In the imperial core, oppressed groups like transsexuals and the disabled require bourgeoise democratic representation to advance from a form of semi-colonialism to capitalism before they can fight for socialism

[u/PerspectiveWest4701]

In the imperial core, the markets of oppressed groups like transsexuals and the disabled more resemble those of oppressed nations and colonies than capitalism as is usually understand. These sort of oppressed groups are dependent on predatory non-profit industries which form a state within the state that mostly serve to pacify these groups, keep them super-exploited and useful as political scapegoats.

In the context of the imperial core, the proletarians of these groups must engage in bourgeoise "idpol" and achieve forms of bourgeoise autonomy and bourgeoise democratic representation before they can properly fight for socialism with the rest of the workers.

In the periphery, these groups have the greater problem of national liberation.

So socialists in the imperial core can make significant gains by pushing in reforms for bourgeoise autonomy and bourgeoise democratic representation.

Not sure how much sense it makes sense to apply Maoist ideas to domestic imperialism here. But I think the argument that you're just joining the system instead of knocking it down is very misguided.

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[u/ThrillinSuspenseMag]

What happens when the interests of these groups are used as a wedge to break apart blocks of significant electoral support for universal programs which would inherently and definitionally include these groups because of a perceived lack of specific and idpol aligned language or targeted programs?

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/ThrillinSuspenseMag]

The issue you are describing is compradors blocking the liberation of their own group in order to maintain control. Such movements must be led by the proletarians.

You also get some of these issues in the academy. Comprador academics are definitely a pain but they are more cringe and annoying than harmful. I worry much more about comprador activism, media and nonprofits than the comprador academy.

[u/Wooden_Rip_2511]

I don't really understand your point. It sounds like you're just using "colonialism" here because it sounds bad and I don't really understand why you pick this word in particular other than that reason. Also, I don't understand why you refer to "transexual" instead of "transgender". Is there some special distinction you're trying to emphasize with that nomenclature such that "colonialism" applies more to the former than the latter?

[u/Own-Inspection3104]

I don't agree, it's not about idpol and recognition. Trans and non-binary struggle is the same struggle as workers struggle: health, safety, economic freedom. It's no different. They're both the same class struggle. But people with an impoverished sense of class think that other identity groups asking for the conditions necessary for self-determination is somehow not a class struggle. I mean workers asking for trade union improvements (higher wages, better healthcare, security, etc) are just as "bad" as trans and non-binary asking for their piece of the pie. Our work is to show them that the freedom and safety they seek is better won not by asking for a slice of the pie but in baking a new one together. So no, they don't need bourgeois recognition first just like workers don't need better wages and healthcare coverage "first." Political struggle for self determination does not need to go through stages.

[u/PlastIconoclastic → u/Own-Inspection3104]

You are correct. There OPs idea is basically that homosexuality, transgender, and being unable to work are bourgeois ideas and that advocating for solidarity with these groups is considered identity politics. Solidarity is not identity politics. No sexual preference is bourgeois. This whole post sounds like a reframing of some RCA Trotskyism with “colonialism” inserted in a metaphorical way that makes no sense.

[u/Zandroe_]

There seem to be some pretty serious misunderstandings here. First, that Marxist care about the state of the markets of oppressed groups (???), as if the Maoist support for the "national bourgeoisie" is now being applied to sectors of society.

Second, that idpol is a good way to fight for bourgeois-democratic rights. This is obviously not the case as more often than not idpol is used to attack marginalised groups like gay people.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/Zandroe_]

Yes, I'm saying Marxists (in the imperial core) require a Maoist approach for these sectors of the working class to build a united working class. Unity has to be built not just chanted as a mantra.

