/lit/ - Literature

>>4052497
I'm assuming Marx's thinking was that since the means of production after a proletariat revolution are no longer privately owned, a different, democratic 'state' of workers would emerge as a result of the altered economic system.

I don't agree with that line of thinking, but I think that was the gist of it.

>>4052497
>but then cites previous revolutions where that explicitly didn't occur
Isn't that because previous revolutions weren't proper working class revolutions?

>>4052542
Thank you!

See, I remember he mentions towards the end something about the state being limited to a chaperone of manufacture, while at the same time laying out all sorts of other duties of the state.

I don't know man. I also read "Estranged Labor" from the Manuscripts, which I found to be a more interesting piece of economic philosophy. I guess The Manifesto is meant to be more of a stirring read, and it was at times, but I'm not sure it's developed enough in 68 pages to really justify all the claims he's making. I guess I should read some of his other work.

>>4052546
Yeah, but only because that's impossible.
You need that middle class to LEAD, you need the bourgeois to lead the proletariat to revolution, they proletariat does not understand that a revolution is also fueled by ideas as well as blood and iron, and since they're working class, they'll never really be educated, so a "true" working class revolution is, in my opinion, impossible.

>>4052546
Well, he talked about the feudal system being destroyed by the economic development of the bourgeoisie, so maybe you're right. I'm just not sure I grasp how he really justifies the idea that a proletariat revolution necessarily results in a communist utopia instead of another shitty exploitative state.

It's a reorganization of labor which in turn would lead to a reorganization of the state and eventually the state would dissolve. Or at least, that's what I think. Viva!!!

>>4052552
Yeah, the Manifesto isn't meant to be much more than a call to arms, I guess. I haven't delved into his more substantial work yet either, so I could be off about my answer.
So much reading, so little time.

What Marx proposed was a revolution - literally - social, economic, philosophical and cultural. It would be a complete revolution of previous norms and behaviors which is what makes his idea revolutionary to begin with. When it comes down to a proletariat revolution and the redistribution of labor and wealth he is literally talking about changing the mindset of an entire culture.

It's brilliant, really.

>>4052552
the volumes of capital and the grundrisse esp.

>>4052566
Ok, see this is sort of what I was imagining INSTEAD OF what Marx was saying, but maybe I was just missing the implications? Couldn't see the forest for the trees?

The whole time I kept thinking that he was too caught up with believing that the Communist Revolution was in his particular stage of history, and that maybe it was still far into the future. I keep imagining this sort of gradual disconnect of the population from the state as it becomes increasingly irrelevant in a highly technologized society, ultimately resulting in a decentralized power structure spread among a gradually equalizing population.

Perhaps we're still a few class struggles away from practical communism?

Im pleasantly surprised by the civility ITT. Bump for further interest

>>4052570
Ok, see I guess that's sort of in line with what I was imagining (>>4052572). Maybe the period zeal of The Manifesto was just throwing me off from some of his larger points.

>>4052572

Strangely, the rise of technology has led me to believe society will ultimately progress in 2 potential splits in the road. I think what Marx and Engels laid out was a society that all of humanity will want to strive for. Whether you agree/disagree with the reality of how it can be achieved, sustained, etc. I think we can all agree that it would be a very pleasant way of life.

I think we can either become more in that Marxist fashion (though, I actually point to Star Trek's society as the pinnacle of what humanity can become) or we can fall into something like 1984 where technology is used to oppress, suppress, and overpower.

I can imagine Marx sitting down and writing this out with the idea that the revolution was indeed on the horizon - and it somewhat was in Russia. However, the Communist movement was hijacked by a very aggressive vanguard party and that's exactly where I believe it went wrong. A vanguard party will ultimately mean oppression in the end of the working people because you will have a militarisitic wing that will ultimately need someone to lead it and that person is going to control far too much power.

Go Marx, Boo Vanguard and the 'dictatorship of the proletariat.'

>>4052583
Perhaps I'm naive, but even though I definitely believe in the possibility of severe technological oppression by the state (especially in light of the recent revelations about the NSA's global surveillance), I also think that it is necessarily unsustainable, and that a sort of quiet fading of the state is inevitable once you hit a certain point of technological development.

