/lit/ - Literature

>>20979925
He doesn't say this though

>>20979946
He does though

>>20979947
Except he kinda doesn't though

>>20979951
In chapter 1 of state/rev, he argues that the state is a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.

>>20979925
>People really died over this shit?
No, same as people never really died over tales about magical jewish rabbi who ended up on a stick because of disagreement with other rabbis but rose from the dead. In doesn't work this way.
There are certain methods of seizing power by armed group that involve brandishing religion or quasi-religious ideology as your banner.

Communist takeover in Russian Empire wasn't done by "workers". There wasn't a single working man in top brass, it was just terrorist organization consisting of cutthroats, psychos, dregs and foreign spooks, that fought and happened to win against other terrorist organizations for power, on the territory of nation that was essentially beheaded by February coup. All with foreign powers standing behind them of course. If anything actual workers fought against reds, because they already had experience of being bombarded with reds' preaching before, and were aware what will happen if those come to power.

None of actual agents with actual brains believe shit they preach, but it serves as identification method. Peons don't think, they just abide currently dominant power. But people who think, face choice - either repeat gibberish preached by it, or get killed. And if you repeat, you eventually get broken by it, no human being is fully immune to propaganda constantly being bashed against his skull by years. It's just subjugation system. It can't work if preaching side can't back it up with violence. And if anything, it's very bad for such system to run on truth and not on bullshit, because it defies entire purpose of its method.

>>20979951
In the first few chapters of state/rev, he argues that the state is a product of the irronciliability of class antagonisms and also that it is a tool for oppression of one class by another. He goes onto argue that by obtaining state power, the proletariat abolished itself as proletariat, and begins abolishing the many class antagonisms within sociey, and the state will start withering away as the class antagonisms within society also wither away as the state no longer is naturally forming.

The problem is that in the same breath he claims that within bourgeois society, the state (despite arising out of society) places itself above society and alienates itself more and more from it. Why wouldn’t it work the same way under a workers state?

>>20979951
That’s literally exactly what he said, and you’re either
>a) dishonest leninoid
Or
>b) didn’t actually read him

>>20979967
>the state arises out of society but places itself above it alienating itself more and more from it
What he is describing is the emergence of the bureaucracy.
You seem to fail to understand the conceptual separation of the state in relation to the historical society it arises from

>>20980017
He talks about the bureaucracy later on, but he very much says that the state is a product of class antagonisms and is always used by the ruling classes to oppress the lower classes. That’s his interpretation of Engels. Might not be what Engels himself thought, but that is Lenin’s interpretation. In his mind, that is an accurate assessment in line with dialectical materialism and it is also his entire basis for the idea of the state withering away after the dictatorship of the proletariat.

>>20979925
>>20980000
There exist two communism implementations.

German communism:
>Words words words words words words words and this is why Marx is infallible and communism is the one truth

British communism:
>Marx is infallible
>Communism is the one truth
>Hey you, did you just doubt word of our prophet Marx?
>Oops, your head fell off
>Oops, your whole extended family ended up in slave labor camp
>What an unfortunate coincidence
>Anyway, Marx is infallible...

It should be obvious by now why not a single of existing realizations of communism regime used German implementation.

By the way Marx himself obviously didn't believe shit he was writing. He was described as a man having absolutely no regard and no respect for anyone other than himself. He was just commissioned by angloid secret service to write shit that is supposed to work as imposing, smart and sophisticated theoretical foundation backing up schizophrenic Fourierist drivel so it can be made into a cult for which retards would fall, which would allow them to start shit on the continent.

>>20980040
Another issue with Lenin is the fact that he treats Marx like some kind of prophet in his works. And whenever he wants to criticize, for example, a different type of leftist like the Kautskyites for example, he never actually analyzes them and explains why they’re wrong. He just points and says “that’s not what Marx said”

>>20980040
>>20980049
I mean seriously, the moment you start using “revisionist” as an insult for a political ideology, something is deeply wrong here.

>>20980017
>You seem to fail to understand the conceptual separation of the state in relation to the historical society it arises from
Well go ahead and explain then

>>20980049
Lenin also didn't believe anything of that obviously. He was prodigy tactician and manager, but ultimately did not stand at the origins of shit he was involved in. There are good implication that he was raised and groomed to be revolutionary, introduced into freemason lodge at early age, later given big ass degree as hereditary checkered floor prancer, and due to his talents given the authority over terrorist organization that social-democrats were. His early writings when he seized power had something like "If we hold for 100 days in power I'm grabbing as much as I can and running for Sweden" His mother and her family who raised him were Swedes and likely also Swedish freemasons, and sue to father having almost no influence on him, Lenin can be considered Swede in cultural sense for all intents and purposes. However things changed and he had to stay as "leader", which meant he had to become preacher of Marx's word.

>>20979925
I know. Major loser. Typical bourgeoisie “intellectual” thinks his shits are brilliant.

>>20980000
>All with foreign powers standing behind them of course.
There was intervention from multiple foreign powers on the side of the Whites though. Interesting book.

>What began with the landing of a small number of Royal Marines at Murmansk in March 1918 to protect Allied-donated war stores quickly escalated with the British government actively pursuing an undeclared war against the Bolsheviks on a number of fronts in support of British trained and equipped 'White Russian' Allies. At the height of British military intervention in mid-1919, British troops were fighting the Soviets far into the Russian interior in the Baltic, North Russia, Siberia, Caspian and Crimea simultaneously. The full range of weapons in the British arsenal were deployed including the most modern aircraft, tanks and even poison gas. British forces were also drawn into peripheral conflicts against 'White' Finnish troops in North Russia and the German 'Iron Division' in the Baltic. It remains a little known fact that the last British troops killed by the German Army in the First World War were killed in the Baltic in late 1919, nor that the last Canadian and Australian soldiers to die in the First World War suffered their fate in North Russia in 1919 many months after the Armistice. Despite the award of five Victoria Crosses (including one posthumous) and the loss of hundreds of British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors and airmen, most of whom remain buried in Russia, the campaign remains virtually unknown in Britain today. After withdrawal of all British forces in mid-1920, the British government attempted to cover up its military involvement in Russia by classifying all official documents. By the time files relating to the campaign were quietly released decades later there was little public interest. Few people in Britain today know that their nation ever fought a war against the Soviet Union.

