I don’t intend this article to be entirely in defense of leftist ideology (Marxism, communism, socialism, etc.), and I don’t mean to say that leftism is the answer to all of the problems men face. Rather, the purpose is more of a clarification. While the men’s rights movement has a diverse membership, there is a large anti-left tendency, particularly hostility towards socialist or communist ideology.
I am proposing a few points which I want to elaborate on. First, I want to explain the ideology of the left, including specific terminology. Second, I’d like to state how, contrary to what feminists may claim when using the leftist movement, feminism is actually in opposition to Marxist communism in particular, and leftism in general. Also, I would like to point out how the men’s rights movement can actually benefit from leftism, including communist ideology and Marxism, as well as how capitalism, especially as it exists now in the West, is harmful to men.
As for background, I don’t have a PhD in Marxism, and the closest I come is studying for a Master’s in the People’s Republic Of China (a name with almost as many falsities in it as the Holy Roman Empire, though at least the PRC is Chinese). I also don’t consider myself entirely Marxist, socialist, nor communist, and have issues with all three (I prefer to keep unlabeled, as labels tend to be inaccurate and troublesome), though also find points of agreement with Marxism and especially limited state socialism.
However, I have read the Communist Manifesto, gone through Wage, Labour, & Capital, and I have been a part of an anti-capitalist organization on my college campus where I have seen that organization reflect an increasingly feminist stance. Though, in case McCarthyists are interested, I am not now, and nor have I ever been, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.
One problem with the definitions is that even among scholars and experts, there is not full consensus on terminology. However, I have come up with some working definitions which are basic enough to be more or less agreed upon. When I say leftism, I’m referring to general anti-capitalist tendencies, which include various branches of communism (Marxism, Maoism, Leninism, Trotskyism, etc.), socialism, syndicalism, anarchism, and the variations (anarcho-socialism, social democracy, libertarian socialism, anarcho-primitivism, etc.). Specifically, communism is a political and economic theory developed (though not invented by) Karl Marx in which all property is publicly and collectively owned. Communist ideology holds that there are two main classes, the workers (proletariat), who do the actual physical work, and capitalists (bourgeoisie), who own the means of production, such as land and factories, and make money from the work of others.
Capitalism, according to leftist thought, is inherently exploitative, especially since companies are driven by the mandate to make profit, and the concerns of the workers don’t factor into a company unless they affect profit. An illustration would be an example of a factory. The workers perform all the labor, but they do not own the finished product, nor have true say in the working conditions, pay, or workplace safety. The owner makes all of the decisions, and also owns the finished products, and sells them on the open market to earn a profit.
After subtracting the cost of materials, transportation, and operational costs, the capitalist (not the workers) decides how much of the money made from the sales to give to the workers, as well as how much money to spend on such things as workplace safety (if any is spent). In modern times (the Communist Manifest was written over a century and a a half ago), this is further developed into exploring how corporations work within the state, such as political lobbies and government regulation, or lack thereof.
Socialism, then, would be an answer to this. Socialism would primarily collectivization, taking the means of production from capitalists, and putting power into the hands of the workers (collective farming after the Chinese revolution, for example) by means of a socialist state. Capitalists as a class would be eliminated, and individual capitalists would then become workers (this also happened during the Chinese revolution, though often though force, when landowners often attempted to hold onto their property).
A socialists state would also have a planned economy, where the state controls the means of production in the name of the workers (as opposed to direct control by workers, such as in syndicalism), and makes all economic decisions, i.e. It would be full nationalization. This would be the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and according to Marx, “… the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” Ideally, however, it would still be accountable to the workers, so that those who work in the factories would be protected from exploitation by the government, which would be answerable to the people.
It should be noted that this hasn’t been the case historically. Leon Trotsky accused the Soviet Union of being a “… degenerated workers’ state under the dictatorship of the bureaucracy.” Mao Zedong also initially criticized members the Chinese Communist Party who he saw as becoming a new social class of ruling elite, and called for the workers to also voice criticism. However he did also change his stance quickly when he personally felt threatened by such criticism (“Fight the power” is a less appealing slogan when you are the one in power).
Pure communism would be the final stage, where the state power vastly declines, and is decentralized into the hands of the individual workers. It would be a completely classless society, where all are equal, democratically elected officials would rule by consent of the ruled. The people would then own the means of production through the state, and so all decisions regarding the actual running of businesses, as well as how to spend the material wealth generated, would be made in the interests of the workers. Using the earlier factory example, under communism, the workers at the factory could decide to spend the profits made on better salaries or working conditions.
As mentioned before, there are a great many leftist ideologies besides Marxist communism, however addressing them would take a great amount of time, and risk going too far off the main topic of how leftism relates to men’s rights. While there are many disagreements on issues such as how strong the state should be, or what should be the level of organization, the basic tenants of opposing capitalism, and putting power into the hands of the common people, the workers, are held by almost all leftist ideologies. However, I’ll be mainly addressing Marxist communist ideology. While the above explanations are still lengthy, it’s important to know the terms.
Feminism has, especially recently, allied itself with Marxism (you can check the sites of many Marxist and Marxist derived organizations), as well as forming their own organizations that are explicitly Marxist-feminist (as well as socialist-feminist, or communist-feminist, distancing from pure Marxist ideology), such as Radical Women, or the Freedom Socialist Party. However, while these organizations may have helped feminists in gaining more power, by co-opting communism and socialism, they ignore that feminism is incompatible with Marxist thought, as well as leftism in general.
Most obviously, and most importantly, Marxist ideology is based on class struggle. From the Communist Manifesto:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Nowhere there is any mention of sex or gender. Feminists, both Marxist and otherwise, add “men and women” to the “oppressor and oppressed” list, but in doing so, completely and often intentionally miss the point. According to Marxism, a person is a member of the oppressor class by oppressing. A person is a member of the oppressed class, by being oppressed. It is all based on action and behavior. For feminists, a person is a member of the oppressor class by having a penis, and a person is a member of the oppressed class by having a vagina. This allows any man to be demonized as oppressor without considering if he actually did any oppressing.
Likewise, a woman gets the status of oppressed, with all the moral high ground, regardless of if she actually was oppressed. Marxism would see a male coal miner as oppressed, and a female sweatshop owner as oppressor, while feminism would not, looking only at gender. The miner, by having a penis, would be hated as privileged, and the sweatshop owner, by having a vagina, would be thought of as held down by the patriarchy. Marx himself, as far back as the mid 1800s, said “Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.”
While feminist Marxists (as well as other leftist feminists) pay lip service worker’s rights, they fail to address that men are the ones currently most exploited by the current system (and would also benefit most in abolishing the current system).
For example, and this is just one such example, an article “The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women” on the International Communist League website says, “A working woman has more in common with her male co-workers than with a female boss, and the emancipation of women is the task of the working class as a whole.” [1]
This is true, and under Marxism, women would be liberated as part of the working class no more or less than men would be liberated as part of the same class. Despite stating this, the same author also says, “Today, millions of women even in the advanced capitalist “democracies” endure nasty and brutish lives of misery and drudgery. In the United States, to name just two instances of anti-woman bigotry, abortion rights are under increasing attack and quality childcare is scarce and too costly for most working women.” [1]
This flagrantly ignores that men are the majority of workplace fatalities [2] (here’s the BLS statistic, even though most MRAs have it burned into their minds to the point where I could simply offer the citation as “Your own memory”), because mine owners decide that it would cut into profits too much to improve safety inspections. When there’s a disaster on an oil derrick, women aren’t disproportionately the ones crushed under tons of twisted machinery and drowned. This is not to say that women never have the dirty and dangerous jobs, but rather that men outnumber women in these jobs.
The author also assumes that only women have rights on the issue of abortion (ignoring men, who lack reproductive rights, and the unborn, who has no say at all in their own life or death), and that only women should have the right to childcare. This female supremacist viewpoint is something that can be found all over socialist/communist movements, as well as other leftist movements.
Men are also the ones forced into the system of wage slavery far more than women. Feminists ignore that women have society’s blessing to choose full-time work, part-time work, or full-time child care, while men who choose anything other than full-time work (and thus the greatest worker exploitation) are objects of ridicule in popular culture, and objects of suspicion when seen in public taking care of children (the only reason a man would want to be anywhere near a child is because he wants to rape it into oblivion, of course). Further, the current system of alimony and child support (both highly sexist), allow women to consider divorce and paternal fraud as careers.
The redistribution of wealth and resources is often a source of contention, where MRAs see governments benefit women with funding for specialized programs such as offices of women’s health, paid for with tax money, direct giving money to women through special loans to female business owners, and opportunities through affirmative action. The state also facilitates direct person to person transfer of wealth through alimony and child support (including making it easy to commit child support fraud). However, this is not a problem with wealth distribution (at least in terms of pure men’s rights), but how it is done, and how it is done is not Marxist, but following a feminist path of female supremacy.
According to Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Female victims of violence, the smallest population of violence victims, are given funding through shelters and programs (like VAWA) far above need. Following true Marxism, men would get the same tax supported benefits, such as funding for prostate cancer research.
Further, a worker’s state would be accountable not to the wealthy political donors (here’s a good place to note that women control a majority of the wealth [3], allowing them to decide what organizations to fund, and which political candidates to donate to) and lobby groups (such as the American Association Of University Women, or the National Organization Of Women, as only a few examples of powerful feminist lobbies), but to the workers themselves.
There is so much pushback for men’s reproductive rights because men lack the ability to install candidates friendly to the cause of male rights. Feminists can easily lobby for laws that redefine rape to exclude male victims, because MRAs have little say in the matter, lacking the wealth and resources. A Marxist state would have a mandate to protect all rape victims, regardless of the sex of the perpetrator and victim, and if the government failed to do so, there would be no powerful lobbies to drown out the voices calling for more egalitarian leadership.
While women control a majority of the wealth, men still earn a majority of the wages (and thus are the most oppressed by wage slavery, under Marxist thought), because men don’t have the choices women do. In fact, this is one way almost all forms of leftism, from anarchism to Zapatistismo, has much in common with zeta masculinity, and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW).
Zeta masculinity and anti-capitalism both acknowledge that the jostling for higher and higher position and blind accumulation of wealth and status are detrimental to the people who are trapped in such a life style. They both accept that people all have inherent value that is not contingent on the size of their bank account or how much they can produce for others to consume and profit from.
Both also could contribute to each other. Zeta masculinity can demonstrate how the drive to wealth and status is due to female hypergamy and societal pressure which ties the value of a male as person to his wealth and status. Leftism can offer for consideration how the acquisition of wealth and status is through worker exploitation. In a classless society, men would be free to go their own way without capitalists pushing for society and government to keep men in their place as an exploitable class, and without biased family laws using the threat of debtor’s prisons to have men support women and the children they did not chose to have (assuming they even helped to conceive them in the first place).
So finally, what can the MRM take from this? The MRM has plenty of theory, and while theory is important, so is practical application. Well, here is some such practical application. As stated, leftist ideology has more in common with men’s rights than many might think. While this doesn’t mean that MRAs need to become revolutionary Marxists, it would at least be an argument for giving leftism a detailed looking over as a possible path towards equality of the genders.
More importantly, it means that those who are already on the anti-capitalist left already have more in common with the MRM than they think (to look at it from the reverse side). MRAs might meet people who actually are card-carrying members of a communist party, or are some part of a left tendency movement (one such example is in an article [4] from a disgruntled anarchist I came across while researching this article). Those in communist, socialist, anarchist, or other such movements are faced with growing feminist domination to the point where they can be feel they need to choose to either support a leftist tendency, or a path towards male equality, but cannot do both.
This was actually my own experience, and one reason I felt the need for such an article as this. I was part of a leftist, anti-capitalist student union. While I never fully chose one label as identity, I agreed with much of Marxism, as well as communist ideology. However, I saw how the group became increasingly feminist, and pursued gynocentrism in ways that had real impact.
The organization had a women’s committee, without any such committee for men. Whenever rape was addressed, it was according to what feminism allowed (evil men raping innocent women), and because rape was something only men ever did, false rape accusations were taboo to talk about (feminist defined rape culture was treated with actual seriousness). The organization promoted International Women’s Day, with nothing for men.
The university, like so many other American universities, lacked a men’s resource center, despite having one for women, and the student union was silent, as it was also silent during the male shaming “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” campaign. This was an organization that organized and participated in protests and hosted rallies for rights, just not for everyone’s rights. I was increasingly frustrated at the support, tacit and explicit, for inequality as long as it was female supremacist. More important than my discomfort was the feeling of lost opportunity. If there was a viable MRA view in this, and other such student unions, important changes could have been instituted.
We in the MRM need to make it know that they are not at all mutually exclusive. There exist people so revolutionarily Marxist that Che Guevara would have worn shirts with their faces. We can let them know that not only do they not need to abandon Marxism (or any other form of leftism) in order to seek male equality, but that must oppose feminism and take up gender equality in order to be true to their ideology.
MRAs can have the discourse tools needed to engage those on the left on terms they are familiar with, and appeal to already held views, not to persuade through deception or sleight of hand, as feminists have done, but with the logic and factuality the MRM has been forced to develop over the years by virtue of being a repressed viewpoint.
The MRM is not a monolithic organization, singular in thought on all things. Rather, it is a coalition of people united in the struggle to bring about gender equality. An advantage of a coalition is the way it brings together varying viewpoints. We have been good at allowing members of differing religious beliefs to feel welcome and bring their views.
Perhaps there is something a Jewish point of perspective can offer to men’s rights, or something atheism can bring, or Hinduism, or various forms of Christianity. Incidentally, this is in contrast to the above mentioned feminist “communist” organization, “ICL”, which only allows atheism, and is openly hostile to other beliefs.
If the MRM is able to benefit from acceptance of different religions, then there should be room for different political views (as long as those views are beneficial towards the goal of equality). Not only should there be tolerance in spite of the differences, but looking to see what these different political views can offer the movement.
[1] http://www.she-conomy.com/facts-on-women The quoted passage on the site being: “Of the 743 women of wealth interviewed with at least $3 million in investable assets, 61.2% accumulated their fortunes through corporate employment, their own or a family business or a professional practice. Only 38.8% of the women had married into or inherited their money. – Women of Wealth, 2004, by Russ Alan Prince and Hannah Shaw Grove”
[2] http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/59/emancipation.html
[3] www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
[4] http://www.gonzotimes.com/2011/08/towards-a-masculist-movement/
(Quotes from Marx come from the full annotated text of the Manifest Of The Communist Party, here) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm
(Information regarding China’s history with communism was taken mainly from China: A Century Of Revolution, http://www.ambrica.com/chinainrevolution.html)
(Communism according to Marx, Engles, and Lenin http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/o.htm#communism)
(Socialism as defined by Marx, Engles, and Bebel http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm#socialism)
3 Posts in Total
donations either one-time or on a monthly subscription basis.
If you don't have paypal, check out the other options.
If you want to get some merchandise and sponsor us at the same time, consider the AVfM store.
tango:
napocapo69 (@napocapo69):
Bewildered:
Kimski:
yinyangbalance:
As a conservative libertarian (more or less) I disagree vehemently with Marxism, for a number of reasons.
What I do not disagree with is intelligent, well reasoned and informed opinion on how we best serve the MRM agenda.
I am thankful for getting that in this excellent piece and I am grateful to Mateusz for allowing us to run it here.
Props for articulating his belief system.
By Critical Theory doctrine he should not be exposing his position but rather ridiculing and marginalizing capitalism and democracy, (and by extension the Privilaged White Male Class).
But then he did admit he’s no expert.
Maybe he wasn’t interested in Critical Theory Doctrine, Key. Maybe he was lifting a different kind of voice into the leftist dialogue.
True, I am no more an expert than anyone else who has read a little here and there.
When factory workers are rewarded for years of service with being unemployment after the owners decides it’s cheaper to use overseas labor, where governments don’t believe in workers’ rights, and the factory owners fatten their bank accounts as former workers starve, then capitalism ridicules itself.
Though, I am still not interested in marginalizing democracy (I would love to see more of it). And I didn’t know my position was exposed. I’ll make sure to check my zipper next time I’m out in public.
I used to work for a company that imported all it’s products from China. The bosses went over there often and the male boss told me that it’s another world altogether. He visited factories where the products we brought were manufactured and assembled. In one place there were about 100 workers who were working sitting on the floor assembling components. They shared a kitchen with one tap. Only two toilets for them to use. They worked 12 to 16 hours per day. And for that they got barely enough to live on. The male boss was disgusted. But he didn’t know what could be done about it. If we didn’t import this cheap crap produced by slave labor, our competitors would and we would be out of business. But he lost a lot of sleep after visits to Chinese factories. The female boss……told me with a big smile on her face about the conditions over there, “they work long hours, with few breaks, no paid holidays, no sick pay, and only get paid a couple of dollars a day, and they work hard too, to keep their jobs”
She was almost hunched over rubbing her hands together laughing, like the evil old witch she was.
That is socialism. The reason the Chinese standards of living have been increasing, is because there is increasing capitalism in that country, and workers are organizing as best they can to demand better conditions. Sure the capitalists here are evil for exploiting workers in these countries, but these conditions only exist in socialist countries and third world shit holes. Why is that? If these socialist countries adopt capitalism and raise their standards of living, and wages, there won’t be any super cheap crap coming from there to here anymore…and maybe we can move away from the over consuming, disposable culture that we live in now. Yes, when we have to pay a fair price for our shit, we will use less, and consume less of all resources.
“Factory owners” are typically anyone with a 401K or pension, not cigar chomping Monopoly men.
Chances are your mom and dad are factory owners whose management moved overseas to cut costs. If you want Americans to build toasters for $17.65 and hour, that’s cool. But be aware if you need to buy a toaster it’ll have to be $129.95 for the company to survive.
