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Yeah that makes a lot of sense and I'm mainly asking this question and discussing in this comment section to try fix this exact blindspot you mention (at least somewhat) and I also get to practice my english which is a bonus.
A terrifying amount of people are just allergic to books or doing any analysis on anything deemed bad by the liberal system.
The risks you list make sense but when I say materially tied to the empire I'm talking more along the lines of the imperial core is a majority labor aristocracy who enjoy their treats which are propped up by the super exploitation of the global south. I believe the online ML term is treatlerites.
While the fact it's systemic is in my opinion self evident, different people of different backgrounds, especially those more intimately in contact with said system I believe might have new/interesting/unique interpretations for how these superstructures interact in this particular case of the "leftist" (白左）and how exactly it feeds back into itself. As I said my exposure to liberals is basically entirely online thanks to my location so I'm not as intimately familiar with them and how exactly they interact with the empires systems as someone who grew up alongside them. On that point the second part of your comment is exactly what I mean.
That makes sense I especially like the callback to the hippie movement I feel that's a good parallel of the modern vibes based "leftist". However at the same time I wonder about the role of systemic forces such as the fact that liberalism is the dominant ideology in the empire which the "leftists" are materially tied to which leads them to only engaging with any politics outside of the liberal "common sense" in an aesthetic capacity as any real engagement would have real material consequences.
However unfortunate tho typical it may be that most of the rest of the internet is generally only home to different flavors of "anarchist" .
I look forward to interacting with the real deal!
Very insightful thank you.
That was a very interesting read.
The idea of positive and negative cultural hegemony is very interesting. Also the contrast between the neoliberal end of history vs the communist urge to strive for more is something anyone can see. Great recommendation thank you.
Also obligatory anarchists and books mentioned in the same sentence
Thank you for the welcome
I think your points about image and moral signaling make a lot of sense.
Do you think part of this might also be structural, not just psychological? For example, their material position in the imperial core gives them a real incentive to avoid disrupting the system that benefits them. And combined with the way liberalism is taught and normalized, it almost becomes common sense, so many of these 白左 might not even fully realize the limits of their own worldview.
Could it be that their focus on image is reinforced not just by ego-protection, but by these broader systemic pressures?
I think what you’re saying makes a lot of sense, especially regarding ignorance and self-denial.
But do you think there’s also a structural cause beyond individual misunderstanding, particularly liberal hegemony in the imperial core?
For example, I recently tried having a conversation with a Polish “anarchist” who openly exalted social democracy and the "Nordic Model", treated Poland’s rising living standards after EU integration as caused by democracy winning over authoritarianism(?), and completely rejected the idea that social democracy and his treats were made possible only through the super-exploitation of the global south. The moment AES states or NATO were mentioned, he defaulted to the usual anti-communist, NATO-aligned talking points, very typical 白左 chauvinism, despite the anarchist label.
In cases like that, it feels less like incomplete political development and more like the material position of imperial-bloc citizens setting hard limits on how far their politics can actually go.
Do you think this tendency to “cosplay” leftist identities is partly produced by those structural incentives, not just ignorance, but the fact that liberalism functions as the ideological common sense of empire?
Sorry for the wall of text.
白左 are unfortunately typical.
Ask Lemmygrad @lemmygrad.ml Do liberals adopt leftist personas to avoid confronting the consequences of liberalism?
askchapo @hexbear.net Do liberals adopt leftist personas to avoid confronting the consequences of liberalism?
I’m going to try to reset the tone and be clearer and without escalating this further.
I don’t support the Russian state, its oligarchs, or its internal politics. I’m Chinese, and my position is not based on liking or defending Russia. The issue is methodological. Disliking a government does not mean we can abandon serious analysis and replace it with moral labeling. Saying “this state is bad” is not the same thing as explaining how global power actually works.
I accept that I responded sharply at points. That said, the conversation deteriorated because any structural analysis I raised was immediately treated as propaganda or bootlicking. That reaction reflects a very common Western tendency to view people from the periphery as illegitimate speakers unless we repeat liberal conclusions. That dynamic matters, because it shuts down discussion before it even begins.
On China specifically: calling it “state capitalism” as a dismissal misunderstands Marxist theory. Lenin was explicit that state capitalism under proletarian political control is a necessary transitional stage in underdeveloped conditions. China has contradictions and real internal problems, but those are not the subject here. The discussion began with your claim that Russia is responsible for the rise of European fascism. Constantly shifting the debate to China avoids addressing that claim directly.