>The culmination of more than 15 years of painstaking and exhaustive research with access to many previously classified official documents, unpublished diaries, manuscripts and personal accounts, author Damien Wright has written the first comprehensive campaign history of British and Commonwealth military intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-20.

>>20980120
Source on Lenin being a Freemason plz

>>20980000
>None of actual agents with actual brains believe shit they preach
Also that's not true either. At least Kotkin writes as a guy who thinks Marxism is bad and dumb but at least takes it seriously. It's entertaining really because he tells this story of how after the USSR fell and he finally got permission to the Soviet Archives, he was ecstatic to find out what really was going on. Everyone expected all the communist rhetoric and theories would be ignored behind closed doors and they'd make some grand discovery that the leaders of the USSR never believed this shit. But then they find out communists talk like communists in private. And they're all shocked.

Because just look at their mustaches and criminal gaze!

https://youtu.be/5yIUW_NteLY

This is what passes for an incredible bourgeois discovery in the discipline of Sovietology. But during the Cold War, I'd honestly say conservatives, at times, had a better understanding of the USSR than liberals because at least the former were more likely to argue that Marxists took Marxism seriously, whereas liberal authors tended to be like "AH YES BREZHNEV'S FOREIGN POLICY IS MUCH LIKE THAT OF TSAR ALEXANDER I" or something, and that Soviet leaders from Stalin onward only cared about "realpolitik" and "traditional" Tsarist Russian aims like access to warm water ports or whatever.

>>20980000
>In my study of communist societies
a communist society has never existed.

>>20979925
not really a leninist but the response to this that i've heard from leninists is that the state wither's away because the alienation from class antagonisms is both incomplete and ultimately untenable. In times of crisis the state acts more openly as an organ of class domination and acts in the general interest of capital. I think the leninist position on the state is wrong but i think that this isn't the reason why. lenin is also sorta inconsistent in his understanding of the state depending on the text he either holds a weird semi-plekhanovist understanding or more of a orthodox 2nd international understanding. neither of these views however claims the state is like a fully autonomous actor that transcends class antagonisms.

>>20979925
>>the state arises out of society
Lol. What a liberal take.

>>20981833
That was a direct quote from Lenin. Every single one of these green texts is a direct quote from Lenin except the last one.

>>20981568
Indeed. It's an oxymoron. But when you study a society whos rulers are communist and claim to be making communism real it's better to accept it.

>>20981841
I know. And I'm saying its a liberal take which all marxoids believe because their entire ideology rests on this baseless assumption and marx' retarded conception of the state.

>>20981843
communist society is not an oxymoron. that's the end goal of socialism. it's just that no society has managed to achieve it yet.

>>20981847
Marxists aren't liberals. The entire economic system is based off of not liking free markets

>>20981876
Yeayeah whatever.
Their entire ideology is based on thinking liberals aren't obsessed enough with liberation. The economic system doesn't really matter. The state will never go away and it has always existed uninterrupted.

>>20981876
They practically want the same thing and share the same geneology. They just have different ideas of getting there.

>>20981895
you have to be 18 to post here, little buddy

>>20981663
In the Marxist tradition the state is the instrument by which one class oppresses other classes, therefore a classless society is by definition a stateless one because there is no class oppression. The state gets away with that oppression through things such as "the rule of law" (which is an aspect of the Weberian definition of the state).

There are also different Marxist concepts of what "law" is too, but generally speaking it describes a fiction to ensure the smooth functioning of the market that no one really believes in, because otherwise people wouldn't regularly challenge parking tickets because they know the legal system is dysfunctional and overburdened. That implies that the disappearance of capitalism is also the end of law, as socialism eliminates the ideological need for legal relations (replacing them with the direct relations of men) and the material conditions for its existence.

Maoists also tend to make the argument that something like that was indeed happening during the Cultural Revolution in which the state -- that is, various concrete institutions that comprise it, the rule of law, etc. -- was withering away (or maybe more like radically attacked) for something like the "rule of the masses." Like the furthest form the "withering" has taken in history so far in a communist leap forward, although I'm not sure I believe it and extrapolating beyond that is difficult, but it's an intriguing idea.

https://youtu.be/xZQlscG7dcg

>>20979925
I like Max Weber's definition better

>>20981943
>In the Marxist tradition the state is the instrument by which one class oppresses other classes, therefore a classless society is by definition a stateless one because there is no class oppression.
this is true for marx but a lot of 2nd international marxoids try to reinvent lasallianism and think about the state as a class neutral entity.
>There are also different Marxist concepts of what "law" is too, but generally speaking it describes a fiction to ensure the smooth functioning of the market that no one really believes in, because otherwise people wouldn't regularly challenge parking tickets because they know the legal system is dysfunctional and overburdened. That implies that the disappearance of capitalism is also the end of law, as socialism eliminates the ideological need for legal relations (replacing them with the direct relations of men) and the material conditions for its existence.

yeah this is the general marxist view and i don't know that it's entirely wrong but the pashukanis book has given me a lot to work with.

>>20981535
He wasn't.

>>20979925
>State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country.

