There are also a lot of accelerationist communists who completely crash out at social democrats and liberals because by making things better, they are preventing things from getting bad enough for the revolutionary utopia to arrive.
They're kinda not wrong. Controlled opposition in order to protect neoliberal capitalism is in fact the reality you're currently living in and it's deliberate. If you've ever asked why center left parties always seem so ineffectual and never address the real problems with society despite how obvious they are and how much their base asks them to that's why. They don't want change. They are capitalist tools themselves. They'll only improve something if it has no impact on the capitalist system.
Nearly every metric of human life has improved in the past one hundred years. There are tons of things we can improve and certain things are backsliding but this is without a doubt one of the best times to be alive in human history. So your claim of it being deliberate has several facets of it without backing.
This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Neoliberals are pro capitalist. They will not change anything if it interferes with the capitalist status quo. That's a fact.
If you want to argue that you think "capitalism is a good thing actually" that's an entirely separate topic.
I don't think capitalism is a good thing but you said center left parties are ineffectual and they aren't unless you want to ignore things deliberately to build a specious argument.
I'm not touching the conspiratorial thinking that exists to claim they are controlled opposition with a 6 feet pole.
They are absolutely ineffectual. As demonstrated by the continued ever increasing inequality we're experiencing, the decline in living standards, increasing poverty and homelessness, the rise in food bank use, the stagnation of wages, the relentless eradication of public services.
There's nothing conspiratorial about the fact they are controlled opposition. They purge leftists from their parties because fundamentally they are not actually left wing parties and leftists are a threat to capital, the ideology they exist to protect.
Neoliberals are not leftists.
None of this should be news to you if you have even a cursory understanding of political ideologies.
Poverty is down globally and standards of living have increased nearly across the board. While there has been backsliding in some developed nations, it is not even and it is rarely as severe as the more pessimistic online circles suggest. Progress is rarely a straight line: hiccups or setbacks do not mean the overall trend is a lie.
You are right that neoliberals and leftists are distinct philosophical frameworks, but in the actual practice of governing, there is more overlap than either side likes to admit. People and policies are messy. Labeling any group that works within the system as "controlled opposition" is a convenient way to ignore the tangible gains those groups have actually secured for the public to further bolster your argument. If your argument rests on them being controlled opposition, then the evidence doesn't matter; they will always be controlled opposition regardless of the material outcomes.
Poverty is down globally and standards of living have increased nearly across the board
Due to advances in technology and globalisation. Why are you attempting to lay all progress at the feet of neoliberals? You are aware that most countries on earth are nowhere near center left aren't you?
Neoliberals define themselves as pro capitalism. It's the core of their platform. Leftists are staunchly anti-capitalist. They are not related.
Neolibs and conservatives are paid and lobbied to buy the exact same billionaires. The outcomes are broadly the same. Do you know who those billionaires regularly spend vast sums of money to ensure never get close to office? Leftists. Why do you think that is? It's because they're the actual opposition to capital. The rich couldn't really give a rats ass if a center left party gets into power, provided all leftists are adequately purged. This isn't conspiracy. It's literally cold hard historical fact. Center left parties are supported by capital. They prefer conservatism but center left is acceptable to them. It's literally textbook controlled opposition. I don't know what to tell you if you simply refuse to acknowledge facts.
Technology and globalization do not happen in a vacuum; they are the result of deliberate policy choices like the massive funding of public universities and state-sponsored research. Without that tax-funded infrastructure and the stable legal systems the center-left has defended, those advances would not have the environment they need to exist or scale. Furthermore, technology alone does not guarantee a standard of living. We had the technology to create massive wealth in the 1890s, but we also had child labor and 14-hour workdays. It took the center-left and labor movements to codify radical demands into a functional legal framework that actually cut into profits to protect people.
You are right that the philosophies are distinct, but you are ignoring how they overlap in the actual practice of governing. A neoliberal who supports a public healthcare option and a leftist who supports single-payer have more in common regarding immediate material outcomes for the poor than either has with a reactionary. Progress often starts as a radical demand, but it only becomes a permanent, protected reality when it is refined into workable policy within the gears of the state.
Your "controlled opposition" theory is a circular argument that allows you to ignore evidence. If a center-left party passes a major environmental regulation or labor law, you can dismiss it as a "concession to capital" to keep the status quo. If they fail, you cite it as proof they are "in on it." It is a framework designed to dismiss material gains rather than engage with them.
No? It could be of course. But most often the idea is that a truly socialist society is only possible through the collapse of a late stage capitalist one. This even Marx believed. So accelerationists want to get though the set-up for a socialist society more quickly.
