this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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First off, I apologize if I came off as abrasive. This was not my intention. When I say that dialectical materialism doesn't care if you believe in it or not, I mean it in the same way gravity doesn't care if we understand how it works or not. It isn't to dismiss you, I personally do care about what you believe in that I hope to create a comrade out of this conversation, or at least grant you new perspective. My point is that the utility of the dialectical materialist outlook as it far surpasses any other world outlook thus far stands on its own, whether or not individuals use it.
First, dialectical materialism is not a "model." Materialism is a world outlook, and dialectics is a way of applying materialism, to accurately explain change. Materialism is superior to idealism, in much the same way dialectics is superior to metaphysics.
Dialectical materialists reject dogmatism, as dogmatism is more characteristic of metaphysics, as dogmatism seeks eternal truths while dialectical materialism itself understands that the world is constantly changing, new things are arising all the time and old things are dying away. That's why I stress that dialectical materialism isn't a model, it isn't a set of eternal truths about the world but instead an outlook on what truths can be observed in the world.
As for the peasantry, if we are to be fully correct, they would best be described as "communitarian" rather than individualist. Think of a group of fully distinct items as individualist, loosely connected cells which themselves are tight-knit as communitarian, and one full interconnected system as collectivist. The petite bourgeoisie are more individualist than the peasantry, and the old yeomanry (farmers that owned and toiled their own land, rather than renting from feudal Lords) were the original white settlers in the US Empire as they killed off the natives, which would be closer to the petite bourgeoisie than the peasantry found in feudal systems.
As for the base creating religion, religion arose as a means by which to justify feudalism and slave societies, as an idealist world outlook. The bourgeoisie pushed early, vulgar materialism as a way to cement their own rule, but oppose dialectics as it proves their rule is not in fact permanent. As for further reading, Gramsci's The Study of Philosophy and of Historical Materialism is pretty good, though can be dense if you aren't familiar with Marxism that much.
In short, the ways we live and the conditions by which we exist, most critically how we produce what we need to live and how we distribute it, affects how we think, and the ruling classes of a given society create a state and structures by which to eminate ruling class ideology. Religion was largely the means by which this was accomplished in feudal and slave eras.
As for fascism in the US, it's a dying empire. The schooling in the US Empire overwhelmingly creates neoliberalism. Fascism itself is colonialism turned inward as neocolonialism and imperialism falter, it's a violent means by which to retain bourgeois rule. The faltering education system is faltering along with all of Statesian society, infrastructure, etc.
As for how the old is subsumed into the new, religion still exists even though feudalism has largely died out. What remains of the old, powerful clergy is that which support bourgeois property rights, but this has also come with a great secularization of society. The new mode of production does not erase all of past society, the new, rising identity folds aspects of the old into it and moves forward. This is essentially a dialectical development.
Regarding proletarianization, don't think "blue collar and white collar," think those who sell their labor-power for a wage to exist. The working classes currently are slaves, of which there are few, the peasantry, who toil the lands of their lords and pay rent in the form of that which they grow and keep the rest, and the proletariat, which far outnumbers the rest. There are proletarian and slave agricultural workers, working in agriculture does not make one a peasant.
As for imperialism depressing development, imagine you have imperialist country A, imperialized country B, amount of annual production needed to maintain current levels 10, and total annual output 20. If imperialist countries take ~8-11 of the 20, then production cannot develop into higher levels, it's either a slow crawl forward, stagnated, or even decaying. Countries need surplus product to direct towards improving outputs to make more and more and redirect that surplus to make more and more and more, but if you only keep what you need to sustain yourself and not grow then you'll never grow.
As for slow change appearing static, often times we can cognize that the change isn't actually static while treating it analytically as though it is, due to how it appears. This is the key, fundamental mistake of metaphysics, and why dialectics surpassed it.
Production isn't necessarily more important than culture, it's that culture is a product of how people live and produce, therefore production is primary, not secondary. Culture is secondary, and as such changes quite dramatically as modes of production change, though not on absolute terms and not all at once.
