/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1002830]

Whats up my /lit/ comrades. What are your opinions on "The Communist Manifesto"?

I just read it and I fucking love it, Karl Marx is the shit.

Also, on a side note, I'm not a communist, I just agree with some of the philosophical points he made.

[Anonymous No.1002836]

entry-level, but in the best way. I liked it so much when I first read it. If you want more Marx I would suggest The Marx-Engels Reader. Don't try to get through Kapital. I like his manuscripts of 1844 most of all.

[Anonymous No.1002835]

signet is known for making the most simple fucking covers they can.

[Anonymous No.1002839]

>I just read it and I fucking love it, Karl Marx is the shit.

[Anonymous No.1002837]

of course. that's why it's required reading.

[Anonymous No.1002841]

I read it and enjoyed it. And then I had to answer a horrible essay question and now I hate it.

[Anonymous No.1003720]

wasent it wrote mostly by engels?

[Anonymous No.1003738]

I just bought it. I have read the first chapter and I enjoy it.

[Courage Wolf !penisASZp2 No.1003742]

>>1003738
>Bought the Communist Manifesto

[Anonymous No.1003766]

>>1003738
ITS FOR FREE ON MARXIST ARCHIVE!!
WHY THE HELL YOU BUY IT!!!??

[Anonymous No.1003789]

Your copy of The Communist Manifesto was brought to you by Capitalism.

[Anonymous No.1003792]

>>1003742
I got it at a used book store for $2.98.
I first downloaded it, but I prefer reading an actual book.

[Anonymous No.1003814]

What a wanker.
I can understand reading the tripe for a better understanding of the failure that is the system of communism. But to say "I fucking love," is to forfeit whatever amount of anonymous credibility you had.

[Anonymous No.1003820]

>>1003792
lol u mad

[Anonymous No.1003827]

>>1003814
u mad?

[Anonymous No.1003833]

ITT: utter pretension.

You'll grow out of it, kid.

[Anonymous No.1003855]

Yeah man fuck capitalism!

Theories based on 1840's industrial production are totally relevant in 2010!

captcha relevant:you're hicks

[Anonymous No.1003861]

I HATE MY BOSS, TOO.

[Anonymous No.1003869]

>>1003833
was that an example of pretentiousness?

[Anonymous No.1003870]

Anybody who took that much from Hegel couldn't help but to spew mostly shit. It wasn't his fault.

[Anonymous No.1003885]

>>1003855
>nothing from the past is valid
>production doesn't occur in the 21st century

Thread over.

[Anonymous No.1003893]

>>1003869

Bitch, please.

[Anonymous No.1003897]

>>1002836

What? The Marx Engels Reader is good, but Das Kapital is great. It is heavy though, which is why I suggest getting a companion book. Or you can go to David Harvey's website where he links videos to his lectures on each chapter.

The Communist Manifesto is good, but it's just propaganda, don't let that be the only Marx you read.

[Anonymous No.1003918]

You probably thought the communist party shirt on threadless was clever, too.

[Anonymous No.1003982]

>>1003918
anarcho-cimmie FTW

[Anonymous No.1004005]

>>1003982
*commie

[Anonymous No.1004019]

>>1003814
Yeah man, eventually we all grow up and become real, Objectivist men.

[Anonymous No.1004031]

>>1004019
Yeah man, eventually we all grow up and jerk off while we read Rand.

[Anonymous No.1004042]

Oh hai guys, whats going on in here?

Oh.... calculation problems..

[fascist goldfish !Rrxa7zePwI No.1004089]

>>1004042
so, how's bp's calculation problems doing?

>implying corporations don't work with the same info problems that govt faces.

[Anonymous No.1004097]

>>1004089

States have a divine right to rule. Private corporations are just money-changers.

[Anonymous No.1004105]

No state has a "right" to rule. They rule by virtue of military, political, and economic power.

[fascist goldfish !Rrxa7zePwI No.1004108]

>>1004097
look guy. the govt is fucked up especially local govt, but you are engaged in teh same kind of nonsense that marxists are, except their capitalism is your "state."

[Anonymous No.1004636]

so am i dumb if i didn't really understand it

[Anonymous No.1004647]

>>1004108
>Implying I'm not a mercantilist.

