/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>1840704
>Inefficiency and Lack of Innovation
that's a good thing. human existence is not about being productive.

A counter example I like is Bell Laboratories, because Bell was a monopoly and no longer had the profit motive because profit was already a forgone conclusion and little risk of that changing, they had a laboratory where people hired with no specific goal they had to achieve, they basically just got given carte blanche to work on whatever seemed interesting or promising. The results are obvious if you look at the list of inventions that came out of those labs, genuinely world changing stuff.

But not all of it was related to telephony, since there was no competition, no risk, no real immediate profit motive to funding for Bell other than the vague idea that maybe something marketable will end up coming out of it, the scientists employed were unshackled by those constraints. Their innovations weren't stymied by a board of directors demanding a specific kind of development related to telephony, deadlines to push a product to market before competitors could, itching to close the window on risk.

Most profit driven "innovations" have nothing on these blank cheque labs, microtransactions in gaming is a profit driven innovation. Having ridiculously high medical costs to milk health insurance which in turn was lobbied to be made mandatory in society, is a profit driven innovation.

Marx’s Critique of Fixed Capital:

Capital’s Role: Marx views fixed capital, such as machinery, as capital’s way of asserting control over labor, transforming the worker’s role to a mere part of the machine system.
Contradiction: There is a contradiction in capitalism where increased productivity leads to more disposable time, yet capital seeks to convert this time into surplus labor.
Potential for Change: Marx suggests that as the productive forces develop, the appropriation of surplus labor ceases to be the basis of wealth, hinting at a potential societal shift.
Emancipation of Labor: The reduction of necessary labor time could lead to the emancipation of labor, allowing for the full development of individuals and society.

>>1840704
And what exactly are the corporations competing for? They're competing to form monopolies. Centralized, planned, inefficient monopolies. They will succeed eventually, and then you'll be stuck with institutions that are unproductive AND unaccountable.

Anyways, capitalism doesn't mean 'having markets', it means dividing society into owners and wage-labourers and having the former economically coerce the latter. It's better than slavery, but you're naive if you think that's the best we can do

>>1840704
> However, this centralized planning and government control can lead to inefficiencies and lack of innovation. Without the market-driven competition and profit motive of capitalism, there is less incentive for individuals and businesses to innovate, take risks, and improve productivity. This can result in stagnant economies and limited progress.

Corporate-Capitalism is anti-market; perfect markets lead to little to no profit margin, consequently corporations always curb markets, and consolidate to the point of oligopoly if not monopoly in the pursuit of endless profits & accumulation. Along the way they subvert the democratic states capability of restraining them, making the state a pure instrument of the corporate ruling class.

Furthermore, the rise of neo-liberal globalization has led to the transnationalization of global governance and economic structuring - the American/Western oligarchy has become a transnational one who has top-down centralized planning of much of world macro-economic trends and outcomes. See Peter Philips & William Robinsons work on this.

Fundamentally, placing "free markets" along with the term "capitalism" is a contradiction of terms, and is a systemic error ctrl+v'd into the heads of clueless libertarians, cuckservatives, and neolibs that is the flip-side of their anti-communism. See attached article on Braudel. I don't have a problem if you are a true free-marketier if you understand that capitalism is literally evil no way you cut it, and that free markets require a liberal state to bend the corporate sphere over to get fucked by anti-trust laws and such.

Guys did Marx ever consider that MENA are of the reactionary races?

>>1837989
>But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
>The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm
Chad Engels already accounted for that

There is no need to bring Marilyn Monroe into this!

>>1837820
>Zigger
go back to reddit

Stop derailing the thread IRGCfags

Hundreds gather for May Day rallies, marches held across Los Angeles area
Rallies and marches were held in Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights Wednesday to mark International Workers Day, also known as May Day, continuing a tradition dating back to the 19th century.
https://abc7.com/hundreds-gather-for-may-day-rallies-marches-held-across-los-angeles-area-downtown-boyle-heights/14751500/

State Cheated Out of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Benefit Contributions
Today, Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio released an official report documenting how companies like Uber and Lyft have cheated the state’s employee protection programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by misclassifying workers as independent contractors. According to conservative estimates, Uber and Lyft have avoided paying more than $266 million into the state’s workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and paid family leave programs over the past 10 years, including an estimated $47 million in 2023 alone.
https://teamster.org/2024/04/massachusetts-auditor-report-slams-uber-lyft-worker-misclassification-scheme/

