Somehow missed this:
Pakistan, home to more than 240 million people, is experiencing one of the most rapid #solar revolutions on the planet, even as it grapples with poverty and economic instability.
Suddenly about half the country’s electricity comes from solar. It’s not industrial solar farms or state-led: it’s a bottom-up revolution: households fed up with rising power costs and blackouts buying what are now ridiculously cheap solar panels.
cnn.com/2025/05/01/climate/pak…
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Stéphane Bortzmeyer
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •But batteries are not mentioned (except "Once you combine solar and batteries", a big "once") so how people do at night?
João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121)
in reply to Stéphane Bortzmeyer • • •they are used to not having electricity for large parts of the day, specially during the day and most of the night. Blackouts and brownouts occur daily around there, so people finally have more reliable electricity (or electricity at all) during the sunny hours and keep doing whatever they already did into the night (gas generators or using no power at all).
Batteries (better, energy storage availability and cost) is the major hurdle that, if surpassed, will make solar the definitive renewable energy source for most of the Southern Hemisphere and a big part of the Northern Hemisphere.
@impermanen_
Stéphane Bortzmeyer
in reply to João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121) • • •MAXPAYNE
in reply to Stéphane Bortzmeyer • • •Simon Brooke
in reply to MAXPAYNE • •Grovewest
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •Simon Brooke likes this.
Imran Nazar ~ عمران نزر
in reply to Grovewest • • •@Grovewest @mastodonmigration Can corroborate from the UK: A significant part of my solar install seven years ago was for the MCS-accredited fitter to hook to the grid.
My cousins in Pakistan didn't have that regulatory hurdle, and they're now running more kW than me from solar; they finally crossed the second poverty line (the "wash line") last year, with a washing machine that can stay running for its whole cycle.
Simon Brooke
in reply to Imran Nazar ~ عمران نزر • •Imran Nazar ~ عمران نزر likes this.
🕸slow learner, 🕷deep feeler
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •I recently heard Bill McKibben say there are places in Europe where they put up solar panels if they need a fence because it is cheaper than wood.
Meanwhile, I can't afford it even though I wish I could.
Jones
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •> buying what are now ridiculously cheap solar panels
Solar is cheap for a reason: gerrymcgovern.com/solar-is-che…
«[...] Solar needs cheap coal because making silicon requires volcano-like heat. In the 2020s, China was building about two new coal plants a week—six times more than the rest of the world combined. Solar needs cheap charcoal. Every year, China was also going to its war-torn and destitute neighbor, Myanmar, and extracting 14,000 football fields’ worth of tropical forest wood to make cheap charcoal to help smelt its silicon.
... show moreSolar needs cheap nickel. Indonesia had become the world’s leading producer of nickel, much of it going to China. In Indonesia, by the mid-2020s, 50,000 hectares of tropical forests—home to uncontacted Indigenous people—had been cleared for nickel mining, with reports of constant strife and workers deaths at Chinese-run nickel mines in the country. Nickel needs cheap coal. By the
> buying what are now ridiculously cheap solar panels
Solar is cheap for a reason: gerrymcgovern.com/solar-is-che…
«[...] Solar needs cheap coal because making silicon requires volcano-like heat. In the 2020s, China was building about two new coal plants a week—six times more than the rest of the world combined. Solar needs cheap charcoal. Every year, China was also going to its war-torn and destitute neighbor, Myanmar, and extracting 14,000 football fields’ worth of tropical forest wood to make cheap charcoal to help smelt its silicon.
Solar needs cheap nickel. Indonesia had become the world’s leading producer of nickel, much of it going to China. In Indonesia, by the mid-2020s, 50,000 hectares of tropical forests—home to uncontacted Indigenous people—had been cleared for nickel mining, with reports of constant strife and workers deaths at Chinese-run nickel mines in the country. Nickel needs cheap coal. By the 2020s, Indonesia’s coal industry was booming, partly driven by a surging nickel-smelting industry. Making one ton of Indonesian nickel caused about 45 tons of CO2. [...]»
