/lit/ - Literature

Capital in the 21st Century, David Harvey, Hardt & Negri, Fredric Jameson, Perry Anderson, a bit of Chomsky

>>6491939
>>>/v/

>>6491939
To the Finland Station is probably the best socialist history text; it is a bit dates, at about 50+ years now.

Does capitalism function fundamentally differently today? Seems like Marx's definition is still entirely applicable.

Don't be stupid.
When studying a movement that's less than 100 years old you should always try to go from the beginning to the current, just like you read Hume and Descartes before reading Kant.
Understanding history, how things got the way they are, is as important if not more than knowing what's happening currently. The people affecting reality right now prepared for it reading books printed at the very least 20 years ago, I doubt the Clintons have read any books they haven't had written for them after graduating college.
Wanting to just understand the now is objectively impossible, it's like trying to learn medicine by only studying symptoms.

>>6491939
István Mészáros and the Budapest school
David Harvey
Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarianists
Writings of the Zapatistas (Subcomandante Marcos/Galeano, etc.)
Chomsky
John Bellamy Foster and the Monthly Review (plus Press)
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao

>>6491993
Not really. On one hand you have the modernist faults of marxist theory, the idea of a progression ingrained in society. It has been heavily expanded by post-modernism with concepts like the society of the spectacle, simulacra or a general better understanding of pre-modern societies that just wasn't possible in Marx's time.
Then you have the slight but important evolution of the state: corporativism, globalism and general global elements of control like the FMI, the Paris Club, the UN, and so on. If Marx were completely right the tutsis would be rulling at least half of Africa.

>>6491939

what do you think?

lmao rousseau

>>6492006
Marx's idea of progress is orbits entirely around technology.

>>6492006
>Then you have the slight but important evolution of the state: corporativism, globalism and general global elements of control like the FMI, the Paris Club, the UN, and so on.
I also don't see how these are issues with his theory, if anything they only make global revolution more possible.

>>6491939

>>6492043
But he ignores heavy social control aspects and most mechanisms states generated as they went to retain power and make themselves seem vital to people (I believe he eventually referred to this as a fetischization of control, but I might be wrong). Or did he correct that on his later works?
His materialism was vital to the evolution of social sciences, but it needed a sort psychological level to really work.

>>6492050
But some of those elements are completely autonomous of actual work forces and materials while being the main sources of revenue in the world at the moment. If anything the exploitation of work force is becoming less of an income source and so capitalists are moving away from it. Maybe leaving it to China.

>>6491939
Cyber-Marx by Nick Dyer-Witheford

Here, it's all online (in pdfs conveniently separated by chapter).
http://libcom.org/library/cyber-marx-nick-dyer-witheford

>>6491939
David Harvey, Micheal Roberts, Simon Clarke, Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, Richard D. Wolff etc etc do very heavy analysis work but don't really provide any solutions or "what needs to be done".

The problem with "on the ground, what needs to be done!" like stuff Lenin wrote for the Russian Revolution is that most of the far-left community these days likes to sit in it's echo-chambers, half-heartedly engage in slactivism and then circlejerk. One only needs to look at how successful Anarcho-Capitalism and Right wing Liberalism has become online in a matter of years with it's culture wars, while all places like /r/socialism, /r/communism, LibCom, Revleft do is sit in their echo chambers whining and then ban anybody who isn't in their eyes 110% ideologically pure. (One only needs to look at the huge purges on /r/socialism by their zealot utopian mods of anybody that disagrees with them on any issue)

What may be even worse is actually the real world first world activism from Socialists. There is a reason Trotskyists are the single most hated organization in all of activism, all they do is enter other peoples protests and then try hijack them and the message, often very aggressively.

It's like how the saying goes, if you want the best argument against Socialism, spend time with Socialists.

The first world left has stagnated and largely just become a complete and utter circlejerk of retards playing historical reenactment society and fantasizing about being the next Che Guevara.

>>6492105
'What I actually do' should be denying the Holodomor, the Great Leap Famine, and the purges online.

>>6492109
While it's not wrong to say events may have been exaggerated and analysis of said events is often poor, fuck me dead the amount of genocide denial on Socialist boards is just absurd. On /r/socialism I've seen fucking Pol Pot defended because "Those with glasses were educated and being educated in such a poor country meant you were bourgeoisie!"

For groups that claim they speak for the oppressed masses, it's amazing how quick they are willing to jump to the defense of genocide or even better, use some sort of fucking mental gymnastics to blame something like the Cultural Revolution on the United States.

>>6492114
It may ahve something to do with searching for the spirit of the working class in fucking reddit.

>>6492134

That's kind of beyond the point because most spanish anarchist didn't take shit from any kind of opposition or faltering of lines for the sake of someone else. So not much has changed actually.

>>6492141

This comic is full of shit if it's implying Spanish Anarchists weren't about "Fuck The Police"

Also, it's interesting the implication of the comic is to appeal to the past? What's it suggesting?

We have a smug romanticism and worship of the past like a bunch of filthy fascists?

>>6492143

The strawman the size of New York

>>6492146

These comics are buckley tier

>>6492151

You can dump the rest of them, but what causes someone to be so hurt they have to spend the time drawing these comics?

>>6492105
>while all places like /r/socialism, /r/communism, LibCom, Revleft do is sit in their echo chambers whining and then ban anybody who isn't in their eyes 110% ideologically pure

>>6492066
I'm not sure how that's really relevant to his work, and I also question how much people think they rely on the state compared to how much they see the state as the evil Other.

>>6492073
Exploitation of work force is the only source of income for capitalists from a lefty perspective. If you don't think that, I don't know what you consider yourself a leftist.

>>6492158

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_efc6P0h4

>>6492161
I'm too tired to get in an argument about this, but the idea that the only leftism is orthodox Marxism with accounting as described exactly in Capital is silly

>>6492145
You're missing the point entirely.

First one is about how fucking absurd the outrage junkie identity politics has become in the far-left, to the point that I've been pulled up for using the word "Fuck" because apparently it's sexist and implies rape.

>>6492145
>This comic is full of shit if it's implying Spanish Anarchists weren't about "Fuck The Police"

It's commenting on how Socialists actually used to speak with the working class and how messages are done through shitty punk rock, it's also a joke.

>>6492145
>The strawman the size of New York

Lol wut? This is exactly the shit that i've seen Socialist communities engage in.

