I never said anything about Cuba specifically. I made a general remark that an analysis of whether a country is socialist or not has to concern itself with what is the primary mode of production. I also wanted to bring in historical materialism because you seemed to talk about Marx without (seemingly) understanding this very important part of his contributions.

To be clear, my position was, and still is, that I find your analysis faulty, regardless of what I think would be the right conclusion on Cuba being communist.

Were there really in accordance with the definition you are trying to enforce?

You need to be able to distinguish between a country’s primary mode of production versus the scope of its total. A “perfect” capitalist or communist one will likely never exist, at least not any time soon. You cannot ignore the aspects of the basis on which development happens.

Every mode of production contains elements of its former, according to Marx, exactly because we have to understand human development and our current paradigm through historical materialism.

To say that a communist nation cannot contain capitalist components as its non fundamental mode of production is as stupid as saying Britain is not capitalist because they have a king.

Unity of the left is a double edged sword. Sure it means increased bargaining power for change. Also, it usually deteriorates into a hostage situation where the most centrist “left” party in the coalition says they will cooperate with the fascists, if the other left parties do not reduce their call for change to just symbolic issues.

An age of rising fascism…

No worries, figured there was a story behind it. That is a pretty wild ex though, good riddance (the ex and not the blade).

Nah, they didn’t say anything about implementing voice activation by the command “engage”.

You did not have a big reaction as in “WTF are you on about?!” after being gifted a nazi prop? IMO both you and the gifter should’ve had an unfavorable memory of the event etched onto your brains forever.

I get why you have nothing more than a surface-level understanding of the content of your own post when you take someone disagreeing with you as reaffirment that you must have been right in the first place. I ask you to consider whether it is possible that how you perceive these so-called tankies is tainted by your willful lack of understanding of their positions.

In much of Europe the left have been victims of former success. Many of the (former) leftist political parties and their constituents have foregone leftist policies because said policies gave them the social mobility to move into a higher strata of society.

In effect it is successful class war waged by the capitalist class, who have dismantled their greatest political opposition and employed a tactic of divide and conquer for the lump sum of petty cash.

Note, I do not say that having a fair and egalitarian society isn’t a part of socialist ideology, but focusing on cultural symbolics instead of improving material conditions is just bourgeoisie propaganda.

Identity politics surely is to blame for the rise of fascism. Just like the last time in the years 1915-1945.

You are almost quoting the fascist playbook line of “look what you made me do”.

Look! We gutted the public system. Clearly the privatized alternative must be the solution. We support privatization btw, so you need to vote for us!

More worried about this triggering an ice age and subsequent global failure of what crops remain.

Everyone in Europe knows really well that there is a reactionary wind blowing through the lands. Historically, this has been conducive to conflict and war. The conditions are different right now than then, but I fear not enough.

I would love a different world order based on international cooperation in lieu of exploitation, but I do not see this as a probable outcome of tensions rising and reactionaries taking power.

It is definitely worth keeping an eye on the protofascist and overtly fascist movements gaining traction, since they pretty much tell us exactly how they are going to fuck things up.

Yes. Germany and many other European countries had little to none political support for investing in their militaries. Now they do, and it is going to be a problem later on. Capitalists want return on their investments, after all.

The EU is very much on the top of the global neocolonial food chain, but they were mostly (looking at you France) not doing like super a lot (looking at you UK and US) of “interventions” to secure their interests all over the world.*

* Most Western powers are part of NATO, which is its own can of worms. Still, Russia invading Ukraine has made support for NATO much more popular (see Sweden and Finland as case studies), and now the bloc is more consolidated than ever. The timing could not be worse with respect to the overtly fascist leaders gaining traction in the very same countries.

The European countries bordering Russia, i.e. the Baltics, Nordics and Eastern Europe, contribute a far bigger percentage of their GDP to aid Ukraine than the others (if you ignore the new policies of Slovakia and Hungary). The US and UK gives/sells the most weapons, but Ukraine is pretty much bankrolled by the EU/EEA.

The point is that the EU has sustained big economic losses from cutting ties with Russia, leading to movement of industry and production away from Europe and over to the other biggest economies.

People forgot quickly how hesitant the European countries were, and still are, to send equipment to Ukraine. Germany didn’t send anything but helmets for a long while. They also cancelled North Stream, leading to increased inflation and lessened economic competitive viability. If anything, the proxy war is exhausting both Russian and European economies, with the US and China ready to scoop up the scraps in preparation for their intensifying trade war.

Should we make a club?

Can we get tags on Lemmy so I can save you as “That annoying emoji user”?