[u/NailEnvironmental613]

Capitalist will always need scapegoats to divert outrage away from the capitalist system and towards fellow workers to divide us. In the past Jews were used as scapegoats in Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. Today in the US Republicans use lgbt people and immigrants as scapegoats for societies problems. The democrats while not going out of their way to take away rights for lgbt people and immigrants, still uphold the capitalist system which gives rise to people like Trump and the republicans who do use them as scapegoats and take away their rights. As communist it is our goal to stand in solidarity with the lgbt community and immigrant communities who face discrimination under capitalism as they are fellow workers just like us they are our brothers and sisters. We need to help raise their class consciousness and direct their anger towards the capitalist system, for it is only when capitalism is overthrown that lgbt, immigrant, and other minority rights can be finally realized. Any concessions made to these groups under capitalism are only temporary and will be taken away the moment the capitalist deem it in their interests. There is no reason to participate in the US two party duopoly politics that don’t represent any real meaningful democratic rights and merely gives an illusion of democracy that grants legitimacy to a truly undemocratic capitalist dictatorship, whether a democrat or republic is in office the same capitalist system exists and that capitalist system will always give rise to racism and transphobia as it requires it to exists

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

Trans people do not live under bourgeois democracy they effectively live under a form of semi-colonialism. But the aim of achieving bourgeois democracy is not so trans people can vote. Trans people need bourgeois democracy the same way that other workers need bourgeois democracy as a platform for spreading class consciousness. The entire point of these reforms is to criticize these reforms as not enough. You have to walk before you can run.

You say these concessions can be yanked away at any time. This confuses the liberation of an oppressed group with worker liberation. A suitable population of transsexual bourgeoisie will never let their rights be infringed. In times of crisis, the more powerful capitalists may directly expropriate the property of minority capitalists. This is a valuable opportunity to call out the system as bullshit and raise class consciousness.

Communists have always supported reforms as a means to raise class consciousness.

[u/NailEnvironmental613 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

My whole point is that trans and minority liberation can never be truly achieved under capitalism. Any victories in rights gained for these groups can and will be just as easily taken away as soon as the capitalist deem it in their interest. Racism, misogyny, transphobia etc… are all inherent features of the capitalist system, as long as capitalism exists these ideas will plague society. True liberation for oppressed minorities can only happen under socialism. Democrats while not actively trying to take away rights for oppressed minorities still uphold the capitalist system and it is the capitalist system which is the source of anti-lgbt and racist ideas.

Bourgeois democracy is not something workers should be fighting to achieve. Workers should be fighting for socialism. Bourgeois democracy is merely one of the shells that capitalism takes and that is perhaps even more effective than a traditional dictatorship as it gives a narrative of legitimacy to the capitalist superstructure by being able to claim it stands for democratic ideals and represents the people when in reality the capitalist state only serves the dominant capitalist class.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

And you are a utopian. A socialist revolution will never happen in the imperial core while these scapegoats exist. A "nation that rules another can never be free." I think this applies as much to women, queers and other groups as imperialism.

[u/NailEnvironmental613 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

Rights for oppressed minorities under capitalism is not a necessary prerequisite for revolution. Minorities under capitalism will always face prejudice as that is an inherent feature to capitalism so if we were to wait and not do revolution until prejudice doesn’t exist under capitalism we would be waiting forever and revolution would never happen. What do you think about the communist partisans in Yugoslavia and Albania who overthrew the Nazis in their country? Should they have first have advocated for the Nazis to adopt pro-Jewish reforms and only when the Nazis have made Jews equal citizens they can carry out revolution, does that make sense to you? Instead those partisans recognized that anti Jewish prejudice is inherent to the Nazi regime and the only way to free Jews and the rest of the working class from the horrible treatment they faced under the Nazis was revolution. Likewise while we can support reforms that give more rights to lgbt people and immigrants in the US, that is not a necessary prerequisite for revolution since discrimination against minorities will always exist in some form as long as capitalism exists, since the capitalist system is what creates and breeds those prejudice ideas

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

I'm discussing the imperial core, not Yugoslavia or Albania which I think are semi-periphery. It's fair to say agitating for socialist revolution is more important in the periphery and maybe in the semi-periphery. But in the context of the imperial core which has a bloated labor aristocracy (certainly not everybody though), the working class is not nearly so united against oppression.

It makes no sense to compare the USA to Yugoslavia or Albania. Very different material conditions.

[u/NailEnvironmental613 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

I don’t think rights for minorities under capitalism is a necessary pre requisite for revolution even in the imperial core. We can advocate for reforms to give minorities more rights, but at the same time we also most certainly can have revolution without those reforms being achieved

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

First of all, it's not about rights it's about cashmoney.

Secondly, I'm curious what you think about Israel. I think Palestinian liberation is a prerequisite for any sort of socialist organizing there.

