/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3272727]

Why Marxism?

[Anonymous No.3272729]

because inequality is a social construct

[Anonymous No.3272732]

because people are never shitty to other people and nobody ever wants more than they have/deserve

[Anonymous No.3272747]

Because every political ideology has it's right to be tested out.

[Anonymous No.3272779]

>>3272727
slave morality

[Anonymous No.3272823]

because failed at life and need a scapegoat

[Anonymous No.3272827]

Because materialist conception of history.

Because social relations within capitalist economy.

Because conflicting/antagonistic/exploitive/destructive nature of capitalism.

[Anonymous No.3272831]

>>3272827
>Because conflicting/antagonistic/exploitive/destructive nature of capitalism
awww little babby wants to save teh world! give it a candy medal

[Anonymous No.3272832]

because efficiency of distribution and a levelling of the social-darwinist aristo-playing field, meaning the strong and the wise and the hard working will benefit most and the parasitic will be left with least.

>mfw silly westerners thought capitalism was the level playing field

[Anonymous No.3272834]

>>3272832
Only an idiot would want a level playing field. You need more excuses to justify suckers being suckers "yes they are like smart and have good morals and shit!!11"
pathetic

[Anonymous No.3272842]

>>3272831
Was that your attempt to refute the statement, or were you just after the attention?

[Anonymous No.3272845]

>>3272842
there was no statement to refute, don't flatter yourself

oh and yeah, kicked a bum in the face last week when coming from work
leveled his playing field pretty hard

[Anonymous No.3272859]

>>3272834
I don't think you understand what a level playing field is.

Inbred simpletons who are one fucked cousin away from clinical retardation run most countries. not because they are "elite", but because of social engineering and cultural inertia.

The mediocre club together into old aristocracies and protect each others interests and crowd out the natural elites who they rightly see as a threat.

Marxism rewards only productivity, not constructed social tradition. Only the weak and the unjustly privileged fear what Marxist wrote.

[Anonymous No.3272864]

>>3272845
>there was no statement to refute
>conflicting/antagonistic/exploitive/destructive nature of capitalism
Are you actually denying these facets of the capitalist system?

Also I'm not the guy who posted about levelling the playing field.

[Anonymous No.3272866]

>>3272859
what stands for "elite", "smart" or whatever are social constructs
intelligence is here thanks to sexual selection, there is no galactic measure that says being intelligent is "good" and being a retard is "bad".

why should i care what you take for elite or not

If a retard is successful and pretenious yntelectual is a failure i choose retard, there is no god to laugh at me, i will laugh at you, though, sucker.

[Anonymous No.3272878]

>>3272866
again, you misunderstand. a retard sucker can be installed as an inept and easy-to-fool "leader" in a position of powe simply because of a family connection. This brings weakness to the entire society and makes it easy to exploit. this is bad leadership, and the bad leader makes the whole construct vulnerable.

If you applaud weakness, and you want to see your own life worstened because you want to be led by a weakling who has a famous family name, then you will be opposed to Marxist theory. If you yourself are incompetent but you have a well-positioned family and you fear competition from your superiors who out perform you in every measurable aspect of real life, then you will oppose marxism.

For those who value substance, and the rewarding of achievement over inertia, Marxism is the silver bullet that slays the old weak enemy.

[Anonymous No.3272891]

Because it validates literature as more than an expressive art form or an attempt at manipulation through rhetoric. The Marxists also put forth some pretty cool communication theories.

But, to be honest, post-structuralism and formalism are where shit's at these days.

[Anonymous No.3272894]

>>3272878
>applaud weakness
you repeat your mistake
weakness according to what? your aesthetic sensibilities?

Those supposed retards are rich and famous and ruling countries. What the fuck are you talking about?

>If you yourself are incompetent but you have a well-positioned family and you fear competition from your superiors who out perform you in every measurable aspect of real life, then you will oppose marxism.
yes i would protect my interests no matter what. Sue me.

[Anonymous No.3272902]

>>3272894
oh and yea, you now realize that there can't be your fairy tale utopia because of me and people like me

[Anonymous No.3272918]

>>3272864
>Are you actually denying these facets of the capitalist system?
yeah i deny that giving conclusive statement about human systems in one sentence is sensible. he is framing the discussion in his preconceived moralistic worldview - implying any of the listed are 'bad' or 'good' in universe without meaning and purpose. all he can say is that he doesn't like those - then i say i don't give a fuck, son

nature exloits nature
call the fucking police

[Anonymous No.3272923]

>>3272894
you are using the fallacy of circular logic:

1. We know that God exists because the Bible says so.
2. We know that Bible is correct because it is the inspired word of God.

