/lit/ - Literature

congrats youve officially become a joke lol

the daily worker

>>3895703
Are you sure?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism

>>3895672
Look at the proletariat who thinks that he "converted" to Marxism everyone! Hah hah!!!

Good luck with your pseudo-rebellious goals in your capitalist society in 2013 Op! You're a joke!

>>3895720
yes

>>3895721
NSA is motivated by gov't knowing that capitalism will lead to economic/environmental collapse. They're spying on everyone because they know it will happen and they're trying to defend themselves against seismic public backlash.

The Mayans predicted this better than any Marxist.

>>3895672

Trotsky is laughable and has no consistent ideology. He tends to appeal to people just transitioning into Marxism because he allows them to be nominally Marxist while really just being defeatist liberals. You'd do well to read all of Marx's major works if you haven't already. Then you can move on to Lenin, Mao, and theorists like Jameson.

As for Stalinist gulags, I'm personally an anti-revisionist who accepts that there will have to be political prisoners in the event of a revolution. Overall I think that contemporary socialists already have far better prison conditions than the U.S. where the aura of systemic rape lingers constantly. If you're particularly interested in prison conditions, read Defying the Tomb by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson.

If you're saying you don't want political prisoners at all, congratulations, you have a non-operative political optimism and would be better suited to social democracy.

>>3895730
I've read Jameson a bit and I quite like him.

Do most Marxists hold that Leninism was its best form?

>>3895721
>>3895723
> FBI documents confirmed "a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector" designed to produce intelligence on behalf of "the corporate security community." A PCJF spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

> In particular, domestic surveillance has systematically targeted peaceful environment activists including anti-fracking activists across the US, such as the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, Rising Tide North America, the People's Oil & Gas Collaborative, and Greenpeace. Similar trends are at play in the UK, where the case of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy revealed the extent of the state's involvement in monitoring the environmental direct action movement.

> A University of Bath study citing the Kennedy case, and based on confidential sources, found that a whole range of corporations - such as McDonald's, Nestle and the oil major Shell, "use covert methods to gather intelligence on activist groups, counter criticism of their strategies and practices, and evade accountability."

>>3895730
But aren't Stalinist gulags way beyond just political prisoners? Weren't they made to confess to stuff they did not do, only to then kill them?

>>3895736

It's a complicated question. Lenin built the first socialist state and paved the way for the USSR to progress rapidly from a failing feudal state to a super power. Most leaders after Lenin followed in Lenin's footsteps, and so it can be said, in a way, that all states that established themselves as socialist were also Leninist. However, I do not personally think, and I imagine most others would agree with me, that unadulterated Leninism is the best form of Marxism. I personally adhere to Maoism, but Mao was himself a Marxist-Leninist, for example.

>>3895746

And why were they made to confess to stuff they did not do?

>>3895746
No.

>>3895730
Trotsky's early writings (I'm thinking Terrorism and Communism) are actually quite interesting - after his exile he got sort of wonky and spent most of his writings trying to show how really HE was Lenin's best friend!

I agree though that reading Marx's major works is central. Reading Capital is an experience like little I've had in study.

Jameson on the other hand strikes me as the worst sort of post-but-not-really-post-deconstructivist Marxist. Check out Robert Hullot-Kentor's take down of his reading of Adorno

>>3895754
>>3895759
That didn't happen? I thought I heard that straight out of Zizek's mouth?

Alright then, that's kind of a relief...although I'm still not convinced.

>>3895752
btw where's a good place to start with Maoism? Seems to come up a lot in Marxist discussions around here

>>3895768
I also would like to know this.

>>3895764

If they were made to confess to stuff they didn't do, they must have done something nonpunishable but still seen as subversive. So, in effect, they still would have been political prisoners.

As for Zizek, he's good with Hegel and social commentary, but he will be the first to say that he "has no answers" and he shies away from all questions of political economy.

Lenin, Luxemburg, Kautsky and Bernstein for an overview of Marxist theory before WW1 splintered the international working class.

>>3895768
http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html

That's a complete index of Mao's work. Read it chronologically.

>I've officially converted to Marxism.
'Convert' being quite apropos considering only mentally-deficient cultists think of Marxism in positive terms.

How do people still think socialism is a viable idea after the collapse of the USSR?

>>3895788
Yeah, okay, cool. It's happening, buddy.

>>3895788

What a cunning retort. Everyone knows that late capitalism and its boot/face relationship w/ the the third world is the best of all possible political systems

>>3895797
How do people still think capitalism is a viable after the collapse of the USA?

>>3895672
Check out Nikolai Bukharin, Rosa Luxembourg, Hal Draper, Fidel Castro's "History will Absolve Me", and the obvious stuff like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin (though it's difficult to find accurate biographies of Stalin: obviously anything written by Stalin himself will glorify his work, but there's lots of uninformed hatred and rejection of Stalin in virtually anything else; in fact I remember reading that the death toll of the Stalin era, depending on who you cite, is anywhere between 1 and 60 million--the one million comes from KGB files which include the execution of common criminals and not just those who were executed during the purge), Mao (who is a lot like Stalin: Mao is blamed for famines in China, when historically, famines haven't been terribly uncommon in China regardless of the governing body).

And in my opinion the gulags were necessary to suppress dissenters because information technology was not efficient enough to drown them out. Now that it is, all we'd really need is a handful of communist Stephen Colberts and capitalists would be on the fringe, politically.

>>3895798
>It's happening, buddy.
It was certainly 'happening' for the tens of millions lucky enough to be graced by the liberating effects of Marxism and his noble disciples.

>>3895799
>and its boot/face relationship w/ the the third world
You're right. We should have left the savages to their mud huts and lack of the wheel. Much better than the horrid, shackling specter of capitalism.

Marxism is necessarily totalitarian?

>>3895797
Because real socialist policies ceased after the death of Stalin, with the exception of the five year plans. And, to be fair, the USSR didn't exactly "collapsed": the United States offered to lift sanctions on the USSR if it stopped trade with China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. and the USSR accepted.

>>3895800
Well, the USA is hardly the laissez-faire ideal that capitalism works best under. Protectionism and Keynesian stimulus plans are not free market capitalism. More often that not it just leads to crony capitalism.

>>3895806

The mud huts and lack of the wheel are symptoms of capitalism, not of the lack of capitalism. Subsaharan Africa is the most resource rich region on Earth, but one of the poorest due to Western capitalist exploitation.

>>3895807

No, it is necessarily revolutionary.

Where does entrepreneurship figure into 'social' (state or worker) control over the means of production?

>>3895806
>It was certainly 'happening' for the tens of millions lucky enough to be graced by the liberating effects of Marxism and his noble disciples.

It really was, actually.

>You're right. We should have left the savages to their mud huts and lack of the wheel. Much better than the horrid, shackling specter of capitalism.

Just to clarify Marxists don't necessarily "hate" capitalism; in fact classical Marxists, including Marx himself, saw capitalism as necessary for the ushering in of communism. So yes, capitalism should be allowed to develop--no exploit, as it currently seems to be doing--the third world.

>>3895814
>The mud huts and lack of the wheel are symptoms of capitalism
How can it be symptoms of capitalism if such conditions were present before exposure to capitalism...?

>not of the lack of capitalism
The greatest advancement in human life expectancy and comfort came after the Industrial Revolution. Where once we toiled, illiterate, in the fields for our lords, we can now shitpost on 4chan.

>but one of the poorest due to Western capitalist exploitation.
Why didn't the Africans harness the resources before the oppressive capitalists?

>>3895813
Right. It would be better if we a more efficient laissez-faire system so that 2-3 corporations could run everything.

>>3895826
>So yes, capitalism should be allowed to develop--no exploit, as it currently seems to be doing--the third world.
Completely wrong. Ask yourself who is supposed to be doing the 'allowing' in your sentence.

Marxism is absolute idiocy through a state. The social connections necessary for a thriving commune break down after a couple hundred people.

What is the view on Marxism again about private property?

>>3895829
As opposed to just the state running everything, eh? How'd keeping track of 25 million prices work out for the USSR.

>>3895822

People are naturally entrepreneurial and the entrepreneurial spirit does not necessarily require hedonistic monetary rewards. Marxism maintains that people are defined through their labor. Teach the people to be rewarded intrinsically instead of extrinsically.

>>3895807
Marxism is essentially a retaliation against economic exploitation. Policies enacted by a Marxist government, very simply put, protect citizens from exploitation, which is an inherent feature of capitalism. These policies may be enacted by a totalitarian government, a democratic government, a republican government, etc. Revolution is a science; it's all about finding the best system for Marxism to work.

So to answer your question directly, no.

>>3895829
>so that 2-3 corporations could run everything.
The problem with the current system is that government and business are intertwined. The giants of industry (your Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, General Motors, etc.) get everything they want from elected officials, immunity from wrongdoings, and all of these goodies essentially bar competition via this establishment of an uneven economic playing field.

>>3895829

Not possible under a laissez faire system for any long period of time.

The notion of monopolies emerging without oversight is a childish delusion.

>>3895844
Alright, that's a convincing argument.

But is the laissez-faire capitalist system any more attainable than the communist/Marxist system?

And why doesn't this kind of free market/gov't intervention fuck up Scandinavian countries like it does in America?

>>3895829

Someone isnt aware of the power of the pricing system.

