There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

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Algund Eenboom: May 4, 2014

Actually since i have a little bit of time here are some BRIEF!!! highlights

quote:

FIRST LAW OF DIALECTICS: DIALECTICAL CHANGE

...

Here is an apple. We have two ways of studying this apple: either from the metaphysical or from the dialectical point of view.

In the first case, we shall give a description of the fruit, its shape and color. We shall list its properties; we shall describe its taste, etc. Then we can compare the apple with the pear, see their similarities and differences and finally conclude that an apple is an apple and a pear is a pear. This is how things were formerly studied, as numerous books will attest.

If we want to study the apple from the dialectical point of view, we shall place ourselves within the framework of motion; not the motion of apple when it rolls and moves from place to place, but rather the motion of its evolution. Then we shall find that the ripe apple has not always been what it is. Before that it was a green apple; before being a flower, it was a bud. In this way, we shall go back to the condition of the apple tree in spring. The apple has not always been an apple: it has a history. Likewise, it will not remain what it is. If if falls, it will rot, decompose and scatter its seeds, which will, if all goes well, produce a shoot and then a tree. Hence, neither has the apple always been what it is nor will it remain what it is.

This is what is called studying things from the point of view of motion. It is study from the point of view of the past and the future. By studying in this way, the present apple is seen only as a transition between what it was, the past, and what it will be, the future.

...

Let us now look at the example of society, which is of particular interest to Marxists.

Let us still apply our two methods. From the metaphysical point of view, we will be told that there have always been rich and poor. We shall find that there are large banks and enormous factories. We will be given a detailed description of capitalist society, which will be compared with past societies (feudal, slave-owning) by looking for similarities and differences, and we will be told that capitalist society is what it is.

From the dialectical point of view, we shall learn that capitalist society has not always been what it is. When we find that in the past other societies lived for a while, we shall deduce from this that capitalist society, like all societies, is not permanent and has no intangible basis, but rather it is only a provisional reality for us, a transition between the past and the future.

...

"For it (dialectics), nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away..." (Engels, Feuerbach, p. 12.) Here is the definition which underlines what we have just seen and what we are going to study: "For dialectics, there is nothing final."

quote:

SECOND LAW: RECIPROCAL ACTION

If we study this school from the dialectical point of view, we shall look for where it came from, and find at first this answer: in the autumn of 1932, some comrades meeting together decided to found a Workers� University in Paris in order to study Marxism.

But where did this committee get this idea of teaching Marxism? Obviously because Marxism exists. But then, where does Marxism come from?
We see that research into the sequence of processes involves us in detailed and complete studies. Much more: by looking for the source of Marxism, we shall find that this doctrine is the very conscience of the proletariat. We see (whether we are for or against Marxism) that the proletariat then does exist; and so again we ask the question: where does the proletariat come from?

We know that it derives from an economic system, viz., capitalism. We know that the division of society into classes, that class struggle, was not caused, as our adversaries claim, by Marxism. On the contrary, we know that Marxism observes the existence of this class struggle and draws its force from the already existing proletariat.

Hence, from process to process, we arrive at the examination of the conditions of existence of capitalism. We have in this way a sequence of processes which shows us that everything influences everything else. This is the law of reciprocal action.

quote:

THIRD LAW: CONTRADICTION

Briefly, when a metaphysician studies the phenomenon called life, he does so without relating this phenomenon to any other. He sees life for itself and by itself, unilaterally. He sees it from one side only. If he examines death, he will do the same thing; he will apply his unilateral point of view and conclude by saying: life is life and death is death. Between the two there is nothing in common; one cannot be both alive and dead, for the two are opposite things and completely contrary to each other.

To see things in this way is to view them superficially. Upon closer examination, it will be seen firstly, that they cannot be opposed, nor even can they be so brutally separated, since experience and reality show us that death continues life and that it derives from the living.