>>6492105
>Trotskyists

>>6492161
>first part
When he plans the evolution of society he fails to consider the mechanism the new system would make to perpetuate itself. That State is, and has always been, a tool of the powerful to justify their position. It maintains a discourse of being formed by the people for the people but 85% of all politians are sons of elites and they have always kept a very close relationship with economic powers. The US constitution even openly declares its interest to protect the few against the many.

>second part
How do you jsutify the millions Sillicon Valley moves? How do you justify companies make more money than ever while reducing jobs?
Part of it is the transplantation of a local work force for an international workforce, true. But it also is a sign of changes in the ways power and wealth is generated and distributed. Just like monarchies changed through the centuries they lasted so will states mutate beyond what Marx studied. His ideas aren't wrong, they are just too tied to his time and many author have expanded on them. They are so good, actually, that they can be expanded by dozens of authors and remain tied to the original concepts.

I'm not a leftists, I'm not afiliated with anything. I like historical materialism and my formal education has been heavily tied to it. I doubt that I'll be able to understand and incorporate other ways of analyzing history before I die. But I would go around calling me a leftists, are a center or a right winger. Even less in a US site considering how that country has no grasp or what left is.

>>6492182
Unless someone is using his name greek dude is pretty well versed in all the Capital books and some later theories. Don't worry too much.

>>6492156
>but what causes someone to be so hurt they have to spend the time drawing these comics?

The fact that anarchist movements and groups are no longer about realistic comradeship with the average person, and lack any philosophical or literary backing.

Every syndicalist group in modern times is filled with bleeding hearts, who care more about social issues than actual economic and political issues.

It's fucking infuriating to be force to put up with people who impose their beliefs on the entire movement, but will not negotiate for fear of losing ideological purity.

>>6492182
It's not, but generally other serious leftists have actually read the shit out of Capital so they can make informed criticism of it, and I've never seen your criticism brought up. Have you actually read Capital? If so, what is the basis of your assertion that capitalists don't make money by exploiting people, coming from a leftist perspective? Unless you're a supply-side leftists, meaning you're mainly concerned about exploitation of the consumer rather than the labor--but that's pretty much a liberal.

>>6492206
Woah, I'm writing like a retard. Worse than usual. I'm sorry, it's like 2 in the morning here and it's cold.

>>6492210
that was another anon complaining about something different.

>>6492188

>

>First one is about how fucking absurd the outrage junkie identity politics has become in the far-left, to the point that I've been pulled up for using the word "Fuck" because apparently it's sexist and implies rape.

I get it's dumb as fuck, but a part of me really does sympathize with it. I don't believe all it's shit, but to suggest we totally deny ourselves self-respect or autonomy in regards to emotional needs is kind of bullshit. Especially in regards to people maladjusted, who like it or not, have become legitmized in identity. by being targeted themselves by the unending barrage identity created by people who counter it.

Largely, you're right, it's total bullshit. I'm still sympathetic, and I doubt it would have been all that different in another time.

>It's commenting on how Socialists actually used to speak with the working class and how messages are done through shitty punk rock, it's also a joke.

Yes, but at the same time they weren't afraid to target the military or police. It's largely the same. If someone went to arrest them, they weren't "Oh I'm sorry officer, you are also among the working class like us, we'd hate to disrespect."

>Lol wut? This is exactly the shit that i've seen Socialist communities engage in.

Not really at all. It's a pretty vocal minority.

>>6492207

>The fact that anarchist movements and groups are no longer about realistic comradeship with the average person, and lack any philosophical or literary backing.

I'd argue it's the direct opposite, it's just that endless cynicism is getting in the way.

>Every syndicalist group in modern times is filled with bleeding hearts, who care more about social issues than actual economic and political issues.

And? Social issues are issues nonetheless. I've yet to see any of them tackled in a serious way of force, nonetheless they are issues.

>It's fucking infuriating to be force to put up with people who impose their beliefs on the entire movement, but will not negotiate for fear of losing ideological purity.

I agree. My feelings on the issue are largely mixed.

>>6492105
>while all places like /r/socialism, /r/communism, LibCom, Revleft do is sit in their echo chambers whining and then ban anybody who isn't in their eyes 110% ideologically pure. (One only needs to look at the huge purges on /r/socialism by their zealot utopian mods of anybody that disagrees with them on any issue)

Oh god, yes anon; you could not have stated it better. It is annoying as all hell to try and discuss anything in those subs.

>>6492206
>When he plans the evolution of society he fails to consider the mechanism the new system would make to perpetuate itself. That State is, and has always been, a tool of the powerful to justify their position. It maintains a discourse of being formed by the people for the people but 85% of all politians are sons of elites and they have always kept a very close relationship with economic powers. The US constitution even openly declares its interest to protect the few against the many.
Have you read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific?

>How do you justify companies make more money than ever while reducing jobs?
In Marxists terms, that's done through intensifying exploitation. Capitalists started losing steam in first half of the 20th Century with labor's power, but they stepped up their game in the 1970's and it's been running much stronger ever since. Between outsourcing and unofficial overtime (Microsoft has been called "the velvet sweatshop), higher profits are accumulated. Higher unemployment is also good for capitalism because it increases competition within the workforce, which is the best way to keep wages down after the slew of labor laws.

>>6491939
It's good to obtain a proper theoretical framework and then move on from there. Just because they are old and perhaps a bit outdated, it doesn't negate what was written. And besides, the foundations of capitalist production very much still exist.

>>6492156
They're self-satire. The author of the comics is actually an anarchist

>>6492005
>not including Trotsky

>>6492231
forgot the pic

>>6492236

Gotdamn young stalin was fine

>>6492105
Got banned from /r/socialism for saying as Socialists we shouldn't be spending all our efforts wading into the quagmire of bourgeois identity politics and there's nothing wrong with wanting to focus on raising class consciousness and class awareness since there are already huge movements that deal with identity politics directly.

Got banned for being a MRA reactionary brocialist for saying this, despite i'm actually very pro-feminist and have a long history of standing up for feminism on /r/socialism and literally if the fuckwit mod GOVERNMENT spent a second looking at my post history he would have seen that.

Noticed the other day GOVERNMENT banned anybody that dared to actually support any of Bernie Sanders policies as well, even the IT guy who maintained the board behind the scenes (did all the banners, designed the layout etc) and wrote the entire /r/socialism wiki.

Fuck that board is so fucking shit, and the sad thing is it's actually better than LibCom or Revleft where even correcting a mod on say an historical event will get you banned.

>>6492242

Yeah I largely stay away from Reddit or any other social network echoe chambers. They suffer from the same problems most underground political movements do these days, they're totally filled with maladjusted people who, I hate to say it, are pretty unrealistic and zealous to the point of being totally disconnected from any kind bond.