You are saying that because the leaders in a system have got to positions of power in a system of their own devising, that both they and the system are strong.

Not so true. In a example you might relate to: if a weak leader is playing you at video games at his house, he has input all cheat codes to make his game easier than your game. He then beats you narrowly by one point, even though he had the whole game cheating in his favour. Can he claim to be the better player? Or even nearly as good as the other, simply because he cheated?

The cheat codes are social inertia. Marxism is the reset button that allows you and I to play the cheater again, this time without any cheat codes.

[Anonymous No.3272938]

>>3272902
you are nothing in the scheme of things. you are following what you incorrectly perceive to be power. not for the innate truth or ideology, but because you think that pragmatically it is easier and safer to do so. you will be happy to change allegiance as power shifts. you believe that moral flexibility is a strength, a virtue and a survival technique. you will ultimately become the new rank and file of the opposition when the tides change. you know that you would have no objection to this, if promised safety and success.

[Anonymous No.3272968]

>>3272923
>You are saying that because the leaders in a system have got to positions of power in a system of their own devising, that both they and the system are strong.
>that both they and the system are strong
no I deny that any of this matters

If someone is in power it is all that matters - someting worked, whatever that was, whether there was any agency or concious decision making or not. Everything else is fluff and getting angry at non-agent 'universe' and 'fate' or whatever.

You desperately cling to the idea of Justice, if not cosmic then you substitute cosmic with some societal equivalent (with all of the comic one's properties of absolutes and importance). Justice is irrelevant, unimportant. It can be your pet idea but it doesn't relate to real world.

Why don't you look in the mirror and see your true self. Drop all the moralizing and admit your true motives. You crave what others have and in the absence of power you build all those narratives of justifications and justices.

All this moralizing, applying arbitrary moral value to cheating (simple vertebrae cheat, sue them too)

>Can he claim to be the better player?
the analogy fails because life is a game without rules

There is no deeper meaning to one being successful and other being slave. No need to build narratives.

[Anonymous No.3272980]

>>3272938
yes day to day life is a constant risk/benefit analysis process. so fuking what

>incorrectly perceive to be power
yeah sorry, you didn't really convince me, i'll take my bayesian inference over random image board post

>when the tides change
let me worry about myself

[Anonymous No.3272983]

>Asking about marxism in a place full of murrikans.

herr durr derp komunnist are bad they eat babies hurrr god blezz murrika.

[Anonymous No.3272992]

>>3272983
pfffft, good try toddler, I was born in a legit communist country

what now, did i demolish your worldview?

[Anonymous No.3272997]

>>3272992

Not him, but so fucking what? No implementation of communism has been sound thus far. And that is hardly relevant

[Anonymous No.3273008]

>>3272997
hrrrp drrrp lel dunno i wonder why he brough the murrika up

[Anonymous No.3273017]

>>3272992
Nope. You're the same shit. Probably you've got the same view of communism as any brainwashed American, you based the idea of communism/marxism in a bad experience which hasn't got a true relation with the real communism/marxism.

[Anonymous No.3273040]

nah sonny, i've written enough in this thread, you can get a good idea of what i think about your kindergarten out of ass values attributions

i totally sit all day and jack off to hayek and mises and then some friedman cos i need magic justifications for my self-aggrandizement

sucker

[Anonymous No.3273172]

>>3272968
either a troll or a solipsist. either way, you do not enjoy communication with other humans and find no value in it. not believing there is any compromise to be made is babytalk really.

[Anonymous No.3273204]

>>3273172
non sequitur, nothing stops (mistakenly identified by you) extreme idealist from mocking moralistic marxism

you wouldn't see moral nihilism if it hit you in the face

what compromise rofl? what do you have to offer

[Anonymous No.3273324]

>>3273204
>moral nihilism
>not babytalk

Nihilism is a branch of existentialism; it cannot be used as a valid tool for exploring morals or ethics as it is rooted in solipsisms.

[Anonymous No.3273331]

>>3273324
>solipsism
you keep using this word, i don't think it means what you think it means

[Anonymous No.3273351]

>>3272968
The problem with this mode of thought, is that it is self-delusion. It is a self-reflexive and post-modern reinterpretation of solipsistic existentialism.

You have gone beyond simply saying "might is right". Now you say "If I believe in the concept of might, I myself become mighty". It is delusional. You would more happily hide in real life and be a warrior in thought and on the playground of the internet, than to confront the objective fact of your own existence and your own nature.

You cannot talk of nihilism as existentialism when you deny your very existence. You must first confront yourself. You must accept that you are inherently weak. You yourself are weaker than most - not only in status, but in spirit.

