ArfJason posted:

a Loving Dog posted:

ferrinus loves the mods and wants to kiss them, and he supports them unconditionally

Populon posted:

he was the one that killed the succ zone too wasnt he?

lumpentroll posted:

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

AnimeIsTrash posted:

Leftists these days are evenly spread across the spectrum too.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I don't remember if it was this thread or another thread in which people talked about what a tankie was. I think this guy is a tankie for sure.



https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=23883

quote:

Marxism is not a scientific analysis of the operation of capitalist markets. It is both far more and something other than that. To reduce it to a political economy of capitalism is to remain on the terrain of (bourgeois) economism. Vulgar economism proposes to discover the laws that govern the functioning of markets. "Pure" economics believes that it has discovered these laws and, what is more, concludes that the markets in question are self-regulating in so far as they are deregulated, i.e., left free from all administrative fetters, which are artificial by nature. This pure economics is not interested in actually existing capitalism, which is a total system, economic, social, and political, but studies the laws of an imaginary capitalism that has nothing to do with reality.

Marx endeavors to do something else. He poses other questions, in the first place, concerning the specificity of capitalism as a stage of historical
development. In this effort, he places commodity fetishism (economic alienation) at the heart of the specificity of capitalism. The result of this alienation is that capitalist society is directly controlled by the economic, the instance that is not only determinant in the last analysis, but in capitalism is also dominant. Consequently, the laws that govern this economy appear to function as objective laws that are external to society, like laws of nature. This is not the case in earlier systems, since the dominant instance in those cases is not the economic.

The concept of value is the expression of the alienation specific to capitalism. The pragmatic critique of Marx's theory of value, which points out that prices are different from values and that the rate of profit calculated in prices is inevitably different from the rate calculated in value terms, concludes that the Marxist theory of value is false. However, this critique does not understand the question that Marx poses. The difference between the two rates of profit is necessary. Without that difference, the exploitation of labor by capital would be transparent (as are forms of exploitation prior to capitalism) and capitalism would not be capitalism, defined precisely by the opacification of this reality. This is the condition for the economic laws to appear as laws of nature. The law of value not only governs the reproduction of the capitalist economic system, it also governs all aspects of social life in this system. The market economy becomes the market society.

Furthermore, Marx does not advance the (false) hypothesis of a general equilibrium the tendency of which the market would disclose. On the contrary, for Marx, markets (and thus capitalist markets) are unstable by nature. The system moves from disequilibrium to disequilibrium without ever tending towards any sort of equilibrium.

Thus, it is necessary to explain each of these moments of successive disequilibria. In order to do that, one cannot avoid taking into consideration social relations of force, i.e., class struggles, forms of the domination of capital, and the hegemonic alliances that this domination concretely implies, hence politics. It is these relations and the changes that affect them (in other words, social adjustments) that make the history of really existing capitalism. Economics and politics are inseparable. Pure economics is a myth. There is no historical determinism (economic or otherwise) prior to history. The future is unpredictable because it is made by social conflicts.

Marx's project is not an economics; it is an historical materialism.

Is it possible to analyze really existing capitalism as a group of capitalist formations that may be more or less advanced, depending on the circumstances, but moving in the same direction or does it straightaway have to be considered as a worldwide whole that is characterized by complexity and polarization? Marx and Engels provide no clearcut answer to this question. Their writings can be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that the global expansion of capitalism would end up homogenizing the world or making it uniform. In other words, the backward countries would be able to catch-up to and, in the end, resemble the most advanced countries. This interpretation is certainly possible since there are texts to support it. Moreover, it clarifies Marx's error, which is to underestimate (even ignore) the polarization immanent to the global expansion of capitalism. A more careful reading of Marx, however, leads to a more nuanced conclusion.

