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Lol hardly anyone knows what the Zapatistas are. They're brown and 'marginalized' and occupy a small slice of Mexico. You and I may know about them because we

Lol hardly anyone knows what the Zapatistas are. They're brown and 'marginalized' and occupy a small slice of Mexico. You and I may know about them because we probably monitor anarchist/leftist circles. I'm quite anti-socialist myself but I readily admit the Zapitistas have proven 'successful' about as well as they could hope for their situation. But few outside of a few circles wants to acknowledge it as it goes against the conventional thought that democratic or pseudodemocratic society can be trumped by a bunch of fucking 'backwater' community-focused brown people with guns and their own prerogative, who don't fit the mold of the typical example that when society 'breaks down' it must be taken over by savage worlords or drug barons. You can guarantee if there were a story of a bunch of American rednecks even trying to pull off anything similar it'd be downvoted to hell here and nearly universally hated by American society. Soccer moms everywhere would clap to their execution by the National Guard. Some ATF-esque character would stand over the rubble for photographs like they did over the char of the dead kids at Waco and the public would eat it up. Admitting the Zapatistas are a 'success' challenges a lot of people's philosophies and assumptions. Hell it even admits some of my own were wrong. This can be difficult to reconcile. It's not surprising that answers to your question are not exactly forthcoming.

int_19h 4y ago
But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? It may be obscure, but its success does disprove a very non-obscure claim. (Side note: my definition of "success" for socialism is fairly modest: to be sustainable long term economically, and to preserve personal freedoms at least to the same degree that modern capitalist liberal democracies have. That's the only way I see it as a meaningful alternative to the status quo.) There's also Rojava to consider, and it's perhaps somewhat more widely known because it was covered somewhat during the Western press' fascination with ISIS and war with them. These guys are perhaps more interesting than the Zapatistas long term because they're doing it in a somewhat more urbanized & industrialized area with 10x population, and they are explicitly designing a governance framework with intent to scale to nation-state size and beyond. But, well, it hasn't even been 10 years yet, so I don't think it counts as solid evidence of anything just yet.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Yes I've been to Rojava :) They talk a big talk about socialism but honestly I wasn't seeing it in the cities like Qamishlo. Full of capitalist street vendors and the like, and poverty on the outskirts. Honestly they seemed pretty vanilla capitalist outside the 'mustache-jesus' (Apo) talk you see in YPG, etc. I do recall free bread/naan line on the street. In the firmly 'Rojava' 'owned' cities like Deyrik the general structure of the people and markets reminded me quite a bit of Barzani controlled KRG. Of course, I spent most my time with the militia and not civil life, so I'm sure there's lots I missed. I think many of the 'true believers' in the old Kurdish socialist causes probably migrated more to the Iraqi Mountains, sadly those people are getting pounded on by the Turks.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    From their agitprop, my impression was that by socialism they mostly mean minimizing economic exploitation, so e.g. street vendors, craftsmen etc who aren't wage workers aren't really incompatible with that approach. I'd be more curious to see the statistics on larger businesses - how many have a hired labor force, and how many are co-ops. Also, the most recent iteration of the social contract that I have - one from 2016 - has these bits in it: "There shall be a right to invest in private projects which, while taking account of environmental balance, provide the services necessary for economic development, respond to the needs of society and help to stimulate economic activity in the community. The right to private property shall be safeguarded in such a way as not to conflict with the public interest, and it shall be regulated by law." Now this is all rather vague, but it doesn't read like a hardline stance against any hint of capitalism. And given the bottom-up political system, so long as democratic institutions work as declared, it seems that individual municipalities should be able dial the balance as they see fit. From what I heard, while PYD enjoys broad popular support, that doesn't necessarily translate to specific policies they advocate for. So perhaps it's basically as socialist as people actually want it to be at the moment? Which would make it even more important. While the economics of it is interesting by itself, I think the key part of the experiment is decentralized council democracy. That should be enough to give people actual voice on matters that concern them, as opposed to the sham that representative republics inevitably end up at scale. Once communities actually have control over their commons, they can figure out the economics according to their needs and preferences. But, again, this is assuming that their governance model is as advertised and can persist in the long term. What was your impression on the ground?

int_19h 4y ago

But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? It may be obscure, but its success does disprove a very non-obscure claim. (Side note: my definition of "success" for socialism is fairly modest: to be sustainable long term economically, and to preserve personal freedoms at least to the same degree that modern capitalist liberal democracies have. That's the only way I see it as a meaningful alternative to the status quo.) There's also Rojava to consider, and it's perhaps somewhat more widely known because it was covered somewhat during the Western press' fascination with ISIS and war with them. These guys are perhaps more interesting than the Zapatistas long term because they're doing it in a somewhat more urbanized & industrialized area with 10x population, and they are explicitly designing a governance framework with intent to scale to nation-state size and beyond. But, well, it hasn't even been 10 years yet, so I don't think it counts as solid evidence of anything just yet.

notch656a 4y ago
Yes I've been to Rojava :) They talk a big talk about socialism but honestly I wasn't seeing it in the cities like Qamishlo. Full of capitalist street vendors and the like, and poverty on the outskirts. Honestly they seemed pretty vanilla capitalist outside the 'mustache-jesus' (Apo) talk you see in YPG, etc. I do recall free bread/naan line on the street. In the firmly 'Rojava' 'owned' cities like Deyrik the general structure of the people and markets reminded me quite a bit of Barzani controlled KRG. Of course, I spent most my time with the militia and not civil life, so I'm sure there's lots I missed. I think many of the 'true believers' in the old Kurdish socialist causes probably migrated more to the Iraqi Mountains, sadly those people are getting pounded on by the Turks.
- int_19h 4y ago
  From their agitprop, my impression was that by socialism they mostly mean minimizing economic exploitation, so e.g. street vendors, craftsmen etc who aren't wage workers aren't really incompatible with that approach. I'd be more curious to see the statistics on larger businesses - how many have a hired labor force, and how many are co-ops. Also, the most recent iteration of the social contract that I have - one from 2016 - has these bits in it: "There shall be a right to invest in private projects which, while taking account of environmental balance, provide the services necessary for economic development, respond to the needs of society and help to stimulate economic activity in the community. The right to private property shall be safeguarded in such a way as not to conflict with the public interest, and it shall be regulated by law." Now this is all rather vague, but it doesn't read like a hardline stance against any hint of capitalism. And given the bottom-up political system, so long as democratic institutions work as declared, it seems that individual municipalities should be able dial the balance as they see fit. From what I heard, while PYD enjoys broad popular support, that doesn't necessarily translate to specific policies they advocate for. So perhaps it's basically as socialist as people actually want it to be at the moment? Which would make it even more important. While the economics of it is interesting by itself, I think the key part of the experiment is decentralized council democracy. That should be enough to give people actual voice on matters that concern them, as opposed to the sham that representative republics inevitably end up at scale. Once communities actually have control over their commons, they can figure out the economics according to their needs and preferences. But, again, this is assuming that their governance model is as advertised and can persist in the long term. What was your impression on the ground?