[danharaj]

Are we going to ignore the largest carceral state in the world?

We can have a sober criticism of all forms of states and capitalism without insisting on one hand that there are only two possibilities and on the other hand that we must choose one as morally superior.

The imperialist nationalist history of capitalism is more than bloody, blood is what makes the world fertile for capitalism.

I will only briefly mention that leftists have attacked states like the USSR as a form of state capitalism since the days Lenin was still alive. I see little potential in developing this line of thought here.

[uxp100]

You don't want to develop that here, that's ok, but It's worth saying that these were not the most common leftist opinions, and the USSR in particular was popular on the left far longer than was prudent, from a modern perspective. (Not saying I wouldn't have made the same mistake as human alive in the 50s)

[danharaj]

Totally true. My claim is smaller than I made it seem. I don't like Marxism even though I find some of the analytic tools it provides to be very useful. Even so, I have to give it credit that its largest experiments were very popular with a lot of leftists.

[tedks]

Well, the USSR and other similar states funded a lot of leftist groups (and some still do). It's hard to say what's a "common leftist opinion" when you have to discriminate between people who speak honestly about their opinions, people who only echo the democratic centralist tendency of their party, and people who lie about their true values and goals in order to get resources from nation-states.