Marx combines an immanent tendency to social polarization with the fundamental logic that governs the accumulation of capital. This tendency to polarization is continually countered by the social struggles that define the context within which accumulation occurs. The dialectical relation between the tendency to polarization and reactions against this tendency has nothing in common with the method of ordinary economics, i.e., the search for the general equilibrium spontaneously and naturally produced by the market. It is poles apart.

What is observed in reality? On the one hand, the tendency towards pauperization and polarization is not obvious if the central countries of the global capitalist system (20 percent of the system's total population) are considered over the long run. This observation is the main argument against Marxism: "You see, Marx's predictions have been contradicted by history." However, if the world capitalist system is considered as a whole, then the polarization is more than obvious, it is unquestionable.

A theoretical conclusion should be drawn from these twin observations: that in capitalism (as is so often the case with complex systems) the whole (the world) determines the parts (the nations) and not the reverse. The whole is not the sum of its parts but their combination. From that, it should be concluded that polarization is immanent to global capitalism and, consequently, the less developed countries are not on the path that will lead them to catch-up with the most advanced capitalist countries.

This conclusion persuades us to continue the work Marx began, to complete and strengthen it by paying more attention to the global character of the system, bringing out its characteristics and tendencies. In order to do that, it is necessary to go beyond the "law of value" as understood within the context of the capitalist mode of production and grasped at its highest level of abstraction. We must specify its real form of existence as the "law of globalized value." That implies, in turn, an attentive analysis of the successive phases of the development of global capitalism and their particularities, after which the specific successive forms of the law of globalized value can be examined.

Such was and remains the challenge to which historical (i.e., subsequent to Marx) Marxism must respond. Has it done this? There was and still is much resistance to doing so because of the tendency towards Eurocentrism, which is strong in Western Marxism. That tendency leads to a refusal to grant imperialism all of the decisive importance that it has in really existing capitalism. The Marxism of the Second International (including Karl Kautsky) was pro-imperialist and consequently encouraged an interpretation of Marx that is linear, evolutionist, and semi-positivist. Lenin, followed by Mao, opened the way to go further. In Lenin, this occurred with the theory of the weakest link: the (global) socialist revolution begins in the peripheries (in this case, Russia), but must be followed quickly by socialist revolutions in the centers. Since this expectation was disappointed by subsequent events, hopes were transferred to other peripheries (after Baku in 1920).⁷ This expectation was confirmed by the success of the Chinese Revolution.

But then new questions are posed: what can be done in the backward peripheries that break (or want to break) with capitalism? Build socialism in a single country?

The question and the challenge remain unresolved: the polarization immanent to really existing capitalism places revolt or revolution for the majority of the people who live in the periphery of the system (the 80 percent of humanity forgotten by bourgeois ideology and, to a large extent, by Western Marxism) on the agenda and hinders radicalization in the centers. That implies a new view of what I call the "long transition from global capitalism to global socialism." This is not the view of the Eurocentric First and Second Internationals or the view of the Third International (socialism in one country).

The challenge remains because the historical Marxism of the governments established following the revolutions made in its name became well and truly Marxisms of legitimation. Undoubtedly, the term is dangerous and ambiguous. Any organic ideology is necessarily "legitimating" even if it remains a critical reflection on reality. The reality that it legitimates should be uncovered: what did historical Marxism suppose was its object of thought? What were its theses and proclaimed objectives? Did it legitimate what it claimed? Or did it, indeed, legitimate something else that should be recognized?

Stalinist Soviet Marxism was certainly a form of ideological legitimation for the practice of the ruling class of the Soviet Union and particularly its international policy. In this practice, the real reasons for the choices made, whether good or bad, were largely hidden by the ideological discourse.

Some historical Marxisms in the Third World, after the Second World War, also fulfilled legitimating functions for the choices and policies of the governments that I call national-populist and anti-imperialist. How did they do this, why, in what terms, to what point, and what were the long-term consequences? These questions remain to be discussed calmly, avoiding approval or condemnation determined in advance. It should also be noted that some of these contemporary Third World Marxisms were formed on the basis of the, sometimes strong, critique of the national-populist systems, even when they were anti-imperialist. From there, the critique naturally led to a further critique of the Marxism of the Soviet state.

