Do Communists and Neolibs Share the Same Underlying Logic in Monetary Theory?

Hello everyone,

In various debates, I’ve frequently noticed striking parallels between the arguments used by some communists and those used by neolibs, especially regarding the funding of the welfare state and monetary theory in general. I often get the impression that some communists (whether consciously or unconsciously) deploy classic supply-side arguments just to refute reformists.
Theories that could at least be described as progressive (even if they do not challenge the class structure of the state), such as Keynesianism or Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), are frequently dismissed or mocked by communists using reflexes very similar to those of neoliberals. When it comes to demands like raising the minimum wage or expanding social spending, one often hears rhetorical pushbacks like: „Why not make it $100 an hour then?" or „The state cannot go into infinite debt for welfare."
The role of the welfare state as a driver of economic growth through strengthened purchasing power is rarely acknowledged. Communists often view it, much like conservatives, as a purely economic hindrance or an unproductive cost factor. The only difference is that communists additionally (and correctly) identify it as a tool for pacifying the working class. But couldn't both be true at the same time?
It is often argued that Western industrial nations can only afford the welfare state through the exploitation of the Global South. Just like conservative logic, this presupposes that a welfare state is something that "must first be earned/funded," completely ignoring the productivity gains driven by a strong domestic market. Cases like Japan, which maintains a massive national debt without facing bankruptcy or hyperinflation, are rarely analyzed through an MMT lens and are instead dismissed as anomalies. Furthermore, the accounting reality that public debt constitutes private sector wealth is often demonized in these discussions, rather than being rigorously analyzed through a value-theoretic lens.
To be clear: I understand that Marxists do not base their monetary critique on neoliberal doctrine, but rather on the law of value (money as the expression of socially necessary labor time; real value cannot simply be printed).

Don't communists structurally rely on right-wing/monetarist arguments simply to delegitimize social-democratic reformism and prove that capitalism cannot be reformed from within?

Why is MMT (and its concept of monetary sovereignty) so strictly rejected by Marxists, even though empirical evidence on demand-side policies and inflation often aligns much closer with MMT than with neoliberal monetarism?

Doesn't this stance hinder a sober, realistic economic analysis of the state's current room for maneuver, even if the ultimate goal remains the overthrow of private ownership of the means of production?

I'm genuinely interested in how you view this overlap! I don’t want to impose reformism and refuse it, but I think it needs to be precise.

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“From Tripoli to Nabatiye: Redspark’s Journey Through Lebanon”—Part 1
https://redspark.nu/redspark-originals/from-tripoli-to-nabatiye-redsparks-journey-through-lebanon-part-1/

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Promoting Altruism in Society through Wageless Work

I support the formation of a society where altruism is encouraged. Which requires that most people, not just few, develop altruism in their behavior too. Too be altruistic is to find comfort in seeing another flourish without expecting anything more in return. If we are to teach that quality in most people, then economic mediums will become the best option. Mediums where people would be able to work without a wage for companies owned by others and make profit for the companies without receiving a direct wage in return. Instead, the companies would be minimally taxed by the government to make up a basic wage for the employees that the government provides. The wage will be minimum, just enough for basic survival, in order to not make this program a matter of profit. Profit will be achieved by the company owners, so that the participating people can feel that their altruism is indeed being fruitful for another, and thus develop a satisfaction. Recursively, this minimizes the greed in the majority by developing satisfaction with the less, even if it requires the possession of ambition by some/rich individuals. A sacrifice from the end of the richer individuals that I believe would be required for the greater good of inducing altruism in the majority.

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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (August 09)

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Animal rights/veganism

Hi, I was wondering about what fellow communists think about animal rights/ vegan ideology. I'm not vegan myself but I feel like I get the idea behind basing an ideology around the fact that factory farming/fishing is inhumane to animals. However I feel like vegans, despite criticizing carnists for justifying animal exploitation with the "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" excuse, kind of use the same logic when it gets pointed out that avoiding meat means just paying for more exploitation and animal death in other areas because these are fundamental requirements for capitalism to continue functioning. PETA also get pretty close to a radical critique of capitalism when they point out how inhumane it is to support factory farming but then like, there are also humans being exploited and treated like animals and going vegan won't help them, so even though the ideology makes sense I don't think it's effective if not paired with radical communism. Thoughts?

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Communist critiques of anarchism?