As for life, can it derive from death? Yes. The transformation of the elements of the dead corpse will give birth to other lives and be used as fertilizer for the earth, making it more fertile, for example. Death, in many cases, will help life; death will enable life to be born; and, in living bodies themselves, life is only possible because there is a continual replacement of dead cells by those which are newly-born. (See Translator�s notes.)

Hence, life and death are constantly being transformed into each other, and in everything we observe the invariability of this great law: everywhere, things are transformed into their opposites.

...

represent a thing by a circle, we have force which pushes this thing toward life, pushing from the center outwards, for example (expression), but we also have forces which push this thing in the opposite direction, forces of death, pushing from the exterior inwards (compression).
Thus, within everything opposed forces, antagonisms, exist.

What happens between these forces? They struggle with each other. Consequently, a thing is not only moved by a force acting in a single direction, but everything is really moved by two forces acting in opposing directions: one towards the affirmation and one towards the negation of things, one towards life and one towards death. What does the affirmation and negation of things mean?

In life, there are forces which maintain life, which tends toward the affirmation of life. Then there are also forces in living organisms which tend towards negation. In everything, some forces tend towards affirmation and others towards negation, and, between there is a contradiction.

Hence, dialectics observes change, but why do things change? Because they are not in agreement with themselves, because there is a struggle between forces, between internal antagonisms, because there is contradiction. Here is the third law of dialectics: Things change because they contain contradictions within themselves.

...

When we speak of the contradiction which exists in the heart of capitalist society, this does not mean that some people say yes and others say no about certain theories. This means that there is a contradiction in factual reality, that there are real forces which are fighting each other: first, a force which tends to affirm itself, viz., the bourgeois class which tends to maintain itself; then, a second social force which tends toward the negation of the bourgeois class, viz., the proletariat. Hence the contradiction does exist in reality, because the bourgeoisie cannot exist without creating its opposite, the proletariat...

In order to prevent this, the bourgeoisie would have [to] stop being itself, which would be absurd. Consequently, by affirming itself, it creates its own negation.

...

Destruction is a negation. The chick is the negation of the egg, since by being born it destroys the egg. Similarly, the ear of wheat is the negation of the grain of wheat. The grain will germinate in the soil; this germination is the [negation] of the grain of wheat and will produce a plant. This plant, in turn, will flower and produce an ear; the latter will be the negation of the plant or the negation of the negation.

Hence, we see that the negation which dialectics speaks of is another way of speaking of destruction. There is a negation of what disappears, of what is destroyed.

1. Feudalism was the negation of the slave state.
2. Capitalism is the negation of feudalism.
3. Socialism is the negation of capitalism.

...

In the beginning, we find a primitive, spontaneous materialism, which, due to its ignorance, creates its own negation: idealism. But the idealism which negates the old materialism will itself be repudiated in turn by modern or dialectical materialism, because philosophy, along with the sciences, develops and provokes the destruction of idealism. Hence, here also, we have affiimation, negation and negation of the negation.

We may also observe this cycle in the evolution of society.

In the beginning of history we find the existence of a primitive Communist society, a society without classes, based on the common ownership of the land. But this form of ownership becomes a hindrance to the development of production and, in this way, creates its own negation: a class society, based on private ownership and the exploitation of man by man. But this society as well carries its own negation within itself, because a superior development of the means of production brings about the necessity of negating the division of society into classes, of negating private ownership. So we return to the point of departure: the necessity for a Communist society, but on another level. In the beginning, there was a lack of commodities; today, we have a very high capacity of production.

Notice that for all the examples we have given we return to the point of departure, but on another level (spiral development), a higher level.

We see then that contradiction is the great law of dialectics. That evolution is a fight between antagonistic forces. That not only do things change into each other, but also everything is transformed into its opposite. That things do not agree with themselves because there are struggles inside them between opposed forces, because there are internal contradictions within them.

quote:

FOURTH LAW: TRANSFORMATION OF QUANTITY INTO QUANTITY, OR LAW OF PROGRESS BY LEAPS

Many people think in this way that society is transformed little by little and that the result of a series of these small transformations will be the transformation of capitalist society into a socialist society. These small transformations are reforms and it will be their total, the sum of the small, gradual changes, which will give us a new society.