As for why I said you fell into supernatural thought, I did not mean that because you didn't know why. I meant it because you treated culture as outside of the material, as coming before matter. Culture has to come from the concrete, from the real world, whether it's religious or not, because we all exist in the world and these senses and materials create our thoughts. For culture to be independent and outside of production entirely, it would have to be universal and supernatural, as you are not explaining culture via materialist basis. If it isn't based on concrete reality, then it is effectively outside it.
This is why I linked the other primers on dialectical materialism. They really should be able to help.
Okay.
I haven't given other outlooks their fair share of investigation for me to be able to conclude upon their utility yet.
Isn't this an eternal truth itself? That change is an immutable property of society.
If peasants are communitarian and city-dwellers individualist, what class fits in the ''collectivist'' category?
Feudalism refers to the time period between the 9th and 15th century AD, whereas Islam was founded (and thriving) in the 6th or 7th century (with Christianity going as far back as 1st century). Though Christianity had slavery. Islam is said to have discouraged slavery (although it did not outright prohibit it), though this is something that is debated. Granted our interest is more on what actually occurred than theological accuracy; the Islamic Empire did wage wars and enslave people as a result of these wars largely on the justification that if they were left free they would just attack them again, if I'm not mistaken.
Can you elaborate on this
Some questions:
Can you elaborate on this
You didn't describe the proletariat, though I'm assuming going by selling labour power that would include professionals such as doctors, engineers, businessmen, etc.
I thought communism ran on the idea that driving surplus is capitalist ideology and that communism was needs-based, instead of being focused on growth?
why is culture wildly different amongst capitalist countries, then? the means of production and economic model is largely the same.
It is possible for traits to be innate in individuals (and thus cultures). If innate traits exist, this would not be related to economic factors (because it's innate, which means it is not caused by external factors, and economics is external). Features such as temperament being innate is something that has at least some scientific grounding, so this shouldn't be scientifically inaccurate, though I am not privy to the specifics.
Dialectical materialism is not a law of physics, it's a world outlook, a frame of analysis. An example of its application:
For thunder, early idealists said it was the gods that created it. Modern analysis is materialist and sees thunder as the soundwaves created by electrostatic discharge. The former stands outside of material reality, the latter is within it and seeks explanation by it.
For metaphysicians, a deer is a deer and a human is a human, existing as static, unchanging categories. Evolution is a dialectical approach that witnesses the change over time and necessary interrelation.
As for class outlook, it's not based on location, but class. City-dwellers are largely proletarian, and the proletariat is collectivist, not individualist. Individualists would be more like the petite bourgeoisie, ie worker-owners and small business owners.
Regarding the bit on Islam, you kind of answered yourself, they employed slavery at scale and had semi-feudal relations as well. Religion served to justify the ruling class as such, not as something that predates ruling classes.
On to your questions.
This is an extraordinarily complicated question, with entire books written about the complexities of how China evolved over time. As such, this answer is going to be extraordinarily simplified.
In short, capitalism truly began in Britain, which was well-suited to naval expansion. The introduction of capitalism kick started the process of accumulation on an expanded scale, and new technology, which allowed Europe to leverage this over surrounding countries that did not yet develop capitalism. Europeans began to trade technology for slaves, which created a slave market in Africa, causing a good portion of society to be devoted to enslavement, rather than production, which lowered the productive capacity of Africa.
This accelerated growth even more, widened the gap even more, which resulted in a consolidation of bank and industrial capital between 1870 and 1900 and the ensuing complete colonization of the world, into the era of imperialism. World War I broke out in order to redraw colonial lines, as capitalism needs expansion and you cannot expand without war if everything is colonized.
China had political instability and this was leveraged by the British Empire in the Opium Wars to effectively colonize China, who had a developed somewhat feudal state at the time. This caused the century of humiliation for China, which they broke free from finally in 1949 when the communists took power. Since then, public ownership has been the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state, so finance capital has never been in power. As a consequence, there is no need for imperialism, which itself weakens and rots a country over time, causing de-industrialization.