A noble spirit confronts the reality of situations and adopts modes that provide sustenance and growth. For you and I, that is Marxism. For the game-weighted, power-brokers of cultural inertia, that is neoliberalit laissez faire to maintain the status quo.

The real slave state mentality, is the one where the impotent and oppressed (You) denies his slavery, and indeed celebrates his chains as if they were jewellery.

"Beat me more, master!" you beg. And when your master beats you, you make yourself believe it is because you commanded him to beat you.

But he would have beaten you anyway.

[Anonymous No.3273356]

>>3273331
i wouldn't bother to use it if I didn't.

if you knew what it means, you would see how it makes perfect sense in the posts.

[Anonymous No.3273436]

>>3273351
>You have gone beyond simply saying "might is right". Now you say "If I believe in the concept of might, I myself become mighty". It is delusional.
I say no such thing. You employ false dilemma by thinking that if i reject arbitrary value judgement of some random anon as Teh Truth of Reality™ or Teh Way to Go Cos Its a Good Way™, then what i accept as Teh Truth of Reality™ is my personal value judgement. No, I reject ascribing subjective values, even when they come from me, to some Greater Thing Out There™ in totality. Who is the solipsist here? My personal values are my personal toys. That's all.

I see no contradiction between moral nihilism (and your mistaken view of it as solipsism) and pursuing real life self-agrandizement. I have the mental capacity for evaluating my position in real life and developing strategies for improving my (relative) power. I evaluated status quo and developed strategies for adaptation and exploitation of it for my own purposes. I have no irrational angsty need to rebel and rebuild everything in my image; I can work with what I found when I got where I am. I see no evidence for your revolutionary bullshit to benefit me in any way above what I extract from status quo. You are not a prophet here, you think I never though of the alternatives before?

I don't see what is more un-solipsistic, down-to-earth, empirical than calling a person actually being in power as being powerful - what would be more telling property in your book? Abstract "Yntelligence"? Your gut feelings or moralistic sensibilities?

[Anonymous No.3273439]

>>3273436
(cont.)

>The real slave state mentality, is the one where the impotent and oppressed (You) denies his slavery, and indeed celebrates his chains as if they were jewellery.
>"Beat me more, master!" you beg. And when your master beats you, you make yourself believe it is because you commanded him to beat you.
All you do is judge my capability to self-aggrandize in current system on no data at all as you know nothing about my situation. And then you offer (well not you, but marxism in general) vague ideas of communist utopias as a bribe to jump on bandwagon. I don't want your snake oil. Good try, though.

[Anonymous No.3273450]

moral nihilism has nothing to do with solipsism or existentialism. it is a position in metaethics and it has rarely been challenged in the last century. we usually dont call it nihilism but irrealism or antirealism.
ill stay around to answer your questions on theoretical ethics and possibly argue for a while if anyones interested.

[Anonymous No.3273458]

because I'm a worthless, pseudo-intellectual - narcissistic schizoid.

[Anonymous No.3273617]

>>3273450
What the fuck am I reading
Solipsism is a form of anti-realism
solipsism has nothing to do with nihilism
nihilism is a form of anti-realism

wat

[Anonymous No.3273633]

>>3273617
omg are you actually unable to differ moral nihilism from epistemic and ontological nihlism?
stop throwing around big words, kiddo

[Anonymous No.3273640]

>>3273633
>nihlism
I don't know what "nihlism" is but you big boys probably developed some pretentious definition.

[Anonymous No.3273654]

>>3273640
the term is stupid and couloured with the connotation of pretentious edgy teenagers trying to sound deep. its hardly even used in academia anymore. still irrealism in metaethics (formerly called "moral nihilism") has nothing at all to do with solipsism.

[Anonymous No.3273669]

Because modern day capitalism alienates everybody, including the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The system destroys everything and benefits few.

Also Marx's beard and Engels' beard are majestic as shit.

[Anonymous No.3273703]

>>3273436
>the analogy fails because life is a game without rules

So, theoretically, you have no problem with me tracking your IP, following you to your online banking, fleecing you of all your wealth, and then showing up at your door and punching you in the face, right?

[Anonymous No.3273711]

>>3273703
You would be pure nihilist hero if you did that. everyone should live like that and only the best online stalkers would steal the most and buy the most hookers to procreate with and therefore natural order wins!!!!!! you have shown us the most rational form of life, anything else is utopian garbage!

[Anonymous No.3273721]

>>3273711

Go to bed steve.