[Anonymous No.1004656]

Read Capital (Kapital, whatever the fuck it's called) before you say that. The Manifesto is shit tier Communist literature. It was written for stupid proles and is full of dumb bullshit rhetoric. Also directly contradicts some of Marx's followers' beliefs (supports revolution in the Manifesto but apparently believed that Capitalism would collapse on its own and be replaced by a Communist system without the need for violent revolution.)

[Anonymous No.1004681]

Capitalism is closer to human nature than Communism. That is why it works.

Communism constantly demands self-sacrifice from its citizens. This is not sustainable. After a few generations, a government will form and slaughter its own citizens to ensure that everyone stays the course. This happened in the Soviet Union with Stalin, in China with Mao, and in Cuba with Castro.

By contrast, Capitalism promotes self-interest and allows people to be dicks to each other. Say what you will about Capitalism, but it really is a much more stable socio-economic system.

[Anonymous No.1004698]

>>1004681
Capitalism only works because the state forces everyone to accept it. The power of the State is the only thing that matters. Fucking idealists...

[Anonymous No.1004707]

>>1004698

Your post makes no sense. How am I an idealist?

>Capitalism works because it allows people to be dicks to each other

[Anonymous No.1004711]

>>1004698

Actually Capitalism only works because the state stabilizes it every couple of decades when it inevitably crashes.

[Anonymous No.1004715]

>>1004108
>Fascist ragging on Corporatism

[Anonymous No.1004735]

>>1004681
There has never even been a communist state. It has all just been totalitarian pseudo socialism that panders to the few in charge. The exact opposite of what Marx envisioned. Marxism was strangled and died at birth.

[Anonymous No.1004752]

>>1004735

It's pretty useless to explain the differences Between Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism to most people. It's all Communism to them, and to explain it just means you are trying to confuse them. That's why most people think America has a Free Market economy.

[Anonymous No.1004758]

>>1004752
This is why Marxism has failed. Marxists hate the proles too much to bother organizing them.

[Anonymous No.1004763]

>>1004735

What does this tell you about Communism?

It's a utopia. It doesn't fucking exist in the real world.

Human beings evolved to act out of self-interest except in the domain of one's family. Social collectivism only works in a small scale setting and generally amongst one's blood relations. Beyond a certain size, the entire system collapses as the people who act like dicks profit more than the people who genuinely contribute to the system.

You need to reward hard work and punish laziness. Capitalism does this naturally through incentives, Communism does not. It is far from perfect, but it's the best system we've got.

[Anonymous No.1004769]

>>1004763
>You need to reward hard work and punish laziness

Agreed. Too bad Capitalism does not do this. Capitalism only "rewards" those who exploit other things (including other humans) for profit.

[Anonymous No.1004770]

>>1004758

The proletariat are fucking stupid, that's just a fact of life. There is no way in hell any Marxist organization can compete with the propaganda machine that is the American media.

You have to understand, Marx lived and died before the advent of television.

[Anonymous No.1004772]

>>1004735

The only ideology that relevant to history (and yes, history because communism is as good as dead) is ideology as it is applied. The USSR, the PRC, the DPRK, the DRVN, Cuba etc. share many traits and they all call themselves communist.

If these common, so-called communist traits are to be rejected, than it is essentially a rejection of communist traits.

[Anonymous No.1004776]

>>1004769

>Cherry picking

Capitalism does do this, but it's not perfect.

Like you said, people who cheat and lie can sometimes get ahead, but it always catches up to them in the long run. A company that pushes out a bad product or cuts corners (see BP) will eventually get their just deserts.

Capitalism may be cruel, it may be inhuman and insensitive, but goddamn does it produce results.

How on earth can you look at any modern technological innovation and not realize that this is the result of hard-work married to Capitalism?

[Anonymous No.1004782]

>>1004776
Companies are not people.CEOs do not "work hard" in any sense and yet are paid copious amounts of money to wring profit out of their underlings.

[Anonymous No.1004786]

>>1004776

Haha, the vast majority of technological innovations have been the product of either government sponsored research, or industry backed by state subsidies and government contracts.

Also the most important technological innovations have had the main effect of increasing the stranglehold Corporations have on the American economy. And Corporations have no intention of have a free market in this country, they'd much rather have a government they can control and make sure all the "risks" that would, in a Capitalist utopia, weed the good from the bad, are backed by tax payer funds.

[Anonymous No.1004792]

>>1004782

They worked hard to build the company up from scratch. I think a person is entitled to reap the benefits of years of hard work.