This is a misconception. Socialist theory sees capitalism as preparing the grounds for socialism, but not that one needs to go through capitalism, ie an economy dominated by capitalists. Socialist market economies exist, such as in China, that skipped capitalism and went straight from primarily agrarian economies.
I touched on it earlier, but when a country needs colonies but cannot get them, it reverts inward. Germany's colonial holdings were stripped from them after World War I and given to the victors, which allowed the Nazis to come to power as an attempt to colonize Europe. I would need examples of what you consider fascist countries without a colonial history, if you mean socialist countries like China then frankly this isn't what fascism is at all, China is a socialist country where the working classes control the state and public ownership is principal. Fascism is a violent protection of the bourgeoisie and private property.
As for how the old clergy gets subsumed, just think of how churches in the US support "supply side Jesus" and whatnot.
As for the proletariat, you've got it right. Anyone that sells their labor-power for a wage or piece-wage, which includes factory workers, service workers, etc, and as such is the biggest class in the world at the moment.
As for communism being needs-based, this is true, though improvement in production and distribution allows us to work less and get more. Communists seek the greatest output for the greatest number of people with the least input necessary, and as such this needs highly advanced productive capacity. The difference with socialism is that social surplus is redirected in the interests of advancing the productive forces and the needs of the working classes, rather than to satisfy private profits for the few. Communists do not seek to freeze productive capacity at an arbitrary level, but instead constantly improve so that we can advance further and further.
As for culture varying wildly, it's because each nation has their own history and own unique environment, conditions, language, and more. Their material conditions informed this and shaped them, but by the modern era capitalist expansion via imperialism has folded everyone into the global system. Capitalists cannot profit off of markets they are cut off from, so they seek to extend them. It's helpful to look at examples of differences and see where they came from.
As far as intrinsic characteristics, this sounds dangerously close to race science, which is bullshit. If you mean how some people are born without arms, some have different hair color, etc, this is still ultimately material, not ideal. Economics are not truly external, they are necessarily internal as we are all a part of the capitalist system. That's why we all have class outlooks, even if I go to the woods I have to return to work.
You say the city-dwellers are proletarian and that the proletarian class is collectivist, but I find this confusing because city-dwellers are understood to be individualist? That's kind of why I related urban populations to being more secular and secularism being linked to progress. Even outside of entrepreneurs and the sort. Unless by individualism you mean specifically just independency in work.
I don't understand how religion served ruling class interests (asides from slavery).
Any books you would recommend on the economic development of Europe through the slave trade in Africa?
China was a British colony?
Fascism exists as a concept outside of the communist framework and my understanding of it isn't communist, but upon reflection I can't actually think of countries without a colonial history. Europe was colonial ("colonizer"), Africa was colonized, the Indian subcontinent was colonized, East Asia was colonized, The Americas were colonized, America's been bombing the middle east forever, Oceania was colonized. I suppose central and north asia are the only regions I can think of that I don't know about. I'm not sure about Russia, it's been violently imperialist for the past few decades at least.
I guess in terms of continental generalizations the world has more or less been colonized.
Isn't the constant focus on growth and surplus creation a point of critique against capitalism?
Their material conditions differed to whatever extent but in theory if material conditions were the same everywhere long enough would the world become culturally homogenous? Because things like language and history would be part of the 'superstructure' built on the base of material conditions. (Otherwise language/history would be 'metaphysical')
Why do you think certain conservative countries can be somewhat more progressive in specific areas compared to others? Such as Iran and Pakistan wrt to trans rights (not saying it's ideal, especially the latter, just better). Other Muslim countries aren't as tolerant towards trans people (in that gender reassignment is legal). I would think of the sunni-shia divide as the potential explanation, with the Shi'ite community tending to be more trans affirming from what I know of, but Pakistan isn't Shi'ite majority, it's largely Sunni. These countries have this degree of "trans tolerance" despite being otherwise dangerously homophobic and queerphobic in general, which doesn't seem to make much sense to me materially.
Race theory was attempting to use science to justify blatant racism and racial superiority/inferiority ideas which is not at all what I am trying to do here. I don't mean physical traits, I mean personality traits. Innate individual personality traits are something that exist in the field of psychology (such as temperament as mentioned earlier).