“If you’re not Liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not Conservative when you’re 35, you have no brain.” -W. Churchill
Read Ayn Rand. Just don’t let anyone on campus know you’re doing it.
Knowledge application/Automation should have filled this gap. The outsourcing craze has badly set back this natural progression.
Same as bureaucratic/government environmental protection has set back the the obsoleting of that abomination called a “landfill”. There are simply too many people getting rich from it. From both outsourcing to the third world and from hauling garbage to holes in the ground and dumping it there to pollute for ever.
“Factory owners” are typically anyone with a 401K or pension, not cigar chomping Monopoly men.
Don’t know about that. Walmart greeters are no longer called ‘employees’ but rather. ‘associates’. They too have 401k’s. But factory owners they are not. Pensions? Don’t have ‘em, either.
Anyone with a 401k is a factory owner? That’s a stretch, Key.
Many thanks. Even if we disagree politically, we can still agree on finding new avenues towards equality.
I appreciate the chance to bring in a new viewpoint, even an opposing one.
You have provided a fresh look at something I have been saying for years. Left/liberalism is not necessarily consistent with feminism. You have articulated it very well. 40-50 years ago, if you were a liberal, you were not necessarily a feminist. Feminism was a small subset of left/liberal politics. In the late 80s through early 90s, feminism became the dominant force behind left/liberalism and the entire face of the left changed.
In a recent comment I defined my personal political viewpoint as:
“I personally consider myself somewhat of a left-leaning, neo-libertarian with an oddly traditional value system who believes in a strong, but very limited government whose purpose is to define boundaries for individual rights and to protect the individual from the corporate and/or government entity. People have inalienable rights, organizations enjoy privileges that can be granted, changed, and/or revoked. When the government no longer serves the people, but requires the people to serve the government, it becomes time to rid the people of the government.”
This positiion is not horribly unlike the one you describe, but does include the concept of private property and is inherently more capitalistic.
From a pure utopian standpoint, I believe that Marxism would come closest of any system to producing an egalitarian utopia. Human nature is its downfall. Marxism in all of its forms is diametrically opposed to human nature. Human beings (men and women) are motivated by a survival instinct that is easily translated into greed and greed is the enemy of Marxism which relies on benevolence.
A capitalist society can channel this greed into productivity while a Marxist society must extinguish it. The very need to extinguish a natural, normal human behavior requires a strong, centralized government to act as enforcer. Those who seek the power of government tend to be the most corruptable which is why strong, centralized governments tend to be the most corrupt and least favorable to the people. Marx ignored this aspect of human behavior. His system is inherently self-destructive.
Capitalism is not by any means incorruptable, but by its very nature, it is much more honest about its corruptability. This allows for a much more open and honest evaluation of the system and makes it infinitely more correctable when such correct is necessary. Unfortunately in america and most everywhere it is practiced, it is not actual capitalism, it is corporatism. This is a much less honest version and far more easily corruptable. My own personal political view as expressed above stands opposed to corporatism.
One additional point. You quoted Marx “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” I would alter that thought slightly to be more fitting to my own personal view. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.”
Most agreeable to hear a fresh take on this from a less-heard-of angle – Bernie Chapin is always thought-provoking & a lot of fun, but the ‘defeat the left’ position is, in the long run, thinking way too small, & heard disproportionately in the MRM.
All the major forms of modern political thought – anarchism, communism, fascism, libertarianism, democracy – they all sprang up as projected solutions to the fundamental problem of how to organize a society once it has removed its monarchy. That’s really all they are, & when you step back from the whole right/left puppet-show, played out today in the voting booths of every western nation, you can see how much these movements all actually have in common – all were dreamt up by men of genius striving to make a better world for all, instead of just thinking of themselves. The dream of democracy, the dream of communism, the dream of anarchism, all stem from the same benevolent source, so it is foolish to demonize one half of the spectrum of human ingenuity, just as much as it is foolish to demonize one half of the human race, the way feminism does.
We should be attempting to dream up something new & better for the future that transcends the petty & ossified ideological squabbles of the past yet still honors the wisdom of the great minds that have have gone before.
I’m with you Bernard. I’m pretty much on the libertarian side of things, with a few differences of opinion. I even have some left leaning attitudes in some areas, but I believe society must be organized to give favor to the hardest working, the smartest, the most willing to get their hands dirty and have a go at improving their own lot. Welfare should be limited to keeping peoples heads above water until they resume standing on their own feet. Things should be uncomfortable for those that are not carrying their own weight, not suffering, or starving, or freezing, but boring and left wanting for a lot.
Wow, I get down voted for that comment. Maybe I should edit it………hows this.
The lazy, parasitical, useless good for nothings, should be kept in complete opulence, while producing nothing, and consuming everything, while every resource is wasted sparing no expense to ensure they have everything they desire. Climate controlled environments, the best food, closthing, 24/7 entertainment. They should want for nothing, and if they do, more should be demanded of those that produce to provide more, for free.
How’s that, left enough for you? You happy now?
They do not want to know where it comes from. That is why you get down votes.
perfect!
8)
Hi Bernard, I truly love your channel, and believe me I understand most of your takes on why the “left” is supporting feminism and hence misandry. I’m a bit more on the left, maybe center, but more libertarian than socialist…
There is something I gently ask you to think about.
Have you noticed that the feminist elite does not come from the bottom of society, but instead from middle and upper class? There is a simple reason. Feminism is all about taking power not redistributing wealth.
There is nothing in common between feminism and “left wing” even beacuse left, in actual terms, does not exist anymore.
The “new” left is using feminism to target women votes, and in doing this, it is just more effective than right wing… To do this they sell more wellfare, paid from taxpayers.
I completely agree with you that too much welfare destroy economy and society. I completely agree with you that government should be taken outside the family. Do believe me most of your stance are 100% correct.
It is just that capitalism as such, does not explain everything. Sweden is a socilademocratic country, high misandry country (I consider it a kind of open zoo), but is someway a capitalist country.
The point is that most of the feminist shit that have been spread around the world, originated in USA not in URSS, and that should suggest you something.
Feminist are not afraid of poorer classes (mostly men) they are angry for power, exaclty like the alpha males of wall street.
The point is that most of the feminist shit that have been spread around the world, originated in USA not in URSS, and that should suggest you something.
Feminist ties to Marxism originated from the Frankfurt School and made it’s way to the US before Nazi’s started killing Jews. (The Frankfurt/Marxist intellectuals/philosophers were Jewish). They sought refuge in the US (Columbia University) and began spreading Marxism by first infiltrating academia and then the media (Hollywood). Henry Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization was the bible of the growing left on US campuses in the 60′s.
You see the messaging of Marxism wasn’t catching on in Germany and the rest of Europe, so they thought they’d give the USA a try while they were here. Appealing to women’s sense of victimhood and promalgating “class warfare” between men and women was a key tenet of their strategy. Pretty affective dontcha think?
You have to understand the roots before disecting the tree.
I agree almost completely with you Bernard. And I won’t say that I agree with this article, for the sake of unity. I believe that the MRM has a natural alliance with libertarianism, and for some pretty obvious reasons. Alternative media journalist Adam Kokesh recently posted a video on YouTube called “Libertarian Feminism” that attracted a lot of….well….libertarians, feminist and MRAs. The video itself was borderline idiotic that served little useful purpose other than creating hits and pointing out Mr. Kokesh’s lack of knowledge of either feminism or libertarianism. The fascinating thing was the comment section, of course. Last I looked, MRAs had made pretty solid case that libertarianism and feminism are like oil and water, and Marxism and the nanny state were the natural allies of feminism. I really can’t see much compatibility between leftist ideologies and the goals of the MRM, and I spent most of my life as a Democrat so I don’t think it’s bias. I think Libertarians need to be very cautious here, as MRAs already are, of poisoning the proverbial well for the sake of inclusiveness. There are some very sound reasons not to let a skunk in your living room, no matter how cute they are.
Hi Bernard, I hope you didn’t take my over-familiarity the wrong way – it was meant with affection, not as a personal slight. I’m a subscriber of yours & always enjoy hearing your take on all topics.
I’m aware this subject is something you are more hardline on than perhaps any other voice in the MRM, so I don’t want to get into some big argument with you over it, it’s obviously something you see far less grey area in than many of the other readers here & is pretty much central to your personal beliefs.
To clarify my position, though, I’m not actually pushing for socialism or communism or even anarchism, any more than I’m pushing for a fascist dictatorship, & I wholeheartedly agree with you that big government is totalitarianism & something that needs to be drastically cut back. I would like to see far, far less interference from the state in people’s personal lives.
On the other hand, I think capitalism is a destructive force on the world stage, & would like to see it replaced by something that recognizes other parts of life as having value other than just the dollar bill. I also believe in looking out for those less fortunate than myself, if at all possible – a view I presume even many conservative Christians would share.
For the typical man in the street, ‘left’ & ‘right’ are mostly experienced as the choice between ‘Republican’ or ‘Democrat’ – or in my country, ‘Tory’ or ‘Labour’ – & yet the popular opinion in regard to both of those is that whichever way you vote, only cosmetic change occurs – “whoever you vote for, the politicians always get in”. I think for anyone who has witnessed 7 or 8 elections in their life, & seen how nothing at a higher – or structural – level appears to have actually changed one bit, the puppet-show analogy seems quite apt.
I agree. Collectivism is a feminine consciouness, while individuality is masculine. So since individual freedoms and choices are unacceptable under marxism, that does nor seem generally masculine or male friendly (well unless you are gay or a mangina perhaps). Marx I think works better for feminists, and the author only raised basically a technicality, not a real effect of marxism. Marxism homoginizes and feminizes everyone into a fluid of nondifferentiation, exactly what feminists want: oppress the strong man, raise up the weak woman. The effects of this are simply stagnation as is proved by every communist state. China would be a nomansland if it had not installed capitalism, now that it has, its a international economic force and influence. Marxism ahnihilates the individual for ghe purpose of unit production, which is exactly what e MRM hates about capitalism, but at least you can start your company and have individual liberties (regardless of the current state of things) marxism may not be perfectly correct for feminism, but like i said in the gay thread: they may see us as allies, but we really cannot see them as allies. Marxists have to oppose feminists on their own if they have a problem with them (and so do gays) the MRM can serve as a ally against a common enemy, but cannot as a friend. Same goes for gays.
“I agree. Collectivism is a feminine consciouness, while individuality is masculine.”
True, though there is much overlap.
Balancing collectivism/individuality – in it’s ebbs and flows – in my opinion is the biggest hurdle we have in the MRM.
While fully hetro I find that most gays are for individual freedoms and not for collective benefit. The ones who do (the face of it currently) are the ones who are duped into thinking feminism is their ally.
The MRM is mostly for individual freedom as it is a basic desire most men try to achieve while women push for safety. One who is safe is not free as the “protector” makes decisions to protect the safety of the safe…
“Capitalism, according to leftist thought, is inherently exploitative, especially since companies are driven by the mandate to make profit, and the concerns of the workers don’t factor into a company unless they affect profit. An illustration would be an example of a factory. The workers perform all the labor, but they do not own the finished product, nor have true say in the working conditions, pay, or workplace safety. The owner makes all of the decisions, and also owns the finished products, and sells them on the open market to earn a profit.”
And that’s where we part ways,my friend. There’s nothing exploitative about an agreement two people make to trade goods or services.If capitalism was a mafia-style “offer you can’t refuse” like,for instance literally worshiping the leader of your country as in many socialist/communist governments,I wouldn’t even be putting up a fuss here,but we both know it isn’t.
Not only can you choose your employer and his/her terms according to your whim,BY LAW they must pay you a wage sufficient to allow you to seek employment elsewhere,if necessary.
I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater in the case of someone who was both full-blown socialist or communist and a staunch MRA,but every time I start hearing about how capitalism is the cause of all our problems I know a call to liquidate certain segments of the population and redistribute their goods isn’t far behind.
That’s the only way most such systems can be maintained for long periods of time,and I am adamantly opposed to it.
But,if you’ve somehow managed to come up with a flavor of Marxism that would actually expand men’s rights rather than limiting them through oppressive government control,I’m happy to hear about it and I hope anyone else who’s both on the extreme end of what is called “leftist” ideology and passionate about helping men takes it to heart.
Soup kitchens are pretty communist in nature,and men could certainly use more services like this,especially if Obama gets re-elected,being as feminist as he is.
Capitalism can be exploitative, but it is not inherently exploitative like socialism. What socialists don’t get is that all this stuff that they want distributed more equally had to come from somewhere, and that is, people worked to create it and build it. If you didn’t contribute anything to baking that pie, you don’t have a right to a piece, just because you are hungry. You have a right to ask for a piece, and I have a right to say…..screw you. If you have laws that demand I give you my piece of pie, then what incentive do I have to produce anything more then what I need and consume on a daily basis. If I can’t accumulate pieces of pie for later, so I can have a break, or a holiday, or retire to live off my nest egg, then why am I going to bust my nuts producing any more then what I can eat right now. Socialism is really the workers being forced to produce many times as much as they consume so that others can have those spare pieces of pie. It is slavery.
Capitalism can result in slavery too, with workers being paid peanuts and slaving away to make huge profits for companies while paying people far far less than the profit they generate for the company. But being largely libertarian, I also believe that individual workers have a right to band together, and form unions, and put pressure on for better conditions and pay. So you have competing interests, and as long as each group is as free as the other to pursue their interests, you get a reasonable outcome.
Socialism sounds nice and fluffy if you think of things like food, clothing, buildings, electricity, fuel, cars, air travel, and all other consumer goods, as something akin to the air……they are just there……and the capitalist greedily gathers them all up and denies everybody some until they pay for it. But they aren’t like air, they only exist because people worked to create them…….if you get a share without producing…….you…..are exploiting someone, someone who had to work for less, or for free, so you could have your share for free.
Capitalism can result in slavery too, with workers being paid peanuts and slaving away to make huge profits for companies while paying people far far less than the profit they generate for the company..
Profit is good. It motivates a society to innovate and develop solutions people want and like. Here we have what’s called “profit sharing” and “stock options” so the “workers” have a stake in profitability.
The market determines what people make. You’re not forced to work for a company that you feel is under paying you. There are a handful of executives that get paid ridiculous amounts of money. There are also Hollywood actors that get paid ridiculous amounts of money, but that’s the market for those “names”.
Shareholders like “names” and so does the box office.
Yes, but its not that simple. In a world where capital can move freely around the world at light speed but where labor is trapped inside little lines on the map, and where capital obviously buys the corrupt whores in government to force us to do it’s bidding at gun point, and where most capitalist companies are dictatorships, some sort of slavery is almost a given.
And profit is not ALWAYS good. It needs to be balanced by other essential objectives as well. Capitalism is a short term exploitative, pass the buck system which needs to be balanced by the people who truly serve the public’s shared interests. Otherwise capitalism goes totally out of control as we have seen in the financial collapse that led to this ‘Great Recession’ and that is about to create the mother of all collapses.
Capitalism is a good ideology in the market place because it stimulates productivity but when left unchecked profit becomes more important than people. The best system as I can tell is a republic that allows for capitalism in the market place within a certain framework.
Lee
Yep. There is no better system than capitalism for getting the work done. We just need to be sure that in an age where religion is collapsing, that the market doesn’t become our new religion. I go to our local capitalist church (the mall) occasionally. It’s pretty and clean as can be but very very cold beneath the glittering surface. A Material Girl for material girls is all.
What exactly are the Public’s Shared interests?
Social and economic equality for all?
Freedom for the individual is the key.
At the heart of the Great Recession was government do-gooders pushing mortgage companies to loan to sub-prime home buyers who didn’t understand concepts like “adjustable rates”. It carried on from there.
The very nature of Capitalism is boom and bust. It’s also what brought you all those cool things you now have that make your life better, than say people in Cuba or North Korea. Where “fairness” is the law for everyone but the ones who enforce it.
“We just need to be sure that in an age where religion is collapsing, that the market doesn’t become our new religion. I go to our local capitalist church (the mall) occasionally. It’s pretty and clean as can be but very very cold beneath the glittering surface. A Material Girl for material girls is all.”
Actually, we’re living in an age in which not only materialism but also religious fundamentalism is growing and thriving. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Keyster:
In the US, the public’s shared interests are SUPPOSED to be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations only exist to serve the interests of shareholders which are greed oriented for the most part. Thoughtless greed often gets in the way of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…particularly when corporations are able to buy governments as they do wholesale today.
I totally agree that freedom for the individual is key. However, freedom never comes for free….as you and everyone else on THIS particular blog know all too well. That’s why I favor some sort of balanced combinations of between libertarian and communitarian codes to create a coopetitive social order. For instance, when young men go off to war…there need to be 100 people on the home front for each man on the war front who are locked in to share in his support/suffering/recovery.
The US is operates on the individual freedom side but we do a very bad job of relating to those who cannot or will not use that freedom well. In my town, we ticket homeless people for trying to meet a basic human need (sleep) in public parks while that same time the filthy rich people who live here to enjoy massive socialism/subsidies. While we celebrate free market capitalism what we really do is offer crony socialism to the rich/well connected and screw the poor with inflation/government debt/taxes. Nothing could be more cynical and cruel. I’d like to see the politicians, bankers, and stockbrokers…who made our current mess by robbing us blind…sitting with their hands out on the streets…or better in prison…but that isn’t likely as long they can buy our politicians for pennies on the dollar.
We agree on the fundamental causes of the Great Recession. But all of the recent booms and busts have been created by the Fed messing in the money/credit supply…according to the Austrian school guys anyway. Bottom line: we’ve got to GUARD capitalism well, not allow the guardians to be bought or sold and not allow capitalists to use force or coerce. See Systems of Survival…for more on this. Moral (and other) disasters ensue when we cannot create and maintain proper lines between these two competing but complementary systems.