[Anonymous No.3273741]

>>3273703
there is no sekrit club of moral nihilists if that's what you're implying. nihilism is not an ideology, it is just a stepping stone in a chain of thought, a simple conclusion, which goal is discovery what is the actual status of morals in the universe. one can arrive at moral nihilism both by rational and irrational though - i don't give a fuck; it's not like i signed pledge of allegiance and care about defending this stance

it might be a shocker for you, maybe you don't leave your house often, but there is control/power system in place that would make your life a living hell if you attempted to break its rules

[Anonymous No.3273743]

>>3272992
>implying anyone old enough to have actually experienced the soviet world as an adult would be on 4chan

[Anonymous No.3273747]

>>3273743
you must be new here

[Anonymous No.3273751]

>>3273747
>implying /lit/'s population is at all old
If it were, this sort of discussion would probably not be taking place, or at least not in such an infantile manner.

[Anonymous No.3273761]

>>3273751
'k
my 85 year old grandpa shows up on politics forums and curses his political enemies 4 hours/day

your move

[Anonymous No.3273764]

>>3272727
>marxism
>Nope.jpg

[Anonymous No.3273766]

>>3273761
I don't believe you, and there's no reason I ought to believe you. If I were to say something of my identity, you would have no reason to believe me.

[Anonymous No.3273773]

>>3273766
translation:
"it is impossible for an older person to be on the internet and not be a 190 IQ mensa genius"

you are a fucking retard
get outside sometimes or at least watch fox news

[Anonymous No.3273791]

>>3273773
No, it's impossible for an older person to be on 4chan. It's quite simple.
That aside, an old person who would stoop to the sort of mediocrity in this thread really ought to be ashamed of such,.

[Anonymous No.3273799]

>>3273791
cool opinion dude

i think its shit, though

[Anonymous No.3273815]

>>3273799
Hey man you're entitled to your opinions
If it's any consolation, I think your opinions are shit, too.

[Anonymous No.3273856]

>>3273791

Hey, I'm in my late fifties, which while it's not exactly elderly. is old enough to remember a lot of this stuff first hand

[Anonymous No.3273866]

>>3273856
uh
Why did you take a picture of your quick reply window?

[Anonymous No.3273869]

>>3273866
Wait! I got it! The amusing captcha coincidence! Haha!

[Anonymous No.3273873]

>>3273866
Don't mind me, I'm senile and prone to doing dumb things.

[Anonymous No.3273874]

>>3273856
I don't believe you for a second.

[Anonymous No.3273880]

>>3273766
well i choose not to believe you not believing me - therefore you actually believe me
now i choose to believe everyting you write is actually monkeys dancing on your keyboard

HELL YEAH im starting to love this solipsism thing, it gives me such an amazing power over reality

must be real fun talking to you IRL

[Anonymous No.3273881]

>>3273874
other than posting a pic of my draft card or something, I'd be happy to demonstrate. what would prove it?

[Anonymous No.3273889]

>>3273881
With timestamp, of course. And probably a second form of ID.
And your own face, so we know it's you on the ID.
That would be sufficient.

[Anonymous No.3273890]

>>3273881
doesn't matter, he would choose not to believe in your evidence

then he would transform into a jumbojet and fly off to mars

[Anonymous No.3273893]

>>3273880
And you're free to believe such.

[Anonymous No.3273907]

>>3273889
On second thought, don't do that. Identity theft and shit.
Nonetheless, isn't it simply easier to accept total anonymity?

[Anonymous No.3274019]

>>3273907
Well, If I tell you that the collapse of the soviet union really didn't surprise most people, and that most of the people I know were waiting for the housing collapse fifteen years before it happened, it strains my credibility a bit if you think I'm fifteen. On the other hand, I really don't want to risk getting 4chan into my real life more than it already is, so I'll try to restrain comment unless you guys say something egregious about something I know first hand, so basically, for about ten minutes.

[Anonymous No.3274030]

>>3274019
>Well, If I tell you that the collapse of the soviet union really didn't surprise most people, and that most of the people I know were waiting for the housing collapse fifteen years before it happened, it strains my credibility a bit if you think I'm fifteen.
No one on 4chan has any credibility on the first place. Besides, I can believe this without having to consult your credibility.

[Anonymous No.3274033]

>>3274019
and what do you think is going to happen to America? lol

[Anonymous No.3274048]

>>3274019
>he thinks the soviet union was marxist after Lenin died!

[Anonymous No.3274057]

>>3274019
The collapse of the Soviet Union surprised a great many people because they couldn't explain adequately why it didn't collapse in 1962 or 1934.

[Anonymous No.3274068]

>>3274048
>>3274057
Listen kids, I've been here longer than the two of you.