First of all, again, I want to stress that what's more important is the class outlook, not the location. Urban vs. Rural living has some impact, but this is subordinate to the class makeup of cities vs. the countryside.
Either way, cities are not "individualist." I don't know what you mean by individualism if you believe them to be individualist, and individualism is not associated with secularism. The proletariat is collectivist in that their path to liberation is in collectivizing the means of production, genuine individualists are largely small business owners and self-employed people that seek to retain their autonomy.
As for religion and the ruling class, lords and masters generally claimed that they deserved to be there by divine right. Religious values also generally pushed ideas like glorifying the impoverished, in other words trying to placate the people and prevent them from looking at the actual material reasons why they were being impoverished while the masters and feudal lords were wealthy.
As for a book explaining European colonialism and the slave trade, I recommend highly Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. It's solid gold, and Rodney was assassinated shortly after its writing.
I don't know what you mean by "fascism as a concept exists outside of the communist framework." Communist analysis is not something we impose upon the world, but is the way we analyze it. I have no idea what you believe fascism to be. As for Russia, it was imperialist under the Tsar, then the Soviets liberated the Tsar's colonies. The modern Russian Federation isn't imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies and has been kept outside of the international financial oligarchy by the west. They tried to join NATO a few decades ago and join the west in plundering the world, but the west shut them out as they wished to recolonize Russia, and as such Russia had no colonies to inherit from the soviets (who were deliberately anti-colonial) and no colonies to gain.
As for capitalism and growth, that's not inherently a problem. The problems are that capitalism is focused on profit, and that it needs growth to survive, which leads to imperialism once domestic markets are saturated. Here's Marx on the subject:
As for your questions on culture and linguistics becoming homogenous, this is actually one of the most important conversations in Marxism, known as the "national question." Right now I am trying to focus on it in my own studies as it isn't something definitively answered like other questions have been. As such, I cannot give a satisfactory answer to this question as it's still ongoing, and there are those that believe either path. Perhaps in the far, far future this will all come into one "human" identity, but at the present moment indigenous rights are critical, as national liberation and autonomy is a prerequisite for socialism to begin in the first place.
As for differences in how conservative social views are frequently uneven, I'd have to have specific examples. The better way to frame it though is not as conservativism as a deliberate choice, but through which avenues is progress happening more or less rapidly. In general, West Asia is a hot topic of imperialism as its where the petro-dollar is solidified, and as such much conflict is going on. Conflict slows social progress, stability helps accelerate it.
As for individual traits, for them to have an impact in distinguishing nations, they'd have to be based on ethnicity, rather than evenly randomly distributed. That's why I said this is more race theory, individuals do have different traits but this is not understood to be on the basis of "race."
By individualist I mean ideas such as focusing on the self, putting oneself first and not sacrificing oneself to fit in with or satisfy the wants or needs of the herd. This attitude is more common in urban regions than rural, which I've considered collectivist thus far. By collectivism I mean focusing on the herd and (unhealthy) self-sacrifice for the sake of others, often relinquishing individual want or need when it conflicts with group sensibilities. Collectivism is more traditional family values and churchy (not always). This is why I think individualism tends to be linked w secularism. I know you're stressing class as the distinguishing factor and not location, but understanding the urban population as proletariat and thus collectivist doesn't make sense to me as per the above.
We probably have a different understanding of individualism/collectivism; what's yours?
I am not a communist, so I'm not going to default to communist analysis, of course. What I understand by fascism is state suppression of the people of a country; this is associated with things such as surveillance, authoritarianism, policing, and other far-right tendencies which are opposed to progress (hate against immigrants, "illegals", BIPOC, LGBT, etc). There might be a military aspect to it as well.
The modern Russian state has occupied Crimea and they are currently in the process of unjustified imperialist aggravations against Ukraine which is really a violent land-grab ("but they were tryna join NATO" is BS excuse to start an occupation), but if you support Russia in the conflict this isn't something we need to get into.