Imperialism is not defined simply by warfare, territorial disputes, or influence. It is a system of global capital accumulation based on monopoly finance, reserve currency power, control of trade routes, sanctions, debt regimes, and international institutions. The US, EU, NATO, and Five Eyes bloc dominate these structures. They can impose structural adjustment, control global payments, freeze assets worldwide, and extract surplus value permanently from the periphery. Russia and China cannot do this. They do not control the IMF, World Bank, SWIFT, global shipping insurance, or the world’s reserve currency. This is a structural distinction, not a moral defense of any state.
Yes, Russia operates regionally. Yes, it funds political actors abroad. That is not disputed. What is disputed is causality. Fascism does not originate from foreign funding. It arises from capitalist crisis. Austerity, privatization, labor precarity, housing collapse, and the betrayal of social democracy create the mass base for reaction. External funding can intensify these contradictions, but it cannot create them. Fuel is not the same thing as ignition.
If foreign money were the cause, Europe would not have produced fascist movements long before Putin, long before modern Russia, and long before 2014. European fascism is not imported. It is homegrown, rooted in European capitalism itself.
I will reiterate our disagreement is therefore not about whether Russia engages in harmful behavior which was never in question. It is about analytical framework. You approach politics through liberal moral reasoning focused on bad actors and state behavior. I approach it through dialectical materialism, focusing on systems, class relations, and global hierarchy.
That is the core issue.
Your response perfectly demonstrates why this conversation is going nowhere. You are arguing in bad faith, constantly negging, and acting like European chauvinist intellectual royalty while showing a complete lack of understanding of imperialism, class, or political economy. You misrepresent my arguments at every turn, expand the scope endlessly to avoid engaging the core issues, and reduce structural analysis to moral outrage and citations.
You insist that Russian funding of far-right groups “proves” something, but you cannot distinguish secondary influence from primary causation. Fascism did not emerge because Russia wrote checks; it emerges from capitalist crisis, austerity, precarity, and social-democratic betrayal. You treat explanation as denial and causation as endorsement, which is a methodological failure, not a factual dispute. Providing links and photos does not replace analysis. Your reliance on these citations shows you mistake evidence for explanation.
Your definition of imperialism is liberal and superficial. Quoting Britannica and reducing it to military aggression, territorial expansion, or cultural influence completely misses the Marxist point: imperialism is structural, rooted in finance, unequal exchange, debt, and institutional control. Russia may act regionally, but it does not control global finance, the reserve currency, or systemic mechanisms of exploitation. Flattening all actors into moral equivalence erases hierarchy and avoids engaging the real causes of global inequality.
You also misinterpret Eastern Europe’s relative growth as a result of democracy or labor law respect, ignoring the fact that integration into EU labor chains relies on exploitation elsewhere Africa, Latin America, and the periphery pay the cost. You conflate comparative development with justice or institutional success. Similarly, expanding the discussion to China, NATO, the USSR, or historical 1939 events is a constant red herring designed to distract from the structural argument about capitalism, class, and imperialism.
You personalize structural phenomena, calling out oligarchs and naming small groups while refusing to address the system that produces them. You repeatedly accuse me of lying, being ad personam, or defending Russia, which is projection. You are emotionally anti-imperialist but analytically liberal: you moralize actors and events while refusing to analyze class relations, capital accumulation, and systemic causation. That is why your arguments collapse into moral equivalence, citation lists, and endless historical trivia.
A third party reading this should understand the real divide here: I explain why crises, fascism, and reaction emerge from capitalism itself. You obsess over who is bad and who “funded” what, never grappling with the system that shapes outcomes. That is the fundamental difference between liberal moralism and dialectical materialism, and until that is acknowledged, no amount of links, indignation, or historical examples will get beyond talking past each other.
This reply perfectly demonstrates the problem. You do not actually understand imperialism, so every time the argument moves into political economy you retreat into vibes, NGO articles, and moral equivalence.
You keep flooding links about Russia funding far-right groups as if anyone denied that. No one did. The point you keep dodging is causality. Funding does not create fascism. It exploits conditions that already exist. Capitalist crisis creates fascism. Foreign money only rides the wave. You are confusing acceleration with origin.
If Russian money alone created fascism, then far-right movements would not have existed before 2014. They did. They existed long before Putin was president. They surged hardest after austerity, privatization, housing collapse, labor precarity, and social-democratic betrayal. That is material causation. Your articles do not refute that.