And just for the record, I’m no fan of Cuba, North Korea…or even old fashioned Scandinavian socialism. Capitalism is the best system for serving our ECONOMIC interests as long as the Capitalist Cowboys always know that Wyatt Earp is in town. I’m just very sick of the cynical, corrupt, corporate capitalism that we coddle/encourage in the US these days.
Brendan:
Religion and capitalism are worlds apart. One is about getting people to some sort of fantastical Sky Daddy heaven in the ‘other’ world. The other is about serving people’s carnal needs here on planet Earth.
The problem is that fundamentalist (the most honest and therefore the most insane Bible babblers…according to Sam Harris) religious pigs have begun to sell religion to bring in the masses, and the capitalist pigs have begun to create religious cults to sell to the masses. That tends to destroy both religion and capitalism.
Wrong. Look through history and you’ll see that the vast majority of inovation had nothing to do with profit, and was in fact, hindered by profiteers. Sheesh, how often do I have to beat this meme over the head? Gutenberg himself worked got screwed by his investors, arch capitalists thmselves, and this is just one example.
No, profit is greed.
We do have profit sharing – the poor share their wealth with the those more fortunate than them. It’s a ‘trickle-up’ society. Pensions are a thing of the past, and the rich get richer. So yes, profit is good – for those that profit.
It’s true, you don’t have to work for a company that you feel is under-paying you. You can go to school and acquire skills – provided you take a student loan.
And yes you are correct again that a handful of CEO’s are ridiculously overpaid…oh wait – all of them are.
So in the final analysis, you’re contribution was….nothing.
>And that’s where we part ways,my friend. There’s >nothing exploitative about an agreement two people
>make to trade goods or services.If capitalism was a
>mafia-style “offer you can’t refuse” like,for instance
>literally worshiping the leader of your country as in
>many socialist/communist governments,I wouldn’t
>even be putting up a fuss here,but we both know it
>isn’t.
>
>Not only can you choose your employer and his/her
>terms according to your whim,BY LAW they must pay
>you a wage sufficient to allow you to seek
>employment elsewhere,if necessary.
Which is a law given to you by the LEFT. Before that, forced into being by essentially a communist uprising, aka strikes, and forming a collectivist workers union, with men armed with clubs in front of factories to force the factory from functioning, and forcing other people that would accept lower hunger wages from entering.
Before the leftist, collectivist uprising you were working for hunger wages, if even that, and your children were working right next to you, dying in unprotected machinery, that if it didn’t kill you left you deaf by the the time you were 45.
It is leftist individuals forming collectives that forced these things down factory owners’ throats. It’s why they hate unions, without unions owners could easily divide and conquer the workers. If one wasn’t willing to work for a hunger wage, someone else would. It kept individuals apart, and thus controllable.
Those laws, my friend, are ANTI-CAPITALISM. In capitalist society supply and demand are the only things that matter, including for workers. That means if there’s many workers, the supply is large, wages go down, and down, and down, and down, and down.
What you call capitalism, is ANTI-capitalism. That you have good wages, comes from people banding together entirely anti-individualism.
And true capitalism, like any society that is not in balance, both capitalist, and any anti-capitalist a society that is horrifying. To get a good society, you need equal bits of both.
In fact, your ability to negotiate a good agreement, also comes from your education, your ability to read, write, and do math. And it is the left that made sure every human being gets a basic education from early on in their lives. It is left collective law that collectively all children need basic education, that allows you to negotiate anything to begin with. Factory owners, if they had their way, back when, would never have given you any education at all. Keep you dumb, is how to easier force hunger wages down your throat. And now you know why in every budget cutting round, the first thing that gets a budget cut, is education.
“Which is a law given to you by the LEFT. Before that, forced into being by essentially a communist uprising, aka strikes, and forming a collectivist workers union, with men armed with clubs in front of factories to force the factory from functioning, and forcing other people that would accept lower hunger wages from entering.”
I am already aware of this. I am an eager and keen student of history,and political history also falls under the scope of my studies.
If you think I’m taking a hardline stance,you’ve misread me.
The position I take is that making a functional political system is like baking a cake. You take a pinch of democracy,a dash of socialism,a cup of anarchism,a tablespoon of capitalism,etc.
The way you tell if your ‘cake” is good,is you take a taste test.Blindfold a bunch of people and pass them a slice,if most people agree that it’s good,then it is.
Right now, we’ve got men killing each other over the frosting.
“What you call capitalism, is ANTI-capitalism. That you have good wages, comes from people banding together entirely anti-individualism.”
No it’s not. It’s like an amendment to capitalism,a “wage clause” if you will. I don’t call the constitutional amendments of the United States “Mein Kampf” just because the Founding Fathers envisioned a state controlled by wealthy white landowners and made no provisions for blacks or women voting.It is an addition to the basic system from outside it. Also, the people you describe were not banding together to take away peoples’ choices,but rather to strengthen their own bargaining power. In those days,it was quite necessary and our system is the better for it.
“Factory owners, if they had their way, back when, would never have given you any education at all.”
Of course not, they made shoes and shit. Education wasn’t part of their job.Maybe they would have tried to consciously keep people ignorant,I don’t know,but it would have been impossible anyway so it wasn’t much of a genuine danger.
The part I do agree with in Marxism is that there is exploitation, or at least the opportunity for exploitation, whenever the workers are cut out of the decision process.
You can choose your employer, but that doesn’t help if there aren’t any employers hiring, such as with massive layoffs. My aunt and uncle both have gone through such experiences. My aunt was an accountant, but lost her job after the company she worked for was being investigated for massive fraud. It entirely the fault of the owner, but my aunt suffered. My uncle lost his job when the company he worked for was bought out. A friend of mine was out of work over a year because of layoffs due to the company having a slump. In all three cases, there just weren’t any other employers to choose. It doesn’t matter how much you want to work, and how hard you’re willing to work, if there are no jobs available, there’s nothing you can do.
Stories like that are pretty common, especially in the US. Under a capitalist system, there is no basic right to have a job, and if no one is hiring, you are out of luck.
I think that a worker’s state, whatever that worker’s state may be (a large socialist state, or small communist state, or another option), would be a better solution. Right now, the rich elite have the power, and laws just don’t favor the working class.
I find it disturbing how “social warfare” is oversimplified and justified in this article, not to mention hyperbole via inherent victimhood of one group or another. I suppose the promotion of postmodern thought via ‘feelings’ is also irrelevant to feminism too. That has nothing to do with ‘rape culture’ and bypassing the objective reality of women being safer because they ‘feel’ oppressed and under threat – no!
Funny how all of a sudden Marxists, the ones who started this gender war mess, are coming out of the woodwork in MRA circles. That’s what they do – they assimilate, and then suggest they speak for everyone. “We are the 99%!”
It might also be worth checking out Engels’ views on the oppression of women BEFORE one assumes that modern feminist polemic doesn’t originate with the blunders of Marx and Engels:
http://www.isreview.org/issues/02/engles_family.shtml
I will never associate with leftists, and I know many of my subscribers agree with me. This group has no concept of non-aggression and property rights, and has a terrible understanding of the nature of capitalism. These people are diametrically opposed, and it cannot be resolved.
Yes, the state is ultimately the problem, but alas libertarians are too different to socialists, since libertarians respect non-aggression and leftists don’t, who want to control the manner in which people freely interact.
If there is anything that will tear this movement apart it’s an insistence that Marxism can be a part of it. The irony is that the real distraction, which those who espouse ‘apolitical’ views claim to exist, is rights for certain groups within society. The real war is ideologies trying to co-opt the state for their own ends, wishing to destroy the rights of other groups in the process. Anyone who tells you that Marxists respect the rights of libertarians is lying. You wouldn’t be able to own a coffee shop without a technocrat dictating to you how it’s done.
I am a libertarian before anything else, and I will never sell myself down the river for any ideology that would use coercion or statism as its centrepiece – including men’s rights. I do this because I want a world based on non-aggression, and I will not compromise this for any goal.
We can use Marxist thought for the MRM? No thanks, at least not with my support.
“Funny how all of a sudden Marxists, the ones who started this gender war mess, are coming out of the woodwork in MRA circles. That’s what they do – they assimilate, and then suggest they speak for everyone. “We are the 99%!””
Exactly. Fifty years of disenfranchising males and privileging females, and now they have the gall to say “NAMALT” and “That’s not REAL Marxism.”
Oh they are going to come here alright. Just as the pie comes out of the oven, just in time to get their free piece.
They? Who is this mysterious “They”? Also, I’m not even 30, so disenfranchising men for 50 years would be quite a feat for me. Unless you mean someone else. Straw Marxists do make much better targets.
AMEN!! Excellent articulation, and I’m tickled shitless that Bernard jumped into this one. Great to see him post here. Bernard, should we expect a video rebuttal in the near future?
Can’t wait to see that
Our author has never read anything form the boys of the Frankfurt School either I suppose.
Google Marcuse and Feminism.
Google Fromm and Feminism.
Feminism is steeped in Cultural Marxism.
Get to the women.
Destroy the culture.
Destroy the society and captialism.
Re-build into a Marxist Utopia from the ashes.
You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about Marxism there, and an almost emotional reaction. What do you mean by “social warfare”, and how is it justified? Also, what hyperbole?
Just how many Marxists have been coming out of the woodwork, and how have they started the gender war mess? When have I ever advocated for gender war at all? There’s also no assimilation here.
Engles might have had some chivalric leanings. White knights are hardly a new thing, and he would not have been the only one. Though, that author in the link is trying to hammer Engles’ articulations into her own
view.
If you don’t want to ever associate with me, or anyone else, for political views (and use your fan club to back you up), then that’s your choice. Though, if you think leftists have no concept of property rights or non-aggression, you really misunderstand what you hate so much. Also, they have a pretty strong understanding of capitalism. Though, if you disagree, I’d like to see opinions backed up with facts.
The state need not be the problem. It’s only the problem when (as in a capitalist society) workers are cut off from power, including self-rule. When capitalists become a ruling class, like with political donations and lobbyists, the state serves their interests, and not the workers.
I would think the insistence on wholly rejecting people interested in the group because of misunderstanding of their political ideology, or because they don’t share yours, and assertion that your political system is the only one allowed, would be far more destructive than allowing people who aren’t libertarian to join.
I also believe in non-aggression, and not in false dichotomies.
That’s alright. If you refuse your support, I think we’ll still survive, as will the MRM.
They really got a hold of you at University didn’t they.
You claim Marxism has answers for Men’s RIghts without fully understanding the concept.
Read “Ameritopia” by Mark Levin.
Open up your mind beyond the Leftist halls of Academia.
Mark “Bomb Iran” Levin?!
Instead of deconstruction, providing no answers, but merely creating more questions, actually create some arguments.
I understand Marxism perfectly well, and I don’t need some leftist academic to tell me I don’t, which is the typical reply to anything that exposes your irrational ideology. I see right through your Hegelian dialectic – yawn! I’ve seen it all before.
Labels are irrelevant? You agree with non-aggression? Okay, will you allow me to run a business without intervention from a third-party? Will you allow the employer and employee to agree on the terms of employment contract independently? Will you respect that the accumulation of wealth and property by the individual is not inherently oppressive, or will you use “progressivism” to re-allocate my earnings based on your perception of oppression in a “progressive stack”? Will you point the guns of the state at me for mutually beneficial interaction via a free market? I want straight answers, not red herrings and muddying of the waters.
You want evidence for my views on Marxism? I have mountains of vids and blog posts with external links on my online pages, and let me assure you that I am perfectly aware that you only accept sources from your technocratic professors. But you would know all about how flawed this is being in the MRM now though wouldn’t you, since you oppose leftist feminist methods that do the same thing, right?
Yes, I’m sure you would love to see libertarians like me stop supporting the MRM, so then you can co-opt this movement, just like you did with feminism. Once upon a time there were moderates in that movement too, but your kind changed all that too didn’t they?
Whether I remain on this site or not I will always be an MRA, and I will continue to expose your kind for the ones who started this shit-fest. You wont get rid of me – promise
>Okay, will you allow me to run a business without
>intervention from a third-party?
Back before the evil Marxists got their conspiracy going, back before the 1950s, you know, back in the good old days when capitalism was still might? A company had to show they were a benefit and no detriment to society every 5 years, if it couldn’t, that company got shot down. But the evil Marxist conspirators, they removed that provision.
>Will you allow the
>employer and employee to agree on the terms of
>employment contract independently?
Well of course not, and you should be grateful for that. Unions among others, as well as the government, the left, put up laws that prevent a company to just fuck you over independently.
Today, with all those unemployed folk around, your negotiations will go around like this, “Two bucks an hour. No benefits, nothing. Don’t like it? Too bad for you, that unemployed guy over there, he’ll work for that.”
In these case, the government existing to protect just rewards, to be the shield between the powerful and the wealthy and not wealthy and weak, is doing it’s job, properly.
>Will you respect that the accumulation of wealth and
>property by the individual is not inherently oppressive,
>or will you use “progressivism” to re-allocate my
>earnings based on your perception of oppression in a
>“progressive stack”? Will you point the guns of the
>state at me for mutually beneficial interaction via a
>free market? I want straight answers, not red herrings
>and muddying of the waters.
You mean taxes, like the right is making you pay already. You mean you want to go back to the good old days of the 50s and before, right? Back when the economy was still going strong. Back before feminists and Marxists got their grubby hands on it, right? Back when the government still taxed the rich 70% of everything they made?
I agree with all that, except the non-inclusion part. All the power blocks and ideologies,usually implicitly, do not subscript to “non-agression”. Why? because, violence, does in fact, change things. Might makes right, to paraphrase.
The great genocides of the last century have proven that there are few practical limits on the application of brute force for political ends. It will be even more so when the statists, who are currently in ascendancy, on both left and the right, get their way. Where do you run and hide when there is one world government?
Way to go Don Quixote, carry on fighting the battles of the 20th century. I for one will not follow you in chasing the Red Menace.
Marxism can be a useful tool for providing a particular view of capitalism, but socialism/ marxism/ communism tend to ignore individual identity and personal initiative. Who would want to live in a society where there was no personal pride in achievement? What incentives would there be when everyone is a different shade of grey? Describing companies as out for profit is also a little simplistic. I work for a capitalist company but, as workers, we regard it as our company that we all benefit from. It is an exchange of effort in return for money to provide for our everyday needs. The flaw with marxist-feminism is that it is largely based on personal hatred or misplaced jealousy of males. They refuse to see or even enjoy seeing the suffering that men endure. Their view is naziesque in that they believe they are the superior species and males exist to subvert them. In one exchange with a feminist, she described all males as neanderthal. After I tried to rationalize her arguments with a compassionate view, she modified her description of me as a ‘mild’ neanderthal. I have found that extreme feminists are a lost cause. You can win debates and they simply ‘reset’ and return to the standard cliches of misandry.
@JW
Feminism is not rational.
You can win a argument and, still fail to persuade.
You cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themself into.
Many of us quit debating feminists. That is my suggestion. Use your energy on something more productive.
Regards,
LJ
Don’t try to persuade. Just knock em on hard on the nose particularly in public settings. That’s the only thing these bullies respect. They’ll either run away for good, in which case you win, or they will slowly come to the table…as long as your hits are somewhat straight…and in that case you win too.
” Describing companies as out for profit is also a little simplistic”
You have hit on an issue I have noticed in Canada and the US and most-likely affect the vast majority of nations.
No company is a person yet, we treat them as such, our courts treat them as such, ascribing “rights” to an unliving manufactured “being”.
People do NOT invest in companies because they treat their employees fairly, or because they are active in support of communities. We invest to make money i.e. ever expanding profits. (Admittedly my own statement loses traction if the company is small in a relatively smaller community as such companies are rewarded with increased patronage, investments and even cut rate supplies).
Unchecked capitalism is not any mans friend any more than communism is. Both seek to take as much as possible from each and every man while, capitalism at least recognizes that something should be given back in return.
I would tend to agree. Companies, in the UK anyway, are called Body Corporates, which gives them the same status as an individual. It forms a protection for directors who can shift blame from themselves onto the ‘company’. Capitalism is often brutal. No profit and you will be out the door and onto the unemployed queue. It also depends on endless consumerism, just like a shark having to swim constantly in order to survive. Leftist systems have a tendency to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator which disinsentivizes people and need high levels of control to maintain the veneer of fairness. Control leads to oppression which undermines their whole philosophy. There are no perfect systems. All we can do is to behave as decent human beings or learn to in order to make life worth living. If we cannot do that, then our lives can easily descend into a living hell.
Corporations in the US were deemed to be “individuals” because it would have otherwise been impossible to sue them.
If you were harmed by a defective product, you would have to sue the owners of the company individually, which means each and every shareholder. That would be rather expensive and impractical.
The “corporations are individuals” canard is one anti-capitalists like to throw around because it’s an appealing sound bite, but people don’t understand the original intent of the ruling.
Maybe we don’t understand the ‘corporation as a person’ canard but one thing is for sure by amassing that kind of collective and conscienceless power in one organization…particularly one where the rights of an individual are provided but not the responsibilities is extremely dangerous to the rest of us. For instance, people who own sole proprietorships bear far more risk for business related crimes, misconduct or accidents than do corporations and by extension their shareholders.