>>20980000
Nice quads, decent post, ultra cringe pic
>Gommies bad brudder :DDDDDD T. Teddie Dalrymple the emasculated liar

He wouldn't be the first to contradict himself fairly directly in his writings. A lot of his more concrete predictions for the future across his writings were pretty salient imo, so I do take him seriously. People died for this shit because they were illiterate morons who had lived under the imperialist thumb. The Soviet Union was the birthplace of Totalitarianism so others died for it because they had to believe in the lies that underpinned society or suffer the consequences.

>>20979951
No, seriously he does. If you are an ML you should actually read Lenin.

>>20979925
I seriously don't get how tankies so sensitive to nazis denying the holocaust go and follow the philosphy of someone who even more undeniably killed over ten times more.

>>20980000
>No, same as people never really died over tales about magical jewish rabbi who ended up on a stick because of disagreement with other rabbis but rose from the dead. In doesn't work this way.
>There are certain methods of seizing power by armed group that involve brandishing religion or quasi-religious ideology as your banner.
Why do you always immediatly start jumping to strawmanning christianity over everything?

Slightly better formulation
>The state is a product of a form (mind:ruler) and matter (body:ruled) duality
>the state does not arise out of society, nor does society arise out of the state, but both arise by a uniting principle which gives rise to them both as one complete being
>therefore by abolishing one or the other, the other will necessarily wither away

>>20979925
once an institution no longer has any purpose it will cease to exist.

>>20982716
Rehardless of your point or not i've seen ypu autistically post the jewish rabbi bit a bajillion times on this board under a bunch if dufferent topics.

>Improves on your retarded theory to the point where it almost makes sense
>Almost actually achieves communism
>Murders and humuliates the politicians and bureaucrats
This is who you should be reading.

>>20981858
>communist society is not an oxymoron
>communism seeks to create a classless society
>a classless society must eliminate hierarchy
A nonhierarchical society is no society at all, hence the oxymoron. At least anarchists are honest about their nonsense.
>we want to eliminate "unnecessary" hierarchy
Now the libtard anarchists can just pick and choose which forms of hierarchy they want.

>>20982901
>a classless society must eliminate hierarchy
no? who says this?

>>20982986
What the fuck do you think classless means? If you have a hierarchy within a society, you by definition have classes.

>>20983015
>What the fuck do you think classless means?
society having the same general interest

>If you have a hierarchy within a society, you by definition have classes
No. If I and one thousand friends build a bridge and appoint one person to administrate the task that doesn't make him of a different class to us even though we have created a hierarchy to better facilitate construction.

>>20981504
Foreign power worked on all sides there. Russian agency ceased to exist after czar was deposed, it was just a contest of foreign agents and traitors from that point. Their affiliations were tangled and sophisticated, but to primitivize everything, Lenin was German asset, Kolchak was British one. Civil war causing maximum ruination was beneficial for all powers in Europe simply because Russian Empire was major rival and it had to be done away with for good. Also nobody knows where its gold reserve, largest in the world at that time, went, but most of it was obviously stolen by warring parties and passed to their benefactors.

>>20981535
You should rather be needing sources on who WASN'T freemason in that cloaca. Freemasonry back then is not same shit as freemasonry now, it didn't try to create secrecy and semi-mythical aura around itself back then, anyone involved with western political movements and intelligence was a freemason.

>>20981943
>cause otherwise people wouldn't regularly challenge parking tickets because they know the legal system is dysfunctional and overburden
Really? This is your best example? Which third world country are you from?

>>20983069
>If I and one thousand friends build a bridge and appoint one person to administrate the task that doesn't make him of a different class to us even though we have created a hierarchy to better facilitate construction.
I refuse to believe you've ever had a job or had to deal with upper management.

>>20983279
I worked retail for three years; on some days when my boss wasnt in I would delegate the various tasks of the day. Are you saying my class position changed on those particular days?
great argument btw you're definitely not projecting

>>20979925
>even though the state has alienated itself from these class antagonisms and placed itself above society
so what? you're confusing the fact of the state positing itself above society with it physically detaching itself from it like a literal ghost.
the necessary condition for the state's existence is either a dominating class that finds it helpful to represent its interests as the interests of the whole to be able to enforce them, or a balanced class conflict where some limits must be put to it so that the classes don't mutually ruin themselves by leading to the dissolution of the entire society.
in the absence of either of those the state withers away, no matter how neutral it posits itself as, because there's simply nothing sustaining its existence. it's certainly not a phantom that could persist without any real basis. I don't know if this is a bait thread or, if OP is an actual illiterate retard. this board is full of children so it's always 50/50 chance
>>20981887
>Their entire ideology is based on thinking liberals aren't obsessed enough with liberation.
Marxists have an entirely different conception of freedom than liberals. because they aren't liberals
>And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying. ...
>The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge. ...
>the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. ...
>Equality and freedom are thus not only respected in exchange based on exchange values but, also, the exchange of exchange values is the productive, real basis of all equality and freedom. As pure ideas they are merely the idealized expressions of this basis; as developed in juridical, political, social relations, they are merely this basis to a higher power. ...
>Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.
>>20983279
upper management in a firm within bourgeois society is not analogous to a hypothetical scenario of a group of friends instituting and ad hoc division of tasks

>>20979925
He describes the state as something like a "mechanism of class repression." The state exists to codify and maintain class hierarchy . In the absence of the state, he says, you'd immediately get riots and slave rebellions from the lower classes. So the state is an outgrowth that attempts to control and regulate those irreconcilable antagonisms.

> The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.

>>20983435
>Marxists have an entirely different conception of freedom than liberals. because they aren't liberals
Which they still obsess over but with more orwellianism. What's your point? There is no need for an imagined class to attain "freedom" which is itself just more nebulous under marxism. Marxists aren't free from religion, marxism is a religion. It's just retarded liberation theology and hatred for the state of nature.

>>20981934
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism is an extension of liberalism philosophically. Every ideology is, except for monarchism and fascism.

