PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-08 21:21:16 +0000 UTC]

That was a worth while read, thank you.

While it was sharp at points and is of value, it does have problems, some slight some not so much.

I couldn't help but notice that the author might hold to the heresy of "sola scriptura" and/or believe in the divine right of kings. Which are both objectionable. I retract this if I have misjudged or misread him, it just came off that way strongly.

Some other problems were, there was a lot of stretching to make some points with the interpretations of the commandments.

In general the text was rhetorically questionable, verging on "black rhetoric" at points, notably he employs "reading from heart" (it is when the rhetorician divines or claims to know the true or hidden intentions of someone else) a lot which is quite bad.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-09 00:14:29 +0000 UTC]

Mad Monarchist is interesting figure and he is a Christian, it is ambiguous if he is Protestant, an Orthodox, or even a Heterodoxical Catholic....

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to FESMiro1 [2014-10-05 19:04:04 +0000 UTC]

I am, yes. Is that a good thing in your view? Need to respond to a load of comments.

No problem.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

FESMiro1 In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-05 19:13:44 +0000 UTC]

Yes, it is, and yes, if I get time on my small hands, I will awnser to your un-awnserd comments

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

PolskaKaczka In reply to FESMiro1 [2014-10-05 19:16:57 +0000 UTC]

Oh, sorry, I meant: Me,- myself have to answer other people's comments.

But respond to me anyway, when it is convenient for you.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

FESMiro1 In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-05 20:24:08 +0000 UTC]

Oh, ok. I do remember that I didn't awnser on that Why do I find social democracy perfect? argument

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-05 22:49:27 +0000 UTC]

"Not to mention the capitalist view of private property vs in contrast ownership of property in the pre-modern sense differs in ways I have a hard time understanding so far."

Oh! Well I am no expert on things economical, but together maybe we can figure something out. I couldn't be of much use in specifics so lets talk in the most general.

So if we want to really understand modern view of private property, we need to go to its genesis, because the first formulations of any genealogically related conception have their underlying premises most visible, untarnished by countless rehashing.

Hobbes has no "real" theory of property. It is only with John Locke, that we start seeing the first attempt at legitimizing "property rights". Immediately, we can clearly see how it is different from pre-modern, Aristotelian conceptions.
For Locke property is an extension of the corporal person. He would explain that when a man, sovereign upon himself, sees an object that is owned by no other man, purely by his will can claim these items as his own. This is achieved by culturing of said objects into "cultural matter". Things that are cultured by one's effort, however slight are then made extension of the corporal person.
Example: So if I am the first man on an inhabited island and I exact my will upon all the food in that island by simply thinking about it in some way I claim it mine, (since he makes no worthwhile distinction between sufficient effort, so anything goes- when constituting what is cultured matter and what isn't). Then some other man comes to this island and lets say, he is enormously hungry and might die of starvation. If this man were to even touch any of the fruits of the island, let alone eat it, it would constitute an assault on the integrity of my corporal being.

Right, so lets get down to it, this really has no ontological justification and that is the symptom of modernity "par excellence". This is the kind of autism of modernity, where the great unity of being (that which Aquinas called "res") is compromised, this kind of refusal to couple structures of thought together. There is no ontological justification for property. We start, already with a kind of Cartesian ego, and then we say: :"oh there is property and this is how we got it" its all for expediency. Even though Locke does try to give some silly theological justification for property, the real authority of this property right comes from, who else other than the Leviathan.

I must say though, I can't help but feel that Locke is a true degeneration of the clarity and unity of Hobbesian thought. The pessimism of Hobbes is so quickly discarded by subsequent liberals that it is hard to even realize that the truest foundations lay in the Hobbesian state of nature.