What you are doing is substituting investigation with courtroom rhetoric. “Here are some links” is not analysis.
You still do not understand what imperialism is.
Imperialism is not “any country with power.” It is a system of global capital accumulation where monopoly finance capital extracts surplus value from the periphery through unequal exchange, debt regimes, trade control, sanctions, and military enforcement. Lenin defined this over 100 years ago. Russia does not control global finance, shipping lanes, reserve currency, payment systems, or international lending institutions. The US and EU do.
That is why Russia can act regionally but not systemically.
That is why Russia cannot impose structural adjustment on Africa or Latin America.
That is why Russia cannot sanction half the planet.
That is why Russia cannot print the world’s money.
Calling every state “equally imperialist” is not anti-imperialism. It is analytical laziness that flattens reality until power disappears.
You accuse me of “skipping” China and the USSR in Africa. Again, you do not understand exploitation. Building infrastructure, providing loans without regime change, and exchanging commodities is not the same as imperial extraction. Unequal exchange means extracting surplus value through pricing power and financial domination. China gains commodities. The West gains permanent dependency. These are not the same relationships.
You keep repeating that Eastern Europe is richer now. Yes. Because you became part of the imperial core’s labor chain. Cheap labor, subcontracting, offshoring, and EU capital inflows integrated Poland upward while Africa and Latin America were pushed further down. Someone always pays. Your growth did not come from “democracy.” It came from position in the global hierarchy.
That is exactly what you refuse to confront.
You talk endlessly about oligarchs but refuse to name the system that produces them. Oligarchy is not a personality defect. It is the inevitable outcome of capital accumulation. That is why oligarchs exist everywhere capitalism exists, including Norway, including Germany, including the US.
Calling China “state capitalism” while praising Nordic capitalism just reveals which ruling class you emotionally trust.
Your hatred of “authoritarianism” is not political. It is aesthetic. You dislike governments that look rough while tolerating governments that politely manage exploitation.
You claim social democracy is closer to socialism. This is historically false. Social democracy preserved capitalism by pacifying labor while imperial extraction funded concessions. When that extraction weakened, social democracy collapsed and immediately shifted right. That is not socialism in transition. That is capitalism in disguise.
This is why social democrats sided with fascists against communists in Germany. This is why they crushed revolutionary workers repeatedly. This is why they manage austerity today. Not accident. Function.
You keep shouting “strawman” because you cannot answer structure with intention. Materialism does not care what you personally support. It examines what systems do.
You are emotionally anti-imperialist but analytically liberal.
You oppose empire morally while repeating its framework intellectually.
You believe imperialism is bad but refuse to analyze who runs the world economy.
You want socialism but reject every historical attempt because it was “authoritarian,” while defending systems that kill millions quietly through debt, sanctions, poverty, and privatized healthcare.
That contradiction is not incidental. It is social-democratic ideology.
You are angry at capitalism’s outcomes while defending its global architecture.
Until you stop replacing class relations with morality and geopolitics with headlines, you will keep mistaking symptoms for causes.
That is why you think Russia explains fascism.
It does not.
Capitalism does.
You are a child who lacks any understanding of the world beyond vibes if you don't want to be called a liberal try moving beyond being one first before throwing a tantrum at it being pointed out.
I took some time to cool down despite your smug arrogance really pushing my buttons and realized something. We are approaching this from completely different frameworks. You are arguing from a liberal moral viewpoint that looks for bad actors, foreign interference, and individual state behavior. I am using a dialectical materialist analysis that looks at systems, class relations, and material causation. You focus on who funds what; I focus on why those movements gain mass support in the first place. You treat propaganda and foreign money as the source of fascism, while I see them as secondary factors that exploit conditions created by capitalist crisis. You define imperialism as any powerful country acting aggressively; I define it as a structured system of global capital domination based on finance control, unequal exchange, debt, and institutions. Because of this, you reduce politics to morality and geopolitics, while I analyze political economy and class power. Until that difference is acknowledged, we are not disagreeing on facts but talking past each other.
Most of the ruling class in Europe is so embedded in the US order that any change that occurs will never be of their accord or led by them.
Agree to disagree on chicken breast, chicken thigh is what you want for chicken anything basically imo.
Yeah as I said steak is not bad I just don't really understand why so many people seem to idolize it in the way they do. Maybe my tastebuds are too Chinese pilled for steak.
I love beef and pork skewers but to me xinjiang lamb skewers are the king of skewers.