Look, try starting a business one day. It is one of the hardest things you'll ever do in your life. Granted, some people have a knack for it, but it demands a great deal of your time and effort just to get it up and running.

It is true that a Capitalist system does support perfect gluttons (see any landlord ever), but one must realize that the alternatives, such as European Socialism, produce more people that take from the system and don't contribute anything to it.

If you dislike the number of bureaucrats and lawyers leeching off of the system in America, you'll hate European countries.

[Anonymous No.1004796]

>>1004792

What country do you live in? Because it sure as hell ain't America.

[Anonymous No.1004800]

>>1004782
Many CEOs do work very hard, actually. The position requires a large amount of decision-making, and the entire future of their company or whatever rests on their shoulders.
Not manual labor, but they definitely do a lot of work.

[Anonymous No.1004802]

>>1004786

That depends on how far you draw back the technological innovation. While it is true that many theoretical subjects are state sponsored (since no businessman would ever fund something that had no practical application), many actual devices based on the theoretical innovations are the result of Capitalist competition.

For example, the internet was the result of a government defense project. The internet as we know it today, the one that lets you type on 4chan and look at porn all day, that was the result of Capitalism. Similarly, cell phone technology was developed from a government project. But no government would have ever created the iPhone or any other kind of user-friendly gadget.

If it weren't for Capitalism, most of us wouldn't even have personal computers.

[Anonymous No.1004809]

Arguing with Marxists is a lot like arguing with Holocaust deniers.

They live in their own world with its own rules and you really just can't reach out to them.

[Anonymous No.1004812]

>>1004800

....until the board of directors and/or shareholders vote you out of the position.

[Anonymous No.1004815]

>>1004802

Thank you Capitalism for allowing me to while away my free time looking at porn and playing Farmville on the go! Yeah, who cares that I had to go deep into debt to buy all these expensive products, and that I am already in debt for life from that college degree I got. Would have been nice if I had been able to keep my job...oh well, who needs a job with all this easy credit the Capitalists have given me!

Politics!? That shits for faggots, now go away while I check ESPN on my sweet gaming rig. Yay Capitalism!

[Anonymous No.1004817]

>>1004809
And if you do not agree with them it is because you are stupid and need to read Marx. If you have read Marx and still disagree with them, you haven't read it "properly."

Marxists are idiots. I could never understand why academia is so full of them.

[Anonymous No.1004821]

>>1004815

Meh. Materialism is like a drug. You can choose to be addicted to it or you can choose to restrain yourself.

Just because you can buy a dozen doughnuts at midnight doesn't mean you should.

[Anonymous No.1004829]

>>1004821

Completely agreed, but like I said before, the proletariat are fucking stupid. And Capitalists have a vested interest in keeping them that way. Our economy is built on the fact that people are stupid and are easily taken advantage of.

It's easy to blame the idiots for making bad choices, but that fact is our economy and way of life is built on the elite having a large population of idiots to make bad choices in their favor. The media, educational system, and legal system enforce this status quo (why do you think it's so hard to start a small business? that people are just dumb?).

That Capitalism that you are describing is just as much a Utopia as the Communism that Marx envisioned.

[Anonymous No.1004840]

>>1004829

It's not at all dude. Ok, for your first point:

>the proletariat are fucking stupid

This is a little immature, you have to admit. If you had some more life experience, you'd realize what I mean.

Right now, I'm living with a window-washer and an apartment maintenance guy who used to be in a Mexican gang before he mellowed out. They are the definition of blue-collar but still are a couple of the chillest guys I've ever met. All they want in life is the freedom to smoke a bowl, drink a beer, and watch the game. What kind of self-righteous asshole would take that away from them?

This is part of a more complex argument I've been turning over in my head. Basically, compared to the sum total of human knowledge and accomplishment, the difference between any two people is insignificant. It's a variant of Salinger's argument at the end of Franny and Zooey that part where he says that everyone is a "fat lady". I'll elaborate on it more if you care

[Anonymous No.1004848]

>>1004840

Second part:
>our economy and way of life is built on the elite

This is not as true as you think. Think of the economy as an emergent system similar to evolution. No one individual is responsible for the course of evolution; rather, it is the sum of every single competing species that drives the whole system, producing fantastic results.