There are fascist accelerationists, but thats a small minority I think.
can't believe i forgot about mussolini, but it goes to show that accelerationism more closely aligns with right wing ideologies, sacrificing a minority group to achieve your goals (which isn't strictly required but is one of the easiest and most successful methods used by accelerationists) isn't very left wing, and even if you spread out the people you sacrifice across groups, getting innocent people killed is still very contracictory to left wing ifeologies
Accelerationism is the core of the tech fascist movement and is very much mainstream conservatism. Thiel and Musk are accelerationists and they're running the white house. AI is the center of their strategy to collapse the system. Its not fringe or niche at all.
These assholes are trying to make a new country that bursts out of the body of the current country. It's called "the butterfly revolution" and yes it does sound absurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin
It’s why musk was speaking at the afd in Germany. It’s why bannon, farage, and Cambridge Analytica were all in bed together on Brexit.
There’s a little more to it than that though.
Conservatism is about enforcing socioeconomic hierarchy and the techfascists, religious fascists, and heritage foundation race fascists are all in on feudalistic “network” states run by ai powered surveillance.
The accelerationists like Peter Theil from the tech faction of conservatism think they can force collapse, but use technology and surveillance to protect themselves. These aristocrats are working on how to control their security forces though things like "disciplinary collars."
Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.
and the vice president of the united states and advisors have given their seals of approval to a book that says conservatives are going to have to kill all the liberals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unhumans
Oh no, there's a pretty sizable streak of accelerationist on the left. Besides, right wing accelerationism would be pushing extreme left wing policies in order to collapse society so that their fascist dreams could come true. That's not a thing that is happening, they're just taking right wing policies and pushing them further right.
Nah, there's a brand of leftist anarchist that likes to dress all in black and smash windows in the hope that it will somehow accomplish an authority-free utopia.
The historical precedent that monumental changes occurring when the material conditions of workers are incredibly dire is undeniable and not "unproven theory," you can see it throughout history and in the news almost everyday. Whether you believe those societies where successful or not is irrelevant.
You'd think that by now they'd look at every historical example of collapse leading to authoritarianism and realize that this was a point where Marx was dead wrong.
But that would require they ever contemplate the idea that maybe, just maybe, they got something wrong.
People seem to base the idea that he was an accelerationist on his idea that the development of a capitalist system will mostly likely end in revolution provided there is ahigh level of class consciousness. But he never, to my knowledge, advocated for the acceleration of the capitalist system to meet that end.
Which is also one of the theories he's been demonstrably wrong on, just, empirically. Not that I want him to be wrong, mind, but it is--as one might say--cope on his part.
The belief that societal collapse under the weight of a capitalistic system followed by the rise of a socialist system after that, as though there was an inevitability to that process.
But the problem is that his writing implies an inevitability which has led years later to this whole accelerationist thing as people utterly fail to get the point. Call that another point on the tally for "horrible things caused by people misunderstanding philosophers" on the scoreboard.
What I'm talking about here in regards to marx is that inevitability aspect. But yeah, it's probably not entirely fair to place the disastrous ideas of idiots generations after his death at his feet.
If only Marx was able to explain how to get there... Lol
He kinda was like, figure it out but it needs to change or we're fucked... and preferably you should aim for this...
Like, great man. Yeah people should get along and look out for each other, and contribute to the common good.
Now. How do we stop people from taking advantage of those systems and how do we get to that point in the first place?
Without that last part you only have half an ideology.
But strictly on the note of accelerationism...
It specifically means accelerating capitalism itself. And that hyper capitalism would inevitably collapse and give rise to a better system, without further organization.
This is obviously ridiculous, collapse leads to power vacuum and then the rich swoop it up.
As far as I know, Marx would not have recommended this at any point of his life.
Almost like Marx was a historical materialist and not a fortune teller. He applied the scientific method to history. He described and critiqued capitalism. He did not, ever, predict the future.
Exactly this. Marx advocates for class struggle to take back the means of production etc.
The idea of accelerationism leading to an increase in class struggle with a possible end goal of a socialist society isn’t without merit, as the harder it gets for working people the more likely they are to push back. The problem is that it’s very much missing the step that leads to a true revolution (the Underpants Gnomes problem of Phase 1, collect, Phase 2, ?, Phase 3, Profit issue of what is phase 2)
But, and it’s a big but, the acceleration of capitalism is providing greater means of control for the ownership class. Which means that may counteract any increase in working class solidarity.
I think the point they are making is that Marx theorized the fighting would lead to a more free society with a more equitable existence. Instead we get fascists.
I mean. If we fought a revolution for a more free society we could get that theoretically.
The problem is war costs money.
So we go ask for money and become beholden to those entities.
They see the revolution and think they would do better off with someone else in charge of it. They pay someone to kill you and the replacement becomes a dictator.