This theory is called reformism. The supporters of this theory are called reformists, not because they demand reforms, but because they think that reforms are sufficient, that their accumulation will imperceptibly transform society. Let us see if this is true:

1. Political argumentation. If we look at the tacts, i.e., what has happened in other countries, we shall see that, where this system has been tried, it has not been successful. The transformation of capitalist society�its destruction�has succeeded in a single country: the U.S.S.R., and we find that it was not through a series of reforms, but through revolution.
2. Historical argumentation. Generally speaking, is it true that things are transformed by small changes, by reforms?
Let us still look at the facts. If we examine historical changes, we see that they do not occur indefinitely, that they are not continuous. There comes a moment when, instead of small changes, change takes place with an abrupt leap.

...

3. Scientific argumentation. Let us take the example of water, if we start at 0� Centigrade, and raise the temperature of the water from 1 �, 2�, 3� up to 98�, the change is continuous. But can it continue indefinitely? We can go again up to 99�, but, at 100� Centigrade, we have an abrupt change: the water is transformed into steam.

If, inversely, from 99� we go down to 1�, again we have a continuous change; but we cannot lower the temperature like this indefinitely, for, at 0� Centigrade, the water is transformed into ice.

From 1� to 99� the water still remains water; only its temperature changes. This is what is called a quantitative change, which answers the question �How much?�, i.e., �How much heat is there in the water?�. When the water changes into ice or steam, we have a qualitative change, a change in quality. It is no longer water: it has become ice or steam.

When a thing does not change its nature, we have a quantitative change (in the example of water, we have a change in the degree of heat, but not in nature). When it changes in nature, when a thing becomes [i]another thing, this change is qualitative.

# ? Mar 7, 2020 08:59

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# ? May 10, 2024 09:29

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

drat good poo poo

# ? Mar 7, 2020 17:00

Terrorist Fistbump: Jan 29, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

I appreciate Politzer for the way he hammers a few key points about dialectical philosophy over and over again until the reader is forced to have a breakthrough. I have some criticisms of the book but they don't really matter because he does that one thing extremely well. Anyone has tried and failed to grasp dialectics at a basic level needs to read him.

PDF here.

# ? Mar 7, 2020 17:07

Venom Snake: Feb 19, 2014; by Nyc_Tattoo

Algund Eenboom posted:

Actually since i have a little bit of time here are some BRIEF!!! highlights

Thank you for this! Though I uhhh can't help but feel a little deju vu because of how much this sounds like my industrial engineering text books. I assume that comes from the fact IE is all about ~systems~ and well dialetics, marxism, etc is about those too?

# ? Mar 7, 2020 17:13

Terrorist Fistbump: Jan 29, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Prince Myshkin posted:

If I had time I'd do a "Let's Read Lenin" thread going through the Big Four texts chapter by chapter.

I don't even know what's considered Lenin's Big Four aside from State and Revolution (the only long Lenin work I've read), so I would appreciate this thread.

# ? Mar 7, 2020 17:13

Centrist Committee: Aug 6, 2019

Terrorist Fistbump posted:

I appreciate Politzer for the way he hammers a few key points about dialectical philosophy over and over again until the reader is forced to have a breakthrough. I have some criticisms of the book but they don't really matter because he does that one thing extremely well. Anyone has tried and failed to grasp dialectics at a basic level needs to read him.

PDF here.

Looks like that�s only available as a PDF but having almost any text available in ePub format from that site has helped my reading considerably.

# ? Mar 7, 2020 20:25

Centrist Committee: Aug 6, 2019

Terrorist Fistbump posted:

I don't even know what's considered Lenin's Big Four aside from State and Revolution (the only long Lenin work I've read), so I would appreciate this thread.

