/lit/ - Literature

can you be more specific about what you mean about political science? do you mean the modern academic discipline? or do you just mean politics generally?

how come every Machiavelli fan I know is a narcissistic and egotistical asshole? like literally every single one.
can someone explain this?

>>18771379
I mean the modern academic discipline

>>18771414
I like machiavelli but I think I'm overall a pretty nice guy. How many have you met?

>>18771285
>Political "Science"

Yeah reach into your toilet bowl and grab a piece of shit. Read whatever you want into the lines and contortions of the fecal matter.

It will still be more valuable than any book.

>>18771285
The Republic

>>18771285
Hobbes, Leviathan
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy and The Prince
Schmidt, The Concept of the Political
Schumpeter, Can Capitalism Survive?
de Jouvenel, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth
Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy

IDK needs some Liberal and Marxist foudational texts.

>>18771285
>politics
Literally antithetical to the Good Life.

>>18771951
Epicirus more like epicuckrus

>>18771960
Can't be cucked if you cut off your dick because it's not necessary for life or happiness. Checkmate natalist and politicsfags.

Any suggestions for ‘CRT’ related stuff?

>>18771510
By no means a 'canon' of political science, or exhaustive, just some modern classics. Mostly scattershot, probably over-emphasising some areas and under-emphasising others. I'm sure there is plenty missing too. Political science as a disciple is so varied and disorganised that it is difficult to do anything more. Just look up the books and see if the book/topic interests you.
Some oft-cited historical works:
>Politics - Aristotle
>The Prince - Machiavelli
>Leviathan - Hobbes
>Perpetual Peace - Kant
>Politics as Vocation - Weber
Some 'modern classics':
>The Third Wave - Huntington
>Making Democracy Work - Putnam
>Political Order in Changing Societies - Huntington
>A Preface to Democratic Theory - Dahl
>Who Governs? - Dahl
>Imagined Communities - Anderson
>Nations and Nationalism - Gellner
>States and Social Revolutions - Skocpol
>Bureaucracy - Wilson
>An Economic Theory of Democracy - Downs
>The Logic of Collective Action - Olson
>Patterns of Democracy - Lijphart
>Political Parties - Duverger
>Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - Kingdon
>Street Level Bureaucracy - Lipsky
>Essence of Decision - Allison
>Seeing Like a State - Scott
>Power in Movement - Tarrow
IR:
>Politics Among Nations - Morgenthau
>A Theory of International Politics - Waltz
>Soft Power - Nye
>After Hegemony - Keohane
>A Social Theory of International Politics - Wendt
Meme books:
>The End of History - Fukuyama
>The Clash of Civilisations - Huntington
Some 'classic' papers:
>'Two Faces of Power' - Bachrach
>'The Science of Muddling Through' - Lindblohm
>'A Garbage Can Model of Organisational Decision Making' - Cohen
>'The Tragedy of the Commons' - Hardin
>'Diplomacy and Domestic Politics' - Putnam
>'The Agenda Setting Function of Mass Media' - McCombs
>'Social Mobilisation and Political Development' - Deutsch
>'Some Social Requisites of Democracy' - Lipset
>'Citizenship and Social Class' - Marshall
>'Anarchy is what States Make of it' - Wendt
>'The False Promise of International Institutions' - Mearsheimer
>'Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State' - Hall
>'Effective” number of parties' - Laasko
>'The new institutionalism' - March
>'Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development' - Olson

>>18771928
>>18772315
Thank you very much bros

>>18772396
To add to the Kant suggestion here>>18772315
Fichte - Foundations of Natural Right, The Closed Commercial State, Addresses to the German Nation
Hegel - Elements of the Philosophy of Right

>>18771414
how many machiavelli fans do you know who have actually read him other than excerpts of the prince from college? discourse on livy and the history of the florentine republic shatter the image of the cutthroat trickster and reveal a man of overwhelming passion for his home, one who loved florence more than his own soul

>>18771560
And what of it have you read?

>>18772291
CRT?

>>18771285
Anything written by Hitler or his party basically tells you who runs the show

>>18772315
what about leo strauss? he seems important

The /lit/ philosophy project has a section on political philosophy
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/edit

>>18771285
>>18771928
>>18772315
These look like some good suggestions a few extra foundational tests would be:

The Republic, The Laws, Plato
The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx
A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke
On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

I would also highly recommend The Centrality of the Regime for Political Science by Clifford Bates but you should read Aritotle's Politics first.

>>18771285
The 3 big boys of the 90s

Kissinger - Diplomacy
Fukuyama - End of History and the last man
Clash of Civilizations by Huntington
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Anything by Max Weber.

From there you are set to go into political philosophy and any part of political science.

bump

>>18773542
Strauss isn't a political scientist. He also isn't that important.

>>18771285
>Read The Prince
>Read Leviathan
Done. Everything else is obsolete after you read Leviathan

>>18771285
Start with François Fénelon

>>18772002
Kek. Based.

you should also read "how to win an election" by cicero's brother

>>18773542
Ignore the animeposter. Strauss was very important, and many of his followers are in political science departments. Check out the following:
Leo Strauss, On Tyranny
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History
Leo Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Philosophy
What is Political Philosophy? And Other Essays
Six Essays on Political Philosophy
Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli
You can find the transcripts and audio for the courses he taught at UChicago here as well: https://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/audio-transcripts/courses-audio-transcripts/

>>18771533
i probably know around 5 people who really like Machiavelli
>>18772763
see thats the thing. all of them have only read the prince

>>18771414
He is beloved by ladder-climbing middle-managers. Like Sun Tzu

>>18771510
maybe try a textbook or something

>>18771285
I really like Aristotle, start with politics and maybe Nicomachean ethics after. Hobbes is fine, and definitely Schmitt

>>18772315
no Schmitt?

>>18771928
>Liberal and Marxist foudational texts.
kinda vague. any suggestions?

>>18774491
Leviathan is kino

>>18773469
critical race theory

Thanks for the suggestions

>>18771285
Mearshimer is good for IR

>>18778287
But it’s WRONG

>>18772291
you mean HRT? just google good transition therapists in your area girl!

>>18778117
No

>>18774491
>hey yo let me build this abstract world of what things were like for people before the state

Already anthropologically disproven.

>>18779122
>anthropology

Nice try

>>18779262
Archeologically disproven as well

In no particular order, just read what looks interesting.