Apparently Communist Manifesto is layman's propaganda

Read Das Kapital

>>4052591

Oh, I agree. I think technology is posing the most serious threat to the state since the wave of Leftist movements in the late 1800's up through till the end of WW2.

The State is pouring everything it has into their respective military industrial complexes because honestly thats really the only thing it CAN do. If Marx were alive today and wrote a book I can only imagine how fascinating it would be.

>>4052593
That's sort of the vibe I was getting.

I do intend to read further, so I suppose it was effective in that sense at least.

>>4052593

I agree with this. When I was in High School I was able to read the Manifesto with no problem, but Das Kapital was always this monster that I could just never sink my teeth into.

Hoping to be able to read it now that I'm older though, I'll check it out.

>>4052598
Yes, ok. We're on the same page here. I think we're truly at a point in history that is about to experience a paradigm shift in the organization of societies, for good or for hill. It's really rather exciting.

>>4052635
lol, for hill. For ill*.

I just wanted to thank all the people who responded, this was one of the best threads I've ever participated in on /lit/, and definitely the best I've ever started.

>>4052593
Normally I suggest people do Wage Price and Profit and Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy before they start on Capital.

>>4052635
.......

you fucking kids

>>4052690
Fuck, may as well cunting namefag again.

Here I am chaps.

Manifesto was written for a party's demands.

>>4052558
u fucking wot cunt? Teachers, Nurses, Engineers, Junior Academics are all workers in my society.

Capital has commodified "intellectual" work completely.

Journos have been workers here since before 1900, and heavy drinking cunts too.

>>4052591
yeah, no, the state isn't even the thing with power anymore.

haven't any of you read empire (by hardt and negri)?

>>4052707
>by hardt and negri
So what are they wrong about this time?

>>4052707
By 'the state' I don't mean the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government, I simply mean the established financial power structure.

No, I haven't read Empire.

>>4052711
>No, I haven't read Empire.
I would suggest reading _Lenin in England_ and _Q_ instead of Negri.

Or _Reading Capital Politically_ and _Cybermarx_ instead of Negri.

I'd suggest cutting your left foot off and fucking a vicious dog with your bleeding stump instead of Negri.

>>4052699
But there will always be the proletariat and bourgeois, the standard just changes likely. Then I guess in your case if an Engineer is a proletariat, it'll just be someone higher up who is middle class.

>>4052711
To be completely honest, I view the literal state as nothing more than the mercenary arm of finance at this point, 'state', is just a term of convenience in this informal discussion

>>4052711
>>4052719
These are both me (OP), just to clarify.

>>4052718
>But there will always be the proletariat and bourgeois
No. Capitalism will end.
>it'll just be someone higher up who is middle class
Not really, the "middle class" of non-capital receiving management has hollowed out in "post-fordism." But given that you're using "middle class" to refer to "bourgeois" and seem to imply Engineers were "bourgeois" you're entirely incoherent on class.

Maybe you want to go read some "stratum" class analysis from instrumentalists?

>>4052718
I disagree. Even within the context of Marxist thought, the proletariat and bourgeois are just one in a succession of class struggles, Marx just believed that it was the purest of these, and the penultimate state of society before the GLORIOUS COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.

I think it's more plausible that there are still a few more of these class struggle dynamics to go through before we reach a point where there is any possibility of this occurring.

Read Das Kapital so you can understand better the ideas. After that, pick Rothbard and others Austrian School authors like Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Mises and you'll see why Marx was so wrong.

Also, don't forget to read Bakunin.

>>4052737

bakunin yes, all those other reactionary cunts no

>>4052737
Is there anything I should perhaps read to prepare myself for Das Kapital? I'm really only a fledling student of philosophy (and have only the most basic understanding of economics).

>>4052737
I will never stop loving this image.

>>4052740

Stay ignorant then. Maybe you're too afraid to change your mind after reading it; I was a socialist before Rothbard, now I'm a Market Anarchist.

>>4052740
If you're an economist I recommend reading Bohm-Bawerk.

