/lit/ - Literature

>>4627122
here is the other one. I think this is the 'updated' version, but not sure.

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable -- this is Marcos.”

Also

"Homage to Catalonia"

"The Theory of the Leisure Class"

"La Distinction"

"The Birth of Biopolitics"

>>4627134
Oh yeah, as for feminism


"The Second Sex" for modernism
"Gender Trouble" for postmodernism

>>4627134
>"Homage to Catalonia"
>"The Theory of the Leisure Class"
>"La Distinction"
>"The Birth of Biopolitics"

Not this shit.

Try Lomax on 56; Braverman; Reading Capital Politically; and, Wages Price and Profit instead.

>>4627141
Do the opposite of what this person tells you to do, OP.

>>4627141
Haha. Okay gramps.

>reading shit you'll never apply

>>4627122
There's nothing similar for left-wing literature because there are massive and well-established collections of theory from practically every section of the left and its associated philosophies (communist egoism, post-left anarchism, "Situationism", etc).

>>4627146
>reading shit you'll never apply
*cough*

I helped cohere and advance class consciousness today. What did you do other than ejaculate over chinese cartoons? And I can also do that in about five minutes time.

chequemate, "poststructural" bourgeois dilettante.

>>4627155
The first two works I mentioned were by people who actually fought in revolutions.

90% of leftist literature is nothing more than intellectual entertainment, your shit included. None of those books you mentioned were ever popular with the working class, and have zero applicability. They don't help you see anything new, anyone reading that already knows the advantages of socialism.

>>4627158
>The first two works I mentioned were by people who actually fought in revolutions.
Both of whom were bourgeois.

One of whom was a horrible horrible diletante with no theory. The other of whom advocated Fordist technocracy as a system of rule over the proletariat.

Go sell your Leninist substitutionalism in a centrist hat elsewhere. Do you know who else fought in a revolution? Stalin.

>>4627145
>>4627146
>>4627141
OP, here. Let's be polite, please. But, I do tend to sympathize with this >>4627155


I was a little shocked that the first thing I got was what seems to be a slew of bourgeois revisionism. I find Identity Politics, as such, to be misguided at best.

Why it is incompatible with Marxism - http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-identity.shtml
New Left Review Contributor piece agreeing - http://links.org.au/node/189
(Former?) Communist on Feminism - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0h17GG3wD4

Seriously, does anyone historical materialism anymore?

That said, I do think Foucault is (in)valuable, though I think he should be read along with pic related's Ideology and ISA. Likewise, I really like Veblen, but I'm not sure how useful a piece of satire would be. I think someone said Theory of Business Enterprise was a little more, uh, down to Earth, so to speak.

>>4627151
well, I didn't want to jump the gun with my questions, but I had thought maybe people had possibly prepared different collections from each of those sub-groups. The right-wing one is quite a hodge-podge. I mean, that's quite an eclectic group. Hell, Orwell is an anarcho-communist. I always laugh when I see right-wingers quoting him. hehehe

>>4627160
>Comendante Marcos
>bourgeois
>Orwell
>lived homeless before fighting
>bourgeois

Subcomendante Marcos
"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet”

George Orwell
>Fought alongside anarchists and became wanted by The Communist Party

Leninistlel

>>4627168
Oh, you're clearly one of those idiots who thinks that parting the worker from the wealth he produces is okay so long as the state is doing it, and when they do, they can take all of it.

Nationalization of something is not the same as socializing it; if it were, the military would be "socialist"

>>4627160
OP, again..
>One of whom was a horrible horrible diletante with no theory
I assume you're talking about Orwell, here. Though I understand you frustration, I think his body of work makes a lot more sense read against Burnham's The Managerial Revolution and in the context of the academic conversation at the time.

>>4627173
Can we not have a shitting match, but propose even better literature?

>>4627180
>you're clearly one of those idiots
calls for politeness fall on deaf ears... it's like i'm on /pol/

>parting the worker from the wealth he produces is okay
How in the spaghetti monster's name did you get that idea? I mean, really. This is one of my two, mutually constitutive critiques of bourgeois revisionist nonsense.
Maybe I'm not explicating myself properly?

It's arguments like this that are what caused me to make the original post, btw... to get some 'map' of the theoretical field, at least as my /lit/ friends see it.

>>4627196
You posted a pic of a Stalin sympathizer.

If this seems too much like /pol/ you, you'd probably be more comfortable at RevLeft.

>>4627204
>You posted a pic of a Stalin sympathizer.
That is to say,. Althusser. Not Gramsci. Although Gramsci was the revisionist one: I'm guessing you haven't read his work, but in it he faults Rosa Luxemburg (referred to simply as "Rosa") for being "too" revolutionary. But that's silly, I know you haven't anyway, since Gramsci is FOR identity politics as a way of making it harder for the state to ensure homogeneous loyalty.

>>4627173
Marcos failed when he first went to Chiapas, largely because he was a bourgeois Marxist and tried to lead, rather than follow. Your taking him as a symbol of a movement of people is precisely why he's a fucking subcommander mate.

>Orwell
Do bother to read Orwell. I recommend Clergyman's Daughter back to back with Aspidistra. Then you can try Burmese days. Orwell clearly describes his class status in Road to Wigan Pier btw.

>>4627196
Veblen is my kind of centrist, by the way. But to place him as the way forward for a self-emancipating working class is ridiculous. There's more to be read in the least of the documents in Fišera's _Workers' Councils in Czechoslovakia_ than there is in Veblen's work.

_The Engineers and the Price System_ is perhaps his most interesting book.

>>4627213
>you posted a pic of a Stalin sympathizer.
Sartre was a Stalin sympathizer. In fact, hell, almost everyone in the West was until the 60s. Nevertheless, just because I like his theories of ISAs and appreciate his concern with socially constructed subjectivity - which was clearly the context in which I posted the pic (which you would know if you had bothered to read it and/or knew what you were talking about) - doesn't suddenly mean I'm hurr durr a Stalinist.