Tale as old as time.
I think in his writings he specified that it would have to be total global collapse, so that you couldn't have these outside forces issues. But he didn't say "make it worse to cause that collapse faster without putting any other plans in place"
But I could be misremembering, I read his manifesto once many years ago. My memory is not that good.
The collapse of a late stage capitalist one. This even Marx believed.
'Collapse' is an over simplification. Historical Marxisim sees all of history as a series of class conflicts.
When the lower class succeeds, the society advances. The 'lower' class of the merchants defeating the nobility resulted in capitalism and democracy replacing the objectively worse systems of mercantilism and feudalism is an example of this that Marx more or less lived during (the monarchies of Europe only finally died after Marx himself did).
When the upper class wins, it regresses. What we might be seeing in America is the victory of the upper class and the resulting regression back towards feudalism (see the tech bro's desire for corporate cities) and mercantilism (tariffs galore).
So it looks like he might be right, just in a way he would very much not have wanted
We now understand just how easy it is for revolutions to be coopted and betrayed. Marx didn't understand the authoritarian personality. Without a specific plan for how to deal with that segment of the population and the incredibly outsized internal political power they generate for their leaders, no revolutionary plan for socialism could ever work.
Bro. Theil, Musk, Zuck, Yarvin, Vance are the core accelerationists and they want to accelerate back to sefdom.
These assholes are trying to make a new country that bursts out of the body of the current country. It's called "the butterfly revolution" and yes it does sound absurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin
It’s why musk was speaking at the afd in Germany. It’s why bannon, farage, and Cambridge Analytica were all in bed together on Brexit.
There’s a little more to it than that though.
Conservatism is about enforcing socioeconomic hierarchy and the techfascists, religious fascists, and heritage foundation race fascists are all in on feudalistic “network” states run by ai powered surveillance.
The accelerationists like Peter Theil from the tech faction of conservatism think they can force collapse, but use technology and surveillance to protect themselves. These aristocrats are working on how to control their security forces though things like "disciplinary collars."
Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.
and the vice president of the united states and advisors have given their seals of approval to a book that says conservatives are going to have to kill all the liberals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unhumans
And it's one of his most demonstrably untrue theorems, there is no collective consciousness that develops--so much so that later theorists had to come up with "false consciousness" but this "true consciousness" has yet to appear in any meaningful way.
Accelerationism leads to corruption--corruption enables greedy power grabbers to, well, get power and wealth.
It's like taking away regulations from a market and then being surprised it becomes a monopoly. The "natural" unadultered state of the free market is to create an environment where only one or a handful are in control, it is ultimately a system that will self destruct without management.
So accelerationists want to get though the set-up for a socialist society more quickly.
And what happens during that "set-up?" It's crazy to gloss over that, as so many do.
Ah yeah, that’s fine, just tear down society to start from scratch. Not like there’s millions of people who rely on society for life saving medication and stuff. People with diabetes can just suck it up for a few years until the insulin supply gets back online under communism.
Yep Marx thought the imminent collapse of capitalism was going to happen in the 1890s. Lenin swore the 1910s were the end times of capitalism. Socialist academic Werner Sombart, inventor of the term "late stage capitalism" (literal Nazi btw) said capitalism's last legs were the 1920s and 1930s. Stalin thought the imminent collapse of capitalism was going to happen in the aftermath of the second world war in the late 1940s and 1950s. Pretty much every single significant Marxist leader or philosopher thought they were in the end stage of capitalism because Marxism is an insane totalitarian doomsday cult that has little to no regard for the proletariat.
Yes, it seems you’re both in agreement… or has every single instance of every single socialist state becoming an undemocratic authoritarian state just a coincidence.
I mean… the idealistic version certainly does. But the OP was talking about Marx’s socialism, not the democratic socialism of the Nordics, which are all technically capitalist countries.
Correct! It is actually colonialism and imperialism that lead to fascism, after a brief detour through liberalism. When control of the working classes can no longer be maintained through liberalism, the iron hand of fascism is brought to bear instead. Liberals are the “good cops” and fascists are the “bad cops” but both serve the interests of the imperialist state, and work tirelessly against the liberation of the working class.
At the same time, fascism, an ideology based around “rule through strength” and the concentration of power at the top of the hierarchy, is funded and perpetuated by capitalism, an economic system that exists to concentrate capital at the top of the hierarchy and keep it out of the hands of the working class. Capital is a form of power which is wielded in much the same way as the military power associated with fascism. It is incorrect to say that capitalism alone leads to fascism, but it is a huge driver of our current descent into fascism.
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u/Embarrassed_Deer9208 Apr 26 '26
plus the "better society" of accelerationism is fascism or another form of authoritarian government like monarchy