>>3895842
>Marxism is essentially a retaliation against economic exploitation.
No, no, no.
Marxism is a philosophy, part of which is the development of an analysis of economic exploitation. It is not in itself a 'reaction' against anything.

>>3895838
I agree that it's foolish to fully associate 'success' with monetary gain, but doing the complete opposite by expecting people to be happy with "intrinsic" gain seems absurd. The only way that would truly work, let alone flourish, is if there were no scarcity i.e. superabundance. People will always enjoy their little moments of materialistic luxury.

retaliation, sorry

>>3895833
It's a fact that capitalism is exploitative, but there is a difference between the sort of exploitation that robs an entire country of its natural resources, and the sort that exploits individuals by robbing them of surplus value.

But to clarify, I'm talking about giving third world countries a higher standing in the international village or at least touching up their positions as proletarians a bit. Of course that involves exploitation-- they don't get a choice as to which system develops their respective countries--I understand that, but it's necessary.

>>3895852

Not him, but the only way this is possible is through either an Anarchist type society, or through a large collection of city states with virtually no power other than to enforce judicial rulings.

Capitalism and Marxism can coexist so long as there is no state to sponsor either of them.

>>3895852
>But is the laissez-faire capitalist system any more attainable than the communist/Marxist system?
I hold both to be a pipe dream but, in my case, laissez-faire would be the more desirable pipe dream to be fulfilled or at the very least the goal to move more towards.

>And why doesn't this kind of free market/gov't intervention fuck up Scandinavian countries like it does in America?
It does. Huffington Post and Bill Maher just like to convince you that Scandinavian countries are perfect Socialist bastions. Sweden, Norway and all the others have near-zero influence on the world stage and are utterly irrelevant. They have troubling unemployment figures and a social welfare net that will not be able to accommodate the absurd amount of immigrants/refugees they are determined on bringing into the fold.

>>3895857
To be fair I acknowledged that I was putting it crudely.

>>3895866
>Sweden, Norway and all the others have near-zero influence on the world stage and are utterly irrelevant

Why is that a bad thing? Norway has some of the greatest standards of living and they're rich off oil.

> They have troubling unemployment figures and a social welfare net that will not be able to accommodate the absurd amount of immigrants/refugees they are determined on bringing into the fold

Sounds like a strawman.

>>3895852

Scandinavian countries, while known for their large social programs, actually are among the most free when it comes to economic freedom.

>>3895828

I don't deny that capitalism has brought about advances. Even Marx acknowledged how productive capitalism was. The fact that the spoils of capitalism are not shared with the third world is due to with capitalist exploitation; robbed of their surplus value, the third world cannot afford to purchase the fruits of their own labor.

>Why didn't the Africans harness the resources before the oppressive capitalists?

Pre-colonially, they were able to subsist without the resources now vital to the West and so they were non-participatory in the global economy. Now they are unable to subsist because capitalists have forced them into capitalism and, again, rob them of the surplus value created by their labor.

>>3895863
>I'm talking about giving third world countries a higher standing in the international village or at least touching up their positions as proletarians a bit.

This is nonsense. Again, ask yourself who exactly you are saying should take these actions?

>>3895872
Sweden is the fourth-most competitive economy in the world, according to the World Economic Forum in its Global Competitiveness Report 2012–2013.[10] Sweden is ranked fourth in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2013.[106] According to the book The Flight of the Creative Class by the U.S. economist Professor Richard Florida of the University of Toronto, Sweden is ranked as having the best creativity in Europe for business and is predicted to become a talent magnet for the world's most purposeful workers. The book compiled an index to measure the kind of creativity it claims is most useful to business—talent, technology and tolerance.[107]

>>3895874
> while known for their large social programs, actually are among the most free when it comes to economic freedom.

Can you explain this? What are they doing or not doing, that America is/isn't?

>>3895883
>What are they doing or not doing, that America is/isn't?
Having tens and tens of millions of melanin-enriched folk. They are hard at work correcting this issue, however.

>>3895883

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ENDE8ve35f0

This should be a nice intro for you. The info I got from this was quite interesting.

>>3895884

Come on, man.

>>3895888
>Come on, man.
I live in a city, what can I say. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that. Oh and the crime.

>>3895883
>What are they doing or not doing, that America is/isn't?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement

>>3895878
I'm saying corporations and other rich capitalist governments should implement capitalist policies in impoverished, third-world, countries, so as to develop them technologically and industrially. I'm aware this is exploitative, but I'm also aware that capitalism--which is inherently exploitative--is a stepping stone to communism.

>>3895884
>>3895891
Ok, but I'm asking for arguments and not your personal history. I don't care that you live in America.

The Scandinavian countries are not Marxist. I imagine they'll suffer the same fate as the Irish Celtic Tiger of the 1990's. The purpose of revolution is to remove the influence of the bourgeois, which is still a strong factor in Scandinavia. So, even though they currently have top-notch social programs, their private businesses still continue to speculate in global capitalism and will be held down by high taxation, lose their ability to expand, and will begin to decay. Just like how Ireland has implemented austerity and gone through the motions of reestablishing domestic tariffs on water, the Scandinavian welfare state will collapse with the next inevitable crisis of global capitalism.

>>3895894
'Should'? Do you seriously call yourself a Marxist?

The bourgeoisie will implement capitalist policies because it is a historical necessity, not because 'it's the right thing to do'. And they don't need you telling them that they 'should', as if it's a moral imperative.

And in any rate, capitalism is an international system. The revolution that overthrows it will be global. Undeveloped countries will be brought to socialism by that, not capitalist development.

>>3895936
>The bourgeoisie will implement capitalist policies because it is a historical necessity, not because 'it's the right thing to do'. And they don't need you telling them that they 'should', as if it's a moral imperative.

I'm not implying that it's the right thing to do, or that it's a moral imperative; forgive me if I misspoke.

>The revolution that overthrows it will be global. Undeveloped countries will be brought to socialism by that, not capitalist development.

Capitalist development prompts revolution by agitating class struggle.

>>3895672

Go to /pol/.
Explain why Marxism is a sound ideology.
Become flabbergasted at what you were never told before.

>>3895949

And guess who's all behind it, /lit/!

>>3895949
If your image is the level of the critiques offered on /pol/, I should go there for some good comedy.

Marxism is a dead religion. The only people left are dumb Trots and angry Marxoteens whose output is of zero interest or relevance to anyone.

Read Marx, Lenin, and Mao, then some history, and then move on to either languishing over dumb shit coming out of modern sects or finding a better ideological platform in this mongoloidal, Bosch-esque horrorscape we call "now".

>>3895953

"It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United States, but the Bolshevik
movement is and has been since its beginning, guided and controlled by Russian
Jews of the greasiest type..."
Robert Wilton, American Army Intelligence Officer in Russia during the revolution. (in official
report)

A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, corespondent of the London
Times in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including 2
Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300
Jews. Of the latter number 264 had come from the United States since the
downfall of the Imperial Government.

U.S. National Archives. (1919). Record Group 120: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, June 9.

>>3895953

"There is no need to
exaggerate the part played in
the creation of Bolshevism
and in the actual bringing
about of the Russian
Revolution by these
international and for the
most part atheistical Jews..."

"In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The
adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of
countries where the Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken
the faith of their forefathers and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This
movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and
down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman
(United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of
society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been
steadily growing…and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the
great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have
become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."

-- Winston Churchill

>>3895953

"There is now definite
evidence that Bolshevism
is an international
movement controlled by
Jews."
— The Director of British
Intelligence to the U.S.
Secretary of State"


National Archives, Dept. of State Decimal File, 1910-1929, file 861.00/5067
(First page, first paragraph, first sentence.)

You just maintain the pretension that a priori formulation cannot be intentionally conceived for latter corruption.
Contingent truths seem to vex the ardent soul sitting alone in his ivory tower.

>>3895966
>You just maintain the pretension that a priori formulation cannot be intentionally conceived for latter corruption.

And what has it to do why your previous quoting of oldfags who think Jews are evil ? The link isn't obvious to me.

>>3895952

This is why everyone should just fucking read mein kempf so everyone understands that hitler was a fucking lunatic and WWII was started with malicious intentions.

What we need to stop is the vilification of the germans during the war, the reasons all the fucking POWs and Jews died was because the fucking allies were bombing the proverbial fuck out of german supply lines. They had no food to feed their own people let alone prisoners and people they didn't like.

>>3895966
fuckin' wasp conspiracists and their divide and conquer tactics against the Anarchists and the Socialsists...

>>3895988
>the reasons all the fucking POWs and Jews died was because the fucking allies were bombing the proverbial fuck out of german supply lines.

And also because the Reich did invest considerable ressources in killing aforementioned POW and Jews by various means. Though I recognize that the current culpability complex of the German has grown to ridiculous extent nowadays (maybe it will get better after the last survivors of WWII die).

I always have wondered why are there so many nazis and libertarians on the internet.
Maybe it has a relationship with being a neckbeard.

>>3895998

No neckbeard here.

>>3895989

>>3895995
>>3895998

Have you ever stopped to ponder:
"Why IS IT that so many people in the past despised Jews?"

>>3895957
>>3895960
>>3895966
>MUH CENTURY-OLD INTELLIGENCE REPORTS!
Fascists should stick to their echo chambers. The adults were talking.

