The Democratic Revolution and the Socialist Revolution | John Rees | Counterforum 19 June

Organised and produced by http://www.counterfire.org
Counterforum looks at the role of two leading Marxist revolutionaries,

Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party and the architect of the Russian revolution. He remains the foremost Marxist theorist of political organisation.

Georg Lukacs is the greatest Marxist philosopher since Marx. But he was also an active revolutionary - a commissar in the Hungarian Workers Republic of 1919.

Together the writings of Lenin and Lukacs are a unique inheritance for activists today.

John Rees looks at the recent revolutionary experiences from the East European revolutions of 1989 to the democratic revolutionary movements in Thailand and Iran using the framework developed by Lenin and Lukacs

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• lenin
• lucaks
• leninism
• class
• consciousness
• revolution
• Bolshevik
• party
• reification
• commodity
• fetishism
• capital
• Marx
• Marxism
• socialism
• communism
• hungary
• democracy
• centralism
• network
• insurrection

[JJaguar333]

Cheers for a simplification of zeitgeist dude. But actual revolutionary socialism or marxism seeks to implement this by overthrowing the capitalist and debt baised system, therefore replacing it with a system of controlled monetary actvity ,with communal ownership of banks and abolishement of private property. Also marxism seeks to do away with the monetary system all together, because yes there are real products which teh economy produces which can be exchanged without money.

[eric5335]

@marsCubed Hi, please take a look at the comments I just wrote to JJaguar333 on this video. It's about some really interesting information I came across since I wrote the comments on this video about a year ago.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 For more information I highly reccomend you to go to Bill Still's Youtube channel: "bstill3". And also Byron Dales Youtube channel: "TheByronDaleChannel". That's where I got most of the information from.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 The real solution:

First, the government shouldn't be able to borrow money from banks or anyone else. The government can simply print their own money so nobody has to pay interest to nobody. The politicians who are elected by the people then get the money power back from the big banks. The next thing is to eliminate the ability of banks (and anyone else) to loan out more money than they actually have (fractional reserve banking). That's it. A nation doesn't need a national debt.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 8.

Solutions:

Some say a bigger welfare state is needed, or more socialism or democratic socialism. Others say we have to cut taxes and decrease government programs and let free markets work.

Neither will help. Neither will solve the debt problem. A change in system is needed. But it's not actually a complete revolutionary change in system and what I will try to explain as a possible solution isn't something new. It has been done throughout history.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 7. So now with Greece and all the other problems you only see the beginning of what is to come. The US and Denmark as well as other countries will probably experience similar problems as in Greece in future unless something is done.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 6. I know I am writing quite many comments, but I just want you to know this, because it's actually the root of almost all the economic problems.

In 1913 in the US, the Federal Reserve Bank was implemented (but it's not federal, it's actually private). Around the same time, an income tax system was also implemented. Since then the national debt grew and more people got poor. Then welfare programs slowly came into existence because people demanded it. But the poor are not to blame.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 5. But there is more. Banks also have the ability to create more money than they have. They actually loan out promises to pay. When someone borrows, the money that they borrow is simply written down in the checking account and does not actually exist, but the borrower gets it to spend, but also has the debt and the interest to pay. So banks actually can create money out of nothing. It's called fractional reserve banking.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 Where do they get the interest to pay their debt from? Where are the money to pay the interest when the only way to get money is to borrow from a bank? People would have to borrow more to pay the interest. And that's where the system gets impossible. Because the economy can't create more money, only develop ressources and produce actual products. So right now, the money in circulation represents debt and not wealth like it should do.

[eric5335]

@JJaguar333 3. All money gets into circulation (in the economy) when a person or a company borrows money from a bank. They then have money but also a debt to pay. But then they also have the interest to pay. And when the money then is spent, the person or the company has to earn money which the person gets from someone else who perhaps also got their money from a bank. But the first person still needs to find the interest and the second person also.