Specific example: compare trans rights in Saudi vs Pakistan
GAC is banned in Saudi (only available as "sex correction" for hermaphrodites), while it is legal and state-funded in Pakistan; changing one's gender is illegal in the former while the latter allows people to self-identify as their chosen name and gender legally.
I believe it's a similar situation comparing UAE to Iran in this regard.
They're all conservative hellscapes but I don't understand the unevenness in their conservativism.
Can you elaborate?
Is there evidence to suggest individual traits are evenly or randomly distributed across nations?
The problem here is that individualism isn't an urban thing, but an aspect of the petite bourgeoisie, think small business owners. Urban areas generally are more pro-social than "fuck you, I got mine," because production in cities is more socialized. When you are describing "collectivism," you're describing not collectivism but instead the communitarian aspects of traditional family units, which also change according to the mode of production.
To go back and re-explain individualism, communalism, and collectivism, think of it in terms of whose interests are primary. Individualists value themselves, communalists value their immediate communities, and collectivists value the entirety of society. This is of course an oversimplification as everything I've been explaining thus far has been.
Regarding fascism, I am referring to the historic phenomenon of fascism. Fascism evolved from liberalism, and rose in countries that were faced with the potential for working class organization internally, and a capitalist class in need of new colonies. This is true of Italy and Germany, and the US Empire in its settler-colonial heritage through today. It sounds like you are trying to redefine fascism from an observed phenomenon itself, to instead a way of categorizing systems, which is weaker in that it erases how to stop fascism entirely and how to predict where it rises.
As for Russia, annexing Crimea and the Donbass regions isn't imperialism, Russia isn't colonizing them. Both voted to join the Russian Federation. Russia is not a global monopolist power, it's a nationalist country encircled by imperialists, hence why the war was sparked in the first place. NATO and the west is at fault for installing a Banderite regime in 2014, and violating the Minsk Agreements that were meant to avoid this conflict and resolve the Ukrainian Civil War between the Donbass and Kiev.
As for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both have very different political climates, stages in social progress, and levels of development. You're reading too much into religion as a sole determinent.
As for how to view social progress, progress happens over time through struggle. Countries do not decide to be conservative, they have different stages in the development of the social struggle, how far it has gone.
As for individual traits being randomly distributed, again, it sounds like you're arguing that different cultures are different at a genetic level, similar to how colonizers said those in Madagascar were naturally more submissive and wanted to be dominated by Europeans. I am not saying you are saying that, but it sounds like your argument can go in that direction, which is why you need to rethink it.
I'm not sure what other term (besides fascism) I would use to describe what I did. Liberalism espouses a value for democracy, so at first glance it seems strange that would lead to fascism, although liberal democracies have been decried as a sham. How do you define fascism?
But you're preventing a line of reasoning from being discussed not because of evidence/reasoning, but because of the way it has gone in a certain direction in the past. That doesn't seem reasonable to me; if there isn't evidence that the distribution of innate traits is even or randomly distributed it's not a justified belief. I think this is a case of a slippery slope fallacy.
Simply because there are no superior or inferior races does not mean racial differences don't exist.
Liberalism is largely justification for capitalism, and has been used to justify colonialism. There's a difference between the whitewashed idea of liberalism, and what it has been used to justify. Fascism is when a bourgeois state faces crisis, and therefore needs to violently assert itself. It's the logic of colonialism, but domestic and not international.
As for preventing a line of reasoning, I don't believe I am, but you are now teetering into race theory. Trying to justify different cultures on genetic differences between people is back to that liberal justification to colonialism.
But you can find examples of any ideology being used to justify atrocities?
Either there is evidence for random or even distribution, or there is not.
Liberalism was created to advance bourgeois interests in overthrowing feudalism, and justifying the new capitalist order. It's tied directly to colonialism.
As for race science, it's bogus and not a real thing.
🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
max_thread_depth_ reachedSo there is a bottom.
I've done that a few times before, haha.
okay
that's not what I said, but we're probably not going to be making progress there.
It's basically where you're leading it down, though, trying to place cultural differences on genetics.