>>3895998
It's totally not like they're worried about all the false flags Jews do...
...Oh wait

>>3896004
fuckin' white anglo-saxon conspiracists and their divide and conquer tactics against the anarchists and the socialists

>>3895998
That's pretty contradictory. Why would a libertarian want to sacrifice their freedom for the sake of nationalism, let alone Nazism?

>>3896007
>>3896010
Jew are a problem that that is not the question.

>>3896017
They are separated groups but both seem to be common online.

>>3896009

What exactly makes them any less true?
Those were some pretty exact numbers I saw in Wilton's report.

>The adults were talking.
You can believe what the media tells you, but in about a decade it might just be that contemporary liberals are the group rightly seen as immature and unthinking.

>>3896009
>its wrong because its old
jesus christ really?

>>3895998
It's because they can't express themselves in real life without a degree of hostility or at least incredulity, so they sort of cordon themselves off into insular hugboxes on the internet.

Their echo chambers only serve to radicalize them and everything in proximity is soon swallowed in a tidal wave of shit.

>>3896027
That is a satisfacotry response, thank you very much.

>>3896020
/pol/ is indeed full of both of them. My guess is that they are both so frustrated and self-righteous that they would either embrace anarchy or some common cause of superiority, usually race. I'm more libertarian myself, but to advocate libertarianism past the point of minarchy is just as absurd as fascism/Nazism.

>>3896009
yeah all they do is prove that the US and Great Britain were also fascist, only covertly

they do the US and Israel a fucking favor by making everyone either opposed to imperialism or in favor of the peace process look like an antisemite

>>3896027
>Let's ignore facts and pretend to psychoanalyze these political dissidents so we can ignore the contingent truths they present to us so we can live in our imaginary bubble land!
>I wasn't ever really good at facts anyway.

Still treating opponents like they're mentally incapable, eh?
Seems eerily analogous to the religious' "Blessing of Holy Wisdom" when it comes to the "Truth."
>pic related

>>3896044

>>3896024
>>3896025
For the Winston Churchill quote, it could easily be rhetoric, and as for the rest, it's completely antiquated information, rooted in the general prejudices of the time. Even "Jew" in the context provided in those reports doesn't seem to imply any Zionist proclivity. And, if you're acquainted with Soviet history, most Jews in the USSR were crushed either in the squabbles with the Mensheviks or under Stalin.

>the media
This isn't about any agenda, any cultural impetus or zeitgeist suppressing the precious, precious knowledge in your brain. If the Jews all fucking burned and Israel was a pile of ashes, your mindless emphasis on statistics and ancient intelligence reports in aversion to actual debate would be deranged in any discussion.

>>3896007
That's because people in the past were stupid, just like they are now. There's no need to ponder anything. If past slaughter bears implications about the justification for future slaughter, we can begin right now to deport and kill every single human being on the planet. Because every single ethnic or religious group, be it minoritary or majoritary, that has ever been in prolonged contact with another group, has been widely despised. Actually neighbors even despise neighbors. As some eighteenth century intellectual put it: "if everyone was given the power to kill other human being instantly and silently, the whole human species would disappear in a matter of minutes". Now grow up and fuck off with your "insights" about history.

>>3896044
Congratulations on discovering that the judiciary system relies on ritual and isn't immune from mythical discourse. It's not like we haven't known that for more than a century, right ?

>>3895936
Also why did you even start arguing with me?

>Completely wrong. Ask yourself who is supposed to be doing the 'allowing' in your sentence.

You said this after I said that capitalists should be allowed to develop the third world.

>The bourgeoisie will implement capitalist policies because it is a historical necessity, not because 'it's the right thing to do'.

>because it is a historical necessity

I agree with you. My comment was only to show my support.

That entire exchange was meaningless. Fuck you.

>>3896044
>I don't like your analysis
>My analysis is better because I get to call you bad names

>>3895936
And why fucking dissect my use of the word "should"? That had absolutely nothing to do with the argument.

The only part of your comment that wasn't beating around the bush was:

>And in any rate, capitalism is an international system. The revolution that overthrows it will be global. Undeveloped countries will be brought to socialism by that, not capitalist development.

And even there you forgot Marx's assertion that capitalism produces its own gravediggers; in other words capitalist development sows the seeds of revolution.

God damn it, I am so mad.

>>3896064

>rooted in the general prejudices of the time
That's the default answer to these sort of things, and you've not proven that those sentiments were ill founded.

>Even "Jew" in the context provided in those reports doesn't seem to imply any Zionist proclivity.
You proclaim that the same forces that took control over Russia weren't interested in establishing their own country?
You remember the deal Churchill made with Judea?

Those quotes referred especially to Zionist Jews.

>Rhetorical
"This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and
down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman
(United States)..."

Seems a little too specific to be rhetorical.

>And, if you're acquainted with Soviet history, most Jews in the USSR were crushed either in the squabbles with the Mensheviks or under Stalin.
Here I must honestly concede. I have heard of such things as pogroms and other such persecution, but like other things in history, I reserve the
possibility that the truth might well have been bent.
I'd be interested to hear more on this from you.

>This isn't about any agenda
How do you know?
Do you deny that they control most of the media and that they are benevolent enough not to use it to their advantage even if there weren't sister aims in mind?

>suppressing the precious, precious knowledge in your brain.
Please stop insulting my intelligence; I have not yet done that to you.
I sincerely doubt you can correct this equation.
If you cannot do so, then perhaps you are the unintelligent one.
On this matter you can see that I am giving you the benefit of the doubt rather than just making assumptions, as you have done about me.
>pic related

>>3895952
Thanks for derailing the thread, asshole.

>>3896082

I think you meant to reply to >>3896027

>>3896097

s-s-sorry.

>>3896032
the soft conspiracists don't really bother me
if some pothead in Seattle wants his 3 hour youtube manifesto to be monitored by the NSA than go figure,
serves them right for creating the damn thing in the first place.
Its when it turns into Volksverhetzung that it becomes an issue.
The problem with the internet is that its most active users are also the most disenfranchised_

>>3895672
>Who are the best thinkers?

Try Althusser.

Inb4 "strangled".

>>3895672
you've "officially converted" yet you don't know who the major thinkers are, the texts that have relevance to this day, etc

top lel

Lean from this dude
http://maoistrebelnews.wordpress.com/maoism/understanding-maos-on-contradiction/

>>3895672
>>3896123
Here you go:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

He's much, much better than Chomsky. I highly suggest this text.

>>3895800
>after the collapse of the USA?

wut

>>3895813
And the Soviet Union wasn't the ideal class-less and stateless utopia that the communists of the 19th century envisioned. Change some words and you can easily apply what you said about the US to the USSR.

>>3895836
Private property has different connotations than personal property. Personal property is permitted in most communist doctrines. Private property implies the ownership of the means of production by a capitalist or small group of capitalists which, in the event of a communist revolution, would be divided among and governed by the people who actually work in that factory, farm, whatever.

>>3896131
>highly suggesting Althusser

Way to remove the working class' subjectivity from history.

>>3896091
>That's the default answer to these sort of things, and you've not proven that those sentiments were ill founded.
Those sentiments were founded on peasant superstition and institutionalized provocateurism. As far as I can tell, the Zionist element wasn't even realized as a material, pernicious force until Israel was founded. General antisemitism has festered in the minds of the paranoid, like all forms of racism, for hundreds of years, and remains an invisible, immaterial force.

>You proclaim that the same forces that took control over Russia weren't interested in establishing their own country?
The Bolsheviks were the brutes of the early Soviet years, when it had the two (or three) party system, hanging off the hems of the previous tsarist industrial age. These were the same people who instituted the kolkhozy, as well as several other reforms, antithetical to the plight of ethnic Jews that occupied the rural areas. If the Soviet Union started with any emphatic Zionist influences, not only would Lenin have extolled them quite transparently in his doctrine, it would've ended and been invalidated with Stalin.

>Seems a little too specific to be rhetorical.
Rhetoric is rhetoric; I don't know when Churchhill made that speech but Western civilization has always seen communism as a pernicious element, put the bad with the worse together in a rousing speech, and suddenly you've successfully mobilized a populace against a global enemy.

>How do you know?
A well-tempered ideological outlook and the capacity for critical thought is entirely removed from the paranoid, all-encompassing framework of "the media".

The emphatic "they" is a good signifier that you don't quite know where ideology ends and where reality begins.

>One last attempt at deflecting in this fucking weightless ouroboros of an argument
Great, I was wondering where that was.

>>3896145
I don't understand your point.

>>3895672
You shouldn't limit yourself to marxist texts and I wouldn't be so hasty to call yourself a marxist. You should look more into socialism in general. Marx has some good ideas but there is definitely a semi-authoritarian aspect to his thought which it sounds you don't care for. Look into Michael Bakunin and his split from the International Workiman's Association and maybe read some Peter Kropotkin. They are both anarchists but they are socialists at their core. Also if you are interested in the effects of Stalinism I would look into the Spanish Civil War (Anarchists/Communists/Socialists pitted against fascists). There are plenty of good books on that subject but Orwell's Homage to Catalonia (first hand account) is the most entertaining in my opinion.

>>3896145
What's wrong with Louis? (Aside from the obvious fact that he was a psychopath.)

>>3896155
Kropotkin sucks but Proudhon and Bakunin were cool.