Short History of Man: Progress and Decline by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by James A. Robinson
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell
Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop
Sovereignty: An Inquiry Into the Political Good by Bertrand de Jouvenel
The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boetie
Freedom and the Law by Bruno Leoni
Justice and Its Surroundings by Anthony De Jasay
The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages by Tom Bethell
Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
History of Political Philosophy by Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey
Intellectuals and Society: Revised and Expanded Edition by Thomas Sowell
Legitimacy Of The Modern Age by Hans Blumenberg
Christianity and Democracy: The Rights of Man and Natural Law by Jacques Maritain
The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past by Keith Windschuttle
The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically by Franz Oppenheimer
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer
Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism by A. James Gregor
Heaven On Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik
The Politics of Unemployment by Hans F. Sennholz
Why Peace by Marc Guttman
Democracy - The God That Failed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan
The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality by Adam Perkins
The Ethics of Redistribution by Bertrand de Jouvenel
Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity by Robert Higgs
The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William Easterly
Where Keynes Went Wrong: And Why World Governments Keep Creating Inflation, Bubbles, and Busts by Hunter Lewis
A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market by Wilhelm Roepke

I'd avoid Hobbes, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Marx, Plato, Locke, Weber until you get through that. Their ideas were 'new' for their time but have been refuted or expanded on so much they've been discarded. They're interesting for contrasting if you want to see how the ideas evolve so a historical perspective on the evolution of political thought.

Don't start with the Greeks. Start with the Moderns, and read backwards.

Political theory, as we understand it today, is a discipline that emerges as a consequence of the development of the bourgeois revolution and subsequent industrialization. The bourgeois revolution - modernity - completely ruptured all prior social existences, and redefined those relations through its own self understanding of its coming-into-being. The development of politics and society CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD through the coming to existence of bourgeois civilization. The industrial revolution placed this understanding into crisis, by subordinating freedom - the perfectibility of the individual - to capital.

To summarize this development: For Rousseau, the development of savagery to barbarism to civilization (reinterpreted by Engels via Morgen as 'modes of production') is oriented by how we relate to ourselves as savages (individuals endowed with natural liberty) and barbarians (decadents subsumed under the bondage of oppressive and obsolescent social relations) to civilization (freedom of the individual through the social contract). For Marx to grapple history as a succession of modes of production was only ever possible in the epoch of advanced industrial production, where the supposed restoration of natural liberty - savagery - instead of enshrining the individual, subordinates his perfectibility - his freedom - (via the division of labor) to the external impulses of the expansion of capital.

Because we can only ever understand our present though the inheritance of the past, this restoration of natural liberty through the erection of modern civil government necessarily appears as a survival of backwardness, of a new barbarism rather than the advent of a new epoch of freedom. The problem is that the past we evoke is completely lost to us, and can only be understood through our own bourgeois conditions of life - of our freedom as subjects of bourgeois modernity - which means therefore that this 'barbarism' is distinctly modern. In other words, freedom becoming and creating its opposite. However, we can only rely on our memories of the past, which means we must simultaneously understand our ideas in the terms of the old, in spite of the fact that the conditions in which these ideas emerge from are actually new.

Both the medieval and early modern thinkers understood themselves through an interpretation of ancient philosophy. However, with the early modern period, we have a rupture of all medieval conditions of existence and their supersession by bourgeois social relations, so that the rebirth/restoration/renaissance of antiquity (both in the terms of philosophy and religion) was actually a fundamental reinterpretation that actually redefined the very terms in which the ancients could be understood. However, they nonetheless understood this transformation in the formal terms, albeit with novel contents, of the very past that they were liquidating.

>>18779086
You still have dreadful taste in waifus btw.

In short, we have to do three things:
>Relate how we understand ourselves as subjects of industrialized capitalism to classical bourgeois political theory
>Relate how the classical bourgeois political theorists related themselves to medieval political theory
>And then relate ourselves to both, since we are still defined through bourgeois ideology, in spite the fact that we live in the aftermath of the bourgeois revolutions. AND the medieval world is completely lost to us, in spite the fact that the bourgeois revolutions, and subsequent ideology of our time were defined through its liquidation

I recommend, as a start:
>Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
NOT for the demagoguery, but for how it points to the crisis of civilization, as a way of orienting how we understand 'barbarism'; the inheritance of the premodern into the modern
>What is the Third Estate? - the Abbé Sieyès
>Liberty of the Moderns as Opposed to the Ancients - Benjamin Constant
Both the Ancien Régime and the Republic of Virtue were consciously modelled after classical Greek philosophy, but were glaring anachronisms in contrast to existing conditions of the time. Constant and Sieyès are incredibly valuable at laying bare the relationship between the modern and the medieval through the inheritance of antiquity.
>Second Treatise on Government - Locke
>Discourse on Inequality; and the Social Contract - Rousseau
The absolute fundamentals of political theory. Read Locke and Rousseau, then reread them, and then prostrate yourself to them, then cry to yourself like Kant did that you will never be as smart as them.
>the Republic, the Statesman, the Laws - Plato
>the Nicomachean Ethics, the Politics - Aristotle
>Prince; Discourses on Livy - Machiavelli
>Spirit of the Laws - Montesquieu
Machiavelli fits the gap between ancient and modern political philosophy.
The Discourses are essential at grasping the development of modern republicanism in the prevalent conditions of feudalism. I also don't think Montesquieu can be understood properly without reference to Machiavelli, Aristotle, and Plato; but also can't be fully appreciated without how Locke and Rousseau lay bare the dawning of bourgeois freedom.
(I didn't include Hobbes and Hume, in spite of their importance, because they require a background on natural philosophy that can muddy the waters if the historical political background doesn't contextualize the ideas. Same goes for understanding the political content of Plato and Aristotle's physics and metaphysics.)

By historical political background, I mean the grander historiciziation of civilization as the dawning of freedom in the bourgeois epoch against all conditions of life that existed prior, and its subsequent crisis in industrial capitalism

The political importance of: the metaphyics of Being in Aristotle, the metaphyiscs of motion in Aristotle in contrast to Newton, the 'materialism' of the pre-Socratics as opposed to the 'idealism' of Plato, and so on and so on, are only relevant when compared to how we understand the relationship between philosophy and politics, to how historically philosophers embodied the cultural affinities of their time in their philosophies, which in turn negatively exposes something about us more than them

anyone serious about political theory should just read a list of laws

>>18779567
Your advice is fucking bullshit, because every single author you reference rests their ideas upon the foundations established by the classics.

The 'ideas' of the classics have not been 'refuted', we simply live in different times, different conditions, and therefore require an orientation towards their ideas that attempt to bridge the gap. The criticism of their original principles and respective categories is actually a criticism of changed possibilities, of trying to orient ourselves in the present to what is possible politically in respect to how we envision society.

The only way to proceed to practical solutions for us now is by situating our understanding historically, and that requires harboring a deep respect and sustained engagement with the classics.

Oh and by medieval, I don't mean Augustine of Hippo, though he's good to read in between Aristotle and Machiavelli since that's the vision of the ideal polis which Machiavelli rejects
(btw Aquinas is only relevant when he's rediscovered in the 19th century Christian revival)

By 'medieval political theory', I mean how the medievals understood the ancients, or rather how the bourgeoisie understood how they thought the medievals understood the ancients. And by that, I just mean feudalism, which was a category of disparagement to describe what the radicals thought was backwards.