>>20983627
The state is just society. An irrevokable power that rules over others throughout all of existence. It doesn't arise, it always is.

>>20981934
>little buddy
Ok grandpa, now keel over already.

>>20983435
>in the absence of either of those the state withers away, no matter how neutral it posits itself as
The state is not neutral. It is a monopoly on power. It is an ends unto itself. The state may FORM as a result of class antagonisms, but it alienates itself from those class antagonisms to the point where it is it’s own class with its own means to sustain itself.

>>20983679
Shut up fascist, what a dumb take

>>20983435
>you're confusing the fact of the state positing itself above society with it physically detaching itself from it like a literal ghost
>physically detaching itself from it like a literal ghost
Anon, you need to learn what literal means and come to terms with that fact that ghosts are fantasy, just as is communist utopia.

>>20983081
So no source. Thank you

>>20983708
I'm not a fascist. It's just the truth. Btw, though Gentile admitted that it's not a "product" he still wanted to pull the old democratic move by pretending that this specific ideology will be fundamentally different

>>20983703
>The state may FORM as a result of class antagonisms,
There's nothing indicating that it ever spontaneously arises into existence. Power always exists.

>>20983656
>What's your point?
that Marxists are not liberals because they fundamentally differ from liberals on the question of freedom, which is central to liberalism
>There is no need for an imagined class to attain "freedom"
there's no need for anything. but it's a fact that human beings will strive towards emancipation, whether you think there's a need for it or not. and you can't understand the past, the present and the future of the species without taking that into consideration.
>>20983671
monarchism is dead and fascism is the exaltation of the modern popular state, one of the main tenets of liberalism
>>20983703
it doesn't have own means to sustain itself. it doesn't run on mana. in a capitalist society, it depends entirely on taxing the profits of capital, which means that its fundamental task is to ensure the continuous production of those profits, which means that, first and foremost, it must act in the interest of the capitalist class by ensuring the smooth functioning of capitalist production.
it only has independence from the capitalist class in so far as that class is too weak to do its job and the state needs to step in and become a major capitalist itself. but this is of course no independence at all. it only signifies the state becoming another capitalist, a further subjugation of the state to capital, not the state constituting some new, separate class.
>>20983745
>and come to terms with that fact that ghosts are fantasy
that's my point. you should direct this to OP who thinks that by placing itself above society, the state physically detaches itself from it so that abolition of classes can't affect it, as if such ghosts weren't a fantasy

>>20984012
Who?

>>20983679
No the state is just a means to an end to ensure the survival of the people.

>>20984262
No it’s not

>>20979925
Such is the fate of any bourgeois state. A proletarian state, however, if not faced with unbeatable reaction (like was the case in the Soviet Union without Germany's revolution, which Lenin admitted to) can properly abolish itself as a class before a redivision of privilege and wealth as a consequence of essential shortages (also what happened in the Soviet Union).
Lenin doesn't contradict himself, and the proletariat doesn't abolish itself on taking power - it only does so through the abolition of wage labour and the ushering in of proper communism. The proletarian state works toward this goal, but faces many challenges on the way.

>>20984331
Red this to see how aware Lenin was of the danger of reaction and isolation of the party after the necessary reintroduction of capitalism to cope with the devastation of industry after the wars. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

>>20984308
The state is the representation of the life of a nation, and at the moment is loses its mission, it has lost its reason for existence. It is not there in order to build up this fictitious authority of the state before which the individual citizen has to worshipfully sink into the dust. No, all of this is nothing but a means to uphold the body of the nations. - AH

With the nation of course simply being the culmination of all of the Volk

>>20984331
Lenin is not talking about abolishing the state as a “class”. He’s talking about the state literally withering away into non-existence.
>abolish wage labor
As if the USSR did this. Maybe if Lenin actually allowed workers to have control he would be correct.

>>20984361
>The state is the representation of the life of a nation
No it’s not. It’s a monopoly on violence which rules over society. It’s not some metaphysical representation of the peoples will or some nonsense.
>the volk
Hush larper

>>20984452
Except it does have a higher purpose than just being some institution who simply has the monopoly of violence. If it doesn't fulfill that purpose the state should be considered illegitimated. And that purpose is to ensure the survival of the volk.

>>20984469
Yes, the state has to make some concessions to the people in order to “justify” its own existence

>>20984481
Nope. The state exists because of the people in the first place and as a result only exists to benefit them. Any state that doesn't shouldn't exist

>>20984469
>the state has to sometimes use its monopoly for good lest it risk losing said monopoly
Of course. But that is not a property inherent to the state. Just a practicality.

>>20984235
Stop calling people fascist if you atleast know of its founding thinker.
>>20984262
That doesn't necessarily retract from what I said. It is a representation of a certain culture

>>20984491
>Any state that doesn’t shouldn’t exist
“Shouldn’t” “couldn’t” not the same thing. You are talking about how things should be, not as they are.

The state does not arise as a manifestation of the people’s will. That is not how it originated. It is a force existing above society and alienating itself more and more from it, necessitated by the material conditions of society. It is a monopoly on violence, that is all it is. The people’s will is that the state use this monopoly for the people’s benefit, which it does as a necessity to justify its own existence.

>>20984511
Fascism doesn’t have a “founding thinker” the same way other ideologies have. It’s not a well defined set of beliefs, although the worship of the state is one belief which is closely tied to fascism. Another critique, you should stop acting like every person who disagrees with you is the same person.

>>20984511
>It is a representation of a certain culture
No. A nation is the representation of the Volk. A state is simply there to ensure the benefit and survival of that nation. The state is not the something that always is. It is simply something made with a purpose to fulfill and when it doesn't, something to be replaced

>>20984078
>but it's a fact that human beings will strive towards emancipation,
Not really, sounds like eisegesis. Many people make concessions. The only fact is that all of life strives towards dominence. And emancipation can mean absolutely anything according to Marxists because they can't stand following any kind of orders.