I just tend to keep my opinions to myself outside of people I discuss theory with on campus.

>>6492240
I know right?

>inb4 it was doctored
Soviet propagandists would touch out pockmarks from his face because the pics where to be widely circulated.

>>6492210
I'm basically an open-ended left-Keynesian; I think the most important thing to advocate for us something like universal basic income, and then to reassess what the working classes are capable once liberated from obligatory 9-to-5s.

I don't necessarily disagree with Marxist exploitation accounting (and I think Capital is brilliant and a must-read for plenty of other reasons), I just don't see it as an essential part of my own political views.

Blah blah blah Keynesians are liberals, I don't really agree with that, and besides my end goal is probably something more like anarcho-syndicalism, but I think the smart first step is a basically Keynesian one.

>>6492230
>Have you read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific?
Not really. I have the topic in mind because I'm reading about the monopoly and legitimization of force by the state and it constantly touches with marxism, but I'm pretty sure I don't have too much reading on the subject.
I'll punch it up in the never ending list if you particularly recommend it.

I still think that the absurd amounts of money that wall street move around goes against some of the elements of marxist theory. The distribution of capital to disrupt state has been a pretty traditional move and it can destroy entire countries (consider most of south east asia in the late 90's), international banks and similar money lending structures are older than capitalism and remain strong without actual labor force needed and no surplus value at all.

>>6492242
It's beautiful how you could had been anonymous for all that matters, since no one cared about your past. It rhymes, like pottery.

>socialism

What's your aim, OP? Making the world a better place for our species? Countering the 500-year global assault on the biosphere that began with Columbus?

Some theory of socialism could perhaps make our world an objectively better place (less pollution, palatable lifespans, etc.), but I think the answers could lie along other avenues of thought. Consider accounting for the environment.

Our elites thrive on quantitative data. A significant problem is that the natural world is incalculably precious, so its value is not reflected on balance sheets. Perhaps the way forward is to devise some ways to account for the beauty of this earth, to derive some way to put numbers on nature which can factor into balance sheets and dissuade elites from honoring their death pacts with corporate capitalism as we know it.

Look up environmental accounting or something.

>>6492261
No, Marx talked about that explicitly in Capital. He said that sort of profit is impertinent to his study because the money starts in the class and ends in the class. It would be like talking about how much money the working class makes buy using a poker game where everyone is in the working class as an example.

>>6492273
Except that it can result in the complete destruction of the working class, for example in latin america during the neo-liberalist decades. And things like the billion dollar bail out Obama did show how private capital can come from thin air if needed.
Or am I missing the point? it's completely possible that I am.

>>6492215
>Social issues are issues nonetheless. I've yet to see any of them tackled in a serious way of force, nonetheless they are issues.

I'm not denying the importance of social issues (gay/tran/women's rights, and all that jazz), I simply fail to see how those issues are attached to socialism. One of the main reasons for the resent success of these rights is because they can be isolated form the leftist movement.
If someone joins the movement because of social issues, then that is great. But that individual has to expand their knowledge on economic and political theory to gain to true understanding of socialism. I'm not even saying that you have to be a scholar, but if you haven't read Marx or some other major communist/socialist writer then you are lacking some core parts of socialism. Parts which social issues simply can not replace.

>>6492242
I actually have an account on Revleft and semi-regularly post. The place is as bad as it looks. The ban-frenzied moderation added with a BA detached from the actual forum and are de facto reformists create a complete degeneration of post quality.

A lot of quality posters where banned because of the petty wims of the BA, especially during the purge from 2011 that, from what I hear, got rid of around 30 members and turned off much more.

>>6492285
Do the "choose file" thing have a timer or what?

>>6492284

Hey, I'm not arguing with that. I honestly just believe in the purpose of worker liberation and all that goes along with it. I'd hate to be the one responsible for the logistics of it.

Economic liberation must come first, everything else is secondary.

>>6492285
>>6492248
>>6492242
Fuck it guys, lets create an open forum for discussion of socialism. Where people can have disagreements and not have to worry about being excluded or banned.

>>6492277
I think you are, because Marx classifies the state as an apparatus of capitalism. Its tug-of-war in policy is merely about competition between groups of the class, and different ideas about what would be best for them. You also must remember that Marx doesn't really see the petite bourgeois as allies of the haute haute bourgeoisie anymore than the bourgeoisie were allies with the aristocracy. He predicts that the petite bourgeoisie will eventually be eliminated as a class by the haute bourgeoisie, so they often work at cross purposes. And the haute bourgeoisie often do with each other in their struggles for power. State capital already belongs to the ruling class in Marxist theory, they just disagree over what to do with it.

>>6492294
I don't think you understand how socialism works. :^)

>>6492294

I'm for it.

>>6492294
/lit/ is fine for that, honestly

or join a Jacobin Magazine reading group if you're in a big city.

>>6492294
>>6492302

http://www.revforum.com/forum.php

>>6492248
>They suffer from the same problems most underground political movements do these days, they're totally filled with maladjusted people who, I hate to say it, are pretty unrealistic and zealous to the point of being totally disconnected from any kind bond.

This is a massive problem, One of my friends used to work for the Greens and he said something very similar with his experiences

"The problem with the left is that it's filled with disillusioned, marginalized, often depressed and mentally ill people who all hold their own idea of how the world should be run, where all the right really cares about is upholding the status quo and their privileges"

I also believe that zealotry is a huge fucking issue as well, anytime I see the Socialist Alternative (Australia) I just fucking facepalm, how do they think standing on a box, in a Soviet beret and Che Guevara t-shirt, yelling at people eating lunch with a megaphone and often being incredibly vitriolic and unprofessional is going to win people to their side?

>>6492295
>State capital already belongs to the ruling class
yes, so far I understand it, but isn't the bail out a proof of how corporations can get real money out of their relationship with the state without the need of a work force? at that point the idea that the working class could at some point take control of the means of production is complete unreal, because their very own surplus is virtual.
I also think that the capital has some issues when confonted with an economy based on oil, but I don't know how to articulate that idea right now.
It's late, it has been nice learning from you greek-kun.

>>6492310
Thanks anon, seems like a genuine community.

>>6492347
>East vs. West
I was there

Nevar 4get ;_;

>>6492320
I don't understand what you mean? Where would the state get its money without a workforce? The bourgeoisie and the workforce both pay into the state, and the bourgeoisie gets its money from the workforce. The state is, in Marxist theory, just a protection fund for the bourgeoisie. When the bourgeoisie gets money from it, all they are doing is getting back money their class or the working class put into it.