>>18779795
>the bourgeoisie
oh no.... they are rich.... that means they are wrong about everything

>>18772763
>discourse on livy and the history of the florentine republic shatter the image of the cutthroat trickster and reveal a man of overwhelming passion for his home, one who loved florence more than his own soul
Based. The Discourses are wonderful. I recommend them frequently to people familiar only with the Prince; just reading the dedications of the two is enough to get me choked up some times at how much Machiavelli's thoughts evolved.

Also, the Mandrake Root is quite funny.

>>18779810
Originally, the term 'bourgeoisie' etymologically referred to burghers, those that lived in chartered towns reserved for market exchange. Legally, in the middle ages, the burghers came to encompass not just urban artisans - tended to own little more than the tools of their trade - but also proprietors, owners of property privately, or apart from, the princely estate.

What's important about the "bourgeoisie" is that as labor becomes exchangeable as private property, the privileges traditionally reserved for those of a certain amount of wealth as a consequence of the ownership of property could now be asserted for everyone who sold their labor for a wage.

So... "proletarians" - wage-laborers - are bourgeois, and the terms in which they assert their rights as laborers, they do so as proprietors of labor. As bourgeoisie!

The problem is that, in advanced industrial production, the development of the division of labor, instead of creating more jobs and raising wages, does the opposite of that; as property in production is divided into, on one hand, the wage-labor of the proletarian, and on the other, the means of production of the the capitalist. Wealth inequality isn't the problem, but rather the consequence, of the separation of bourgeois and proletarian, which is more than the division between wage-laborer and capitalism, but the contradiction wherein the very rights that protect workers also enables their exploitation.

For Marx, something more is needed than bourgeois right - and that's where the critical concept of the proletariat emerged; not as the most oppressed class, but rather as the class that embodied how the industrial revolution ruptured the very premises of modern freedom. Whether or not Marx was right or wrong in his prescriptions is ultimately secondary to the reality he aspired to reveal: the crisis of civilization, which continues to haunt us to this day.

>>18779895
blah blah blah. 3 paragraphs of etymology, 2 of historiography, but not one actual suggestion or criticism

>>18779914
>not one actual suggestion or criticism
Yes, because my goal in that post was to clear misconceptions, not to provide solutions. This a recommendation thread, not /pol/.
I proposed only a single suggestion: take Marx seriously! Don't simply treat him as a Communist demagogue. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the 19th century.

>>18778109
I'd suggest reading Nicomachean Ethics first, then Politics.

Plato - The Republic
Plato - The Gorgias
Aristotle - The Ethics
Aristotle - The Politics
Cicero - On Laws
Cicero - On Duties
Augustine - City of God
Aquinas - Summa Theologiae (selections)
Machiavelli - The Prince
Machiavelli - Discourses on Livy
Hobbes - Leviathan
Locke - Treatises on Government
Rousseau - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws
Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson - The Federalist Papers
Smith - The Wealth of Nations
Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France
Tocqueville - Democracy in America
Tocqueville - The Old Regime and the Revolution
Marx, Engels - The Communist Manifesto
Strauss - Natural Right and History

Plato - The Republic
Plato - The Gorgias
Aristotle - The Ethics
Aristotle - The Politics
Cicero - On Laws
Cicero - On Duties
Augustine - City of God
Aquinas - Summa Theologiae (selections)
Machiavelli - The Prince
Machiavelli - Discourses on Livy
Hobbes - Leviathan
Locke - Treatises on Government
Rousseau - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws
Paine - Common Sense
Hamilton, Madison, Jay - The Federalist Papers
Smith - The Wealth of Nations
Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France
Tocqueville - Democracy in America
Tocqueville - The Old Regime and the Revolution
Marx, Engels - The Communist Manifesto
Strauss - Natural Right and History

>>18771285
All you need to know is that "War is the continuation of politics by other means."
It's no science, it's chimpanzees pissing around.

>>18779724
>Refutation is when I read the books too

>>18779895
1. Labor isn't property it's action
2. Marx was an antisemite and considered the bourgeoisie synonomous with jews
3. Industrialisation creates more jobs not less
4. Wage suppression is caused by socialist policies (deficit spending, central banks, etc)
5. Private property is controlled by the state (monopoly) and artificially (both intentionally and unintentionally) raises the price
6. Capitalism is private property ownership
7. Marx operated on the flawed view of labor theory of value which is refuted by Mergers subjective theory of value.

>>18780147
>1
Work is the metabolic between the wealth of nature and social wealth. All civilizations have had work, productive activity, but labor specifically refers to the bourgeois relation of work; which is bound up with private property, market competition, and universal exchange. Look at any labor contract: it's treated as private property. Historically, labor as property was incredibly important -- and remains so!
>2
That's blatantly incorrect. Marx viewed medieval Judaism and medieval Christianity as losing their respective social character, its content surviving in secular terms into the 'materialism of civil society' and the 'idealism of the political state'. Judaism had become Christian and Christianity had become Jewish in that their social character under feudalism had been liquidated into the private beliefs of individuals under civil society rather than cosmologies of separate spheres of being.
>3
The expansion of the division labor created new industries while also replacing workers with machinery, the latter of which Adam Smith could not have predicted because in his time most capital investments were into expanding labor and not machinery. For Smith, wage-labor was capital rather than a moment in capital's reproduction.
>4
Whenever Marx supported any policy, he didn't because it would supposedly provided an immediate solution to society's ills, and not because it ameliorated the condition of the poor, but that it may make more apparent the underlying social contradictions, or in other words, the respective potential unleashed by capital.
For example, socialization is the agglomeration of individual proprietorships into organized corporate conglomerates, which by its own existence undermines bourgeois property by its own immanent logic towards monopolization. Nationalization into state monopolies was only, for Marx, the quickest way to speed up socialization. Whether or not Marx was right or wrong in expecting socialization to unleash capital while also going beyond capitalism is not the point; the point is that the premises on which civilization is supposed to rest upon have been thrown into crisis by the mere fact that socialization, as one phenomenon of many, exists as an emergent self-undermining tendency.
>5
What does that even mean?
>6
Nope, politically, capitalism is the contradictory expression of bourgeois social relations, which include private property. For example, the rights of workers are rights expressed through private property, that come into conflict with the property rights of the capitalist.
>7
Marx was engaged with a critique of value, wherein labor became superfluous by capitalism, that the premises of civilization affirmed by Locke had in fact been undermined by its own self-development. So of course economists would eventually abandon the LTV! The disconnect of property from its premises in labor IS capitalism.

>>18780088
I think you got it the wrong way round. If politics is war by other means, then we would just be chimps peeing on each other. If war is politics by other means, then that just entails that the goals of war should be understood politically rather than militarily. That doesn’t answer what politics is all about, only that is sometimes involves committing mass murder.

