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Aruan posted:(PS: discussing Marxism on a dead gay comedy forum is not practicing Marxism) Well it's definitely not Maoism but I feel like Marx would have loved dead comedy forums
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Dec 8, 2020 21:11
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Aruan posted:Now, lets see if you can answer my question: do you know what historiography is? Do you see why it might be problematic to utilize a single historiographical approach - Marxism - to the exclusion of all others? I don't. Please make your point. Why do you keep insisting on 'modern economic classes,' if not to thrust wrongness onto your interlocutors? They seem to understand perfectly well that old timey peasants weren't operating in exactly the same systems that we have today. But everyone, even the lowliest serf had to eat, and the king had a nice big forest full of deer or whatever. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 21:15
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I don’t think Marxism is deterministic though nor does it claim to be? I thought the whole gist of it being a science is that it is continually in a state of self-critique and when theories don’t pan out exactly, there needs to be serious thought and analysis into why and corrections to its methodology. As I understand, it is a living body of knowledge, not a sacred text. It’s why dogmatism is looked down upon.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:16
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Harold Fjord posted:I don't. Please make your point. Broadly speaking, historiography is the study of how historians approach events, and how this approach changes over time. There are a number of approaches historians use, one of which is Marxism. A Marxist historian, for example, might apply the tenants of Marxism (or even just a general framework of class struggle) to, say, World War 2, and use Marxism to explain how and why Germany invaded Poland. Another historian might use a Great Man approach, and instead of focusing on class struggle, might instead focus on the individual personalities of the leaders - arguing that without Hitler, for example, there never would've been a World War 2, and use this lens to explain why Germany invaded Poland (focusing in particular on Hitler and not, instead, Germany's interesting in achieving autarky). And yet another historian might focus on the stories of women, and the role women specifically played in World War 2. Limiting yourself to a single historical approach is bad because it obscures both what happened and why things happened. Even worse, simply reducing all historical events to nothing more than the past results of dialectical materialism makes, in effect, studying history largely worthless; you already know the answer to the why. PopZeus posted:I don’t think Marxism is deterministic though nor does it claim to be? I thought the whole gist of it being a science is that it is continually in a state of self-critique and when theories don’t pan out exactly, there needs to be serious thought and analysis into why and corrections to its methodology. As I understand, it is a living body of knowledge, not a sacred text. It’s why dogmatism is looked down upon. This is largely open to debate (although I think early Marxism is deterministic, since its largely an adaptation of Hegel that removes some of the more problematic telological elements), and depends on your definition of "science" and at which point you approach Marxism. If your framework is "Marxism explains all historical events" then... yea, it kind of is deterministic, because it's describing a knowable, discrete process which is also predictable. Some people would say that Marxism isn't a science because it lacks the predictive qualities that we generally ascribe to science; others would argue that it doesn't actually confirm to the scientific method, etc. I tend to view Marxism is more akin to an observational tool which describes a particular process quite well - i.e. the influence of class struggle and some class dynamics under capitalism - but am very skeptical of any of the predictive qualities, or the ability of Marxism to accurately describe much in the way of past events. I do think there is quite a bit of value in this limited scope, though. Unlike most posters here, though, I am far more skeptical (and frankly nihilistic) about the prospect of any sort of widespread challenge to capitalism, or that any system post-capitalism will be better. I got probated earlier in this thread for saying that no, in my eyes, there is no coming revolution, and there is no nascent class consciousness in the United States. I would even argue that the existence of this thread is proof of my beliefs. Owlspiracy fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 21:21
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Aegis posted:That kind of begs the question, though. If there is, in fact, no single, unified explanation of conflict (and I will go ahead and posit that there isn't--even if we limit it to "historical" societies, as somebody suggested above) then you won't be avoiding anything. Marxisfs indeed do not propose a single unified explanation to conflict. I think it should be obvious from how conflict is far older than class. "All history is the history of class struggles" originates from a political manifesto, not a research paper. It's like if I declared: "All things that are thrown up, must come down." Strictly speaking, it's a plainly false claim. But what I'd really be saying is that if something that's thrown up doesn't come down, that's a special occasion. When it comes to history, if some king starts a war for libidinal or whatever conceivable non-class reasons, marxism claims that it should be a safe assumption that class interests are still working behind the scenes to take the reins of history and begin directing the war over the long term. It doesn't try to claim that the non-class factors weren't real or couldn't have the power to overcome class interests for a limited time. The gravity-equivalent that pushes history to be the history of class struggles is that societies that fail to follow class interests get swallowed up by societies that do. Starting a war because of sentimentality forecasts downfall, starting a war because it would increase the economic might of the ruling class compared ruling classes of rival countries forecasts success.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:28
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Aruan posted:Ah yes, anyone who is not a Marxist is a liberal, of course! Let's just keep patiently waiting for the revolution, because there's no way Marx could be wrong. Don't post like this in this thread. This is your one warning.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:38
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Majorian posted:Don't post like this in this thread. This is your one warning. But its ok to say that anyone who questions Marx is a liberal?