>>20984491
I suppose we just have different ideas of what a state is. Any organization which has a monopoly on violence within any given territory can be defined as a state in my eyes. A gang is a state for example assuming they have more power than the proper authorities.

>>20984513
>That is not how it originated
Except it is. People don't have some inherit obligation to the state. They only have an obligation to their race, to preserve it. A state simply becomes an effective means of organization to achieve that. It doesn't exist above society since it is a reflection of the society. This is indeed how it should be. If it isn't there is an obligation to rebel against it and very simply speaking it doesn't have a monopoly on violence anymore. At that point it only has a monopoly on legal violence which is worthless if people don't recognize it's legality

>>20984518
My man, I know you like pretending to be retarded but Gentile is quite literallu the founding thinker who coined the term. Just because leftists don't like it bevause it limits on who they can reasonably call fascist due to its negative connotations doean't mean its not true.

>>20984545
>It doesn't exist above society since it is a reflection of the society.
Again, you are speaking about how things should be and not as they are. Let me give you a hypothetical.

You live in some shithole town in rural mexico where the cartels act as the ruling authorities. They distribute justice how they see fit with their own police forces, they tax the local businesses and collect rent from people living there. These people are or legitimate representations of the people by any means, but they are for all intents and purposes the acting state are they not?

>>20984556
These people are not the legitimate representation of the people by any means*

>>20984513
>necessitated by the material conditions of society.
No because social relations precede material conditions. The state never arose into existence it always has been.

>>20984545
>>20984556
I would also define something as simple as an African warlord to be a state. If a warlord controls a certain amount of territory within the jungle and he is brutalizing the people who live there and forcing them to pay taxes, he is the state in that area.

>>20984562
Social relations are created by material conditions.

>>20984570
It's the other way around actually. There never was any 'primitive communism' from the moment a human is born he is completely subordinate to his parents. The family is the state

>>20984570
>I own an orange and you own an apple. I can't be your friend.

Yikes.

>>20984564
Nta but that is a state and it will always exist.

>>20984579
I.e. the 'superstructure' is more important than the base because all humans are ideological to some degree. Marx confused his head for his feet.

>>20984583
>>20984585
I know, I’m arguing that any group with a monopoly on violence is a state, whether or not they use this monopoly for good or bad. That’s why the examples of a gang or a warlord is important, because I would classify them as being a state even though they aren’t legitimate and they are not representative of the people.

>>20984590
It goes deeper when you realize that’s literally what a state is. A state is a gang. The first governments were warlords collecting taxes in exchange for protection.

>>20984556
Then it is a state. Still as a result of the people, just a horrible reflection of the people. The form that the state takes only goes for the interest of the state itself and against the interest of the people which makes it an illegitimate state and one that must be fought against.

>>20984598
>The first governments were warlords collecting taxes in exchange for protection.
Not really. The family and clan is older than that. All were governed.

>>20984469
"the volk" is an artefact animated by the state to get its subjects to fulfill the state's purposes by making them believe that those purposes are their own. nationalism only came to being when various bourgeoisies needed to manufacture a basis for their new states
>>20984539
emancipation means a concrete thing, namely the human species taking conscious control of its metabolism with nature, so that it can direct it for the purposes of the development of its members as human beings. still more concretely: taking possession of the means of production in common and using them to produce according to a common plan.
>>20984579
>parents are a state
epic, but now go do your homework, plus this site is 18+

>There are actual living breathing people who still take Marx's gibberish seriously, believe it has deep meaning and actually argue over how true it is in 21st fucking century, in fucking informational age
Let me guess, you also take Charles Fourier's Chris-chan level schizophrenic fantasies as serious and meaningful works on socialist theory?

>>20984614
>nationalism only came to being when various bourgeoisies needed to manufacture a basis for their new states
Did you know that National Socialism specifically came to be because Germans and Czechs simply under no circumstances could come together to be workers but always saw themselves first and foremost as their ethnicity? After the international Marxism failed because of that the individual ethnic communities still went against the bourgeois just as before, just with only their ethic group. In the end it still worked. the ideas that all workers are simply workers is just simply wrong. No one sees themselves first and foremost that way. I guess Marx didn't understand that since he had no idea what it meant to be a worker

>>20984622
>there are still people who aren’t communists and haven’t read marx
>in 2022
>in the age of information when the internet exists

>>20984614
>namely the human species taking conscious control of its metabolism with nature, so that it can direct it for the purposes of the development of its members as human beings.
Sounds like liberalism. You will never be emancipated from nature and thus the state. You cant get rid of power. A more accurate observation is the fact that all of life strives for domination. We live in an uninterrupted state of nature. There is no single great homogenous proletarian class.
>epic, but now go do your homework,
Nice refutation. The family is the origin of the state. Which you'd know if you did your homework

>>20984632
Why 'be' a communist? Sounds like an 'ought' problem. I mean, I know you guys don't believe in human agency but still.

>>20984640
Shut the fuck up bitch, talk to the hand

>>20984645
Yeah, whatever.

>>20984652
>naziism and gommunism is le same thing ebin
Kek, that’s not even what your propaganda poster says if you can read between the lines

>>20984661
I posted it because I thought it was funny since DuBois wrote it. I think I see some fnords between the lines as well, good eye.

>>20984640
Same reason why would you read Abrahamic scriptures and become Christian.

Marxism is a religion. Following it is based on faith, not in rational analysis, because gibberish that Marx was writing as commission from anglo spooks comes apart under any rational analysis. All that faggot shit about chewing marxist dogma about muh society and muh production over and over again is not different from medieval theology trying to pinpoint meaning of holy scripture, except theology doesn't attempt to skinwalk as secular, scientific methodology like marxist shit does.

