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/edu/ - Education

'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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What is 6 - 3?

Not reporting is bourgeois

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File: 1687707809529.jpg (473.45 KB, 1920x1624, Antoine-Parmentier-9.jpg)

 

Hey /leftypol/. Why does proletarian organization even matter (except of ethical considerations), if revolutionary development of society is determined by the fact of productive forces expanding and destroying the previously established property relations? I mean, yes, exploitation is horrible, but it's not solidarity of serfs that ended the Middle Ages? By this logic, shouldn't communists focus on pushing technological development to pump the productive forces to drive the bourgeoise property relations to the revolutionary breaking point? Sorry if this is a common question that arises during studies of Marx, just wanted to hear your opinions - or you can just refer me to a secondary source, would be thankful otherwise! Cheers.
4 posts omitted.

>>18937
Russian revolution failed, just slowly.

>>18933
>but it's not solidarity of serfs that ended the Middle Ages
it wasn't about serfs but about merchants and such

>>18937
You can't say that they truly won.

>>18938
If only they'd liberated Berlin from the literal Nazis the first time around

>>18933
The numerical quantity of the working class is one of the main things that distinguishes it enough from previous class relations and makes it possible for the complete dissolution of class relations wholesale.
>if revolutionary development of society is determined by the fact of productive forces
Also this is ideology, economism. Marxism is material forces + social relations.
>>18935
>yet I firmly declare that in theory productive forces trumps production relations
Good thing scientific socialism doesn't develop by the anecdotal perceptions by some anon dude on leftist politically incorrect then.



 

newfag thread; engage with accordingly, and point out any level of moronocy

The USSR engaged in huge amounts of primitive accumulation that was no different then what bourgeois governments; especially those of England and France; engaged in. If anything, the parallels are comically striking, especially after the fall of the NEP (New Economic Programme) and the failure to develop a solid alternative. The USSR under Stalin lead arguably one of the largest and most efficient attempts at primitive accumulation in history. And while they arguably helped create the economy that ended up beating the Nazi menace, the path there was mired in nothing but bloodshed.

First, some background: the NEP had offered the USSR a significant rebound from the civil war conditions of War Communism. While richer peasants continued to hoard and manage a significant amount of grain, the ability to sell it on a market let prices generally lower and allowed for some form of access to food, cooling the woes. However, in 1928, the situation fell apart. From PDF:

>In fall 1928, the economic situation grew worse. Harvest collections fell again, and the price of food and grain on the free market shot up. Workers’ riots intensified, and peasants, spooked by earlier confiscations, reduced their sown area. In early 1929, V.M. Molotov and Stalin visited the Urals and Siberia to oversee grain collections, impose delivery quotas on kulak households, and arrest hoarders. These “extraordinary measures”, extended throughout the country, allowed the state to meet its procurement and export targets.


The collectivization campaigned that followed, however, was not just hurt by the clear backwardness of the peasantry (especially the clerics), but by a rushed decision.

> That summer, an emboldened Party mobilized 25,000

workers to go into the villages to organize collective farms. The hasty decision, made under pressure of urban strikes and rural disturbances, produced a cascade of unanticipated consequences. Neither Party leaders nor worker activists were prepared for the intensity of resistance. Rumors swept the countryside. Angry, frightened peasants slaughtered rather than collectivize their livestock, and village priests warned that the Apocalypse was at hand.

This isn't totally Stalin's fault; this was well aided by the internal peasant woes by all means; but the fact of the mattePost too long. Click here to view the full text.
46 posts and 4 image replies omitted.

>>18988
>collectivisation and industrialization be explained and done by the bottom
Why do you think they didn't play a role?

But really such measures can only be undertaken on a large scale. A village can't build a steelworks.

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>>18990
>A village can't build a steelworks
laughs in GLF

>>18990
I do not know, what role they played? May be they played some role, but text in OP is discussing state bureaucracy.

There can be a consensus among villages. Like, a village will say: we can give this amount of grain, we need to keep some for village and the planner will use this data for planning, not some blind outside observer data.

>>18992
I've read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_grain_procurement_crisis_of_1928
>Communist Party penetration of the countryside remained weak, amounting to an average of 1 rural Communist for every 6 village soviets[8] — a mere 0.52% of the rural population vs. 1.78% of the total population in 1927.

So they did not control all soviets, I was wrong. Why then they did not organize more democratically?

And this
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/may/28.htm
Where he is talking on subsidies for common farms which is soft and nice. But he is insisting on fast industrialization, shows he does not know what is going on in detail.