What I’d like to see is that limited liability that corporate ‘people’ enjoy be removed. Right now when I buy shares in a corporate ‘person’, the upside is unlimited but the downside is zero. I’d like to see the downside be unlimited as well…so that for instance the cost of a gross corporate malfeasance is borne directly by the owners/shareholders. It would be delightful to see owners of BP shares to have to sell their houses to pay for the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup. One can be damn sure that if shareholders were at serious risk…the scrutiny of corporations would be no less serious. Instead, the system we have now lets corporations take huge greedy risks…keep the gains on the good bets, and pass the losses on the bad bets to the taxpayers. It’s ‘I win and you get nothing’ or ‘I lose and you get screwed’. A very good deal for shareholders but a very ugly screwing for the public and the taxpayers. Make em ‘people’ but hold em responsible as people too.
Actually, I am not anti-capitalist.
It is rather stupid to provide incentives to be lazy and punish productivity as communism and socialism do.
I take serious issue with corporate “rights” ever superceding those of people. Also, corporate directors being held personally accountable both criminally and civilly for the actions of those companies under their direction makes perfect sense.
If I could personally go to jail or be financially ruined for the actions or negligence of my company you can bet I will be diligent about preventing mis-steps like hazardous waste dumping to avoid disposal costs.
Government should only be large enough to basic security, basic regulation and little else.
Owen’s son Robert Dale stayed at New Harmony after its collapse. He had a different assessment of his father’s experiment. “All cooperative schemes which provide equal remuneration to the skilled and industrious and the ignorant and idle must work their own downfall, for by this unjust plan … they must of necessity eliminate the valuable members … and retain only the improvident, unskilled, and vicious.”
Owen, Robert Dale, 1801–77, American social reformer, b. Scotland; son of Robert Owen/
Point in case; Russia is a massive and extremely resource rich country that was driven to bankruptcy by unfettled psychopathic bureaucracy, enterprise cannot function under tyranny.
http://fathersunionaustralia.com/wp/2012/04/14/kids-need-dads-kids-need-you/
Regarding diversity amongst MRMs, this is inevitable and can be very healthy. The main thing I believe is that we do not go down the route of despising each other because of our differences. If we are to reach out and influence effectively, then we need to get into different political regimes and affect them like the feminists have been doing for years. We should still regard those with different political allegiances as brothers and sisters. The enemy will remain the hatefilled feminists and manginas.
Bless you James!
Excellent article. I strongly doubt you eill ever read something of this quality in any feminist site or blog.
Being in the middle between marxism and libertarian way of life, I can only state my appreciation for such a profound analysis.
Acutally feminism, the feminism that we appreciate in our days, is a product of wealth. It is not a mistery that such misandric stances develops in developed countries, not in underdeveloped countries.
While someone may not agree, present feminism is more a side effect of capitalism, than of marxism. Feminism is a class system movement and as such it is anti-marxist by definition.
Feminism will disappear as soon as oil resources will become scarse…history rules.
Feminism is a product of adeptly and shrewdly Marketing victimhood to women through academic and media channels controlled by leftist dogma.
Short of fomenting hatred of the rich among the poor, you can always rely on Team Woman to buy into manufactured discontent with men.
I don’t think you two disagree – he is just saying that without capitalism you cannot have feminism. They go hand in hand.
I am reminded of Alexis de Tocqueville when he said how democracy in America would end
Book IV Chapter VI Democracy in America
“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
Socialism is the great enabler of Feminism. Socialism breaks down the family by replacing father with the state, Socialism encourages divorce and hypergamy by allowing women to sleep with any douchebag, squirt out thier children and forcing the rest of us to support her ‘choice’.
Marxism does not recognise individuals,. only classes, and since the marxist class analysis is economic, and men are the drivers of economic growth, in the marxist analysis Men, ALL MEN are lumped on the shitty end of thier manicheaen binary.
Fuck that. The sooner the soft tyranny of the Maternalist state is ended, the better off we’ll be.
I am too disturbed now.Indian govt is passing another anti men law, Along-with DV,498-A,CRPC-125;new amendments of no fault divorce for women is being passed.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Cabinet-okays-pro-women-divorce-clause/articleshow/13229801.cms
This article is an excellent example of what Stu has been saying – they will change the rules on you. So do not count on the current laws when you get involved with a woman in any way.
This is disturbing. Looks like they’re ratcheting up “Project Fuck Everything Up And Scram With The Loot”.
Ironic that all governments are passing the same kind of laws – all aimed at controlling men. Young men are the one group who have consistently in every part of the world, whatever the culture or religion, stood against tyranny. This is the one thing that the controlling elite understand and recognize as a danger to their power. They exact bias laws, anti-male legislation, encourage debt, reduce the educational status of boys, ignore male victims of DV, encourage gay vs hetero strife and inflict harsher punishments on men. All of it is so blatantly designed to subvert and demonize men. They try to keep us divided by highlighting racial differences. Is it not time to say f*** them?
My, they certainly are loudly and proudly all “in your face!!!” and like “what are you gonna do about it, Mister Man?”, aren’t they?
Coming soon to an IN femily caught near you:
“FTSU!!!”
Un Fucking Believable.
I’d like you to go to the graves of millions of men murdered in wars and purges started by Marxist ideologues, and tell them how many opportunities are available for them in Marxism.
I’d like you to go to the homes of starving children in Marxist societies, look their fathers in the eye, and tell them everything would be cool if they were more Marxist.
Feminism and Marxism have been like two peas in a pod since the very beginning. Engels pushed for it, in fact. Please explain to me how Engels is not a real Marxist.
The legacy of Marxism is about a 100 million dead people, mostly men. The legacy of Marxism is more people than that starving, or dying of curable illnesses. The legacy of Marxism is children eating tree bark, just so they have something in their bellies. The legacy of Marxism is a panoply of supremacist ideologies, including Feminism, that use State coercion to redistribute wealth and privilege they’re not capable of earning on their own merit.
I have to say this, and not because I subscribe to Marxism, because I don’t, but I have to tell you I grow weary of the denial some people have about the deaths of millions (mostly men) due to capitalism and in particular where capitalist ambition is coupled with an imperialist agenda, as we have in the United States right now.
We are engaged, right now today, in a capitalist driven slaughter in the middle east at the behest of oil companies and other varied corporate interests. We have been there doing it for 60 years. It is bald, murderous greed, and we have wrapped in a flag as though it is noble. It isn’t. It is fucked up and disgraceful.
This article has a lot to offer because it provides all MRA’s, not just those left leaning, with clear and solid arguments as to why the left has sold out its own agenda in their allowance of feminist doctrine. It is good information that can be useful to those not so given to emotionalism and party politics.
I have news for some people. The cold war is over and men are still getting fucked.
I remain a capitalist and a civil libertarian, but hopefully one with an eye for what matters to men and boys.
Indeed, the same goes for democracies in South America destroyed by the CIA in the 70s, and fascist dictators put in place. Torturers of their secret police trained on American military bases on American soil. Costs; millions dead, tortured, survivors still clamoring to know where their loved ones were thrown in mass graves; the souls of entire peoples destroyed.
And what for? Remember that derogatory term “Banana Republics”? Well, American CEOs liked to have 220 million in bonuses instead of only 190 million. And since the democracies with their worker unions would ask for a fair price for their bananas and just compensation for workers, they had to go and be replaced with fascist puppets who would sell bananas under the price.
Power corrupts, and always leads to suffering. Greed is one of the greatest corruptors and power can help greed so much.
It is wherever power can grow to near absoluteness, that you find the greatest excesses; the western world’s excesses have just the best propagandists, and best press helping governments not report on them.
No matter the type of government, it is only as good as the people in it.
I might not be a capitalist, but I would be favorable to any means to improve the lives of men and boys, and humanity in general. If capitalism can be brought in check, so that the worst excesses, the sweatshops overseas that leave US citizens jobless, and foreign workers impoverished and exploited, the wars of imperialism, homelessness due to no jobs available to those who want to work, etc. could be curbed, that would be a definite improvement.
I’m not fully on board with all of what Marx said (he had some good ideas, and some bad ones, like many people), and I don’t want to get too married to any ideology that I can’t see the flaws. I’ll take what it has to offer for the benefit of men and humanity as a whole, and disregard what it doesn’t. And I would definitely agree that many of the left have sold out their ideals, or never had them in the first place.
Again, many thanks for the understanding.
Do you know the first thing about real Marxism? The purges were started by people who rejected Marxism. Stalin used it when it suited him, and then rejected it for his own tyranny. The USSR was never a worker’s state (did you even read Trotsky’s attack on Stalin?). China has been officially capitalist since Deng Xiaoping, and hasn’t had true communism since the earliest days of the revolution.
Are you going to also visit the sweatshop workers, children sewing together Levi jeans for a few cents a day? If you’re going to judge a system by countries that claimed to practice it, are you going to visit the slave plantations?Will you go to Auschewitz? Hitler hated the communists, and put them in the same gas chambers as the Jews. Which Marxist society, where the state is truly answerable to the workers, has children eating tree bark?
Before you hate on an ideology. Learn about it. The legacy of capitalism is starving, homelessness, people dying of curable diseases, except they’re uninsured, or can’t afford the prices by drug companies, externalization of costs. Its legacy includes wars of aggression in the Middle East (and not just in modern times), slavery, child labor, sweatshops, deforestation, and African famines.
I can try to explain, but if you just have an emotional reaction and an opinion formed without facts, it won’t do much good. Marxism is a belief in worker’s rights, and democracy. It is a system where there is no overclass and underclass. Feminism believes in creating privileges for women, and taking rights from men.
The legacy of capitalism is starving, homelessness, people dying of curable diseases, except they’re uninsured, or can’t afford the prices by drug companies, externalization of costs.
Where are all these people dying everywhere?
Show them to me.
Ridiculous reply.
“Which Marxist society, where the state is truly answerable to the workers, has children eating tree bark?”
Show me one, just one Marxist state that did not abuse the power the leaders were given on a far grander scale than anywhere else in the world?
In a Marxist state it is easier to disarm civilians, especially when the majority of the populous lives in cities with “the workers blessing” as city dwellers have less need for firearms. When the king cannot be shot off his horse by a peasant, inevitably the king becomes corrupt (and jumps in bed with organised crime as they are the only people armed besides his drones).
There has never existed a Marxist utopia and there never will. You may aswell say we should try a system of rule like in Neverland.
Feminists do not push women to produce more, just take more from the producers of wealth i.e. men.
Socialists do not advocate for raising up lower classes to produce more wealth(with education and incentives to leave welfare roles) but, insist on taking from those who do produce to GIVE to those who do not. Charity is not a bad word but, theft in the guise of charity is an evil thing.
“Anyone who tells you that Marxists respect the rights of libertarians is lying.” Rocking Mr E
Lying deliberately, and with the intent to deceive the gullible in order to exploit and manipulate them. Marxists have never been shy about boasting how any means justifies their ends. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history knows that this is the very essense of tyranny. Tyranny is the antithesis of what the MRM is fighting to achieve.
To pararphrase Winston Churchill, anyone under 30 who isn’t a socialist has no heart – anyone over 30 who is a socialist has no brain. The various manifestations of leftist ideology have never worked. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were among the many leftist psychos who made all sorts of promises about liberty and deliverence from slavery. They brought nothing but suffering and wholesale destruction.
Most western leftists I meet have a soft spot for Anarchy and Nihilism. Society doesn’t serve them, so in a fit of adolescent pique, they champion its demise. Feminists, who have a Dionysian lust for destruction, predictably embrace it. As usual, it is up to men to insist that the only society worth having is one that works – a capitalist society that respects freedom in its truest sense.
I had to work today. Circumstances had me face-to-face with China’s IT boss. He’s the guy who signs off on all of China’s IT decisions – including censorship. Forget about ivory tower pinkos play-acting at being lefties. Go and meet an honest-to-God real world communist. The experience never fails to make me throw up in my mouth. Listen to Bernard Chapin. The left is not our friend.
Just toss the “corporatism” part. It’s another elite power block that cares not whit for anything except maintaining a status quo, which maximizes profits for a select few.. even “shareholders” are exempt from this and are considered part of the peasantry and/or little people.
Interesting, it is clear that feminism is not true to any political ideology across the spectrum but only to gender based self interest for women. Whilst I believe the quickest way to kill any social system is to remove reward for effort invested, I also reject the concept of reward based on exploitation of others.
Money is said to be the root of all evil, but it has evolved as a necessary evil. That said the most obscene aspect of our current system is that the worth of my labour or efforts is dictated by what value our currency has which in turn is dictated by what bankers/ government/ IMF etc do.
The concept of making wealth out of doing nothing but juggling numbers / currency/ carbon credits or what ever is the problem, and if you fuck that up being bailed out by the government from the workers taxes! Neither extreme is the answer like most things it will lie somewhere in the middle.
Interesting, it is clear that feminism is not true to any political ideology across the spectrum but only to gender based self interest for women.
The Feminist Cabal here in the USA is entrenched in the Democrat Party, which is why they refer to themselves as “the party of women”, and Republicans as “the party that hates women”.
How much more clear does it need to be?
‘How much more clear does it need to be?’
Only a clarification of how the Republican party does not also cater more to women. That is beyond opposition to abortion, which may very well be a Christian thing.
Being entrenched in the party does not necessarily mean they are true to its ideology does it?
Most rabid feminists in Australia are Labor party, the “workers party” supporters , not because they are interested in the welfare of workers , but because they are interested in the welfare of women. Even the Liberal/ National party “panders” to women’s interests to attract the women’s vote, not because it is in the interest of their political ideals but because it’s electorally expedient. If you don’t have power you can’t make policy, and women have electoral power.
Irrespective of party politics it is the entrenchment of feminists in academia and the public service that continues to enforce feminism on us regardless of the left right duplicity.
An example, NSW last year replaced it longstanding labour government with a liberal one. I have tried to access information from the child death review as to the gender of perpetrators that is not made public. The “feminist” minister for communities, her department, the authors of the report have all ignored my requests, and a formal application under freedom of information legislation has been declined as this information is “exempted information”.
“Being entrenched in the party does not necessarily mean they are true to its ideology does it?”
An important point Rper and I’m glad you made it. I’m avoiding getting into this debate because its running along the same tired old MRM (and cold-war) grooves, with the same tired old memes. The exclusive pairing feminism with the left is particularly unadventurous.
The number of down votes on several comments in this thread is interesting… judging by these the audience opinion appears to be split, but judging by comments alone (without down votes) only one half of that split appears to be taking up the microphone.
have you stated publicly and categorically that therefor this “Minister” and her henchmen(womyn) are LIARS, and also printed out 10000 leaflets and dropped them out of a plane (lol.. my grandfather got arrested for it that bastion of freedom, Canada… good times!)
Sometimes speaking “truth to power” will put your personal safety in jeopardy… be prepared…
This does not automatically mean that the GOP loves men. Think about it.
In the province of Ontario in Canada I need to only look at one person to describe my hatred for everything left of center.
Bob Rae:
The man hating (a given due to his political slant) socialist premier who bankrupted the province on the backs of men through employment equity programs and special interest group fundings none of which included white males. The repercussions of his hateful ideology are still been felt today and I am afraid for my lifetime.
The bigot has since crossed over federally (convenient) to the Liberal Party of Canada where he is now the interim leader under the “promise” he would not run for the leadership but of course he is now “exploring” his options in how to weasel out of it so he may run.
For those of you with a better handle on politics and of higher intelligence may want to check this guy out and draw your own conclusions. Perhaps I am missing something but at this point I am in the middle and wouldn’t head over to the left side of the equation even on the penalty of death.
I like your longer posts Mr Scatters.
Short ones too, and the longer ones are a bigger drink.
Are you back from Tasmania yet Dr F?
I am Mr Stu,
I have much to tell of it and I can tell you now in snippet form that it was near miraculous being in a house with other MRA’s. Only MRA’s.
Put it this way. Think of yourself parched for water and you are crawling in the sand like you can see in those corny cartoons from since forever. Only this cartoon is real and the “crawlers” have met together at the oasis and discovered they are not insane or hallucinating.
Yes, there are others out there, and they are all leaning out for an affirmation of some kind that tells them their ache for a better world is mirrored in the eyes of their brothers. You can see it only outside of a monitor only when it comes to this “meeting in person nonsense.”
We were organised like a machine well oiled and by days end you know one thing we delivered ? Well I’ll tell you and that was this:
Coming soon to a theater near you is “mensnewsaustralia.com”
It is from the get-go a site that will deliver information gleaned from all sources here in this country whether it be from the net, the TV or paper round. That information as an article or paper or televised speech will be be presented again and will have the analysis of it’s nature also presented. In short, words from “above” will no longer be said and not challenged.
We will challenge it with our sharp minds and sharp eyes. Articles that speak of terrible things with a misandric mindset will be forcibly reentered into the public arena for further scrutiny.
This scrutiny is quite simply not practiced enough and we will attend to this neglect as best we can. If not us then who ?
We need further analysis of misandric articles that are glossed over and this is only the start of it.
The site will be great quality and will take some time for an announcement of it’s launch.
But know also that like anything of stout substance to reach it’s fledgling stage will be normal process, also part of that process will be an attraction for strong and underplayed writers to contribute soon after. It will become it’s own attractant for great talent and we have seen this here at AVfM also.
What I have told you is only one thing really. There is in place the plan for getting men together in person to better their lives through mutual support and great council. How many places are there in your local area that will encourage this at the moment ? That’s right, none. This site will do something different and something different just has to be better.
Yes I am back in Melbourne now, and I am like my brothers in that we are very excited by this new site that will soon to be.
Love your work, Dr. F. Your gatherings with fellow Men sound truly awesome ..
Dr F my partched throat and dehydrated brain is waiting for sustenance from mensnewsaustralia.com !
Coming from you Dr. F high praise indeed.
Looking forward to your new website as well.
Ta Scatters,
For the record though, it’s not mine, it’s from all of us here who met and thought it up.
Scat are you in Ontario too? Peterborough here.