Otherwise read Kolakowski for a right wing critique of Marxism. (Main Currents, 1978 etc)

>>4052745
Read _Contribution to a Critique_ (novella length)
Then _Theses on Feuerback_ (pamphlet)
Then _Wages Price and Profit_ (novel length)
Then _Critique of the Gotha Programme_ (pamphlet)

Then read the chapter on Primitive Accumulation in Kapital I.

Then read _Reading Capital Politically_ or Dave Harvey.

Then Start Capital. (You can skip the introduction by Mandel if you've done that background reading).

>>4052745

Well, you can start with the Austrian School and after that read Das Kapital. I would recommend these books:

Lessons for the Young Economist - Robert P. Murphy
Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition - Rothbard
The Ethics of Liberty - Rothbard
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism - Hans-Hermann Hoppe

But I'm an market anarchist and I'm obvious trying to influence you to read these materials since they're part of my agenda, so you should read then but also the socialist and interventionist authors to understand the big picture.

>>4052773
Neh, why not just direct him straight to Bohm-Bawerk and the general calculation debate immediately after Volume I?

>>4052754
>now I'm a Market Anarchist.

>>4052754
>Being any kind of Anarchist
Go away

>>4052771
>>4052773
Thank you both.

I've recently started to have anarchist sympathies myself, at least in regards to governance, after reading Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. It even made me change half of my dual major to Political Science.

I was reading Marx and Rousseau both for The Modern and the Postmodern on Coursera. It's a great course so far, I highly recommend it to all of you.

>>4052776

I find these book easier to read and understand. But yeah, Bohm-Bawerk is a good idea.

>>4052773
>market anarchist
>>rothbard

fucking kill yourself

>>4052776
>>4052788
Duly noted.

>>4052787
>>4052788
By the way, most Marx is free on marxists.org
Most workerism is free on libcom.org

You do not have to pay for marxism.

If you're buying a paper copy of capital, I recommend Penguin for its introductions by Mandel. Steal it.

Regarding Calculation, given that he's a philosopher, I'd recommend he jump straight into the meaty critique of Marx's failure to adequately specify transformation of values into prices. I don't see this as problematic, but I'm Autonomist.

[Autonomists view Capitalism as much more "politically" enforced than, say, Trots like Mandel. We also talk a lot more about continuing primary accumulation as a deferral of crisis by OCC=100%]

>>4052785
>Not being an anarchist
Silly

>>4052787
i'm all for more budding anarchists, but please don't consider market anarchism anything like anarchism proper, market anarchism still preserves private property*, something ultimately arbitrary which can only be upheld with force, thus necessitating, if not a state proper, some sort of quasi-state.

*private property!=personal property
private property: land you aren't using for anything that you have a piece of paper for
personal property: land you've historically worked and continue to work

>>4052800
Let me be seductively problematic:

Do mutualists believe in private property?

>>4052796
Should I read Hegel (which from what I understand is an enormously difficult task) to develop a richer philosophical understanding of Marx? I have a somewhat rudimentary understanding of Hegel from Tarnas's Passion of the Western Mind.

>>4052797

Everyone else in this thread is Communist or Anarchist

And I'm just sitting here being a Monarchist

>>4052800
>Differentiating between private and personal property
Why?

>>4052801
ugh, just googled mutualism
>wikipedia article uses the words free market
i don't care what they believe in, that's gross
it seems like they do though

doesn't matter, we can just wait for the impending Happening™ to wipe the slate clean, and the four of us still alive can build something without money at all

>>4052800
Like I said, I'm really only basically educated in economics, so I've not really got any notions as to Market Anarchism, and really only vague notions about how I feel about Anarchism. I'm only 19 and just beginning to educate myself (thank God for MOOCs, and some really great professors at my school).

>>4052802
If you're chasing the Hegel = Marx thing, read Lukacs _History and Class Consciousness_ before reading Capital I.

Then decide if Hegel is appropriate. Let me check ... my go to Hegel scholar hasn't published his book yet. So I don't have a good recommendation.

>>4052796
>but I'm Autonomist.

What should I read for the basics of Autonomism? The only thing I've read about it was this http://roarmag.org/2013/06/autonomy-revolution-movements-democracy-capitalism/ and it seems incredibly stupid.