>>18780340
>1
Labor is not scarce or tangible. It's purely action. It is not private property no matter who/what considers it to be so.
>2
Your word salad means nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZh01xRO_Qg
>3
Wrong again, since you clearly are committed to these irrational and incorrect beliefs
https://mises.org/wire/trumps-maoist-steel-obsession
https://mises.org/wire/why-robots-wont-cause-mass-unemployment
https://mises.org/wire/no-robots-wont-make-us-all-unemployed
>4
Marx was working on faulty assumptions and ideas, whatever he proposed in order to achieve is fundamentally wrong. Marx wants totalitarianism to achieve freedom, it's fucking retarded anyone can see that you don't need to become a slave in order to achieve 'utopia'. Marx is either a liar, and promoted ideas that furthered totalitarianism or incompetent unable to recognise how and why he was wrong.
>5
I'm addressing your point on why there is great wealth disparities in society (it's because of socialism).
>6
No, Marx even defines capitalism as private ownership of the means of production. Since anyone can produce anything they value, capitalism is private property ownership. There is no conflict in a voluntary relationship, workers are not 'forced' to work for a 'boss', what Marx thought he saw wasn't actually what was happening. Probably because he never worked.
>7
Another faulty assumption, labor is not property, it fulfils none of the properties or prerequisites to be property as I mentioned in my first point.

>>18780434
Well, an another definition is that you can achieve your goals either by voluntary agreements or by political means. Politics means coercion and duress. Like the "trade" carried on by some colonial companies - it was being made under the cannons' barrels; it was really politics, not trade.
They're trying to raise plunder to the status of science.

>>18779122
>the war of all against all doesn't exis-

>>18779122
seethe

>>18778222
NTA but obviously Capital is a must-read. I'm 2/3rds through vol 2 at the moment. these two are useful reading before tackling Capital, about 30 pages each, summarizing Marx' views on political economy:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/
I also hear Grundrisse is good, but I haven't read it. I also recommend Critique of the Gotha Programme, which is only like 20 pages:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/

>>18780147
>2. Marx was an antisemite and considered the bourgeoisie synonomous with jews
you're thinking of Bakunin. Marx was a jew
>7. Marx operated on the flawed view of labor theory of value which is refuted by Mergers subjective theory of value.
STV is unscientific, idealist garbage. pic related

To add this all these i'd also recommend Luebbert's Democracy, Fascism, or Social Democracy

>>18781011
>that image

Oof.

this thread went to shit

>>18781011
wordswordswordswordswords

>>18779273
What? We have many skulls with marks of violent deaths.

>>18780958
Great recommendation, eager to read it. Thanks anon.

>>18781176
words? on /lit/? it's more likely than you think

I want a list of best cunny novels

>>18781011
Diamond-water paradox, there's so much written blowing you the fuck out. Labor theory of value doesn't hold

>>18781214
>Diamond-water paradox
funny that you should take a "paradox" that supports LTV as an example. the absolute state of marginalists. tell me, where do equilibrium prices come from?

>>18781011
Capital is a must read like the very hungry caterpillar is a must read, when you're 3

>>18781228
Equilibrium is a constructed state, it's never actually achieved. Market clearance is due to supply and demand.

>>18781228
Diamond found on the ground is more valuable than water even though water is essential for life and a rock is meaningless/no labor involved yet the diamond is more valuable? Yeah totally supports your shit idea

>>18781235
t. theorylet

>>18781247
>Equilibrium is a constructed state, it's never actually achieved
that may well be, but this still doesn't explain where prices come from
>Market clearance is due to supply and demand
no shit

>>18781272
you finding a diamond on the ground has nothing to do with how diamonds are actually produced. you're describing a situation in which LTV does not apply. if everyone suddenly found diamonds on the ground all the time then the value of diamonds, and therefore their price, would quickly collapse

>>18781292
>where prices come from
Prices are people communicating tacit knowledge, market is a discovery process governed by profit and loss which rely on supply and demand. People conduct mutually beneficial trade of goods and services. Equilibrium prices are an abstraction, buyers and sellers have access to some prices of other buyers and sellers, people adjust based on information provided by all other individuals participating in exchange. That's why prices tend towards market clearing prices, there is no 'equilibrium price'. The market is a discovery process that reveals the decentralized knowledge of individuals, without the market the information of goods and services is not communicated.

>>18781292
You clearly don't understand the diamond-water paradox fucking retard. Is digging a hole more valuable than water because you spent more labor digging a hole?

>>18781335
Based

>>18777464
most books have text wdym

>>18781335
>Prices are people communicating tacit knowledge
no they are not. prices are prices
>without the market the information of goods and services is not communicated
people communicate information of goods and services all the time, through mechanisms separate from the market. for example via email, websites and so on. supply is most often communicated this way. for example the supply of semiconductors is currently low, and this is communicated by lead times on distributors like digikey. not through any price mechanism

>>18781341
>le mudpie argument
literally addressed on page 1 of Capital, idiot. I suggest you read what you are trying to critique before you make even more of a fool of yourself. LTV perfectly explains why 1 kg of diamonds cost more than 1 kg of water. it is because making diamonds requires more socially necessary labour time than producing potable water does.

>>18781407
Do you think a man in a desert who hasn't had water for 3 days would take the more valuable 1kg of diamonds or the less valuable 1kg of water? If he takes the water, why? According to you, he will take the diamonds and most likely die. Maybe because he was a Marxist and knew the labor theory of value really well.

>>18781407
Prices are people communicating the scarcity of goods or services. A high price attracts entrepreneurs to compete because of profit incentives. Prices are determined by supply and demand of people conducting mutually beneficial exchange. The communication is through this process, referred to as the market discovery process and people buying and selling is a market. The prices communicated indicate the supply or demand. It doesn't matter what medium they use, they still indicate a means-end action of individuals. If prices are low for screws it might mean some builders will take advantage of this opportunity to buy more screws at low price, that is supply and demand. The increase demand reduces supply and raises price to meet that demand. They don't know why the screw price was low but it communicated an abundance of screws to them which necessitated a lower price.

>>18781434
>makes contrived argument which LTV doesn't pretend to actually apply to
what are you going to try next, make a comparison to Robinson Crusoe? you libs are so predictable
if you're going to make an argument against LTV you need to understand what LTV says and when and where it applies. in particular, it only applies to social labour, productive processes that exist in the real world, subject to competition, not some dumb hypotheticals. you also need to be talking about a productive process capable of reproducing itself for LTV to apply
if you were talking about a productive process, capable of reproducing itself, subject to competition, which puts water in some part of a desert, then of course the price of water in that area is higher than normal, because it takes more labour to transport the water there and to store it. where LTV does not apply is one-off scenarios, or in cases where someone is not performing social labour

>>18781467
>A high price attracts entrepreneurs to compete because of profit incentives
yes, at which point prices decrease. but they can't fall below a certain minimum, assuming there's not shenanigans like treating a certain commodity as a loss leader. that minimum is the value of the commodity

>>18781511
If your theory doesn't apply it's because it's fucking wrong. Subjective theory of value literally works everywhere and explains everything. Your theory doesn't even work on the things you apply it to. You haven't been able to refute a single thing.

