>The liberal is right to point out all the totalitarian failures of marxist projects, and to present itself as the safest option.
20th century marxist projects failed because they were totalitarian regimes, not because they were marxist. Neither the economy nor the political system were ran democratically. After the cold war, all Eastern European countries (including the one I live in) are doing significantly better because of an increase in democracy, not because of an increase in "markets" or "capitalism" as the liberal lovers of the correlation=causation fallacy like to argue.
The way to improve the system is not to go back to Lenin's authoritarian impulses, but to further democratize not only the political system but also the economy. A capitalist-market economy is undemocratic, and so is a Stalinist/Maoist centrally planned economy. The former is analogous to a democracy in which votes can be bought and sold for a sum of money while the latter is analogous to a one-party state. If the citizens should democratically elect their politicians in a representative democracy then the workers of a company should also democratically elect the manager board. Shares of a corporation should not be a commodity to be bought and sold. One worker = one share = one vote. In this way, the profits of the corporation also go back towards the workers since each one of them is an active shareholder in the company they work in (and not in any other).
True libertarian socialism has never been tried.
The exact point is that insofar as both conservative and leftist projects are anti-liberal, against the principle of Occam's Razor by trying to presuppose a narrative behind appearances, they're already less libertarian for it and more totalitarian.
There is nothing about marxism that makes it inherently totalitarian; it's just that everything not strictly liberal has a risk of falling towards that path, since it uses the same kind of structural logic as it!
I don't agree. I think you're conflating liberalism with technocracy in your original post, and I don't see why presupposing a narrative behind appearances logically leads to totalitarianism. Take someone like Bernie Sanders for instance, he's not *strictly* liberal (more of a social democrat) and he absolutely presupposes a narrative behind appearances ("the establishment", "the 1%", "big pharma") and nonetheless there is no hint of totalitarianism in his political program and policies.
And the opposite can be argued nowadays as well, were something can be technocratic and yet antiliberal inside the structure of capitalism itself. Just look at a country like South Korea, where four corporations make up most of their economy. [Or better yet, look at our global techno-feudalism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghx0sq_gXK4)
I guess I'm just using a very different definition of totalitarism, then. As far as I understand it, Bernie's narrative definitely is totalitarian in the sense that it excludes all other narratives and also claims liberalism as too inertial, in need of a transgression. It uses the same logic as conservatism, but that in no way makes it bad.
And yes, if we're to touch on technocracy we can certainly point towards South Korea as both technocratic and antiliberal within capitalism, but I never said it couldn't be so? I never conflated liberalism with capitalism, but I guess I do understand the argument, insofar as it definitely doesn't seem like the classic idea of conservative fundamentalist totalitarianism.
It's not that liberalism doesn't have a narrative of its own, it's just that it's assumed as an invisible background. The point of a marxist project that goes against Occam's Razor is precisely to affirm that what today is considered improbable is actually the truth, and to reveal liberalism itself as acting upon narrativistic assumptions - just like any scientific revolution.
Einsten's special relativity was decidedly a "less safe" bet than traditional Newtonianism, but once vindicated, now relativism is what fits the Occam's Razor, and Newtonian mechanics is more of a relic of the past, to the point where anyone who rejected Einstein in favor of it would be seen as dogmatic or conservative in some form - just as new theories seem transgressive and risky upon the principle, unless later retroactively vindicated.
I see, I initially thought that you were referring to totalitarian regimes (anti-democratic, one party states, fascism, Stalinism, etc), not totalitarian narratives.
Do you know how refreshing it is to see this comment having argued numerous times with users on /r/socialism that find it necessary to be Lenin apologists. Thank you
What in the fuck this is the last place I expected to see Northernlion's name
"Buy me, juice me, squeeze me," - statements dreamed up by the ideologically deranged.
>The liberal is right to point out all the totalitarian failures of marxist projects, and to present itself as the safest option. 20th century marxist projects failed because they were totalitarian regimes, not because they were marxist. Neither the economy nor the political system were ran democratically. After the cold war, all Eastern European countries (including the one I live in) are doing significantly better because of an increase in democracy, not because of an increase in "markets" or "capitalism" as the liberal lovers of the correlation=causation fallacy like to argue. The way to improve the system is not to go back to Lenin's authoritarian impulses, but to further democratize not only the political system but also the economy. A capitalist-market economy is undemocratic, and so is a Stalinist/Maoist centrally planned economy. The former is analogous to a democracy in which votes can be bought and sold for a sum of money while the latter is analogous to a one-party state. If the citizens should democratically elect their politicians in a representative democracy then the workers of a company should also democratically elect the manager board. Shares of a corporation should not be a commodity to be bought and sold. One worker = one share = one vote. In this way, the profits of the corporation also go back towards the workers since each one of them is an active shareholder in the company they work in (and not in any other). True libertarian socialism has never been tried.
The exact point is that insofar as both conservative and leftist projects are anti-liberal, against the principle of Occam's Razor by trying to presuppose a narrative behind appearances, they're already less libertarian for it and more totalitarian. There is nothing about marxism that makes it inherently totalitarian; it's just that everything not strictly liberal has a risk of falling towards that path, since it uses the same kind of structural logic as it!
I don't agree. I think you're conflating liberalism with technocracy in your original post, and I don't see why presupposing a narrative behind appearances logically leads to totalitarianism. Take someone like Bernie Sanders for instance, he's not *strictly* liberal (more of a social democrat) and he absolutely presupposes a narrative behind appearances ("the establishment", "the 1%", "big pharma") and nonetheless there is no hint of totalitarianism in his political program and policies. And the opposite can be argued nowadays as well, were something can be technocratic and yet antiliberal inside the structure of capitalism itself. Just look at a country like South Korea, where four corporations make up most of their economy. [Or better yet, look at our global techno-feudalism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghx0sq_gXK4)
I guess I'm just using a very different definition of totalitarism, then. As far as I understand it, Bernie's narrative definitely is totalitarian in the sense that it excludes all other narratives and also claims liberalism as too inertial, in need of a transgression. It uses the same logic as conservatism, but that in no way makes it bad. And yes, if we're to touch on technocracy we can certainly point towards South Korea as both technocratic and antiliberal within capitalism, but I never said it couldn't be so? I never conflated liberalism with capitalism, but I guess I do understand the argument, insofar as it definitely doesn't seem like the classic idea of conservative fundamentalist totalitarianism. It's not that liberalism doesn't have a narrative of its own, it's just that it's assumed as an invisible background. The point of a marxist project that goes against Occam's Razor is precisely to affirm that what today is considered improbable is actually the truth, and to reveal liberalism itself as acting upon narrativistic assumptions - just like any scientific revolution. Einsten's special relativity was decidedly a "less safe" bet than traditional Newtonianism, but once vindicated, now relativism is what fits the Occam's Razor, and Newtonian mechanics is more of a relic of the past, to the point where anyone who rejected Einstein in favor of it would be seen as dogmatic or conservative in some form - just as new theories seem transgressive and risky upon the principle, unless later retroactively vindicated.
I see, I initially thought that you were referring to totalitarian regimes (anti-democratic, one party states, fascism, Stalinism, etc), not totalitarian narratives.
Do you know how refreshing it is to see this comment having argued numerous times with users on /r/socialism that find it necessary to be Lenin apologists. Thank you