Secular methodology doesn't need to mass purge biologists because implications of Darwinism and biological heredity break its infallible Marxist cosmology similar to how heliocentrism does to Catholic one. Doesn't need to fill humanity's pool of knowledge with bullshit either - do you know that widespread misconception about Egyptian civilization widely employing slave labor comes from Soviet egyptologist, who was aware that existing knowledge of how Egyptian civilization functioned doesn't fit with Marx's holy dogma of alternating methods of production, so history has to be amended to remove theological contradiction.

This shit is textbook religious obscurantism.

>>20984652
>Parallels between Communism and Nazism.
>Army;
this boi.

>>20984674
>Secular methodology doesn't need to mass purge biologists because implications of Darwinism and biological heredity break its infallible Marxist cosmology
????

Marx was an admirer of Darwin, going so far as to state that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the official marxist view of nature. It fits in perfectly with dialectical materialism.

>>20984674
I know, I was being ironic as to be a communist implies you are ideological which is(not) bad (but still bad because ideology is oppreshun)
All economics will never be a hard science anyway.

>>20984674
>do you know that widespread misconception about Egyptian civilization widely employing slave labor comes from Soviet egyptologist, who was aware that existing knowledge of how Egyptian civilization functioned doesn't fit with Marx's holy dogma of alternating methods of production
Can you explain more or links. This sounds interesting.

>>20984688
I'm sure Marx believed dialectical materialism revealed itself through its miracles. Darwin also seems to be admired by Nazies thoughie. I mean, it kind of implies all of life strives for domination

>>20984688
Apparently faithful disciples of Marx forgot about that part. Russian biologists mass killed by USSR during Lysenkoist the very name is fake btw, Lysenko was illiterate hillbilly paraded around as a part of propaganda about how every hillbilly can become visionary of science under magical Soviet government, real mastermind of this shit was certain mr Prezent, who barely even has presence on wikipedia anti-reality struggle campaign would certainly be relieved to hear that.

>>20984701
Don't forget the best part. He basically only applied his ''science'' to plants. The big thing was that none of it mattered for humans so they could act like everything was just nurture instead of nature so everyone could be made equal.

>>20984699
>I'm sure Marx believed dialectical materialism revealed itself through its miracles
That’s exactly what he thought. From Marx’s POV, dialectical materialism and evolution went together like bread and cheese. In a way, Marx’s materialism is just evolution applied to society instead of animals. That societies form as a response to material conditions and needs, and these conditions change therefore the environment is selecting for new traits within society.

Marx was so impressed with Darwin that he sent him letters congratulating him after his books were released.

>>20984694
Here's the person responsible for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Struve_(historian)
English article seems pretty meager, but Russian one has part mentioning it, google translate it.

>Cтpyвe жe paccмaтpивaл в кaчecтвe ключa к peшeнию вoпpoca aнaлиз пpoизвoдитeльных cил и oпpeдeлил, чтo ocнoвнoй фopмoй экcплyaтaции тpyдa нa Дpeвнeм Bocтoкe, кaк и в aнтичнoм миpe, былo иcпoльзoвaниe paбoв (пoзжe oн пpизнaл, чтo ocнoвoй экoнoмичecкoй жизни в дpeвнeвocтoчных cтpaнaх былa нe экcплyaтaция paбoв, a экcплyaтaция кpecтьян-oбщинникoв: дoлгoвoe paбcтвo y этих нapoдoв былo paзвитo нepaвнoмepнo, a зaвoeвaтeльныe пoхoды, пpoвoдившиecя c paзличным ycпeхoм, eщё нe cтaли ocнoвным иcтoчникoм пoпoлнeния кoличecтвa paбoв).

As it is mentioned, later he partially walked back on that, or perhaps he saw that telling truth would no longer get him killed and told what he found out as it is.

>>20984713
I was making a reference to god revealing himself through its miracles. I don't think the idea of evolution and natural selection has much to say about dialectical materialism and its psychic assumptions.

>>20984731
In short, changes in the environment selects for new traits in animals just like changes in material conditions select for new traits within society.

Marx believed that society will “naturally form” in a certain way and that material conditions are propelling society into a certain direction.

>>20984631
that's fanfiction. national socialism came because the workers were violently crushed in the early 1920s by a bourgeois coalition encompassing everyone from leftists to protofascists
>>20984634
>Sounds like liberalism.
liberalism is freedom of private property, which ensures the opposite of what I described, namely that instead of consciously controlling its unfolding as a unity, the human species is separated into competing individual units that are made to act in the last instance according to what enables the continuation of the accumulation of capital
>Nice refutation.
clinical retardation is irrefutable
>>20984701
USSR was entirely capitalist during that period

>>20984701
Well I guess that’s more evidence that it wasn’t real communism wrap that up and call it a day

>>20984757
>They were entirely heretics and apostates during that period! Real believer who is faithful to word of prophet would not do that!
Well ok.

>>20984716
Thanks anon

>>20984778
What they did literally contradicted Marx though? It’s entirely the fault of Joseph Stalin being a retard and believing Lysenkos psuedoscience

>>20984757
Nope I'm talking about the origin of National Socialism among German union workers which became a party in 1903.

>>20984757
>liberalism is freedom of private property,
You forgot liberation obsession and hate for aristocracy. Which is also characteristic of marxists. Everyone can achieve "unity" the problem is that your conception of the state is retarded and you think it'll just happen because... what? Capitalism doesn't exist, we live in an uninterrupted state of nature which is that social relation between master and servant.

>>20984785
Communism selects for retards.

>>20984752
Ok, so he's conflating two very different things as the same.
Social relations precede material conditions and society changes according to ideology.