>>4052813
See my name field? Someone will kill me in a crisis.

>>4052815
>http://roarmag.org/2013/06/autonomy-revolution-movements-democracy-capitalism/
Start with this chapter from Steve Wright's history of the italian autonomists: http://libcom.org/library/class-composition

Then read the rest of Storming Heaven.
Then CyberMarx by Dyer-Witheford (free if you search for it)

I am towards the "traditional workerist" end of the autonomist spectrum.

Just Googled mutualism, and honestly, that doesn't seem like something that would work for more than a few years, or something larger than at best a small town.

>>4052812
I'm not really chasing the idea, I was just led to understand that there are some philosophical thematic links between the two that were quite significant. I think the lectures from The Modern and the Postmodern from last week cover this. After I watch them, I'll judge whether I feel I need to pursue it or not. Thanks.

>>4052815
Oh yeah, Lenin in England is like four paragraphs long:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/it/tronti.htm

>>4052800

An anarchist society is a stateless society so you can include market anarchists. Market anarchists follow the principle of non-agression, where you can't resort to violence unless someone is trying to kill you or violate your "personal property". Now, how to define what is an abandoned personal property is a complex issue that is explained in the very books I suggested to OP.

Now I'll just leve to discussion since my written english is horrible, maybe in a few months when I have learned the language better.

Also, I would recommend you to also read about mutualists authors, who's ideas are socialists but includes free market.

>>4052824
Theses on Feuerbach was Marx's reaction to the rest of Left Hegelianism btw.

>>4052808
because it's an important distinction? i'm not even sure i fully buy that a person is entitled in all cases to the fruits of their labor, but they're definitely not entitled to large swaths of natural resources

>>4052810
my education in economics is an AP class i took two years ago and never paid attention in, i'm also 19
you can take that as "i'm a fucking dumbass for talking about shit like i know it", and you wouldn't really be wrong
but trust me, market anarchism is something very vile and fundamentally corrosive to the human spirit
and most of its proponents, to get a tad reductive, basically don't think math is that useful
in economics
because they can just use a hypothetical perfectly rational man
to model economies with irrational people

and then people wonder why i'm weary around econ majors

>>4052816
yeah, me too
;_;

>>4052826
Your English is very good for an English Second Langauge writer. It looks like what my English First Language students enter university with. Keep working on it!

>>4052829
Why would they not be entitled to the fruits of their labor? Why would anyone but them be entitled to it unless they choose them to be? Also, if I own this land I stand on, and there happens to be oil that penetrates the land a mile down, why is that not rightfully mine? Because I was luckier than mine neighbor? That's stupid.

>>4052830

>>4052834
I think Marx attacks this one explicitly in _Gotha_.

Basically: maintenance costs, depreciation, and the "fruit of the labour" of a kitchen installer is a kitchen, but that fruit includes the fruit of previous labours.

Socialism can't be a gated orchard, but like the fruit that overhangs the public road is the common property.

>>4052834
1. because others might need it and they might not
2. because you *don't* own the land

a society with private property is not the natural (as in pre-civilisation, classical state of nature, before some pedantic asshole busts my balls again) state of man, no matter how much you try to essentialize 21st century capitalism, so i'd say the burden of proof is on you to justify it

unless you're going to tell me the first thing that distinguised humans from the non-human apes was the deed and the border

>>4052839
I'm sorry then, I must disagree. I obtained the fruit of the labor of the mason, and the others, and they entitled me to their fruit, and with their fruit, I created my own, thus, what I made, is my own fruit, unless, say, this kitchen was in the house of an employer, then, through my work, I made my fruit, and entitled them to it.

>>4052843
Enjoy being -in-itself.

>>4052841
Well I wouldn't go so far as to say the idea of ownership ISN'T what differentiated the Humans from Non-Human apes.

But also, you can't expect us to follow or "original" form of life and society, that's just absurd, and to think that after all this time that would be a good idea, is honestly laughable.

>>4052847
What?