Hey everyone, I am wondering if anyone can point me to some communist critiques of anarchism. I grew up and spent my young adulthood in anarchist spaces. I accepted their ideology unquestioningly for a long time, but eventually began to notice many failures of anarchist thought & practice.

I am basically looking for a bridge to take me from anarchist ideology toward a more solid theoretical understanding of communism.

Thanks for any suggestions!

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Animal Farm in Gen Z: Snowball's Main Character Energy
/r/GenZLiterature/comments/1vr1x03/animal_farm_in_gen_z_snowballs_main_character/

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I would more than happily live my life under the Lego Movie totalitarian regime
/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1vsz5kj/i_would_more_than_happily_live_my_life_under_the/

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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (August 23)

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.

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The fascist project "Rojava" has been officially dissolved
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/syrian-forces-advance-deeper-into-usbacked-kurdishcontrolled-northeast-2026-01-18/

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Looking for a more modern “Origin Of The Family”

So I’m beginning to study communist/marxist theory and have just finished Engels’ OOTF. I am looking for a more accurate and modern analysis. I intend to read Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, but I need a source that delves more into economic relations relevant to today. Thanks in advance if you can help me out here :)

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Animal-Politics

Animal-Politics are political actions undertaken in the relationship to any identity composed of its affinity or aversion for one particular kind of commodity, *animals*. For this, animals, the living beings, are being turned into *animals*, the commodity, a fetish that makes it serve a purpose in class society beyond their immediate use-value. It can be banal like the white subculture of extensively tattooed tarantula-owners or culinary religious identities, but it can also be genocidal. As with most things, [what’s ‘liberal’ in the core usually has to be maintained with fascism in the periphery](https://honisoit.com/2023/10/veganism-the-brainchild-of-the-western-world-adopted-as-an-arsenal-for-oppression-by-brahmins-in-india/).

Earlier this year, I watched the play „*Saint Joan of the Stockyards*“ by Bertold Brecht, which I reflected upon after the recent thread about veganism.

To summarize only what’s relevant for the discussion, the play begins by meat-industry-tycoon ‘Mauler‘, the main antagonist, shutting down and selling all his slaughterhouses, leaving thousands of workers on the streets following a supposed change of heart after witnessed the suffering of a “blonde bull“ in one facility. The protagonist of the play, Johanna, a bourgeois “socialist“, tries to reason with Mauler to alleviate the suffering of the workers and farmers (it takes place in Chicago so I purposefully use these vague terms) in various situations by mobilizing his capital. At the end of each ‘discussion’, Mauler begrudgingly gives into Johanna’s demands. Ironically, he seems to be striking gold with each “change of heart“, each act of “charity“, until he ends up with a monopoly on the entire industry. The humor stems from the contradiction between the form of Maulers seemingly selfless ideals and sacrifices and their self-serving essence. Johanna realizes the limits of her Humanism at the end of the play, not having benefited her subjects in any meaningful way despite successfully lobbying for them at seemingly every turn.

Notably however, Johanna does not try to reason with Mauler on his terms. She attempts to humanize the workers, but the concern about the “blonde bull“ is obviously farcical, one among many moral outcries at the direct demand of capital, and recognized as such by everyone. Animal-Politics is simply one joke among many, and the punchline is revealed shortly after the sale of the slaughterhouses when Mauler reveals to his apprentice that a business-Insider from New York has notified him that the meat market is soon to be glutted. At the end of the play, one of his bourgeois rivals correctly points out “even your heart has business sense“.
Mauler is a great character because you think about wether he is just tricking his rivals or if he is a true believer of these various causes, but he’s really both. Morality is fused to class and that’s objective. Behind the performative facade of Maulers Animal-Politics and Johanna’s ‘genuine‘ Humanism are two preachers, only it takes Johanna till the end of the play to recognize herself as such.


Here we are, almost a century later, and relegating Animal-Politics to a joke would probably still be sufficient but I do believe something has changed. While a misanthropic conception of ‘nature’ for the reactionary classes around the landed aristocracy has come into existence with capitalism itself\*, *animals* have taken on an increasingly novel role, if for nothing else than the she the sheer volume of “content“ that is tuning out in the form of cute cat videos, weird gendered commentary on all kinds of ‘niche‘ *animals* or dogs as celebrities alone.


