The perspectives espoused are relatively new for me; previously how free speech and “propaganda” was understood was influenced by Chomsky’s Manufacuring Consent and Parenti’s (better written) Inventing Reality. The latter is still a good book but the understanding of how this stuff works has evolved.

We have to sometimes take a step back in order to not overestimate an individual’s agency/power over society’s class relations (which is really damn hard for us Westerners - not matter the color - because of how much indvidualism is ingrained in our cultures); it is partly why class betrayal is a big thing. Learning dialectics (still learning, to be honest) and this article made a big impact:

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

Thanks for engaging and hope you have a good one.

At this point for Russia to “betray” China would be economic suicide; the US and Europe would have to provide the cruical replacement trade which they clearly do not have the capacity to do so at this stage.

The capital factions in Russia that prefer trade with China over ones that prefer trade with the West now have the upper hand, and there is a massive sunk cost in establishing trade routes such as in the Arctic Circle for trading with the global south that is effectively enabled by China. What can the West offer at this point? Crypto? They can’t buy gas, oil and metals at volumes that could replace a growing market of the global south compared to the stganant markets of Europe and US.

Everything else; such as concessions with Nato and territorial claims all hinge on the above trade concerns. Remember capitalists serve at the altar of capital, including Russian ones.

Maybe but includes more scalable societies including whole nations and alliance of nations, and censorship could be de facto or de jure.

The choice to opt in and out depends on the class perspective in bourgoisie society; the more subjugated one is the less of a choice that will feel. If one can imagine a censorship in favour of the dictatorship of the bourgoisie then why not in one favor for the dictatorship of the proleteriat?

If a formal censorship is not declared it does not mean an informal does not exist, one which is dictated by class relations within that society (this is itself one of the criticisms against anarchist ideas of post-capitalism ie not based on science but on utopia/idealism of the assumption of lack of formal hierarchies would free mankind’s innate nature for freedom or some such Bakunin nonsense. Our nature is in a relationship with nature outside us, each constantly changing the other - ie it is dialectical. )

Every community has censorship to filter out its perception of noise or topics they feel are dangerous/ destablising/ upsets decorum/creates havoc with internal structures etc etc. We do it here for example with bad-faith liberal slop. It could be de facto or de jure.

In capitalist society it would be those that fit with their narratives and perspectives. For example, we live in a world of (crumbling) Western Hegemony so there will be self-censorship on the genocide or pro-Russian perspectives of the Ukraine war; from schools to newspapers to entertainment media - there does not need to be someone at the top pulling the strings, the associated communities (formal and informal) will do that themselves.

Education will not in itself lead to “enlightenment”. One of the first organisations to discover climate change were oil companies but their class perspective did not take them down the path of environmentalism.

We have to a degree accept the fact the people intelligently seek narratives that they feel benefit their perceived material perspectives - including us - and it behooves us as MLs to understand this and allows us to better understand which class our audience is and focus our energies where it is productive.

Anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers could look up the same information we do but choose not to believe them. It comes from a level of privilege where they feel the consequences of their ignorance does not affect them. They create spaces for themselves to talk about the issues that are important to them and filter out the “noise” in those spaces.

In the wider community the above two groups fester as they are not a threat to capital. In a spcialist society such nonsense is stomped out for the greater good.

There are for example stories where “traditional” communities with overbearing patriarchal structures who were forced at gunpoint for their women to be literate and educated. There is a “generational trauma” but the outcome of good is exponential as a result for all the following generations. (This is not a specific example of socialist history, this was actually Kemalist Turkey. Socialists usually use more tactful approaches)

We have to understand freedom not from an idealistic conception but a scientific understanding of social sciences, and it ia from that true freedom is acheived.

The west has at its disposal significant access to vast volumes of knowledge through the internet but people voluntarily choose wilful ignorance for their perceived material benefits.

The above is not a nihilistic perspective, it is encouraging to know there is a scientific approach to liberation of the world despite what it seems like an unsurmountable obstacle of bad-faith ignorance. It just means we have to direct our energies towards the revolutionary classes.

(English was not initially my first language either; hope life at your end gives you a break!)

“Marketplace of ideas” means the idea with dominant capital will be dominant; it is not the “merit” of the argument that wins a person over. In a dictatorship of the proleteriat by seizing the means of production the socialist enterprise controls the capital and therefore “wins” the argument for the proleteriat. The perception whether an idea is good or not is always affected by bias; the point is for whom the bias should be in favor of.

That does not mean there is no objective reality or concrete solutions to real-world problems. Science is the method of figuring this out and marxism is a science. The problem is where and when people choose science in the day to day world. There are classes of people with sufficient privilege that perceive not to be affected by this ignorance, and therefore ignore the science when it suits them.

It is not a question of whether “censorship” is good or not; de facto censorship will always exist with every community and society - the question who gets to decide which censorship, what gets censored and which media it should take form in.

If one imagines a space with no formal censorship that does not mean it does not take place; a lack of a formal structure and hierarchy just means an informal one takes place instead, and in a capitalist world this means capital will dictate what those will end up being.

In early stages of socialism by definition it will have capital mechanisms such as markets; this is not maintained in a “neutral” environment, it will inevitably come with the culture of liberalism.

We should aim to have a scientific approach and understand of how things works and try to step away from the liberal frameworks we are brought up in which often conceptualises problems it does not really want to solve in absractions, rather than ground them in the concrete of the real.

My argument isn’t for or against censorship; it is just a tool and to understand how and whether we use this tool we should understand the science of how ideas “win” people over.

One can think of a socialist country as where the standards enforced on an educator is enforced on every aspect of society and this includes what gets amplified and de-amplified for the progression of society. No individual has the correct answer, our collective knowledge and trials of how to apply this scientifically in a continually shifting landscape is the way forward.