>>18781511
The minimum is 0, when people no longer value what you're selling you can't sell it, even at a loss. Doesn't matter how much labor or underlying commodities that goes into it, if people don't want it you can't sell it. It's not intrinsically valuable, there is no minimum price because you could have a case where the underlying parts lower and reduce the accumulate price. Prices fluctuate. There is no minimum price since both laws of supply and demand apply in accordance with subjective theory of value.

>>18781525
>>why do cars cost more than milk?
>it's subjective you wouldn't understand trust me bro

>>18781543
>The minimum is 0, when people no longer value what you're selling you can't sell it, even at a loss
yes, at which point the productive process is no longer capable of reproducing itself. if you can no longer realize profit through circulation then of course shit stops

>>18781617
>then of course shit stops
And then you theory stops working which proves that it's false. It doesn't apply to goods which people don't want to get even when they're offered to them below the costs of production (which still should be valuable according to LTV)

>>18781677
btw, the commies in general completely ignore the fact that well over 50% on new private enterprises just collapse in a first year of operation (and more of them further down the road) - their funders bear the costs (and pay the workers' wages) but they're incur a loss - they're _loosing_ money because their estimation of consumers needs proves to be wrong.
They focus on a few successful companies and project this "analysis" of workers exploitation to the whole economy.
Spoiler: in a feudal (pre-capitalist) economy it was basically impossible for a business owner to incur a loss; the commies have slept the whole capitalist revolution under some rock.

>>18780078
Why the new testament instead of the old? I just dont get it. Theres so much wisdom and manipulation tactics in the old one, while in the new all you have is self-pity, weakness, losers asking for a divine hand out from God out of nowhere.
I just dont get it. Not trying to offend, i mean it. If you can explain to me the importance of it, id be grateful.

>>18781677
>It doesn't apply to goods which people don't want to get
of course. I already said this. this is the mudpie argument all over again

>>18781921
>btw, the commies in general completely ignore the fact that well over 50% on new private enterprises just collapse in a first year of operation (and more of them further down the road) - their funders bear the costs (and pay the workers' wages) but they're incur a loss - they're _loosing_ money because their estimation of consumers needs proves to be wrong.
dey took da risk
>in a feudal (pre-capitalist) economy it was basically impossible for a business owner to incur a loss
yes, because a feudal lord didn't have to invest much into constant capital. most tools were made on-site by the serfs themselves. the exploitation was also plainly visible, not abstracted away via the wage system. you worked a certain number of days per year on your own plot of land, and another part of the year on the lord's land

>>18782088
>the exploitation was also plainly visible
The exploitation was real and widespread, now it only occurs in parts of the economy which follow leftists (Marxists among them - like Central Banking which was supposed to _destroy_ the system of private enterprises) ideas.

not really John Green

>>18781434
>Do you think a man in a desert who hasn't had water for 3 days would take the more valuable 1kg of diamonds or the less valuable 1kg of water?
depends on how much risk he wants to take. 1kg of diamonds is quite valuable (millions of dollars) because of how much of society's labour it takes to search and mine for them. if he thinks he has a shot at getting to water quickly some other way, he might just take the diamonds
>If he takes the water, why?
probably because he believed he won't have any other chance at finding water and thus won't be able to realize the value of the diamonds (millions of dollars) even if he takes them

>>18781677
that a theory doesn't apply to something it isn't supposed to apply to in the first place doesn't show that it's false

>>18781921
>btw, the commies in general completely ignore the fact that well over 50% on new private enterprises just collapse in a first year of operation
how do they ignore that? the salient point is that there's an average expected rate of profit. if one capitalist sinks all his capital into a failed business, his rivals will capture that value as an excess profit. the focus is not on a few successful companies but on the average company

>>18782201
>implying Central Bankers are Marxists
take your pills anon

>>18782433
I've implied the opposite.

>>18782400
>the salient point is that there's an average expected rate of profit. if one capitalist sinks all his capital into a failed business, his rivals will capture that value as an excess profit. the focus is not on a few successful companies but on the average company
In that case your whole analysis is wrong. It might be true if you narrow it down to the subset of successful companies.

>>18779086
Anime lover, guaranteed you smell like poop IRL

>>18782446
but banking is central (heh) to the system of private property. porky needs banking in order to move capital around, to maximize profit

>>18782531
Firstly, you are a porky brain yourself, secondly, the monopolization (of banking among other things) is destructive to the system (which leftists embrace but it's impossible as long the market - capitalist - rules are being enforced)

>>18782472
how is it wrong?

>>18782709
of course it's destructive. capital constantly undermines itself. that's what it is. capital that doesn't do that is a figment of imagination.

>>18782709
it's almost like capitalists are their own gravediggers or something. I wonder if anyone's written anything about this

>>18782821
>how is it wrong?
The whole streak of previous posts shows that.
>capital constantly undermines itself
capital doesn't have a mind and it can do literally nothing by itself. The capitalist system has in-built feedback, auto-corrective mechanisms which work as long as they're not sabotaged by use of physical coercion - which is strictly _illegal - in a capitalist credo.

>>18782876
Yes big brain. The whole point of the market system is that, irrespective of the intentions of its participants, it produces results which are beneficial for the society.

>>18782910
it also produces results which are destructive to society. in particular the ongoing climate catastrophe. also two world wars. I could go on.

>>18782955
Wars are being conducted by the states, not private entrepreneurs. States are not a market (capitalist) force.
Proves that climate changes are not man-made are being regularly conducted in courts. If only YOU PROVE that somebody had caused you inconvenience by impacting the climate you will win a case against him and be paid proper damages. No one won yet.

>>18782989
>Wars are being conducted by the states, not private entrepreneurs. States are not a market (capitalist) force
the bourgeoisie controls the state, genius. the state enforces private property, among many things. war is immensely profitable to a certain section of the bourgeoisie
>science is true or false based on what the courts say
the absolute state of idealists

>>18782889
>The whole streak of previous posts shows that.
it doesn't, that's why I replied showing how it's wrong >>18782400
>capital doesn't have a mind and it can do literally nothing by itself
it doesn't have a mind, but it has laws that dictate its movement. if I say "gravity makes things fall down", I obviously don't mean to say that gravity has a mind, you autist
>The capitalist system has in-built feedback, auto-corrective mechanisms which work as long as they're not sabotaged by use of physical coercion
if capital endows someone with power to sabotage it, then this is in effect equivalent to capital sabotaging itself. unless you're literally talking about martians coming to earth and intervening.