File: 1687731936984.jpg (62.02 KB, 680x680, bf0.jpg)

>>18990
>A village can't build a steelworks



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For example, did you know that the Gulag myth (the one of forced labor) originated in the 1920s in Finland and Sweden. Soviet lumber industry outperformed the Scandinavians and out-competed it on the European market. They then slandered the Soviet republic.
46 posts and 6 image replies omitted.

>>18883
Stupid

>>18856
I know Engels did though I don’t know if Marx did. Def possible, both seem to have the same views

>>18853
Yeah many people don't know remember but in Finland during the 20s depression many people from all the sawmills, paper plants, etc. basically people from all lumber-related industries had to go look for work in soviet russia. Propably half the men in this one sawmill town near us had to go there for employment, the growth was so fast they hired foreigners.

>>18853
We all argue about the most based and least based communist leaders in history, but who is the most mediumly based?

>>18853
Wouldn’t this just count as generic corporate-monopoly slander? France claimed similar about Germany and Russia in the coaling industry because both massively out-competed theirs. I don’t see how this is a socialist fact rather than a fact that businesses have always slandered their competitors for monopoly.



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In a capitalist mode of production, scientists are downstream from economics. They are merely workers hired to produce a commodity called research. In capitalism the seller of a commodity (whether that commodity is a good, a service, or labor power) doesn't have the power to tell the buyer (whether end consumer or capitalist) what to do with it. Since it is the capitalist (or their bourgeois representatives in government) who are buying the research (labor commodity) from the scientists (workers), they can use the knowledge in the research however they like. They can withhold it from the public. They can use it to make weapons. Under capitalism, no matter how strictly a scientist obeys the scientific method, or how consistent their personal set of ethics are, they are at the end of the day, merely workers hired in a capitalist mode of production. This is why liberal appeals to "science, logic, and reason." fall flat under capitalism. It is the bourgeoisie who decide what to do with the knowledge (commodity) produced by scientific research (labor).
22 posts and 6 image replies omitted.

>>18924
>Meanwhile lysenkoists can at least point to epigenetics.
And vernalisation
There are orchards of fruit in Moscow and St Petersberg even now that we're Lysenkos work

>>18926
I love her

>>18905
Congrats, you've just rediscovered what posties and anprims were talking about for, like, three decades or so.

>>18930
Eh, could you link some of this for me I'm surprised anarchists independently discovered it since it's right there in the theory of comrade Stalin among others

>>18931
As if posties haven't read Marxists themselves.



File: 1687313147113.jpeg (108.76 KB, 475x600, mary.jpeg)

 

Pascal’s Wager is the best argument for Christianity and is only said to be the worst by those who have not read Pascal. Pascal in his Pensées shows why other religions are false and shows why Christianity is the true religion so the common objection against his wager is wrong.

There are too many unanswered questions in the universe to take a chance on eternal hell.

The cosmological argument. Why is there something rather than nothing? The only explanations from atheists are supernatural explanations. Silly reddit sci-fi explanations like multiverses and eternal universes both of which are not shown in nature at all and are just as likely as a creator of the universe existing.

DNA is which is more complicated and structured than you can possibly imagine created out of stardust for the first microbes in the universe. Consciousness. Where does it come from? Quarks? All this created randomly from nothing? It’s a bigger leap to say the Big Bang, DNA for microbes, consciousness, and everything else in the universe came out of nothingness and random chaos. All of it seemingly so perfected crafted where even a centimeter of difference would mean nothing would exist in the universe. Really. How does something so perfectly crafted and complicated as DNA come out of nothingness and stardust for microbes and every living thing on the universe?

None of this means you have to be absolutely 100% sure a God exists. It’s just enough of a doubt that it’s worth trying to find faith in God.

Think of it like percentages. 20% from the cosmological argument. 20% from the teleological argument. 20% from the argument of beauty. All of these arguments combine into a reason to justify having faith without evidence.


_
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is….
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.
2 posts and 1 image reply omitted.

>Why is there something rather than nothing?
there just is, ok?

File: 1687342188870.jpg (38.14 KB, 480x640, homer's wager.jpg)

relevant

>>18244
The contradictions and incoherence of the Bible are a certainty that it was made by anti-Roman, anti-Assyrian nihilists who had nothing but belief and a negative evil eye to cast upon their enemy.

Furthermore, all theistic arguments - cosmological, teleological etc reduce to ontological arguments, which has no means to distinguish itself from fiction but human assertion. Kant and Hume did this ages ago.

