this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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The representatives that people can vote for are already selected for by the bourgeoisie. Both parties represent capital, not the worker. It's meant to give the impression of democratic input while maintaining the same brutal system of capitalism. Same with the press, it's only "free" so far as the wealthy can buy and use it however they like.
All states are authoritarian. What matters is which class is in control of the state, the proletariat, or the bourgeoisie. In the US, the imperialist bourgeoisie rule with an iron fist.
Where I am, the problem is not that people are too "hypnotised" or propagandized to act. The problem is that every time we have tried to establish our sovereignty the US has violently suppressed us.
Most recently we had a massive protest movement that went absolutely nowhere because it wasn't organized with anything resembling a coherent leadership; if the various previous attempts at organizing the people hadn't been destroyed by the US or the colonial government, maybe it could've been productive.
Generally, our views on why revolutions haven't been successful are a lot more nuanced than "people are just too brainwashed." A lot of us believe that brainwashing itself is not real and it's just a concept that serves to obscure the real sociological phenomena that prevent class consciousness and revolution.
For starters, there are several countries where the proletariat is in charge, like the PRC. It isn't every country that is under a dictatorship of capital. Secondly, there are worker parties like PSL in the US that aren't just the state arm of capital. All states are is the monopoly on force to be exerted to carry out the will of the ruling class, in capitalism these are going to inevitably be under the thumb of capital. The purpose of the state is to retain capitalism and crush opposition.
I do argue for revolution, yes, but "brainwashing" doesn't exist. There isn't this conspiracy-theory level hypnosis going on. Workers in the west share in the spoils of imperialism, as imperialism decays and disparity rises, radicalization increases. This pushes revolution to the forefront over time.
The PRC is indeed governed centrally by the CPC, the party of the proletariat. Nobody said China was a "utopia," you seem addicted to making strawman arguments. In fact, Marxism is anti-utopian, you continue to make arguments up in order to prove your baseless points. Also, "regime" just means "government you don't like," it isn't a physical thing. Some Chinese people don't like their system, but over 95% approve of their government.
The EU is thoroughly and entirely capitalist. There is no socialism in the EU. Capitalism is a mode of production characterized by private ownership of the large firms and key industries, while socialism is characterized primarily by public ownership of the large firms and key industries. The "right" and "left" that you speak of are only that way relative to each other, when overall they are both on the right. Further, the EU relies on imperialism in order to fund their safety nets. The fact that the EU has a relatively small left and a huge right does not improve your stance.
I really think you need to take a step back and familiarize yourself more with the arguments your opponents are making. You seem to only strawman, you don't actually know what us leftists want.
I wanted a discussion, your only interaction with it was making up my views and calling those made-up views dogmatic. If you refuse to engage genuinely, then you shut the conversation down, plug your ears, and leave.
You've been accused as such because you from the beginning weren't interested in engaging genuinely, and deliberately took the wrong answer. OP is well known for being a socialist, yet you double down and paint them as a feudalist.
You sealed him into the dang crystal and he's gone now.
Lmao, I wondered why all the comments disappeared
He didn't do anything wrong, though? You're the one that kept trying to hold China up against the standard of Utopia. You're the one that called China a "regime" (a meaningless term). You've been repeatedly leaving these comments in this thread, acting like you're gonna leave, but you continue to blather on with your liberal platitudes. If you could write just 1 or 2 substantial comments with good sources for every 5 "Bye!" that you write, maybe the conversation would have come to its natural conclusion by now.