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Yes we've all heard of the rise of the right and it is undeniable, but almost as a counter-balance, there is the rise of the left. To some people that is a lot scarier than literal nazis which I think is more those people telling on themselves than anything about the movement itself.
Ultimately whichever way, it is evident that the status quo is no longer working. And people want change.
To be fair change is always wanted by one group or another, but here I'm talking about the collective shout that things aren't working anymore for the ordinary person. The push to keep being extraordinary to only be able to live a comfortable life is rinsing people out and even then it is not guaranteed. Not everyone can be extraordinary 100% of the time, least of all me. So whether it be right, left, up, down, there is the shout for change happening yet again like it did after the gilded age for example.
One thing I do have going for me is that I've been fascinated with the way the world has tried to do socialism/communism since before it became cool to be a fan of Hasan Piker and Ash Sarkar. I come from a country that is still dealing with the fallout from what was the hostile takeover of "socialism on the path to communism" in 1944. Because of that I think there are learnings and pitfalls that need to be taken into account for those who may not know but like the sheen of what socialism is in pure theory.
And because I'm looking to capture nuance and context this will likely be a good few parts dissecting what went right and what went wrong. After all when you are looking to enact overall social change there is a lot of topics to cover.
Overall this will likely be structured more for me as the author to work through some cognitive dissonance of my own. But there will likely be lots of learning along the way.
A few things that come to mind immediately that anyone yearning for socialism has to think about are:
- What do we actually want? Change from capitalism or actual socialism?
- Why do we want this?
- How do we bring this about - there is the theory of violent revolution which has taken hold, but where has that been effective?
- What will that look like in real life - do you want the Soviet Union wholesale, only the good parts?
- What are the pitfalls and issues that are likely to arise? The bad parts of socialism?
- How do we avoid the "bad parts"?
- How do we square socialism/communism with things like the tragedies of the commons?
Likely others will come up as topics as we go along but so far my starting hypothesis is as follows
Going through the above questions and a few more in a systematic fashion, let's see how my hypothesis will need to shift to reflect the real world.