So where as the classical conception has property justified through the telos of things. Things are valuable, simply because they are needed by people to realize their nature. And ownership is exactly that which is the good acquisition of needed items by the people who make best use of them. This is conducive to the common good and is perfectly congruent with ontology.
In modernity however sees property as things that "grow onto our" nature, like social tumors if you will, they become extensions of you, the more things you own the more you are in being. These things are made use in the same way you make use of yourself, so who is to tell me what to do or not to do with my body? By which I mean my things? This cultural matter that has become stuck to my "corporeal body" is justified by my will and not ontology and as such I can make what I want of it, there is no law that can tell me what I can do with my body, only other people, hence I can do with my things as I please, even if I own all the things in the world.

"All I am asking is what is the Pre-Modern economic system of thought and production before modernist capitalism and Marxism? (Distributism I would not count, nor Feudalism since it was more of a political and social system) (You can integrate Thomistic thinking in this if you want)"

Well the fundamental foundations are teleological, the theory of value is "need" or "use". When I try to extrapolate an economic system from that I get what we discussed some weeks ago. I can't really use Thomism here because I am not familiar with his views on the particulars of economics . But you know how Christian social teaching goes: solidarity and subsidiarity. An economical system that strives to maintain a central structure where its subsidiaries prioritize local solutions, but refer to a higher authority in case of conflict or need of update.

👍: 0 ⏩: 2

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-06 03:41:21 +0000 UTC]

There is also another "ism" we should talk about, known as Mercantilism. I think in summary it is essentially just attempting to create a trade system that is in favor of one's country and massive usage of protectionist policy.

It would still be considered a form of Modernism for it was born in the 16th century.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-08 20:43:12 +0000 UTC]

That is the thing. At a glance it seems like a system divorced from a theory of man, or being.

The people who promoted it were some economists under the fragmenting of different "legitimized and sovereign sciences". As is often the case with many things modern, disorderly things.

I would be curious to see what of philosophical system can be reconstructed from mercantilism.

I am not qualified at all to speak in any detail on the specifics, but I wouldn't feel bad simply dismissing it offhand.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-05 23:58:05 +0000 UTC]

When it comes to economic systems what I see as the best thing any society must do is sustainability. The private property system of capitalism is obsessed with constant economic growth and profit. Nothing wrong with earning a living it is the attitude of growth that I consider disastrous. Meanwhile socialism and/or communism can just choke on itself.

I like calling myself a "Feudalist" due to it being the easiest "ism" out there to summarize pre-modern society. Now the pre-modern world can be an example of how sustainability is the best plan for any society.

Here is an example I really loved. In Japanese history the Edo period (1603-1868) marks what I see as the greatest example of a sustainable economy I have ever seen. The government at the time was the "Centralized Feudalism" of the Tokugawa Shogunate. I know I know the Tokugawa Shogunate was anti-christian and had some immoral practices by our standards but this is about how they handled their economy.

The Tokugawa Shogunate handled their economy in a manner a modern (or in this case post-modern) globalist would find shocking....a prosperous society with little to no global trade, provided Japan had the resources necessary for sustainability is what mattered. Private Property (immovable like land and houses) was handled in a manner alien to consumerism. In our capitalist world farm land's main purpose is to earn as much profit as possible for its owner, nothing about that is inherently wrong, except that thinking is not sustainable.

Farming both in that time period and in Medieval Europe focused less on profit and more on feeding your family, the system in Europe was called the Open Field System. This system was agrarian and historians and economist criticize it for resisting technological progress. Yet the Open Field System lasting for centuries during good times and bad feeding its populous over long periods of time.

Back to Edo Japan. Local government was govern by the Feudal Lords known as Daimyo. It is in the interest of every daimyo that his Domain be as fulfilled as possible. In other words all natural resources in it would be used as much as possible and still be completely sustainable. I read how human excrement was even used as fertilizer for rice .

In essence the pre-modern economic system that I have searched to find meaning is self-sufficiency as the primary goal of any society. This does not mean trading was bad, it mean one country should not be dependent to trading.

The only downside to this is the lack of technological advancement will make the nation weak to foreign invasion. Maybe forms of trading or special societal organizations can exist if the purpose of advancing tech if it is necessary.