I can’t believe the Liberals were so stunned as to put a guy that bankrupted the most prosperous province in the country in charge even temporarily. The guy that got into office on union and student votes with the promise of public auto insurance and promptly fucked the unions, the students and reneged on public insurance once he realized 20-40K “pink-collar workers”(women with zero marketable skills outside of the insurance industry) would be suddenly unemployed.
His party also put forward a motion to give welfare recipients a “vacation” and vacation pay. Thankfully it was defeated. I’m all for helping my fellow man through tough times but, come on, vacation from not working? Really?
Thank you Mateusz for writing this article. This will definitely provide a forum to help many people.
I was very intrigued by your experience of the feminist infiltration of your “leftist, anti-capitalist student union.” This, in miniature, supports Friedrich von Hayek’s concern in “The Road to Serfdom” that socialism will inevitably always end badly. An elite person/group will always rise to the top to assert their will in such a social structure. If you have not done so, please consider reading this book.
Another book I recommend is Liberal Fascism. In this book the author asserts the Fascist movement(s) were competing socialist movements, necessitated by the fact a different group of elite socialists other than those in the communist party wanted to rule. An interesting perspective. I did not necessarily agree with all the author wrote – but the book is full of history and historical references that are useful regardless of the views presented – a good education no matter what the perspective of the reader.
Another good writing is “Economic Fascism” by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo85.html
This article shows how what we have today is not capitalism.
Thanks again for providing the starting point for this discussion.
I appreciate the kind words and encouragement. I’m not looking to make anyone change their political views (I’d think that most people don’t base their politics just on an article post), but I do hope to at least counter the notion that the MRM is incompatible with leftism, and get some discussion.
I think that there is always the danger of an elite person rising to the top and taking over. Humans are very competitive in nature, and the people who push others out of the way are often the more ruthless. Though, you can see that in almost every system. It’s always something to watch out for.
I will have to look at both of those (and am reading the article in the link now).
Marxist-style socialism is inherently coercive and dehumanizing, and inherently requires the state to actively suppress the individual in order to ensure its regime remains in place, for only through massive and brutal repression can the most capable and ambitious individuals (i.e., those who would be “capitalists”) be controlled, limited and suppressed. It has no legitimate role to play whatsoever in anything having to do with men’s rights, precisely because a socialist system would work to oppress most men from what men tend to prefer above all else: freedom and independence.
I lived in Berlin in the 1980s and traveled quite a bit in the Soviet Bloc at the time — I know what “real socialism” looks like, and it’s brutally oppressive, disastrously inefficient, and downright ugly. Yes, yes, I know — “those weren’t really socialist”. But that’s just the no true Scotsman argument. They were as close to the dictatorship of the proletariat as has ever been tried, and it was an oppressive, disastrous mess that pretty much NO-ONE liked. It was tried, it failed, it’s a bad system. It has no legitimate role to play in any contemporary discussions about men’s rights or anything else. Don’t be duped by jaded Boomer Marxists in the universities.
Don’t be duped by jaded Boomer Marxists in the universities.
Yes to that!
It’s easy to criticize capitalism from the cloistered halls of academe with no dissenting opinion allowed, but go live in Cuba for a few years.
Do you mean when Bautista was in power? Oh right, that was a paradise…Sorry, Key – what developed in Cuba was from the grass roots, and to them Castro and El Che are heroes.
Bautista pimped out his people like two dollar whores. That’s capitalism.
Try again.
The left/right paradigm is always something that makes me shake my head as it exploits our basic instinct of picking a side and then blindly sticking with “us vs them” without the ability of being objective. The spectre of communism is also mind numbing and amazing as an ideology so naive and idealistic that it always becomes a train wreck bc of the reality of human nature still has its claws in society. Sometimes it is used as a boogieman for useless rhetoric but its ideas are still used and exploited by BOTH sides of the left/right debate.
Those who pose as the right or conservatives(such a bastardized word) use its practical application bc it’s good business for them. A central bank and income tax taken right out of the Manifesto redistributes wealth. It’s REALLY good business. The school system keeps people dumb. They brainwash the masses to think of Democracy as the greatest creation in human history. Communism is simply the most idealistic form of democracy. They are not opposites as some seem to think. The more democratic a society becomes, the more it mirrors a communistic one where a tiny percentage of the population controls all of the wealth and exploits the masses with dreams of equality and a government that will take care of you.
The left falls into line using the rabid tyranny of the party line or political correctness. Anyone with a mind of their own and/or facts are crucified by the mindless masses conditioned to revel in their own perceived oppression and victimhood which of course can only be resolved by the governmental parent. It’s easier to shut down a free society by influencing the masses to do it themselves. Feminism is simply a convenient tool to expedite the process. No matter how oppressed they cry they are, there is no group more privileged than white western women. Both men and women will jump to “save” them while slitting their own throats in the process. The bottom line at the end of the day is that it’s just good business for those at the top.
“However, I saw how the group became increasingly feminist, and pursued gynocentrism in ways that had real impact.”
If that keeps coming up as a recurring theme among these anti-capitalist student groups, what does that tell you? It tells you that Marxism seeks a completely “Gender Egalitarian Utopia”, where men and women are ONE glorious indistinguishable prolatariat. And who strictly enforces this “Equality”? The Central Government of course.
The problem inherent in Marxism that you and the other kids on campus don’t see is that the Governing Body that lays the ground work NEVER seems to want to let go of it’s power. Is Cuba purely communist? Of course not. The people are ruled over by powerful dicators, whose work never seems to be quite done. So much for Marx.
Pure economic and social equality can NEVER be achieved. Because even with Communism you end up having Central Government as the Elite Class, over everyone else. This was the schism between Trotsky and Lenin/Stalinism, and mocked by George Orwell in the Animal Farm and 1984.
Competition is good. Capitalism is good. America is good. Ideal? No. Is it fair that there has to be winners and losers? No. But I prefer this system over one where a government dictates to me where I’ll work, what I’ll do and how much I’ll make and everyone WILL BE identical by goverment edict. And if I disagree with the “communal” lifestyle — it’s off to the Gulag I go.
I just wanted to comment on the notion of a “gender egalitarian utopia”. Perhaps that is the ultimate goal of Marxism, but if you incorporate that with feminism than it’s just a dystopian environment for men.
Another point I want to make on the side and one I’ve never actually looked into is this: I remember having to complete a small test on a website belonging to a Human Resources Department and it was about sexual harassment. They had claimed that sexual harassment was mostly done by men toward women and that it was not about sex, but always about power and control. I tried to find out how they came to such a conclusion or absolutist position. There wasn’t any evidence to make that claim so there could possibly be instances where it wasn’t about power and control. Is that actually what most people believe about sexual harassment?
Their control over terminology and the English language is what I find dangerous. They claim ownership over all of these definitions and all it does is confuse the actual term with their own biased point of view. Sometimes I feel that the only safe haven for men in academia and the workplace is in the area of science where you can’t just make up your own words and definitions to suit your perspective.
>Their control over terminology and the English
>language is what I find dangerous. They claim
>ownership over all of these definitions and all it
>does is confuse the actual term with their own
>biased point of view. Sometimes I feel that the
>only safe haven for men in academia and the
>workplace is in the area of science where you
>can’t just make up your own words and
>definitions to suit your perspective.
Tell that to anyone who’s ever heard the term “greenhouse gases” and laughed his ass off at the oxymoron, than even more at the explanation of what they are supposedly doing.
If they gases did what they are claimed they are doing, they should be called “magical anti-greenhouse gases”, because the claims of their functioning is entirely different from a greenhouse.
Apparently the idiots who came up with that bullshit have never picked up a highschool physics books, or highschool geology or “Earth sciences?” book. I’m not sure what the proper English term for the class is that’s called “aardrijkskunde” in Dutch.
Anyway, if we actually pumped enough “greenhouse gases” into our atmosphere to affect temperature, that change would be cooling the atmosphere and our Earth down, not heating it up.
There’s plenty of ideology and illogic going on in the sciences folks. Like some have postulated: a scientific paradigm only changes when an old guard championing that paradigm has died off; so the new paradigm can finally take its place. Manmade global warming is one such paradigm that only came into existence after the old guard that laughed at the bullshit disappeared. Sadly in this case, the old guard was right.
I understand what you are referring to, but I wasn’t actually thinking about the global warming debate and climate science when I wrote that. I was thinking about the hard sciences like physics and chemistry (even mathematics but it is more the language of science). Try altering the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics to a definition that you deem suitable without any evidence or proof and I reassure you that you won’t be taken seriously. The point I was making was that I see terms being thrown around in feminism such as “power”, “control”, “patriarchy”, “positive discrimination” and the like, but they are just buzzwords. I am often thinking: “What do these terms actually mean?”
As well, usually I’d like to see narratives and terms as a means of explaining the math behind something. If feminism is indeed an intellectual movement as it is a political one, than I’d like to see more rigor and less hogwash.
Uh, global warming IS a hard science, it’s called “particle physics”.
Here’s the simple run down: heat is kinetic energy, aka the speed of particles. Speed, aka heat, of particles is maintained through collisions. So, the way you can keep heat, is by increased density of the atmosphere, so you have more collisions.
“Greenhouse gases” are gases that particularly like to absorb infra-red radiation. But infra-red radiation, cold-hard physics, is not heat, it’s what heat gets radiated away as. Thus, absorbing infra-red radiation, it’s too late, you’ve already lost the heat.
Thus “greenhouse gases” always only worked by magic; heat was somehow magically coming from the Earth and sunlight had nothing to do with it.
But they dealt with that criticism by producing a whole new load of bullshit on top of previous loads of bullshit. That’s the following: CO2 is absorbing infra red energy from the sun, and radiating it around the atmosphere.
If you’ve ever had earth sciences, you know that the Earth and its atmosphere gets heated up by the sunlight reaching the low Earth first. Mountains aren’t good enough, the atmosphere isn’t dense enough there, to have enough collisions to keep the heat. Only if low Earth absorbs sunlight and collisions with dense low atmosphere will you have significant absorption of radiation and containment of the heat.
CO2 in higher atmosphere absorbing solar radiation would immediately lose it, because there’s not enough particles to collide with. It would work the same way ash from a volcanic eruption works.
And this is not difficult complex stuff; or for that matter have anything to do with interpretation; this is simple cold-hard particle physics.
Here, let me show you another train of bullshit thought from those who follow global warming; remember the diagram in “A Convenient Load of Bullshit for my money making scheme of selling and reselling CO2 quotas between companies”. Unlike the surprise gasps of the audience, when you examine it, by realizing that the CO2 curve comes AFTER the temperature curve by 8 centuries, it shows that temperature drives CO2, not the other way around. Latest reasoning: since that, and 500 million years before that, shown no relationship between CO2 and temperature apart from temperature driving CO2, that is evidence that today CO2 is driving temperature.
It’s religion and bullshit, despite the fact it is cold hard physics, the religion and bullshit prevails.
It tells me feminists will use whatever they can. Capitalism serves feminists’ needs, wants, and desires too. Look at the US, UK, Australia, and other capitalist countries.
True enough. Human desire to rise to the top, compete, and take power is a constant. That’s why I support permanent revolution, where those in power are kept in check. When the corporations have their hands in government, there is no check. When Dannon ran its anti-male ad campaign, all we could do was vote with our dollar. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of dollars, though women do.
Capitalism also creates an elite class. In either system, that’s the problem, how to avoid a ruling elite.
Competition is good, but it’s very often not fair. I was a teacher’s aide way back when, working with developmentally disabled kids in a special needs class. These were kids who had mental disabilities at birth. One had fetal alcohol syndrome because his mom was alcoholic. Not his fault, but he’ll never be able to compete in the job market. Same with the kids suffering from bipolar who can’t afford medication due to unemployed parents. I don’t believe they should be unemployed and homeless because other, mentally able, people out compete them. Capitalism, at least unhindered capitalism, creates social Darwinism.
I would rather have a government assigned job than no job at all, and would prefer a system where the government was answerable to the governed.
“It tells me feminists will use whatever they can. Capitalism serves feminists’ needs, wants, and desires too.”
Elephant in the room. Right on.
You’re responding as if you absorbed nothing of what I said.
Capitalism also creates an elite class. In either system, that’s the problem, how to avoid a ruling elite.
Marxism creates a ruling elite called Central Government. Do you know what happened to all those adorable communes set up in Northern California during the 60′s? They failed miserably, BECAUSE there was NO leadership, and to the exent there was, they were corrupted by their power.
The most recent example to this would be the kids of OWS, where Equality was meticulously managed to the detriment of getting anything else done. The “Progressive Stack” Really?
Those truly in need should be cared for. Evil Capitalists donate millions of dollars around the world to help the disadvantaged. Without Capitalism Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would have been pushing paper in a government office or working in a government a factory.
I didn’t see any Communist government citizens privately donating millions to Haiti relief funds.
I would rather have a government assigned job than no job at all, and would prefer a system where the government was answerable to the governed.
If you live in the USA, you already do.
We’ll let you talk openly about promoting Marxist ideology here and we won’t even shoot you. Our President does it everyday!
I know, it’s not fair to everyone.
It’s not fair that there’s a rich and a poor.
It’s not fair that there’s a majority race and minority races.
It’s not fair that women get pregnant and don’t get equal pay for equal work that men do.
What IS FAIR?
Where does it begin and end, and who decides this?
A government that actively and openly tries to enforce Fairness for all, becomes a tyranny over its individual citizens and stagnates. “1984″ was a sequel to Communism. “Animal Farm” a documentary.
And that government job you’d prefer?
They’re under hiring quota for females.
Yep, it went to a less competent chick.
Fairness is just not fair.
Competition is evil.
You mean that I’m responding as though I don’t agree with what you say.
Marxism creates a government answerable to the workers, according to the tenants of Marx, and anarchism does away with strong government altogether. Companies are answerable to their shareholders and CEOs, not the workers. When Wal-Mart wants to lobby for favorable laws, or when computer companies move manufacturing overseas to sweatshops in China, what can the average American worker do to stop them?
And how is “The Progressive Stack” Marxist? It’s pretty much anti-Marxist, and anti-equality.
No, they don’t. Good capitalists do. Evil capitalists don’t. Bill Gates wasn’t there to descend from on high to bestow blessings on a friend of mine I had growing up, whose family had to decide on whether to buy diapers or dinner as they didn’t have enough money for both. Buffet didn’t provide a job for my aunt, or uncle, when they lost their jobs. If we’re going to care for the poor, I would rather the workers care for themselves, and not beg for table scraps from the rich. If capitalists are so selfless that they all are willing to redistribute their wealth, why are there so many homeless (often men)? WIthout capitalism, the unemployed wouldn’t be unemployed.
I did see Cuba send doctors abroad to disaster zones, though. Didn’t see any communist country exploit Haiti in the first place, and use it as a slave colony. I do see capitalist governments engaging in wars in the Middle East in order to protect economic interests.
When I lived in the US, I didn’t. I could vote for one stooge, bought and paid for by lobbyists, or another stooge, bought and paid for by another group of lobbyists. When I go back to the US, I doubt it’ll be any different. Obama? If you think Obama is anywhere near Marxism, you greatly lack understanding of Marxism, or Obama.
The people decide this, not social Darwinism. It’s easy to say, “Life sucks, but you got your pull of the handle on life’s slot machine” when you’re not living on unemployment because you’re too old to reenter the job market, or when there just aren’t enough jobs available and some people can’t be hired. I’ve seen real poverty, and I haven’t seen rich CEOs driving through town with their benevolence and money, handing out jobs to families scraping by.
Remember, Orwell died still being an ardent socialist. His criticism was entirely of Stalin, and the USSR, not the ideology he felt it betrayed.
Then the government should be for the workers, not by the NOW, Planned Parenthood, and any other feminist organization that has enough money to enable quota laws in the first place.
I’ve thought about this particular issue and this seems to be the great rift in the MRM. However, after reading these comments it is reassuring that this community can always come to a civil debate on the matter of politics. I don’t know if one ideology truly represents the movement more than any other in the end. I’m just always glad to see users being able to elaborate as much as they can with as much information and detail as possible.
I’ve always felt that the MRM was a group that forged out of necessity. Putting the politics aside for a moment, I always thought that this community formed on the defensive (perhaps not now when there is plenty of activism that has gone on the offense) against the thoughtless and tyrannical movement of feminism and their “she-ria” law advocates.
When a movement like feminism starts to attack the family court and slowly strip the rights away of men that is alarming. Beyond the political realm, when an intolerant and discriminatory group starts to influence a generation of women that it is normal to abuse innocent men that have never done that group any wrong than the group can’t be ignored. And, because of their militant nature they have now made sweeping generalizations about men that they simply could not back down from so there only option was to try and support those backward assertions like fanatics.
What it really comes down to is the fact that “feminism” is a tool that can be employed by political ideologues of many stripes for their own purposes. And, regardless of political labels, those purposes generally include the weakening of familial cohesiveness in general and the masculine tendency to resist authoritarian rule in particular.
The associated labelling and categorizations of feminism’s opponents as members of the “wrong” political camp (whichever that may be) is likewise employed by the authoritarian forces of all stripes to keep the opposition divided. Based on articles posted here, I’m hopeful that the MRM may be intelligent enough not to be thus manipulated and diverted from its own core issue.
Hmmm. Guess some feminist or mangina objected to my calling their whole subversive misandric crusade a tool of political manipulators and sponsors. Do they really think its initiation and incessant widespread promotion via every available channel was and is all their own doing?
Its easy for us to perceive that the male-oppressor/female-oppressed theory is bullshit. But how about this employer-oppressor/employee-oppressed myth? This is only the exchange of money and services and is not inherently oppressive. In short, this is an ideology that can be used by just about any special interest group.
