In defense of innovative idealism

One of the defining critiques of subjects like Surplus Statism and Reviewism is that these systems are vulnerable to idealism. The fact of the matter is that criticism is completely valid and more than that, is much more likely than unlikely. We expect there to be problems in these idealized systems, as there are in every other system to date, and that’s why we build these systems around continual adaption, control by the proletarians, and self-review. If people are to bring about changes in these hypothetical systems, going by what works statistically, it should be proposed by the technocratic optimates, who know the most about their field, can understand the most sophisticated concepts, and can craft the most effective solutions. These proposals would then be authorized or rejected by the competent majority, who vote in favor of their own interests as proletarians. The fact of the matter is that for most socialists in the United States, there seems to be a love for the principles and a hatred for any tangible framework. When we look at socialist movements in the past, more often than not the personality cults were used as substitutes for any political or economic dialogue, as those regimes were afraid of alienating people who might have disagreements over more nuanced subjects. Unlike concrete legislation and any hypothetical restructuring of society, personality cults and principle cults are a lot more simplistic, understandable, and don’t cause as much division. So while these cultish regimes were easier to establish in the past, they leave so much room open for abuse and concentration of power that they serve as examples of anti-socialism. In this article, we’ll explore this discourse about DMSG’s controversial creativity, as well as prove why approaching socialism with an open mind is a lot more effective in creating lasting change.

The best way to summarize the differences between principled socialists and proletarian socialists is in a construction metaphor I’ll explore in the following two paragraphs. A Marxist-Leninist once told us, “you guys can’t just create what you want and work backwards on the theory to make it work,” to which I said, “why not?” Putting it into a metaphor, let’s imagine building and living inside a house for a moment. For the orthodox Marxist, they only see the principles behind what constitutes a house, leaving the details about the construction up to whoever they put in charge. The people typically in charge of the construction companies they choose are intellectuals, who have read loads of antiquated theory, have written loads of indecipherable texts, who’s greatest career achievements are not rocking the boat, and who’s credentials often read, “unemployable outside academia.” You can’t question the constructors once they start the project, because you left the project up to them, because you removed yourself from the critical discussions, because you became unaware of the decisions they’re making, because you’ve ceded that they know better than you as they are better builders since they “read” more Marxist theory, and it’s up to them to live up to expectations and desires you didn’t even really bother to lay out for them. If the principles behind the house entailed walls and heating, and the house winds up a cardboard box with a space heater, that’s still a win for whoever these socialists put in charge. The construction company accomplished what they set out to do and any complaints are just the result of a customer not being loyal enough or having some bourgeois pathologies. You either love the house or you don’t, but either way, you can’t seem unhappy about it. This is because when your opinions and negative feedback became disregarded, any dialogue that could meaningfully improve your new cardboard box became unallowed as well.

For an actual proletarian socialist like us, they’d consult an architect and the architect would look at what house they’d like to live in, what materials they’d want in the house, and what amenities they’d want. If the construction company can’t deliver on these plans, the guys who built the house are the ones in trouble, rather than the proletarian socialist who just wants a house to his liking to live in. For the proletarian, the construction behind the house they want doesn’t even have to be Marxist in principle, as long as it’s the most livable and enjoyable thing for them to live in. Similarly, that’s how DMSG’s members approach socialist and Marxist discourse, with our aim being to build a world that we want to live in, rather than a world that upholds principles that don’t maximize our quality of life. If Marxism fails to maximize our quality of life, then it’s not appealing to us and that’s why we’re fundamentally different from more orthodox socialists, who often aren’t even socialists for the right reasons. We’re not socialists out of principle but because such a system would simply benefit us the most. In the mid-20th century, DMSG’s members would’ve most likely been pro-union capitalists, but due to the fact that non-state syndicalism has shown an inability to preserve gains for the workers and capitalism has shown an ability to destroy cultures domestically, encourage degeneracy, and outsource critical industries, we’ve sought out alternatives.

Due to the fact that no existing systems have met our high standards for freedoms and livability, which have to match or exceed what American workers in the latter half of the 20th century enjoyed for us to accept, we’ve had to go about creating our own systems. Truthfully, I don’t want to live in a communist tenement, have to hear about white privilege or whatever other racist garbage is trending with my PMC overlords, and live off of a universal basic income that barely covers rent. I want a house that I mostly took a part in building, I want a family that won’t be harassed based on the color of their skin or their friends’ skins, and I want society to provide me and my descendants with jobs that afford us a decent life. It should be noted that these aren’t high demands we make either but simply requirements our ancestors met decades earlier in the same country that we live in today with far less labor productivity and wealth to go around back then. To put it bluntly, we’re low-balling what we want here and if these desires still seem utopian, then you just have to read more history or stop settling for the living standards provided by totalitarian dictatorships.