There are two examples of Marxist states (or non-states) functioning, revolutionary Catalonia and Israeli kibbutzim. There's more if you consider Nordic model democratic socialist Scandinavia to be Marxist. If you do, then Sweden and Finland and Denmark, they all silently snap the necks of Catalonia and kibbutzim when it comes to stability and non-totalitarianism.

I think that Marx was wrong when he said violent insurrection was necessary to form a socialist state, and there's more to that than mere pacifism. Revolution creates instability, instability allows opportunists like Stalin and Mao to seize power, and then we're even worse off than we started. The French Revolution from feudalism to liberalism was a failure in changing a system for the better. All we got was Robespierre and Napoleon, hardly liberal ideals. You know what did work in changing a political system from absolute monarchy to liberal parliamentarianism? The Glorious Revolution.

I'm just saying, if you want to get rid of capitalism and have it stay dead, it's a longer process. On a strictly practical level, I don't think Lenin had the right idea. I admire him for trying, though.

>>6492463
That's something neat to throw in the face of everyone who posts that "communism has never been tried" comic.

>Hey, Spanish Civil War-era Catalonia! Whatcha doin'?
>Communism.
>behind that guy is a bunch of human beings behaving as human beings and not as cogs in a capitalist machine

>Uh... Actually yeah, communism's been tried. Kinda got dicked over by the Stalinists, but it's been tried.

>>6491939
>y'know, the 21st fucking century?
Kill yourself you presentist. The 21st century isn't Real.

>y'know
Tumblr please.

>>6491993
>Does capitalism function fundamentally differently today?
Yes. Besides the growth of the welfare state, medicare, and so on, Marxism has to deal with the debunking of the labour theory of value and the shift in industrial focus.

>something written 90-100 years ago can't be applicable today

Tell me what from the following excerpt (from a book published in 1793) is irrelevant in modern western society:

"A second source of those destructive passions by which the peace of society is interrupted is to be found in the luxury, the pageantry and magnificence with which enormous wealth is usually accompanied. Human beings are capable of encountering with cheerfulness considerable hardships when those hardships are impartially shared with the rest of the society, and they are not insulted with the spectacle of indolence and ease in others, no way deserving of greater advantages than themselves. But it is a bitter aggravation of their own calamity, to have the privileges of others forced on their observation, and, while they are perpetually and vainly endeavouring to secure for themselves and their families the poorest conveniences, to find others revelling in the fruits of their labours. This aggravation is assiduously administered to them under most of the political establishments at present in existence. There is a numerous class of individuals who, though rich, have neither brilliant talents nor sublime virtues; and, however highly they may prize their education, their affability, their superior polish and the elegance of their manners, have a secret consciousness that they possess nothing by which they can so securely assert their pre-eminence and keep their inferiors at a distance as the splendour of their equipage, the magnificence of their retinue and the sumptuousness of their entertainments. The poor man is struck with this exhibition; he feels his own miseries; he knows how unwearied are his efforts to obtain a slender pittance of this prodigal waste; and he mistakes opulence for felicity. He cannot persuade himself that an embroidered garment may frequently cover an aching heart."

>>6492648
The welfare state and medicare hardly change the nature of capitalism

>debunking of the labor theory of value
Kek.You mean the labor theory of value going out of fashion as soon as merchants and moneylenders became the ruling class and had to justify themselves as the source of value instead of bitch and moan about the landed aristocracy?

>>6492659
>You mean the labor theory of value going out of fashion as soon as merchants and moneylenders became the ruling class and had to justify themselves as the source of value instead of bitch and moan about the landed aristocracy?
No, I mean that it is inconsistent with the current nature of industries.

>>6492304
No /lit/ is for literature not socialism.

>>6491939
OP check out >>6492651

It has a WIP Marxism guide

>>6491939
>Is there any decent Socialist literature that actually deals with the material conditions of, y'know, the 21st fucking century?
Capital volumes 1-3
Mandel, Late Capitalism
Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital
Dyer-Witheford, Cybermarx

Also look up studies on the "precariate." They're wrong, but they're a good start.

The thing is, mate, capitalism hasn't changed that much since the 19th century. Even in the 19th century workers bought consumer items like beds, vests, pocket-watches, mantle clocks.

One valid (and highly cogent) reading of Marx on emiseration is that it is exchange-value emiseration, not use-value emiseration.

>>6492670
I get the feeling that you don't even know what "value" is economics.

>>6492670
I get the feeling that you don't even know what "value" is in economics.

The Failure of Capitalist Production by Kliman

>>6491993
No. There are some weird anarchists out there like Jehu who think it does, but he's wrong

>>6492717
Why is that? Because I pointed out one of the many flaws in Marxian economics? It's not even a major flaw, some Marxians actually use the subjective theory of value.

>>6492731
You didn't actually point out any flaws, and I say that as a fascist.

I doubt you've even read Capital, because if you did you'd see why it would be preposterous for a Marxist to use the subjective theory of value.

>>6492741
>because if you did you'd see why it would be preposterous for a Marxist to use the subjective theory of value.
>mfw

Whatever the case, Caputal is, as John Maynard Keynes said, "an obsolete textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world".

>>6492752

>>6491981
This guy got it.

Read Capital in the 21st Century by Pikkety, and I recommend anything from Antonio Gramsci or Nico Poulantzes, both very intelligent socialists/Neo-Marxists, though I'm pretty certain their stuff was written around 40-50 years ago, so it should at least bridge your knowledge between the original socialist texts and the modern stuff.

>>6492762
Gramsci mainly wrote in the 1920s, chap.
Instead of Nicos, why not read Castoriadis?
Or CLR James.
Or Raya Dunayevskaya.
Or Mario Tronti and Sergio Bologna and Mariarosa Dalla Costa instead of Negri?

>>6492757
How do you tell a man making a fool of himself on /lit/ when he really deserves to treat himself better? "(Ronald Reagan) izquotes.com"

>>6492762
Gramsci is pretty interesting, he's somewhat of a synthesis of Marxism and fascism.

>>6492768
>How do you tell a man making a fool of himself on /lit/ when he really deserves to treat himself better? "(Ronald Reagan) izquotes.com"
You can tell him by not having read a work and saying it's shit because an economists he has a hard on called it shit, without actually attaching an argument beyond that.