Also I see a big difference between modernity and pre-modern thinking was the concept of "rights." Today the human right is the basic building block of social beliefs of modernity even post-modernity. In pre-modern times before there were "rights" there was obligation. In the example of feudalism every social class has an obligation to each other regarding everything. Lords protect their peasants, peasants make stuff, etc. Also in faith we have an obligation to God and due to God loving us so much he gave himself the responsibility to provide us everything. In feudalism the Monarch is sovereign to all land but he does not own it like a capitalist, he gives it out to vassals (lords), who give it out to other vassals and peasants for the purpose of their nourishment. Each person is in a contract of obligation with each other.

I see Liberalism (classical enlightenment liberalism) as liberating everyone with obligation and spoiling them with "rights" and "freedoms." So property in pre-modern times differed to property today.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-08 21:09:51 +0000 UTC]

Amongst the ideologies of today I find few more loathsome than capitalism, it is alien and venomous to the science of Christ. While socialism is more closer to dignity in contour it is still wrong. Anyway, this is a mute point, since we reject both, it is of no consequence.

I see, can you tell me why sustainability should be the prime concern of economy, because it isn't the final or formal cause of it. Consider what is the purpose of economics.
Lets try reduction ad absurdum, if the primary concern of economics is sustainability, then the choices which are sustainable are better for economy than choices which are less sustainable. If an option A is less sustainable than option B- which involves introduction of immoral practices but is more sustainable for the economy, we are to chose option B.
So unless we are to say that economy is divorced from things expediency, we are to posit that there is a contradiction in our understanding and one thing must over rule another by some third principle without harmony amongst the first.

Rights are nothing more than a license for the raging of unkempt desire. You can see that at the very beginning, when Hobbes says that the goal of man in the natural state is the immediate gratification of all desires.

Yes obligation is an accurate way of putting it , we are obligated to each other to do the best we can for the common good. And sometimes it is not what we want, but what we need, which is unthinkable to a modern.

👍: 0 ⏩: 2

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-09 01:19:19 +0000 UTC]

What would you say is the definition of capitalism? The problem with being Anti-Capitalist is the misunderstanding to what that means. A lot of Capitalist just use the definition that capitalism is a system where a person can own property for the purpose of generating profit (This just explains the concept of business).

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-09 00:25:13 +0000 UTC]

I see what you mean, I guess instead I should say sustainability is a very preferred trait for an economy instead of its goal. The economies goal (the goal of anything) is to of course to help man be with God, to me that is obvious. So when talking about economics I would prefer to talk not about its goals but what traits a proper God serving economy would be like.

My explanation of sustainability made it sound like it is the goal of an economy, I should have put the disclaimer that said "The economy's goal is to help man be with God, here is what I think is a good trait for that economy"

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to theengineerman [2014-10-05 21:12:54 +0000 UTC]

We would have to talk about some specific claim they make.

Because on the whole I just find it absolutely dismissible.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-09-13 12:06:03 +0000 UTC]

I will try to be very brief.

The goal of a person is to seek the good, the goal of the society is to seek the common good as society is but an organic entity. (Organicism, not to be confused with holism) Said society can only achieve common good if there are conditions for the maximum amount of people to fully develop their virtues to the best of their ability, this is also known as taming the passions. Therefore the political body of free citizens (in the classical sense) can never be made to act against conscience.
For the maximum amount of people to achieve virtuous development, since all people are different in their aptitudes and temperaments, there must be different social ranks in a hierarchy determined by the quality of the and virtues aptitudes displayed. The craftsmen, the noble soldiers and the ones that rule, with a philosopher king ideally. The church (the ones that pray) works in parallel and this setup creates the system of two kingdoms, keeping the immanent body of politic in check.
The system can never be predicated upon infinite rule, as all things in imminence change and are temporary, so is a certain kind of political order. Thus, again, it can never predicate itself upon permanent accumulation of power (Machiavelli), wealth or do things simply to keep itself in rule (Hobbes) as this leads to tyranny. Why? Because if the moral development and salvation of people is not the primary goal, than it must by necessity be to the detriment of it.

