I stumbled onto LeftValues and took the quiz. Turns out that my political leanings aren’t what I thought they were. Like, not even close. Just to preface, apparently I fall somewhere between Democratic Socialism and Centrist Marxism, with some leanings towards Social Democracy. 0% in common with Marxism-Leninism, which isn’t going to be very popular in this community, but it’s likely because of my feelings on centralization.
So, with all that in mind, does anyone have any recommended reading?
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Democratic Socialism is a form of socialism that seeks to utilize liberal democracy as a means to achieve a socialist economy and society. Democratic Socialists reject revolution and a centrally planned economy, instead supporting moderate social ownership in the form of publicly owned utilities and democratic workplace self-management.
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Centrist Marxism is a form of Marxism that adopts Marxist views on society and the economy while also refraining from taking a definitive position on revolution and reformism. Many Centrist Marxists may also be more nationalistic than other Marxists.
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Social Democracy is a centre-left ideology that advocates for mixing left-leaning values such as social welfare and corporate regulation with capitalism and liberal democracy in the form of a mixed economy. Many modern Social Democrats favor Keynesian economics.
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Marxism-Leninism is a form of Marxism that was forged in the 20th century in the Soviet Union. Marxist-Leninists heavily favor the use of a communist political party as the platform for both achieving revolution and establishing socialism. Many Marxist-Leninists are somewhat more nationalistic and patriotic than many other Marxists, and may favor industrial progress over environmental goals.
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Unless you have actually read political theory, you dont have any named ideology, you have a contradictory mishmash of opinions picked up from around you, if you think you might be a socialist you first need to understand what socialism is, for that i recommend Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels
For starters, what theory have you read to begin with? What’s informing your views on reform vs revolution, and on centralization vs decentralization? Assuming you’re a Marxist, these are “answered questions,” which is why these views are unpopular here.
Secondly, don’t take much stock in the results of LeftValues. It places me at Eco-Marxist, for example, despite me being a Marxist-Leninist. Additionally, “Democratic Socialism” is a bit of a misnomer, all Socialism is democratic, including Marxism-Leninism.
As for what I recommend you read, I would, in your particular case, perhaps skip ahead to The State and Revolution, which definitively answers both why Revolution is the only answer, and why Centralism is correct for a Socialist society.
I don’t have any good reformist texts or DemSoc texts, if that’s what you were wanting.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
I significantly disagree with their characterization of ML as significantly nationalist. It’s pragmatically true that in early stages of the revolution and DotP, nationalism would probably be utilized as a rhetorical tool if it had salience (e.g. for anti-colonialism), but the goal of ML, like Marxism, includes the ultimate dissolution of the material basis for the perpetuation of nations, and therefore the eventual dissolution of all nations.
Furthermore, a Marxist who is has no position on reform vs revolution is simply not a developed Marxist. Marx did advocate for various approaches to electoral work, but the whole point of his philosophy is that you can’t defeat liberalism with liberalism, you can’t expect capitalists to allow you to vote their power away.
It’s also very important to understanding the way that capitalism creates the material basis for socialism that capitalism increasingly centralizes the means of production as they get more developed and organized (think what Amazon has done), which provides the basis for production that isn’t based on the anarchy of markets, but on a definite plan.
Anyway, I support that you should read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and argue that you should read State and Rev by Lenin because unsurprisingly the test has been poisoned by opportunist nonsense. There is real space between Marxism and ML, but it’s not what the test describes.
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