>>3895844
>government and business are intertwined
>problem
man, I sure do hate how businesses can't pay me in pennies to work in a sweatshop

>>3895807
no, but it is authoritarian
the end goal is anarchism, technically

what do I need to. read before reading capital with harvey by my side?

>>3896181
Hmmm.... Probably the party manifesto and The German ideology.

>>3896126
>The maoist rebel
Migahd! He's Jim Profit tier!

>>3896187
You know he's a troll.

To my knowledge, labour theory of value concludes that profits are an extraction of "surplus value" that otherwise "rightfully" belonged to the workers. From here, it's another logical step to conclude that ownership of the means of production then rightfully belongs to the workers, society or the state, depending on how authoritarian you want this system to be.

So how does the labour theory of value reconcile with the theory of marginal utility? How does the labour theory of value explain the value of tap water or land? How does labour theory of value account for risk and liability or profit and loss? How does socialism work without the business cycles of the price system that relies on value derived from marginal utility to a customer, not a worker's labour?

>>3896193
That should say:
How does socialism work without the business cycles of the price system that otherwise relies on value derived from marginal utility to a customer instead of a worker's labour?

>>3896126
Jason Unruhe, fuck off.

>>3896189
He's dead serious. I've argued with him before.

Mao, incidentally, was a shit Marxist. Everything Marx said communism wasn't in TGI, Mao made it into. His communism is exactly what Stirner attacked as liberalism. The fact that Mao wrote a shitty pamphlet called "Combat Liberalism" doesn't help matters.

Read Castoriadis's On The Content of Socialism, OP. It's a thousand times better than anything you'll get out of the Leninist camp.

>>3896169
>Kropotkin sucks

Why do you say that? I'm not a firm believer in Kropotkinian anarchism (I like my houses, thank you very much) but what about him is there to dislike?

>>3896193
>>3896203
GA Cohen wrote an essay on this very topic, about how you don't need the LTV to prove that capitalism is necessarily exploitative. An outline of it is here:

http://spruce.flint.umich.edu/~simoncu/485/marx/cohenexploit.htm

As for your last question, a lot of different systems have been worked out. Mutualism, for instance, maintains markets and the price system while getting rid of the hierarchy which defines the capitalist enterprise. Other thinkers, like Paul Cockshott (or whatever) take issue with the idea that prices in themselves communicate any relevant information at all.

>>3896153
Read some scholarly criticism of Althusser, I'd suggest EP Thompson's vicious attack.

>>3896167
Louis' philosophy is un-Marxist to the extent that there is no place for working class self-activity in Althusserian Marxism.

>>3896205

>The German Ideology
>Part of the Marxist canon

Hahaha

>>3896205
This is Castoriadis _before_ he became right wing of course.

>>How do we prevent Stalinist gulags?

By abandoning Marxism; these are the kinds of things that actually happen when Marxist ideas are put into practice in real life, regardless of theories or initial good intentions .

>>3896370
best laugh all night.

>>3896370
Depends on what Marx (or Marxist) you're reading. The Marx of The Communist Manifesto is different from the Marx of The Civil War in France. Marxist writers like Pannekoek are necessarily different from Marxist writers like Lenin.

Dismissing the whole because of the actions of the most 'successful' is really silly, in my opinion.

europe is so beautifully fucked up it's ridiculouss

>>3896394
everywhere else is too

>>3896406
That's what makes it so beautiful man don't you SEE

>>3896370
And we can say that republican democracy ends in military strongmen like Napoleon marching over all of Europe, regardless of theories or initial good intentions. That's why new ideas are bad and we should just stick with enlightened absolutist monarchism, right?

>>3896438
>enlightened absolutism

Feudal limits on monarchy bro. The second estate keeps us from heresy. DEUS VULT.

>>3896007
mm interesting point, this could mean that... there is a conspiracy against the jews?

>>3896091
Replace your A by a r and you would have a correct case of integrating the Maxwell-Ampère equation (if that's the right name, I always get those Maxwells turned around) along a trajectory.

>>3896534
And of course you would need a single integral for the last term. Unless you want to apply it the Stokes theorem in which case you'll get to replace E by rotE.

>>3896210
To understand Capital it is necessary either to have direct first-hand experience of capitalist exploitation (like the workers) or (like the revolutionary militants, whether they be workers or intellectuals) to have made the necessary effort to arrive at 'the standpoint of the working class'.

>>3896238
When did Castoriadis become right-wing?

Unless you're having a difficult time reading their work, Marx and Engels are all you need.

>>3896394
I'd rather live there than in the US.

>>3896210
Have you actually read Althusser, or is your knowledge of his work solely based on the words of his critics?

>>3895703
>tripfag calling someone else a joke

>>3895837
>>3895844
>>3895851
>>3895856
>capitalists trying desperately to convince themselves that capitalism doesn't necessarily leads to monopolization despite history showing it does

>>3896718
you watch your whore mouth and take notes when le superior people are posting

>>3896753
did your parents cut you off yet? you forgot to tell us how it went

>>3896743
>marxists trying to convince themselves that their glorious revolution doesn't lead to mass death and totalitarianism

Sure, capitalism isn't great, but a different kind of stupid won't help.

>>3896797
>the totalitarianism fallacy
Hitler was brought to power by German industrialists and capitalists. Both world wars were started by capitalist nations. The Belgian Congo, every famine the British ever oversaw in India, the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, the Herero genocide, the Armenian genocide...this isn't a contest you can win, y'know.

>>3895876
So have or have not 500m peasants been brought out of crushing poverty thanks to the de-Communisation of China 1978-present?

>>3896803
>They have more genocides then us

Good for you mate, only x million dead. It's all ok then.

>>3896807
>de-Communistation of China

Come back when you know something about China's politics and economy and the role the Party plays in controlling both even now.

>>3896808
That's what I'm saying. You can't make that simplistic and emotive argument about "this happened in communist countries so communism always leads to this", because it's easy, if not easier, to do the same with capitalism.

>>3896810
You actually believe China is Marxist?
Fuck off, right now.

I know plenty about it.

>>3896815
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Marxist-Leninists demand absolute power.

Class dismissed.

>>3896815
And I'm saying you cant fix stupid with more stupid.

>>3896820
Congrats, you used a tired stock phrase to disprove communism! Boy, it's a shame you weren't around to tell Marx and company that, isn't it? Could've prevented so much!

>>3896817
I'm sure you do, Americlap. I bet you've read a whole book, even. For a reactionary that's pretty good.

>>3896830
(>>3896824) here; he has a point. In communism, the state has absolute power. This leads to rather bad things, as it has in almost all communist states.

Now when compared to capitalism, where this power is spread across several companies and a government, you can see why he is skeptical. Again, allow me to clarify that I don't think either or these situations are good ones, just that the later is preferable to the former.

>>3896843
The nature of the states in question beyond their communism has to be considered. Attributing the extremely harsh rule of the Chinese and Soviet communists, to use the two main examples, solely to ideology is a gross oversimplification. Neither state was ready for even socialism, and both have long histories of immensely violent, repressive societies. I'm not backtracking and saying OH BUT THEY DON'T COUNT. They do. But I severely doubt, say, a people's republic of Great Britain, or of Belgium, or Sweden, would ever have the reason or the motivation to engage in a Great Leap Forward or a Great Purge.

>>3896843
>In communism, the state has absolute power.
Implying the modern American state doesn't have absolute power! You'll need to state your case more fully, because as it is, you're not making much sense.

>>3896867
>implying the state isn't an arm of private entities within the US
pls leve frend

>>3896830
it's funny how you've not actually refuted anything being said with historical examples, excerpts from Marx, or perhaps even just rhetoric. You're making an ass out of yourself.

>>3896885
Of course I am. It's a Sunday and it's nice outside and I'm arguing with people on 4chan.

>>3896743

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLBzfFGFQU

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Biu7bJAfVNI

Edumacate yourself.

>>3896889
"Arguing" would imply you've said anything worthwhile or relevant

>>3896867
Should Obama tell the armed forces to start culling civvies, I doubt they would. Should Obama decide that actually gays should be culled etc.

They don't control production, all media outlets etc. They are effectively an extension of multiple corporate interests; again preferable to just the one.

I'm English, by the way; what clarification do you want?

>>3896858
Ok, that's fair enough. I must admit I came into this comment to make a snide remark, not think.
However, Marxism wants a workers revolution. The only way people will revolt is for a cause they will get behind; some form of prejudice is an easy way of doing this. I don't doubt that should a revolution occur in England, it would be under the guise of removing Muslims, blacks, whatever; a populist or racist ruse to rile people up.

So yes, you have me; communism is not the cause, but it is very easily a catalyst.

>>3896901
>all those semicolons
I disgust myself

>all these ancaps and their absolute dumbshit understanding of history, sociology and philosophy.

>MAH CAPITALISM IS HUMAN NATURE.

This video explains how those who use "MAH HUMAN NATURE" should be treated:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0dM6j7pzQA

>>3895672
>officially converted to Marxism
>knows nothing about it

smh

>>3895672
>converted to Marxism
>without knowing anything about Marxism

Oh /lit/...

Bob Avakian of course!

>>3897059
>>3896131
Chomsky is a fucking retard. Literally EVERYTHING he says can be concluded through dialectics.

