/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20293088]

Thoughts on The Black Book of Communism? Is it a dangerous book? Is it accurate? etc.

[Anonymous No.20293126]

>>20293088
"Moreover, three of the book's main contributors (Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin, and Nicolas Werth)[6] publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois' statements in the introduction and criticized his editorial conduct.[35] Margolin and Werth felt that Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million killed, which resulted in "sloppy and biased scholarship",[38] faulted him for exaggerating death tolls in specific countries,[6][39]:194[40]:123 and rejected the comparison between Communism and NazismMoreover, three of the book's main contributors (Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin, and Nicolas Werth)[6] publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois' statements in the introduction and criticized his editorial conduct.[35] Margolin and Werth felt that Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million killed, which resulted in "sloppy and biased scholarship",[38] faulted him for exaggerating death tolls in specific countries,[6][39]:194[40]:123 and rejected the comparison between Communism and Nazism."
Also a bunch of Indian dudes used the same methodology of reduced population growth = totally a murder to conclude that the British killed 2 billion people in India.

[Anonymous No.20293127]

>>20293088
The BBC.

[Anonymous No.20293156]

why did you make this thread again

[Anonymous No.20293271]

>>20293088
It makes commies seethe. They cherry-pick singular criticisms and act like it undermines the entire tome (e.g. >>20293126). I'm happy crying faggots like >>20293156 didn't get you a ban and you were able to make the thread again.

[Anonymous No.20293356]

>>20293088

[Anonymous No.20293367]

Makes commies seethe as their failure of an ideology collapses in front of them, so its based.

[Anonymous No.20293425]

>>20293126
>uses wikipedia

[Anonymous No.20293431]

>>20293367
>In a period of 40 years...
>ignores territorial changes
>puts in some big numbers unrelated to the argument being made
>puts them in a few more times for good measure
>doesn't plot population growth (because it would undermine the bullshit)
You're retarded.

[Anonymous No.20293438]

>>20293431
>okay so communism failed but...
Yeah, I'm sure it'll work THIS time lmfao

[Anonymous No.20293463]

>>20293356
This graphic seems inconsistent.

[Anonymous No.20293479]

>>20293271
Thank you brother.

[Anonymous No.20293507]

>>20293479
Check this one out too.

[Anonymous No.20293513]

>>20293463
Opps. (>>20293431) was meant for >>20293356.

[Anonymous No.20293519]

>>20293507
Thank you bro, I will.

[Anonymous No.20293531]

>>20293088
This book makes c*mmunists absolutely seethe.

[Anonymous No.20293544]

>>20293531
If it's such a famous book, why does it cost $80?

[Anonymous No.20293579]

>>20293088
It makes Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky squirm around uncomfortably in their loafers.

[Anonymous No.20293624]

>>20293544
Because people are willing to pay that much, commie.

[Anonymous No.20293629]

>>20293088
>he thinks murdering factory owners is bad

[Anonymous No.20293721]

>>20293629
>hehehehehe lets just murder all of the successful people and then we'll get our utop--
>WHAT WHY IS OUR ECONOMY IN FREEFALL NOOOOOO NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM NOT REEL COMMUNISM

[Anonymous No.20293731]

>>20293629
Communists never explain who will provide the work once they get rid of all the scary factory owners

[Anonymous No.20293755]

>>20293629
>>20293721
>>20293731
Why are communists and anti-communists so fucking retarded
WHAT FACTORY OWNERS
WHAT FACTORIES
westerners live in financialized service sector economies. this whole conversation is so imbecilic. There are no more means of production, they're on the other side of the world, do you understand? Communism is a dead ideology that describes and criticizes the economic relations of 150 years ago.

[Anonymous No.20293839]

>>20293755
>Communism is a dead ideology
I was with you till this part. Yes, things have changed and The plans made a hundred years ago didn’t pan out. Various modern communist schools of thought are currently figuring in the new circumstances, so it’s far from dead. It’s pretty much vindicated by the looming disaster state-capitalism brings us

[Anonymous No.20293882]

>>20293755
Embrace MTW.

[Anonymous No.20293892]

>>20293088
I bought it like 10 years ago. Still haven't read it, but it being on the shelf has been a good conversation starter and helps very quickly identify which people I've brought to my house should ever be welcomed back.

[Anonymous No.20293900]

>>20293088
Useless without a holistic overarching understanding of Soviet intelligence operations and aims against the West, and specifically the USA starting with the conspicuous involvement of Lower East Side you-know-whos in Lenin's Swiss train car entourage out to the Eastern Front That and how it interfaces with their partners in China, Latin America, et. al.

[Anonymous No.20293931]

The One-Child Policy alone probably killed 100 million.

[Anonymous No.20293988]

>>20293931
But you hate girls

[Anonymous No.20294067]

>>20293988

If I did, I'd've already trooned out.