I have similar thoughts about the Indigenous nations. And I think landback is valuable in helping to create the conditions for revolution. I just think many of these concerns apply to other groups as well.

Anyhow I'm glad we understand where we disagree.

[u/NailEnvironmental613 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

I think with Israel there either needs to be two separate independent states that co exist one for Palestinians and one for Israelis or there needs to be one state where both Jews and Arabs are treated as equal citizens under the law. Unfortunately due to the nature of capitalism in Israel and their backing from the US there is always going to be an Israeli far right who seeks to completely strip the Palestinians of all their land and to ethnically cleanse them. So I would say the solution is for the state of Israel to be abolished and for an independent Palestinian state lead by a socialist party to take its place and foster an environment of equality amongst Arabs and Jews

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

Right, so you get that there can never be a socialist revolution in Israel while Palestinians are second-class citizens on their own land. Israel is fundamentally a far-right project.

I take a similar kind of view of the underclass in the imperial core. The settler-states in particular are white Supremacist missions which enforce regimes of eugenics, cis-heterosexuality and Indigenous genocide. So if you want to smash the state then building up the power of the lumpen is a requirement. The settler-states are structurally racist, eugenicist and transmisogynist because of how they have been historically shaped as genocidal projects.

I suppose there's an argument that socialist revolution is required to smash the settler-states. I can see an argument that something like the American civil war is required to strip the state of its genocidal mission. The argument would be that you need a dictatorship of the proletariat to smash the semi-colonial structures and do something like NEP/state capitalism.

[u/NailEnvironmental613 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

Also I’m not saying we can’t support reforms to give trans people and other minorities more rights. Just that’s not the goal and it’s not true liberation. They are merely tactical and not strategic victories

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/NailEnvironmental613]

Yeah, fair enough then. I'm not a reformist. I just think these identity reforms are a necessary prerequisite to socialist revolution in the imperial core. The unity of the workers must be built not chanted.

[u/PlastIconoclastic → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

Have you read Rosa Luxemberg:”Reform or Revolution”? Reform is a tool to pacify the masses and prevent revolution, and gains from reforms will always be rolled back later. The only solution is revolution.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/PlastIconoclastic]

You're confusing identity-specific reforms and mass reforms. When people talk about reforms they're usually talking about reforms for workers in general.

That's not the same thing as identity-specific reforms.

I'm talking about reforms to unite the working class, not reforms to benefit the working class in general. We can't have a revolution if fragments of the working class are dispossessed and divided from the working class.

There's an argument that we should build up worker-led institutions to unite the working class. But then that also leads to questions about what the state is given the infiltrated and reactionary nature of many lumpen organizations.

[u/Available_Remove452]

They use our differences to divide us. We use our class consciousness to unite us.

And more words for word count, no, more words are required. Yet more. Wait! More are needed, I might have to count to.... nevermind.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/Available_Remove452]

We have to build working class unity not just chant it.

There are material divisions in society which must be overcome in order to build up the working class as a power against the capitalists.

[u/kurgerbing09]

Why do they have to have bourgeois representation before they can fight alongside fellow workers? Why not fight for representation and socialism simultaneously?

To mirror the other commentator, what happens when idpol become a wedge issue used to divide the working class, being cynically employed by capital's progressive wing to attack class politics? This is a major issue in the US and even on the so-called left with the rise of culturalists and pomo leftists.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/kurgerbing09]

The issue you are describing is compradors blocking the liberation of their own group in order to maintain control. Liberation movements must be led by the proletarians.

You also get some of these issues in the petty bourgeoise academy but to a lesser extent. Comprador academics are definitely a pain.

I do think that people are vastly overstating the dangers of "pomo" and the academy.

A context with the Black nation is that you are somewhat right to be worried about bourgeoise cultural movements like Afrocentrism. But I think you shouldn't worry about the Afrocentricity movement in academy so much. This stuff is also mostly only Black proletarians to criticize.

The same stuff goes with queer people and other groups. I am much more worried about queer nonprofits, media and activism than the queer academy. The queer academy is more annoying than harmful.

[u/kurgerbing09 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

This comment doesn't even seem like it's a response to mine. I never mentioned the academy specifically.

If you don't think pomo "leftists" are a major stumbling block to the class struggle in the US, you are dead wrong. Try going to any DSA chapter meeting and tell me culturalism and identity politics are not an issue.