>>18782989
>Wars are being conducted by the states, not private entrepreneurs. States are not a market (capitalist) force.
states exist in order to ensure the conditions of capitalist enterprise, such as private property and the rule of law, and they wage wars in order to ensure favorable competitive conditions for national capital. they're a capitalist force through and through, because without them there's no market in the first place

>>18783088
>>18783095
>le gabidal controls everything, no other factors
The absolute myopia of marxists

>>18783088
>war is immensely profitable to a certain section of the bourgeoisie
Wars would have been just as profitable to commies if they were only able to win them. In a capitalist system wars are morally wrong (they don't belong to the system of voluntary exchange). We oppose them, you want to spread them over the world to eradicate "capitalists".

>>18783118
there are all sorts of factors, and they even move independently to an extent, but the decisive ones in the last instance still derive from the mode of production.

>>18783158
>In a capitalist system wars are morally wrong
are you fucking nuts? the allies still consider the war against Nazi Germany as basically a holy crusade. there's barely anything more righteous than that in Western propaganda

>>18771414
machiavelli was a good guy who was trampled by the church and state. very simple shit. have you even read the good version or just the shit free ones online?
>finds a lie in a book made by niccolo fucking machiavelli
>wow what a jerk, hes wrong and also a mean asshole

>>18771285
reading more books that people huck at you is the point of useless fucks writing shit for no reason. to waste your time, confuse you, and to filll your head with retard ideas so that it's easier to outthink said person who is thinking in loops.
the most dangerous game is pretty lit

>>18772291
CRT trannies are inferior to manual. they cant take torque. wait is this not a transmission maintenance board rn?
>da bible says dat ppl were made 6 tousan yurrs ago and everyone is as inbred as everyone since dey came from da same 3 tribes n sheit
>says right here 12 jews wrote about it cant be false

>>18783251
>are you fucking nuts? the allies still consider the war against Nazi Germany as basically a holy crusade
No you moron, FDR was a commie bootlicker who sacrificed the lives of American people to save your sorry ass - only for their children to hear now that gommunism good gapitalism bad (because it gave the gommunists the second chance)

>>18772763
most people just read as many books as their professor recommends to get good goy points. or to flex how many books they speed read and do not get the point of. only 4chan is a good place to speed read so you can analyze if a post is a shill or not before peering into it further.
>Our ancestors, and those who were considered to be wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to control Pistoia by means of factions and Pisa by means of fortresses; so they fostered strife in various of their subject towns, so as to control them more easily. In those days when there was stability of a sort in Italy, this was doubtless sensible; but i do not think it makes a good rule today. I do not believe that any good at all ever comes of dissension. On the contrary, on the approach of the enemy, cities which are so divided inevitably succumb at once; the weaker faction will always go over to the invader, and the other will not be able to hold out.
machiavelli means "i pimp villians" in latinspeak, and he was targeted because he opposed the church and was broken by the time he was in prison. does anyone know what he had to say about moses?

>>18773570
marx was a cuck who never paid back his own mother who he mooched off of so he could write a state sponsored book. The prince was banned for several years, aka its dank af

>>18777126
and he guides people to their own demise because they're dumb enough to not discern what is important to be skeptical of.

>>18783251
The decisive factors derive from who control the men with guns

>>18783305
no what? the official position of the strongest capitalist state is that WW2 was basically holy. and they continuously justify other was as righteous (Vietnam, Iraq, there are countless examples)
and FDR role-played as a socialist in order to save capitalism. this is what the left-wing of capital does constantly
but top American politicians still propagandize about how great capitalism is. just look how they talk about Cuba. they will allow some perfunctory criticism in times of crisis or even larp as socialists if the crisis is really deep and there's a real proletarian movement that needs to be derailed. but no matter the exact rhetoric, they will at all times defend capitalism.

>>18783332
and which class controls the men with guns derives from the economic relations, i.e. who has the monopoly on the means of production and later who will be compelled to break that monopoly.

>>18779975
Why?

>>18783470
>they will at all times defend capitalism.
No shit, it would have been Cambodia by now if they didn't.
I will tell you a secret - _even_ socialists politicians in the West are only LARPing for some popular support because they know full well that actually implementing this retardation would result in total destruction of the whole country.
This is not to say that they have any personal restrains from stealing as much as possible from "public" coffers. You see, there are no coffers to steal from in gommunist system.

>>18783158
>In a capitalist system wars are morally wrong (they don't belong to the system of voluntary exchange). We oppose them, you want to spread them over the world to eradicate "capitalists".
idealism.txt

>>18783305
>FDR was a commie

>>18783545
>FDR was a commie
He would let you suffocate in your own excrements if he wasn't.

>>18783532
>I will tell you a secret - _even_ socialists politicians in the West are only LARPing for some popular support
no, I know very well. in fact it's just what I described

>>18783559
no US president ever has been anywhere near a commie. the entire US political system loses its fucking mind over even succdem reforms. even Bismarck realized you have to give the proles things like healthcare or they'll revolt

>>18783579
They are still _increasing_ the size of the "public" sector (true to the leftist principles) - but it's just for their personal gains. They won't go overboard and won't kill the goose.

>>18783595
>no US president ever has been anywhere near a commie
Don't be so strict, I've obviously exaggerated a bit because I like the word.
Commie.
Commie.
I mean I like to hate it

>>18783619
>socialism is when the goberment does stuff
guys he did it! he did the meme!

>>18783649
It's not capitalism by Marxist definition (but maybe you guys have eventually made some updates to the theory after this 150 years, idk)

>>18783667
dude Marx points out again and again how the government has to step in to save capital from itself. it always does the minimum necessary

>>18783619
the public sector controlled by the bourgeois state and entirely in the service of capitalism

>>18783667
>At a further stage of evolution this form also becomes insufficient: the official representatives of capitalist society — the state — will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. This necessity for conversion into state property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication — the post office, the telegraphs, the railways.
>If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies and state property shows how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose....
>But the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with.

>>18783686
Except that the government regulations _kill_ the free market system and stop the economic growth.
The reason is that these are always the biggest companies in the industry which have the influence and know-how to "regulate" business (congressmen are clueless), so in effect the industries regulate themselves to decimate their potential competition.
You say that it's capitalism all right, but each an every advocate of capitalism points out that it is a clear outside-of-market interference and must be eradicated.
Theft exists, collusion exists, it _must_ be illegal for the system to be stable.

>>18783799
>Except that the government regulations _kill_ the free market system and stop the economic growth.
>he doesn't know about regulatory capture

>You say that it's capitalism all right, but each an every advocate of capitalism points out that it is a clear outside-of-market interference and must be eradicated.
true capitalism has never existed!

>>18783799
>Except that the government regulations _kill_ the free market system and stop the economic growth.
no, they're the only thing that keeps the system alive and allows for any "economic growth" at all. if it weren't for government regulations, the proletariat would've destroyed capitalism by the late 1800s. in fact, without serious state intervention and regulation capitalism wouldn't have been established.

