I literally never met someone who called themselves an ML who didn’t advocate for an actual revolution of some kind. ML organization also doesn’t allow this to happen, since you have to subscribe to the party line and actually take courses on Marxism. This comic makes no sense, it’s describing a different kind of person who wouldn’t want to call themselves a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ anyway.
“people are less likely to read the original stuff, and it becomes clear that part of the original work is simply wrong”
(a) hexbear is running a Capital book club at this very moment (b) Marx was right.
Mighty Weinersmith, from a liberal perspective, deals a killing stroke to DSA’s North Star caucus and possibly Pete Buttigieg types. I’m quaking in my boots
Marx was wrong about plenty of stuff. Socialism has largely developed in individual pre-industrial nations.
I’ve met people who call themselves socialists who are just socdems or even liberals, but I’ve never met someone in the USA who proclaims to be an ML who isn’t actually one. Most people in the USA don’t even know what capitalism is, they certainly couldn’t define ML if they hadn’t studied it.
I’ve only met one person who’s called themselves a communist who didn’t quite know what it meant. The way they’d phrase it was “I’m the most liberal person I know. I’m more liberal than communists.” But when he’d talk about policies he wanted they were very standard libertarian things, actually.
There are also Caleb Maupin and that Haz guy. Both claim to be Marxist-Leninist and both are more like weird American chauvinists. Ask them to describe what capitalism is and they’ll give you an antisemitic conspiracy theory
I really don’t get the joke. I’m not sore or anything there’s plenty to poke fun at about us, but what exactly is the premise of this joke?
M-Ls don’t read theory? Is there a branch of economic thought that reads theory more?
Is it important whether part of the originating theory is “simply wrong”? Marxism isn’t the exegesis of religious texts, it’s a dynamic practice, a lens that is constantly updated with new additions and vigorous debate.
Are people who claim to be Marxist-Leninists not actually Marxist-Leninists?
IDK honestly this just reads more like what a lib assumes MLs must be like, because they can’t fathom people might actually genuinely believe we need to liquidate the ownership class so we must all be posturing.
I’m assuming that this is poking fun at radlibs cosplaying as marxists while only advocating mild reforms in actuality (Jacobin etc.) I doubt Weinersmith knows any actual ML’s.
The fact people here are acting like this is an attack on actual MLs and not recognizing it as shitting on radlibs who call themselves communist is weird, it seems pretty clear cut.
Copy + Replace “ML” with “Internet Anarchist”.
The other day I saw an “anti-authoritarian” internet anarchist shitting on trade unions in response to a recent wage increase for Ben and Jerry’s workers. It’s like these folks got an addiction to being useful idiots.
yellow sweater woman calls this guy a liberal while outlining she believes political movements start with a secluded bunch of great man nerds who generate big important ideas from thin air
Well the writer is a turbo lib so idk what people expect from him
He’s one of the slightly more tolerable versions of libertarian. He did write long things on how the current American healthcare system sucks for non-rich people, and how national borders should be entirely removed because freedom of movement benefits everybody and increases equality.
Clearly naive like all libertarians (ie thinking a bourgeois “first-world” nation would ever implement open borders), but seems to at least have some care for your average human.
Those types seem to become communist when they read theory. The misanthropes become fascist.