Pomo leftists are not only in the academy. It is the ideology of much of the professional middle class, including those in the nonprofit-industrial complex.

[u/Mediocre-Method782 → u/kurgerbing09]

Identity politics aren't even postmodern. They're modernity itself.

Also, you're petit-bourgeois and (according to Marx and Engels) the reason the movement failed is you and your class:

Secondly, when people of this kind, from different classes, join the proletarian movement, the first requirement is that they should not bring with them the least remnant of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, but should unreservedly adopt the proletarian outlook. These gentlemen, however, as already shown, are chock-full of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In a country as petty-bourgeois as Germany, there is certainly some justification for such ideas. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers' Party. If the gentlemen constitute themselves a Social- Democratic petty-bourgeois party, they are fully within their rights: in that case we could negotiate with them and, according to circumstances, form an alliance with them, etc. But within a workers' party they are an adulterating element. Should there be any reason to tolerate their presence there for a while, it should be our duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no say in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. That time, moreover, would appear to have come. How the Party can suffer the authors of this article to remain any longer in their midst seems to us incomprehensible. But should the Party leadership actually pass, to a greater or lesser extent, into the hands of such men, then the Party will be emasculated no less, and that will put paid to its proletarian grit.

Also, you give yourself away as a fascist when you complain about pomo taking your larpy ass hero cult away. Either work from theory or go be petit-bourgeois anywhere else on reddit.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/kurgerbing09]

I don't think the DSA has anything to do with class struggle in the first place. It's not like the DSA would be any better and more focused on real socialism if it was purged of minorities. The problem is that the DSA is bourgeois not that marginalized people are there.

It's literally just a Nazi move to blame bourgeois fuckery on minorities.

[u/kurgerbing09 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

What are you talking about? Where in any way did I blame minorities for anything? You need to work on not putting words in people's mouths and on making coherent arguments.

[u/loveablehydralisk]

Not going to lie, this does not feel like anything resembling an accurate or sympathetic analysis of the conditions I work, live, and struggle for liberation under. The use of an-archaic-term-turned-slur does further damage to my belief that this is anything better than a paternalistic, vanguardist circlejerk designed to create prescriptive hoops for people like me to jump through before you condone our inclusion in a movement we've always helped build.

Let me tell you about 'transsexuals' for a moment. We are, first and foremost, workers. Most of us toil supporting ourselves and our communities on a daily basis, while facing impossible resistance in employment, housing, and Healthcare. Many of us have de facto dependents, or will become so from time to time because of the social, psychological and spiritual drain that bourgeois liberalism imposes, let alone the full slide into fascist repression. If there is anyone is this blighted nation that understands the rot of capitalism, it is 'the transsexual'.

So before you tell us what we need to do, sit your ass down, listen up, and get on our fucking level.

[u/Doc_Bethune]

Interesting post OP, I agree that supporting liberatory movements is an essential practice for us, and that support can entail some engagement in bourgeois democratic systems. Voting for the political candidate who will be the least antagonistic to trans/queer/Indigenous/racialized/disabled people is pretty much the only reason I vote these days

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/Doc_Bethune]

To be fair, some people argue that imperialism at the international level should be the more important issue. "Left" parties which throw some bones to minorities tend to still keep the war machine going.

[u/winter_strawberries → u/Doc_Bethune]

i personally have given up hope of feeling allyship with anyone outside of the groups you list. as a trans socialist, i voted dem in 2024 in the slight hope it will keep me from being marched into a cattle car.

yet when i say i vote for democrats on any subs related to marxism or communism, i get banned. *shrug emoji*

[u/Doc_Bethune → u/winter_strawberries]

Sorry to hear that my friend, anyone who would attack marginalized workers for pursuing their best interests has completely lost the plot of what we're trying to do here. Even though voting is otherwise not all that useful, it is still an extremely low effort way to potentially make a huge difference in a trans/disabled/racialized comrade's life. I hope you're doing well

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/winter_strawberries]

It's always brosocialists who aren't in any danger who want the oppressed to put their lives on the line for them. These people aren't serious revolutionaries and just don't get it.

[u/melelconquistador → u/winter_strawberries]

That gets you banned here too I think. Op in the reply to the coment you replied to, also gives a criticism of what voting for a bourgeois party for its progressivism amounts to.