>>4052848
you can't expect us to follow or "original" form of life and society, that's just absurd
i agree with that

but you didn't justify private property in any way, and i'd say the burden of proof still lies with you, since the very reason it's so absurd to try and live as we did before is that most of the things that are better about now are really obviously good things, like polio vaccines

your ability to follow the argument is laughable

>>4052849
You've described yourself in a propertarian manner, as the labourer-who-sells-itself. This is described as a "consciousness of the working-class-in-itself" as the object of capital, as the seller of labour power in exchange for a wage.

Marxism describes the working class's own process of becoming -for-itself, a class with its own vision of social organisation, not produced out of being forced into wage labour by the "choice" of starvation.

I'm suggesting that you've drunk the koolade by referring to yourself as property, rather than as a person.

>>4052853
Never thought that I did that, I was saying the fruits of my labor are simply mine, and I'm entitled to them, and they're no longer mine when I pass the right of ownership on to another, whether through a payment, a bargain, or a service in return, or even for free, it's simply mine because I made it.

>>4052861
I eject my products as faeces of crucible of my becoming.

Well I do that when I work freely. When I work for the boss my sweat is sucked.

You should be able to solve this: The relationship of being to work is historically contingent on discourses. Even Foucault could find that.

>>4052852
Why does the burden of proof lie entirely on me? Why not you? Because it's how we were before society and such other things? Property is justifiable in the fact that it brings a much more orderly and structured life for all involved as opposed to this idea that you aren't entitled to resources on your land and such other things. Whether this order is good for you or not is another question, but just because I happened to put my fence where the fruit tree is and you couldn't does not mean I shouldn't be entitled to the fruit, it's mine. The burden falls on you, the have-not to find a tree, or grow one, not take from mine.

>>4052871
When conversation starts bogging down into Tu Quoques of proof; I suggest people start discussing their recent reading on the topic.

Marx was wrong, get over it. He missed things as basic as market cues and human instinct in his theory. I still believe that no communist revolution will ever take place because the capitalists will have already hijacked, marketed, and profited from it. The idea that everyone can own the means of production as well has been completely destroyed. Marx had an impact on social theory and culture, but his economics is garbage. You can claim that he has foreseen nearly every stage of capitalism to this day, but that isn't exactly novel or difficult.

>>4052913
>He missed things as basic as market cues
He talks about realisation problems at length in I and II. You've not actually read Marx, have you?

I hope this thread is still alive.

>>4055311
Are you the workism guy?

>>4055360
I've met some workerist Maoists, but I don't believe our Maoist is. I am though.

I'm sort of new to Marxism but am curious about it from an academic stand point. I'd to look into some of the major(or at least interesting) movements/subdivisions within it. A lot of interesting stuff on workism was posted and I was wondering if others could do this for other branches of Marxism.

>>4055395
Keep this thread alive and I'll provide some potted summaries in a couple of hours.

>>4055360
If by workerist, you mean a Maoist who likes the Worker's mass line, then sure?

If not, then what are you and >>4055395
this guy talking about? If you give me an example, I can try to help

>>4055399
Oh you all meant this guy.


Hi comrade. May I ask what you identify politically?

>>4055402
Workerism as in the early Italian Autonomists, or Johnson-Forrest. Factory floor class studies, anti-substitutionalist, ignores parliament, pro council. Why don't you give a summary of the major theoretical works of Maoism and the general bent of Maoist theory?

I identify As workerist because only the class itself can compose its consciousness in struggle. (Leninist parties composed of the class can obviously transfer learning internally, but only if the party is within and of the class; not separate to the class.)

>>4055408
You mentioned early you considered junior academics workers in your society. Is there a reason behind limiting it to only junior academics or was that just a result of you not wanting to list every single type of worker in your society?

>>4055414
It is a matter of relations of production, as always, with class.

Junior Academics, in particular precariously employed staff, but also the junior half of "tenured" staff have almost no job control. Senior members of staff have immense job control over their own exertion. This has changed over time, and is further changing, as the job control of senior staff is eroded. But such change is generational in nature; as recent Junior staff become more senior, they still lack effective job control

Reformism views Marxism as a scientific theory, requiring the productive forces to increase until the classes' own consciousness reflects this reality, and parliament is dominated by a workers party who then modifies capitalism.