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Dec 8, 2020 21:39
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Aruan posted:But its ok to say that anyone who questions Marx is a liberal? That's not what The Oldest Man was saying. Engage with the arguments people are making or don't post at all.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:41
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I think the point being made was that people who view marx dogmatically are liberals, which makes sense in the accusatory sense, as in people who accuse marxism of dogmatism are liberals, but it requires a little more mental gymnastics in the case of people who view marx dogmatically and think that's a good thing, though I'm not averse to calling them liberals either if only to annoy them 
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Dec 8, 2020 21:45
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OwlFancier posted:I think the point being made was that people who view marx dogmatically are liberals, which makes sense in the accusatory sense, as in people who accuse marxism of dogmatism are liberals, but it requires a little more mental gymnastics in the case of people who view marx dogmatically and think that's a good thing, though I'm not averse to calling them liberals either if only to annoy them I mean, I think people who view Marxism as a dogma are wrong, and are missing out the valuable parts of Marxism. I think this does go back to the question of "what is Marxism?", though. Is it a science?
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Dec 8, 2020 21:49
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OwlFancier posted:I think the point being made was that people who view marx dogmatically are liberals, which makes sense in the accusatory sense, as in people who accuse marxism of dogmatism are liberals, but it requires a little more mental gymnastics in the case of people who view marx dogmatically and think that's a good thing, though I'm not averse to calling them liberals either if only to annoy them The point being made (by Mao, but by me since I'm quoting it) is that liberals, being opposed to ideological struggle, will naturally act to reduce any ideological framing of history to nothing more than a lens from an endless collection of lenses from which the liberal should be free to pick and choose at will - picking ideology up and putting it down as it suits the convenience of their self-interest. So the behavior of treating Marxism as a historiographical lens rather than an imperfect tool of revolutionary struggle that continues to be expanded and refined by successive generations of revolutionaries for their own times and places is a liberal behavior.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:52
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Science or not I think it is more useful as a descriptor than as a predictor at the moment if only because there are a lot of complicated factors in society that influence the future and trying to get a concrete prediction out of all of them is very hard. I also like trying to apply some of its approaches and reasoning to other subjects to see if it produces a useful model for understanding. I don't think it is impossible that one day some form of it, or something that includes its methods will be a useful predictive tool but I'm not enormously bothered about predicting the future at the moment, nobody else has been able to predict the future and yet still we do things.
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 21:53
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OwlFancier posted:Science or not I think it is more useful as a descriptor than as a predictor at the moment if only because there are a lot of complicated factors in society that influence the future and trying to get a concrete prediction out of all of them is very hard. I also like trying to apply some of its approaches and reasoning to other subjects to see if it produces a useful model for understanding. Uh oh, you've summoned the ghost of Karl Popper.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:55
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I don't know who that is.
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Dec 8, 2020 21:56
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OwlFancier posted:I don't know who that is. Oh, Popper is a very influential philosopher of science and is one of the most famous critics of "Marxism: science?" quote:The Marxist account of history too, Popper held, is not scientific, although it differs in certain crucial respects from psychoanalysis. For Marxism, Popper believed, had been initially scientific, in that Marx had postulated a theory which was genuinely predictive. However, when these predictions were not in fact borne out, the theory was saved from falsification by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses which made it compatible with the facts. By this means, Popper asserted, a theory which was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudo-scientific dogma. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
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Dec 8, 2020 21:58
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That certainly looks like philosophy. But thank you for the explanation.