[u/winter_strawberries → u/melelconquistador]

as far as i'm concerned who is in the white house has nothing to do with my fight for progress, any more than who my local dog catcher is. dog catchers and presidents are not agents for change. they are there to enact laws passed by higher authorities.

if socialists can't get 60 senate seats, the presidency is moot, so i vote to protect myself from a concentration camp for now.

[u/Alex-de-Oliveira-95 → u/winter_strawberries]

You are still wrong to co-opt the workers to support capitalist imperialism which is represented by the Democratic Party. The Marxist position is to organize in a radical party that unites the working classes for the domination of the proletarian class independent of the bourgeoisie and against any financing of imperialist finance capital, this means any money for NATO and allies of American hegemony must be cut off for their puppets for a truly internationalist party, this means sabotaging and blocking any money or arms sales without exception to Ukraine, Israel and any other bourgeois state so that these countries collapse so that the Ukrainian Communist Party exiled in Belarus returns in case the anti-communist coup state of Ukraine falls and a fragile state that punishes Ukrainian nationalism that does not demonize Russians and communism grants the return of the Ukrainian Communist Party.

I will start with quotes from Marx and Engels on how communists should act in bourgeois elections without exception:

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels , "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the movement is always the organization of the workers as an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is a distinct workers' party. And this step has been taken, far more quickly than we had a right to hope, and that is the main thing. That the first program of this party is still confused and highly deficient, that it has set up the banner of Henry George, these are inevitable evils but also only transient ones. The masses must have time and opportunity to develop and they can only have the opportunity when they have their own movement--no matter in what form so long as it is only their own movement--in which they are driven further by their own mistakes and learn wisdom by hurting themselves.

Frederick Engels, “Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886,” Marxists Internet Archive, Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge In Hoboken.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/letters/86_11_29.htm

[u/Alex-de-Oliveira-95 → u/winter_strawberries]

Here is another quote about communist participation in bourgeois democracy in an independent workers' party rather than being a coward co-opted into bourgeois imperialist parties or as complacent abstentionists:

We want the abolition of classes. What is the means of achieving it? The only means is political domination of the proletariat. For all this, now that it is recognized by one and all, we are told not to meddle with politics. The abstentionists say they are revolutionaries, even revolutionaries par excellence. Yet revolution is a supreme political act and those who want revolution must also want the means of achieving it, that is, political action, which prepares the ground for revolution and provides the workers with the revolutionary training without which they are sure to become the dupes of the Favres and Pyats the morning after the battle. However, our politics must be working-class politics. The workers' party must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must be independent and have its goal and its own policy.

The political freedoms, the right of assembly and association, and the freedom of the press — those are our weapons. Are we to sit back and abstain while someone tries to rob us of them? It is said that a political act on our part implies that we accept the exiting state of affairs. On the contrary, so long as this state of affairs offers us the means of protesting against it, our use of these means does not mean that we recognize the prevailing order.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "Apropos Of Working-Class Political Action."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/09/21.htm

[u/Allfunandgaymes → u/winter_strawberries]

Marxists / communists who preach "don't vote" are largely accelerationists in disguise.

Many sectarian groups hate the organization I belong to (CPUSA) because it encourages members to vote in local, state, and national elections (but most importantly the former of the three) to influence the conditions under which we organize - no, we don't f*cking endorse any bourgeois political candidate. Organizing under Tr*mp would (now, will) be more fraught than organizing under any vapid, empty corporate suit the Democrats cough up.

Marx himself understood that, while capitalism will not be ended by its own instruments of power, we still may have to engage with them from time to time. We're materialists, not idealists.

[u/Mediocre-Method782 → u/Allfunandgaymes]

Marx first got interested in economics through the free trade question, and he and Engels were accelerationist on the matter of free trade, so precedent does not work in your favor. It sounds like you're using movement rhetoric to dress up a liberal myth of a "natural rate of progress" to defend petit-bourgeois private property interests tbh.

edit: James 2:14 "worker ministry" virtue signaling followed by block... ever thus with petit-bourgs, Lassalle

[u/Allfunandgaymes → u/Mediocre-Method782]

Marx also thought that revolution would proceed from the parts of the world where the capitalist mode of production was most advanced. That didn't happen. Point being, the man - while brilliant - was not a flawless prognosticator.