It is difficult to “brainwash” people against their perceived material interests. People are “apolitical” because they benefit from the status quo. There are plenty of Chinese liberals within the mainland who are allowed to benefit from the current system as they interact with it in a way that is overall beneficial to the dictatorship of the proleteriat but if there are narratives that they feel will benefit them further which they can act on that causes malevolence, then they will potentially be a greater cost to the system than a benefit; a burden the country could do without.

Western propaganda works because of perceived material benefits of going along with it and the costs of going against it exceed the benefits in a capitalist world; not because it injects ideas into human beings scifi/horror-movie-style like a poltergiest taking over them against their will.

*Liberal scientists (half-joking)

Thanks for sharing!

Reminds me of this hilarious but good paper (available at sci-hub):

Explaining high external efficacy in authoritarian countries: a comparison of China and Taiwan

ABSTRACT: We examine the puzzling phenomenon that authoritarian governments are perceived to be more responsive than democratic governments. By comparing China and Taiwan by both large-N statistical analyses and in-depth case studies, we show that the answer lies in the differences between democratic and authoritarian institutions. First, failing to elect one’s preferred candidate in democracies predisposes voters to critical assessment of government responsiveness. There is no such predisposition in authoritarian countries where elections are nonexistent or nominal. Second, elections incentivize democratic leaders to over-respond to certain groups. There is no such mechanism in authoritarian countries. Third, the solid and clear legitimacy established by electoral victories shield democratic leaders from particularistic demands made through unconventional channels. Without such legitimacy, authoritarian leaders are compelled to cement legitimacy by increasing responsiveness.

(Good because of the analysis despite the liberal perspective; hilarious due to the mental gymnastics in language by the writers grappling with the fact that “authoritarian” China is more democratic than a liberal democracy)

Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for the concept that famines don’t happen if there’s a “free press” because the public finds out and demands action. He didn’t understand Israel and its supporters, who see starvation and demand action - to make starvation worse

https://x.com/justinpodur/status/1801661762883764296

Focus on the fact that propaganda exists, yes. But also focus on the fact that people probably put up a lot of hostile resistance to any propaganda if it goes against their pre-existing wishes. Ask more questions about those.

https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1799409826029810176

One’s loyalty to one’s own superior material conditions even if it means denying the humanity in oneself by gleefully participating in the butchering of others while maintaining cognitive dissonance to the memories of the subjugation of their spiritual ancestors is one of the defining traits of liberalism - and its child fascism - that the Europeans have bestowed to the rest of the world.

As you may know: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/desperation-migration-why-thousands-indian-workers-want-to-go-israel

‘Migration from desperation’: Why thousands of Indian workers want to go to Israel Israel wants to fill a labour shortage with workers from India, but unions there say they are uncomfortable with being complicit in genocide

in November, the Israeli Builders Association asked the Israeli government to approach India for workers and said it would require around 50,000-90,000 to replace Palestinian workers. It is estimated that 72,000 Palestinian workers were employed in the construction sector before 7 October.

The desperate scenes around India of thousands of labourers queueing up to work in Israel is the surest sign yet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted economic policies have failed to meet the needs of his people, economists and trade unionists in India have told Middle East Eye

In the last week of January in India, recruitment efforts took place in Rohtak in Haryana and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, where thousands of Indian workers arrived to be screened and interviewed by Israeli recruitment officials.

“The scenes at the centres are a direct reflection of the very, very poor condition of workers. That is why they are queuing up to go to Palestine. There’s no two ways about it,” Pulapre Balakrishnan, a former economist at Ashoka University, outside New Delhi, told MEE. “It is a migration from desperation. People are being pushed. It is not a pull factor,” Balakrishnan said.

I would argue most “economic migrants” - to use the parlance of the anglophone anti-immigrant media - have this “push factor”; this is the norm not the exception.

The effects of uneven development via capitalism with purposeful underdevelopment for the majority of the population:

Since becoming prime minister of India in 2014, Modi has projected the country’s economy and global influence to be on the ascendency.

“At a time when the world is surrounded by many uncertainties, India has emerged as a new ray of hope,” Modi said at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in January.

Economists like Balakrishnan say that India’s economy has grown tremendously. This is no myth, but this growth has been neither inclusive nor has it benefited a large chunk of the country. He says the data indicates that real wages for more than 30 percent of the country have not increased since 2014.

Despite projections by the Indian government that the economy is scheduled to become the third-largest in the world by 2027, its inability to absorb as well as provide a living wage to its most vulnerable is leading the country to a precipice.

India’s economy grew 7.2 percent in 2022-23, and 8.7 percent in 2021-22. In January, India’s finance ministry forecast a growth rate of 7.3 percent for the fiscal year ending in March.

According to Reuters, this is the highest rate for any of the major economies. Yet economists note that India’s growth is fuelled by very specific sectors such as the financial services and the information technology sectors, which create limited employment and have a marginal impact on the vast majority of the country.

The internationalism of the bourgoisie in their cooperation of fascism and proleteriat exploitation, and the resulting murder of the oppressed, is plain to see.

It should also be noted that though I have highlighted “economic” classes here that it should be stressed that other class structures should be considered such as those involved in liberation struggle.

I would even add critical support should be given to those in the subjugated class in national liberation including the bougoisie or petite-borugoisie that make up this subjugated group, and that this support supercedes the oppressors who engage in their subjugation even if they are the proleteriat of the imperialist/fascist nation. After liberation we can then take on our own bourgoisie. (Lenin said it better)

[Edited to clarify my thoughts and formatting]