But what of its results? Not of much merit, I think. Simply put, its the enforced equality of one kind or another that does not need to be earned or justified in any way. That is what feminists have been after all along. I would steer clear of political theory based on any over-simplified oppressor/oppressed myth.
Denis Prager utterly destroys the Left in: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061985120/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060987359&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0N3XJR9WD9JZF0BQE5SD However, his In God We Trust offering is based on galloping religious nonsense too. Religion which is the father of Right Wing politics, (just as secular superstitions, PoMo, Multi-Culti or feminist, are the mother of Left Wing politics) needs to be held to the same REASONED criteria that Prager uses to demolish the Left.
I’m with you, Primal. Agreed!
Nice try, but has anyone noticed that big elephant in the room, the family? Marxists see it as a nasty conduit for inhertied wealth, an oppressor of women, a distraction for the proles who should prioritise service to the collective. Feminism’s crowning glory has been the attempted destruction of the nuclear family – no fault divorce, abattoir-style convenience abortions, dilution of male influence in the family to nothing but a paycheck, single motherhood rewarded. Sorry, but for me this is the very thick umbilical cord that ties feminism to Marxism.
But feminism’s “crowning glory” also seems to be doing extraordinarily well under non-Marxist systems, even to the extent of their sending men to impose it on other cultures by force of arms. Or at least laying claim to that motivation as a significant part of the “free world’s” globalization strategy.
Begs the question, does it not, of why they’d adopt and promote that particular aspect of “Marxist” ideology.
Yes, it is clear that the Marxist system is the only system that feminism can grow in. Imperialism however, is not an aspect of Marxist ideology. That would be nationalism, which is not partial to any political system.
Did you mean the say that Marxism is NOT the only system that feminism can grow in? Surely you’re not claiming that it owes its growth in so-called “western society” to a Marxist system. Or are you?!
Yes that’s what meant. Typo.
Because it’s a useful tool. Weak family contributes to a malleable society/enemy. I don’t see that obfuscates the ‘family is bad’ Marxist ideology doppleganger that feminists possess.
I would also add that the Marxist/feminist view of the family is one of an oppressive weakness. In the context of imperialism, it’s seen as a strength to be defeated.
Can you please clarify what you mean? How is it seen to be a strength to be defeated in the context of imperialism as it relates to Marxist/feminist views of the family?
This was interesting: http://www.mgtowforums.com/forums/politics-economics/7024-rich-economy.html
“Ah, things are really degenerating around here fast.”
Untrue. This is a needed discussion. I am thankful we have an environment where this can happen while men of good faith remain focused on what unites us.
Hopefully.
Here here.
Just as in discussions regarding religion. Rather than debating whose imaginary friend is right and whose is wrong or if there even is one, we must focus on how each can be used to further our goals or if any are a threat to us. An ally we can use temporarily is still an ally.
We should never knock a man for what gets him through the next day, even if it seems strange or wrongheaded so long as it does not directly oppose our goal of having men treated as whole people in the spirit and letter of the law.
That is one thing I enjoy about this forum, Miss Manners be damned, we can discuss touchy subject matter relatively fairly without the flame wars one would find anywhere else. Whatever our differences, our similarities are always more important.
Sometimes your “imaginary” friend is in fact, yourself.
Sorry, no god-complex here. I know for a fact I don’t have all the answers.
If I did I’d gladly share.
Raven,
I have no God complex either, if that was what was being insinuated. As a Buddhist, I do not worship any deity, though I respect the beliefs of those who do. I strive only for the best possible spiritual development of myself.
Not really sure if I was just insulted or not.
No matter. In fact the message I was trying to convey is;
your god=yourself. Again, not a “God complex”, just simple Buddhism. (i.e. the Buddha nature is in all of us.)
No single person has all the answers of course, least of all me. Hence my very real need for interaction and introspection with others, in an attempt to find at least some of them, together.
It is my belief that blind obedience to organized religion before spiritual development of oneself, has caused much of the cultural damage we now see around us and the whole concept of “churching” oneself, should be flatly rejected.
Look around, but remember to look inward as well. There is something in there after all, no?
I mistook that for a lighthearted jab.
I do seek answers from within and, require the input of others to challenge those conclusions and test them or force me to modify them.
No insult was taken or intended.
Thank you for clarifying.
As I have mentioned in the past, I can be a bit thick in the humor department sometimes.
No offense was taken.
Peace
We should never knock the man for what gets him through the day but his superstition is fair game. Authoritarian religions (including Eastern Oneness religions) destroy whole people in the spirit. They are also routinely used to destroy men’s bodies as well.
That’s why these discussions are relevant here. The welfare of men and boys is tightly connected to the superstitions or ‘science’ which oppress men and boys. Hopefully by understanding those connections we can come together to pull the taproots of those policies/laws/traditions which destroy or dispose of men.
The central code needs to be free speech. The rest will take care of itself. We all benefit from the give and take here even on difficult things like religion or politics.
I could not disagree more with this article, the MRM has right leaning tendancies for a reason, that being that whether society is organized along capitalist or communist lines, the amount of work that has to be done does not change, who will be doing it (men) also does not change. The question then is; are men to be allowed to keep the fruits of their labour? Does a man not have a right to the sweat of his own brow? Leftist ideologies are ideologies of parasitism, and men, being the ones who produce everything, are inevitably going to be the hosts.
You make your misunderstanding of Capitalism clear when you say ”the capitalist (not the workers) decides how much of the money made from the sales to give to the workers, as well as how much money to spend on such things as workplace safety”. Untrue, the wages paid are not decided arbitrarily by the business owner, they are set by supply and demand. If I need a job done that requires 10 people to do and I offer $5 an hour for it, I might only get 3 applicants, obviously I need to offer more or the job will not get done. It is simply not the case that I can decide to selfishly pay as little as I want, I am obligated to make conditions and wage rates competetive compared to other opportunities my employees may have. As society becomes wealthier these opportunities become better and more numerous meaning higher wages for everyone.
Who really profits from the sweat and blood of workers is something the leftists are concerned with too. I can’t speak for anyone else, for pure Marxists, for anarchists, for syndicalists, communists, or anyone but myself, but the current system doesn’t allow workers full control of the fruits of their labor. The business owners, not the workers, profit.
Except when the competition is the other way around. When Wal-Mart needs to fill a position, and gets one applicant saying, “I’ll work for $10 and hour”, and another says, “Pay me $8 an hour”, and another says, “I’ll take $6. It’s not much, but I need the job”, and another says, “I’m desperate. My family fled a Mexican town that was shot up by drug cartels and we don’t have much. I’ll work 50 hours a week, plus over time. Just give me anything”, guess who gets hired. When there’s unemployment, the businesses are obligated to make pay and conditions high enough to slide by regulations. Capitalists use sweatshops for a reason, and they earn billions in profit doing it (Nike, Foxcon, Reebok, Levi, most of the big producers, and the distributors that sell their products).
Supply and demand might work for the higher-skilled workers, but anyone without a specialized degree is going to be competing for jobs, not the other way around. Hell, China is a good example. It’s been officially capitalist since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. China’s producing its first millionaires, but the majority of the people are still poor, and those at the bottom aren’t seeing any of the growth come their way.
I’m not married to any ideology enough to consider it the only way, or think it flawless. If there is a better way to solve problems of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment, I’d love to hear it.
I’ll make this short and in as plain english as I possibly can because I’ve F**CKING had it with the whole idea of Right Wing 1st/ MRA 2nd ideals in order to be a “proper” MRA.
Men’s rights isn’t embedded with a contract wherein you MUST give the Koch brothers daily foot massages before you’re allowed to speak…or is it?
It is certainly feverishly manufactured to be that way from the highly vocal-MASSIVE Red Pill=Vote Republican/ Fox Entertainment News crowd.
A short bio/ fact sheet,
*I’m actually voting for Ron Paul.
*I’m leaving everyone to wallow in their “the left, left, leftism, etc.” tourettes.
Until the MRM takes a more aggressive stance AGAINST, yes “against”, these types of people who insist on flogging and tripping everyone up who isn’t interested in bowing down solely to the right, they can have it.
I don’t see a whole lot of “leftist” MRAs chanting, “the right, right, rightism, etc.” attaching the MRM to an inverse style of subject matter…
Damn Fool: “Yeah OK! That’s because they can’t!”
People Sick Of This Sh*t: “Actually we can. Don’t feel the need to waste my time nor do I feel the need to be on the offense or to attack or be plainly attacked by other MRAs for NO GOOD REASON”
Conservative to liberal MRA: “PROVE IT!”
Sound familiar?
Worth repeating: “There is a right wing, a left wing, and a BRAIN in the middle.” -Jordan Maxwell
It’s becoming more and more apparent the movement hasn’t evolved enough to apply this yet.
It’s a damn shame.
I believe that trying to define and express the MRM through the use of the feminist lexicon is a zero sum game. Trying to overcome sexism by the use of the word “sexism” requires explaining to most that “sexism” isn’t just something that happens to women. There is a dogma and indoctrination that we must overcome with every person we meet before we can start making headway.
Adopting socialism would be even worse. If the McCarthy era taught us anything it’s that we aren’t actually free to adopt views opposing capitalism or democracy and that stigma exists today. Becoming MRM socialists would double our difficulty.
I’m not saying we can’t oppose feminism using their own language or that we cannot recognize similarities of socialism to zeta-masculinity, but we should try to express more of our ideas in a language that is all our own and is free of baggage from controversial idealism.
That said, I think that so long as we empower the government to control our lives then we will always be at the mercy of women who always outnumber us. Socialism is still democratic and women will, as always, infect it with demands for privilege just as they always have.
Males are genetically programmed to privilege women. We are genetically programmed to defer to women.
Deference is an unwillingness to compete. When our parents tell us never to hit a woman but don’t tell her the same thing they are expressing reinforcing our genetic mandate to defer.
Until we address that and many other systemic and genetic issues that give women power where they claim we have none then no ideology will advance the cause of men.
Communism, socialism, capitalism, neo-feudalism, fascism, will all advance the cause of women at the expense of men. Same as it ever was.
Expose that system and we give men the tools to free themselves from women.
For instance, I’ve noticed that when you accuse a woman of using shaming language when debating online that they often stop. Shaming language is part of bullying so why can’t we make that connection to feminism?
Well, I’ve gone off on a tangent. Sorry for that. Short point is that socialism will add more problems than it will solve. We need labels that won’t drag us down but will make men feel safe enough to oppose feminism.
I come from a country that has something we call a National Health Service – we contribute to that free at the point of delivery service via a special tax called NHI contributions. The thing is it is NOT like private insurance so things like your age, state of health and your medical history etc will not affect your coverage or indeed put any limits on treatment. I personally think it was one of the best political decisions that my country made in the 20th century. Most Conservatives over here also think that even though the scheme was clearly a socialist plan. Now some would call this an aspect of “big government” and I have no problem with that as long as they don’t expect me to change my very positive views about this particular expression of it. In other words why don’t we focus on what works in a given context and not be so dammed eager to pigeon hole everything.
“why don’t we focus on what works in a given context and not be so dammed eager to pigeon hole everything”.
I will endorse this and I suggest that this is actually the better framework.
I identify as a Leftist, but once I achieve status as World Dictator, no Marxist would be allowed control over anything to do with the public.
People like Harold Laski of the London School of Economics indirectly did a lot of damage because of the influence he had over his students.
Take a look at the link, and you will see the names of some serious fuckers, who seriously fucked over people and their countries big time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London_School_of_Economics_people
An informative link thanks. My personal political temperature tends more towards the right than left. That said some of the most dedicated champions of mens rights that I met during the stormy battles with trolls and radfems back in my usenet days (I used my real name then!) were self confessed lefty’s and all of them respected my political beliefs and I respected theirs because you were strongly united against the corrosive damage that feminism was doing to our systems and society. I learned that this was a broad brush movement a long time ago and it is all the stronger because of it. Those who would try to have the MRM remain strong as a force for change would do well to drop their chiral prejudices and leave ‘em at the door os my (not so humble) opinion
While I am no socialist, and want to see the Maternalist state levelled to the ground, our own Corporations have played an immense role in promoting feminism and maternalism. Women are great consumers. It makes sense to flatter them, to promote them, to push them up a pedastal so they will buy your goods. No woman is going to like a company that shows them as fickle, sluttish entitlement queens with a vast sexual ego and an overbloated sense of thier own value.
Men are hard workers, so it makes sense to promote the idea of the selfless male, working like a dog, endlessly sacrificing everything for dear princess. And by taking part in the feminist shaming tactics, you ensure men are kept in that role as servile serf and workbot.
So in short, fuck the big corps too. They are all run by overcredentialed dolts or cringing cowards who graduated the feminist education factories we call the modern university.
To Keyster:
_____________________________________________
By Critical Theory doctrine he should not be exposing his position but rather ridiculing and marginalizing capitalism and democracy, (and by extension the Privilaged White Male Class).
But then he did admit he’s no expert._____________________________________________
I suppose – you are expert on “Critical Theory doctrine”(whatever it is supposed to mean), all forms of capitalism, and – Marxism/Socialism on the way… Finally – you write about all of them…
To Mateusz.
I suppose – you already understood, that you are wasting your time. Rightest zealots(who
unfortunately make up some 90% of MRA) are totally hopeless. Logic and common sense are empty rhetoric for them if their holly beliefs in PERFECT CAPITALISM and OUR FREEDOMS (you know those common US modern propaganda – “they hate OUR FREEDOMS”, and not that we destroy their societies and economies).
Feminism raised in western capitalist states and exactly from there started its rampage over the world – “It is secret communist plot”. Communism for some 20 years is not here any more – not important , it is any way due to them… They now secretly rule our governments…
I guess – they are are sure that Rotshild was hidden stinky commi – since financed hundred years ago feminist orgs…
You can not speak to people, that have banana in their ears. it is meaningless.
I get strong feeling , that for many “MRAs” MRM is just way to release steam, and on the way to try to recruit few more right wing supporters.
Generally – I at all do not understand why many of them mess with those strange mens issues… According to their beliefs – get more votes for republicans , and everything will be perfect by itself…
“Rightest zealots(who
unfortunately make up some 90% of MRA) are totally hopeless.”
You’re saying this to a leftist whose article was just posted to AVfM with the support of management and many readers. And telling him he is wasting his time?
Too much acid in the ’70′s?
I suspect he just made up the numbers based on who know what?
I could be wrong here, but I am under the impression, that membership is drawn from a rather broad base, encompassing a good mix across all socio-economic and political bases.
I can only surmise that this would be the most worrisome aspect to certain entrenched groups.
That the people joining, that the MRA/MRM come from all walks of life, can not be clearly identified otherwise as belonging only to a certain “group” may give pause for alarm.
Most worrisome indeed. Alarm bells may be going off somewhere.
Although the dominant voices in the MRM, I’d put the the number of rightists closer to 60%, based on 20yrs close observation of the movement (and a high proportion of those come from the USA – its a cold war hangover). Don’t be fooled by the noise of those on the right, there is a significant number of lefties in the MRM who stay reserved on the topic to avoid being shouted down by the former.
This situation of reserve is similar to the anti-gay vs gay-supportive contingent within the MRM…. a few years back people assumed that 90% of MRAs hated gays, but recent articles on this site have flushed out surprisingly high support for homosexuals, and I count myself as a supporter of their rights. I wager the same will will be revealed about those in the MRM who quietly support the left side of political ideology. Me… I sit comfortably in the middle.
The most recent articles on left/right are bound to flush out leftist MRAs who are passionate about the welfare of males. Stay tuned… this shit is going to evolve in ways you didn’t expect it to.
“Stay tuned… this shit is going to evolve in ways you didn’t expect it to.”
That is my sincere hope. I knew this article was going to stir up shit,but I think there’s a few flecks of gold in the shitpot to be had if we look hard enough.
Dammit – I responded to Pauls one word reply (i.e. “Word”) before reading this! All I can say is the affirmative as described here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=word
Ok Mr Tiger Bloke,
Ta for the link, I get it now.
“Word” in this context means “I agree, you speak the truth.”
Now I can leave this site and indulge in a most ripping and well spent submergence in pornographic material resultant in the glorification of my penile unfurlment ie: a wank.
TMFI but enjoy anyway
TMFI you reckon ?
Agreed.
They said the same thing to me just now here in this net-cafe as well.
“They said the same thing to me just now here in this net-cafe as well.”
ROFL!
Paul – you belongs to 10% (Leftist + those who are not hopeless…:-) )
Andrew – I take my numbers from …those thread of comments to article of Mateusz…
Or – you want to pretend that those 117 comments, most of which can be summarized to:
“Left is source of all world evil, Leftists would better Chop the head ash before they will be permitted to speak about men rights”
never existed?
zuismanm… several of the pro-right comments in the Mateuz thread have at least a third of their votes as down votes. What does that say to your 10% ?
Word.
Paul.
What the story with this “Word” thingy ?
I have seen it pop up here and there as a single word post and I know it means something flash and what not, yet I am all the while scratching a hole in my hair as to what it means.
Please share.
Signed:
Dr. Question Mark.
It’s urban dialect yank for “Spot on, mate!”
“Word”!! Now don’t start going all trendy on us all y’hear!! lol
Whatever…. Who can know.?
Starting from:
“We are watched” – there is the amount of people, distanced from MRM that read those site
Through:
Personal animosity between few guys, posting here
and to:
There are really much more left wingers here then it looks like, but they all are good at “hide and seek”…
Honestly – I do not know which option is better and which worth…
The lefty’s I have encountered within the MRM have been characterised by their Humanity over and above their ideology – because of this they are perfectly happy to band together in solidarity with other MRA’s whether left, right or center.
As it happens I see a major advantages in NOT trying to persuade all MRA’s to take a “side” especially when we have followers in the camp most favoured by the opposition. This IS a great advantage not the opposite!