>>3896145
Rejecting teleology =/= "the working class has no power"

"oh, did someone ask for a marxism general thread..?"
-sectarian divisions, get 'em out-
Oh great, the an-caps are here too..

>>3897079
Islam is not consistent with marxism.

>>3897082
so how come in a fight between secularists and muslims the marxists always support the muslims?

>>3895844
and that would change how, exactly, if the government were left out of it?

>>3897075
>Literally EVERYTHING he says can be concluded through dialectics.
hey i like dialectics too but you're starting to sound ridiculous

>>3897078
>meanwhile in america.jpg

>>3897085
because to them anything is better than the west

>>3897096
well then perhaps it is since the most important part of both ideologies, an overriding hatred of individual freedom and liberty, is quite consistent.

>>3897090
Okay, pardon my language. But it is true that Chomsky is godawful at philosophy.

>>3897085
the US backed the Mujahideen (in partial response to the Iranian revolution imo) against the Soviets in Afganistan, both countries are going to be fighting never-ending proxy wars there until we either run out of oil or find a viable alternative

>>3895672
>Marxism.
> best thinkers
you done lost the game son

>>3897116
is chomsky ever going to croak? how is it dudes like rupert murdoch and george soros and noam chomsly just keep going on and on into their 80s

>>3897133
Superior genes.

>>3897136
so you're saying inbreeding is good for you?

>>3897139
50/50

But yeah, you'll produce as many geniuses as deformed monsters. Sometimes deformed geniuses.

>>3897096
somewhere out there there's a lonely spartacist who'd like to have a word with you,..

>>3897157
what?
>>3897145
incest is breddy ok. i mean the descendants of adam and eve buggered each other, and britain has a venerable tradition of incest.

>>3895752
>socialist state

This is an oxymoron, btw.

>>3895672
Anybody but Chomsky

>>3897198
>socialist state
>oxymoron

American detected. Learn the difference between socialism and communism.

>>3897199
>Chomsky
>Marxist

People need to fuck themselves so hard. I know a girl who is relatively educated and she thinks Anarchism and Marxism are basically the same... the vast majority of successful Marxists are power-hungry liars, many of them practically fascists.

>>3897215
> she thinks Anarchism and Marxism are basically the same

But they are, anon. They are working towards the same end-state.

>>3897178
oh, the spartacists got ostracized at some point for something or another
they were critical of Islam for a time
now they work on anti-imperialism stuff
I think they do some of those Hands-Off campaigns, but i'm not entirely sure..

>>3897227
the spartacists might have been good back in rosa luxembourgs day or whatever but the creepy cranks who call themselves spartacists today are either government spooks or just retarded, hard to tell with leftists sometimes

>>3897208
>American detected. Learn the difference between socialism and communism.

Yeah no.

a) I'm European
b) Even the Russian 'Marxists' conceded that the state they ran was not actually socialism, which was impossible to maintain because of outside aggression (accodring to them). Then, the power just consolidated itself. Basically the Bolsheviks ended socialism when they turned the soviets into paper-maché fronts for the party. A one-party bureaucracy is not socialism. Socialism means that the workplace is under the power of those who work there, the living place under the power of those who live there, etc. 'State socialism' is an oxymoron because everything is in the power of the State, which is run by a priviledged bureaucratic elite. The distribution of power over people and things in 'state socialism' is much more similar to capitalist and fascist regimes than to socialism.

>>3897221
>But they are, anon. They are working towards the same end-state.

Well, what 'end state' you work for matters exactly zilch if that end state is never achieved. The withering away of the 'workers state' is such a dumb and transparent lie... it's like saying a muslim suicide bomber and the pope are exactly the same, because they both pursue the same goal: entering paradise after death.

I wish you people wouldn't be so antisemitic. People do evil shit. Some of them happen to be Jewish. You people treat this shit like it's a conspiracy against humanity.
You're being spied on and this is being associated with Marxism and Anarchism, etc.- and it shouldn't be.
That being said, fuck Fascist Israel.
Making a quarrel with 'the Jews' rather than fascist zionism, or- better yet- greedy humans in general, is a much better route to follow.
If you read into other conspiracy theories, they sound exactly like this. They look for coincidences. What's the antisemite's excuse? Jews were involved in lots of random shit. Well, okay? So have lots of other groups, religions, etc.

>>3897251
>Well, what 'end state' you work for matters exactly zilch if that end state is never achieved.

>an anarchist calling out others for never achieving anything

doh ho ho ho my sides

>>3897256
>>an anarchist calling out others for never achieving anything

But that's not what I wrote at all, yfr. 'State socialism' achieves what it strives for, a party dictatorship, basically the highest form of statism. It's the antithesis of anarchism, and incompatible with socialism. How the fuck can someone be so dumb as to just take the stated intentions of a group striving to take power at face value? Do you think elected politicians do what they think their electorate wants them to do? FUCK NO. You don't think that because you are not a retard. Why the fuck would you believe a Marxist when they tell you they want a stateless society when there is NOT A SINGLE ACT in history (I assume, I'm relatively uneducated, feel free to show me wrong) towards a stateless society that was undertaken by those in power in a 'socialist state'.

>>3897277
and yet you take anarchism at face value lel

>>3897281
are you retarded? I judge anarchist by their actions, same as anyone else. I don't judge them by their stated intentions.

>>3897215
they were much closer together before Stalin and the Spanish Civil War

>>3897288
Not him, but do you really think all of the anarchists screaming for the abolishment of the State and of central authority aren't some of the people who will seize control in the newly created power vacuum? Anyway, how can you judge anarchists based on their actions, seeing as how a stable anarchist state has never been established and every anarchist "society" that has existed has been extremely short-lived and spent all of its time on a war footing?

>>3897298
anarchists are usually these beta dudes who want to rape girls and get away with it since a "real anarchist" would never call the cops so when joe rapes susy a "mediation council" or whatever is called and they all say joe was bad and then act like nothing happened, in a lot of ways anarchists remind me of catholics, in that a lot of them are rapists and the ones that aren't rapists help cover up the rapes

>>3897298
the other kind of anarchist exploiter (beyond the standard rapist) is the old man "non-leader" who tells kids to commit acts of terrorism he would never do himself...you know, tell kids to commit arson and whatnot and then when those kids are in prison for 10 years he's out in the woods in oregon smoking weed and fucking teens with stinky dreds

>>3897298
>anarchist state

>>3897323
Poor choice of words. I meant a clearly delineated area and group of people over which anarchism holds sway.

>>3897323
>losers winning

it's true, anarchism will always be a fantasy

>>3897333
>still not getting it

>>3897337
What am I not getting?

>>3897340
you're not getting that anarchism is a fantasy for teens and is only capable of opposing things

>>3897344
< ..maturity, right?
the russian tsars were paternalistic as well..

>>3895768
>>3895780
read his essays "on contradiction" and "on practice"

go on either marx2mao.com or use the marxists.org internet archive

>>3897253
the beauty of /pol/ logic is that you can always blame it on a jew, even when it contradicts itself and when jews hate other jews

example
> zionist judaism
wow omg how dare think they're entitled why don't they just assimilate they're controlling the world
> non-zionist judaism
wow omg fuck these jews send them outta here they'll never assimilate

It's a crude example but it's the way /pol/ functions.

>>3897371
10/10 would bang

>>3897133
I hope he does soon. Maybe then his cult will die with him.

read
Althusser
Gramsci
McChesney
Engles
Terry Eagleton
Badiou
Eric Hobsbawm
EO Wright

get into neo-marxism

don't bother too much with Mao, lenin, trotsky etc.

>>3899078
1000% THIS

any of u fuckers been to this shit? some dude is building a monument to gramsci in a housing project in the bronx, if i get check it out will i be shot by the local proletarians?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/arts/design/thomas-hirschhorn-picks-bronx-development-as-art-site.html

>>3895672
>http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html

Sauce on that image?

>>3897074
The RCP are fucking batshit insane.

>>3897085
Because we are against racism.
Islam is the shittiest and most abusive religion on earth.

>>3897371
The hilarious thing about Stalin is that he was Lumpen-Proletariat (Mafia Gangster, muderer and bank robber) before joining the Bolsheviks.

He was from a class that Marx and Lenin thought were a lost cause.

We need a new Marx. Or that is to say we have a new Marx, and that man's name is Peter Joseph.

>tfw the Black Panthers will never be remembered for their Marxism

It's really a fucking shame. Huey deservers a place right up there with Malcom and MLK.

>>3899501
>http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/seize-the-time-the-eighth-defendant

>Ever made the money.

Fucking bullshit.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/seize-the-time-the-eighth-defendant

Documentary on the Black Panthers put on indie gogo, produced by Bobby Seale himself.
>Made $8,000

Fucking bullshit. Though to be fair, like 4 people use Indiegogo.

Please, don't.

If you haven't read any marxist literature and yet you're attracted to it because it seems aesthetically hip to you in the moment, find something less shallow to "convert" to. Classical liberalism and american libertarianism are there for people like you.

>>3899510
>Marxism
>Shallow

>American Libertarianism
>deep and relevant

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Liberalism and "libertarianism" exist to make useful idiots out of idealistic children for Corporations.

>>3899545
We're making the same point, actually, but there was typo somewhere.

Whatever, I deleted the post. And I agree with you.

