I've been a Marxist for a few years now and am intimately familiar with various schools of thought, such as Austrolibertarianism and Keynesianism.

I had to educate and annihilate an Ancap the other day.

that's another thing

whatever you do, don't become an anarchist

their rhetoric sounds nice, their policies not so

because well

they have none

He assumed that because I was a Marxist, I hadn't read guys like Menger, Von Mises, Hayek and Rothbard. He was sorely mistaken.

yeah I used to be a 19yo anprim and read zerzan and TK but I think it is a bit absurd

Anprim is complete and utter garbage.

i'm still gonna tell you though

i wouldn't read exclusively leftist ideology

i would read from both sides

that's what i did

I read have been on leftypol for a while but it is not a very good climate to introduce ideas because they think giving people a PDF and saying they don't want to spoon feed people, but I think if you want to attract the general public the left needs to make things easier and more accessible

choose what sounds the best

Read into Neoclassical and Austrian theory, but first make sure you're well grounded in Marxism.

I read some austrian economics stuff when I was younger

is stuff like jacobin good because that is what the local DSA is promoting in their reading group

Marxists.org is a highly valuable resource to further your knowledge. You won't have to spend a time to educate yourself on theory that way.

I only ready the super short communist manifesto which is interesting I am just not sure about a command economy because I have yet to see a functional one historically

The DSA is really nothing more than the radical wing of the Democratic Party.

how do you know what is good theory is there a way to test the validity of one mode of thought over another?

And Jacobin puts out good stuff on occasion but for the most part they are pretty liberal.

yeah I mainly approach the left because I am motivated by a moral philosophy that I think fits pretty well with it

Just examine the results of the practical application of a given theory in the historical record.

yeah that's why I question anarchism because it appears every manifestation of leftism on a large scale seems to meet a violent end from outside nations unless they have a military

For example, the command-style economy of the USSR effectively transformed a backwater, semi-feudal nation into an industrialized superpower in just a few decades.

It's almost mind-boggling.

yeah I think they could have done that will out all the social repression but that is just my opinion on the matter

now i don't mean to start an argument here, but has marxism ever been attempted at all?

yeah both china and russia were transformed from dramatically poor agrarian societies to modern wealthy educated industrial ones in a very short time

I am not super well read but based on the outline in the communist manifesto I think not

One thing you have to understand is that they were literally surrounded by capitalo-imperialist nations whose mission was to crush what they perceived as a fundamental threat to their way of life. In the early years of the socialist experiment in Russia, 7 foreign powers sent in armies in an attempt to stop the Bolsheviks in their tracks.

has there ever been a command economy with democratic representation? didn't the soviet state replace capitalists with bureaucrats who controlled production, distribution, etc?

They failed. I suggest you look into Soviet Democracy, which was a form of Direct-Democracy.

that is true every state trying to achieve leftist aims faces opposition from other forces

shit look and thomas sankara france murdered him pretty quickly to reestablish control of the former colony even in the 80s

The USSR did manage to create a socialist economy after the NEP and prior to its collapse due to capitalist influence after Stalin's death.

is it possible to have a socialist state with a powerful enough military to hold out against outside forces while preserving human rights?

Was it ideal? Of course not. The conditions were not ripe for the kind of socialism Marx predicted would come about in advanced, capitalist nations in the West. But nonetheless it was socialist at one point.