>Gramsci is FOR identity politics
wrong. Gramsci was speaking about Hegemony. 'Identity Politics' is pic related. You'd know this if you'd read the first article I posted here: >>4627168
But, you didn't, and you won't, because, asshole.

I think there is a way of reading Gramsci through Althusser, or Althusser through Gramsci (however you want to put it), but clearly that discussion will go nowhere since you refuse to read posts, lack a breadth of knowledge on the subject, and are generally intransigent and impolite.

I suppose I'm better off getting to bed than dealing with this nonsense.
Good evening

>>4627261
>I suppose I'm better off getting to bed than dealing with this nonsense.
Not the guy you're arguing with. This is the correct orientation when dealing with identity politicians, or people who assume identity politics are "left."

>>4627261
Laclau and Mouffe is liberal garbage

>Stalin sympathizer. In fact, hell, almost everyone in the West was until the 60s.

Fucking everybody knew he was an atrocious monster well before the war was over.

>>4627283
Here's a tip: Workers left the CPs in 36 or 39 or 49 or 56.

"The War" meant sweet fuck all. The issue for working class communists was always about mobilising power against their own local bourgeoisie.

>>4627261

If you are interested in Althusser, try to pay attention to the role of Stirner in the coupure. It is quite interesting how Althusser manages to omit Stirner's role in this, even despite having translated Feuerbach's response to him. It's a sad thing that Althusser used Lacanian terminology, otherwise he could have been quite useful.

>>4627151
>communist egoism

I wish this was really a thing.

>>4627283
>Fucking everybody knew he was an atrocious monster well before the war was over.
I'm assuming this is the twat from before. Notice how he ignores all of the substance of what I said and focuses on one little discrepancy, that he thinks he can 'win', not realizing it is meaningless to the larger discussion. so...
>no one of any import sympathized with Stalin after 1940
Sartre.
QED

Any further comments of yours will be ignored. >>>/pol/

>>4627278
>>4627276
and you all make me feel happy again. yay!

>>4627310
>Lacanian terminology, otherwise he could have been quite useful
fucking french bastards piss me off every time because of this. i piss on incorporating lacan/freud into marxist theory.

>pay attention to the role of Stirner in the coupure
you say stirner had a role in marx's epistemological break?
Feuerbach responded to Marx's criticisms of him in, I assume the Theses and German Ideology?

btw, it wasn't until i read the german ideology, young hegelian lit, althusser, and then german ideology again that all of this 'left' activist just burst out at me as clearly bourgeois bullshit.
like, I couldn't put words to it until then. Marx's parable about the man who fought gravity by trying to make people believe it didn't exist - lol. 'it's all in your mind, maaaaaan'

>>4627356
>you say stirner had a role in marx's epistemological break?
>Feuerbach responded to Marx's criticisms of him in, I assume the Theses and German Ideology?

Before Stirner published the Ego, Marx' position was Hegelian (briefly), and took Feuerbach's species being as a base for socialism. Stirner forced him to break with idealism, and the entire tirade against Stirner in German Ideology is an attempt to exorcize Stirner's logic. Funnily enough, many of the passages where Marx criticizes Bauer, Feuerbach et al, are copied from Stirner's work, just sometimes switching the names around where Stirner criticized Marx as well...

>>4627261
>Sartre was a Stalin sympathizer
And I don't read his Marxist theory, I don't even know if he wrote any

>In fact, hell, almost everyone in the West was until the 60s.

Notably, de Beauvoir is critical of Stalin in The Second Sex (1949).

Actually, you statement is outright bullshit. There was left dissent with Lenin, including some names such as Zamyatin, Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman, and of course, Fanni Kaplan. By the time Stalin was in office, people knew what the shit was going on over there, and George Orwell had first hand experience of it in Spain.

>Gramsci was speaking about Hegemony. 'Identity Politics' is pic related.

You haven't read Gramsci, except maybe the Wiki articles. You should also try reading this
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/auto/fourth.html

I'm impolite to any dogmatic leftists because they are as bad as the right. You aren't my ally. You talk about the value of Foucault, but Foucault, despite his skepticism of identity, was greatly in favor of diverse social identities.

>>4627253
Marcos is the spokesman of the movement.

>>4627373
The real subsumption is always more important than the formal subsumption.

>>4627368
>>4627261
> In fact, hell, almost everyone in the West was until the 60s.
>By the time Stalin was in office, people knew what the shit was going on over there

neither of those statements are accurate. almost nobody supported Stalin by the sixties. There were, however, a huge number of leftists in the west who were pro-Stalin in his early years in the early to mid 1930s, and although reports about the atrocities he'd committed started to come out by the late '30s, a lot of leftists refused to admit that they had been wrong about him. That's why Orwell wrote homage to Catalonia, and Animal Farm and 1984, because a huge number of his communist and socialist friends still refused to listen to the criticisms against Stalin. When it stopped being okay to be pro-Stalin again after WW2, Stalin supporters in the west began to disappear (in the figurative sense, although obviously in some countries by the last 40s being pro-communist was not a safe thing to be).

>>4627390
I don't see why there would be a distinction here. Marcos had stated that his personal ideology became subordinate to that of the Zapatistas.

>>4627261
>In fact, hell, almost everyone in the West was until the 60s.
At which point is was Althusser dissented by still sympathizing with Stalinism.

>>4627392
Mate, intellectuals aren't the movement. The CP sold plenty of papers while militant in upswings, and gained plenty of members when forced to be militant by even more left wing non party members in upswings.

Workers knew who Stalin was. They knew that was irrelevant to forming a punkt to pierce the reproduction of capital.

>>4627392
>almost nobody supported Stalin by the sixties.
cough. Tankies. Welcome to Czechoslovakia friends.