>>18783829
>true capitalism has never existed!
Almost never indeed, but 80% capitalism is still better than 30%.
This is not the case with communism mind you - 100% communism means depopulation - the less the better.

>>18783851
>the proletariat would've destroyed capitalism by the late 1800s
The Pinkertons were enough to defend private property. You did pull off a couple of revolutions in some fringe countries.

>>18783890
>The Pinkertons were enough to defend private property
it wasn't just about immediately defending property. the capitalist states had to implement a lot of regulations in order to safeguard the capitalist order in the long term, such as 8-hour work day and public education, they had to build large armies in order to be able to compete with other capitalists states for access to raw materials, foreign markets and avenues of capital export. they had to do all kinds of stuff. and when they did that stuff, it was capitalism.

>>18783939
Ok, you've made your point. Sometimes the capitalists use the state to reinforce capitalism. I'd still say that on other times their efforts are counterproductive, so probably it just balances itself out.
(btw, the improvement of working conditions was due to the competition between employers for labor services, not any gov. regulations or _organized_ workers movements)

>>18775257
Homo unius libri

>>18782955
The state stopped your ability to sue for damages against factories in industrial rev even though they knew pollution was bad. The state controlled property (socialism) and you suffer. Capitalism would privatise the air so you could be injured if it was polluted but the state doesn't want that.

>>18783470
You're an idiot if you think FDR who pushed the new deal is a capitalist. US hasn't been capitalist since Lincoln who was the first tyrant to consolidate executive power and push socialist corporatist agenda.

>>18783939
If you control private property you don't own it, if you pass a law which means use the states monopoly on force to control people, to restrict or control how people use their property, they don't own it. That's not capitalism. The socialist state coerced the people to act how it thought best, some bureaucrat thinks they know what's best for everyone. That's not capitalism, regulations are laws using force to control other peoples property, states centrally planning to 'compete' (they don't compete they make monopolies because the state has the ability to steal money through taxation so does not operate by profit or loss incentives), states did not have to do it, the people in control of the state wanted to do it because they profited from it and the cost of everyone else. That's socialism.

>>18783307
i had to look it up but he esteems moses as being in the same league as romulus, cyrus, and theseus as far as guys who rose to be princes by their own ability. i mean machiavelli held that numa was the greater king than romulus because he inculcated such religious devotion in the romans, he'd never look down on a successful prophet.

>>18771285
https://thegreatthinkers.org/shakespeare-and-politics/

>>18783307
>>18785875
>Of all who are praised they are praised the most, who are the authors and founders of
religions. After whom come the founders of kingdoms and commonwealths. Next to
these, they have the greatest name who as commanders of armies have added to their
own dominions or those of their country. After these, again, are ranked men of
letters, who being of various shades of merit are celebrated each in his degree. To all
others, whose number is infinite, is ascribed that measure of praise to which his
profession or occupation entitles him. And, conversely, all who contribute to the
overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are
foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race
(among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base
and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.

>>18771414
>Can everyone tell ME why I have anecdotes of other people being narcissistic and egotistical asshole
Bro, projecting much. Childish

>>18774491
truly based

>>18772315
>a bunch of literal whos
what a shit list

>>18779664
Can someone comment on my recommendations?
I think it's a fairly simple, easy list.
It's meant to be read from top to bottom, and the first three are literal pamphlets
If I were to teach a class on the subject, this would be the syllabus.

>>18784012
>I'd still say that on other times their efforts are counterproductive, so probably it just balances itself out.
it doesn't "balance itself out", because, as I already said, continuous state intervention is necessary for capitalism to continue existing. capitalism either exists or doesn't, and the state actively sustains it in every second, just like the God of Aquinas actively sustains all motion in the world
>btw, the improvement of working conditions was due to the competition between employers for labor services, not any gov. regulations or _organized_ workers movements
no, competition had caused conditions that put the long-term survival of capitalism in grave danger. that's why the state had to start introducing regulation, such as the Ten Hours Act in the UK. a lot of such regulation was created after both world wars, when it was the question of either giving concessions or risking a communist revolution.

>>18786086
>>18785093
>if you pass a law which means use the states monopoly on force to control people, to restrict or control how people use their property, they don't own it
what are you saying? that people don't own property right now because there are legal limits to its use? private property is established legally in the first place. without an entity that can put it into law and enforce that law, it doesn't exist. and capitalist states are pouring enormous resources into ensuring that property laws are effective. otherwise people wouldn't be able invest money in owning property and reap profits from owning it later.
>That's not capitalism.
you don't need to be able to do everything you want with your property in order for production to function on a capitalist basis. in fact, you don't even need to own property yourself. someone or something has to own it, but you can just be a wage slave. production will be capitalist all the same, as long as commodities are produced, propertyless wage labourers are employed, and profit is realized.
>The socialist state coerced the people to act how it thought best
the capitalist state coerced the people to act how it thought best, that's how capitalism was established. for example it coerced millions upon millions of peasants to give up their land and to go to the city and to wage slave there instead of wagabonding.
>regulations are laws using force to control other peoples property
they're using force in order to keep property private instead of common
>they don't compete they make monopolies because the state has the ability to steal money through taxation so does not operate by profit or loss incentives
they can't tax if their capitalists don't make money. state revenue comes in large part from surplus value, from the profits of its state enterprises and the non-state enterprises that operate on its territory. the state starves if there's no profitable capital it can tax, so it does all it can to ensure profitable capital.
>states did not have to do it
yes they did. the development industry on a capitalist basis caused the workforce to rapidly deteriorate. this had to be regulated or there wouldn't have been any material for capitalists to exploit a few decades later. numerous governments were forced into concessions after WWI because of communist movements. many such examples.

>>18780074
There is a lot of good low hanging fruit on this list. I would add Richardson's Confrontational Politics.

>>18786217
you're responding to two different anons

>>18781205
Not as many as we have now

>>18781111
Welcome to /b/ Forced anonymity

>>18786215
>and the state actively sustains it in every second
The state does protect private property to some extent (duh) which is the only thing the capitalism needs (along with the free market exchange of this property ofc), but it's not necessary. Humans were, with various success, defending their property themselves - or by simply hiring private guards - since forever. If you _define_ the guards of the private property as the state then whatever.
What communists want is essentially total, unrestrained theft (only in Marxist terminology it's something different); I'd say that the proposition has become absolutely unfeasible, with or without the state as a "protector", when only the property owners had accumulated enough resources to be able to simply invest some of their asserts in acquiring some defense mechanisms - whatever these might be.
Theft is common in slums (the state police obviously doesn't defend them, state is a parasite), it isn't a problem in quality apartment communities (or shopping malls) which just hire private guards and that's it. Defending a factory from thieves pretending to be workers is trivial.