In the Protestant anglo context, belief reduces to a sinner's prayer, which is as cheap as a politician's speech. You can read the Epistle to the Romans, mumble the words Paul tells you to mumble and still FEEL NOTHING.

And finally the wager refutes itself. It appeals to Tychism, that is chance, to appeal to a Reality without chance. Here we return to Parmenides' challenge - what is, is and what is not, is not.

Nothing and pure Being are immediately each other. "Nothing" by definition is featureless, empty, and also is, and therefore is immediately Being. If you say that Nothing does not exist, then you are saying that only Being exists. So therefore Nothing exists, which means it is Being. But pure Being is empty. It has no features whatsoever. Pure being has no determinate features besides the fact that it is. Because Being is featureless then it is devoid of everything, and therefore is Nothing. it is immediately Nothing. And hence Nothing is immediately Being and vice versa.

When Being ceases to be to become Nothing, and Nothing ceases to be Nothing to become Being then this motion is an unraveling of pure Becoming. Nothing becomes Being due to the necessity of its existence and Being becomes Nothing due to the void existence of Being. Becoming is the ultimate essence of Being and Nothing, which means that potentiality and unraveling are a necessary feature of both. Becoming is the tension that brings forth existence.

Also, as shown, you can't have Nothing without Being, therefore Being must exist, but it can only exist in relation to Nothing, so Nothing must also exist.

And that's why there is something rather than nothing.

:)

Has anyone ever in the history of the world ever come to Christ due to Pascal's wager? It seems like something to justify believe only after the fact, and is it really even "belief" if God to you is just a game of chance? It's not like God is retarded and wouldn't know you're just scared of damnation.
The Wager is about belief in a higher deity in general, there is nothing about it that requires it to be the Christian capital-G God. People criticizing the Wager are perfectly justified in bringing up either deities.
Same with the argument from design, first cause etc. If there is a higher deity, a creator, some entity you could call "God", there is no reason it should be involved in human affairs, or desire worship. Every one of these arguments presupposes Christianity is the one true religion, but why would this be the case? Which Christianity, even?



File: 1687328649338.png (273.16 KB, 1154x651, ClipboardImage.png)

 

I have suggested before writing a shorter Edition of Capital aimed at the working class. I was mocked for this idea. People said that Capital is "perfect" and that it cannot be made shorter. People said that I "think workers are too stupid to read" (I do not think that). People said that I "think I am smarter than everyone" (I do not think that, in fact I was requesting help in writing such a work). People seemed obsessed with the idea that if a plainspoken version were available, it would ruin the original, even though the original is widely available.

Despite all this, I have found that in an 1868 letter Engels suggested the very same thing to Marx.

Is it not evident, then, that such an idea is not only not stupid, but of the utmost necessity for spreading and popularizing Marx's very important ideas?
12 posts and 1 image reply omitted.

>>18845
nice GPTpost

>>18844
prequel

Yes, “simplifying” one of the foremost works ever made so you can slide in liberalism and revisionism is bad actually

>>18848
i'm going to simplify you by beating you upside the head with a shovel but i won't need to slide any revisionism and liberalism into you because it's already there

>>18836
i found this "libcom" article criticizing cafiero's summary for being poorly translated (English) and for getting some of the math wrong (original Italian)

https://libcom.org/article/cafiero-and-marx-capital-nutshell

but more interesting was the year long argument in the comments lol



 

The Denial of Death - Ernest Becker

The premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls “heroism”: a “defiant creation of meaning” expressing “the myth of the significance of human life” as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.

Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project," (sometimes called an “immortality project,” or a “heroism project”). A person’s "causa sui project” acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they suscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete “self-negation” we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature. [4] By being part of symbolic constructs with more significance and longevity than one’s body—cultural activities and beliefs—one can gain a sense of legacy or (in the case of religion) an afterlife. In other words, by living up to (or especially exceeding) cultural standards, people feel they can become part of something eternal: something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things i.e. that they are “heroic contributors to world life” and thus that their contributions last beyond their biological lifespan is what’s referred to as an “immortality project.”

Immortality projects are one way that people manage death anxiety. Some people, however, will engage in hedonic pursuits like drugs, alcohol, and entertainment to escape their death anxiety - often to compensate for a lack of “heroism” or culturally based self-esteem - resulting in a lack of contribution to the “immortality project”.[5] Others will try to manage the terror of death by “tranquilizing themselves with the trivial” i.e. strongly focusing on trivial matters and exaggerating their importance — often through busyness and frenetic activity. Becker describes the current prevalence of hedonism and triviality as a result of the downfall of religious worldviews such as Christianity that could take “slaves, cripples… imbeciles… the simple and the mighty” and allow them all to accept their animal nature in the context of a spiritual reality and an afterlife.

Humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Becker argues that the loss of religion leaves humanity with impoverished resources for necessary illusions. Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker believes it can never do because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in ways that are agreeable. Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of humanity's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world.

Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.

File: 1687276390061.jpg (52.17 KB, 349x500, dfw43.jpg)

>>18239
>We all worship, man.

>>18241
>Becker argues that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism and so forth since immortality projects that contradict one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.
unadulterated idealism



File: 1685374091351.jpg (157.06 KB, 752x791, LeTrotskyDB.jpg)

 

How exactly would you define Trotskyism? How exactly would you summerise it's key differences from other Left wing political positions?

From my understanding most people here are Marxist-Leninsts, and even those who aren't certainly don't seem to look favourably at Trotsky.
So in your view what was wrong with Trotsky's ideas, and with the modern Trotskyists?
38 posts and 5 image replies omitted.


If you have to read Trotsky the meme response is Terrorism and Communism but here have a serious recommendation in regards to your questions

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/index.htm

>>18201
I see sarcasm is not your strong suit

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm
<This system will be made to work not by bureaucracy and not by policemen but by cold, hard cash.
<Your almighty dollar will play a principal part in making your new soviet system work. It is a great mistake to try to mix a “planned economy” with a “managed currency.” Your money must act as regulator with which to measure the success or failure of your planning.
<Your “radical” professors are dead wrong in their devotion to “managed money.” It is an academic idea that could easily wreck your entire system of distribution and production. That is the great lesson to be derived from the Soviet Union, where bitter necessity has been converted into official virtue in the monetary realm.
<There the lack of a stable gold ruble is one of the main causes of our many economic troubles and catastrophes (…) Soviet America will possess supplies of gold big enough to stabilize the dollar – a priceless asset.
What did he mean by this?
<While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics.
?
<One final prophecy: in the 3rd year of the Soviet rule in America you will no longer chew gum!
??

>>18231
>its just a joke bro!!



File: 1687203319937-0.jpg (31.51 KB, 360x277, IMG_4116.jpg)

File: 1687203319937-1.jpeg (36.68 KB, 539x569, images (64).jpeg)

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File: 1687203319937-4.jpeg (43.75 KB, 631x486, images (66).jpeg)

 

I couldn't find any left-com threads in the catalogue so I decided to make my own.

Also, can we get some flags to differentiate between the only 3 left-com internationals? The current left-com flag is that of the PCInt and Bordigism.
I suggest for Damenites use the ICT logo and for the whatever ideology the ICC is use the guy with the hammer.
I know the council coms have a pancake flag but I think the logo on the council-communist reader goes hard. Just a thought.
140 posts and 41 image replies omitted.

>>20375
>marx failed to consider that poop emoji pillows keep the third world employed

its over commiesisters….

this is the only good non-ml & non-ccru theory thread currently

>>20338
>wikipedia link

sorry buddy, no wikipedia.

>>20265
>ultra-leftists (anarcho-councilists, communizers, rewilders, tiqqunists)

anymore like them ?

Can we elaborate on the likeness, distinction between
1. demcent and orgcent
2. Leninism and Stalinism
from the POV of ICP/Bordiga's contribution / critique?



 

The anti party group were Marxists who has survived Nikita Khrushchev's purges. They attempted to democratically replace Khrushchev and return the USSR to Marxism and were arrested.
84 posts and 16 image replies omitted.

>>18826
>But what a lack of judgment it requires to declare the Commune sacred, to proclaim it infallible, to claim that every burnt house, every executed hostage, received their just dues to the dot over the i! Is not that equivalent to saying that during that week in May the people shot just as many opponents as was necessary, and no more, and burnt just those buildings which had to be burnt, and no more? Does not that repeat the saying about the first French Revolution: Every beheaded victim received justice, first those beheaded by order of Robespierre and then Robespierre himself! To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite goodnatured.
t. Engels

>>18825
Bukharin was a proto-dengoid and that's bad enough without making shit up.

>>18829
Turns out, the Bukharinite-Dengist line was the correct one. The USSR is gone while the PRC is economically defeating imperialism. Huh.

>>18830
>PRC is economically defeating imperialism.
Lol

>>18831
The facts don't care about your idealist dogmatism.



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