My politics is Thomistic eudaimonism coupled with the excellent explications of John of Salisbury on mixed governance, I am of the conviction that their's was the theory that best described the truth of the matter.

My stance on economics is a kind of plannism, so in somewhat awkward terms: The merchant/ craftsman strata of society should manage their affairs according to a royal decree or plan (which can be changed or reissued). All the people are under the rule of the king through the royal edict and the king can allocate land and determine jurisdiction. So as a craftsman you might be under the jurisdiction of another, but this is overruled by the king's jurisdiction in case of a conflict.
This kind of centralization, is for two goals, disallow the generation of poverty and to restrain the economical organ from creating any accommodation for mindless generation/pooling of wealth and thus denying any decadent use of it. The creation of jurisdiction over assets, land or places, does denote a type of ownership, since Aristotle correctly taught that things which are of everyone are of no-one are the business and concern of no one, so people take better care of things they hold to be close to them and not the things that are close to everyone or no one.
The ultimate jurisdiction of the king/queen over the economy is necessarily teleological. The king does not "own" people, he must simply ensure that if there is a violinist without a violin and a baker with a violin, the violin should go to the violinist, and the baker should understand this and do it on his own, and if she does not, then the temperament of the people is truly poor and there is a serious problem. This must be the first principle of economic planning and the king's decisions can not be arbitrary or by any principle that is not teleological.

Same with anything else like food, if there are people starving unjustly, then the situation should be most clear that there is charity to be exercised by the ones that do have food in their jurisdiction. And if they don't understand then the king's jurisdiction may overrule and use force to aid the sufferers if this is to the ends of ultimate moral development of both parties.
The measure of such an economies success is not wealth or anything other than, the people have what material things they need to fulfill their telos/ develop virtue to the full. They should not scheme and worry about the things they need to have or might lose, which are necessary to their purpose.

👍: 0 ⏩: 2

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-09-15 03:14:31 +0000 UTC]

Also continuing off your economic beliefs it also reminds me of Trade Associations.

Where the business world have their own "jurisdiction" aka industry groups where they do their specific business under the guidance of the law.

Or Maybe I am misreading something :/ idk

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-09-13 23:12:04 +0000 UTC]

Your economic stance reminds me of two things, a mixed economy (I'm pretty sure that is not a good enough term) and Dirigisme. Dirigisme is the economic doctrine that the state (in your case the king) has a directing influence of economics not mere regulatory.

Unlike state owned systems Dirigisme has the merchants and other business as their own private entities but must follow the direction ordered by the state.

P.S. I like what you consider "brief"

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-05 22:58:58 +0000 UTC]

Dirigism, I see. Would you join me in prescribing Dirigism then, in the discussed form? Do we have unity?

Yes, as brief as the hundred year war, I should drop the pretense of brevity from now on.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Emperor-Romanov In reply to PolskaKaczka [2014-10-06 00:08:16 +0000 UTC]

I will be cautious with Dirigisme since it is often a system for more state control of particular business groups. I see what you described is just subsidiarity, local authorities head to central authority if local authorities can't solve their own problems.

I think it be best to have something of a Guild System or Cottage Industry when the merchants or crafts persons would do their trade under regulation of a charter given by legitimate authorities. In case of famine just bring out the "In case of Famine Plans" out of the file cabinet and start doing emergency protocol.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

PolskaKaczka In reply to Emperor-Romanov [2014-10-08 20:32:06 +0000 UTC]

"In case of Famine Plans" oh yes, this makes me think, how sad of a state we are in, and what a failure of a civilization, that we don't even have a B plan for famine, or anything else for that matter. Everything is built on risk and the market, nothing is fool proof and no one has a backup plan for doing this society thing if lets say the bombs fall or something.

