You're wrong about the Marxist-Leninist position, though, and that's exactly why the compass makes no sense. Marxists all agree on using the state as the collective means by which planning is accomplished. All the compass does is make things more confusing.
Overall, it is much better to abandon trying to measure things on a non-existent spectrum than it is to try to force them into one.
The political compass is actually a terrible tool. Left vs right is broadly okay if framed as collectivized ownership as principle vs privatized ownership as principle, but economies in the real world aren't "pure," and trying to gauge how left or right a country is by proportion of the economy that is public vs private can be misleading. The next part, "libertarian vs authoritarian," is a false binary. The state is thoroughly linked to the mode of production, you don't just pick something on a board and create it in real life. There's no such thing as "libertarian capitalism," as an example. Centralization vs decentralization may make more sense, but that can also be misleading, as centralized systems can be more democratic than decentralized systems.
This is a pretty good, if long, video on the subject. The creator of the compass is also politically biased.
As a fun little side-note, I can answer the standard political compass quiz and get right around the bottom-left while being a Marxist-Leninist that approves of full collevtivization of production and central planning. Yet, at the same time, the quiz will put socialist states in the top left, seemingly based on how the creator wants to represent things. It's deeply flawed. Add on the fact that it's more of an idealist interpretation of political economy than a materialist one, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Oh shit, that's news to me! 🫠
Guess I have an alternate personality that actually knows tech and can host awesome wesites like ComLib? News to me! Or, this personality of me?
There are actually a few active anarchists on Lemmy.ml, for the reasons Diva is stating. It's broadly federated and doesn't crack down on leftists, even if it's majority Marxist.
To be fair, some of us Marxist-Leninists used to be anarchists. That's how I came to Marxism-Leninism, actually, so it isn't that I misunderstand the anarchist viewpoint, I've just come to agree more with Marxists over time and after reading more theory from both.
They've previously claimed other users are alts of me, which is especially funny considering I only use accounts with the same name for the sake of transparency.
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We all wish it was...
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Horsehoe theory is misguided itself, it was pitched purely to distance liberalism from fascism when historically they are linked, and to demonize those who support collectivization over privatization. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
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Yes, after all of this I hold to the Marxist understanding, you haven't offered any compelling reason to abandon it, and have, to the contrary, shown a poor understanding of Marxism on both your's and Anark's parts. I'll correct a few of your misclaims about my stance here, though, for any popping in afterwards:
The state is an extension not of its people. The state is an extension of the ruling class, and the ruling class is determined by the base mode of production. A bourgeois state is one where private property is the base mode of production, and a proletarian state is one in which collectivized ownership is the base mode of production. As all property gets collectivized, class disappears, and so too does the need to oppress other classes, as everyone has equal ownership, leaving only instruments like social planning, administration, management, etc in place. That's the economic and historical basis of the elimination of the state.
As for delegates vs representatives, I understand the difference you claim they have, I just don't hold them as foundationally different to the point that one or the other invalidates the entire social basis of production.
Thanks for the Birmarck correction. Doesn't invalidate my points, but I'll make the correction regardless. If you have more questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.
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I did watch it, just posting a 4 minute video from an anarchist YouTuber doesn't mean I immediately need to agree with it. Anark coats it as a Marxist critique, but it's thoroughly an anarchist critique attempting to claim higher and universal legitimacy by invoking Marx and Engels, but what Marx and Engels described as state capitalism was Bismarck's Germany, which had the large firms and key industries absolutely privately owned with minor exceptions like railways.
The state in Bismarck's Germany played a hand in directing the private economy, while retaining class relations. It wasn't because they had a state, it's because the base of production was capitalism, subject to the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit. Anark's critique is ignorant at best to dishonest at worst. Here's Engels directly speaking about it:
For only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the State has become economically inevitable, only then — even if it is the State of today that effects this — is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself. But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.
Instead, what needs to happen is proletarian revolution, and gradual appropriation of property into the hands of the new, proletarian state, until all property is collectivized and the proletarian state is no more:
When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not "abolished". It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase: "a free State", both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific inefficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand.
So yes, I did watch it. It's one of those videos that only really makes sense to people that haven't put in the time to take Marxism seriously, and just want to quotegrab Marx and Engels to give their points higher legitimacy. Even Anark's examples of Chile and Yugoslavia were more market-focused and less collectivized, Yugoslavia in particular relied on IMF loans to keep going. Anark's mislabling of socialism as intrinsically worker-ownership and not collectivized ownership pretty much leaves only anarchism and anarchist adjacent ideologies as socialist. And, the USSR and PRC, Cuba, etc. do have worker democracy:
I'm sorry I took your video seriously, I guess? I dunno, were you just wanting me to concede the point outright?