Kautsky, AustroMarxism, Hilferding.

Anti-Reformism
Maybe the working class as they are now is important after all:

Luxemburg

Leninism
But they're too stupid, the Party has to do it for them.
(What is to be done, Left-wing communism..., State and Revolution)

Stalinism
But the party is too dumb too...
Bukharin's various works, Trotsky's own works, Stalin's Short Course and On Linguistics.

Maoism
Actually, you know, you're fucking wrong about almost everything Stalin; because you don't understand the dialectic. This understanding would fill your form with substance.
Mao On Contradictions
En Lai's Yellow Book

Stalinist Reformism
Nagy New Course
Lukacs

IVeme Internationale splitters
Schachmanites: Off into the bourgesoisie
Cliffites: Maybe if we critique the state hard enough we can reinvigorate Lenin (quite popular)
Cannonites (rare): Maybe if we kill enough microsects around us we might get big like Lenin
Johnson-Forrest: actually... about that class.

Left-Wing Communists / Councilists / Bordigists:
Bordiga
Gramsci
Korsch
Ruhle
Pannenkoek

Generally the theme here is a return to constituent elements of class consciousness as revolutionary praxis.

Post-Maoists 1 (3rd worldists)
First world workers are fucked, we'd better do it ourselves.

Post-Maoists 2
Actually we might need to apply that theory on contradictions and from-to-from to the immediate working class at work around us.

Post-Maoists 3
Foquista Bullshit Time. (Brigado Rossi)

>>4055414
Also, I was calling out the nature of the academic workforce; not fully specifying the nature of the proletariat.

>>4055429
Thanks this is exactly what I was looking for.

>>4055433
I left out Anarchism. Anarchism mostly needs to be considered as the abused wife of Marxism.

Platformism
Anarcho-Syndicalism & Sorel
IWWism (not an anarchism, not a Marxism, def revolutionary)

Also, I folded a fair number of groups in under "Workerism" some of whom might resent that. Castoriadas probably would have. Solidarity UK might have.

>>4055429
Very nice. Is it possible to give a tl;dr on the Stalinist/Trotskyite solution to
>the party is too dumb too
?

>>4055408
I actually never heard of workism up until today. Sound a little like De Leonism

Well, these would be the biggest things on MLM, in the simplist form

ESSENTIALS to M(arxism)L(eninism)M(aoism)

Mass Line- Mass line is about making sure the needs and struggles of the masses are always taken up by the party.

People's War- all about having a relationship between the liberation army, and the masses, in order to draw in the enemy and defeat them on your own turf

New Democracy is about having a united front of classes, under proletarian leadership, to lead the revolution in overthrowing the rule of compradors and imperialists, and to begin state-capitalist production

Cultural Revolution: This is fun. So whereas in the USSR contradictions among classes were handled very mechanically, like when the kulaks (peasant capitalists) were liquidated, or a lot of people were thrown in prison, Mao advocated for a more dialectical approach. The Cultural Revolution is all about having the masses attack the right wing elements in the party, the capitalist roaders, in order to make sure power is always with the masses, rather than just handling it mechanically through a bureacratic apparatus

Contradictions- Dialectical Materialism, but Mao went in more depth than Stalin. This is what I get from other Maoist, as I am an intermediate. However, if you're familiar with Stalin, then here:
http://www.massline.org/SingleSpark/Stalin/StalinMaoEval.htm
ctrl+F: Part II: A Summary of Mao’s Criticisms of Stalin by Topic

And finally 3 worlds theory:
1st World: The Imperialist states- US and USSR (back then) .
2nd World- Allies of imperialist states
3rd World- Non-Imperialist
Yeah, not to up to date on this either.

Tell me if you guys what you would want to here.

>>4055440
*hear

>>4055439
>Very nice. Is it possible to give a tl;dr on the Stalinist/Trotskyite solution to

By 1921 the Party had repeatedly demonstrated that fractions of the party would align with the proletariat in crisis. Not only the Workerist Communists, Left SRs, urban Anarchists, Makhnovists, Left Communists and Workers Opposition, but also local branches as at Kronstadt.