[Anonymous No.3274070]

>>3274048
>he thinks the Soviet Union was Marxist under Lenin.
>he thinks that the Soviet Union existed while Lenin was substantively politically active.

[Anonymous No.3274072]

>>3274033
If my experience is any indication, stuff will get cheaper, jobs will get easier to get and pay better, and be easier to do. entertainment will be better and toys will be way cooler. Girls will be sluttier and that will be cool with everybody.


HMMM. there'll be more buffet restaurants, The internet will be connected to everything, nobody will have any privacy. a lot of things that are illegal now will be legal, and vice versa. Wal mart will get bigger and there'll be more and bigger upscale versions. Productivity per person will increase and they'll be fewer and fewer jobs connected to anything involving everyday existence.

And hot chicks will want to sleep with older guys more. that may be a hope...

[Anonymous No.3274079]

>>3274068
<cough>

Why is Djilas' account of the nomenklatura an insufficient account of a new class society? Why is Cliff's formulation incorrect? What is the chief criteria used to evaluate the Soviet Union as a capitalist society? (Multiple correct answers). Why is a simple evaluation of the Soviet Union as a capitalist society deficient?

[Anonymous No.3274084]

>>3274068
burden of proof is with you
>>3274070
Lenin was, for the most part, striving toward Marxist ideals. I believe.

Stalin definitely wasn't - it was real politik with marxist rhetoric from then on. but I believe that, weighing circumstance and action, Lenin and the origins of the uprising were marxist "true believers".

[Anonymous No.3274094]

>>3274084
>Lenin was, for the most part, striving toward Marxist ideals. I believe.

This is unsubstantiable when you look at the Bolshevik's demobilisation of proletarian democracy and Lenin's inability to comprehend proletarian subjectivities (cf: What is to be done, or Infantile Disorder). Lenin is the apex of the "revolutionary" social democrats. But he's no Rühle, for example. If you want to read about the disorganisation of proletarian power in practice, and I'm not talking about guns, I'm talking about bolsheviks including working class old bolsheviks smashing workplace councils, then read some Simon Pirani.

Lenin represents perhaps the highest attainment of ideology by the Russian Imperial intelligentsia. This doesn't mean he has class praxis.

The origins of the uprising were workplace councils in both Petrograd and Moscow. The RSDLP(b) merely rode the tiger.

[Anonymous No.3274125]

>>3274094

The best way to make marxism work, is, in my opinion, to take the means of production out of human hands entirely, through automation. This is not my idea: alot of people had it in the thrities, (when I wasnt around, I'm not THAT old. )

But it made sense then and it amkes sense now. We can technologically achieve the dream that both systems had, that of making everyone have enough for their needs, regardless of their ability, and let everything else be decided according to whatever local or worldwide system seems popular at the moment. I think this is getting closer all the time, and I think that's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.3274163]

>>3274125
This is a good account, but it doesn't consider the fact that productive activity is itself a human demand for self-actualisation.

Footballers gonna foot.
Garbos gonna garb.
Coders gonna code.
Sales people gonna sell.

Automation is one side of socialism—leisure, relief from productive activity. The other side is pleasure—freedom in work. And that requires a deeper democracy than we currently know (or are capable of).

Only in revolution can we discover the democracy of the workplace that was discovered, say, in some Czech workplaces in 1968.

[Anonymous No.3274175]

>>3274163
the revolution happened: it was the digital one, It's liberating everybody, to do whatever productive or non productive work they want.

[Anonymous No.3274208]

>>3274125
dude, why just automation
when you are in handwaving business, go straight for wizardry

[Anonymous No.3274230]

>>3274175
Please refer to Wages, Price and Profit for what being a wage labourer is.

[Anonymous No.3274288]

>>3274208

I tried that, as a hypothetical. I've never been able to get a straight answer as to how a post-scarcity government of any type would work. I hear about labor and wages and production, and i keep going back to the (excuse me) "nigger question" paper by carlysle.

If you need workers, you have to give them incentives to work. positive or negative. positive is obviously easier, and usually cheaper, but when goods and to an extent services become extremely cheap and readily available, incentivization becomes weird and contradictory. Even now, a lot of people can think of examples where the whole "labor for pay" idea is statrting to break down.

How does marxism or capitalism deal with a world where (through magic or machinery) there's no real incentive to work, and most needs are met simply because there's a surplus of about everything?

[Anonymous No.3274312]

>>3274125
Automation presents its own problems and only really helps with consistency in production rather than solving the problem of production itself.