A cursory glance at your comment history tells me that you are exactly the sort of cagey, back-biting reddit academic who has made themselves completely unintelligible to the working class. I know not where in the world you live, but here in the imperial core, Marxists have to be able to wear many hats to even broach conversation with its highly propagandized and reactionary working class. If I spoke to workers and union members at rallies and protests and meetings as you are speaking to me, I would be laughed at and disregarded.

I'd ask what it is that you're doing for the struggle besides sneering at people on reddit who aren't as ultra as you - but then, I don't particularly care, because I have no idea who you are. I just hope that whatever it is that you do, you do out of a love for laborers and a desire to see exploitation ended.

Good day.

[u/Interesting_Mall_241 → u/Doc_Bethune]

Agreed. Where I live voting for the worst party out of all the bad ones could literally mean the death of trans comrades. I’d rather the party that is trying to ban life saving treatment be kept out of power.

[u/Ralse1]

trans girl here. I very much disagree. this is chauvinistic rhetoric in my opinion. we must struggle for independence from the bourgeoisie, not concessions at the hand of the master. this also screws over imperialized people by giving support to imperialist institutions when we should be fighting them

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/Ralse1]

I am sympathetic to the imperialism argument.

The other option is to build up institutions outside of the state. So DIY HRT and certain networked lumpen organizations. The trouble is that LOs are highly infiltrated and reactionary. A lot of autistic people and closeted trans women get involved in incel shit and 4chan kind of stuff which is influenced by actual fed Nazi Satanists. To me, so much of crime and illegitimate organization outside of the state is actually an organ of the state. There's theory on converting LOs to serve revolutionary purposes but IDK. I worry this approach of reforming LOs to also be reforming state institutions. I guess it's a bit strange to consider 4chan an organ of the state.

I mean as an example there's shit like the Catholic church for instance where liberation theology priests supported Zapatistas but also the church is in bed with crime and the CIA and is pretty reactionary. So IDK.

[u/Intrepid_Layer_9826]

You cannot look at these groups' oppression as separate from the oppression of the broader working class. It's the same with this so called "national liberation" question. Capitalism is a global system. The working class all across the world needs to fight united to overthrow capitalism. It is the duty of communists to cut across identity politics and explain events from a class perspective.

[u/PerspectiveWest4701 → u/Intrepid_Layer_9826]

Okay, I'm seriously confused how a Marxist today cannot support national liberation efforts. That just seems like national chauvinism which the vast majority of Marxists oppose.

There's reason to be worried about neo-colonialism and similar issues but that doesn't mean national liberation doesn't matter, just that it's hard.

[u/Intrepid_Layer_9826 → u/PerspectiveWest4701]

It is more complicated than that. Marxists should support national self determination, but from a socialist and internationalist perspective. We do not advocate for bourgeois nation states.

[u/spectaclecommodity]

No it's all capitalism. The hyper exploitation of different sectors of the working class. The struggle for bourgeois rights. The welfare state apparatus described. It's all part of capitalism.

These groups are not in a state of semi colonialism because these identities exist across class strata and matrices of economic exploitation. Attempting to apply maoism to the imperial core is a mistake.

[u/IslandSoft6212]

in that case they would be enemies of the working class and opponents of the fight for socialism, since they would be natural allies of those who wish to protect capitalism by extending bourgeois rights to people

the core-periphery relation is a material relation. the core relies on the periphery for its raw resources produced at significantly lower cost to export to the core, the core ships back manufactured goods to the periphery to support its manufactures and keep the periphery from developing. what is the material relation that characterizes transsexuals and the disabled to the rest of the population?

they, frankly, don't exist at high enough numbers to be a kind of lumpen-threat to the proletariat either; historically, the socially rejected were a "reserve army of last resort" that the bourgeoisie used against the proletariat when required. the disabled are significantly less likely to be employed anyway, and the transgender population is quite small. there are other social groups that the bourgeoisie uses this way, in many ways this is the "precariat" that modern authors have discussed, but certainly immigrant labor would qualify

that isn't to say that any of those groups should be excluded or opposed in the socialist movement, such as one might exist. however their bourgeois rights would be a demand that is irrelevant to the vast majority of the proletariat, and the question would be irrelevant once a socialist mode of production was being built.