which we have to overcome in our organizing. Of course hexbear won't be a vanguard, but we're not doing our job as communists if don't fight against these tendencies.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

my point was more to defend grad. i've always thought this was the more serious site, and i think the difference between the 2 threads reflects that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

Lemmygrad is a more serious site, I agree, and that's why I use it instead of hexbear. However, I do still think we can improve. I've noticed a decline in the frequency of the type of theory discussion posts that I really liked when first coming to lemmygrad, and an increase in low effort posts, probably coinciding with the reddit exodus last year.

One thing I really like here is that certain matters are considered settled in the lemmygrad community. For example, each time a new "is Russia imperialist?" thread pops up, prople quickly link to past threads with excellent answers or post another version of those answers. I just think we could do that sort of thing - debate, come to a conclusion, adopt it as our stance backed by our arguments and proper sources, and present it when asked - with many more topics which still just "hang in the air" somewhat.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I am not sure what taking itself more seriously entails. What would a serious Western left Lemmy instance look like to you? Is there any other website in this domain that you point to for inspiration?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't specifically have to be a lemmy instance, but any online communist space could be a serious place where anti-intellectualism is not tolerated, and where discussions with proper sourcing could lead to actual debate where certain issues are actually settled. Instead, now you have most people just yelling out their opinions with no sources, not bothering to actually engage with the counterpoints being made, and any criticism is taken as a personal attack and kts substance is ignored. No actual debate is being held, and any issues that come up stay unresolved and get brought up again and again with the same results.

What communists in the past did in newspapers and journals, we should be doing online.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The communists who were doing that in newspapers and journals were on the forefront of organizing, they were actually learning and developing new things to write about. the western left hasn't even digested the lessons of the past, it won't be them who suddenly develops into the vanguard of revolutionary theory and ideological innovation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Those communits weren't somehow "at the forefront of organizing" before, and then decided to start publishing articles. They became the forefront of organizing by publishing these articles, having these debates, and putting the things they figured out into practice. This is a centeal thesis of Lenin's What is to be Done?

Yes, the current western left is not going to form a vanguard tomorrow, conditions will still need to change. But at some point a vanguard will need to be formed by western communists, no one else can do it for us. These barriers aren't permanent, and they can be overcome. A part of that includes ideological struggle and debate within communist spaces.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Sure those things were happening simultaneously but most of those folks spent all their lives organizing with real people who had much more similar class interests to them, and the media dissemination was a part of it. The largest periods of writing and publishing were often in exile from state repression. It was through their actual organizing and life experience that they had the position to be writing and debating such things. A bunch of westerners who have barely struggled for anything in their life, who benefit immensely from systems of oppression and don't have the same class interests as the majority of workers in the world, and self identify as communists but still choose to spend more time online than trying to organize in the real world, are not the people who will be forming a vanguard which also might not ever actually be formed. There is no promise that a vanguard must develop in any nation, especially the imperial core.

My point is mostly to highlight the reasons why I don't think you can create such an online space that will be very active, because the majority of people online who self identify as communists have no reasons for a space like this, they are looking to socialize and shitpost with a certain aesthetic. The .0001% of westerners who would want such a space without the casual elements would be such a small community of people that there probably wouldn't be enough going on in such a space to make it active enough and couching such a thing in a place like lemmygrad or hexbear seems like a better move than trying to remove the casual elements and have a purely studious, serious organizing space online.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean hexbear is just one online place. It's not like the revolution depends on how hexbear is operating. Same for Lemmygrad. If I look at my own work for our party I think my real life efforts are endlessly more important than the shitposts I make on Lemmygrad. To me he comes off as a bit sour because he sees people having fun and he decides that's a problem to him lol. Sure, we could turn this place into a discussion board majority only but I have a feeling that we will be without users at the end of the year. Discussion is always welcome of course and we encourage it even. Everyone is free to ask whatever they want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Exactly, I often tell this to my friends; the reason you cant find my views on youtube or whatever is because people like me are actually out here doing shit in real life; you should be sus of people whos entire grift is posting online, they are likely detatched from reality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

💯

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

dodging critique by hiding behind “it’s a site for memes” isn’t doing any good to anyone that actually wants change

Our political memes should be both funny and a good reflection of our politics; it's right there in the concept itself. Of course you don't hold them to the same standards you would theory, but if the political point is sloppy enough it's just not a very good meme.

That's also setting aside occasions where people are having a substantive discussion and someone cops out with "come on this is just a meme board." That flies some for memes themselves and joke threads, but there are plenty of run-of-the-mill news discussions where that pops up, too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I miss the better memes and more frequent discussions here.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Even lenin shitposted in private letters comrade, we shouldnt be expected to be anything in a anon shitposting space.

We will not respond to his silly letters...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Could it be that the western left prefers spending more time socializing online than seriously undertaking the construction of revolution because of their inherent foundation in a labor aristocracy which benefits more from imperialism and neo-colonialism than it has to gain from destroying capitalism? With most people so socially alienated in the west, coupled with having limited capacity outside of productive and reproductive labor, it isn't hard to imagine that westerners would default to commiserating on the internet over using any free time they have to study, be of service to the masses, and improve themselves. For the west, shit posting on the toilet is much easier than looking in a mirror.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In today's world, socializing online is not some distinct separate thing, it's an integral part of daily life for basically everyone.

Yes, the western masses benefit from imperialism, but they are also exploited and it's the communists job to successfully link the struggles against this exploitation with wider anti-imperialist struggles in the Third World.

It is easier to just sit idly in the status quo, but do you find that to be an acceptable level for communists to be at? We're not talking about the masses in general here, we're talking about self-identified communist spaces. I want and expect more from them, and a critique of their current errors is a first step to changing them.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

I'm not really understanding his point in the second screenshot

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Well now I'm going to have to spread the rumor that Hexbear is about weird Christian nonsense instead of Marxism.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Michael Hudson

Literally who?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

deng stare

Better you don’t know

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Someone well worth reading. He grew up in a Trotskyist household. Became a banker/economist. His mentor agreed to mentor him if he read Marx, Theories of Surplus Value and everything cited in it. Hence Hudson's ability to see and explain how bourgeois economics works and why and where it fails/will fail. He wrote a report that made him semi famous and apparently wealthy; later published as a book now in it's third edition, Superimperialism.

Just don't expect a Leninist conclusion of 'that's why we need a revolution and here's how to do it'. He frequently kinda implies that all the bad things will simply disappear due to the weight of capitalist contradictions.

Have to admit, he's hard going even for me, who's read a reasonable amount of political economy. It's the same with his video/audio recordings and writing, tbh. I struggle to follow what he's saying because of the structure. He kind of starts too far into the argument IMO but you can piece things together by the end.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Superimperialism

Kauskyism!

Kind of a weird deviation honestly... I've tried to grasp it but the idea that middle managers are the ultimate bad guys seems to be missing the mark.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (7 children)

He is certainly lacking an understanding of capitalism as a whole system, suggesting reforms to make it run smoother rather than seeing it as a fundamentally flawed and contradictory system.

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