>>4627395
Stalin was ultimately just a really successful capitalist. Lenin envisioned socialist as "state capitalist monopoly" and both he and Stalin cracked down like fuck on strikes; Stalin was a capitalist with a monopoly on everything.

>>4627398
I'm not denying that mate, I'm not denying that at all. But what you have to see, is Ken Loaches' _Land and Freedom_. From the North of England. From the Cockatoo Island dockyard. From a Melbourne Sweets factory. From a Kiwi Sheering Shed. From Singapore's docks. From Chicago's factories. From Canada's trains.

From that location you chose not to see the murder of irrelevant intellectuals, or capitalist "lies" about starvation indistinguishable from their lies about mass crucifixions. It was only when you saw POUM militia murdered. It was only when you saw revolutionary social democrats castrated in political prisons. That was when Stalin became problematic for militant workers. From the distance of eight thousand miles, and when the US police are machine gunning a miner's strike, Stalin is an irrelevancy. The new CIO union and the CPUSA are useful here and now as the pinkertons climb a mountain over our dead.

That's why workers in the West didn't give a fuck: the party turning on itself meant nothing when industrial wages increased thousands of fold in ten years.

>>4627404
As I've said, there was massive leftist dissent as far back as Lenin, and Stalin was just Lenin on meth. What was going on was well known, even if the extent of it wasn't.

>>4627407
And again, I'm not disagreeing, but after the collapse of the IWW in Australia and the United States, and the KAPD/AAUD in Germany, the Communist parties were the largest parties calling for revolution for a very very long time. Until the 1980s in most places. And until the 1970s they plus the local Maoists normally outnumbered all other parties combined.

The situation with a collapsed labourite or social democratic or "progressive wing" of a bourgeois liberal party, and no fucking Marxist-Leninist dominance over the left is a situation unseen since 1922

>>4627416
Well Foucault, a member of the communist party, sort of had a falling out with them due to that and a few other factors.

I'd say that the critical theory bunch wasn't really Marxist-Leninist. Leftists who weren't Marxists-Leninist took to calling themselves socialists rather than communist (Albert Einstein, for instance); although socialism and communist are separate stages, they were both words for the same ideology until this point (notice in Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" he says, "Socialism or communism or whatever one calls it.....")

>>4627421
If you want to find the "falling out" then I suggest you start reading into the KAPD, AAUD and German ultraleft. Rühle is quite good on the difference between "party" and "class." And unlike Lenin he knows which one is right.

Between 1890 and 1914 "socialism" was a cause for the intelligentsia and middle class. Institutions like the IWW or Russian or German councils, or UK shop stewards movement indicated that socialism was fundamentally about class power, not about erudite men saying nice things.

>>4627424
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was actually mostly supported by peasants.

>>4627134
>Theory of the Leisure Class
Bukharin or Veblen?

>>4627434
Veblen goddamn. The only good work written by a Bolshevik is We

>mfw the people in this thread are serious

This list isn't really organized at all, and there are many gaps, but somebody might use this as a basis for another image.

Not all of the others might agree with each other, so this is a sort of 'broad tent' leftism that I'm writing about here. The right-wingers get to put Thomas Hobbes and Theodore Kaczynski in the same image, so I'll get away with something similar.

Fiction:
Abbey - The Monkey-Wrench Gang
Dos Passos - The USA Trilogy
Le Guin - The Dispossessed
Orwell - Anything, really
Sholokov - And Quiet Flows the Don
Steinbeck - East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath
Zola - Germinal

Non-Fiction:
Alinsky - Rules for Radicals
de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (feminism)
Brock - Blinded by the Right
Brown - Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee (history)
Camus - Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
Debord - Society of the Spectacle
Einstein - Why Socialism? (introductory essay)
Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth (post-colonial)
Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed (post-colonial)
Gramsci - The Prison Notebooks
Hobsbawm - His four history books on 'The Long 19th Century'
Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man
J. S. Mill - On Liberty (political science)
Mills - The Power Elite (economics/sociology)
Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism
Rawls - A Theory of Justice
Rousseau - The Social Contract
Thoreau - Walden, Civil Disobedience
Wallerstein - World-Systems Theory (economics)

Poetry:
W. H. Auden
Wilfred Owen
Adrienne Rich

Suggestions welcome.

Hey guys.

I'm writing an essay on Anti-Bolshevik Left Wing activity in Russian Revolution/Civil War, labeled as "The Third Revolution" but its participants, but I seem not to find many Bolshevik/Pro-Bolshevik sources and fear that I'm going to get too pro-SR/Anarchist view of the whole thing.

So do you guys know any Bolshevist histories on the topic in English?

>>4627845
>I seem not to find many Bolshevik/Pro-Bolshevik sources

Well they will probably be lies anyway, so why bother?

okay. enough edginess

what's some good left wing lit?

I'm not looking for marxism or anarchism but the principle sources of democratic progressive reformist politics
I know I can get this stuff from any academic material since it's the best and most common form of politics but I want its landmark literature. Its das kapital

I want to read more about ideology, and how to recognize it. What should I read? Is there a Marx's book that talk especifically about it?

>>4627904
Stirner's the Ego and its Own

>>4627845
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17350

>>4627122
The last thing we need is more dogmatic children running around.

When will leftists realize they're no better than neo-Nazis? The whole world hates the two of you.