Solar is cheap for a reason
Gerry McGovernimpermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Jones • • •@jones I really like Gerry, who is a degrowth advocate like myself and we mostly agree. We badly need to cut consumption in the industrialized world and we are doing the opposite.
Still, this is an example of a case where some of the factoids he publishes are oil and gas industry propaganda: things that were once true but are no longer. Or things that are dramatically worse when you’re mining/shipping/burning oil, gas and coal all over. Once made a solar panel generates for *25 yrs.*
Jones
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •Jones
in reply to Jones • • •> Once made a solar panel generates for *25 yrs.*
I guess it is true that it's possible to make solar panels that last for 25 years, but the situation now is very different, as far as i know it, like by far the greatest part of solar panels that are being produced now are produced with very much polluting methods, which are badly exploitative of people and ecosystems, and are not made to last 25 years, but much shorter...
anyway, about this and the rest, let's see what @gerrymcgovern has to say
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Jones • • •@jones
True. Solar panel lifespans, particularly those sold in poor countries, can be much closer to five years than 25.
Again, we're trying to solve the wrong problem. It's not an energy production problem. It an energy overconsumption problem. There could be nothing worse for our environment right now than cheap energy. It is cheap energy that brought us to the point of collapse.
And cheap solar is cheap because of slavery and environmental devastation--and lots of coal.
@impermanen_
Jones
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •I agree with everything, except with the idea that it is possible to just reduce global consumption enough to avoid natural catastrophes and the spreading of wars, so our decimation or extinction, starting from the most poor in the world who already live much shorter and difficult lives then us: todon.nl/@jones/11505036901889…
Considering only GHG emissions, with climate change being only 1 of the 7 "planetary boundaries" that we are largely outside of, It would probably not be enough even if all the people in the yellow zone in the graph below reduced their consumption to upper green zone area levels, if those in the red zone won't do the same, and they won't do, and also in the yellow zone most people won't change their habits enough and in a short enough time.
I agree with everything, except with the idea that it is possible to just reduce global consumption enough to avoid natural catastrophes and the spreading of wars, so our decimation or extinction, starting from the most poor in the world who already live much shorter and difficult lives then us: todon.nl/@jones/11505036901889…
Considering only GHG emissions, with climate change being only 1 of the 7 "planetary boundaries" that we are largely outside of, It would probably not be enough even if all the people in the yellow zone in the graph below reduced their consumption to upper green zone area levels, if those in the red zone won't do the same, and they won't do, and also in the yellow zone most people won't change their habits enough and in a short enough time.
Jones
2025-08-18 15:01:52
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Jones • • •@jones
I agree with you. A terrible collapse is coming. If we massively reduced energy and material consumption--which we will most definitely not--then we could reduce, to some degree, the pain and suffering that is coming. But we will see dramatic population and societal changes over the next 50-100 years because the way the middle class and elites live is simply not sustainable.
As you point out, CO2 is only one card in a 52 card deck of damage and pollution.
@impermanen_
Jones
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •that's why i advocate for something like this, bu.noblogs.org/the-necessary-s…
The necessary socialist International – bu
bu.noblogs.orgGerry McGovern
in reply to Jones • • •I agree with your basic analysis: that a sustainable future is in small communities that can feed themselves from the local land. But that's not easy. I grew up on a small farm without tractors. It takes quite a lot of land to feed a family, and when the people flood out of the cities, there will be major challenges. But small communities were our past and they will be our future--if we have one.
@impermanen_
Jones
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •but if we do something like this, bu.noblogs.org/the-necessary-s…, we may suffer much less and maybe also avoid our extinction...
The necessary socialist International – bu
bu.noblogs.orgGerry McGovern reshared this.
Cy
in reply to Jones • • •No, no degrowth means it's possible to reduce consumption enough to avoid natural catastrophes by executing the top 1%, and staking their heads on pikes to serve as a warning to any who dare consume our world. Or something less extreme, with less risk of exterminating the bottom 50% in retaliation, but it's not about asking them nicely to pretty please don't pollute. And it's not about blaming the bottom 50% for not recycling their plastic bottles. That's why the fat cats are trying so hard to suppress it. We're not asking to reduce production. It has to happen or we are all dead.