New York demonstrations spread after mass arrests
After police arrested of over 300 pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York, students and faculty from schools across the city took their cause to the streets on Wednesday. Hundreds gathered at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan to voice opposition to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, as NYPD buses were parked nearby.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/01/protest-columbia-ccny-palestine-new-york-00155548
https://archive.is/XstzV

TikTok Employees Are Being Singled Out For Interrogation At U.S. Border
The interrogations of TikTok employees come alongPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

ECA Statement on the 1st of May
For the workers’ and communist parties, the 1st of May represents a day of struggle, in remembrance of those who came before us and in honor of those who will continue the struggle. The working people, not only in the countries of Europe, but in the entire world, have in the past years stood face to face with the inhumanity and brutality of the capitalist system, which has put the entire burden of the increasing prices on the shoulders of the working people. By simultaneously keeping wages down, the situation for the workers and other exploited strata has worsened in every country. Through its policies, the bourgeois classes have not only achieved a significant cut in the real wages of the majority of workers, but they have succeeded in introducing more flexible forms of employment, abolishing the 8-hour day and in forcing upon the workers more and more unpaid work. The increasing pressure is not only felt in the workplaces, but in all spheres of life, where the commercialization of health, education and social security are all adding to the weight that the working people must carry.
http://www.eurcomact.org/m-article/ECA-Statement-on-the-1st-of-May/

Workers of the world, unite!
THIS May Day let us first of all recall the words of Karl Marx who told the First International that “a new society is springing up whose international rule will be peace because its national ruler everywhere will be the same — labour!” That new society has yet to prevail, although the world is ripe for it. But Marx’s understanding that the advance of labour is bound up with the cause of peace is as relevant as 150 years ago. There are those who seek to reduce the working-class interest to simply matters of pay and working conditions. Life does not allow such a shrinkage of perspective, least of all today. The first call on the solidarity of the workers of the world today must be the Palestinian people suffering a genocidal imperialist-backed assault in Gaza and aggressive, murderous, dispossession in the West Bank.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-workers-world-unite-0

Rosa Luxemburg: The Idea oPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>1840231
Piety is a mental illness

>>1840064
wishing is for children, this is a truly pathetic post. "i'll huff and i'll puff and i'll wish capitalism down!" great, you do that. put the USSR on your list to santa too.

>>1840243
Winning concessions is not winning the war. It's winning room to maybe get started on another operational-level answer to this permanent war of occupation by the Few that has been ongoing for two millennia since "philosophy" and the world-state were invented.
Useless simpletons get excited by games, winning, politics, all that being noticed by senpai shit; people who think materially are more interested in destroying the enemy's conditions to act against them. Little actions need to be prepared to follow through to the complete elimination of the very idea of class. It is momentum, not soak time, that makes communism happen.

>>1840244
>what? So how do you get them now?
Basically you have to fuck around with search terms and be hyper-specific with what you're looking for.

>>1840337
I literally answer this further on in the post. And as proof, the massive subset of "leftists" that claim that "Socialism hasn't been tried yet" and that the USSR "wasn't reel socialism!", usually posted alongside anti-communist mythology like Muh gorillions and equating Stalin to Hitler.

>>1840243
It's a mix. On one had conditions need to be desperate to push people to revolt, but at the same time, people must be class conscious to realize the trap of the desperation they are in.