>>6491993
Marx wasn't able to account for the following changes in a capitalist societies:
>the emergence of the middle class proper
>the shift in corporation management structures from simple ownership to managerial share-holder based structures
>the conflicts between capitalism and the welfare state that seem somewhat reconcilable (ie NHS in England)
>conflicts within capitalism (eg financial capital interests may differ from, or even be at odds with, manufacturing capital) that require the minimal state structure to support capitalism in general without favouring one kind, and therefore skewing the free market
>Max Weber (an elitist) notes that Marx couldn't account for non-economic elites holding power in some countries
>Nico Poulantzes builds on this and suggests that Marx's class definitions are too simple and does not account for race, gender, age, geography etc. for example (I'm English so my examples will have to come from England I'm afraid) a black man in the south, particularly in the financial district in London, will be richer than a white woman in the North in general, since he lives in the economic core of a country, rather than the semi-periphery

>>6491981
>>6492762
>Piketty
But he's just a liberal, also he gleefully has claimed to never read Marx.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117655/thomas-piketty-interview-economist-discusses-his-distaste-marx

>>6492463
>norway >

>>6492657
And here's a 4th century quote from St. John Chrysostom:

>Now tell me why is wealth an object of ambition? For it is necessary to start from this point, because to the majority of those who are afflicted with this grievous malady it seems to be more precious than health and life, and public reputation, and good opinion, and country, and household, and friends, and kindred and everything else. Moreover the flame has ascended to the very clouds: and this fierce heat has taken possession of land and sea. Nor is there any one to quench this fire: but all people are engaged in stirring it up, both those who have been already caught by it, and those who have not yet been caught, in order that they may be captured. And you may see every one, husband and wife, household slave, and freeman, rich and poor, each according to his ability carrying loads which supply much fuel to this fire by day and night: loads not of wood or faggots (for the fire is not of that kind), but loads of souls and bodies, of unrighteousness and iniquity. For such is the material of which a fire of this kind is wont to be kindled. For those who have riches place no limit anywhere to this monstrous passion, even if they compass the whole world: and the poor press on to get in advance of them, and a kind of incurable craze, and unrestrainable frenzy and irremediable disease possesses the souls of all. And this affection has conquered every other kind and thrust it away expelling it from the soul: neither friends nor kindred are taken into account: and why do I speak of friends and kindred? Not even wife and children are regarded, and what can be dearer to man than these? But all things are dashed to the ground and trampled underfoot, when this savage and inhuman mistress has laid hold of the souls of all who are taken captive by her. For as an inhuman mistress, and harsh tyrant, and savage barbarian, and public and expensive prostitute she debases and exhausts and punishes with innumerable dangers and torments those who have chosen to be in bondage to her; and yet although she is terrible and harsh, and fierce and cruel, and has the face of a barbarian, or rather of a wild beast, fiercer than a wolf or a lion, she seems to those who have been taken captive by her gentle and loveable, and sweeter than honey. And although she forges swords and weapons against them every day, and digs pitfalls and leads them to precipices and crags and weaves endless snares of punishment for them, yet is she supposed to make these things objects of ambition to those who have been made captive, and those who are desiring to be captured. And just as a sow delights and revels in wallowing in the ditch and mire, and beetles delight in perpetually crawling over dung; even so they who are captivated by the love of money are more miserable than these creatures.

St. John Chrysostom managed to avoid advocating the murder of the rich and the institution of worldwide slavery under a bureaucracy.

>>6492773
The middle class proper is mainly a short term phenomenon, though, largely do the the tremendous efforts of labor several decades ago. It probably won't last, since their efforts are wearing off.

>>the shift in corporation management structures from simple ownership to managerial share-holder based structures
That shift is explicitly mentioned in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

>the conflicts between capitalism and the welfare state that seem somewhat reconcilable (ie NHS in England)
The conflict is that some capitalists support the welfare state, whereas others do not. With how weak labor is today, there would be no welfare today without a decent amount of capitalist support for it.

>conflicts within capitalism (eg financial capital interests may differ from, or even be at odds with, manufacturing capital) that require the minimal state structure to support capitalism in general without favouring one kind, and therefore skewing the free market
That's also explicitly mentioned in Socialism: Utopian or Scientific

>Max Weber (an elitist) notes that Marx couldn't account for non-economic elites holding power in some countries
There isn't such a thing as a non-economic elite. There can be elites who don't have a lot of personal wealth they use, but they still have power over money in some regard.

>Nico Poulantzes builds on this and suggests that Marx's class definitions are too simple and does not account for race, gender, age, geography etc. for example (I'm English so my examples will have to come from England I'm afraid) a black man in the south, particularly in the financial district in London, will be richer than a white woman in the North in general, since he lives in the economic core of a country, rather than the semi-periphery
Marx's definition of class is built on relation to production, not things like that.

>>6492771
Yes, he too is a cunt. But your responsibility to yourself, and to us, is to not be a cunt. "Other cunts exist," unlike other cunts, you've shown signs of self-improvement.

>>6492794
I was parodying him, you fucking imbecile..

>>6492784
Also, see how St. John Chrysostom manages to avoid sentimentalizing he poor by portraying them as the eternally downtrodden rather than as afflicted with an inordinate desire for wealth themselves, and how he has a concept of values higher than wealth. Marxist socialist and Bourgeois liberal are united in their worship of wealth as the highest value; they only disagree on how it should be distributed. Many of them are dumb enough to believe that if people had the same wealth that enmity and envy between men would cease. The cleverest Marxists are the bureaucrats who realize what it really is: a mass looting project of all the world's families' wealth into the hands of one worldwide family of bureaucrats.

Socialism is fundamentally mistaken because it places the world's evil in institutions rather than in human nature. This one false principle makes the entire system false and ridiculous.

>>6492797
Parody doesn't work online, it is why we use invective instead you shit eating dyke fucker.

Reminder that socialists literally would like to force sex on kids at an early age to discourage monagamy, undermine marriage/family, so that children are born without the support of their family and so are more dependent on the big brother state.
This isn't a new idea. Plato had it.
It's disgusting and unnatural. The benefit that a "scientific" upbringing that a state could enforce on a child will never outweigh the benefit of parental love. Plus, the risk is much greater with the former because a massive state with an army of drones raised to be state robots from birth are more dangerous than a nation of families who have some natural resistance to propaganda.

>>6492822
Pretty sure Plato was less about getting kids into sex than most of his contemporaries were.

>>6492808
>places the world's evil in institutions

Elaborate.

Also

>evil

>>6492788
>The middle class proper is mainly a short term phenomenon

you can see the future? nice

>>6491993
>>6492230
>>6492273
>>6492295
>>6492372
>>6492659
>>6492741
>>6492788
There is truly no worthier enemy than a fascist who actually knows his shit.