Except that most of us on the left DO keep our heads down because when we do speak up, it’s like getting pegged with all the blame for the Feminist movement and Ire we don’t deserve as we are not to blame alone for its existence. Traditionalists helped to get this thing going and keep it going too, which created the paradigm whereby the Left is trying to Protect it while the Right is trying to rip it apart, and so long as THAT keeps happening no one will stop and see what the fight is really all about.
Honestly, front he left we are tired of feeling we have to eat our helping of Crow and the RIght’s share as well. If you include us as we have reached out to be a part of the MRM and reached out to you, we can only get stronger and tackle this lunatic creation of the mad feminist mind from both sides, rather than let them continue to play us off against each other and reap the benefits of distraction.
This is the part that seems to stump so many here and upon seeing that, I often find myself stumped.
Why is this obvious answer so fiercely resisted, by so many?
I begin more and more, to believe that it is simply that change is very frightening to everyone and some people have a harder time than others, letting go of comfy, yet flawed belief systems.
The old, familiar, and quite detrimental ways of societal thinking and behaving are very seductive poisons, but they must still be purged. I do not profess to have any answers other than to continue to raise our voices and question everything. That which is factually disproved, is proved flawed and must be discarded.
I was under the impression that they were speaking generally and not specifically about Marxism for example (although some were).
I also agree with them by the way, for the most part.
It is one thing to have ideals, it is quite another to implement them forcibly and kill those who disagree.
I am *not* a good Leftist as far as that goes.
Was McCarty leftist? Were American colonialists that exterminated millions of American natives – Leftists?
Killing others – is not something, that started with left wing…
My submission for T-Shirt slogan for the issue of politics within the MRM is :-
“In REALITY the MRM don’t need no steenking CHIRALITY!”
Fist pump, fist pump! Yo etc …
“Was McCarty leftist? Were American colonialists that exterminated millions of American natives – Leftists?
Killing others – is not something, that started with left wing…”
No disrespect my friend but that is 400+ year old shaming language. My tribe still screams about it. All the while they sit back on there fat asses as American dollars fill there coffers. Misandry on the Res is epic. Men are shamed if they do not conform to tribal expectations and tote the line for a squaw. Those that do are despised for there sacrifice. Male suicide on the Res is seldom discussed, after-all, who gives a fuck about one more dead man. The nanny state is alive and well on American reservations. That my friend is the gift of the left. Now I ask you which is worse, death or slavery?
I have stated many times that I do not believe the MRM is a left/right issue. If we fall into that trap then we bind ourselves to political ideology and seise to seek the truth. While the left tells me I am waging a war on women because I don’t want to finance there sex life, the right attempts to shame me back to the table of servitude. Too choose either guarantees I’m fucked good and proper. Too choose either is to deny the truth.
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
George Orwell
I’m sick of the political left and right playing games with the truth.
As a libertarian I’ve always argued for a socialized solution to “tragedy of the commons” style problems, however still, I don’t think any group, society or government has any right at any time to tell another person what to do with their money, talents or efforts.
Not only do I think this, but like most people with beliefs, I can’t see any moral justification for why some one is arrogant enough to think they should individually or by the force of a group, have the right to force me or anyone else into any other state of compliance with that with which I do not agree.
On the topic of state owned assets, I have a lot of leeway because we are not talking about individual rights.
I think with the correct small government management of profit generated from the trillions of assets held by government, many useful social services can be provided.
What they are and who gets them can be a matter for democracy.
Stop taxing citizens and stop paying inert politicians and public “servants” and start letting the productive members of society (who create every god damn thing in the world) reap the rewards of building the things those people working in the service sector take for granted.
Then watch the service sector shrink as PRODUCTIVITY is rewarded and pursued and obtained.
Watch feminism’s influence shrink as they offer zero value to the market place and even less than zero to producers of usable value.
Watch sycophants die off, or get with the program and watch standards of living rise.
There is a false economy built around service sector and white collar irrelevance.
Feminism spouts the notion that women do not look for group protection or the protection of men, but then aligns with marxism as they seek to use men for group protection in the form of government.
“I don’t need no man” – Now big daddy government, please take tax off men and give it to me.
What is the Most important thing.
Is it your leftism, your rightism or is it fighting feminism.
Change your parties remove those people from government no matter where they come from.
When a new candidate comes forward support the least feminist, and least misandric candidate.
Feminism is the vehicle by which the state grows.
Some might say that’s the reason why it was promoted.
Are you going to support socialized medicine even though the distribution of that bill is not equal?
How about this. I like socialized medicine, but I won’t support it in it’s current form.
Will you continue to support these people under the guise of equality?
I won’t support people who bash,disenfranchise ,or imprison men .
no matter which party the come from.
Oh and read this:
http://www.angryharry.com/esEqualityNotAchievable.htm
Take the Red pill!! Now I see Paul Elam is in face an ardent communist who wants to force us into communism.
If we disagree we will all be fed pills.
RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nah, it’s voluntary from us, or by force with the suppository version, size of a football, and administered by a feminist with a sledge hammer.
Dr F, that would make a good manblobz cartoon when his day finally comes.
Agreed,
My pen has a stiffy and now looks like a T Square just thinking about it really.
LOL!!!
At least under a pure capitalist system with no state handouts to various groups and companies;I am not forced to support those groups indirectly through my taxes.
However, I can not help feel that money has been a bad influence on society especially in times of war.
We can not deny in the past how poorly workers where treated and how little safely those men had. Companies did not much care how they where treated as there where always men lined up to replace them.
The trouble is those unions became too powerful ,and the companies became unproductive due to constant strikes for uncompetitive wages.
These companies became more and more uncompetitive and people moved to the superior products from else where. then the government had to step in to subsidize these companies.
I’ve never believed Marxism and feminism to be part of the same thing. I was once a socialist, but I’ve never been a feminist. I think socialism is a rotten idea for two reasons; 1) It discourages productivity, and 2) Given what human nature presently is, it’s unsustainable.
I’m not going to pretend capitalism is any better, either. It’s the robber barons, above all others, who view men as expendable.
What’s best is capitalism with small socialist elements.
“what’s best capitalism with small social elements”
yeah think I agree with that. It just deciding which social elements we want.
Thought this pertinent:
I’m tired of all the macho “profit is good!” chest thumping. It’s incredibly materialistic and misandric. Which seems to come from men who have probably never seen migrants slaving in orange groves, people slaving in packing plants, or who obviously just don’t understand where the vast majority of “intellectual property” comes from and how it’s hijacked by people didn’t create it. I’ve seen all manner of vile bullshit justified for the sake of profit and frankly I’m tired of the whole lot of it.
Peer reviewed science, open source technology, and lots of fine art need to not be about profit motive. Do we really need more whores and pimps? NO!
Corporations are organizations with cultures of their own, just like governments. Corporations are a result of capitalism: accumulation of human capital and resources which they abuse, just like anyone else with power does.
Whining about how US workers don’t want to get abused anymore, justifying the $20 toaster made by people who are so “thrilled” to have their piddly wage, and how we should go back to the golden days before unionizing, is incredibly misandric.
Here’s a little clue for you gentleman, there’s a thing called a supply chain. The Chinese organizations are just corporations under a state umbrella and they are part of Walmart and Amazon’s supply chain. United Fruit Company and many other vile organizations, like the Dutch East India Company, for an even older example.
China opened up with coaxing from people like Nixon. Unions gained monopolies in trades for labor thanks to Good Old Boy chest thumping and in group back slapping, the same impulses that produce all this macho posturing over profit. Resources equal power. Power corrupts. Is that simple enough for you?
All this posturing over profit and competition is a sick joke, folks, because if you’re a tradesman, engineer, artisan, laborer, scientist, or performer, you’re going to get screwed unless you have the right scumbag lawyer, marketing dirtbag, slimeball salesman, or some other form of pimp, who often rob the talented people blind.
Multinational corporations formed independent entities apart from individual countries so they could peddle influence in places like the developing nations like China, India, etc. because people in the West got tired of being bled dry. Here in the Rust Belt where I live, it was call deindustrialization, and it didn’t just happen overnight.
Because humans are a highly irrational and social species, something conservatives still don’t understand, two of our primary instincts are collectivism and territorialism. Other primates have these structures, and older indigenous cultures have always practiced them. Go to the Amazon or the Australian Outback if you want to see these in action.
Holding over these sad, evolutionary artifacts isn’t all preferable, is it? I’m not interested in the kind of Wendigo promotion you find in conservative greed pimping. Since when is pandering to instinct a good thing? MGTOW want no part of pandering to instinct. If we’re going to bitch about women’s instincts, then maybe some of us need to bitch about our own as well.
Have you read about the Nobel prize winners and Olympic athletes who thump their chests about profit all the time? No, because they don’t. Screw profit, and the people who harp on it.
Promoting greed over the pursuit of excellence and honesty is incredibly misandric. Unions were originally opposed by conservatives who didn’t care about anything but profit. You really don’t want labor to go back to the days before unions, just trust me on that.
Take surplus and reinvest it back in the organization where it belongs. I’m from a part of the left that thinks skilled workers, tradesmen, and strong backs don’t deserved to get screwed by bankers, salesmen, lawyers, investors, and other business swine. In other words, I oppose misandry.
I really like this article as I am more of a left-libertarian. Everyone should read The Fraud of Feminism by E. Balfort Bax, the first masculinist and a socialist. Radicals in the 60′s had a very masculine swagger and many were marginalized from the movement by feminists for being misogynist. Sadly this has not changed since then and the debate is diluted by feminist emotionalization and nonesense.
Feminists are narcissists and there’s no ‘party’ in ‘narcissism’… instead what we have is exploitation of simply everybody to acheive the feminist’s own ends (DSM-4: [the narcissist] “Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends”). NB. ALL OTHERS.
In other words feminists have successfully exploited all political movements to achieve thier goal of narcissistic gratification. By attempting to align feminism with a single political party we end up taking our eyes off the enemy.
Its interesting also to note there appears to be an equal number on the left and right here – just look at the last third of the thread for self-referred lefties, and also the number of down votes against the right at the top of the thread… I thank Paul Elam for flushing out this revelation… it needs more flushing out in order to dismantle popular stereotypes about the MRM. In short a careful reading of the MRM -particularly when we include the quiet voices- shows that it isn’t necessarily dominated by the right.
Me, I’m with those few voices who see the political ideal in a complex mixture of left & right. However all this takes us far away from how feminist narcissism works- as mentioned above.
Feminism took off in the 1800′s, most people think it was in the 60′s and blame in on communism. It was not originally represented by the left from what I understand. I think the left should kick them out on the street, then they would have no power.
Marxism works better in ant colonies and not in a human society!
Yeah…It’s going to be really difficult to convince me that feminism isn’t marxist in near totality
Why do you think – someone would bother?
The 50000 word article?
Yeah, I saw it, everyone else saw it
You *did* see the article, right?
Well…you just have to scroll up a bit to see it
Yep – but you do pretty good job to clarify – that speaking to one like you is waste of time. You see any one that do not vote to Bushits (not that I think – official “left” is any better then them) as personally responsible for sins of feminism you enemy , and your direct enemy….That is Ok. I just do not see any point at speaking to zealots like you. It is total waste of time and energy. I hope others begins to see it also…:-)
I would read THe Fraud of Feminism by E. Balfort Bax, he’s a socialist and masculinist. It was published in 1918, before the left picked up socialism.
Feminism is nothing more than a bastardization of Marxism. Its primary function is the stimulation of social decay.
I’ve totally lost interest in political partisans because there has never been any form of pro-male political philosophy in history. Every single political system has always relied on male disposability.
My only priority is pro-male and politics is always secondary. Anyone making the claim that their political party is the solution to men’s problems is an obvious liar trying to turn men into useful idiots for their cause.
I think – it is little bit more deep and cursed.
It was always obvious, that MRM consists from people of both Left and right orientation. Until now we preferred to downplay political differences for obvious reason – to advance our common MRA agenda and do not give our political differences to disintegrate movement before it even got out of diapers. But – we can not ignore those issue forever.
Intrinsic conflict of political preferences of MRM members could be solved on different manners: starting from:
1. “old political dichotomy is not relevant any more and men issues are our primary agenda right now.”,
through:
2. “we have different social/political beliefs but we are long term Allies in those fight”
and to:
3. “our political differences are insuperable. Only my wing have real right to own MRM agenda. You gonna better crawl back to your hole or establish your own MRM movement”.
I am very sorry to say it, but right wing zealots like bernardchapin , muke and many others here – definitely push to third option. It is not that I like to say it, but if we will ignore reality, it will not stop to be reality… When they says – Feminism = marxism(whatever they mean by it, Marxism is very loosely defined term) = left. They actually says
“if you are leftist – you have 2 options:
1. Chop the head ash, accept your guilt for all griefs of males of all world and accept our right wing religion by all your sole and body…
2. Crawl out of here – you leftist bastard”
Really, if we do not want to dissemble, if left is source of feminism in eyes of right wingers – so any leftist is enemy exactly like ordinary hard core feminist…
How can we be even allies, if we are enemies?
So – to be honest, until people like Bernard Chapin rule the roost in MRM movements – I do not see how it can avoid split onto right and left wings, that will be rivaling and even hostile to each other. Or – it will just become part of hard core, extreme right wing hawks, with males agenda becoming more and more lateral. Like it happened to MND site for example…
You summed it. I’m one for leaving the cold war bullshait out of the MRM… it belongs in a different era and is more to do with nationalistic aggression against “the reds” than it is to do with men’s rights. Leave the traditionalists to slumber draped in their flags, no doub’t wearing flag underwear, or displaying a flag as backdrop to thier Utube video, while we (both left and right) go on dealing with the largely seperable issue of men’s welfare.
Nah, it’s just an election year
We’ll all get over it.
Ha…!!!
May be. But you miss simple point – many people here are not from USA , and for them it has nothing to do with election. I for example am from Israel… So – US election just do not bother me (not that IL election bother me any more then American one…).
Hey guys,
I’m with Bern here. Socialism is definitely linked to feminism. Matter of fact I believe one of the communists planks was about “liberating” women and destroying the family. A large state is the friend of women, some may recall a recent article where a feminist economist stated that “deficits are a girls best friend”. What more needs to be said. As such a large state is socialism. The quickest way to destroy the femotocracy is to re-establish the US as a republic consistent with the Bill of Rights and Constitution. If you do that, then the state will be a pittance of its size today. That means no potus office for women and girls and even no NGO system, which includes organizations like the center for women in the media and n.o.w. After all, we all agree that feminism needs destroyed, well, these are some of the key institutions that socially engineer a tiny waif of 98 lbs to be just as capable in battle as a 210 lbs MMA fighter. I don’t know about you, but I like living in reality and not someone else’s.
I’m with you and Bernard, Towgunner. The only modification I’d make, is to eliminate the state completely. Governments never stays small and governments always end up enslaving people and abusing their power. The the seeds of the poison we are currently suffering from are written right into the Constitution in Article’s I and XVI. And this is from the (purportedly) most liberty minded government in history. I think we could do better moving forward myself.
MGTOW’s are free to go their own way politically. The bottom line is questioning this society’s neurotic attitude towards women is the new communism. In the 50′s and early 60′s Paul Robeson concerts, a black musican and Soviet-supporter, were mobbed on and assaulted.
Such is today’s attitude towards women. Heretics will be punished. In time things will be different, just like they were different for communists here, but today we are in the thick of it.
heh… at the risk of oversimplifying, I find the line between the “bourgeoisie” and “worker” is really artificial. I, for instance, am both bourgeoisie and worker, so by definition I exploit myself for profit, because I own the means of my own production.
The “middle” class really screws up the dialectic. However, there is a bunch of ideological crap going on (from both left and right) right now that is trying to pull the world back to a place of extreme scarcity (in the west) where there are haves and have nots and the class struggle makes sense again.
Unfortunately there is no path from there back to plenty for all, especially if all the proponents of imposed/artificial scarcity have their way.
Sure, feminism is a left wing ideology. No doubt abut that.
Thing is, feminism isn’t our only problem – it’s not even our main problem. Male disposability and chivalry are our problems. And they are just as deeply if not more deeply routed in the minds of conservatives.
In essence MRM is a radical progressive movement because it aims to dismantle social and evolutionary gender roles that bring about male disposability. Conservative thought has no room in such an enormous struggle which, if successful, will undoubtedly revolutionize pretty much everything – it will dwarf any other kind of revolution we’ve ever had. It will change culture, from children’s stories to art and literature.
Left-right squabbling is a small minded petty little distraction from the struggle of the MRM – the real sexual revolution.
I don’t really mind the old-style Marxism(I don’t like it though), I just hate the modern cultural Marxism.
Just got to read this…SORRY, but it completely missed the mark.
IN REALITY, Marxism is nothing it says it is. Communism is in nothing it says it is. You can’t compare theory to reality to argue that something doesn’t fit.
Marx himself was a ruling class liar and hypocrite, and he explicitly supported mass murder in order to force his system on people ‘for their own good’. 20th Century Marxists figured out that men are the enemy because they made families strong which produced very strong and independent children. That’s a problem when the STATE wants to be Father and GOD.
Feminists and women are just useful idiots. The same monstrous system they’ve helped unleash is also crushing them. We all see it more and more everyday.
I look at the occupy movements and there is many wanna-be communists, a lot of them also support feminism and want to destroy the “evul patriarchyyy!11!!!”.
It’s okay if you’re a Commie, but it certainly won’t benefit the MRM. You can say what you want about Marxism not being associated with feminism, but feminism is certainly associated with Marxism.