Historical materialism is not an economic determinism. The concept of overdetermination proceeds directly from the structuralist concept of social systems. It suggests, at least implicitly if not explicitly, that the determinisms that operate at the same time in the different instances of social reality are convergent because they all contribute simultaneously to the reproduction of the system, its adaptation to the requirements of its evolution, and the crisis that necessitates its surpassing. Economic determinism and the determinisms that govern the political, ideological, and cultural realms all converge and, consequently, "overdetermine" the movement. Thus, if a transformation has become necessary economically, it is also necessary politically, ideologically, and culturally, and vice versa. Further, if one accepts that the economic is determinant in the last instance, overdetermination can easily lead to an economistic reading of history in which the other instances adjust themselves to the demands of the economic. This is not my understanding of historical materialism for two reasons.

First, I do not believe that it is correct to pose the question of the relations among the different instances in analogous terms for all stages of history. The autonomy of the economic instance is specific to capitalism, whereas in the tributary systems it is subordinated to the political instance, as I pointed out above.

Second, my understanding of historical materialism is completely incompatible with structuralism and the concept of overdetermination. In my view, each of the instances is governed by its own specific logic. The status of each is either determinant in the last instance (the economic) or dominant (the political in tributary systems, the economic in capitalism, the cultural in the communist future). The logic of each instance is autonomous from the logic in each of the others and not necessarily, still less spontaneously, complementary to them. Hence, the instances are frequently in conflict and, a priori, it is not possible to predict which will win out over the others. In my opinion, Marx completely analyzed the economic logic of capitalism (accumulation) as its dominant character, that is, the channels through which the economic generally succeeds in asserting its dominance over the logics of the political, ideological, and cultural. I have said, on the other hand, that neither Marx nor historical Marxisms have offered analyses as powerful concerning the logics of the other instances, and I do not think that any progress has been made in these areas outside of Marxism.

The specific logic of each instance is expressed by a particular determinism. The conflict among these determinisms gives history a distinctive degree of uncertainty and, hence, distinguishes it from areas governed by the laws of nature. Neither the history of societies nor that of individuals is programmed. Freedom is precisely defined by this conflict between the logics of the different instances, which makes it possible to choose among various alternatives. Hence, in opposition to the concept of overdetermination, I propose the concept of under-determination.

Does this mean that societies are chaotic and irrational? Not at all; they are always orderly and rational in the sense that the conflict between the different logics of the instances (the under-determination) always finds a solution through the subjection of some logics to others. However, this solution is but one among several possible solutions. Social, political, ideological, and cultural struggles thus shape societies by imposing one choice of order and rationality over other ones.

⁷The First Congress of the Peoples of the East was held in Baku in 1920.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

Robert "Hard R" Evans

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was in the book store today and I found a biography of Lenin

And the first endorsement on the book jacket was from Anne Applebaum

Lol never mind

exmarx posted:

it's in his rapsheet. his other post in the "What do you want your last words to be?" thread is just as epic

R. Mute posted:

had to think of this:
https://twitter.com/liamatera/status/1370743120208429062?s=19

animist posted:

idk, assuming that we can enumerate all the different phases of human society ahead of time has always seemed a little naive to me. capitalism can certainly change form, and who knows what other weird poo poo could show up.

then again i have no idea what those other phases could be. i just think there's a whole lotta degrees of freedom to reality, yk?

Mr. Lobe posted:

Weeds highly illegal in Cuba

comedyblissoption posted:

i need the most socdem post u have

no thats too socdem

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

platzapS posted:

rip gonzalo and norm

AnimeIsTrash posted:

https://twitter.com/HenryKrinkIe/status/1381056395211124739

The Voice of Labor posted:

teen vogue's management needs to take over running cpusa