Being a Marxist just means you're easily fooled.

>>3899506
>mfw overheard some female grad student trying to get this old guy excited about indiegogo yesterday
>she kept spelling the website name out and showing him it on her smartphone and he clearly didn't care

>>3896027
/pol/ in a nutshell.
Except for the aggresive language, board raids, disregard of scientific evidence and racism.

>>3899549
Nothing worse than young people's enthusiasm.

>>3896710
And Balibar, and Poulantzas.

>>3897075
Show me the subject in Althusser.

>>3899078
hobsbawm the stalinist apologist awww yeah marxism 4 lyfe 420blaze it faggot

>>3899078
I made this post and read all of these guys, and read a lot of journal articles and shit and basically did my undergrad on Neo-Marxism.

It feels like a waste of time. I don't know how I can use any of what I learned to further the proletarian cause. I could go to grad school and write more, but that seems like a waste too.

I think everyone interested in furthering marxism should either get a law degree, or study labour studies and learn how to organize workers. Someone has to start unionizing service workers in malls. Here in Canada you are not even allowed to hand out union pamphlets to workers in malls, the way you can in factories. Someone has to change that.

skimming through this thread
>how I feel

>>3896007
>the need to include who those personalities were

>>3900874
> I think everyone interested in furthering marxism should either get a law degree, or study labour studies and learn how to organize workers.

I'm kind of tempted to get into law because of this. We'll see how my final year goes.

>>3896007
>"Why IS IT that so many people in the past despised Jews?"

Incredibly easy to answer. Jews were largely the "Bourgeoisie" since in the middle ages and renaissance, essentially up to later mercantilism Catholics were banned from usury, which meant the banks and the early business world, was essentially entirely controlled, by Jews.

"The Jews control society!" is essentially the medieval/renaissance version of "The Bourgeoisie control society". Communists realize this. They realize that most of the Bourgeoisie are Jews but not all Jews are the Bourgeoisie. Look at Marx's "On the Jewish Question" and even he admits in there, that the Jews do essentially make up the entire Bourgeoisie and the Capitalism, was largely controlled by Jewish interests.

Again. I have no problem with some Jew in my street or even most Jews in general, I have a problem with the middle class elite, the bourgeoisie, who happen also, to be largely Jewish.

>>3899547
what a deep and sophisticated argument.

>>3901560
also problematic is when Jews tell every other ethnic group they must intermarry and wipe themselves out with open immigration but keep Jews exempt. I think people start to get a little bitter after being told for the 1000th time that wanting to be around their own people is racist by someone who then goes on about the charm of Hasidic communities or whatever....

for instance, open immigration is "a must" for America but in Israel only Jews are welcome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/world/middleeast/netanyahu-vows-crackdown-on-african-asylum-seekers.html?_r=2&hp&

or, having ethnically homogenous enclaves is evil for Europeans and Muslims but for Jews it's a "virtue":

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2013/may/29/micropolis-downside-diversity-secret-hassidic-supermarket/

>>3903045
no that's being muslim

>>3901409
all the marxists i knew in college went to law school and became corporate lawyers fighting for the rights of ... corporate mergers! viva la revolucion comrades!

>>3903062
That is Trotskyist scum for ya.
Many former Neo-Cons were Trotskytards in their earlier days as well.

>>3895672

Guy Debord

>>3903072
actually it's anyone who wants to play revolution in college but still come out bourgeois on the other side...none of the ones i went to school with where trotskyist, actually trotskyists tend be more committed to organizing workers while maoists and stalinists just like to march around supporting islamic terror or black murderers on death row or whatever, you no stuff that gets a lot attention but does nothing for the actual working class

Are intellectualism and socialism necessarily opposed? As long as the intellectual makes his money from his labor and not investments it's cool?

>>3903091
yeah you can get an MBA in finance and run a hedge fund and still be marxist, nothing wrong with it!

>>3903091
marxism is a fashion statement not an ideology, it doesn't matter how you get your money really

>>3903094
>hedge fund
>not an investment

>>3903105
> hedge fund
> manage other people's money in exchange for fees

for someone claiming to be a marxist you might want to learn how finance capitalism actually works

marxism is like christianity, it seems decent when you just read the texts but then when you meet the hypocritical retards who follow it you realize how stupid it really

>>3903127
>marxism is like christianity, it seems decent when you just read the texts but then when you meet the hypocritical retards who follow it you realize how stupid it really

accurate

>>3903123
That is some ridiculously autistic nitpicking. So you are making money managing investments instead of making money by contributing investments, big deal.

>>3903127
>look ma i'm being contrarian on the internet!

You might also want to read this by Negri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(book)

http://jacobinmag.com/

also, use jstor if you want to be relevant.

Try Alexander Tarasov.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tarasov

>>3895672
Why is this thread still alive?

If you want to get the working classes mobilized, you actually have to dumb down your rhetoric.
The Communist Manifest worked 170 years ago because people were actually smarter back then (proven by science) and could see with their own eyes the problems with Capitalism, now that has all been sent off to the third world and people are largely apathetic to everything.

Dumb down the rhetoric.
Make the rhetoric speak to the masses in the first world.
Re"launch" the image of Communism.

People have been subjected to about 90 years of Anti Communist propaganda, most people don't even know what Communism is and associate it with death camps. Most people don't even know that the USSR actually had a higher HDI than the modern US when factored in for inequality.

I think this is done by offering new solutions and plans for Communism, instead of just trying to prove over and over again that
A: The media complete bullshits about Mao and several studies have shown that quality of life was better in the Maoist period than in China now.
B: The USSR was not communist, but state Capitalist with a incredibly good welfare state and incredibly socially conservative politburo.

When people say that modern Commies are innercity ivory tower elites. It doesn't mean that students and professors are fucking billionare snobs telling people how to live their lives (actually it probably does to much of the right wing but I digress) I believe it means shit like what you see in Kasamaproject or Red Flag or Red Phoenix. Stuff that makes absolutely no sense unless you are versed in Socialist theory and Philosophy.

http://kasamaproject.org/
No average working class chump is going to read through any of this shit. In fact, most people only have newspapers today for the sport and editorials.

>>3903994
lol my dad bought me a copy of that when it came out but i never got around to reading it

>>3904804
ur shit is tl;dr but judging from the first sentence i agree wholeheartedly...most "marxist" shit is really a pissing contest between college kids and professors to see who is most clever, not who is most effective at mobilizing the working class. it's so out of touch with working class people that i just shake my head reading it like "wow, have these guys ever met a real life proletarian other than their nanny and/or maid?"

>>3904804
hmmm, kasama seems vaguely familiar to me from the bush days...the people who founded it are from nyc right?

but you have to realize people who call themselves "maoists" don't really care about working class stuff, their more interested in brown people in the third world running around in the jungle with 30 year old ak-47s...i don't consider them "serious" in the sense of advancing workers interests.

>>3904837
I think it was founded by former members of Bob Avakins RCP who realized that Bob and his group were a neo-Stalinist Cult.

JUST COMMIT SUICIDE, SUBHUMAN.

PERSONS LIKE YOU ARE THE DREGS OF HUMANITY.

>>3904847
oh yes Kasama and Red Flags are old RCP freaks who quit the RCP but didn't quit being dumbass Maoists...like people who quit the Catholic Church but keep believing in God.

>>3904817
I agree. I became a Communist from my experience in the construction industry and the constant cutting of corners, the constant fucking over of workers and the constant corruption I saw in the head office, who often just sat around doing NOTHING while us workers did their work for them, and our wages didn't even go up to match inflation, while they gave themselves several pay rises.

When it was at the point that we were doing the paperwork to pay our own wages and ordering the parts and gear all stuff the head office was supposed to be doing, I started to wonder why in fuck we even needed the head office in the first place and that is what was the spark.

Most Blue Collar workers though are fiercely hypocritical conservatives, which has always been strange to me, because Communism is literally the political movement of the hard labourer.

>>3904869
i had a similar experience working for a contractor when i was a teenager, i thought it was unfair that he got this huge wad of cash while me and a bunch of other people had to toil in the sun...but now i realize he didn't have to do the physical labor because he didn the hardest part which was to organize the whole operation! he took the risk to take out advertising, rent the truck and tools and then round up a bunch of no skills bad attitude people from around the area to work for him...i mean he could of just stayed home smoking weed and nothing would have happened...could he have shared more of the profits with us? perhaps but then again, why did we deserve more? we had no skills other than swinging hammers (this was demolition work) and people were smoking weed on the job site i mean if something went wrong he could've been sued to shit. now i believe it's important for people to get fair wages and safety precautions, which can be addressed through unions...but communist revolution just privileges one set of "organizational leaders" over another.

>>3904880
You mean
>He sat around with money he already had and invested it.

Wow!

You do realize that the CEO's are "working class" like everyone else right? They are hired by stockholders to do the work. One of my main issues of Capitalism is that it awards usually the laziest sociopaths who were born into money, not those that actually take risks.

A Small business owner takes a massive risk and any small thing may send him bankrupt and his house lost.
The majority of the business world though, is the elite with billions of dollars of cash and assets and throwing a few million here and there. Something like 40% of all global trade is controlled by 147 individuals according to systems theorists in Zurich.

>>3904804

>(proven by science)

OK, buddy.