>>18786377
>The state does protect private property to some extent (duh) which is the only thing the capitalism needs
no, that's far from the only thing capitalism needs, as I already explained in my earlier posts. right now, for example, it needs massive state stimulus in order to not fall in a catastrophic crisis, because it can't even deal with a minor pandemic properly due to its anarchic and unplanned nature
>What communists want is essentially total, unrestrained theft
no, what communists say private property will turn itself into is it's own negation, i.e. common property, or, to be more precise, no property. theft is a legal concept that assumes right to monopoly of property. in a communist society, however, property of any given thing is not monopolized by any given person or group.
>I'd say that the proposition has become absolutely unfeasible, with or without the state as a "protector", when only the property owners had accumulated enough resources to be able to simply invest some of their asserts in acquiring some defense mechanisms - whatever these might be.
the accumulation of resources by the property owners inescapably accumulates their gravediggers on the other pole. they acquire power that helps sustain their rule, but at the same time they produce another power that will be compelled to break it.

>>18785038
>The state stopped your ability to sue for damages against factories in industrial rev even though they knew pollution was bad
yes, the state serves the interests of the bourgeoisie
>Capitalism would privatise the air
some porkies want to do literally this, and privatize the oceans, and you would complain about it calling it "not real capitalism" if they did

>>18785048
>socialist corporatist
you have to be over 18 to post on this site anon

>>18786377
>What communists want is essentially total, unrestrained theft
no, communists want the end of unrestrainted theft, the end of surplus value extraction from the workers to the bourgeoisie. an end to exploitation

>>18771414
wannabe psychopath retards who probably haven't read him or where he fits into

>>18786755
The image is total bullshit, literally schoolchildren only can propagate this nonsense. You've lowered the level of this thread substantially.
About 80% of all income in the economy is in the form of wages, while total profits being the remaining 20%. Commie children lie that it's the opposite.

>>18786872
>what is the organic composition of capital

>>18786874
It doesn't matter, workers get 80% of all incomes in the economy. They might be "robbed" of their additional 20% (according to your totally arbitrary accounting) but no more even exists.

>>18786874
>It doesn't matter, workers get 80% of all incomes in the economy. They might be "robbed" of their additional 20% (according to your totally arbitrary accounting) but no more even exists.
the rate of exploitation is something that is tracked and currently sits at around 150%, at least in the UK. this means only 16 hours per week are actually necessary to sustain the average British worker. there are academic papers on this, I can probably dig them out if you like. what you say is equivalent to saying the rate of exploitation is only 25%, which is not the case. the rate of profit might be 25% however, since it is always lower than the rate of exploitation, due to the organic composition of capital

>>18786874
Read capital more closely. You don't argue with these fucksticks, that's liberalism. If they're bourgeois you murder them. If they're workers you win them over through iterated class struggle action at work.

>>18786976
I don't mind arguing with libs. every now and then they will get the gist of the difference in class interests, the difference between S/V and S/(V+C)
>If they're bourgeois you murder them
nah we need people to empty the latrines, transport nuclear waste etc.

>>18772315
I have BA in philosophy and MSc in political science and I can actually say that this anon's list is pretty damn legit.

I don't understand how commies itt can be so haughty when they live in a time with the least revolutionary potential in the history of industrial society. The labor movement has abandoned them, there is no major communist power in the world, and class consciousness is at an all time low. Fucking lmao, killing bourgeoisie or making them dig latrines? This is a LARP on par with /pol/tard boogalooers.

>>18787694
>ongoing climate disaster likely to create 1,000,000,000+ climate refugees
>a time with the least revolutionary potential
just wait and see
>class consciousness is at an all time low
in the west yes, mostly because of imperialism

>>18771414
They feel weak and proyect.

>>18787694
simply look at the state of capitalism in the last 15 years. middle and low income states have lost any prospects of convergence, cyclical crises still rage on and the growth rates in-between them are not only getting smaller, but they're also becoming dependent on life support from various institutions, which only manages to kick the can down the road. even the bourgeoisie is conscious of the fact that things are not going in a good direction.

and the momentary state of the struggle is irrelevant if one's outlook is scientific and not opportunist. you seem like the type of cuck that will laugh at communism when the proletarian movement is at its low due to the counter-revolution, but will suddenly become a last-minute revolutionary once its victory becomes imminent.

>>18788131
real talk, how long am I going to have to wait for this to happen? I'm sick and tired and want to hurt people

>>18771414
fucking cringe

>>18771285
Kissinger's world order

>>18789121
I don't know. you should try doing something about how you feel instead of hoping that an external event will solve your problems.

>>18788131
Schumpeter was right when he called Marxism a religion. O ye faithful, keep waiting for judgement day. I'm sure it's just around the corner.

>>18790026
>he doesn't know about the falling rate of profit

>>18779653
More like the only barbarism that ever existed, at least on such an all-encompassing scale, and justifies itself by shitting on the past.

>>18783799
>>18783874
You've turned incoherent propaganda from the 20th century, intended to allow the system that is apparently not real capitalism, to be unchecked, into a god. This is ridiculous. Also, why is people's relationship with economics immediately ideological tribalism over banalities and confusion? Not sure where it comes from but it's probably intentional.

>>18772315
Garbage. What a shithole of redditors

>>18790515
>she says. while suggesting nothing better

>>18790608
"She" is the cat's mother

>>18790051
Quoting scripture does little to convince to unbeliever

>>18771285
opensyllabus.org

books they use to teach college students about political science as opposed to some random person's opinion on 4chan

>>18790026
religion is when you make a broad scientific prediction about the future. physicists predict that the universe will die a heat death, they must be religious too.

>>18791942
you seem like the kind of person who would go "but science is as much about faith as religion is!". but materialist analysis is able to make testable predictions, for example about the falling rate of profit, which is born out in the data. this cannot be said for idealist notions like marginalism, which can fit any observation

>>18771414
It's because The Prince is his most famous book and it was written to appeal to >a narcissistic and egotistical asshole

>>18771285
Not even Machiavelli could escape the norwood reaper

>>18792234
>>18792247
Marxism isn't a science or scientific.

>>18793288
it studies the real world and identifies the necessities involved in its processes. it definitely is scientific

>>18793314
It has about as much predictive value as astrology

>>18793318
no, that's economics

>>18771285
Start with the Greeks

>>18793318
with Smith and Ricardo liberals were on board with a scientific (materialist) understanding of political economy. after Marx however this line had to be abandoned in favor of subjectivism and marginalism, starting with Marshall
if Marx is wrong then feel free to, using data from the real world, refute the predictions made by Marxist economists. that's how science advances
modern bourgeois economics is akin to theology as >>18793376 points out. for example during the entirely predictable 2008 crash people working in economy departments here in Sweden had to talk in private amongst themselves, not discuss the situation openly, because they were all freaking out about how their oh-so-accurate """theories""" turned out to be bunk
the function of bourgeois economics is not to explain the real world but to uphold the status quo