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 22:00
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The Oldest Man posted:The point being made (by Mao, but by me since I'm quoting it) is that liberals, being opposed to ideological struggle, will naturally act to reduce any ideological framing of history to nothing more than a lens from an endless collection of lenses from which the liberal should be free to pick and choose at will - picking ideology up and putting it down as it suits the convenience of their self-interest. So the behavior of treating Marxism as a historiographical lens rather than an imperfect tool of revolutionary struggle that continues to be expanded and refined by successive generations of revolutionaries for their own times and places is a liberal behavior. What does it mean to be "opposed to ideological struggle" such that it's specific to liberals but apparently not Marxists or leftists? Do you think Marxism has to be either a historiographical lens or an imperfect tool of revolutionary struggle? I don't see how the two are mutually exclusive
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Dec 8, 2020 22:09
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Aruan posted:Oh, Popper is a very influential philosopher of science and is one of the most famous critics of "Marxism: science?" Cpt_Obvious posted:One of the best parts of Marxism is that it is, in fact, falsifiable. For example, the existence of an anarcho-capitalist state would disprove Marxism, because Marxism posits that the state creates the necessary oppression that capitalism needs.
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Dec 8, 2020 22:15
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A common liberal refrain is that they are not ideological, they are pragmatic. Particularly nowadays (or perhaps moreso a decade or so ago) they make a habit of decrying everyone else for being "too ideological" while saying that they are not, their views are always rooted in some material thing, very sensible. Of course, nearly all political views are rooted in some material thing or at least a real experience of the person holding them, even if it is just who they socialize with. But the accusation is such that the ideologues are just pulling thoughts from the air, they are not realistic, they are not materialistic, and thus should not be listened to. See also their interminable appeals to "moderation" "centrism" "small changes" etc. They seem genuinely averse to the idea that their ideas are on the same footing as everyone else's, or perhaps the other way around, that other people's ideas emerge from experiences just as real as theirs, which is why they love to characterise leftists as being out of touch with normal people, as if leftists cannot possibly be having normal experiences and responding to them. They are averse to the concept of ideological conflict that they take part in, essentially. Other points of view cannot have any authenticity in their inception. Whether they are aware of it or not, their attitudes are a reflection of a prevailing ideology, not free from it. And other ideologies are not merely an affectation. 
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 22:17
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Sharks Eat Bear posted:What does it mean to be "opposed to ideological struggle" such that it's specific to liberals but apparently not Marxists or leftists? The context of the Mao quote in question is that he's critiquing specifically leftists and marxists. It's about internal ideological struggle, challenging oneself to go to follow one's ideology to its logical conclusion. He's calling out leftists who insist on stopping within their comfort zone, saying they are applying liberal individualism to themselves. Their reasoning to stop short was expressed alternately in terms of rigid marxist dogma (e.g. "The working class is the main force of the revolution", meaning "I don't want to move to the countryside to organize") and in terms of picking and choosing which parts of marxism they support ("I support union struggle, but condemn armed struggle", meaning "I don't want you to make this work more dangerous for me"). How it relates to the discussion is that people who treat marxism as one tool in a toolbox, or split it up like "marxist economics", "marxist historiography", "marxist philosophy" etc. are not doing any better than every liberal who sees some value in marxism can. He's saying to judge people by how they act rather than how they speak, and be suspicious when they talk like leftists to justify acting like any liberal sympathizer could.
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Dec 8, 2020 22:49
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OwlFancier posted:A common liberal refrain is that they are not ideological, they are pragmatic. Particularly nowadays (or perhaps moreso a decade or so ago) they make a habit of decrying everyone else for being "too ideological" while saying that they are not, their views are always rooted in some material thing, very sensible. I guess I'm suspicious that this characterization is inherent to liberalism, vs. what happens when you're un/subconsciously in accord with a prevailing ideology, whatever that ideology may be. I'll admit that this is just my gut reaction, maybe there's a reason this is a uniquely liberal behavior that I'm not seeing Regardless, I still don't see how do you square that with The Oldest Man's argument that historiography is a liberal behavior?