>>20984785
>What they did literally contradicted Marx though?
Sounds more like a refutation of Marx

>>20984803
that party was completely irrelevant. it received 1/20 of the votes SPOE did. a relevant national socialist party only emerged after workers had been thoroughly crushed and ceased to exist as a class, like they did in, say, 1903
>>20984808
>You forgot liberation obsession and hate for aristocracy. Which is also characteristic of marxists.
liberation from what? liberals aimed at the liberation of capital from feudal constraints. and now they aim at the conservation of capital. whereas Marxists aim at the liberation of humanity from capital. so the exact opposite characteristic after all.
and aristocracy is dead
>and you think it'll just happen because... what
because the productive forces are outgrowing the private form of appropriation of the product

>>20984829
How?

They did the opposite of what Marx said to do.

>>20984757
>liberalism is freedom of private property, which ensures the opposite of what I described
Uh-uh. Socialism is an EXTENSION of enlightenment values (liberalism) meaning they believe the liberals didn’t go far enough in abolishing hierarchy. Whereas liberals wanted the aristocracy gone, socialists take this a step further and want the bourgeoisie gone.

>>20984825
>society changes according to ideology.
Not at all. Marx didn’t believe in free will. He was a historical determinist. He believed that material conditions create ideas, rather than ideas create material conditions.

>>20984947
>liberation from what?
in reality? nothing lol, it's just pure obsession like its Marxist counterpart because they'll never truly be liberated from nature. They'll always have masters and someone will always be representing someone else. They're just creating problems to justify the imposition of their will.
>whereas Marxists aim at the liberation of humanity from capital
what do you mean by capital? Private property? all of our property already belongs to the state, it just delegates it to others. And you'll never be liberated from the state. You just want to destroy traditional social-bonds because you have a pathological aversion to them.
Stop being an economics nerd.
There is no single group of individuals who is
1. the vast majority
2. whom society depends on
3. is in dire need.
4. has nothing to lose in a revolution.

>>20985133
Take the anarcho-transhumanism pill. The hierarchies found within nature will be overcome.

>>20985085
>Not at all.
yes at all
>Marx didn’t believe in free will. He was a historical determinist. He believed that material conditions create ideas, rather than ideas create material conditions.
which is exactly why he was wrong. Marx confused his head for his feet. Social relations precede "material conditions"

>>20985151
>Social relations precede "material conditions"
You can keep saying that but it doesn’t make it true. Even evolution and dna counts as material conditions, and those are the foundations of what a person is.

>>20985141
They won't and they don't need to be. Anarchism is retardation. What part of "there will always be a state" don't you understand? Are you permanently terrified that the elusive homofascists are going to systematically rape you to death?

>>20985065
Marx also had no direct experience with governing a state. what opposite did they do?

>>20985155
In that sense, you'd just have to deny consciousness eventually. Marxists essentially believe that human history has nothing to do with humanity. You can believe what you want to believe but that doesn't mean it's true. but why not be a biological determinist then? I mean, there's no absolute scientific reason to believe an african and a chinese person are of the same race.

>>20985188
forgot to add: why even draw such abstract universals like "humanity" into the equation? why not say that it is set in material stone who is to be oppressed an who is not and then accept it?

>>20984947
>whereas Marxists aim at the liberation of humanity from capital.
look at this libtard using abstract words like "humanity" and "capital"
What do you mean by "humanity"?
Also, stop saying you "aim" at doing something. Aren't you retards supposed to be determinists? stop whining and just wait it out since its all inevitable. Using your conscioussnes contradicts your retarded ideology.

>>20984335
this is why deng is a genius

>>20984426
workers can't have control. they wouldn't be workers. Mass democracy is a meme.

>>20984331
What does "proper communism" look like? Does it mayhap have some managerial (not)class which manages everything but it's ok because people can vote for managers, you know, like we do right now.

Killing communists refutes communism.

>>20985155
>those are the foundations of what a person is
You assume our understanding of biology is so complete that there's no chance of any future discovery that changes our fundamental understanding of consciousness. You're just like socialist/communist theorists who thought their understanding of society's functions was so thorough that they could construct a new social order from the ground up they didn't. The best you can do is to say, "these *seem to be* the foundations of what a person is," which shows a healthy level of caution and respect for the boundaries of our knowledge.

Please forgive any errors, english is my 2nd language >>20985254

>>20985245
Like fuck you are going to find detailed descriptions of how society is supposed to look like after all the goals communists proclaim are achieved and struggle is won. Same as there are barely any proper descriptions of how heavenly reward for good Christians will look like, only vague scraps and "trust me it will be good". Communism gives it at similar degree.

Of all the great minds of communists and socialist thought, absolutely nobody bothered to elaborate shape of utopia worthy of destroying everything over, other than Fourier (not to be mistaken with mathematician with same name), actual non-meme schizophrenic whose obsession was heavily influenced by that one time when he stayed in luxurious hotel in Switzerland, which has driven him to develop whole social theory about how to reshape world and society in such way when every person would be able to constantly enjoy such conditions as he enjoyed in that hotel. For some reason he isn't popular today, even though at one point his influence was very significant, and even had impact on some soviet practices (obsession with issuing various badges to everyone remotely involved at slightest occasion for example).

>>20985254
>"these *seem to be* the foundations of what a person is,"
they don't actually think that, when they say "material conditions" they are typically talking about things that are not human. He's just moving the goalposts and pretending that there is no such thing as a self that influences society so as not to injure his vapid historicism.

>>20985281
From what I've managed to get them to spill out is that it will be a society where everything is owned by "the workers" but they still have managers who oversee things who are totally not just rulers with their own interests because, you see, they are elected by the people in an epic based mass election which will totally not have anything in common with what we have now because class no longer exists and people who think it still exists will be shot. One particular schizo said that everyone will be routinely "shifted" between different fields of work at random. by who? the hand of fucking god you fascist! Also, no crime because people don't hold on to convictions and envy anymore so no need for any fascist police to enforce cohesion and public peace.