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Again, I'm aware of the anarchist critique, I used to be an anarchist myself, I just firmly disagree with it.
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Well, up front, it's nice that you at least cleared up that you don't consider Marxism to be socialist. I disagree with that, of course, but now that we've established that your definition of socialism is exclusionary of Marxism, then that does at least mean we can have a consistent conversation.
As for delegates vs. representatives, the PRC's democracy extends beyond simply voting for candidates and representatives. I already explained that each rung makes decisions for that which their area needs, and elect from among themselves delegates that they can recall. People's integration into politics isn't relegated to simple elections, but consensus building, feedback, drafts of policy, etc.
As for ownership, your argument was that politicians are literally owners of publicly owned industry, which isn't how public ownership works anywhere. Even if the PRC is centrally planned for the majority of its large firms and key industries, that doesn't mean those large firms and key industries are run for profit, personal enrichment of capitalists, participate in markets, etc. There's nothing at all resembling capitalism there, so state capitalism is an absurdity. I gave clear examples of capitalist systems with heavy state involvement, like Singapore, that better fit "state capitalism."
Either way, this will be my last comment too. Have a good one!
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Inter-class hierarchy exists, ie bourgeois and proletarian, but intra-class hierarchy also exists, ie worker and manager. The Marxist critique of class involves the fact that there's hierarchy, but that's not the focus, the focus is on class as a social relation to production as informed by ownership. I'm more than willing to agree that your critique is the general anarchist critique, and I'm okay with you preferring anarchism, I just think that if you're trying to argue that Marxism isn't a communist ideology because it doesn't hold the same view of hierarchy as anarchism does, that that's a bit myopic.
no. the power is always among the people who choose the delegate, formulate their mandate, and can recall them at any time. the delegate has no power over the people, nor is the delegate coerced into their role.
Just because the delegate was elected and is subject to recall doesn't mean it isn't a hierarchy, though. Unless your point is that the delegate can only do what 100% of those who elected them want, and if any oppose them then they have no power, but in that case everything would collapse to a halt. The PRC has delegates and elections, and recall elections too, so I'm not sure I understand your criticism with that.
As for not considering the PRC socialist, are you saying it doesn't fit the anarchist conception of socialism, or the conception of socialism that includes Marxism as socialist? Ie, is your argument that the PRC does not meet the Marxist understanding of socialism as well as the anarchist? This is something that needs heavy judtification if so, but if you just mean the anarchist conception then I agree, the PRC isn't anarchist and isn't pretending to be.
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Communism is generally held to be about class and state abolition, not hierarchy in general. Delegates in your model still have hierarchy, what's important is accountability and that the general interest is upheld. As for the PRC, it's already socialist, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned. It certainly isn't anarchist, nor is it a stateless, classless, moneyless, global society, but it's socialist.
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No, because there was never an agreement about partitioning. It was about spheres of influence, which Nazi Germany broke, and further the USSR entered Poland weeks after the Nazis invaded in order to prevent the entirety of Poland from falling to the Nazis, largely sticking to areas only a few decades prior Poland had invaded and annexed.
There's also no evidence the Soviets didn't expect the Nazis to invade. They didn't get the timeframe right, but they expected it the entire time. And no, the Soviets weren't imperialist.
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Hierarchy isn't something antihetical to socialism, it exists in all systems. Further, I still don't really see how this model handles global systems of production and supply chains, and further still, I think you're just redefining socialism to only include anarchism, which is a semantical argument and not a logical one.
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Or maybe I did, and I disagree with your interpretation.
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My point has been consistent throughout, a state wielding its power is authoritarian, but that can be a good thing. Labeling oneself as "anti-authoritarian" is usually a thought-terminating cliché to oppose socialists that support the use of the state against the bourgeoisie.
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The PRC generally follows the latter model you describe. Recall elections are possible, and there are different "rungs" that are directly accountable to lower rungs. Politicians have to work their way up the rungs in order to increase their scope of decisionmaking, if they break that trust they fall back down the ladder. Part of Xi Jinping's campaign that brought him immense popularity among the people was purging of opportunists that held comfortable positions throughout the 90s and 2000s.
Going back to the "rung" model, there are townships, county, provincial, and central governments. Townships are the lowest level and most direct, and each county is made up of many townships, each province many counties, and all provinces under central. This direct line from bottom to top means the legitimacy at the top is laddered upward, while allowing those who have proven themselves to operate from the top back downward. Their legitimacy and accountability is maintained through that unbroken chain.
i would define socialism as public ownership of the means of production. where “public” means “of the people” and ownership means “having meaningful control of”.
I would say that, based on my previous paragraphs and answers, the PRC absolutely qualifies. I think if we are merely disagreeing about vibes, then we are abstracting away from the material base in a way that is counter-productive to discussion.
I like shorter URLs 🤷