>>1839540
>So.. we are all on the same page here that the USSR was bad, right?
Yes
>Not because it was "totalitarian" or killed a gazillion people, but
…Not?
>because the Bolsheviks were generally not sufficiently educated on Marxism
They were extremely educated on Marxism
>the Bolsheviks were despotic bullies that disturbed the otherwise functional Soviets just to maintain their hold on power
It's true that when Lenin centralized power he disempowered the workers' councils, but was that really that bad of a decision? I can see a case being made for that, but you haven't made one. It doesn't seem obvious to me that the workers' councils were any more equipped to handle the task of economic planning than a central committee would be, and it's obvious why Lenin would want to maintain power on the brink of a civil war.
>Lenin's and Stalin's needless support for national self-determination (idpol when nations of people aren't in an oppressive economic relationship)
I don't think Lenin and Stalin were motivated by identity politics when they supported national self-determination. They were just acting in opposition to the imperialist forces of the time. Identity politics as understood today is kind of a modern phenomenon.
>persecutions of fellow communists that went far beyond anything reasonable and killing even more of the few people knowledgable (sic) on Marxism
I agree with you on this one, but I feel the great purges are usually included when a layperson talks about the USSR killing "a gazillion" people. They're basically the main example of the USSR killing a bunch of people.
>a complete degeneration away from anything resembling a genuine drive to bring about communism when Stalin died and the Khrushchev took over
What kind of policies would you have wanted to see them enact? What could have been done to bring about communism in Russia in 1953?
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>1839813
I also think, only somewhat related, that when it comes to 'gamer radicalization', people are a bit- just a bit, but definitely that bit -too harsh on young/teenage dorks who fall down the slide of an ideology that is engineered entirely around seeming really, really fun to be part of. Calling them stupid works excellently, in favor of the people telling them that nobody else will ever accept them.
I can't comment on the specifics of Helldivers II as I haven't played it (just not my type of game), but in terms of the appeal of managed democracy to people, I think it comes down to, I'd say, the growing perception that liberal democracies face that they are ultimately timid, seemingly too slow, too partisan, divorced from the common good. The idea of a democracy but it's just that much more authoritarian I can see at least having more appeal in the immediate term, compared to that perception of liberal democracy.

>>1840538
Yes and no. You have to understand that these people literally go to die for the bourgeois in Ukraine already and will enthusiastically enlist to wage a genocide against the Chinese people tomorrow. People really enjoy separating "fascism" when in truth these tendencies are always there in all bourgeois states, we are all impacted by them. This doesn't mean that these guys are actually very bad personally, but more that "fascists" are all "normal" for a bourgeois society people.

>>1840605
How many people who were radicalised by call of duty went to Ukraine?

>>1765114
Stupid thread. Masses, Élites, and Rebels shit from the guy that wrote Masses, Élites, and Rebels.

>>1840637

I hope they all went to Ukraine. Russian artillery and fighter bombers are good.

General Joseph Stilwell was an admirer of Mao and while he didn't agree with the communism, he thought they had great character and believed they would eventually win China and so the US should side with them earlier.

>>1837708
>>1837837
Anti-Semitism is an all-consuming force that can often override and contradict all other racial prejudices. For example, William Dudley was an admirer of Hitler who didn't seem to hate black people and Native Americans. In fact, he was a big advocate for the latter and thought that the reservations should be for Jews and for a great people like the Natives

>>1838035
I mean, Arab nationalists were pretty much all inspired by fascism. It's not even a question but when fascism fell and the Soviet Union became a dominant power they hid just quietly ignored but didn't change any ideological or political foundation

>>1834260
>political friendships
dont think thats the case they wouldnt have liked each other outside of prision but inside they had no other options

I think just considering the difference between Kaczynski and McVeigh is an interesting one. As people, to the extent that we know them, they were entirely different. As narratives, entirely different. And as well in terms of their own consciousness of what they were doing, apparently entirely different.

I have no interest in the life of Ted Kaczynski. I can read what he wrote–I don't agree with the main premise, but I appreciate its being written–and that's all I need. I feel I know everything about the man, expressed with impressive clarity. I don't feel there's anything in his relatively ineffectual acts or in his hermitage of any value beyond the extent that his lifestyle and his actions allowed that text to crystallize.

McVeigh, on the other hand, wrote little of note. His essay on "hypocrisy" is an interesting look at the limits that his reaction (and it is not a reaction isolated to him) to imperialism could possibly reach. His statements during the 60 Minutes interview get even closer:

>I went over there, hyped up, just like everyone else–not only is Saddam evil, all Iraqis are evil. What I experienced was an entirely different ball game. And being face to face with these people, you realize, they're just people.
<It's hard for people to come to grips with you as the same person who was commended by the army, as being the same person who was convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing. They cant put the two together.
>I do understand. Many people say, well Tim, if we think you're guilty, imagine the paradox. In the Gulf war, you were given medals for killing people. So I've faced that issue quite a few times.
<How do you explain it?
>At that point, I usually just leave it at that. And say that…it is an interesting paradox.

He couldn't express himself–he already had. The only real statement of truth that Timothy McVeigh ever made was in the singular bombing itself, which must stand as the greatest artistic statement to have come from the US in the twentieth century. It is the purest juxtaposition–the daycare in an Iraqi institution is a "shield"; the daycare in a US federal government building makes it an atrocity–that once illustrated, demands no further words. Everything else about his story–whPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>1837769
Because a black atheist would give credit to original sin?

