edit: this is now closed future comments won’t be counted

I keep seeing this instance is overrun with tankies so hey, lets do an informal survey like I’ve seen on hexbear

respond with YES or NO in the first line of your comment and i’ll tally everything in a couple of days, lets say I’ll try and collect everything on the sunday the 9th (10+gmt sorry)

not sure thisll work, be nice, have fun

  • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
    63·
    6 months ago

    Serious question, I mean I feel you dislike the “west” or jow it is governed (I guess) and to each their own but are you against democracy? And if so, how do you get rid of dictators like Putin if needed?

    Cheers

    • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
      12·
      6 months ago

      Our definition of what is and isn’t a democracy is significantly different than that of liberals. We wouldn’t consider Europe and America to be democracies meaning that we have no sympathies for those style of governments and societies.

      To contextualize this, one thing you have to understand is that there are many formulations of democracy that have existed historically. Athenian democracy is very different from liberal democracy, which is in turn very different from democratic centralism (the formulation most used by Marxist states). And there were probably many forms of democracy that hunter-gatherers and indigenous peoples used (which I unfortunately don’t know much about).

      The main problems with how democracy is talked about in liberal philosophy (the hegemonic philosophy) is that only the liberal formulation of democracy is considered valid, even if its performance has historically been extremely subpar. Furthermore, class is completely ignored, as all “democracies” have existed in service of a class (in athens, for the slave owners, in liberal republics, for the bourgeoise, in ML republics, for the proles).

      Because we do not consider liberal democracies to be a valid form of democracy, liberals take this disingenuously as if Marxists hate all democracy.

      • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
        2·
        6 months ago

        So how do you get rid of the likes of Putin?

        Interesting theories there, a bit too generalisering for my taste, most people in the west are not liberals either.

        • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
          2·
          6 months ago

          As far as my understanding of the soviet style democratic centralist systems goes (I suppose DemCent could be implemented in many ways, just like liberal electoralism can), every country has a supreme soviet which convenes some times a year to appoint, remove and review the progress of the presidium. The members of the presidium themselves have a strong distribution of powers amongst each other, and so a dictator type like Putin shouldn’t really show up at all, and if he does, he should be removed by the supreme soviet. The supreme soviet itself was elected by lower level regional soviets, which were in turn elected by lower level soviets and so on until you had the fully local soviets, which were initially organizations the factory workers and soldiers during the revolution (so they predated even the USSR), and latter (after the 1936 constitution) became location based (so similar to the local councils in liberal systems).

          I have heard compelling arguments that any new DemCent system should take ideas from ancient athenian democracy like sortition and direct democracy. I agree with them, but implementing such a system in reality would likely be challenging and require many preconditions to be met (such as having a highly educated population with good amounts of free time and no worries about war or imperialism).

      • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
        3·
        6 months ago

        You have to imagine other people have no idea about Marxism but what they’ve heard from US propaganda. When they hear you support China, Cuba, and Vietnam, they just hear you supporting dictator for life Xi Jinping and one party state Cuba and Vietnam. You guys need better answers than this.

        The other person’s answer was pretty good, though.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
          2·
          6 months ago

          My point is to get them to do some questioning on their own, and challenge the pretenses. Sometimes this approach works better as the other person comes to a new conclusion on their own.

      • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
        11·
        6 months ago

        Okay you don’t want democracy, but how do you deal with dictators like putin always creeps into the system and takes over if you can’t vote them out?