tankies: fledgling socialist states will be forced to compete with capitalist ones in the medium term

ultras: compete?? so you& #39;re just gonna naturalize capitalism like that
tankies: if you view all economic growth and even inter-state competition as proof of capitalism, you& #39;re the one naturalizing it!

ultras: socialism means no states
tankies: surely only workers& #39; states can establish the economic preconditions for communism (which means no states)

ultras: "economic preconditions"?? nice stage theory, idiot. guess you never read marx& #39;s letter to vera zasulich
tankies: the whole point he& #39;s making there is that economic arrangements condition political possibilities, he& #39;s not saying "there& #39;s no such thing as necessary preconditions"

ultras: you sound just like steven pinker
tankies: attributing the success of e.g. china to capitalism makes *you* sound like steven pinker, whose error consists in conflating progress with capitalism

ultras: progress? no such thing my friend. also what success?
tankies: if lifting 800 million people out of poverty and throwing off colonial domination don& #39;t count as progress and success, then we aren& #39;t even speaking the same language

ultras: that& #39;s just imperialism
tankies: the way you define things, any poor country that dares challenge the global hegemony of the US will count as imperialist

ultras: facts don& #39;t care about your feelings. that& #39;s not socialism, it& #39;s just geopolitics. socialists should be aloof from that stuff
tankies: marx did not think that geopolitics and class struggle were two different spheres, he sought to explain the former by reference to the latter. your politics is a gnostic non-politics of withdrawal from the world.

ultras: sorry i understood capital
tankies: how do you propose to abolish the value-form?

ultras: *bunch of vague metaphors*

tankies: that& #39;s not a plan

ultras: i& #39;m not interested in writing recipes for the cook-shops of the future. marx was not a marxist
tankies: he said that to distance himself from french ultras who thought that any progress short of full communism was impossible and undesirable, just like you do

ultras: nuh-uh
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