I want to emphasize that this extents well beyond vegans, who actually do have interesting things to say on the matter. You can’t easily dismiss vegans as “moralists“ either because in the First World, a moral attachment to a misanthropic conception of nature is given, no matter what you call yourself or what you eat. The smartest vegans are very effective, effortlessly pointing out the [contradictions around

Animal-Politics](https://substack.com/@elewa/note/p-196514779?utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web), like when they call out the hypocrisy of the moral outrage surrounding zoophilia. Remember when Jan Böhmermann, the “anti“-fascist champion of the ‘respectable’ German left, [called the Turkish president a goat-fucker on national television](https://youtu.be/FA-VDZ0TK7E?si=dCT4ToVSODepDh89) (to the heartfelt laughter of his aryan audience)? Vegans got something here, but are themselves stuck at being the “better“ Animal-Politicians, unable to follow this logic to its end by concluding that Animal-Politics are not about animals at all. So what are they actually about?

Animal-Politics contain two dialectical tendencies, dehumanization and Anthropomorphisation. The former is very straightforward, one of the most common abuse hurled at non-white people that needs no further elaboration. Of course oppressed people and their imitators are also making use of this device, that’s why cops are synonymous with “pigs“ or “bulls“ (in Germany) after all. It gets more tricky with Anthropomorphisation though. For the oppressed, the racialized people, Anthropomorphisation means an inversion of dehumanization. The most notable example is the current petit-bourgeois CJP-movement of India, where Cockroaches are being rhetorically elevated to the status of humyn beings in an attack against the dehumanization of
Proletarian and Lumpen youth via association with these animals. It’s not only petit-bourgeois students either, like [this Ivorian prisoner of Global Apartheid](https://youtube.com/shorts/A9acG5GKhqo?si=gg5W5AgmCa1gNw7T) that sarcastically calls the cockroaches of his cell in a Libyan concentration camp his roommates. That being said, these tendencies of the oppressed do not constitute Animal-Politics, they remain solely on the rhetorical level. [No one in the Third World slums will risk infection out of whatever sympathy they may have for rats](https://www.instagram.com/p/CPCpKwnDxtz/?igsi=MWQ5MWw1c21mZjVpdA==).

Anthropomorphisation really only flourishes as a tool of the oppressor nations. Here, it is totally distinct in form and function. First, the typical subjects of Anthropomorphisation are ‘cute‘ animals, mostly mammals, like cats and dogs and capybaras, who, by becoming *animals*, are being elevated to a status much higher than the vast majority of humynkind. The gorilla Harambe has been turned into a martyr by dying on behalf of a black child. [As Yasmin Nair correctly points out](https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2016/09/racism-and-the-american-pit-bull):

“*Contrary to previous mythology, apes are no longer signifiers of blackness. They are treated with compassion and dignity, recognized for their intelligence and sophistication. Yet no such transformation has occurred in the treatment of race for humans. Black bodies are still shot at will and caged by the hundreds of thousands. Black people continue to be treated as animals even as animals have become human*“.

As Digital Minstrelsy is becoming increasingly popular and essential for the identity-creation and entertainment of crackers the world over, more and more of them are getting their turn at redeeming *animals*.

“*The redemption of the pit bull shows that animals have finally transcended race. It is only black humans who must continue to bear its burden.*“

Anthropomorphisation is only possible through dehumanization. For these reactionary classes, Anthropomorphisation is not merely a rhetorical tool, [but active praxis in dehumanization](https://en.royanews.tv/news/61427/Dog-draws-international-sympathy%2C-Gaza-man-remains-forgotten), and, I think, at the spearhead of something new.

Let’s take a look at China, where one nation contains both Third and First World in its periphery and center respectively. There is this popular “dog-fluencer“ from Henan who’s very cute dog got lost recently and it eventually turned out that it had been taken by a rural couple and sold on the dog-meat market. The owner tracked down the couple and confronted them.

They told him they thought it was a stray one and didn’t even apologize. The case quickly went viral and found its way onto the English-based social media. In this case you have everything; the complete lack of bourgeois sensibility or sensitivity displayed by the racialized other in complete contrast to their tragic countryman, who has gained status as honorary aryan through his relationship to commodity ownership. To both sides, the dog is a commodity, but their different class status has determined one of them subhuman (literally, as in people wishing death upon the couple instead of the dog) while the other one elevated to heroism. Animal-politics are about people. If you have more sympathy for the dogtuber, you’re a fascist, I mean it. Red Note is rampant with silly polls like “who would you rather save from a burning house? Your dog or a stranger?“ which I love because even though you can call yourself a socialist, an anarchist, a “Marxist-Leninist“, whatever, you still have to take this silly question and every single petty-bourgeois dog owner will choose to let the stranger die and reveal their true character.