I�m going to guess:

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
State and Revolution
What is to be Done
Left Communism

# ? Mar 7, 2020 20:29

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

Imperialism is a genuinely great read and a lot of the analysis still feels extremely applicable to the modern world (since trends Lenin identifies have only become more pronounced). It describes the operations of capitalism very clearly and succinctly.

# ? Mar 8, 2020 01:01

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

my favorite part of Imperialism is lenin citing totally orthodox liberal economists who are straightforwardly coming to the same conclusions he is

# ? Mar 8, 2020 02:46

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/Ibu_Ala_Ina98/status/1236468680059318274

# ? Mar 8, 2020 03:17

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Ferrinus posted:

my favorite part of Imperialism is lenin citing totally orthodox liberal economists who are straightforwardly coming to the same conclusions he is

similarly huge chunks of marx's paris manuscripts are just approving block quotes of adam smith

# ? Mar 8, 2020 03:55

Prince Myshkin: Jun 17, 2018

Centrist Committee posted:

I�m going to guess:

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
State and Revolution
What is to be Done
Left Communism

Three out of four. Toss-up between Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder and The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

# ? Mar 8, 2020 07:14

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Left-Wing Communism: Baby-Brained Simping

# ? Mar 8, 2020 08:21

uncop: Oct 23, 2010

Reading some articles on the notes of Eugene Varga about Stalin-era USSR here ("Series on the Soviet Union") and they uncover a lot of interesting stuff about the economic relations for how short they are.

Like, on paper there was a ~30x income differentiation for state employees, which seems roughly justified at the time to stem brain drain and so on. But to combat the party becoming filled with seekers of individual privilege, very early on a rule had been established that Party members would have to relinquish 90% of what they earned above about 4-7 times the minimum to the Party. So in theory, people would have to choose between economic privileges and direct political power.

Party members also immediately began to skirt the idea by getting the state to give out tons of stuff to them for free, at the top bourgeois as gently caress lifestyles that would put today's multimillionaires in shame. But eventually they also not only got rid of that rule about their incomes, but erased it from history to the best of their ability so as to not reveal there having been such a blatant betrayal of principles.

The articles deal with the question of when these people ceased to be a privileged stratum and became a class. As far as I can tell, they got really good at maneuvering around Stalin who was ultimately blind to threats coming from within the party so long as they didn't threaten his position at the top, but did have reason to fear for their lives because Stalin hated them on a moral level because like Lenin, he believed in a sort of communist asceticism. But for instance, it sounds like they showered him with gifts he didn't have it in him to refuse so that their lifestyles would look less dissimilar and he would be disarmed by... some kind of shame expressing itself as impotent rage?

# ? Mar 8, 2020 10:04

SSJ_naruto_2003: Oct 12, 2012

Don't forget that, as far as I can tell, stalin was extremely drunk a lot after ww2

# ? Mar 8, 2020 10:15

uncop: Oct 23, 2010

I find it somewhat funny how much emphasis the writer puts on the difference between stratum and class without getting very into the practical side that would really shine a light on the depth of the mistakes.

As you know, class for marxists is relation to the means of production. But as should be obvious, that relation is not in itself enough to explain an individual's level of social privilege adequately enough to determine hard, common interests for all the individuals that the class is composed of. The class is something other than just the people that are part of it.

The concept of the stratum was developed to describe faultlines within the class for the purposes of practical organizing. For example, landless peasants, landed peasants and labor-employing peasants had very different levels of attachment to the tsarist, liberal and socialist movements in Russia. But there was always an acute awareness that the kulak stratum was a stratum that sought to develop into a capitalist bourgeoisie when old feudal system stopped holding it back.

Calling the party functionaries a privileged stratum of the proletariat is more or less calling them a labor aristocracy. The labor aristocracy develops out of necessity when the working class organizes itself: they find themselves in need of workers who aren't labor for capitalists anymore but instead professional organizers, politicians, negotiators, accountants, lawyers and so on. And in the articles the idea is extended to management on the conditions that the production is at least indirectly worker-controlled and it's principally composed of regular workers that were raised up into those positions. Which seems conceptually fine to me if you think of, for instance, an expanding worker co-op that develops a level of hierarchy.