>>3895782

It happened you fucking piece of scum. You aren't going to erase peoples lives and suffering like that you absolute degenerate.

I hope you find no satisfaction in life.

>>3905506

So if it's that easy why isn't everyone rich? I can save money working minimum wage and then invest it and magically become rich? Is that how you think it works?

>>3905547
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470

>>3905559
because most people aren't born into circumstances that permit it? reality is bounded, dog.

>>3905559
>I can save money working minimum wage and then invest it and magically become rich? Is that how you think it works?

Wow what a strawman.

A: You don't earn enough money to make reasonable capital, if you are working on minimum wage or really really any low-medium income bracket, you are most likely living in constant and complete debt. It is far, far more riskier for a person on a low wage to invest than those with money to blow.

For the rich, they actually don't take real risks because losing a few hundred thousand or a million doesn't mean anything.
if you invest and buy $500 worth of shares or whatever, you might get $10 back dividends or whatever, now imagine, if you invested 5 million, you are getting back $100,000. (based on average dividend rate of 2%)

This is how money concentrates to those who have the money. This is a well known phenomenon in economics called "the concentration of capital" and how a handful of people can control 40% of all money flow on the planet.

There are groups of people out there, that have enough assets and money, to buy out entire countries.

>>3905584

Okay so the rich don't take as many risks and that makes capitalism bad? Your point was that the guy who ran the carpentry company had capital and invested it which was easy for him... well anybody can earn capital without debt, I make $1700 a month on minimum wage with no debt and I spend about $900 of it. If I never advanced my position at all I could save about $10,000 per year.

>>3905589
so in 5 years you have enough to get an engineering or science degree with cash, then you will earn many times minimum wage, then save that for 5 more years and invest it in a new business...now you might not be rich but you'll be top 5% income...or you can sit on 4chan and stay poor. that's your choice in the freedom of capitalism and democracy!

>>3905787
>being this fucking dumb

>>3905787
>so in 5 years you have enough to get an engineering or science degree with cash, then you will earn many times minimum wage, then save that for 5 more years and invest it in a new business...now you might not be rich but you'll be top 5% income
Lol. Dude, how about you do that and come back to tell us about the results? :)

>>3904869
>Most Blue Collar workers though are fiercely hypocritical conservatives, which has always been strange to me, because Communism is literally the political movement of the hard labourer.

American capitalists won. The anti-communist disease is still in the national consciousness. People still effectively think that hiding under their desks will save them when the USSR bombs them.

>>3906275
>being this unconscious

>>3906391
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you petite bourgeoisie? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Paris X Nanterre, and I’ve been involved in numerous redistributions of wealth, and I have over 300 confirmed wild-cat strikes. I am trained in class warfare and I’m the top organizer in the entire IWW. You are nothing to me but just another oppressor etc etc

>>3906275
No no dude, EVERYONE CAN START A BUSINESS!
EVERYBODY.
See that kid starving to death, he is only starving because he was a lazy 4channer who didn't start his own business.

Come join the middle class /lit/, its the american dream!

>>3905576
well, fuck me

Time to get the fuck off 4chan and start doing something. Thanks m8, you saved my life.

>>3906293
well the dudes who donate millions of dollars to my alma mater all did it

>>3907546
in my years as a marxist i realize there are two kinds: 1) rich privileged people who feel guilty and/or hate their dad 2) lazy motherfuckers who want an excuse for not accomplishing anything

a #2 marxist is nothing to be my friend, get your shit together and then your asshole kids can get back at you for providing them with a comfortable life by being marxists in college

>>3904869
>Most Blue Collar workers though are fiercely hypocritical conservatives, which has always been strange to me, because Communism is literally the political movement of the hard labourer.
The current left is too foreign to the working class, we need a more populist left.

The problem is there is no "working class". There's a bunch of fractured populations, working shitty jobs, struggling to get by, etc. But there's no identity.

Something has got to change eventually though, technology and economics has already made the full of employment of the populace impossible.

>tfw no state guaranteed income for mcdonalds and televisions

>>3907988
A populist left loses students, old people and the intelligentsia in favor of a mass of disorganized and fickle voters without a lot of lobbying capital to throw around.

>>3908008
If you're talking about bourgeois elections at all, you're not a leftist.

>>3904804
Communist mobilisation begins in the workplace. A praxis'll defeat an ideology. Trying to fight in an ideological terrain is an immediate concession to the bourgeoisie. And a concession to the bourgeois Marxists most of all.

>>3907988
>>Most Blue Collar workers though are fiercely hypocritical conservatives, which has always been strange to me, because Communism is literally the political movement of the hard labourer.

Obviously it isn't, or the "working class" would be supporting it. Also be aware that class divisions are far more complicated than Marxists seem to think; and "workers," whatever you really mean by that, know that the Left wishes to cram them all into a tidy classification-box for easier control & administration. AND THEY FUCKING HATE BEING CRAMMED INTO LITTLE BOXES.

>>3908470
>Also be aware that class divisions are far more complicated than Marxists seem to think

Really, in what way? Do you think EO Wright is wrong about contradictory locations, or is it Poulantzas' rigorous reduction to the economist categories of Capital 1 that gets your goat, when you're sitting there arguing from, say, Tronti, that the primary antagonism in the workplace overrides the attempt to produce structural categories.

Go talk out your arsehole on /mu/ until your arsehole learns to eat.

>>3908425
>. A praxis'll defeat an ideology

a praxis without theory - which we must keep separate from 'ideology' - is blind. the correct analysis of the negative is the first step towards its dissolution. so i agree with your first sentence but one needs to be wary of the in fact bourgeois attitude of the absolute primacy of practical reason, of the submission of thinking to just "getting done" the pragmatic tasks at hand as opposed to critically reflecting on those tasks. both the absolute primacy of thought and the pragmatic submission of thought to immediate ends is ideology.

prole retard here

i might not be as smart or hipstery-urbane as you and it took me a lot of work to learn to write like a smug forum phaggot but is it really true that i'm better served by a unelected junta that will kill me for being insufficiently revolutionary than some bosses that will mildly exploit me within the confines of the law lol

also why is everyone at this meeting white and nerdy with chabon-esque "fine features"

someone told me that this was just the yuppie equivalent of /pol/'s Naziphilia, a bunch of temporarily deposed commissars :0

Why do modern day Marxists distance themselves from Stalin's legacy and call him the "Gravedigger of the revolution" due to his brutality yet are quite happy to call themselves Maoists? Mao was arguably just as, if not more brutal than Stalin.

>>3908574
>Mao was arguably just as, if not more brutal than Stalin.

Nope. Not in any way.

>>3908568
Don't worry, you're the only person making sense in this thread so far.

>>3908568
>i might not be as smart or hipstery-urbane as you and it took me a lot of work to learn to write like a smug forum phaggot but is it really true that i'm better served by a unelected junta that will kill me for being insufficiently revolutionary than some bosses that will mildly exploit me within the confines of the law lol

1: You most likely won't be killed.
2: Capitalism is totally unsustainable and will most likely implode on itself sometime this or next century which will result in the deaths of countless people.
3: Socialism = / = Marxist-Leninism.
4: Socialism is not about doing what is best for yourself, but what is best for society. For us who grew up under Capitalism and think with a Capitalist mindset, Socialism WON'T be an incredibly nice system to live under. To us it will feel materialistically poor and if you are not into intellectualism and you are not community minded, possibly, very boring.

Us Socialists do what we do because we know what we do will save humanity and future generations. At its heart, for us, its an ideology that transcends our own individual needs.

Frankly, the future looks like
Socialism
Feudalism
Or outright death of the planet.

>>3908581

>This is what marxist revisionists actually believe

>The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, resulting in tens of millions of excess deaths.[3] Estimates of the death toll range from 18 million[4] to 45 million,[5] with estimates by demographic specialists ranging from 18 million to 32.5 million.[4] Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history."[6]

>During the Cultural Revolution Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country, and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked.

But I'm sure all critics of Maoism are bourgeois historians with a stake in capitalist oppression, and everything Soviet and Communist-approved historians write is 100% factual

>>3908596
>The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, resulting in tens of millions of excess deaths.[3] Estimates of the death toll range from 18 million[4] to 45 million,[5] with estimates by demographic specialists ranging from 18 million to 32.5 million.

Wikipedia lol.

Most historians agree that deaths of the great leap forward were around 3-11.7 million. There is ZERO evidence for a death rate higher than that. Also the death rate had little to do with Mao, it had to do with severe natural disasters, Soviets pulling out infrastructure, The Peoples Communes lying about production.

>Historian Frank Dikötter

A right wing hack who has been dubunked numerous times.

>During the Cultural Revolution Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country

Had nothing to do with Mao. Violence during the Cultural Revolution was Grassroots.

Oh also the Cultural Revolution/Mao wikipedia pages are fiercely protected and written by guess who TAIWANESE because they are not going to be bias as fuck at all.
Nope, no chance of bias there, I mean, using fucking FRANK DIKOTTER as a source shows no bias at all.
I heard Obama is a Kenyan Muslim Lizardman, Alex Jones told me so, I really should go update his Wikipedia page.

>>3908595
Exactly.

>>3908596
>But I'm sure all critics of Maoism are bourgeois historians with a stake in capitalist oppression
But... they are.