CC: @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green @impermanen_@zirk.us
Jones
in reply to Cy • • •[edit: i've added double quotes around "my" because it's actually much more a patchwork that i've done with others' ideas which i agree with and find good]
The necessary socialist International – bu
bu.noblogs.orgCy
in reply to Jones • • •Your way seems good. All I want to do is get to know people around me, and work together to do like... community stuff. I don't know how that'd necessarily lead to ramping down resource extraction and production worldwide, but... it couldn't hurt?
Really I'm worried that the elites have already set up invisible roadblocks to keep your idea from happening. No way to expose them other than to try, but... be careful. Our lack of community today is extremely uncharacteristic of the human species, so someone must be doing something to stop it from happening.
CC: @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green @impermanen_@zirk.us
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
We have to work at both problems, Gerry. I agree that the most urgent is for the industrialized North to stop producing crap we don’t need and to respect the boundaries that make our life in the planet possible.
I just don’t believe we can do that without keeping fossil fuels in the ground. And we will need some non-combustible energy to do that.
Do you think degrowth without some renewable energy is possible?
@jones
Gerry McGovern
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •True, but the energy reduction problem is the vastly the bigger one. And renewables are often used as an excuse not to face up to energy and material overconsumption. 'It's ok once its renewables.'
As with all tech, we calculate benefits immediately, but the true harms don't get calculated for 50 years. Something is deeply wrong when we are wiping out entire ecosystems and destroying Indigenous communities for this Green Transition. Why do we need Green Sacrifice Zones?
@jones
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
I don’t think we need green sacrifice zones on indigenous land and *cannot* have them, in fact. We don’t need lithium or cobalt, for example. I do think there will be sacrifices, but they should be fairly distributed and—this is the key point—much, much less than the sacrifices that the most vulnerable make right now due to the mining, transport, refining and burning of fossil fuels.
@jones
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •But that's not the reality that Nature and Indigenous communities are suffering. How do we tell the people of the Andes their sacrifice is worth it? In Indonesia, for example, they're mining more coal than ever to process dirty "green" nickel. All these energy systems feed off each other. There is no transition. Wind and solar combined meet about 6% of total energy needs. We have the worst of all worlds: more oil, gas, coal, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar.
@jones
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
Yes, it’s awful.
I follow oil and gas industry shills on LinkedIn. They’re very focused on wind and solar right now. And this is their mantra: “There is no energy transition.” “Any energy but oil, gas & coal is a joke.”
These are merchants of death. You and I are not. You do good work, but we have a difficult needle to thread. Maybe it’s impossible? I don’t know, but I’m not ready to give up on either degrowth or renewable energy. #1 needs #2.
@jones
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •@jones
Gerry McGovern
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •I was trying to get solar installed in our apartment in 2022, having installed solar back in 2010 in my previous house. I used to be a big fan and booster of all this 'renewable' stuff until I discovered the multiple harms it does in the Global South.
We may need wind and solar, but we must calculate their true and total environmental costs, not simply their CO2 impact. We nearly never calculate full environmental impacts.
@jones
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
Agree. And we should make sure we apply the same vigor and honesty to fossil energy. There’s an *awful* lot of money going to highlighting the environmental costs of renewables while hiding the massively greater damage of economies based on oil, gas and coal extraction.
@jones
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Bill Tschumy
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •@gerrymcgovern @jones I think there are two types of damage. Fossil fuels are warming our world via release of green house gases. Renewables are damaging the environment in the global south due to mining and destroying indigenous populations. They also require fossil fuels to manufacture them. They are also generating a large amount of e-waste.
Neither is acceptable. We need to scale back on the need for both. (1/2)
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Jones • • •@jones @gerrymcgovern
Most of these factoids are bullshit and fossil fuel hype. No, manufacture of solar panels does not require coal: coal is currenly used in many places but it can be replaced by any energy source. It requires electricity, not fossil fuel magic heat.
grist.org/energy/solar-is-one-…
Solar is one of the cleanest power sources we've got. But it could be even greener.