Feminist Jurisprudence;
“Feminist legal theory is based on the belief that the law has been instrumental in women’s historical subordination. The project of feminist legal theory is twofold. First, feminist jurisprudence seeks to explain ways in which the law played a role in women’s former subordinate status. Second, feminist legal theory is dedicated to changing women’s status through a reworking of the law and its approach to gender.”
Sound familiar?
I don’t buy it for a second.
I just read into the article some more so disregard this comment please.
“A Marxist state would have a mandate to protect all…”
Ah-h-h, to be an Idealist again…Your first mistake is believing The State (of any flavor) gives a flip about protecting anybody or any-thing except “its” further existence, its increased power (which means wealth with which to purchase loyal enforcers), and the loyalty of its “subjects” (by whatever means necessary) upon whom that enforcement falls.
Hence the Framers’ inclusion of the 2nd amendment and my mental-preparation in the event of needing to exercise of my right of self-defense.
Sorry, but the moment you gave-up your willingness (and the means-to-) defend/protect yourself and put your Faith in the State, you became a victim-in-waiting, whether it will come by the hand of a simple thug or an iron-fisted State-sponsored one.
An armed society is a polite society. Absolutely true. Which city in the U.S. has the most restrictive gun laws? Chicago. Which one has the highest murder rate? Yep.
I suppose the second answer is also supposed to be Chicago?
The problem with that simplistic statement is the following: which country in the western world has the least restrictive gun laws? The US. Which country in the western world has the most amount of violent, especially gun-based, crime? That’s right, the US.
That assumes that crime relates to guns (possible tool of crime) more than with poverty/poor education(causes of crime). Or, rather causes of higher willingness to risk taking including crime to break out of poverty.
Oh and for the record I believe the Swiss have a much higher per household gun ownership than the US without the crime rate.
Every Swiss household is required by law to have military grade weapons on premises. Yet, Swiss kids are not shooting up schools.
Blaming guns for anything at all is akin to blaming Ford for drunk drivers. or, even let’s say blaming men for rape as opposed to blaming rapists(whether they be male or female).
I believe the largest single predictor of violence and crime are the size of the disparity between the wealthy and the poor. The larger the gap, the higher the crime.
Good job “Free Human Being!” You are so right.
I want to comment here too. But before I do, be reminded that… “[Socialism is fine...until you run out of another persons money.]” —The Iron Lady
Look, life is not a bag of candy. Thus, not all of us will have equal amounts of sugar to gobble. This disparity is what drives us all…well most of us, er..some of us…to overcome the situation. That motivation is the best driver of a free world than any and all other possibilities combined.
And we ARE becoming less free—precisely due to socialism.
Socialism is destructive. It takes from those who earned it and deserve it, then gives it to those who do not…fomenting mediocrity and dependence.
Feminism is so intertwined with socialism, that it is the same thing. A vote for a feminist is a vote for socialism. To tolerate feminist governance, is to allow socialism to permeate our lives.
What gets me here is… why so many men out there say they are strict capitalists, yet sleep with socialists? (Sure, not all men are capitalists no more than all women are socialists…but the general mindset is a safe stereotype in this context).
It is no secret that the early feminist mentor was Marx and all his cronies, who told the very few disgruntled women that if they are to …[basically, reach their goals], they will have to wrest with the idea of reproduction and other horrible unspeakables. Since then, with that advice in mind, at the hands of cruel and selfish feminists, we have witnessed so much decimation of nearly everything wholesome that used to be the cornerstones of our lives.
There is no telling what is next! Even the feminists say they are just getting started. Haven’t we had enough of their “wisdom”…especially since their efforts have instead yielded superiority for women and misandry for men and boys?
Another thing that gets me here is why are so many people refusing to lay blame for the destruction of our used-to-be, nature-directed society? Women, (particularly feminists), weakened, feminized “men”, and apathetic others ( including scores of men and women) have caused so many problems as a direct and indirect result of feminism’s intent to replace nature with something synthetic, short-sighted, selfish, and socialistic.
Trillions of currency has been spent foolishly to undermine nature and replace it with something that is a lie, can’t work, and actually never will work in reality (especially if women keep accepting special preferential treatment in just about everything…all that does is highlight, remind, and reinforce our differences and how things would be if women were stripped of the numerous favors provided them.) Too, trillions more will have to be spent… and that is just to “achieve” it, saying nothing about maintaining it for all of eternity. Are we sure it is worth it…with so many other problems to fix…real problems that actually have nobility built right in?
Sure, as the author said, men are oppressed too and socialism might alleviate much of it. BUT, all that comes with the package of socialism is not worth taking the bait. TOO MUCH DESTRUCTION!
I am never in favor of letting a bunch of life-long poor decision-makers, misfit, misguided, oblivious women, uneducated whimpering beggars, and other TAKERS have what I earned and they did not. Their poor choices, (including women…since many of them CHOOSE to go it without men in their lives to help raise proper families and healthy-minded kids—-something that is a bad idea and which is supported by numerous professionals, commonsense, independent organizations, and scholarly studies (like the CDC, just to name only one), are what got them in their own messes. The rest of us are not responsible for their seemingly deliberate mistakes. Men owe women nothing here! Thus, our taxes should not be used to help fund the messes they create for themselves—regardless of why they do it.
I also do not believe any government should have the right to force or enforce any system that plays to special interests. That said, people are responsible for themselves, including their own dreams, aspirations, and hopes. Said still another way: What if our government was suddenly similarly hijacked by those on the right and made to help proliferate and indoctrinate along lines of right-leaning ideas? Wouldn’t the liberals have a fit?
Thus, government should stay out of all social changes and not be the sponsor, mediator, or liaison for any social changes whatsoever—regardless of how “helpful” such actions may seem to the ones who are responsible for much of the chaos in which we now are embedded.
If we are going to choose which side the government jumps in on, then who gets to choose it? What about the other side, the other perspectives, the rest of us? Aren’ t they taxpayers too? You see, a can of worms is opened and nothing good will ultimately come of it.
Thus, the Democratic (dummycrats) party is wrong! Our government is wrong for taking them to raise, and supporting their ideas, and forcing it all on everyone, about everything, everywhere.
In short, say “no” to Obama, Hillary, and Pelosi, just as you would Alinsky, Soros, and Marx—and that which we should have done, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton. They are all the same.
Sure, the conservative crowd has its hangups too but at least the thing they are not doing is taking deserved money and redistributing it to those who will take you down as soon as they can—WITH THAT MONEY.
Vote for the lesser of the two evils.
The only way a MRM Communist/Marxist ideology could work is if the hardest, most skilled workers where given the leadership positions(to encourage a surplus of production and good will towards all men).
But you would have to totally overhaul and modernize everything. The problem with Communism and Marxist thought is that it is rooted in a world that doesn’t exist anymore at all! That is why Feminists can make it the perfect puppet is because Marxism as it exists now is nonsensical as it has no grounding in modern reality at all. If you added a modern, Pro MRM take of Marxism founded from a purely rationalist perspective, it could easily spread like a wild fire.
The easiest movement for the MRM to co-opt in it’s entirety would be Communism(as any arrangement with Progressives, Conservatives, neo Conservatives, Fundamentalists or Libertarians would be one sided and the MRM would just be pumped and dumped).
Not to sound repetitive, it would take a major overhaul of Communist/Marxist Theories to make them conform to reality as it exists today.
The sad truth is, Until we make the Personnel Political and the Political Personnel the MRM will get no where. Heck even the threat of such a course of action might be enough to get something done.
As per the whole “Conservatives aren’t that bad”. Conservatives ARE traditionalists.
Traditionalists prefer to enslave men directly while feminists prefer to use the state. Either way the same outcome is achieved for the Matriarchy. In order to understand these things we have to look at it from the female perspective.
From the male perspective both seem radically different, from the female perspective though, not so different. Notice how the number one complaint from women about feminism is that it is making men angry at them and unwilling to have much to do with them. In that respect you could argue that feminism is indeed doing a service for men as it prevents our direct enslavement to the Matriarchy.
The wielding of big state power by Marxists, Fascists, Communists, Socialist, Feminists, Zionists, Corporatists, Democrats, Republicans, etc., etc., are what have caused somewhere between 150 and 200 million premature deaths (mostly men) in the last century, and that doesn’t even count the untold poverty and suffering it has caused. And all the while proclaiming benevolence and concern for the supposedly weak and the “victimized” people.
I have a better idea. Little, or preferably NO government. Individual liberty. The non-aggression principle and respect of property rights. That’s all. None of these perverted and extremely dangerous ideologies could have taken hold (or survived on their own) without the collectivization by nation states and a cooperative centralized fiat banking structure.
I have to go with your assessment. As Communist is to female,so Anarchist is to male.
The male mind craves room to stretch its legs,and the power to do what must be done when it must be done,by any means necessary.
Unlike females, however, we realize there is a flipside to what we crave and the flipside of this is extreme danger and personal risks that fall on ourselves alone. That is why we construct laws,but only as much law as we need,erring on the side of less law whenever possible.
Communism is highly popular among 20-something college kids who are truly unable to see the hundreds of millions of dead under its “loving” auspices as themselves and their families,but it is Anarchism that is the natural vehicle for men’s rights if it can be said to be anything.
Men know that the law is a poor substitute for the sword,when protecting what is theirs by natural right.
At the end of the day, governments only have the one trick. Violence. And I’m personally sick of it being characterized as capable of anything but. I also think it’s time we step out of the fantasy world and realize that “institutions” such as central banks and governments do not even exist in reality. They are just small groups of people doing shitty things to the rest of us under the pretense of things like “knowing better” (the implied expertise of someone ordained by some phony academic priesthood) or “the greater good” (the theft of one’s property to give to a squeakier wheel).
“They are just small groups of people doing shitty things to the rest of us under the pretense of things like “knowing better” (the implied expertise of someone ordained by some phony academic priesthood) or “the greater good” (the theft of one’s property to give to a squeakier wheel).”
I’ll agree with that all day long. And Obama’s the goddamn patron saint of those dicks. The embodiment of the “My Harvard education means you aren’t fit to inhabit the same planet as me” attitude you’re talking about.
Of course, it’s funny as hell to me. They sent hundreds of guys like Obama to Georgia,back in the day, to colonize it. None of them reported back. Bluebloods, they call them. People to whom the society you kept was so important that they inbred themselves into effete human chihuahuas who die from a case of the sniffles. The master race…yeah right.
The reality is that is not going to happen. No matter how one wishes it, there will always be government. By ignoring practical solutions all you are doing is sticking your head into the ground and praying you don’t get kicked.
The reason why the horrors of the 20th century happened had far more to do with neurological types then ideological types.
I am sure there are some types that like no laws for whatever reason and prefer might makes right; but fair, reasonable law’s is what enables civil society. Respect of property rights comes from law’s. The whole concept of the “non-aggression principle” only leads to blood feuds.
It’s already happening. Nullification. People not voting. People shutting off their televisions. People homeschooling their kids. Legalizing marijuana. Rolling back gun control laws. Fighting internet surveillance and control measures. Auditing the Fed. A “no state” project already well underway. These are all on the increase and they all spell doom for the state in my opinion.
What was missing in the past that is facilitating the movement away from government is unimpeded free speech, such as the forum we are on right here, and could not have happened in the past. The state will find opinions much harder to control than they have in the past. I personally think people underestimate the effect this will have, and has already had.
Most libertarians theorize that the non-aggression principle and property rights could easily and expediently enforced by the individual (it already is in reality, with the biggest threat to property coming from the state, ironically) and insurance companies operating in a truly free market. Direct accountability for your good/bad behavior. Like everything else we do, and the best things we do already, none of this requires a government.
Far too simple way of looking at things; this is workable if you have nothing but individuals, not when what you are facing is collectives: that is both illegal gangs, and legal gangs (aka corporations).
The moment you don’t need a gun to take a person’s property away, just enough money, people, time and effort; a single person on his own won’t last long.
Just look at California a couple of years back; when they smart guys at the energy company decided to make more money by shutting down the energy and other nifty little number plays to drive prices up. People froze to death.
They were stopped, by the government. How do you stop a company doing such things, if there’s no government, if there’s no way to redress these things? A posse, slaughter everyone inside and let god sort out who was the guilty party? What if the company employed some security with automatic weapons against posses? You’re going to bring grenades? Then the company will buy some tanks?
It will very quickly devolve into either the rich, powerful, and numerous enough to complete suppress and exploit the weak and poor; or virtually all organizational structures disappear, reverting to every man for himself, individuals on an island; which ends anything bigger – no infrastructure; no public projects, nothing, no science that doesn’t have an immediate benefit.
A government needs to be just strong enough to protect the weak from the strong and the rich, maintain infrastructure, and fund and organize public events. And no more.
MRM has brought to light one of the fundamental problems with the “2 wing” system. That is, the idea that to stand for one cause, one must stand for an entire “wing”. To stand against one element of that “wing” is to stand against all its elements. One must be on one side or the other. But “right” and “left” do not really exist as “political forces” in the accepted sense. They are both part of a 16th century French system for categorizing policy. By identifying ourselves as “right” or “left”, we are allowing ourselves to be categorized by the system. Doing so served humanity well in the past. It allowed us to move forward, out of the age of open monarchy and into an era where decisions are made in a semi-democratic fashion. But now that so many of us are banding together, despite our drastically different views on other topics, we are demonstrating that this “right vs. left” system is outdated. A more responsible way would be to throw both terms out the window and approach every issue on an individual basis.
I would submit that we don’t have to be on one side or the other. Not at all. The two wings of the same bird of prey? The lesser of two evils is still evil, after all. I think our participation in non-participation is a very viable third choice. After all, we have already won the last “election” and will no doubt win with even bigger numbers during the next election. People are starting to turn away government with non-participation in “the affordable care act” and the ridiculous drug war by legalizing marijuana. People in greater numbers all the time are asserting their desire for less/no government. In spite of constant (and increasingly caricature-ish nature of) media cheerleading, people are starting to understand that they are just a bunch of thieves, autocrats and they are also very dangerous. Perhaps they are just unnecessary.
A True Socialist will reject feminism as classism and ideological hatred!
Thanks for your article, Mateusz. It is perhaps a little late now to respond to it, but allow me to add my take, even if that means I have the last word in this discussion thread because no one else will read or worry about what I have to say.
Your view of the connection between Marxism and feminism and Marxism in the MRM appears to omit something that neither Marx and Engels nor Lenin and Mao had any trouble addressing, something that the MRM is not focusing on at all, but that feminist theory, especially Marxist-feminism, very much focuses on.
Mao Zedong did not forget that. It is a big part of what he taught and imposed, for which reason the redfems fell in love with his politics and with him as an ideal, so much so that, as Erin Pizzey reported a number of times, the feminists of the late sixties and early seventies had posters of him on their living-room walls and copies of ‘The Little Red Book’ on their coffee tables.
The abolition of capitalism was not the only goal of communism. That was declared and made perfectly clear by Marx and Engels, by Lenin, and especially by Mao.
You may have read and studied ‘The Little Red Book’, but for those who know little or nothing about it, it would be worth your while to have a look at Chapter 31, ‘Women’. It is very short and will take no more than perhaps a couple or three minutes to take in: http://art-bin.com/art/omao31.html
Just a comment on what Walt said: I don’t think the purpose of feminism is to “abolish gender difference”.
If by “gender difference” we mean the natural differences between man and woman, then we men could be relieved: such an aim is impossible and ridiculous. If on the contrary it means to abolish the difference in rights and obligations, then we could be relieved too, as this is exactly what we want.
Feminism is not so much what feminists say, but what they do. Feminist speech is contradictory, lacking factual base and a whole myth. It is in fact easy to disprove. It strength lies on prejudice and the harm it does through laws.
Feminism should be unmasked on the left as a parasite of current class fights all over the world. Where money is taken away of workers’ pockets to be poured down into the financial system, feminism sucks the blood from the need of a radical spirit by turning fight against real oppressors into fight against imaginary oppressors.
In this, feminism is much like fascism, racism, and all forms of prejudice and hate. As such it must be denounced.
Ernesto, of course “such an aim is impossible and ridiculous,” but who said that feminism is rational, and of course, for that precise reason it must be denounced.
I am a Marxist-Leninist and consider myself an MRA, which btw is kind of a drama since, as stated here, all leftist organizations tend to tolerate and even promote feminism. Thinking with your own brain makes you take difficult directions, I think.
I would recommend the writings of Esther Vilar “The Manipulated Man” and “The Polygamous Sex”, which are written from a philosophical materialistic perspective that -without getting into any political depth- still has a lot in common with the base of Marxism.
I think the problem with leftist men is more or less the problem of most men: they have great difficult in seeing themselves as oppressed, maybe more than other men since they are always focused on other people.
The defeat of many Left movements, especially in countries in which being a communist conveys a great deal of risk, forces some sort of shift on the focus: Feminism is a safe and not too complex way of being “leftist”. Unlike Marxism, which implies some coherence and theory, Feminism allows almost any kind of contradictory blabbery as long as you defend women. Besides, none has ever been kidnapped / tortured / killed for being a Feminist.
In short, for anyone attracted by some “revolutionary” image of him/herself, feminism offers a sort of cheap “leftist” flavor which is difficult to resist.
The best side of Marxism in its relationship with anti-feminist speech is that true Marxism is based on factual analysis, it rejects idealism and explains social phenomena on its real forces.
Marxism nevertheless suffered a great defeat with Stalin’s politics and the murder of its highest theoretician Leo Trotsky. We can say no real Communist state has taken place yet, only very misshaped and threatened versions of it.
On the other hand, neo-conservative and capitalist society have done nothing for Men’s rights. We are trapped between the old-fashioned traditional model -which made men respectable slaves- and today’s reality of some watered-down cultural post-modern bullshit that is sold as “leftism” while hard economy privileges are firmly held by the elite, means of production owners… and of course their lazy wives.