On the topic of history, the reason why our concept of Metasocialism exists is because we’re actively looking for ways to make socialism not only match what capitalism can offer, but exceed it, based on how class interests, political structures, unions, and property relations have influenced prior socialist and capitalist states. We’re trying to learn from the past, in order to make the future a better place. A lot of this rests on creating frameworks and figuring out how to reduce conflicts of interest, avoid diverging class interests, and guarantee a good deal of cohesion in a relatively free society. Unlike orthodox socialists, we don’t want vanguardists to fill in the blanks in the framework that we leave for them to fill in. Ten times out of ten, corruption and state terror ensues in those scenarios as a tiny group of fanatics is left the task, and all the resources and justifications for accomplishing the task, of figuring out how to actualize the principles and beliefs their working class pawns fought the revolution over. In these scenarios, where the principles are vague and the framework isn’t even developed, we can only rely on the responsible use of discretion and altruism in our leaders to carry out what the revolution was fought over. With that being said, any socialism that relies on the goodwill of leaders is bound to fail. If material conditions create social and spiritual conditions, than imagine the social and spiritual conditions created by a society putting all its trust and resources into the hands of a select few; most of who, it should be noted, are ne’er-do-wells spawned by upper middle class families. Revolutions don’t erase human problems like greed and oftentimes, in the case of orthodox Marxists who stick to tried-and-tragic systems, only enable people with these traits to go up the ranks further than they would’ve otherwise in competitive and open systems.

As a proletarian, I don’t want to be the disposable pawn of useless PMCs and would rather live in a country both built and run by people that share the same class interests and cultural values as me. Fauxletarians always speak of revolution in nonchalant ways, because they usually have nothing to lose and only wish to gain things from such events, while conveniently trying to avoid doing any of the actual fighting. For actual proletarians, who have careers they’ve worked hard to get into and families that they love dearly, engaging in revolutions is a form of suicide. It’s a way of gambling, in which everything we’ve built up and created is risked in order to provide a better world for ourselves, our families, and our communities. It’s an incredible ordeal, and one that anyone who is actually working class and willing to be on the frontline doesn’t welcome. If expanding beyond the confines of tried-and-failed systems alienates people too principled to think, that’s great, because those people mostly see working class people as cannon fodder and themselves as an impending apparatchik once all the heavy lifting is done by someone else. Truthfully, we aren’t looking for people that want to try the same thing again and hope for the best, after its failed dozens of times, because that fits Einstein’s definition of insanity. What entertains me about this group is that it’s composed of socialist converts, and when we approach things with the idea of “let’s build a world we’d want to live in as working class people,” it throws so many other socialists off. Part of me suspects that for many of these fauxletarian socialists, it’s the first time they’ve come across actual proletarians who have a grasp on socialist theory and dare to ask, “what’s in it for me? How would this or that work?” Oftentimes, they just assume that when material conditions are right, we’ll just conveniently forget all about the past abuse in previous systems and jump on the bandwagon with people that hate us (looking at you, “MAGAcommunists,” who throw American flags and Trump faces on communist imagery, before talking about white privilege a minute later). If the socialism you’re advocating for is a prepackaged systemic failure, with a sprinkling of bourgeois pathologies and two servings of anti-white racism, it’s not going to win us over.

In conclusion, you don’t have to agree with any of what’s written here. Many of you won’t and that’s fine, because at the very least, it’d be nice for me to be proven wrong, so I can readjust some hypothetical solutions to cover that flaw. While many people that advocate socialism consider themselves progressives, I’ve never seen a more stagnant bunch. While capitalism is going extinct, at least the supporters of that system acknowledge the end is nigh with the coming of widescale automation. For traditional socialists, the end already came with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states decades ago. The surviving Marxist-Leninist states today aren’t even Marxist-Leninist at all anymore and have either devolved into Orwellian dystopias or are opening up to the global economy to embrace the economic model of, “build and operate sweatshops for Developed Countries’ corporations.” While we may be wrong on some things at this point in time, DMSG’s members are pursuing the truth and learning more day after day, revising what we know to better encompass and achieve what we want. That can’t be said of many other socialist or capitalist groups out there.