Maddie Stone (Grist)Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@jones @gerrymcgovern
And also, by the way, "mining for renewable components hurts the Global South" is based on some strange idea that mining for fossil fuels is not mining and does not hurt the Global South. It will always take less mining to mine for the components of an engine than it does for fuel for an engine.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@richpuchalsky
It takes coal and charcoal to make silicon
“It’s Like Working In A Volcano”: How Silicon Is Made, Extreme Jobs, ABC Australia, 2021
youtube.com/watch?v=5eVsQSn_EW…
Burning down the house: Myanmar’s destructive charcoal trade, Emmanuel Freudenthal, Mongabay, 2017
news.mongabay.com/2017/10/burn…
Fancy pointing out some more of the factoid mistakes?
@jones @impermanen_
Burning down the house: Myanmar’s destructive charcoal trade
Genevieve Belmaker (Conservation news)Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
I'm not going to go one-for-one in finding articles to counter your fossil fuel propaganda, no. I understand how the process works and there is no magical element of heat that only fossil can provide and that electricity can not. Current use of coal is because coal is currently cheaper in some places -- that is all.
@jones @impermanen_
Cleeyv
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@richpuchalsky @gerrymcgovern @jones carbon as a necessary input of silicon production is real, not propaganda. That reality is very likely used as part of fossil fuel propaganda but it shouldn't be dismissed as only this. It seems as though the options for the carbon sources to make silicon are all charcoal or fossil fuel based, though there has been research on partially substituting with wood chips. In all cases, requiring cutting down trees (and/or using fossil fuels). sciencedirect.com/science/arti…
That said, I am convinced that the overall carbon (and planetary ecology) consequences are such that a unit of energy produced by a solar panel is less harmful than the same unit from burning fossil fuels. However I also strongly agree that the primary underlying problem is massive overconsumption of materials and energy. Specifically by a relatively wealthy portion of humanity and the systems that empower/defend them. Adding solar panels without reducing (or at least stabilizing, maybe) overall consumption doesn't actually improve the situation.
Dr Susi Arnott
in reply to Cleeyv • • •"...the primary underlying problem is massive overconsumption of materials and energy. Specifically by a relatively wealthy portion of humanity and the systems that empower/defend them"
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Cleeyv • • •The science paper that you cited does not even say that "carbon [is] a necessary input of silicon production". Look right at the top of the paper, it says:
"The exergy efficiencies of three different carbonaceous material mixtures in a silicon furnace were evaluated."
In other words, they compared three different carbon sources against each other. So of course all of the things they compared used carbon.
1/2
@gerrymcgovern @jones @impermanen_
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@cleeyv
It's possible to redesign the process to not use carbon, and people have. Here's a review paper:
link.springer.com/article/10.1…
@gerrymcgovern @jones @impermanen_
Emerging Technologies for Decarbonizing Silicon Production - Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy
SpringerLinkimpermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ • • •@richpuchalsky @cleeyv @gerrymcgovern @jones
That and the fact that silicon is no longer strictly needed to make a PV solar panel, this just in the last year. The hope is for a variety of low-energy manufacturing techniques that rely on local and widely available materials. It keeps panning out, not only with the PV modules themselves but with storage tech.
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
A few points here:
1) it’s simply not the case in 2025 that you need coal and charcoal to make PV silicon film. Because of capitalism and colonialism a small amount is used right now (and less every year). That produces enough enough PV silicon to decommission many coal plants. New PV tech in the pipeline doesn’t even require silicon and uses even less energy to produce. Regardless, a circular system is completely possible. We can do better.