>>1836966
Yes because those two disciplines in particular are (a) well-known for being filled with people who are fucking idiots; and (b) disciplines for whom terms like "cringe" and "racist" are the most complex expressions of several decades of their "intellectual" endeavour.

>>1840851
>for whom terms like "cringe" and "racist" are the most complex expressions of several decades of their "intellectual" endeavour.
lol I wonder why you might be mad about history and anthropology using the term "racist"?

>>1840862
The fact that that's the single thing you picked up on in your little snipe, while your discourse is filled with lol and cringe and Twitteresque "oh I wonder why…?" speaks volumes, cmde.

>>1840881
You are getting butthurt over accurate characterizations being summarized in a couple sentences on a post. There's other posts ITT talking about the history of the term "civilization." Notice how you're not complaining about the other posts talking in greater detail, just the one that simply points out that this concept is now widely dismissed and looked down on for being inherently racist.

The NEP—A Temporary Retreat ▪
>The NEP was, of course, an idea of the people. A peasant directed Len into the idea. And Lenin formulated it as would a scientist and a politician. Its roots were of the people, but it had to be given a scientific, Marxist direction.Only Lenin could do this.
>Lenin had proposed the continuation of the NEP for a longer period of time. Did he not say that the NEP was to be pursued seriously and for a longtime?No. Lenin planned the NEP as a temporary retreat. Only one year later, in1922, in a speech he said it was time to end the NEP. He said we had been retreating for a whole year. On the party’s behalf we could now say, “That’s enough…” The period of the NEP had ended, or was coming to an end.

<What is the most prominent of Lenin’s traits that you can recall?

>His purposefulness. And his ability to fight for his cause. You see, almost everyone in the Politburo was against him—Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev,Bukharin. In
the Politburo, Lenin was supported only by Stalin and me.
>The situation was so difficult in Lenin’s time…. But Lenin was a man who could see things from various perspectives and who could motivate people: “Bear in mind that death is threatening us!” Of course, he couldn’t take everything into account, but he got everyone going: “Otherwise all of you will be torn to pieces!”
>In 1921, at the beginning of the NEp, there was famine. People began saying that grain should be imported. We needed resources for this. Lenin said the churchmen must help. If we confiscate church valuables, the priests will acquiesce. If they start to resist, this too would benefit us. Clinging to their wealth while the people are starving will undermine their authority. In the struggle against religious sentiment, we would win either way.
(page 155)

>>1840486
>I wuz revolutionary, therefore I wouldn't want to get invaded by imperialists

Only a friend can betray, buddy

molotov really likes to talk about tea.

Lenin writes, “Comrade Molotov, does the Central Committee investigate the points of view of different party groups? In particular, are we studying the opinions of people who do not work in any single department of our shitty apparatus? If not, would it be possible to organize the investigation of this matter?”

So, what are the most important texts and thoughts of Bukharin?

>>1839037
>You probably didn't know that x is actually was Invented by Palestinians" or discussing how Palestine is connected to the experiences of black or queer people
this is based thoughever

>>1840553
To try to find issues with connecting struggles and exposing the clear lines of co-operation of international class war and imperialist projects is just absurd and transparent.
Obviously OP is baiting.
Why must we give it oxygen?

>>1840550
Look at this, the Chinese have established a journalism department at Columbia University.

【Columbia Journalism School | We Set Up an Editorial Department in 8 Hours - Bilibili】https://b23.tv/1XasFcZ

【We Found Chinese in Support of Gaza Camp at Columbia University - Bilibili】https://b23.tv/kcjQMVg

【Columbia Journalism | Jewish Freshman Across from the Palestinian Camp - Bilibili】https://b23.tv/64Um0qH

【Frontline! NYPD Enters Occupied Columbia Building, All Protesters Arrested - Bilibili】https://b23.tv/wxepgZC

【哥大新闻学院｜我们在8小时内成立了编辑部-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/1XasFcZ

【我们找到了哥大声援加沙营地里的中国人-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/kcjQMVg

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>1840564
Brilliant, thanks for sharing anon

>>1836757
Maybe reformism is better than waiting 200 years for a revolution to happen and fix all your problems.

>>1840504
yeah yeah and profit comes from consumption
stupid menshevik

>>1837339
update: i'm still not buying any zio infected products

>>1840526
Rather reform then revolution, as Lenin so intelligent said

>>1840536
Maybe reform vs revolution is a false dichotomy cause reform is impossible and leads to radicalization.