>>4627924

nice arguments, asshole

>>4627894
Just get habermas, then.

what kind of retard would call Schmitt a facist? ffs, HE ISN'T FACIST, HE PROPOSES AN AUTHORITARIAN GOVT, BUT IT'S NOT FACISM, the elements of nationalism etc. are not part of his work, if you read Legality and Legitimacy you can see him criticizing the nazi political project (the book was out some months before the nazi's got the power)

the nationalism on his work exist because the had to put it there so the nazis didn't go after his as, Schmitt was still an right-wing totalitarian, but he wasn't a nazi

and Theory of the Partisan >>>>>>>>>>>political theology

>>4627894
OP, here: liberal GTFO

>>4628033
habermas: babby's first revisionism

>>4628041
So... he isn't a fascist, but his is a right-wing totalitarian? Seems to me like you're really, really splitting hairs here. Is there a name for this right-wing totalitarianism that is not 'fascism'? I'm curious

>>4627894
>implying Marx didn't advocate progressive reformist politics
"It turns out that I myself am not a Marxist"
>implying 'progressivism' doesn't have its roots in (revisionist) Marxism
Bernstein, anyone?
>implying that all these humanities faggots are even 'edgy'
muh transgender feminist polysexual otherkin postcolonialism fap fap fap

>>4627368
but you aren't a leftist. you're just a liberal. And, I'm not dogmatic, I'm just doing dialectical materialism, and you're not. You just don't understand it, because you're ignorant, and that's why you think I'm 'dogmatic'

>>4628111
when i said edginess, i didn't realise the thread was about the left. I was referring to the pic

>>4628092
explain what is revisionism and why habermas is not good

is mondragon corporation a force for good in left wing politics?

>left-wing literature
>Orwell
>2014
>still reading teenager literature
>still reading that trotskyist snitch

What is your opinion of the sand county almanac and the early ecologists who informed left wing politics?

>>4628278
>explain what is revisionism
it's going to take more than one post to explain 'revisionism', as there are as many types of revisionism as there are 'quintessential' points in Marxism, and, of course, it would first require explaining all of those points. Also, I, to a certain extent, would say that Habermas might not simply be 'revisionist', but may not even be a Marxist at all (see below)

>why habermas is not good
Habermas is ok, I suppose. I was actually a fan of his critique of strategic rationality in discourse for a long time. You, imho, have two critiques of Habermas: 1) from the anarchist left (eg. Habermas - Foucault debate) and 2) from the Marxist Left.

So... attempting to explain why Habermas is revisionist in 2 paragraphss or less... (btw, you could probably easily google this if you're interested.)...

Well, probably I'd say, of the top of my head, why Habermas, and the Frankfurt School generally, deviate from Marxist thinking is that they drop dialectical materialism and historical materialism altogether. So, while Marxists talk about the 'internal contradictions' of capitalism, Habermas might talk about the 'irrational rationality' of capitalism (something Habermas picks up from Weber). Marxists, arguably, would see the contradictions increasing, leading to revolutionary overthrow of the existing order, while Habermas sees a Bersteinian style gradual emancipation through increasing wealth and democratic participation. Likewise, the Frankfurt School's (and the rest of the so-called 'left') obsession with identity and ideas has, at least over time, gradually led them back toward idealism and away from any form of historical materialism at all. Now, this may have begun as a reaction to 'vulgar' Marxist 'reductionism', which seems reasonable to me, but when the whole critique becomes a critique of ideas and identities, it seems to me what you have is what Marx complained about in The Holy Family, The German Ideology (specifically ch 1), and, to a large extent, his Theses on Fueurbach.

What we really need is another 'critique of critical criticism', if you ask me.

Idk. Did any of that make sense? I might have moved too fast, or been incoherent altogether. I'm drinking coffee and try to watch a b'ball game I dl, so I'm scatterbrained right now.

>>4628248

Left =|= HistMat, if that is what you are implying.

>>4628092
Facism has an ultranationalistc aspect that Schmitt does not have: Schmitt, in his constitutional theory, calls for a strong LEADER, the one who will be the guardian of the constitution, and the nation would be homogenic, reflecting and being reflected on the constitution (i'm simplifying Schmitt a lot here), but there isn't a praise of the nation element which is present in facism, there's a praise (the acclamatio) on the regime, the leader and on the constitution, but not on the nation

this has enormous consequences when we talk about constitucionalism and about the state of exception, you have to be careful with concept especially when we talk about it and biopolitics (yes i'm a goddamn foucault agambenian liberal)


And Schmitt calls the regime he created the true democracy.

I hope you mean fascism. If you're left-wing in 2014 then there's something wrong with you.

>>4628338
i didn't mean to imply that. I suppose I lumped two different critiques together, (though I think it was clear from the rest of the thread) 1) of idealism and 2) of liberalism. Though, I must point out, that most people who say left=/=histmat/dialmat are usually just liberals who want to continue on with their boutique activism and identity politics interest group extortion racket.

but, who knows, you could be a left anarchist, or whatnot, and totally cool. thanks for giving me the chance to clarify.

>>4627122
Radical theory, please understand I do not sympathize with these beliefs, but they are very interdasting

Karl Heinzen - "Murder"

Sergei Nechayev - "The Revolutionary Chatecism"

>>4628347
>, there's a praise (the acclamatio) on the regime, the leader and on the constitution, but not on the nation

Explain to me the difference from a practical standpoint, since this to you manages to be the fucking linchpin behind your argument that it is somehow not just fascism.

This is what you sound like to me;
It's not a ball. It's a three dimensional sphere roughly 20cm in diameters which is soft and can be kicked and used for sports. But it's not a ball because it isn't used for football - just all other sports except football.

>>4628347
>And Schmitt calls the regime he created the true democracy.

well, you can take a shit and call it an apple pie, too

>>4628348
>>>/pol/

>>4628347
yeah... idk. So, he's proto-fascist, not fascist is your argument? I mean, it sounds like much of what he's talking about is simply echoing Hegel, who is generally considered the father of modern nationalism, so.... also, when you add his concepts of 'decisiveness' and 'friend-enemy distinction' as well as reducing all politics to an existential struggle to the death (also Hegelian) which he talks about in the Concept of the Political, and add that to what you just described, he sounds pretty effing fascist, man. Just saying...
Also, I read him in Grad School and, if I'm not mistaken, he was referred to as 'Hitler's Political Theorist'. Now, that doesn't make it correct, but it does make it fairly likely that saying so is a legitimate opinion.