Next…
@richpuchalsky @jones
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •@gerrymcgovern
2) By your own standards the key to threading the needle is to account for all the environmental factors. If you don’t see some kind of LCA or if the LCA is more than a few years old, you can easily be spreading petro-coal-propaganda with the best of intentions. That’s how the weapons-grade environmental denial is done these days. sciencedirect.com/science/arti…
@richpuchalsky @jones
impermanen_ 🕊️
in reply to impermanen_ 🕊️ • • •@gerrymcgovern
In general, the situation is changing so fast and the special material demands for solar, wind and storage are dropping so precipitously that it’s hard to keep up. It’s like the only good news we have right now.
@richpuchalsky @jones
John
Unknown parent • • •@holsta @gerrymcgovern @jones
I don't think transition without suffering is possible, tbh.
Even if we transition successfully away from fossil fuels, the failed States that will result across the world from the collapse in oil prices will cause hundreds of millions of people to suffer, spark wars, migration, and decades of turmoil.
To a person, we seem perfectly sanguine about that suffering in order to save the planet.
John
in reply to John • • •@holsta @gerrymcgovern @jones
If we're looking for a solution that doesn't involve suffering, we need to invent a time machine.
Can we minimize suffering? I think so. But not by denying that *every path forward* involves *huge amounts of suffering* because breaking addictions is as damaging as it is dangerous.
The reason you do it is because the addiction, if left untreated, is worse than the consequences of detox.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to John • • •@johnzajac
Yeah. It's hard to see anything other than incredible suffering up ahead. Our addiction is to cheap energy and its conveniences. Civilization collapse on a scale never before seen in history, is coming. We need to prepare as best we can for what comes after.
@holsta @impermanen_ @jones
John
in reply to John • • •@holsta @gerrymcgovern @jones
Personally, I think we should do everything we can to center the suffering on the ruling classes and corporate robber barons that have been driving this nonsense past the point of no return, and minimize the suffering of communities and individuals.
Not only because that is more just, but also because minimizing on-the-ground suffering is the only way we're going to get the People's buy in, which is the only way we're gonna accomplish anything.
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
John
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern @holsta @jones
I'm a history amateur, but my understanding of "civilizational collapse" is that it is both less dramatic and more fruitful and positive than (shocker) the ruling classes would have us believe.
Basically it's less "Mad Max" and more "thriving City States and small communities".
As someone who lives in the US, I also have to check my futility bias at the door, because there are States preparing for our climate future; they just aren't in the West.
John
in reply to John • • •@gerrymcgovern @holsta @jones
I do agree that we need to prepare for what's coming. Luckily, the very activities that will make us resilient against fascism - building community, networks of mutual aid, being ungovernable, intersectional equity - will make us resilient against climate catastrophe and civilization collapse.
So that's a silver lining, I guess?
Gerry McGovern
in reply to John • • •@johnzajac
I suppose! But you're exactly right.
"Building community, networks of mutual aid, being ungovernable, intersectional equity"
These are the exact type of things we need to do to fight fascism and prepare for a post collapse world.
@holsta @impermanen_ @jones
Gerry McGovern
in reply to John • • •@johnzajac
Have you read Tom Murphy?
dothemath.ucsd.edu/
resilience.org/stories/2024-08…
Yes, civilizational collapse, after initial horrors, is often much better for ordinary people
aeon.co/essays/the-great-myth-…
@holsta @impermanen_ @jones
The great myth of empire collapse | Aeon Essays
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John
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern
I have been told that I am too optimistic lol but as an artist and performer I feel like humanity has a lot more potential than our current ruling class would like us to see, and I try to remind myself that this era of neoliberal cultural hegemony is, despite seeming eternal and omnipresent, actually both very new and, as we're seeing, extremely fragile and fleeting.
People want to thrive and live in healthy symbiosis with their environment.
@holsta @impermanen_ @jones
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
John
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@gerrymcgovern @holsta @jones
No, but now I will. Thanks for sharing!
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to John • • •It's lovely to see such optimism. Tom Murphy was asked again and again why he was such a pessimist. He said he wasn't. He might be a pessimist about this civilization, but he was an optimist about humanity and life and general. There is so much good, fair and generous about humanity. We've become twisted by the devouring greed of elites.
