I mean that I don’t really want to argue about this with you because it’s a waste of time. If being a socialist obligatorily means opposing reform or deeming it contrary to revolution, I don’t want to be a socialism, and neither would Marx.
That’s fair and consistent with socialism as worker ownership of the means of production, which is my definition too.
That being said, a politician is not capable of doing that without being removed, which means socialist politicians won’t exist without a revolution. And a revolution is not currently exactly the most practical thing to get done without revolutionary fervor, which we don’t really have enough of, and without logistics like a stockpile of food and stuff for strikers to have, and… it’s just a whole can of worms.
Anyway I’d argue ‘socialist’ is someone who is IN FAVOR of getting there at some point somehow, and ‘capitalist’ is someone who is in favor of capitalism, and I don’t think Mamdan is someone who’s in favor of capitalism, just because he’s forced to play the cards he’s dealt.
But if you wanna go by Stafford Beer’s “the purpose of a system is what it does”, which is fair, then yeah, Mamdani’s not really going to be changing it meaningfully by himself. Then again we’re kind of about to see modern civilization go through a heck of a tribulation because of a severe lack of oil (oil bad but fully replacing it is hard and needs a proper transition, not this) and because of climate crisis and a ton of other stuff coinciding. So if anything’s going to be toppling capitalism, it’s itself from the inside.
Sorry if I was rude earlier. Just tired of purity tests within the left wasting everyone else (in the left)'s time and energy for no good productive reason towards any better outcomes. I suppose that that has made me a bit too prone to lashing out at signs of that.
What does that have to do with anything?
I mean that I don’t really want to argue about this with you because it’s a waste of time. If being a socialist obligatorily means opposing reform or deeming it contrary to revolution, I don’t want to be a socialism, and neither would Marx.
It doesn’t also Marx was a communist, he just saw socialism as a necessary step towards communism. The same way capitalism was a step towards it.
But that doesn’t automatically make all capitalists and socialists communists.
Well, what would Mamdani have to do in order to be a socialist then, by your precepts?
Give ownership of companies to the state or the workers.
That’s fair and consistent with socialism as worker ownership of the means of production, which is my definition too.
That being said, a politician is not capable of doing that without being removed, which means socialist politicians won’t exist without a revolution. And a revolution is not currently exactly the most practical thing to get done without revolutionary fervor, which we don’t really have enough of, and without logistics like a stockpile of food and stuff for strikers to have, and… it’s just a whole can of worms.
Anyway I’d argue ‘socialist’ is someone who is IN FAVOR of getting there at some point somehow, and ‘capitalist’ is someone who is in favor of capitalism, and I don’t think Mamdan is someone who’s in favor of capitalism, just because he’s forced to play the cards he’s dealt.
But if you wanna go by Stafford Beer’s “the purpose of a system is what it does”, which is fair, then yeah, Mamdani’s not really going to be changing it meaningfully by himself. Then again we’re kind of about to see modern civilization go through a heck of a tribulation because of a severe lack of oil (oil bad but fully replacing it is hard and needs a proper transition, not this) and because of climate crisis and a ton of other stuff coinciding. So if anything’s going to be toppling capitalism, it’s itself from the inside.
Sorry if I was rude earlier. Just tired of purity tests within the left wasting everyone else (in the left)'s time and energy for no good productive reason towards any better outcomes. I suppose that that has made me a bit too prone to lashing out at signs of that.