The problem with academia, in my opinion, is their pretension in believing they're smart enough to guide society in the right direction. More often than not, their clumsy social policies hurt more people than they help. No individual knows enough to properly second-guess the totality of human knowledge. It is better to rely on the emergent properties of human systems than to listen to the short-sighted wisdom of the individual.

We really are just small creatures, each of us trying to eek out a living. Those of us with intelligence sometimes come to the mistaken belief that they are capable of meting transcendental justice. This is hubris, nothing more.

[Anonymous No.1004859]

>>1004840

Haha, please don't tell me about life experiences, I've worked my fair share of minimum wage and blue collar jobs. I've worked in retail, manufacturing, and plenty of service jobs. The only times I've worked in office settings are in dispatch centers and mail rooms. I've known plenty of lower class people, many from all over the world glad to be living in this country. Some were very bright, most were stupid, almost all of them were good, moral, kind people. When I call them dumb, I'm not trying to make a value judgment, I'm just stating a fact. You don't have to be smart to be a good person, I'm not trying to imply that.

I have nothing against sports, weed, beer, television, movies. I love computers and cell phones. And I recognize my unimaginable good luck to be born in the wealthiest country on Earth.

The problem I have is when the elite in this country (often the reason the third world immigrants had to come here in the first place) are using these good things to keep people fat and distracted from how they are fucking them over every day of their lives. How they are intentionally broadcasting messages of paranoia against people who ARE intelligent, of people who are different than they are, whether that difference is race, creed, or sexual orientation. Never class, oddly enough.

That fact is most people don't care about that, and they should. Most people think politics are some esoteric science that only businessmen and military officers should participate in and that is fucking bullshit and STUPID.

Most people are good and kind but they are still human and the corporations taken advantage of their weaknesses, their fears and their desires and they are too dumb to realize what is going on and that is why I call them stupid and why I am sad for the future of this country.

[Anonymous No.1004863]

>>1004848

What exactly, in your opinion, is the point of universities, if not to create experts in fields that most of the population does not have the desire or drive to pursue themselves? What is the point of creating experts if no one will listen to them? I'm not even a part of academia, I am a college drop out (please don't go all ad-hom on me), I just fucking love to read and have a great interest in economics, politics, and history. I'm not even a Marxist really, I just don't think Marxism is the devil and realize there is a lot of nuance in socialistic theories and practices, especially among different cultures.

[Anonymous No.1004865]

>>1004859

I don't think there is one correct way to live is what I'm saying. While it is deplorable that some people are fat and addicted to unhealthy shit, it ultimately is their choice to make. No one can live their lives for them.

The best thing that a free society can do is provide people with options. For example, there is not enough fresh produce reaching inner city areas. This is part of the reason why so many urban kids are fat as fuck.

If we started subsidizing vegetables as meat and provided incentives for supermarkets to open up in the cities, maybe we wouldn't be in such a health crisis.

Still, I don't think that government propaganda, even if done for the best intentions, can guide a person towards better living. Enlightenment only comes to those who seek it and happiness to those who work for it.

Picture is always c/lit/ related

[Anonymous No.1004873]

>>1004863

I'm not opposed to universities and I'm especially not opposed to education (studying to be a teacher lol). I was just ranting about the high-minded idealism of academia today-- particularly this whole business of "raising consciousness" and being "open-minded." While it sounds good in principle, in actually it is just self-serving rhetoric that places the speaker on a higher moral plane than other people.

I've been in college for a few years and I'm already sick of it. Given my bad experiences in college classes, I doubt I'll be a professor even if I pass muster. More likely than not, I'll end up teaching some high school writing or science class.

Anyways, back on point, what I'm trying to say is social policies should focus on what people demand and try to respond in kind. Act more like a businessman trying to figure out what the public wants and less like an arbiter of transcendental justice. It's disgustingly arrogant how some social studies professors talk these days (though somehow, I get the feeling that this was always true).

[Anonymous No.1004875]

>>1004865

>While it is deplorable that some people are fat and addicted to unhealthy shit, it ultimately is their choice to make. No one can live their lives for them.

The thing is, it's not always as simple as "people make bad choices", especially not for the poor. Not everyone has time to cook their families a meal, especially when they need to work two jobs because the father left. Just for example, many are just lazy. Regardless there is a multi-billion dollar a year industry that depends on these "poor decision makers" that has the economic clout to lobby our government to make sure legislation is never passed to help the people who rely on fast food to live.