[Anonymous No.3274325]

>>3274288
>How does marxism or capitalism deal with a world where (through magic or machinery) there's no real incentive to work, and most needs are met simply because there's a surplus of about everything?
You want to check out the German Ideology. If we are able to pursue everything we can become truly cultured individuals rather than having to remain blinkered specialists.

[Anonymous No.3274332]

>>3274312
see, that's not how it works.

Most of the problems of production have been solved by automation, and it's been happening since the lever.

And it's getting faster and better and more effective. I've watched it happen my whole life. I really don't think it will stop until everything that can be done by automation is done that way. and everything will be cheaper than we can currently believe.

[Anonymous No.3274351]

>>3274288
Marxism is primarily an analysis of capitalism. Some working class marxists have dealt with the concrete relations between people that have existed within resistant organisations or revolutionary organisations.

Such worker controlled organisations posit a number of reasons for productive activity in situations where the artificial scarcity of capital has been abolished:
*) Self actualisation
*) Habit & Social expectation
*) The obvious need for someone to reproduce elements of society incapable of automation
*) Quota, distributed responsibility, service
*) Desire to control.

In concrete reality, workers collectives have continued production because people engage in productive behaviour as part of being human. It is a meaningful thing to do so. (We've certainly proved we can support the idle rich and the shiftless useless labours of management—why not run a "non-formal employment" rate of 50% as it is now with under and un employment?)

[Anonymous No.3274383]

>>3274332
>Most of the problems of production have been solved by automation, and it's been happening since the lever.
>And it's getting faster and better and more effective. I've watched it happen my whole life. I really don't think it will stop until everything that can be done by automation is done that way. and everything will be cheaper than we can currently believe.
I don't see why your commenting on something you have no knowledge of. Have a look at Goldratt's novel Goal for entry level issues about automation and fetishising it. I'm not saying automation doesn't have its place, it's just more limited than you think. There are pertinent reasons why the past 50 years haven't been working towards automation but have seen techniques like kanban come to the fore of production.

[Anonymous No.3274384]

>>3274351
you suggest a system where political systems are like religious ones: different churches on every street. or communists in Texas and anarchists in Washington and objectivist/ capitlaists in tennesee. And all getting along fine because all the essential needs are met by the automation.

I think you're right. Thius could work. You could even have maoists in the mail room, leninists in the HR department and Randians in customer service. I like it. It's sort of how they handle it in India, with the jains and the sikhs and buddhists.

[Anonymous No.3274407]

>>3274383

I really know more about this than most people, if only from having had to actively study it for the last ten years. Things have been automated that would have been considered entirely service issues only twenty years ago. And the efficiencies of computerization have only begun to make themselves felt.

But I'll look into the book you've mentioned. Though I'm not sure entry level is where i need to start

[Anonymous No.3274483]

>>3274407
>I really know more about this than most people, if only from having had to actively study it for the last ten years.
It might be a case of you not seeing the wood for the trees if you're in a manufacturing sector where automation works throughout and is established, like crude oil refining or a handful of other commodities.
>And the efficiencies of computerization have only begun to make themselves felt.
We can do things like stack PID loops more easily I guess, and we can do some fancy remote UI stuff that wasn't possible before. Doesn't change fundamental issues in business like flexibility or quality that dominate a lot of manufacturing. You can't, for example, have quality circles with robots.

[Anonymous No.3274546]

>>3274483
god, i know. I hate quality circles. I doubt it would surprise you to learn from an inside source that ninety percent of what's done in factories has literally nothing to do with any productive work, and that just about all management could stay home all but two days a month and still do the important parts of their jobs? I'm as far from being a communist as you can get. but I'd still say that nobody who makes more than about ten bucks an hour is earning their salaries, and that includes floor workers who "supervise" mechanized manufacturing stations and lines. I've been in factories where the janitorial staff and the shipping and receiving lines were the only people doing any actual work. Factories that employed thousands of people, and needed maybe a tenth that many.

[Anonymous No.3274602]

>>3274383
>kanban

Oh you mean Fordism-Taylorism

>flexibility or quality that dominate a lot of manufacturing.

These dominate manufacturing because capitalism is keeping the volume of objects produced restricted by the circulation of value form and excess profit taking since 1970 and the turn to neo-liberalism's profit rates.

We could be back into "quantity" problems like *that* if we decided to raise the standard of living of the African or South American or Indian population.

China is in a quantity situation _because_ they're raising the standard of living of the mass of the population.

Capital in the West is more interested in short term profit taking (read: disciplining work class power) than it is in expanding the total volume of value form. Rate of profit before total volume of value.

It is in Das Kapital people. Seriously.