But, leninism literally arose in the horrible realization of a rift that had formed between workers and their representatives and a connection that had been formed between those representatives and the bourgeoisie. And it's not like it wasn't also being demonstrated how these representatives could become subservient managers for companies ran on a capitalist basis. Basically, the rift between the sense of urgency directed toward the kulaks and that directed toward the managers is ridiculous and can only be explained by incredible ideological backflips.

(The leap from stratum to class is the development of a concrete class antagonism in relations of production. Peasants used to work for the kulak because it was better than the alternatives afforded to them by the system, but when the kulak becomes bourgeois, they have begun actively destroying alternatives to themselves and driving down the livelihoods of the lower peasants so that they can have more landless workers to feed their capital. The labor aristocracy is formed by the workers because it's better for them than not having one, but when the labor aristocrats become bourgeois, they have begun driving down the livelihoods of the workers that raised them up in order to feed their collective capital.)

uncop fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 8, 2020

# ? Mar 8, 2020 15:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

StashAugustine posted:

similarly huge chunks of marx's paris manuscripts are just approving block quotes of adam smith

economists abandoning the labour theory of value as soon as marx used it to critique capitalism, after everyone was on board with adam smith and ricardo using it

# ? Mar 8, 2020 17:21

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

yall right now:

https://twitter.com/tjmcnab/status/1236715267222355969

# ? Mar 8, 2020 19:49

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

breadtube is all you need, anything beyond that is an unhealthy BDSM lifestyle expressed through forcing oneself to read terribly written books to make your brain suffer. Which, y'know, if that's your kink, just don't gatekeep over it.

Signed, a wisdomphile. (philosopher)

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:14

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Happy International Women�s Day

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:14

Jewel Repetition: Dec 24, 2012; Ask me about Briar Rose and Chicken Chaser.

GalacticAcid posted:

Happy International Women�s Day

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:15

A Big Fuckin Hornet: Nov 1, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

shut up jeb

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:19

Jewel Repetition: Dec 24, 2012; Ask me about Briar Rose and Chicken Chaser.

You gotta let me have one a year

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:59

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

GunnerJ posted:

yall right now:

https://twitter.com/tjmcnab/status/1236715267222355969

this is still really good and makes me laugh every time

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:44

lumpentroll: Mar 4, 2020

Jewel Repetition posted:

You gotta let me have one a year

no one has to let you do anything

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:44

lumpentroll: Mar 4, 2020

A Big Fuckin Hornet posted:

shut up jeb

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:44

swimsuit: Jan 22, 2009; yeah

T-man posted:

breadtube is all you need, anything beyond that is an unhealthy BDSM lifestyle expressed through forcing oneself to read terribly written books to make your brain suffer. Which, y'know, if that's your kink, just don't gatekeep over it.

Signed, a wisdomphile. (philosopher)

more like signed a dumbass you freakin idiot

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:55

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

I'm sorry I insulted your fetish swimsuit

# ? Mar 9, 2020 03:57

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 230 days!

T-man posted:

I'm sorry I insulted your fetish swimsuit

this is the part where i try to be a mensch and let you know that you're making a fool of yourself and should probably stop two posts ago

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:35

Homeless Friend: Jul 16, 2007

counterpoint: red text

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:41

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 230 days!

Homeless Friend posted:

counterpoint: red text

may i succeed where others failed

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:51

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

theory is just pretending you have friends by reading some dead sex pest and agreeing with him. get some self confidence and make your own ideology. Marx wasn't a marxist and that's why generations of volcel academics waste their lives studying his drunken rambling.

this holds true for any field or scientific endeavour as well, stop letting ben "farts" franklin decide what electrical schematics look like

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:59