Oh sure they have some cellar on a frozen rock full of seeds in it, to save "good ol' Gaia", outrageous.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to thieviusracoonus [2014-08-19 07:20:08 +0000 UTC]

No, thank you for making such delightfully strange art .

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to TankDempsey2012 [2014-08-18 17:20:08 +0000 UTC]

NP

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to mas2500 [2014-08-18 14:33:49 +0000 UTC]

I am glad you like me, but wouldn't you rather know if I am even a Marxist, or would like to join such a group first. To the second of those, I wouldn't mind if you want a devils advocate for the tempo of healthy socialist life.

I do like answering questions, so here goes:

DPRK: For more than two decades the immanent collapse of this country has been predicted over and over, and yet it persists and persists. Most of the information that I have access to concerning this country is condemning of this state. Many of these accounts are wildly contradictory, thus some are simply wrong, I also understand that the proliferators of such information are often biased by a certain kind of narrative or motive, same with the apologist that often descend to disgusting lows in order to whitewash a struggling country. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but it being so is a sad state of affairs non the less. While the suffering experienced by the people of DPRK is not unique to it and is common to all third world countries, it is still bad regardless. The cause of this is internal and external, internally the DPRK suffers from nepotism ten fold more rampant than anything seen in the USSR and externally it suffers from sanctions, blockades and aggression. The more this is the case the more the state of the country worsens, but the worsening is not aimless it is structural and institutional. It worsens in a very particular way, a way that is designed to maintain stability. This is why it does not die, but is rather in a perpetual state of dying. The only way it would truly collapse is if it opened up, and knowing what happened to the GDR this is a lose-lose situation.

Stalin: The "prince" of soviet philosophy. While there was always a sense of caution, concern and regret in the writings of Lenin and other Bolsheviks about how the revolution has worked out and their policies, which was absent in Stalin, who codified a hideous optimism. This time it would not be the Mongols, the Swedes, Germans or the Poles that would beat Russia, this time she would beat herself into shape, beat herself into the coming of a dialectical messiah. All that is done is done by historical necessity and the success of the soviets is as equally unavoidable and assured, as failure impossible. That is why we have to help it along, for some reason, but it is fine because our success is guaranteed no matter what, history is on our side. This sort of Marxist clairvoyance exchanged the actual for the ideal, for a materialist analysis, predicated on an expected outcome could not help but betray reality. With this epistemological optimism diamat became even more and more idealist than Hegel's original idealism. The dreadful state, and backwardness of Russia demanded self-mutilation or humiliation in failing to catch up with necessity. Unable to maintain coherence or legitimacy in light of actuality, Russia had to make reality conform to ideology, self-mutilation was the optimist's answer, and it came in three.
The disastrous underperformance of the five year plan, and subsequent intensification of it, would twist a dagger deep into the heart of the worker, nowhere worse than in the unsung monster-city of Magnitogorsk. Next, the peasant's back would be broken, a brutal collectivization, so prone to opportunism in a place so backward, would decapitate the peasant, eradicating their centuries old hierarchies, leave the peasant as a soft shapeless human clay. Platonov's own book "foundation pit" explores this violent optimism in great detail. What was to be a foundation pit for a grand worker's abode was nothing more than a mass grave for the eternal residence of humanity. Platonov was a true Bolshevik and really believed in Marxism and communism even as he wrote that book having had first hand accounts of the actual realia so vividly described.
 The Russian would experience a near complete instrumentalization, that would impotently agitate itself into a narcoleptic spasm of activity before tumbling neatly into the grave. The grand commodity of which was not the multitude of useless apparatuses. Even this would not suffice, as a third beating was in order.
The Third kind of mutilation was the lobotomization of the soviet thought. While Lenin, graciously, sent off so many in his philosopher ships, but those thinkers- true believers that remained were in a deadlock between the Mechanists and Dialecticians. This conundrum however was swiftly solved by Stalin's luciferous intervention by simply deciding the winner. Optimism could then be truly legitimized by this newly castrated soviet thought. Deborinist diamat became the codified and exclusive philosophy, by right of historical necessity till the day historical-material-scientific-dialectical law was unpossibly sabotaged and the whole red leviathan lazily slumped back into the primordial soup it crawled out of.
The perfect reprisal of this saccharine, toxic soviet style optimism was the little known, late soviet, artistic movement of necro-realism, that brought the indomitable grimness of life back home. With a vision and somberness that crushed and shattered socialist-realism irreversibly, where it finally died a double death, a material death in the warehouse vaults of obscure museums and as a recollection of itself as a promise of an inevitable brighter future.