@holsta @impermanen_ @jones
muffa
Unknown parent • • •@jones @cy In his conception, since the bourgeoisie would not hand over power to the working class peacefully and by conviction, and since the eventual conquest of political power by the working class would not result in the immediate disappearance of the bourgeoisie, a transitional phase would be needed in which the working class would have to impose its political will on the capitalist class, precisely a class dictatorship. I would add that for Marx, the Paris Commune of 1871 represented the “finally discovered political form of dictatorship of the proletariat” and the Commune was a much more democratic government than the current ones.
->
muffa
in reply to muffa • • •@jones @cy
Instead, I would like to say something about the main topic of the thread, specifically about what was said in this thread by @gerrymcgovern :
> "Again, we're trying to solve the wrong problem. It's not an energy production problem. It an energy overconsumption problem."
this is completely wrong imho. Over-consumption in capitalism is the consequence, not the cause, of a social system that must constantly and systematically produce ever increasing quantities of goods and capital on pain of crisis.
the environmental crisis can only be tackled and (perhaps) controlled by a drastic contraction of production, but capital needs a constant expansion of production that compensates with the mass of profit for the fall in the average rate of profit.
->
muffa
Unknown parent • • •@jones I don't want to get into a debate about the dictatorship of the proletariat because it would take too long and i don't think social media is appropriate for that. and i also think it's off-topic in relation to this thread.
about Marx i just want to say this.
@cy Marx was not stupid at all and everything can be said except that he was naive about tyrants. He uses the term dictatorship of the proletariat for a reason: all governments and political regimes in all class societies from the ancient Greeks to the present are dictatorships of one class over another, even the present-day democracies.
->
Jones
Unknown parent • • •@cy @gerrymcgovern @muffa
> I thought he was being ironic, calling it a "dictatorship" even though the proletariat are a whole lot of people. He certainly did not call for a dictatorship of the Soviets.
Ok, but this seems very contradictory with what followed...
> Regardless, Marx was kind of stupid and clueless about power politics. He didn't even think that tyrants might just... lie and leech power from the proletariat until they could reinstate tyranny in the proles' name.
So, did he not only use such an ambiguous term as "dictatorship", but also told that tyrants should have ruled?
Cy
in reply to Jones • • •No I mean he didn't know how tyrants worked, since he'd never seen the ways they gain power, especially in colonized lands. He wouldn't have used the word "dictatorship" if he knew how people could be manipulated into submission. It's a joke made in poor taste.
I'm not exactly a Marx scholar though, so maybe he knew those things? I dunno.
Jones
Unknown parent • • •That was not communism; communism is not only equal distribution of "wealth" (with this word i don't refer to money but to basic needs + free time, idleness, mutual care and so on), but also to equal distribution of decisional power, as it seems to me to emerge clearly from "my" proposal.
Jones
Unknown parent • • •@doctor_zoidberg @cy @gerrymcgovern
> It wasn't, but it started with that idea
It didn't start with that idea: Marx wrote of a "dictatorship of proletariat"; he explained that with this expression he was referring to the moment of the revolution, and i don't know if in other texts or speeches he argued that the revolution should be followed by a period of “dictatorship of the proletariat” - i ask this to a friend who knows much more of Marx's thought than me, @muffa
At the very least, however, the expression “dictatorship” was ambiguous enough to make the majority of “communists” fight for it, which then became the dictatorship of the former revolutionaries (mainly from the middle class) and the bureaucrats (mainly from the petty bourgeoisie).
Cy
in reply to Jones • • •I thought he was being ironic, calling it a "dictatorship" even though the proletariat are a whole lot of people. He certainly did not call for a dictatorship of the Soviets. Regardless, Marx was kind of stupid and clueless about power politics. He didn't even think that tyrants might just... lie and leech power from the proletariat until they could reinstate tyranny in the proles' name.
It's like that saying in "Animal Farm" where "All animals are equal" becomes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
CC: @doctorzoidberg@mastodon.social @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green @impermanen@zirk.us @muffa@puntarella.party