10/10 would die fighting on the streets of Madrid

>>6492833
>Between Socialists and Catholics there is no more than this difference — the latter affirm the evil of man, and the redemption on the part of God; the former affirm the evil of society, and the redemption on the part of man. The Catholic, with his two affirmations, does nothing but affirm two simple and natural things — that man is man, and executes human works, that God is God, and executes things divine. Socialism, with its two affirmations, does nothing more than affirm, that man undertakes and accomplishes the enterprises of a God, and that society executes the works belonging to man.

>>6492773
>>the emergence of the middle class proper
The whom? I see people who exchange labour power for wages.

PMC? Fuck off, they're capitalists, they subsist off managing capital.

The Nomenklatura? Not a middle class in ordinary capitalism, but a PMC without private shareholders.

>share-holder
Have you read 3?

>conflicts between capitalism and the welfare state
Read any of the 2nd International criticism of Bismark?

>conflicts within capitalism
You haven't read volume 3.

>>6492808
What is human nature, friend?

>>6492851
Of course. The Middle class can't exist without a lower working class boosting it up. Lower working class wages are declining, meaning middle class salaries will too. Because to get middle class workers, it's only important that you pay them well *relative* to lower working class. There will still be a more skilled working class that does what the middle class does now, but their standard of living won't be anything like what they have currently. They already would be heavily eroded, except they started depending on credit.

>>6492859
>The whom? I see people who exchange labour power for wages.
He presumably means people who invest a decent amount of their salary, but still heavily rely on their labor.

The Killing of the King rite was accomplished at another Trinity site located approximately ten miles south of the 33rd degree of north parallel latitude between the Trinity River and the Triple Underpass at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Dealy Plaza was the site of the first masonic temple in Dallas. In this spot, which had been known during the 19th century cowboy era as "Bloody Elm Street," the world leader who had become known as the "King of Camelot," President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was shot to death.

A widely publicized image which has become perhaps the key symbol of the enigma of the Kennedy hoodwink, emerged immediately in the wake of the assassination: a photograph three "tramps" in official custody, who were unexplainably released and never identified, though speculation about who they really were has reached fever pitch among investigators.

This photograph is a ritual accompaniment of the Black Mass that was the ceremonial immolation of a king, the unmistakable calling card of masonic murder, the appearance of Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the three "unworthy craftsmen" of Temple burlesque, "that will not be blamed for nothing.' This ritual symbolism is necessary for the accomplishment of what James Shelby Downard and I described in the first edition of Apocalypse Culture, as the alchemical intention of the killing of the 'King of Camelot':

"...the ultimate purpose of that assassination was no political or economic but sorcerous: for the control of the dreaming mind and the marshaling of its forces is the omnipotent force in this entire scenario of lies, cruelty and degradation. Something died in the American people on Nov. 22, 1963 -- call it idealism, innocence or the quest for moral excellence. It is the transformation of human beings which is the authentic reason and motive for the Kennedy murder..."

The seemingly random and senseless slaughter of a President the week before Thanksgiving, by having his head blown apart in those now infamous Zapruder film frames, is the signpost of humanity's entry into what David Cronenberg in his Videodrome Rosicrucian cinematic manifesto termed, "Savage New Times."

The search for the three assassins has become a trip up and down Tim Finnegan's ladder, a ladder containing "one false step after another." It is a masonic riddle several magnitudes above the pedestrian, CIA-Mafia-Anti-Castro-Castro-KGB-Texas rightwing etc. etc. political "solutions" pushed by the various books and movies which sometimes only serve to confuse and demoralize us all the more.

The Alchemy of Ritual Murder

What ought to be unambiguous to any student of mass psychology, is the almost immediate decline of the American people in the wake of this shocking, televised slaughter. There are many indicators of the transformation. Within a year Americans had largely switched from softer-toned, naturally colored cotton clothing to garish-colored artificial polyesters. Popular music became louder, faster and more cacophonous. Drugs appeared for the first time outside the Bohemian subculture ghettos, in the mainstream. Extremes of every kind came into fashion. Revolutions in cognition and behavior were on the horizon, from the Beatles to Charles Manson, from Free Love to LSD.

The killers were not caught, the Warren Commission was a whitewash. There was a sense that the men who ordered the assassination were grinning somewhere over cocktails and out of this, a nearly-psychedelic wonder seized the American population, an awesome shiver before the realization that whoever could kill a president of the United States in broad daylight and get away with it, could get away with anything.

A hidden government behind the visible government of these United States became painfully obvious in a kind of subliminal way and lent an undercurrent of the hallucinogenic to our reality. Welcome to Oz thanks to the men behind Os-wald and Ruby.

There was a transfer of power in the collective group mind the American masses: from the public power of the elected front-man Chief Executive, to an unelected invisible college capable of terminating him with impunity.

For the first time in their history since the 1826 masonic assassination of writer William Morgan, Americans were forced to confront the vertiginous reality of a hidden power ruling their world. Sir James Frazer writing in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, explains that when the "divine king" is murdered by one who is himself stronger or craftier, those powers of "divinity" which were the king's are "Sympathetically" and "Contagiously" transferred from the vanquished to the victor.

The entry of this awareness into the subconscious Group "Dreaming" Mind of the American masses instituted a new simulacrum. The shocking introduction of a diametrically different, new "reality" is a classic scenario of another phase of alchemical programming known to the cryptocracy as "Clamores. "

Dave Marsh writing in Rolling Stone magazine (Feb. 24, 1977): "The Beatles have always had an intimate connection to the JFK assassination. He was shot the week before Thanksgiving 1963. By February 1964, the Beatles were number one in the national charts and the climactic appearance on Ed Sullivan's TV show occurred. Even Brian Epstein (the manager of the Beatles) believed the Kennedy assassination helped their rise -- the Beatles appeared to bind our wounds with their messages of joy and handholding... And the way was paved, replacing Camelot with Oz."

Now the American people were forced to confront a scary alternative reality, the reality of a shadow government, over which they had neither control or knowledge. The shepherding process was thus accelerated with a vengeance. Avant-garde advertising, music, politics and news would hereafter depict (especially in the electronic media) -- sometimes fleetingly, sometimes openly -- a "shadow side" of reality, an underground amoral "funhouse" current associated with extreme sex, extreme violence and extreme speed.