I do not know the true intentions of Stalin, none can see the hearts of men as they are. Nor do I know how things would have played out if a million different people were in charge. It is not his deep intellectual failings. It is not even that people died, people die Stalin or not. No, the true tragedy is that these people suffered, they suffered long and hard, with heavy breaths and heavy chests in all they did, thinking it a necessary condition for the future happiness of the masses. A happiness that ultimately would never come and could not come. This is the true horror that happened under Stalin. It is his optimism, and infusing there of into the fabric of soviet ethos that I loathe.

Revisionism: Revisionists like ComradeShc on DA are a direct result of the liberal consumerist mode of thinking, in a word it is designer-communism, "communism for your consumer enjoyment!". The thing with real world revisionists is that they come in many different levels of sophistication. Revisionism can and does often compromise the foundation of Marxism, and hence is detrimental and should be seen as such by Marxists. However it is only a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the undermining of Marxism. What is important is that Marxism does not succumb to the three ills of over zealousness, dogmatism (ideological blindness) and optimism, thus it must evaluate its own failings and make improvements. Great pains must be taken to accurately delineate improvement and upgrade from revisionism, on the grounds of ontological integrity of Marxism as a whole.

KimIlSungism: I assume you mean Juche. Juche is loosely based around Lenin's vangardism and Stalin's "socialism in one country" doctrine, but it is a purely practical and not theoretical doctrine. It was spawned by the hostile political climate of the time in order to preserve the structural integrity of the DPRK. However it is not seen as a practical tool but rather a theoretical system that governs the country, this is a massive blunder and makes Juche the subject of theology. This is evident, the embalmment of Juche is verified by the absence of a faculty of philosophy in any of the DPRK universities, let alone any that would start the course with anything other than Juche.

Maoism: Unlike Stalin, Mao was actually theoretically capable, and has made significant contributions to the dialectic. I am not too terribly familiar with Maoism, but I will try to comment. The most fascinating aspect of Maoism is how it tries to account for its own potential failing by expanding on the idea of the sub-kulak and the idea that "class struggle only intensifies after the bourgeoisie has been eliminated as a class. In a move that is unsurprisingly Hobbesian Maoism would have us believe that persons known as capitalist roaders appear at the time after the revolutions and act as direct agents of the material culture of capitalism. This is a process of a strange kind of undead capitalist cannibalism, because if the revolutionary entity was brought down by the roaders it wasn't really a true workers state but only zombie capitalism in a state of decay and metamorphosis back into itself, a kind of gruesome renewal. This was the forefather of the modern Marxist notion of capitalism's perpetual decay and inverse vivaciousness. The thing about Maoism that seems the biggest departure from Marxism, is the whole "peasants are the class most exploited in some places therefore revolution will happen with the peasant's struggle", which I find bogus.

Hohxaism: It is not a theoretical contribution and only a political thing so I never concerned myself with it. No interest.

Trotskyism: Trotsky was a dilatant snob. Trotskyism on the other hand is loyal to Marxism to a fault. Its strong emphasis on internationalism would have instrumentalised the Russian into the "white nigger" fit only for the meat-grinder of global revolution. In this regard coupled with his strong leaning to anarchism, thus defacto makes him worse than Stalin and his red-fascism. Then again they are both worse than each other. Other than that I don't have any unique problems that pertain only to him and would not be endemic to the whole Marxist enterprise.