>The best thing that a free society can do is provide people with options. For example, there is not enough fresh produce reaching inner city areas. This is part of the reason why so many urban kids are fat as fuck. If we started subsidizing vegetables as meat and provided incentives for supermarkets to open up in the cities, maybe we wouldn't be in such a health crisis.

You do realize that the only reason fast food can exist in this country is because corn is HEAVILY subsidized by the state to insure cheap prices in food production (especially as cow feed). Also the same reason the Mexican agriculture industry became a fucking mess after NAFTA and the reason illegal immigration surged in the 90s.

>Still, I don't think that government propaganda, even if done for the best intentions, can guide a person towards better living. Enlightenment only comes to those who seek it and happiness to those who work for it.

How can it when the message is in constant competition with the better funded and constantly streamed propaganda we know as advertising?

[Anonymous No.1004882]

>>1004873

So you are against being open-minded because some people use to feel better than people who they perceive as close-minded? I kinda feel for you here, because I knew a lot of kids where "close-minded" was basically used a synonym for "idiot", and just added to their vocabulary of pejoratives, but I still think being "open-minded" is a good thing, and I still think a media that constantly tries to stop people from thinking is a bad thing. But I agree with you, I hate hypocrites.

>Anyways, back on point, what I'm trying to say is social policies should focus on what people demand and try to respond in kind.

But what if the media of the people is convincing them to demand policies that are unquestionably against their own interest and solely in the interests of the elite that cause the problems most people are frustrated with? Let people make their own mistakes? That does seem to be the only option for leftists in America, so I'll give you that.

[Anonymous No.1004885]

>>1004875

This is where your argument contradicts itself. You said that it's more complicated than "people just making bad decisions." I agree.

Yet, your solution is to raise consciousness by pushing out government propaganda. If the problem is systemic, then provide incentives to fix the system. Relying on rhetoric rarely gets anything done.

If one views the obesity problem as one of economic incentives (corn syrup is cheaper because of corn lobbies, sugary/fat foods are calorie dense foods that are cheap as fuck, etc) and provides the appropriate economic incentives for healthy food, then you'll solve the problem on a systemic level.

While one can debate the merits of spreading mass concern over an "obesity epidemic", I think that this is a far cry from a true systemic solution.

[Anonymous No.1004887]

>Let people make their own mistakes?

Making mistakes is how one grows and learns. True freedom is having the freedom to make good decisions as well as bad ones. No one is satisfied with a good decision that is made for them.

Making choices for individuals also keeps them in a state of immaturity. A man becomes a man when he falls and picks himself back up.

[Anonymous No.1004893]

>>1004885

I never offered government propaganda as a solution, I only pointed at how ineffective it was. But really, it was never meant to be effective, or to be a solution at all. It is simply the governments way of keeping the appearance that it is doing something about the problems without actually doing shit.

One thing the government could do would be to END subsidies on corn. But that would make a lot of very rich people very angry.

The thing is the system is so fucked up, that the system can no longer fix itself. American has turned into a service economy, our economy is based on being employed by a relative handful of corporations that cripple labor movements (one way to solve the problem). All while providing plenty of distractions while we fall further into serfdom.

It's a catch 22, on one hand fast food corporations are literally drug dealers that are killing this country, on the other hand we all work for them and they have become a significant part of our economy. We're fucked.

[Anonymous No.1004897]

>>1004887

I don't think you quite grasp the consequences America will eventually have to face for its "mistakes".

[Anonymous No.1004898]

>>1004887
>Making choices for individuals also keeps them in a state of immaturity. A man becomes a man when he falls and picks himself back up.

Nicely homily, but it's unproductive in the real world.

[Anonymous No.1004899]

>>1004897
>>1004893

My family comes from a third world country. I lived there for a couple years, but I was basically raised as an American.

No matter how bad things get here, it'll never be as bad as other countries. Trust me on this one.

Also, I've really got to go to bed. It's finals week, ugh. It was actually a surprisingly good discussion. Till next time /lit/erates.

[Anonymous No.1004904]

>>1004899

This was a nice discussion, but I can't let this go...your graph proves my point?

Also, I wouldn't be so sure about that, but only time will tell. Good night.

[Anonymous No.1004931]

Direct Democracy here.

The proletariat don't need control over the means of production to make society more democratic.