>true democracy
every 'positive freedom' theorist does this. Watch out for this trick of political rhetoric. This just means the freedom to do what the State tells you to (Hegel) or, more generally, the freedom to do the 'right' thing (Kant). For more on this, read Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty. The tl;dr version is that if you don't at least have a small halo of negative liberty, then positive liberty isn't liberty at all

>>4628350
>but, who knows, you could be a left anarchist, or whatnot, and totally cool.

I am, sort of. Yes, the main problem is probably that I didn't read the entire thread and instead short-circuited the different parts of your post... sorry.

>>4628369
>>>/reddit/

>>4628357
from a practical standpoint? The nation (and this is different from the nazi regime) he creates is a flexible concept, changing with the constitution, allowing him to kill anyone inside it just so the nation was homogenic (and this was part of the nazi regime), but the nazi regime, that WAS fascist, had to take the jew's nationality before they killed them, and it had effects on the program that Hitler wanted to implant which consisted of killing elderly pacients on Germany, etc., it's better explained on Agamben's Homo Sacer

>>4628369
his relation with the nazi regime is complicated, read his texts pre-german nazification and after the nazification and you'll see the change of tone, and why he seems a little contraditory (especialy on Legality and Legitimacy)

only said about democracy because the term he uses, i don't agree with it

>>4628350
Well, diamat isn't left given that it totalises the capacity of the class to form a subjectivity under "theory." Maybe that's esoteric, but it is the difference between a nomenklatura new class telling the workers "what is real" versus the workers forming an autonomous capacity to know what is real.

And the dividing line was never historical materialism, historical materialism has been a useful tool. The dividing line has always been class power.

>>4627845
>"Why the Proles Were Dumb for Only giving me 23% of the Vote. Instead Trying to Elect the Infantile SR's, and How I Rescued Them From Bourgeois Democracy"
By Lenin, it's an essay.

>>4628092
>revisionism
>bad thing
It's supposed to be a science, you fucking idiot, not a religion.

>>4628288
I'd snitch on the USSR as well.

Orwell wasn't a Trotskyist, he'd just been accused of one. Do you even Homage to Catalonia?

>>4628465

revolutionary post, comrade

>>4628465
The thing is, the Moscow soviet which seized power for itself was all-party.

The issue was never Soviet Power versus the Duma. The issue was working class power in workplace soviets versus parties power in geographic soviets.

>>4628530
The issue was

State manages and owns EVERYTHING and takes EVERYTHING (Bolshevik), and then pays the workers a "wage" (boy, that sounds familiar).

vs.

Workers manage and own all industry and pay the state a tax (SR's).

>>4628452
I think you're conflating fascism with Nazism, and I don't think you've at all refuted this anon >>4628357 at all.

I think you should consider that you may be suffering from congnitive dissonance - that is, you read his ideas and associated them with 'good' (or happy feelings) but have been trained, like most in the West, to associate fascism with 'bad' (or negative feelings).

Probably, you should just accept the fact that Schmitt is (proto)fascist and realize that you've been propagandized by the West, or re-read Schmitt or critiques and change your mind about his theories.

If the latter, then there's nothing to feel bad about, as we've all been interpellated (propagandized), though I wouldn't state your opinions out loud in most situations for fear of reprisal - this is something else many of us have to deal with. pic related

>>4628422
>implying a Marxist would be caught dead in that shithole of Democratic Party based interest group identity politics propaganda. also, jews.

>>4628453
>diamat isn't left given that it totalises the capacity of the class to form a subjectivity under "theory."
wat? absolutely not. maybe what you mean to say is that many people who have identified as diamat may have said something like that. And, they would still be 'left'. see below

As far as I know diamat is simply a set of principles, largely ontological, concerning the philosophy of science and nature, which tend to lead to historical materialism, or a set of methods for studying society.

>The dividing line has always been class power
And, the cognitive dissonance rears its ugly head...
>major dividing line (of X) is class power
>doesn't like diamat/histmat
pick one

'left is not defined as (supposedly) 'totalizing' vs. 'not-totalizing'. 'Left' started in the French Revolution. Those who supported the King sat on the Right and those who supported the Revolution sat on the Left (notice the Left was bourgeois at this time). Left-Right was also used a little later in reference to Hegel's followers. Right-Hegelians believed the realization of the Absolute could be found (more or less) in the Christian State at that time. The Left Hegelians believed that Christianity had to be seriously revamped, or even discarded.
Fueurbach's The Essence of Christianity is a lynchpin text. Fueurbach attempts a materialist explanation of Christianity here.
Marx criticizes the Young Hegelians (followers of Fueurbach, of which he was one) for being Idealists, and criticizes Fueurbach for being insufficiently materialist. see: The Holy Family, These on Fueurbach, and, especially, The German Ideology (esp. the beginning).

And, dialectical and historical materialism are born. Remember, as semiotic theory teaches us, just as much, if not more, of a definition of something is in what it is *not* rather than what it *is*.

No, the dude is right - your opinion on how much Schmitt was a fascist and how intimately tied to the Nazis he was is going to depend massively on how you read and interpret the stuff he wrote under the Nazis, and how close you think it was to his real views.

I tend to think that, at the least, was not completely lying, and therefore think that he was a fascist - but the opposite view is not totally without merit.

>>4628468
[sigh] tfw arrogant retard
The accusations against revisionism are not that they've revised a dogma, but that they've abandoned fundamental tenets of the philosophy, such as historical materialism - the science of the study of society derived from dialectical materialism.

see here: >>4628327 ...... you fucking idiot

I always get a hardon when witless twits who lack basic education on a topic call me a fucking idiot, because I get turned on by the fact that they are about to be assraped and don't even know it. So, thank you.