[Anonymous No.20294089]

>>20293755
Yes, exactly. It's a comprehensively failed system which killed tens of millions of people. And, that's what the book is discussing. You absolute knob.

[Anonymous No.20294366]

>>20294067
No, I’m saying that the one child policy resulted in more males being born and kept.

[Anonymous No.20294520]

bumo

[Anonymous No.20294529]

>>20294089
this nigga finna be downright incensed when he runs the numbers on the victims of capitalism

[Anonymous No.20294538]

Am I the only person who dislikes communism without feeling the need to manufacture ludicrous statistics to justify this belief? Are tens of millions of deaths not good enough?

[Anonymous No.20294559]

>>20294529
You're using capitalism as a scapegoat for poverty. Tell me, what communist country has ever succeeded in NOT being totalitarian and running their economy into the ground? NONE OF THEM! That's because communism is really about tyranny, and its mirror is capitalism (ie liberty) (I'm not saying unfettered lassaiz faire, libertarian capitalism is good at all, don't get me wrong). But your mistake is confusing the privations associated with systemic poverty (but still under a liberal & free system) with what is a liberal and free system. Ask anybody who moved from the Eastern Bloc to the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, etc if they prefer it here and they will say yes.

[Anonymous No.20294565]

>>20294538
Does the book really inflate the numbers? How would the layman reader know?

[Anonymous No.20294582]

>>20294559
>systemic poverty
do you even hear yourself?
kek polls show people preferred communism

[Anonymous No.20294591]

>>20294538
Capitalism is perilously close to cause our extinction, anon. Communism is the imagined escape from that disaster. There are just attempts to reach it, not actual communism. No, stop. Your brain has been thoroughly infected with biased capitalist propaganda.
The death caused, whatever their numbers, are not excused, though some can be explained and actually blamed on liberal capitalism.

[Anonymous No.20294597]

>>20294582
>polls show people preferred communism
According to commisar some fucking random anon, that is.

[Anonymous No.20294600]

>>20294591
Disliking communism doesn't mean I like capitalism or economic liberalism either, I should clarify

[Anonymous No.20294617]

>>20294600
But you do defend it with your ignorance of the idealism of the left.
Read News from Nowhere by William Morris before?

[Anonymous No.20294623]

>>20293755
I still haven't seen a serious Marxist discussion on gig economy. If gig workers agree with them, they are workers; if they don't, they are petite bourgeoisie.

[Anonymous No.20294624]

>>20294617
I haven't. I would like to. Thanks for the recommendation

[Anonymous No.20294651]

>>20293088
Mentioning the holocaust whenever any shitlib screams about how this book exaggerates numbers is fun.

[Anonymous No.20294655]

>>20294651
That's funny.

[Anonymous No.20294764]

>>20293088
>it's 912 pages long

[Anonymous No.20294928]

Best thread on /lit/ right now.

[Anonymous No.20295300]

>>20293755
>There are no more means of production
you're the retard here. your understanding of the concept of means of production is at the level of a 5 year old. and you don't even understand the concept of productivity and what the implications are of having 14 million people in highly productive manufacturing, with regards to the quantity of industrial means of production employed
>the economic relations of 150 years ago.
that's not even the reason you're wrong, but it's ridiculous that you think you travel into the past when you fly over an ocean
>>20294623
where have you looked?

[Anonymous No.20295549]

>>20293519
This one is light and tracks the continuity between Lenin's policies and Stalin's dictatorship.

[Anonymous No.20295664]

>>20293356
>Source: The Stalin-haters won't believe any source

[Anonymous No.20295668]

>>20295664
sorce is at the top
>moscow>moscow>moscow
LOL commies are the joke of the internet.

[Anonymous No.20295954]

>>20295549
>Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Jackson, Lincoln, Truman

[Anonymous No.20296273]

>>20295954
3 here are not like the others.

[Anonymous No.20296423]

>>20296273
Three spoke English

[Anonymous No.20296504]

>>20296423
Lenin spoke English

[Anonymous No.20296507]

>>20293755
Capital Vol 3

[Anonymous No.20296516]

>>20296423
Beautiful.

[Anonymous No.20296524]

>>20293271
>such a massive oversight in scholarship to create a biased point
>Ignore that, the rest of the book, that's the good shit
Why would I bother reading a book, when the writers admit it was garbage?

[Anonymous No.20296660]

Is this the anti kommunist aktion thread now? I read this last year. Absolutely harrowing.

[Anonymous No.20296757]

I hate communism so much it's unreal.

[Anonymous No.20296781]

>>20293624
Do you think Harvard University Press has ever released a banger, which sold hundreds of copies, or something? It's an academic book. That's why it's so expensive, plus it's 900 pages. You absolute retard.