>>3274546
>I doubt it would surprise you to learn from an inside source that ninety percent of what's done in factories has literally nothing to do with any productive work,

What is this? Industrial Relations 1A? Of course. It has always been this way. Productivity is kept down by the boss, not the worker.

The only think keeping capitalism alive is force and the wage—the meaningful increases in human productivity achievable within capitalism have already been long achieved.

[Anonymous No.3274654]

>>3274602
I don't think the process can be stopped at this point, and the strength of capitalism is also it's weakness here: competition will lead to the same kinds of price slides that we've been seeing since the sixties, and they'll only get faster. Artificial scarcity has already failed with most intellectual properties, and it's already happening with manufactured goods. If you try to keep prices high, wal mart will eat you alive: some businesses can only stay alive by holding onto the bottom of the market for dear life, which just means more and more automation.

[Anonymous No.3274702]

>>3274546
I think a lot of it is this tiered management structure that's been inherited in the west, you tend to get an immense amount of bloat and detachment. And then they try to fix this by half-arsedly doing stuff like quality circles, then when pretending to listen doesn't work a contracter is brought in to review everything and say the blindingly obvious and/or what was said in things like quality circles.

How do you feel about the whole six sigma stuff? I hear nothing but bad things, but that's mostly from people who do work that's hard to automate like lab techs.

[Anonymous No.3274754]

>>3274702
it's all work that doesn't matter. Six sigma is basically the same thing: it's rafts on a river that are trying to gain a little speed on one another with higher efficiency while the current pushes them all faster and faster.

Bloated is a good word for it, and it's starting to spread into everything: Schools, all government agencies, We're making jobs for the sake of jobs and work is getting more and more redundant. We've reached the point where all the real work is being done by less than ten percent of the population, and the rest are doing makework. And fighting over resources they had just about no hand in producing. Imagine a world where there's two classes, an upper and a worker class, and the workers are the one percent. can that even work?

[Anonymous No.3274761]

>>3274654
So, effectively, a classic long term rate of profit decline crisis leading to socialisation through "zero price" fair labour-power input values on commodities. (it is in capital people).

>>3274702
You need to look at the effects of mass redundancies, off-shoring, out-sourcing, restructuring etc—they're all labour discipline, not productivity, focused. These are the last gasps of a dying way of ordering production.

Why do you think they outsource this work to India where intelligent degree'd people work for far less?
Attempts to introduce Fordism-Taylorism into areas with "skill cultures" controlled by labour fail unless you can produce a new "unskilled" machine operator segment of the workforce. And the variety of roles and occupations of the lab technologist (say), themselves a way to undercut employee scientists, means that this will fail.

[Anonymous No.3274778]

>>3274602
>Oh you mean Fordism-Taylorism
Techniques in JIT and TQM aren't Fordism-Taylorism. They run contrary to most of the ideas in Fordism-Taylorism.

As for quantity problems, you're reading something that isn't there. You need flexibility because processes have to change over time in response to things like fluxuation of supply and demand. However, JIT does value keeping production below the level of demand, but having them above would increase cost due to inventory storage and less efficiency in the process.

[Anonymous No.3274812]

>>3274778
What, JIT and TQM put control of immediate production back into the hands of militant organised craft cultures of tradesmen?

Could have fucking fooled me.

They're yet another attempt by capitalism to colonise the interiority of the production process.

[Anonymous No.3274830]

>>3274754
I dunno, manufacturing in the UK is making a return to what are more or less high tech cottage industries, where a small group of people are producing a very particular, specialised product. The main issue elsewhere I've found is people not realising that throwing more people or money at a problem or process can often make the whole thing a lot more work for no increase in return. It's a total pain.

[Anonymous No.3274846]

>>3274812
I think by "Fordism-Taylorism" you mean "capitalist production". Fordism-Taylorism is much more specific set of production philosophies within that. Although, if you know where to look, certain ideas from Marxist theorists do pop up in JIT, but that doesn't really mean anything in respect to where and how it's used.

[Anonymous No.3274999]

We tried communism and it lead to Stalinism.

[Anonymous No.3275177]

>>3274999
we tried capitalism and it led us to try communism which led to Stalin

your point?

[Anonymous No.3275184]

>>3274999
Actually, we tried socialism and it lead to Stalinism, and also, we've tried capitalism in a bunch of places and it's lead to the total collapse of certain nations or a sort of modern feudalism (assuming that capitalism isn't already that).

I'm still opposed to Marxism-Leninism but I'm 100% down for some FULL COMMUNISM, anarky erry day, etc.

[Anonymous No.3275402]

>>3274846
No, I know damn well what I mean. You're trying to push post-Fordist shit up hill and it is not going to fly.