>>4628543
>>4628453
tl;dr - Left basically just means change, esp. revolutionary change, when it comes down to it

>>4627122
Reminder:
Just because some list claims to be '/lit/-approved' doesn't mean we have anything to do with it.

>>4628563
>The accusations against revisionism are not that they've revised a dogma, but that they've abandoned fundamental tenets of the philosophy, such as historical materialism - the science of the study of society derived from dialectical materialism.
That's because materialism is wrong. And the science came from that, but it doesn't "rely" on it anymore than the logic that came from Aristotle relies on essentialism.

>>4628574
according to a very specific definition of what it means to be 'left' and 'right' that's only really promulgated by extreme traditionalists, yes.

my problem with arguments like that is that they're making, or at least implying, claims that they can't really substantiate - because when you call something left, the implication is that you're using the word in the way it's generally used, even when you're not.

>>4628578
>because materialism is wrong
idealist idiot detected. >>>/pol/

>>4628582
No, you fucking idiot, haven't you read anything past the 19th Century?

There is no left wing literature because left wing is the default establishment ideology I'm the west

Inb4 but muh republicans oppreshuns me!!

>>4628580
ok asshole, read the thread. I explained the reason why I defined it that way here: >>4628543
Now you need to respond to that, rather than pulling the fallacy of association 'hurr durr you know who else said that? Hitler hurr durr durr as if that 'wins' the argument.

Also, it helps to give your own alternative definition, since 'truth' is triadic (two differing theories and 'reality'), as well as the fact that we all know it much easier to sit in the corner a be a fapping kibitzer than to actually pull up your skirt, grab your balls and take a stand on something

>>4628591
It must be hard living on that small brain of yours

>>4628582
>no counter-argument given
>appeal to guilt by association instead

>>4628601
there was no argument given, so there can be no counter-argument.
>"materialism is wrong"
>argument
pick one

>>4627794
all left wing literature is fictional

>>4629166
0/10 you're going to need to do better than that if you want someone to bite.

>>>/pol/

>>4627122
just read commie/socialist shit
thats pretty much what the left wing is

>>4627168

Orwell was much more nuanced than that. Read his essays. Read On Shooting Elephants. Read Homage to Catolonia like the other anon said.

>>4628591
Where is capitalism?

>>4628327
you need to learn to be brief

WHY DOESNT ANYONE JUST MAKE ONE FOR THE LEST ALREADY????

Let us make it right in this very thread, right?

>>4629301
Left

>>4629230
>commie/socialist shit
wow. you're so articulate. [opinion saved]

>>4629234
I've read almost everything he's written (including articles he wrote for magazines). Homage to Catalonia was ten years ago, though, and I've never read on Shooting Elephants.
explain to me what I'm missing. that is, why are conservatives not stupid to quote Orwell. please help me out.

>>4629238
he's a retard who things that 'the left' is all this bourgeois interest group identity politics crap. just ignore him - he's probably from /pol/

>>4629254
>wanting brevity
>asking what is revisionism and why is habermas revisionist
pick one, dickhead
If you're too stupid to read one short paragraph, then you can go fuck yourself.

>>4629301
good idea. or, we could start a new thread after we get make a template. what do you think?

>>4629301
>the left cant even make a list of books in paint without a massive internal conflict

you people are a fucking shambles

>>4629506
>I've read almost everything he's written (including articles he wrote for magazines). Homage to Catalonia was ten years ago, though, and I've never read on Shooting Elephants.
>explain to me what I'm missing. that is, why are conservatives not stupid to quote Orwell. please help me out.
Orwell wasn't an anarcho-communist, he was a Luxemburgist. He said there were things he didn't like about anarchism, but he saw that anarchists were for the workers, whereas the Communist Party wasn't. The militia he fought in was Marxist dissenting with the Communist Party and allied with anarchists, but not anarchists themselves.

>>4629514
well... idk. I don't think there were more than one or two suggestions on the whole thread that were as important as the books on the OP. I think it was more a matter of the quality of the posters than the conflict, in this instance.

>>4629561
jesus... this is why the Left is so fucked. They want to quibble over minutiae constantly.

Seriously, thanks for the info, but also, in the future, save it for a discussion about Orwell, rather than a post where the point is to laugh at conservatards for thinking "Orwell was the first conservative".
Or, at least, put that in your original post. ie. I think from [book X, etc] that he was more of a Luxembourgist.

I don't mean to be a dick, but that would have seriously saved some time. The real point here is that everyone thinks 1984 was an autocritique, but really it was a reaction to Burnham's The Managerial Revolution

>>4629514
The right is the same way: libertarians vs. fascists. That is the essential conflict on the left.

>>4629577
>They want to quibble over minutiae constantly.
>>4628539

That's not minutiae. Whether or not people can be hauled off and tortured for speaking against the Great Leader is NOT minutiae.

Is it me or are philosophical/political books always much more expensive than fiction novels?

>>4629589
It depends on the copyright, edition and greed of the publisher.

>>4628248
>but you aren't a leftist. you're just a liberal.
I'm for revolution and the abolition of private property. I work with my hands, upkeeping, moving, repairing, building, this is my bread. What the fuck do you think a leftist is, anyhow?

>>4629579
We don’t see why we would ask you what we should do or how we should do it. What are you going to teach us? To kill journalists who speak badly about the struggle? To justify the death of children for reason of the “cause”? We don’t need or want your support or solidarity.

[....]

Another P.S. It should already be evident, but I want to remark: I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet.

>>4629581
I was specifically talking about whether Orwell was an 'anarcho-sydicalist' or a 'luxembourgist'

Don't put words in my mouth.

In fact, I said the opposite, here: >>4629564

And, >>4628539 is pretty much an example of that. All caps, oversimplification, etc.
>inb4 you're a Leninist totalitarian
Just because I disagree with your *reasoning* doesn't mean I disagree with your *opinion*. For the record, taking power away from the Soviets and centralizing it was fucked. (But, so was having a 'Marxist' revolution in a backward agrarian shithole, so...)