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Dec 8, 2020 22:59
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Sharks Eat Bear posted:What does it mean to be "opposed to ideological struggle" such that it's specific to liberals but apparently not Marxists or leftists? The audience for that quote was communists; it's an admonition to not let your desire for your own convenience/safety/ease of thinking to push you toward liberal behaviors and thought patterns that cripple what you're trying to achieve. Obviously no one self-identifying as a liberal cares what a Marxist thinks of their commitment to ideological struggle since they typically pat themselves on the back for their own idea of being above such things. Sharks Eat Bear posted:Regardless, I still don't see how do you square that with The Oldest Man's argument that historiography is a liberal behavior? That's not what I said.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:01
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Sharks Eat Bear posted:I guess I'm suspicious that this characterization is inherent to liberalism, vs. what happens when you're un/subconsciously in accord with a prevailing ideology, whatever that ideology may be. I'll admit that this is just my gut reaction, maybe there's a reason this is a uniquely liberal behavior that I'm not seeing It might not be unique to liberalism, but I think that it is presently a behaviour displayed predominantly by liberals, possibly because liberalism is the prevailing ideology in most of the world and has been in some form or another for a long time, but that condition of dominance defines what liberalism is at the moment, it exists in that context, so whichever way you slice it I think that the idea holds true at this time.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:07
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It’s no surprise that a bunch of people have completely fallen in love with ”Combat Liberalism” when the internet is a mire of people inventing woker and woker justifications for why they shouldn’t do something. Social media leftists make 1000 posts about not doing something for every one about doing something outside liberal convention. And the greatest achievement is to explain how people who are doing the thing are worse people than you because of that.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:11
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It is nice to know I can spin "gently caress it do whatever" as praxis now
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Dec 8, 2020 23:12
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The Oldest Man posted:The audience for that quote was communists; it's an admonition to not let your desire for your own convenience/safety/ease of thinking to push you toward liberal behaviors and thought patterns that cripple what you're trying to achieve. Obviously no one self-identifying as a liberal cares what a Marxist thinks of their commitment to ideological struggle since they typically pat themselves on the back for their own idea of being above such things. This is 1000x the central tenant of liberalism, at least in its current form. Perhaps there was a time when liberals believed in something, perhaps around the dawn of capitalism they would argue vehemently in favor of literally anything. Instead, they function at a very Descartes level of activity: Nothing is knowable, nothing is certain, all things are illusions before our very eyes! It's super duper weird, but it serves the very important function to preserve the status quo. There are children starving in the street? Too bad, so sad. Don't you know that feeding them with rich people's could result in unknown consequences? Sure, children might not starve, but what if society collapsed!? Think about it! Better be safe and bomb some more villages.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:14
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OwlFancier posted:It might not be unique to liberalism, but I think that it is presently a behaviour displayed predominantly by liberals, possibly because liberalism is the prevailing ideology in most of the world and has been in some form or another for a long time, but that condition of dominance defines what liberalism is at the moment, it exists in that context, so whichever way you slice it I think that the idea holds true at this time. Fair enough! uncop posted:The context of the Mao quote in question is that he's critiquing specifically leftists and marxists. It's about internal ideological struggle, challenging oneself to go to follow one's ideology to its logical conclusion. He's calling out leftists who insist on stopping within their comfort zone, saying they are applying liberal individualism to themselves. Their reasoning to stop short was expressed alternately in terms of rigid marxist dogma (e.g. "The working class is the main force of the revolution", meaning "I don't want to move to the countryside to organize") and in terms of picking and choosing which parts of marxism they support ("I support union struggle, but condemn armed struggle", meaning "I don't want you to make this work more dangerous for me"). The Oldest Man posted:The audience for that quote was communists; it's an admonition to not let your desire for your own convenience/safety/ease of thinking to push you toward liberal behaviors and thought patterns that cripple what you're trying to achieve. Obviously no one self-identifying as a liberal cares what a Marxist thinks of their commitment to ideological struggle since they typically pat themselves on the back for their own idea of being above such things. Thanks for that additional context. I'll admit I've kind of lost the thread on what's being argued, but nonetheless am enjoying the discussion. Apologies for misstating your argument.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:17
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uncop posted:The context of the Mao quote in question is that he's critiquing specifically leftists and marxists. It's about internal ideological struggle, challenging oneself to go to follow one's ideology to its logical conclusion. He's calling out leftists who insist on stopping within their comfort zone, saying they are applying liberal individualism to themselves. Their reasoning to stop short was expressed alternately in terms of rigid marxist dogma (e.g. "The working class is the main force of the revolution", meaning "I don't want to move to the countryside to organize") and in terms of picking and choosing which parts of marxism they support ("I support union struggle, but condemn armed struggle", meaning "I don't want you to make this work more dangerous for me"). Here's the challenge though: what does "doing something" even mean in 2020 - particularly when I'm concerned that doing "something" is actually (i.e. a works co-op) strengthens capitalism because it provides an outlet for organizing spirit while also effectively providing a band aid for the inequities under a capitalist system. There is no armed struggle (or really any struggle) in the United States, there is no organized worker's movement. I forgot who wrote this, but I read a very grim, but fairly funny, critique which argued that the only praxis left is theorizing about what could be done. I also feel that the natural ideological conclusion here is accelerationism, not activism, and certainly not trying to improve people's material conditions.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:25