This was deeply problematic. At the same time a number of power blocs faced off within the Party over control over the state. A "rightist" bloc around Bukharin who favoured expansion of capitalism. A left-opportunist bloc around Trotsky. A centrist-opportunist bloc. And then a just plain opportunist bloc around Stalin.

While each took different positions on the line, the most important factor was power struggles for control over the state and society. Which meant to control and discipline the party itself.

Lenin substituted the Party for the Proletariat.
Stalin and Trotsky substituted the Party Centre for the Party.

(One crime Mao himself did not replicate, could not actually.)

>>4055446
Ah, gotcha, thanks. I suspected that for Stalin (fits his whole m.o.), but I didn't realise that Trotsky advocated something similar.

>>4055440
>I actually never heard of workism up until today. Sound a little like De Leonism
A bit. De Leon when he was most syndicalist started to touch on the centrality of workers experience... As interpreted by De Leon himself.

Workerists generally view the class itself as the repository of knowledge, and view themselves as fish amongst a school of fish. They're very big on the actual micro-structure of work, as if Capital I is a manual of how to fuck things up for the boss.

Many workerists came out of Leninisms in Italy, Trotskyisms in the US, Syndicalisms / Councilisms in the UK, and (afaik) the Australian thing comes out of Stalinism and Anarchism; with a bit of respect for Australian Maoism thrown in.

The fastest way for a post-Bolshevik communist to get their head around Workerism/Autonomism is to read "Lenin in England" (marxists.org). It has the distinctive "taste" of workerism.

>>4055451
Trotsky was just as brutal in his disciplining of oppositionalists in the Bolshevik party; until he became one. And suddenly in opposition he had no allies... strange that given that he purged his potential allies...

>>4055429
>Leninism
>They're too stupid

Nigga what.
no

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

stop being an anarchist

>>4055440
I would appreciate it if you talk about the Yan'an period, and the relationship of the Party and the Class in Maoism. In particular, the unique findings Maoism brings to the problems of organising the class when in the minority socially.

>>4055462
Substitutionalism is a continuous theme throughout Lenin's work, and the argument for why is that the working class cannot achieve more than an "in-itself" trade union consciousness. Even in periods when Lenin vacillated from this line, such as between 1913 and 1918, his movement was minute; in terms of the need to incorporate more workers into the party. There's no way in which the party acts as the vanguard _of_ the class. It acts as an intellectual vanguard _for_ the class in Lenin's work. From 1918 onwards, the relationship of the Bolshevik party to the factory councils was one of mobilisation and deceit, rather than, for example, the CCP's relationships of embedment and learning from in Yan'an. The climax of this can be seen in the end of War Communism and the declaration of the NEP which came directly from the Party, and did not involve consultation with the organs of actual class power in the factory councils. The excuse that "the cream of the class had been dissipated in struggle" is hollow, there is no substitute comprised of intelligentsia, former state bureaucrats and former capitalists that can act as the class in power for itself.

>>4055452
>>4055453
>>4055464
>>4055467
>working class
>academic
Pick one.

>>4055471
Do you even exchange labour power for wage?

I know I do.

I'm dependent upon it for my subsistence.

Because I'm alienated from control over the productive forces.

>Please help me to understand this text. I think I'm just not educated enough to understand it.

Honestly man, The Communist Manifesto is pretty much just cheerleading. It's amateur hour. You have to read Der Grundrisse and/or Das Kapital to really get substantive with Marx. Also read a bunch of Hegel.

>>4052754
doesn't that just show how easily-molded your mind is and how you need authors to think for you?

>>4052807
thanks, ignatius

>>4052497
The only consequence possible of radically decentralizing the means of production would be a world radically different. What you are asociating with socialism is the kind of socialism that the soviet union had, i.e. not socialism at all. In the soviet union the means of production were highly centralized and structuralized. Communism has never existed before and probably never will, because communism is exactly the opposite to what the soviet union was. In theory communism is about decentralization and equality,
But if communism came to existence in some distant future, and the means of production are completely decentralized, and egalitarism was the only norm and all that woul jazz, the world you would see, i would argue, ought to be pretty simmilar to the world before the sedentarization of humans, the only difference being the level of technology envolved.