Honestly, I sometimes think Marxists are p-zombies. There's this funny part in Wolfe's Citadel of the Autarch I'm reminded of where, when Severian gets to finally know the true nature of the Ascian attackers and he asks a Pelerine sister why they, who normally oppose homicide, are helping the war effort against the Ascians. Her answer is simple:
>"Ascians are not humans."

>>20985284
Interesting. Thanks for clarifying that.

>>20985323
This thinking is fully explained by quote I recall from somewhere
>What's anti-utopia? Just taking someone's perfect utopia and imagining life in it as living conscious human being and not a cog perfectly doing what architect of utopia intended for it to do.
Take setting of Brave New World or 1984 and look at it from the top, as if you're supreme agency running it to your own ends. You see that not only it works, but it's also smooth, well optimized and exceptionally stable, and it pleases you to see machine running this good. Problems start only if you imagine yourself inside it and not above it. I guess communism also looks good if you use this perspective in your reasoning.

>>20985281

Proudhon's mutualist utopia of federations of communes, free credit and free market economics doesn't seem that bad a place to live. The fact that he doesn't fit into the light-switch brain free market versus state ownership dialectic is probably why he's barely discussed today.

>>20985420
>doesn't seem that bad a place to live
I disagree. Would be absolutely horrible and meaningless. But it's an impossibility either way.

I can't wait for anarchist revolutions

>>20985467
it would be pretty funny seeing all those degenerative anarkiddies willingly genocide themselves. But of course "anarchism" isn't real

>>20985467
seeing the shitshow that is voluntarist revolution attempted on a viable scale would be hilarious until innocent people start dying by the millions

>>20979951
He does.

>>20985073
>Socialism is an EXTENSION of enlightenment values (liberalism)
communism is a REJECTION of enlightenment values. here's what those values represent in the words of Engels:
>Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, the kingdom of reason; henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on Nature and the inalienable rights of man.
>We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that this eternal Right found its realization in bourgeois justice; that this equality reduced itself to bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, the Contrat Social of Rousseau, came into being, and only could come into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic.
and here's what Marx thought of "socialists" who believed socialism to be the real realization of enlightenment values:
>What divides these gentlemen from the bourgeois apologists is, on one side, their sensitivity to the contradictions included in the system; on the other, the utopian inability to grasp the necessary difference between the real and the ideal form of bourgeois society, which is the cause of their desire to undertake the superfluous business of realizing the ideal expression again, which is in fact only the inverted projection of this reality.
>>20985133
>what do you mean by capital?
value that valorizes itself by absorbing the labour of wage workers
>Private property?
any product or resource that isn't in the disposition of the society as a whole
>all of our property already belongs to the state
it belongs to those who directly appropriate the profit it produces, which includes both capitalist states and non-state capitalists
>>20985222
>What do you mean by "humanity"?
the human species
>Also, stop saying you "aim" at doing something. Aren't you retards supposed to be determinists?
you can't even distinguish between determinism and fatalism. I don't think you have the basic understanding required for participating in this thread

>>20979925
>the state is a product of class antagonisms
Between those Power Process capable and lumpenprole criminal and para-criminals

>>20986895
>value that valorizes itself by absorbing the labour of wage workers
Oh like the state? Or the social relation between master and servant?
>any product or resource that isn't in the disposition of the society as a whole
That's all property. Public ownership is a meme as you have no actual control over it. Its just a nice thing for people to think about on ideological terns.
>the human species
The human what? What's a human and why must it be emancipated?
>you can't even distinguish between determinism and fatalism.
My man, you proplr literally have to keep a thin linr of ignorance of the logical conclusions to your vapid theories in order to not accept biological determinism while also believing free will and conciousness does not exist. Just accept that it is determined that you are to be subordinate to someone else.

>>20987049
>Oh like the state?
no, the state is not a self-multiplying mass of exchange value
>That's all property.
yes, abolition of private property means abolition of property as such, including "public property", which is only a name for the private property of the capitalist state
>The human what? What's a human
are you retarded?
>and why must it be emancipated?
it mustn't anything. see >>20984078
>while also believing free will and conciousness does not exist
Marxists do believe that free will and consciousness exist

>>20979925
IT IS BECAUSE THE LEFT WING IS VERY STUPID, NOT LIKE YOU. YOU ARE VERY SMART!

>>20987392
>no, the state is not a self-multiplying mass
Indeed, there is no such thing. The state is simply that natural social relation between master and servant.
>yes, abolition of private property means abolition of property
But ofc that doesn't actually happen because everything is always owned by something.
>are you retarded?
I'm not the one who believes in the nebulous "proletariat"
Define human please in pure materialistic terms.
>Marxists do believe that free will and consciousness exist
That would disprove historical materialism as it means a belief in a self/soul which undermines the belief that social relations are determined by "material conditions" but rather psychology and ideology. It defeats the point of determinism. Ofc the reality being that marxism is just another ideology/religion.

>>20979925
The state did wither away, checkmate reactionaries

>>20981943
Imagine just swarming over that mass of mindless flesh in helicopters and emptying your drums of high explosives and hollow point rounds and just watching from the sacrosanctity of the cockpit as the shivering mass disintegrates into a mess of scattered limbs and inert gore, making a million and one martyrs for Mao and his Satan of a wife

>>20981943
Yeah, Maoist China was definitely stateless and all things that happened there were dictated by interactions arising organically between consenting adults, that's why people who publicly challenged whatever Maoist line was popular at whatever moment were treated like anti-citizen scum or killed or humiliated or violently beaten. That certainly sounds like a stateless society to me.