Submitted by jaidedctrl in CritiqueThis (edited )

Here's something I've been thinking about lately… tell me what you think

The US was the breeding ground of Capitalism, and it's now the strongest link in the Chain. For the past century, the US has been desperately crushing any state where the link breaks— its imperialism has been instrumental in sustaining global Capitalism.
The US is so deeply entrenched in this system that it would be impossible to tear it from Capitalism, and is far too militarized for revolution to be a feasible means of doing it. Leftists in the US can't hope to transition it to Socialism. It's not in the cards, and won't be in the cards until it's the last one in the deck. The only good praxis they can make is:

  • Spreading leftist ideas
    • Not as a means of establishing a leftist state, but as a means of curating sympathy for leftist states
  • Fighting imperialist actions, sentiments, and tendencies

If there's any hope of establishing a modern Socialist state, the US must stay the fuck out. The US left's most pressing obligation is to destroy imperialist sentiment and prevent the US from acting on them through force or through the system itself. That's the only useful thing they can do.

Let the chain break where it will.

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Pop wrote (edited )

A few points to start off conversation! :)

  • I don't think there's a separation, especially for those of us who are anarchists (and so have a prefigurative politics), between spreading and living socialist ideas

is an implication of your view that we could become rich in the US to fund leftism elsewhere? if you still expect people to be ethical, how is that separate from building the new world in the shell of the old (ie how is it different from working to establish a socialist state)?

  • just like the US itself, people from the US should generally stay the fuck out of the lives of other countries' peoples. I'm scared ideas like "curating sympathy for leftist states" would amount to a kind of left imperialism. installing socialism in foreign countries is still imperialism in my book

genuinely helping socialism occur elsewhere as a person in the US probably means going to the same war you're trying to avoid going to in avoiding starting up a leftist state.

  • depends what you think the left is. post- and anti-left anarchists are going to say that the left is already outmoded and captured by capitalism
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