Can Socialism Happen Peacefully?

Ted argues for a peaceful, negotiated transition and compensation for capitalists to avoid catastrophic outcomes.

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Get access to The Backroom (100+ exclusive episodes) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OneDime

On this episode of 1Dime Radio, I am joined once again by Marxist writer Ted Reese, author of Socialism or Extinction and Abundant Material Wealth For All, for a wide-ranging conversation on AI, automation, capitalist breakdown, Marxism, technology, falling profit rates, monopoly, food, health, and the possibility of socialism in the 21st century.

Ted argues that capitalism is not simply politically or morally bad, but increasingly obsolete on its own economic terms. As automation, AI, and productivity push commodity values down, capitalism responds through monopoly, rent-seeking, militarized technology, state dependency, and new forms of social enclosure. We discuss Henryk Grossman, Marx’s theory of capitalist breakdown, whether AI makes Marxism more relevant or obsolete, why the left should not become anti-technology, and whether socialism could emerge through a more peaceful transition rather than a romanticized fantasy of violent revolution.

In the Backroom episode on Patreon, Ted and I continue the conversation with a debate on immigration. I challenge the standard Marxist perspective on migration and argue that mass migration under capitalism is not a path toward international socialism, but a system tied to global capital mobility, labor discipline, brain drain, and the weakening of working-class political organization. We debate whether the current migration regime brings us closer to socialism or further away from it.

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