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Aruan posted:Here's the challenge though: what does "doing something" even mean in 2020 - particularly when I'm concerned that doing "something" is actually (i.e. a works co-op) strengthens capitalism because it provides an outlet for organizing spirit while also effectively providing a band aid for the inequities under a capitalist system. There is no armed struggle (or really any struggle) in the United States, there is no organized worker's movement. I forgot who wrote this, but I read a very grim, but fairly funny, critique which argued that the only praxis left is theorizing about what could be done. I also feel that the natural ideological conclusion here is accelerationism, not activism, and certainly not trying to improve people's material conditions. Since you are so cynical of Marxism, what do you believe we should be accelerating towards?
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Dec 8, 2020 23:28
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Since you are so cynical of Marxism, what do you believe we should be accelerating towards? I'm saying if you accept Marxism, then what is the logical next step in bringing things to ideological fruition? As for me, personally? We're not accelerating towards anything. Capitalism is stronger today than it was yesterday, and infinitely stronger than it was fifty years ago. We live under consumptive capitalism, which has co-opted wider culture, and even most forms of "protest" only effectively make capitalism stronger, either by creating a controlled outlet for frustration that neuters the development of wider class consciousness, or by actively mediating the worst of capitalism's harms, making it less visibly destructive. And recognizing this is in large part why I don't believe in Marxism. And even though you didn't ask this - because I don't want to end on too dark of a note - what I think we should do is try to make the world a better place and improve material conditions for those around us. But in my eyes, there is no revolution or coming collapse. Owlspiracy fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 23:35
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Aruan posted:But in my eyes, there is no revolution or coming collapse. Uh there are about fifteen to twenty million Americans facing homelessness and potentially starvation as well right now because our paralyzed late-capitalist liberal consensus has started stroking out and is incapable of forking out a few bucks off the loot pile to prop itself up for another year. And that's a purely unforced own-goal crisis, just late capitalism self-dunks, it's not even considering the environmental time bomb that's going to progressively implode our economic and social order over the next five decades or so or what happens when our geriatric imperial war machine shits itself like Tsarist Russia's did when faced with more energetic peer states.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:45
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The Kingdom of Conscience will be exactly as it is now. Centrists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of American drones hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in centrism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
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Dec 8, 2020 23:46
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Cpt_Obvious posted:This is 1000x the central tenant of liberalism, at least in its current form. I think this is close but not quite right. I think that the kind of radical skepticism you're describing is another ideological guise adopted by (neo)liberals to justify status quo (as you say) especially in the context of large-scale social transformations that require significant state interventions e.g. public healthcare or climate action. The underlying belief is still there (government=bad) but the extreme skepticism gives an intellectual veneer to the actual anti-state dogma, which is a lot more appealing to people who aren't politically engaged enough to understand their own ideological biases. But smaller scale/more mundane government action like raising taxes to feed starving children don't require the appeal to skepticism and can instead fall back on more traditional arguments like tax is theft, trickle down economics work, etc. And of course this isn't really doesn't really operate in a discrete binary way in practice, but I do think the skepticism is more of a 'last resort' mode given it's more abstract Btw this basically describes my dad to a tee, just laying my own biases on the table
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Dec 8, 2020 23:57
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Cpt_Obvious posted:The Kingdom of Conscience will be exactly as it is now. Centrists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of American drones hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in centrism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth. Yup. Though I get the feeling that if an anglo had written that he would have tried to find a way to blame liberalism directly. Instead of correctly blaming centrism for their love of changing nothing and noticing that this is only a liberal attitude within our liberal place and times.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:00
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Sharks Eat Bear posted:I think this is close but not quite right. I think that the kind of radical skepticism you're describing is another ideological guise adopted by (neo)liberals to justify status quo (as you say) especially in the context of large-scale social transformations that require significant state interventions e.g. public healthcare or climate action. Oh certainly, the skepticism itself is ideologically driven. When faced with obvious proof of the failings of their own ideology, the liberal pivots to "Oh, I'm not wrong, everyone is wrong. Except for me, of course, because I don't believe anything and therefore I can't be wrong."