The static images of the suit-and-tie talking heads of establishment religion, government, politics and business were subtly shown to be subordinate to the Shadow State, which the American people were gradually getting a bigger glimpse of out of the corner of their collective eye. The interesting function of this phenomenon is that it simultaneously produces both terror and adulation and undercuts any offensive against it among its percipients, which does not possess the same jump-cut speed and funhouse ambiance.

There is a sense of existing in a palace of marvels manipulated by beautiful but Satanic princes possessed of so much knowledge, power and experience as to be vastly superior to the rest of humanity. They have been everywhere. They have done everything. They run the show which mesmerizes us. We are determined to watch it. We are transfixed and desperate to see their newest production, their latest thrilling revelation, even when the thrills are solely based upon the further confirmation of our dehumanization.

J.G. Ballard: "In this overlit realm ruled by images of the space race and the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination and the suicide of Marilyn Monroe, a unique alchemy of the imagination was taking place... The demise of feeling and emotion, the death of affect, presided like a morbid sun over the playground of that ominous decade."

The role assigned to us is that of zombies called upon by our shadow masters to perform bit parts and act as stock characters in their spectacular show. This mesmerizing process produces a demoralized, cynical, double-mind.

>>6492872
Perhaps my society is obtuse as I live in a semi-core country, rather than a core or semi-periphery or periphery country.

Here the division between working class and ruling class is a stark one based on a stipendiary nomenklatura whose work functions are clearly to manage capital. There are no non-managerial work functions that result in incomes that allow for investment to produce income. 5% returns mean that you need 20 years of wages stored up: such people don't exist.

The few workers in the most highly profitable industries who do store up capital, primarily through industrial reinvestment, become obvious petits-bourgeois or small capitalists.

The idea of a semi-worker semi-interest receipting social position is a ludicrous one. Pay any attention and you'll discover the management function for which someone is remunerated.

The man making the claim is clearly cretinous.

I have devoted years to trying to draw attention
to Masonic Sorcery and its relationship to political
control. I believe that many people instinctually
realize the power that "Freemasonry" exerts on
the Government of the United States; but since
they have been Hoodwinked they do not realize
what the secrecy, silence and darkness that
surrounds the mysteries of the "Masonic Art"
amounts to and what Masonry really is. So control
of the Government of the United States is just
traced to Wall St., and not to the Cross Roads of
witchcraft.

An archetype of betrayal of the "common man"
i.e. the "vulgar herd" has been and is going on and
the betrayal which involves a great deal of Fertility
and Death symbolism is seemingly motivated by
the endeavor to bring about syncretism in opposing
principles of a mystic power, and to green Israel,
rebuild the Temple of Solomon and establish a One
World Government.

It is by way of Masonic Sorcery that the union
of opposing principles is supposed to be brought
about and the people that practice Masonic
Sorcery are Arch Criminals who have been and are
perpetrating a crime against humanity.
The Arch Criminals staged-managed Dallas in the
killing of Kennedy and the news media reaction
ever since. There are today thousands or perhaps
millions who are apathetic to the control that
exists over us, and who labor under the misapprehension
that somehow life can be beautiful if we
only forget and discard our ideals while getting on
to the business of consumption.

America is a news ghetto where the news media
continually endeavors to promote apathy while
going through the motions, the lip-synch, of
reform. Like a haunted house draining its occupants
of will in return for sleep without nightmares,
American people are mental captives of a
Horror that feeds them misinformation as its stone
bell tolls the death of individuality. There is no
happy last minute rescue awaiting just around
tomorrow because Americans do not have the
truth about things around which to rally, and most
just want money which would enable them to get
the things that they have been told that they
should and must have.

>>6492870
Your outdated theories will be made obsolete by technology.

"The cryptocracy is a brotherhood reminiscent
of the ancient secret societies, with rites
of initiation and indoctrination programs to
develop in its loyal membership the special
understanding of its mysteries."
W. H. Bowart, Operation Mind Control

Sub-Set I MYTHOS

The Knights Templar were closely allied with
the sect of "Assassins" a confraternity which is
identified in Masonry as "Ishmaelites" — one
resembling Ishmael, whose hand was against every
man and every man's hand was against him; one at
war with society. Hassan Sabah was the founder
and as chief of the Assassins his title was that of
"Sheikh-el-Jebel", which is commonly translated as
"Old Man of the Mountain". Sabah's minions were
notorious users of hashish and henbane, and
according to all reports, some of their trips were
veritable psychedelic masterpieces. I cite this data
because the assassins were widely known and
referred to as the "Freemasons of the East".

Masonic writers do not always agree on the
legend of the "Three Assassins" in their interpretations.
Neither do they agree that there was a
change of legend of the Third Degree into that of
the Templar system in which James DeMolay was
substituted for Hiram Abiff with the Three
Assassins being represented by Squin de Flexian,
Noffodei and the "Unknown": a triad of assassins
invented to inculcate a Masonic modus operandi.
The wretched Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is one of the
Three Assassins and an Ishmaelite.

Lee Harvey Oswald (Divine Power) is publicly
linked in the group-mind to the assassination and
in this symbolical way can be said to be the second
of the Three Assassins.

James Earl Ray bears the same association and
thus becomes, for the purposes of this study, the
third of the Three Assassins.

Cagliostro
Cagliostro was made a Mason on April 1, 1776,
in London, England, at Esperance Lodge No. 289,
which at that time met at the King's Head Tavern.
Cagliostro is credited with having developed a
system of magic called "Egyptian Masonry". His
teachings were based on occult material in a
manuscript entitled "Maconnerie Egytienne"
which was ordered to be burned by the public
executioner. Many of these teachings dealt with
the ways in which magica sexualis could be used
for the summoning of "forces".

Mesmeric Masonry (a.k.a. Egyptian Masonry,
Magnetic Masonry) was devised in collaboration
with the pioneer hypnotist and Master Mason
Anton Mesmer. One does not have to search far, at
least in this regard, to note the more than casual
relationship to hypnosis which existed in Mesmeric
Masonry. This 18th century mind-control is the
heritage of 20th century American and British
intelligence agencies which have always been
Freemasonic in organization and interest if for no
other reason than the important head start
Masonry has had in the behavioral sciences.
Perhaps the basis of sonic mind control which is
described in our day as the avant garde of
behavior-modification can be discovered in the
interests of Freemasons Benjamin Franklin and
Anton Mesmer in the hauntingly delicate melody
of the glass harp.

Together, Mesmer and Cagliostro formed the
"Order of Universal Harmony" whose fundamental
principle lay in the idea that a relationship of
harmony and accord between people exists or a
relationship of discord between people exists for
the same reasons. The former relationship was
referred to as "Rapport".