[Anonymous No.3275422]

Because its teleology is wrong.

Marx predicted the coming of communism way before there was a revolution. His predictions were so early.

And Marx couldn't even say what communism would look like, he could only say, like all Marxists do, that it's definitely coming for sure this time no doubt omg pure ideology.

What do we get? We get dictatorships. No one can agree on what communism could be and no one can even implement Marxism.

Face it, communism is not going to happen. The base does not create the superstructure. Hegel is bullshit.

[Anonymous No.3275430]

>>3275422
I see someone got a bare pass in Sociology IA

[Anonymous No.3275435]

>>3275430
What's socialogy LA?

[Anonymous No.3275466]

>>3275402
It's not post-Fordist either. Maybe in the most general sense, but a Fordist production line is fundamentally different to a Kanban controlled one. For one, lines following Ford would have large inventories and have a speed dictated to the workers, whereas Kanban has minimal inventory space and speed dictated by the workers as a whole. Ford/Taylor style production also emphasises competition while JIT and TQM emphasise cooperation between workers. You can view JIT and TQM as a style of manufacturing that came out of Marxist criticisms of ways of manufacturing like Taylorism and Fordism.

[Anonymous No.3275492]

Because Marxism is nothing but arguing about shit even Marx said he had no clue about.

Any time communism fails you just say it wusn't real communism. But no one has a clue what communism would look like. So you keep having violent revolutions and murdering people because maybe things get better that way.

[Anonymous No.3275496]

>speed dictated by the workers as a whole
Someone's drank the kool-aid.

The essential, the only necessary component, of Fordism-Taylorism is massification as a method of destruction of worker controlled skill networks.

Kanban does this
JIT does this
TQM does this

You're talking about the colour of the tinsel on the cross you've nailed christ to.

[Anonymous No.3275504]

>>3275492
>Any time communism fails you just say it wusn't real communism.
Maybe because Communism refers to a post-capitalism form of society. There are 3 options: you think capitalism is the pinnacle of what kinds of society we can have, you don't believe anything like communism could develop from capitalism, or you think that communism hasn't occurred yet. Whether the USSR fell isn't necessarilly important to that though.

[Anonymous No.3275508]

>>3272891
>formalism

pls no

[Anonymous No.3275540]

>>3275496
>The essential, the only necessary component, of Fordism-Taylorism is massification as a method of destruction of worker controlled skill networks.
This isn't true by any means. Fordism-Taylorism still allows worker controlled skill networks, for example. Have a read up on British Leyland, workers were able to bring in who they wanted and that followed a predominantly Fordist attitude to production. Nor is all massification Fordism-Taylorism.

I dunno, maybe you mean something else by "worker controlled skill network", but I can't see a way it makes sense in the context of previous comments.

[Anonymous No.3275542]

>>3275508
The fuck you have against Formalists?

[Anonymous No.3275551]

Because Marxism has been deconstructed numerous times.

[Anonymous No.3275562]

Amazing how state communists always resemble capitalists and fascists... Hmmm...

[Anonymous No.3275563]

>>3275504
Those options are ideology at its purest.

[Anonymous No.3275566]

>>3275540
Read Braverman.

[Anonymous No.3275569]

>>3275562
my nigga

[Anonymous No.3275572]

>>3275563
I have overlooked the fourth option, communism without the revolution, where it turns out, aha, that capitalism suddenly is communism while the capitalists have their pants down and so on

[Anonymous No.3275581]

Because communism is the only thing worse than fascism.

Socialist democracy is the best we can hope for and the best we can get.

[Anonymous No.3275587]

>>3275566
>Read Braverman.
I'm guessing that Braverman went over your head, when you're so blasee about recommending him without including Sweezy and Baran. I also don't remember him using terms like "worker controlled skill networks", so I don't see how that would help at all.

[Anonymous No.3275596]

>>3275587
Why in the fuck would I recommend Sweezy and Baran about the fucking factory? Maybe CLR and Raya went over your head. Maybe you've never touched Tronti and the only work you do is to shift your corpulent bourgeois Trotskyite hide into the shower so you can drink larger and smoke cigarettes while fawning neo-conservative journalists photograph you.

[Anonymous No.3275604]

>>3275596
>>3275587
Because THIS is Marxism in practice.

[Anonymous No.3275610]

>>3275596
>Why in the fuck would I recommend Sweezy and Baran about the fucking factory?
Read Monopoly Capital and find out. What you could also do is, rather than having a hissy fit, explain what you mean by "worker controlled skill network". I don't much care that you're clearly out of your depth here, discussion can still continue.