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Dec 9, 2020 00:01
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The Oldest Man posted:Uh there are about fifteen to twenty million Americans facing homelessness and potentially starvation as well right now because our paralyzed late-capitalist liberal consensus has started stroking out and is incapable of forking out a few bucks off the loot pile to prop itself up for another year. And that's a purely unforced own-goal crisis, just late capitalism self-dunks, it's not even considering the environmental time bomb that's going to progressively implode our economic and social order over the next five decades or so or what happens when our geriatric imperial war machine shits itself like Tsarist Russia's did when faced with more energetic peer states. I guess we'll see in two months! But I strongly suspect that whatever neutered stimulus bill gets passed in the next few weeks, along with the prospect of "economic boom, vaccine!" will be enough to see us through the next four months without meaningful change. You see a potential shift, I see just further evidence that capitalism is so entrenched that even the prospect of twenty million people homeless isn't enough to shift the latest drama in Trumpworld or updates on the Bachelorette (it stopped mid season!) off the front pages.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:04
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Aruan posted:I guess we'll see in two months! But I strongly suspect that whatever neutered stimulus bill, along with the prospect of "economic boom, vaccine!" will be enough to see us through the next four months without meaningful change. That depends on how you define "change". If you define "change" as legislation passed by the ruling class, yes. However, it looks like the people are fighting back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Occp5_ahe4&t=4031s Watch for 6 minutes from there. The people are kicking the cops out to prevent evictions. And they're winning.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:08
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The Oldest Man posted:Uh there are about fifteen to twenty million Americans facing homelessness and potentially starvation as well right now because our paralyzed late-capitalist liberal consensus has started stroking out and is incapable of forking out a few bucks off the loot pile to prop itself up for another year. And that's a purely unforced own-goal crisis, just late capitalism self-dunks, it's not even considering the environmental time bomb that's going to progressively implode our economic and social order over the next five decades or so or what happens when our geriatric imperial war machine shits itself like Tsarist Russia's did when faced with more energetic peer states. Yep, 19 million according to the NLIHC, with landlords exploiting loopholes for back to back evictions running up to the end of the year. Food banks are short around 8 billion meals for the next 12 months too. Capitalism has dropped the mask of humanity and is going to kill off those no longer useful to the post-pandemic labor market.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:12
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Cpt_Obvious posted:That depends on how you define "change". I mean change as "a meaningful destabilization of capitalism" which we have seen zero evidence of. Sure, we see protests, but we've seen much more violent (and more widespread) protests both at other periods in the US - and earlier this year, which for the most part have faded away, outside of a few isolated enclaves (i.e. Portland). There's a reason the wikipedia article on CHAZ starts with "was."
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Dec 9, 2020 00:12
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Aruan posted:I mean change as "a meaningful destabilization of capitalism" which we have seen zero evidence of. Sure, we see protests, but we've seen much more violent (and more widespread) protests both at other periods in the US - and earlier this year, which for the most part have faded away, outside of a few isolated enclaves (i.e. Portland). There's a reason the wikipedia article on CHAZ starts with "was." God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:13
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