This "Rapport" might appropriately be called
"Fellatrice Masonry". Masonry is actually thoroughly
"tantric" and Tantrism preaches that the
sexual organs are instruments of magic, and that it
is the duty of the Tantric to utilize them to that
purpose.

In Tantric symbolism the procreative organs are
called "Lingam" for the penis and "Yoni" for the
vagina and are sometimes represented as a point
within a circle. The Lingam represented by the
point was supposed to be the symbol of transcendant
life and the Yoni or circle allegedly represented
the feminine power in nature. The point in the
circle can also represent the union of male with
female resulting in the union of God and humanity.
The Masons apply this fertility information to
their own death rites: ritual assassination, the
symbolical euresis and the autopsy. The latter
comes from the Greek, "to see with one's own
eyes". In the ancient mysteries an autopsy signaled
the commmunication of mystical secrets. After the
autopsy the corpse or in the case of ritual, the
Fellow acting as the corpse, is placed in a coffin
and the coffin on a catafalque and the catafalque
in the center of a circle. There the symbolical
corpse awaits resurrection. In this necromancy the
corpse actually signifies the Lingam and as such his
coming to life again is supposed to be an erection.
The individuals who practice fertility and death
rites actually believe that such rites impart mystical
power.

>>6492294
It already exists.
Its the /leftypol/ board at 4+4chan
We desperately need tripfag focault's help to counter evola kid/nazbol for europas shitposting

>>6492899
Marx is probably the most technology-conscious thinker in philosophy, along with Heidegger.

>>6491939
So, i guess you're telling me that the Greeks are basically useless, since they can't tell me nothing important about myself, as they lived 2500 years ago

>>6492372
I believe we've reached a point in industrial history in which there is enough surplus value saved to be able to survive without a big workforce (big enough to revel or even form a class identity) for decades. Consider the billions of dollars spent in military equipment, even if someone has to build that equipment the money moved by lobbyist surpasses any real surplus the factories in question could be making (every new warhog is valued above 400 millions and the price keeps rising), and all that equipment is made without any real use. If this were a keynessian aproach that would be great, but that equipment is then sold and kept. Countries like Saudi Arabia have enough material to lose a war without getting to use all the things they bought. And that material keeps circulating, making a 100% surplus revenue since it's already built. Countries like Switzerland, France, Germany, survive as banking countries more than industrial ones and they manage more money that heavily industrialized and growing countries like Turkey (responsible of more than 1/3th of all the electromechanics and furniture in the whole EU and still considered a barely first world country).
I believe there are big gaps between then and now that make just reading the Capital not enough to understand modern economics. Just that. Not dissing the first real analysis of how labor was turned into capital and how the changes in conditions marked human history, just recommending that he's accompanied with later authors.

>>6492788
It's a very nice touch to link full items so people can just read one post. More anons could learn from this.

>>6492808
No, you don't work because you believe in this like evil and goodness. People aren't characters from a saturday morning cartoon.

>>6492886
>The idea of a semi-worker semi-interest receipting social position is a ludicrous one.
According to /biz/ is a pretty common thing. It's still among people with jobs well above the minimum wage, of course, but something that some chose to do instead of owning a home or a car.

Is there a book explaining why Americas in general seems to hate socialism so much? I find their irrational hated interesting.

>>6493972
Americans in general don't particularly hate socialism, it's the Baby Boomers. The Socialist Alternative, a Marxist Party, lost by a mere 299 votes for Minneapolis City Council. They captured 29% of the the vote for District 7 of Washington for House of Representatives (losing to a Democrat). They won City Council for Seattle.

>>6493972
fuggin communists man, they murder everyone

look at North Gorea, Russia, China, Vietnam

All huge failures with millions dead

>>6494062

Capitalism has killed more than Mao's China.

>>6494764
Boy, are you going to feel dumb as you grow old.

>>6494771

It depends if from your position you consider yourself smart if you're older than 25 posting on 4chan.

>>6494784
don't remind me of my age, k? cool

>>6493893
>>The idea of a semi-worker semi-interest receipting social position is a ludicrous one.
>According to /biz/ is a pretty common thing. It's still among people with jobs well above the minimum wage, of course, but something that some chose to do instead of owning a home or a car.

And they're not in receipt of the interest yet are they? Small investors get wiped out in crashes.

Basically all they're doing is saving wages. As I noted above, you need 20 years of saved wages to start substituting interest for your wage. Nobody on /biz/ has 20 years of wages banked who works, and when you have 20 years of wages banked you become a rentier petits-bourgeois ala c19 france.

There is no "middle" class.

>>6494034
center of imperialism, great Satan. mordor, etc

>>6494062
t. readers digest and the Austrian School of Creative Statistics.

>>6491939
>what needs to be done
There you have your answer, really.

>>6492191
Hey
hey you
pssh
wanna buy my newspaper?

Discussion of capitalism, socialism and economics here
>>>/biz/741890

Read Zizek, you twat.

>>6492105

This a thousand times. I cringe at ancaps, but I hate these socialists even more.

>>6493972
America was founded on Enlightenment values

What do you guys think of the New kind of Leninism premoted by Zizek?

>>6497778
Old pickle jars for new substitutionalism. Dosvidanya Lenin.

>>6492055
Fuck right off

There aren't any reputable ones. You'll always be told to go back and stick to reading outdated theory because Marxist economics has been BTFO'd completely. Its labour theory of value was decimated.

>>6497778
zizek has the analysis part down but he fails to come up with any kind of alternative, then criticizes anyonw who points that out by suggesting ideology has us all so blind that we can't imagine an alternative.

he is right though, about slow change vs. revolution. the world is changing like crazy, technology is completely restructuring how people live and interact. the political status quo, let alone political alternatives, can barely keep up.

delueze offers a better path to understanding what is going on

The problem with most Socialists today is that they are following Lenin/Trotsky 1:1 and just haven't really kept up with modern forms of propaganda, IT, marketing etc etc, for some reason, most Socialists see using modern marketing techniques as "immoral" or some shit, instead of realizing that modern marketing techniques are used for a reason, they fucking work. Also language and techniques need to be changed to appeal more to the "middle class" (even the poor think they are "middle class") rather than the ever-shrinking industrial working class.

I don't see a problem with modern marketing techniques if you aren't being that deceptive and you are at least creating a conversation, but nothing will stop Leninists from printing tiny circulation newspapers full of flowery language, standing on soapboxes and hijacking protests that nobody literally gives a fuck about because that's what Lenin did in the early 20th century.