>>4629659
>I was specifically talking about whether Orwell was an 'anarcho-sydicalist' or a 'luxembourgist'
That's not an ideological issue though. Homage to Catalonia represents the opposite of ideological quibbles. Whether or not you're on the same side doesn't have to do with whether or not you think Orwell was an anarchist. That's just discussion.

>oversimplification
It's, not though. Whether or not a factory is nationalization (owned by the state) or socialized (owned by its workers) is very simple, very straightforward.

>>4629626
>"abolition of private property"
>"work with my hand"
shut up you hippie you know damn well you dont work because if you did you would know that if someone works hard and buys "private property" it should belong to them because it is a product of their labor and of no one else

>>4629670
>That's not an ideological issue though
that's my point. when was I ever arguing over ideology?

>Whether or not a factory is nationalization (owned by the state) or socialized (owned by its workers) is very simple, very straightforward.
But whether or not it should be, at any given point in time, in any given context, in any given etc etc etc IS a complicated issue. Or, at least, it is completely legitimate to say that it is not that simple. Therefore, its legitimate to say that it wasn't that simply in Soviet Russia. I know this, because there is literally 70+ years of high-academic literature on this very subject.
Ergo, oversimplification.

>>4629764
>>>/pol/

>>4629764
Gambling with shares isn't working. You aren't creating any wealth.

I do work, I work my ass off.

>But whether or not it should be, at any given point in time, in any given context, in any given etc etc etc IS a complicated issue. Or, at least, it is completely legitimate to say that it is not that simple. Therefore, its legitimate to say that it wasn't that simply in Soviet Russia. I know this, because there is literally 70+ years of high-academic literature on this very subject.
Ergo, oversimplification.

Lenin wanted to nationalized everything, that is very simple. When he went mixed-market (New Economic Policy) he didn't say "mix of nationalism and worked owned businesses" he said "mix of nationalism and capitalist owned businesses". So Bolshevism is sort of shit no matter how you look at it. Centrally planning an economy is bad.

>>4629839
>>4629858

>>4629858
did you just seriously link me to a retarded bourgeois fuck?

>>4629863
>So Bolshevism is sort of shit no matter how you look at it.
I am not a fan of Leninism, myself, but I would like to point out that you haven't actually proven your point here.

>centrally planning an economy is bad
but yet, it worked so very well in both the USSR and China.
>inb4 the bourgeois and reactionary propaganda starts, like 'muh 60 gorillian'

bump

>>4629883


the soviet union avoided collapse early and throughout the 'cold war' thanks to the huge grain trade they had with america.

>>4629921
>making a controversial statement without citations, and not explaining why it is relevant
[user ignored]

>>4629941


http://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/09/business/awaiting-moscow-s-grain-response-news-analysis.html

>2011+3

>being a faggot

i seriously hope you guys dont do this

>>4629961
How again does a feed grain shortage (food for livestock) due to poor weather in 1982 prove your point again? And, for that matter, what was your point? And, further, how again does it relate to this thread?

>2011+3
>being a potato
I seriously hope you don't think you've proven anything

>>4629987


you didint catch the whole part about the string of failures in the 70s either? never heard of the great grain robbery?

dodgy agricultural policy was always the achillies heel of the ussr.

>>4629996
go on...

>And, for that matter, what was your point? And, further, how again does it relate to this thread?
you are literally a 17 yr old /pol/tard with a 96 IQ, aren't you?

>>4630019


>but yet, it worked so very well in both the USSR and China.

thanks to outside support at critical moments.

youre people purposefully obtuse.

>>4630023
>implying engaging in trade with a foreign country means your economic policies have 'failed'
If that's the case, then the US is a failure and China is the success

>>4630042


id say chinas trade policies are indeed a success over americas neo-liberal failure.

>>4630051
>id say chinas trade policies are indeed a success over americas neo-liberal failure.
rly, potato?
what exactly is it that you're arguing again? could you tell me again how some feed grain shortage in the soviety union relates to this thread? Please enlighten me with your superior wisdom, but, as you can see, I'm clearly slow, so I want you to take it point by point.
please, I really want to be as smart as you, and the only way I can do it is with your help, and if you take it slowly for me.

>>4629883
>but yet, it worked so very well in both the USSR and China.
It worked well in the same sense that capitalism does.

>>4630063


you claimed that soviet central planning, as such, worked 'so very well'.

unfortunately, this is not the case, as their chronic shortages and famines aptly illustrate.

red plenty indeed.

A particular way of left wing thinking really stifles creativity. Authors concerned with identifying with a group of people often make terribly dull works, see all literature of marginalized groups.

I'd much rather the line genius believing he has some source of inspiration be it that they're nuts, religious or see themselves out of place with any group of people. Yeah, that might be considered a sham in today's academia but it makes for the best literature.

>>4630066
touche sir, touche.

>>4630067
>implying capitalist countries have never had shortages
>implying exporting the creation of a commodity and paying to have it imported is a failure
>implying it didn't take the Soviets 10-15 years to industrialize, while it took the US 150
>implying the US economy isn't, essentially, centrally planned
>implying India (capitalist, liberated about 1950) did better than China (communist, liberated about 1950)
>implying communist countries aren't at a disadvantage because they start as underdevelopd countries competing against advanced nations
>implying communist countries aren't at a disadvantage because said advanced nations are aggressively militaristic and imperialist
And, I could go on. But, I won't, because you're a retard, and because I'm not here to 'defend' centralization, but just to say that its not clear that they did so poorly. It's a legitimate topic for discussion.

>>4630141


>because I'm not here to 'defend' centralization, but just to say that its not clear that they did so poorly. It's a legitimate topic for discussion.

of course, but thats not how this conversation started, youre moving the goal posts.

the point on trade is/was a refutation of the pat apologia that many problems of the soviets were due in part or because of economic isolation. on the contrary, not only were they not isolated, but infact saved from the brink of disaster, on more than one occasion.

thank you for your time.