>>3908596
>I'm sure all critics of Maoism are bourgeois historians with a stake in capitalist oppression

Actually most are funnily enough. The most famous critics, Dikotter, Bannister, Chang and Halliday all have links to right wing organizations and have all been debunked numerous, numerous times by actual academics in the field.

>David S. G. Goodman, Professor of Contemporary China Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, wrote there had been "a conspiracy of academics and scholars who have chosen not to reveal the truth."

>Professor Thomas Bernstein of Columbia University referred to Chang and Halliday's work as "... a major disaster for the contemporary China field..." " because the "scholarship is put at the service of thoroughly destroying Mao's reputation. The result is an equally stupendous number of quotations out of context, distortion of facts and omission of much of what makes Mao a complex, contradictory, and multi-sided leader."

>The China Journal invited a group of specialists to give assessments of the book in the area of their expertise. Professors Gregor Benton (Cardiff University) and Steve Tsang (University of Oxford) argued that Chang and Halliday "misread sources, use them selectively, use them out of context, or otherwise trim or bend them to cast Mao in an unrelentingly bad light

Mobo Gao, Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Adelaide, wrote that the work of Chang and Halliday was "intellectually scandalous", saying that it "misinterprets evidence, ignores the existing literature, and makes sensationalist claims without proper evidence."

>Dikötter is considered to be a revisionist and anti-communist historian

http://www.hkstrongwind.com/pdfs/EBook/The_Battle_for_Chinas_Past.pdf

If you want a decent book about what living under Mao was like FROM A HISTORIAN THAT ACTUALLY LIVED UNDER MAO, here you go.

>>3908607
>Most historians agree that deaths of the great leap forward were around 3-11.7 million. There is ZERO evidence for a death rate higher than that.

Even if that was true, are those 3-11.7 million deaths a worthy sacrifice for a state that became capitalist 30 years later?

>There is ZERO evidence for a death rate higher than that. Also the death rate had little to do with Mao, it had to do with severe natural disasters, Soviets pulling out infrastructure, The Peoples Communes lying about production.

Lol at palming man-made deaths off to 'natural disasters' If by natural disasters you mean foolish and purely-planned schemes by the state then yes. How would Soviets pulling out infrastructure and people LYING ABOUT PRODUCTION cause deaths? So Mao was a genius who knew what was best and it was just unfortunate that every single person under him was incompetent.

>Had nothing to do with Mao. Violence during the Cultural Revolution was Grassroots.

Yes keep telling yourself this."THE PEOPLE WANTED IT, MAO WAS JUST DOING WHAT THE PEOPLE WANTED". Why did these enormous death tolls suddenly stop after Mao's death? Is that another coincidence?

Please give me a historian who would agree with your points.

First-hand account of land reform from an Anglo-American.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Through_a_Glass_Darkly.html?id=oSiLQgAACAAJ

>>3908630

*purely should be poorly

>>3908630
>Why did these enormous death tolls suddenly stop after Mao's death?
Because the government after Mao cracked down on the Red Guards. Mao's own wife was imprisoned as a show of this. Despite the excesses of some of them Red Guard the Cultural Revolution had very noble goals with wide-spread support and great success, which is precisely why these excesses occurred. Once people took power into their own hands some decided to get comeuppance from their teachers, landlords, etc. You've been taught to blow the actual history of the even out of proportion, like you do with the Great Leap Forward. Where's you rage against the US government over deaths from US famines such as the Dust Bowl?

>>3908630
>Even if that was true, are those 3-11.7 million deaths a worthy sacrifice for a state that became capitalist 30 years later?

The fact that the Great Leap Forward stopped all famine in China, a country riddled with famine, yes.
Also China's death rates are high because of its massive population, China's death rate was only 25.7:1000 during the GLF, Hong Kong at the time was 32:1000, India had a very similar death rate.

You also forget the part where Mao doubled life expectancy, almost doubled the population of China, ended the Opium trade that was killing tens of millions, brought Chinas death rates to the lowest they had ever been and brought infant mortality to a lower point than even the United States.

>Why did these enormous death tolls suddenly stop after Mao's death? Is that another coincidence?

The idea that tens of millions were dying during the Cultural Revolution has no basis, the reason the death tolls suddenly stopped was because the opposite of what you claim actually, the death tolls stopped because of massive Government authoritarianism that smashed the peoples freedom and massacred the Red Guards (who were not actually under control by the Government or Mao, but were a fanatical grassroots organization, blaming Mao for the red guards is like blaming all Conservatives for Brevik)

>>3908595
>1: You most likely won't be killed.

ok im putting my life in the hands of brooklynite hipsters who mock everything about me relentlessly :o)

>2: Capitalism is totally unsustainable and will most likely implode on itself sometime this or next century which will result in the deaths of countless people.

i want to die sooner not later(?)

>3: Socialism = / = Marxist-Leninism.

cool, i bet its much nicer and

>4: Socialism is not about doing what is best for yourself, but what is best for society.

my betters telling me whats best is completely different than capitalism lol

>For us who grew up under Capitalism and think with a Capitalist mindset, Socialism WON'T be an incredibly nice system to live under. To us it will feel materialistically poor and if you are not into intellectualism and you are not community minded, possibly, very boring.

cool, so it will be repressive, boring, and possibly involve my being executed for complaining about it

>Socialism
>Feudalism

whats the diff

>>3908645
>The idea that tens of millions were dying during the Cultural Revolution has no basis

where are the gas chambers OBAMA???

>>3895672
>I've officially converted to becoming human cancer.

>>3908707
Here is the difference. The death tolls of Nazi germany have numerous amounts of documentation behind them, and metric fucktonnes of evidence behind them.

Most of the "Communist death tolls" are actually literally impossible statistically and demographically and are based on almost no evidence what so ever. For example the Communist purges in the USSR? How many dead, 5 million? 50 million? 100 million? Nope, actually 700,000 according to what secret NKVD documents we have that were broken into during the clusterfuck of the 90s. This is a horrendous number in my opinion and totally unacceptable, but I absolutely hate historical revisionism where they just pull numbers out of their ass to make things even worse, instead of seeing why such deaths occured. (incredibly paranoid post-revolutionary society with cultural norms of knocking off your enemies and historical context of what occurred in the French Revolution that allowed psychopathic nobodies like Napoleon to rise to power)

Yes I hate using this /pol/ image because it is so condescending but it does show how easily the Communist death toll numbers are debunked.

http://weeklybolshevik.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/what-makes-a-famine-is-ideology/

Very decent article into how the Communist death toll numbers are made.

http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward

This one is absolutely brilliant and goes through all the statistics and data we know.

chinastudygroup.net/blogs/eastwindwestwind/files/2009/08/patnaik-famine-measuring.pdf

This one is actually a report about food crisis in India, but also covers the great leap forward and again, goes through statistics (while comparing them to India)

>>3908730
Last time I looked, Capitalism was the system based on unsustainable growth in a finite ecosystem while polluting everything to death because "MAH EXTERNALITIES" are rarely taken into account with measurement figures like growth and development.

>>3908813
>The death tolls of Nazi germany [...] are actually literally impossible statistically and demographically and are based on almost no evidence what so ever.

>>3908815
Nazi numbers are based on mountains of evidence and physical evidence.

Soviet numbers are based largely on complete exaggeration, dodgy statistical work and anti-communism.

>>3908817
>Nazi numbers are [...] based largely on complete exaggeration, dodgy statistical work and anti-[Nazism].

It's like you're allergic to any pill with a hue above cyan

>>3908595
This man knows.

> For us who grew up under Capitalism and think with a Capitalist mindset, Socialism WON'T be an incredibly nice system to live under. To us it will feel materialistically poor and if you are not into intellectualism and you are not community minded, possibly, very boring.

Europe will be able to handle this much better. Americans will want to kill themselves.

>>3908895

Europeans handled Stalinism and Nazism. This subtle appeal-to-novelty won't save you. By all accounts, what you're proposing is in the end not all that different from feudalism, or state fascism, or really in the end, exterminism.

>>3908540
Yeah, "praxis" isn't a "pragmatics" in the sense of US late 19th century utilitarianism. The method of thought present in emancipatory collective subjective praxes is quite interesting, as it is decentred from the enlightenment individual. (This too is learnt in the factory, whether bourgeois run or domestic).

>>3908568
Two reasons:
1) White collars tend to be marxists these days due to the link between University and marxist recruiting strategies. They tend to think of themselves as degraded middle class.
2) The actuality of white collar work is that it is at the forefront of emiseration and proletarianisation; which has lead to a relative interest in Marxism from skilled white collar workers looking to protect skills margins. Today's "fitter and turner" is the teacher or nurse.

Of course, there are a lot of children of management who join Marxist parties out of a sense of moral obligation; rather than a sense of material will to win.

Generally the further you get away from Leninism and towards "class organisation" the more blue collar you get. The IWW is full of broken noses and broken lives where I live.

>>3908607
Mao was a blood thirsty fuck who grossly mismanaged the economy. But the deaths were between 3-12 as you note, and Dikotter is a lying fuck.

It is possible to attack Mao without buying into bourgeois lies. The left attack on Stalin always ran to the real numbers. Robert Conquest, a UK Labour left is good in this regard, demonstrating what the left thought before full archival opening.

>>3903087
This

/thread

>>3910191
/lit/ is a burichan board and your uncited shit is frankly insulting.