[Anonymous No.20296823]

>>20295300
Financial speculation is not 'productivity'. We do not live in 'productive' countries.
>what the implications are of having 14 million people in highly productive manufacturing, with regards to the quantity of industrial means of production employed
the implication is that the a critique of capitalism centered around industrial production is antiquated and calling me a retard or a five year old won't change that.

[Anonymous No.20296892]

>>20296823
Communism has evolved. Ask Jordan Peterson.

[Anonymous No.20296904]

>>20296892
It's just not communism, it's something entirely different coasting on the coattails of this dead meme ideology.

[Anonymous No.20296932]

>>20296904
Do you mean to say the kids and faggots thinking themselves brave revolutionaries absolutely would not put the cisgender males in prison if they took over? There would be reeducation camps to break you down and convert you to gay, 1984-style. The fags and women would totally do that if they took over any Western country (namely the United States).

[Anonymous No.20296959]

>>20296932
Listen man. I am not a communist. I am not a liberal. I am not a leftist. I'm not any of these things. I'm just trying to tell you that this 'gender stuff' and tranny shit and race stuff isn't communism. Communism is an ideology about industrial economics from the 19th century that has nothing to do with today's world. These weird liberals calling themselves 'communists' are just not communists. That doesn't mean they aren't repressive and willing to commit torture, it just means they aren't communists.
The other people calling themselves communists that actually take the dead 19th century ideology about industrial economies seriously are, while slightly less retarded, politically irrelevant holdouts whose movement died 60 years ago.
Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?

[Anonymous No.20296994]

>>20296959
Yes man, I do. And I simply have a wider conceptualization in mind when I think of the definition, in my opinion, of communism.

[Anonymous No.20297016]

>>20296994
Then you're just muddying the waters by dragging in something completely irrelevant and different into the conversation. Instead of directly criticizing their ideas, the conversation then becomes trying associate them with the crimes of the Soviet Union or Mao or whatever and the conversation gets completely lost in the weeds. It's a bad tactic and inaccurate.

[Anonymous No.20297034]

>>20297016
Ok man. I concede.

[Anonymous No.20297045]

>>20296823
>Financial speculation is not 'productivity'.
I didn't say anything close to financial speculation being productivity. try again
>the implication is that the a critique of capitalism centered around industrial production is antiquated
wrong, the implication is that the mass of industrial means of production in the US is enormous, because with growth of productivity the ratio of means of production to workers rises.

[Anonymous No.20297080]

>>20293755
deboonked here >>/lit/thread/S18793184#p18793368

[Anonymous No.20297083]

>>20297045
Do you not find yourself ridiculous? This country is deindustrialized, the amount of industrial production and people engaged in that mode of production has never been lower. This is a predominantly financial and service economy. You're just emphasizing a niche aspect of the economy so that you have an opportunity to rehash the same shit you people have been saying for 150 years. How do you expect to even gain any traction when the supposed target audience for your rhetoric, the working class, don't even work in factories anymore? It's just a fun thought exercise for you and other people fed up with radlibs looking for an alternative.

[Anonymous No.20297345]

>>20297083
>This country is deindustrialized
"this" isn't even a country, we're on an international website
>the amount of industrial production and people engaged in that mode of production has never been lower
industrial production is not a mode of production. it's a category based on what's produced, not on the social relations the producers assume.
the amount of industrial production in the US is still highest it ever was https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO
but even if it was lower than ever, then it's still higher than ever in another country. and, more importantly, even the first country is more dependent on industrial production than ever, because the functioning of its economy is more than ever dependent on a perpetual supply of a larger and larger quantity of industrial products. there's no service without industry, because you need products to serve and means of production to serve them. and there's no financial sector without industry and service, because it operates either on value that's created in the production of industrial products and of services, or on the promise of value that's going to be so created in the future.
>You're just emphasizing a niche aspect of the economy
I'm not, I'm just correcting an overblown attempt at deemphasizing it.
>so that you have an opportunity to rehash the same shit you people have been saying for 150 years
financial and service sectors are part of the capitalist mode of production and as such they're included in "the same shit we people have been saying". you're free to read Capital and see for yourself. we therefore have zero need to emphasize anything else instead.
>How do you expect to even gain any traction when the supposed target audience for your rhetoric, the working class, don't even work in factories anymore?
is that really your epic takedown? do you think people can only talk to one another when they work in a factory? I think I must induce brain damage in myself before I'll be able to follow your train of thought here.

[Anonymous No.20297437]

>>20293126
>Also a bunch of Indian dudes used the same methodology of reduced population growth = totally a murder to conclude that the British killed 2 billion people in India.
I'll believe it.

[Anonymous No.20297452]

>>20293088
Dumb book about a tiresome subject.
>dangerous
kek