Anarcho-marxism: Like all flavours of anarchism, it is dismissible on the grounds of its rejection of authority, depending on how deep it is, it usually contradicts itself, by doing so. It makes its own prescriptive statements unauthoritative. However Marxism, in the communist stage, has an anarchistic moment, so I suppose to add the "anarcho" prefix is to further decouple the stance from vangardist doctrine.

Do you believe in holodommor?: I am not in the habit of arguing over the colour of red herrings, and leave this sensitive topic exclusively to the respective academic historians to determine, to do otherwise is a rhetorical suicide.

materialism: I assume you mean diamat. There are four cardinal problems I want to mention:
1) Is the problem of having infinite progress,- it delimits qualitative change between one state of affairs and another, hence due to flirting with "actual" infinity, even potentially, and coupling progress with historical flow, it renders progress impossible. As there is always an infinite gap between current state of affairs and the reference point. I brought this problem up to the general secretary of CPDA with less than satisfactory results (read for a more detailed account of the problem): comments.deviantart.com/1/4145…
2) Diamat, to function requires to retain the "logical" law of- "contradiction" from Hegel's idealist system. However having castrated "The Absolute" out of it, there is no way this materialist ontological system can contain a para-material entity such as the law of contradiction. Therefore diamat can not enable the law of contradiction that it requires to establish dialectical process. Diamat simply implodes on this account.
3) The third problem is of motivation. When you have an ontological system that couples necessitarianism with teleology, you have a situation where any single action, is to the benefit of deialectical progress. Regardless of what I do or you do,  socialism will happen and communism will happen. So why should I do anything? Or even try to achieve anything? Resistance is formally impossible. Even if I act counterpositive and try and sabotage the revolution it will still happen according to material law, even if everyone in the world tries to prevent it it still must happen, it is a scientific law after all. So why do anything?
4) This is a problem with ethics. If materialism is true and there is no absolute, it follows that a prescriptive normative fact can not be established, see naturalistic fallicy/is-aught gap. Diamat simply entails moral nihilism, this however is an unlivable doctrine and is sufficient to reject diamat outright.

Dialectical materialism as most often formulated is false, any one of these problems being true is a sufficient to falsify diamat. And I am confident all four are correct to the detriment of not only diamat, but being the deepest foundation, Marxism and all its spin-offs as a whole.

democratic centralism: Better than liberal democracy and is good as long as it is kept in order. A version of it is proposed by John of Salisbury, the similarity is only on that point and tentative. So since I subscribe to John's theory of mixed governance I agree with democratic centralism, in so far as it overlaps.

religion: Not all religions are made equal, some are religious ideologies (such as Protestantism) and some simply religions, simply religions are either religions of faith or law. To put it short, religion is a necessary vehicle of establishing points of normative reference. Religion is a way of communing with the sacral and the permanent. It is truly impossible to be without religion, as even the militant atheist, makes god of his idols, items or identity, by shifting the normative center of their cognition. Put it simply, the things they hold as "values" are impermanent and illusory. I am getting fatigued of all the writing I did so I will stop.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to MyLittleTripod [2014-08-11 16:09:07 +0000 UTC]

Pooland is in the hearts of all true believers.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to FESMiro1 [2014-07-29 12:27:12 +0000 UTC]

Alright!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to FESMiro1 [2014-07-24 22:11:08 +0000 UTC]

Sure buddy.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to DAisrunbybigots [2014-07-24 22:11:20 +0000 UTC]

No problem.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to DAisrunbybigots [2014-07-20 18:52:19 +0000 UTC]

no problem.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to RPCarlyShay [2014-07-20 12:25:15 +0000 UTC]

np dawg

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PolskaKaczka In reply to TheFinnishSolidarian [2014-07-16 20:41:07 +0000 UTC]

NP my suomi friend .

👍: 0 ⏩: 0