>>4630141
>touche sir, touche
Lenin himself said that he envisioned socialism as "state capitalist monopoly". Is that not simple? that seems very simple to me.

>>4629883
>Stalin didn't do nuffin!
Take your silly infographic somewhere else

>>4629579


http://blog.jim.com/politics/the-death-of-libertarianism.html

>>4630167
>the point on trade is/was a refutation of the pat apologia that many problems of the soviets were due in part or because of economic isolation
could you please link to that post?
protip: you can't because it doesn't exist.

>>4630209
>Lenin himself said that he envisioned socialism as "state capitalist monopoly". Is that not simple?
citation

>>4630244
>Take your silly infographic somewhere else
>>>/pol/

>>4630371
>>4629579
Authoritarian Communism and Libertarian Communism by Max Nettlau

>>4630403
>citation
>" Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable."
>Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly
>On that basis, Lenin claimed, the democratisation of state-monopoly capitalism was socialism

Taken from his letters posted on marxists.org

>>4630403
>Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm

>>4630539
Oh Lenin. Capitalism is defined as M—C…P…C'—M', not by "the people" which is as unmarxist a concept as you can develop.

>>4630509
>>4630539
"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."
And Socialism is a transitional period to communism.

That is not the same as 'socialism is a state capitalist monopoly' -- you're twisting his words.

At any rate, you were saying this earlier in the thread... what point are you trying to prove, again?

>>4630577
No, he that is what he says. He's just saying that the owners will actually have the workers' best interests at heart, unlike the regular capitalists. And, it did function like state capitalist monopoly: the workers were paid in wages, not in shares.

>At any rate, you were saying this earlier in the thread... what point are you trying to prove, again?

That it IS simple. A "no" to Lenin, a NO to any shithead who wants to own shit and pay wages to those who do the work, be they feudal barons, capitalists or Leninists, because they call come down to same kind of thieves, taking from the workers what they have no right to take, taking everything and remitting just a crumb.

>>4630577
>you're twisting his words.

>a direct quote is twisting his words
You are delusion and I encourage you to seek help immediately.

Let's break down the sentence together:
>Socialism is merely state-capitalist economy
That is, "Socialism is state-capitalist economy". This was the claim the other person made earlier that you decided you didn't like.
>which is made to serve the interests of the whole people
That is, "The whole people" are in charge.
>and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly
Which is another way of saying, "it has ceased to be a monopoly by the rich (i.e., the capitalists and industrialists)".

In any case, he clearly and directly states
>Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly.

It's just state-capitalist monopoly with his own ruling class at the head instead of a different one, which makes it a "step forward" for him.

still, gg m8, you have managed to successfully ignore first hand sources, i congratulate u

>>4630586
>>4630591
>Or in the interest of revolutionary democracy—and then it is a step towards socialism.
>a step toward socialism.
>toward socialism
>toward
still, gg m8, you have managed to successfully ignore first hand sources, i congratulate u

Look, I'm a libertarian communist, and I'm not here to defend Lenin, who is a completely inconsistent writer. For instance, read the April Thesis and you have a completely different Lenin with completely different definitions. You all clearly have very little familiarity with the material. Have you been reading anarchist handbooks entitled 'selective quotes to try to gotcha a communist' again?

_______________________
I don't understand why in a thread about what are the best best books to read on Leftist thought, I get

>HURR DURR THE LENINS AND AASSHOLE DONT WAGES FOR I ARE ANARCHISTS HURR DURR HUE HEU HEUE HURR DURR ITS SO SIMPLLE XDDDDDDDDD

Are you fucking retarded? Stay on topic.

I'm suprised you communists are still out there? Hasn't your experiment failed every single time?

>>4630640
>>>/pol/

btw, thanks for the bump

>>4630632
>economy not centrally planned
>workers paid in shares
>THAT HAS TO BE ANARCHY!

No, it's doesn't, you fuckwit. We don't want your Stalinist filth.

>>4629629

>>4630642
I can't go to /pol/ I don't believe in jewspiracies and I consider myself a centrist.

>>4630653
>taking anything between hurr durr durr literally and trying to argue against it.

I don't care what you think you are, you're a retard. now, get back on topic.

>>4630655
>>>/lgbt/
>inb4 but i'm not gay
Only a faggot would be a centrist and go on a 'leftist literature' thread just to try to troll.

back on topic please. good leftist literature.

>>4630666
Look I am not arguing with satan.

>>4630677
technically, you are not 'arguing' at all

>>4630683
Man Althusser was such a cunt. He murdered his wife a got a way with it .

>>4630712
I know, so awesome right?
Afterwards, he was leik, 1 down, 6 gorillian moar to go for a high score!

>>4630735
Yes because murdering your spouse is not a serious matter.

>>4630763
Killing Jewish Marxists is always commendable.

>>4630763
how many evil demons have you rid the world of?
Althusser 1
You 0

>>4630788
lol

>>4630788
The women had done nothing wrong. Nothing to warrant murder.

>>4630798
>there is literally nothing wrong with being jewish
top kek

>>4630801
So,you are a neo-nazi? I thought I was talking to a Stalinist.

>>4630812
>Only nazi's don't like jews

I'm not even the dude who's talking with you

>>4630798
lol. it's not so much about what she did [wink]

but seriously, the shrinks put him on a bunch of weird meds and he didn't even remember doing it. may even have been a set up - who knows.

>>4630861
the mods are awake and deletin neo-nazi shit?

>>4630915
lol, i know, rite? i mean, I see so much shit posted everywhere, but you maek one jew comment and word comes down from the ADL: oy vey shut it down!!!

the funny thing is, that it was only a joke, and I was quoting him because I thought he was baiting me.

oh well...