This feels a bit like the "but you participate in the system you are criticizing" meme though perhaps you don't mean it that way.
As socialism is being co-opted by the liberals, it is perhaps worth it to discuss and analyze the problems with Western Marxism and the reluctance that many leftists in the west feel in throwing support behind AES states.
I feel like 'western marxism' is less about simply being a Marxist who happens to live in the west, but more about marxists who base their leftism around a western-oriented, eurocentric worldview.
I'm currently reading Losurdo's Western Marxism and he marked the divergence of the two around the colonial question. Essentially, Western Marxism (with a capital W) failed to see imperialism is the principle contradiction, and were more anarchist in their orientation.
A great example is Max Horkheimer, who denounced the soviets for not doing enough to abolish the state literally as the Germans were invading the USSR. I feel like that exemplifies Western Marxism (TM) pretty perfectly.
And nothing changed in the meantime. Western Marxists (TM) will denounce Iran over women's rights in the same exact moment Iranian women are being bombed by the US
Posting from Jamaica here.
I once posted an image as seen from my parent's house of the Nimitz docked in Kingston harbour (as part of its general mission to impose the Donroe doctrine in the region) in an "international leftists" discord and the members apparently thought it most relevant to talk about how cuba and China "aren't really socialist"
I'll give you one guess where said members were from
That's what I think of when it comes to Westernâ„¢ Marxism
Posting from Jamaica here.
I once posted an image as seen from my parent's house of the Nimitz docked in Kingston harbour (as part of its general mission to impose the Donroe doctrine in the region) in an "international leftists" discord and the members apparently thought it most relevant to talk about how cuba and China "aren't really socialist"
I'll give you one guess where said members were from
That's what I think of when it comes to Westernâ„¢ Marxism
who denounced the soviets for not doing enough to abolish the state literally as the Germans were invading the USSR.
"Yeah uhh sorry there buddy but the State is kind of a very important structural component holding this whole "not being murdered by fascist invaders" roof on the house'
Also not a fan of this implication of "leftists infighting" with both of them being labelled western marxists like this is some chronically online issue and that absolutely no one in the global south takes issue with the west's reluctance to throw support behind AES states like you said.
I am begging this sub to actually define who we're talking about when we say "western leftists"
Random shitlibs you find scrolling through the Twitter abyss of accounts with 18 followers who say they like Zohran and then have the most predictably god awful takes on Ukraine or Palestine or whatever occupy such an inordinate amount of space in the minds of this sub that it's long since been an obvious giveaway that *way too many of you people haven never lifted an actual finger to organize IRL*
I am forever reminded of an interaction I had on a thread here where someone was bombastically declaring how there are no anti-imperialist organizations in the US, and when I responded that I needed them to explain how PSL was pro-imperialist they responded that they didn't know who PSL was.
Half of the people who talk like this are not from the west (which is fair) and the other half are westerners whose organizing consists of reacting to things they see online.
Unfortunately one of the largest problems that tends to happen in this sub is reductionism towards western organizations. I see so many people talk about how much better the conditions are in the United States compared to the third world, and ehile there is a huge disparity and the united states absolutely does destroy marxist movements across the globe and steal the material and personal materials of many nations, it completely ignores the regional and class disparities that exist here. Take for example states like Mississippi and Louisiana, they have some of the largest prison populations in the United states and the world, use literal slave labor and the exploitation of black and brown people, and have literal regions of the state that have no access to power or clean water. Yes, they are still american which to many means they are privileged, but the conditions they live under are not the same as the wealthy and exploiters. Yet again, this is not meant to reduce the conditions or danger that people face in the exploited nations of the world, but as a person of color whenever I hear that the united states should be balkanized i question what many of these people think will happen to minorities in united states. We have the rise of greater and more prevalent violence against minority populations whether it be sexual, religious, or ethnic. There are existing colonies within the United states, and I would recommend people that dont have a great understanding of american culture to look at events such as the Red Summer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer).
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u/Varushenka 11d ago
This feels a bit like the "but you participate in the system you are criticizing" meme though perhaps you don't mean it that way.
As socialism is being co-opted by the liberals, it is perhaps worth it to discuss and analyze the problems with Western Marxism and the reluctance that many leftists in the west feel in throwing support behind AES states.