\*Sakai notes that despite its feudal form, the obsession with “nature“ for these reactionary classes is bourgeois in nature (read the chapter ’Jane Austen goes to school with the Lumpen/Proletariat‘ in ‘the “Dangerous Class“‘). Of course settler colonialism carries on the forms of various older forms of production including the slave mode of production and even primitive communism, all changed in essence and serving capitalism of course. It’s important to not confuse such matters for the form they are presented as.

I apologize that this post is so disorganized, I am continuing to suffer from insomnia and decided to try to use this night productively and not let these thoughts wither away.

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Is this a good counter argument?
/r/Marxism/comments/1w1xxo9/is_this_a_good_counter_argument/

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Maybe this is controversial, but if the US continues its terminal decline, could it enter a genuine revolutionary situation?

Lenin's criteria for a revolutionary situation are as follows:

> (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to rule in the old way;

> (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual;

> (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action.


The United States has been in the midst of its closest approximation of a fascist upswing for a decade now; and it seems clear to me that due to a genuine deindustrialization and financialization of the economy; there is no glue left to bind it. There can be no fascist industrial policy because there is no industrialism. There can be no fascist unity because the state cannot tie together warring bourgeoisie factions. There can be no fascist propaganda because the petit bourgeoisie has not been convinced by its new illusory privileges. There can be no fascist expansion because the military has failed to produce shells that it could make 100 years ago; and all the missiles are used up. There can be no social fascism because the currency's reserve power is crumbling.

While fascism and its false approximation of petit bourgeoisie power can effectively delay socialism in the imperialist countries, it has to have a baseline level of competence if it hopes to perpetuate itself. The second the reserve currency status dries up, the US will have nothing; and I can't help but see Trump as more of a Tsar than a Fuhrer. I know there are a lot of cultural barriers to socialism in the US; I know people are still living off of imperial privileges, but these are world-historic times and without physical leverage that position could collapse entirely within ten to fifteen years. I'm not entirely convinced that america is by its nature incapable of turning to socialism, or at least balkanizing into factions, some socialist and some fascist; when the people are convinced that there is no other path to change their situation; especially the minoritized, internally colonized minority populations of the United States.

Revolution in the age of imperialism emerges at the weakest, most stagnant link in global imperialism; and perhaps I'm underestimating fascist industrialism but america seems pretty stagnant right now. Settler ideology and the landowner mindset is a huge hurdle to jump for socialism in america and yet Russia was in a similar position during WW1; and i'm sure most people then would have said the orthodox church and the imperial system was too strong for socialism to emerge there. They were wrong.

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“England: The Maoist View” by M.I.M.
https://communistyouthorganisation.org/2026/04/05/england-the-maoist-view-by-m-i-m/

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Question regarding Engels' Origin of the Family

At the end of Chapter 5, The Rise of the Athenian State, Engels writes that

> But with the development of commerce and industry wealth was accumulated and concentrated in a few hands, and the mass of the free citizens were impoverished. Their only alternatives were to compete against slave labor with their own labor as handicraftsman, which was considered base and vulgar and also offered very little prospect of success, or to become social scrap. Necessarily, in the circumstances, they did the latter, and, as they formed the majority, they thereby brought about the downfall of the whole Athenian state. The downfall of Athens was not caused by democracy, as the European lickspittle historians assert to flatter their princes, but by slavery, which banned the labor of free citizens.

But Engels says earlier that the majority of the people in the Athenian state were slaves, not free people. Later on, in Chapter 8, The Formation of the State among Germans, Engels writes that

> abolition of slavery by successful rebellion is unknown to antiquity

My question is: why is it not possible for the slaves to bring about a revolution, if they comprised the majority? How was it that the free Athenians were the one to bring about a revolution instead?

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mao book recommendations?

ive been reading lots on communism but only really ussr and cuban revolution. i really want to get into maoism but i honestly dont know where to start. any recs?

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Marxists in Egypt

Are there online communities in Egypt that are related to Marxism, Communism, Dialectical Materialism, etc.?

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