/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2241710
> equated feudalism with capitalism, thus rendering both terms synonyms,
Feudalism is just a form of capitalism, not equal as capitalism is a more general term, with feudalism being a form of capitalism. No one says they are the same, same as oranges are not apples, but both are still fruits(Rule 11 - low-quality bait)

>>2241732
You dont know who i talk to nor should it matter, you dont own the term capitalism.
None of the shit you claim makes capitalism some kind of unique ism are absent from literally any other ism. Seems like every single ism is capitalism.
i.e, in any society workers went to work following orders given by others and received some degree of economic compensation, being that food and housing for a slave or wages for a laborer, its pretty much the same regime.

>>2241748
ok now go back through the conversation and replace all the times we used "capitalism" with whatever term you think should be used instead and then argue with the post based on that instead of getting mad at which words we used. Btw here is Marco Rubio using "Capitalism" the same way a Marxist would, proving the point that the "Marxist" definition of Capitalism (a mode of production distinct from Feudalism, Slavery, Socialism, unique to the era of industrialization and bourgeois class dictatorship) is also used even by non-Marxists and anti-Marxists.

>>2241751
>None of the shit you claim makes capitalism some kind of unique ism are absent from literally any other ism

Industrialization, proletarianization of the peasantry, bourgeois class dictatorship, wage labor being the dominant form of labor (as opposed to serfdom or slavery) are all unique to the historical era of capitalism and what makes it distinct from socialism, feudalism, slavery, and neolithic hunter-gatherer society. This has been stated to you several times already, you just keep ignoring it.

>>2241710
>we mean something very specific that is neither feudalism, nor slavery, nor socialism
You dont know what you are talking about. The social regime you call "capitalism" has existed since the beggining of economic activity in prehistoric times.
Show me a society where this isnt the case. Show me a society where economic life isnt just workers working and getting economic compensation, with the remaining wealth pocketed by an elite and the government in some measure

>>2241757
>Industrialization
Oh oh, so capitalism is just steam engines?

>>2241760
As a consequence of an unfolding historical process involving many other things.

>>2241757
>proletarianization of the peasantry,
just workers working
>>2241757
> bourgeois class dictatorship
Silly name for elites, which have always existed
>>2241757

>>2241757
> bourgeois class dictatorship
>wage labor being the dominant form of labor
Another silly rebranding with no meaning. A worker works and either gets food and housing or gets money to buy them. Theres fundamentally no difference.

>>2241763
>Another silly rebranding with no meaning.
No they have specific meanings you just refuse to engage with them because "ha i don't care about your silly religion"

again you are complaining that the computer mouse isn't a real rodent. it is childish

>>2241759
>. Show me a society where economic life isnt just workers working and getting economic compensation, with the remaining wealth pocketed by an elite and the government in some measure
not that you give two flying fucks but Marx calls this "class society" and "exploitation" and elaborates on how the different forms of class society (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) exploit labor in unique ways based on the historical material conditions of their respective eras.

>>2241771
>This is totally not a slave because theres an electric motor nearby
wow what a gotcha. time to abandon Marxism even thought it frequently refers to wage labor under capitalism as "wage slavery"

>>2241770
>again you are complaining that the computer mouse isn't a real rodent. it is childish
No, im complaing that what you call "capitalism" is fundamentally no different than anything else that has already existed. Its not just the name.
You for instance talk about the difference between serfdom and wage labor or slavery. Theres no real difference

>>2241772
>how the different forms of class society (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) exploit labor in unique ways based

I see, one uses a leash and another a cattle prod. Completely different isms

>>2241774
> refers to wage labor under capitalism as "wage slavery"
Oh, im sorry, i thought wage labor was FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT?

my understanding is that generally marx/engels model was that bourgeois & proletarian are just the necessary conditions for the mode of production, and are therefore more "real" than what is between/outside of them insofar as the reproduction of capital only strictly REQUIRES people selling labor-power and people managing labor. that doesnt mean that no other classes, castes, or otherwise meaningful social formations exist as part of capital's actual instantiation in history, only that theyre fundamentally precarious compared to proletariat and bourgeoisie as classes. hence consistent tendencies towards proletarianization and under certain circumstances class mobility.

it seems entirely pedantic and besides straightforwardly wrong to insist that theres only 2 classes, but that said OP >>2239197 i dont think that pulling out random gotcha marx quotes is ever especially helpful and you could have said a little more besides

>>2241781
it is fundamentally different from the particular type of slavery that dominated when slavery was the primary form of surplus labor in class society. This entire conversation is you saying over and over that all modes of production are capitalism when no, all modes of production (so far) are class society, and capitalism is the latest form of class society.

You think Marxists don't have a general term for class society, but we do. That term is class society. When you say "everything is just capitalism" we say "no, everything so far is class society, and there are different forms of class society in different historical eras, based on the level of technological development, where the work takes place, how the workers are exploited, and whether the ruling class is, say, a hereditary landed nobility (feudalism), or an industrial bourgeoisie (capitalism), or an empire of late antiquity (slavery).

>>2241789
>it is fundamentally different from the particular type of slavery that dominated when slavery
>Claims wage labor is different from slavery when it suits him
>Still calls wage labor wage slavery, when it suits him
which one is it?

>>2241789
>You think Marxists don't have a general term for class society, but we do. That term is class society.

I bet you have a term for water too, which is is water.

>>2241792
>The semi-proletariat.
One more classification and you will nail the perfect model to describe the world

>>2241792
>because they don't actually produce any value
>Cashiers dont produce any value
Source?

>>2241791
notice how you have now pivoted from "all types of class society are just capitalism" to "there is no qualitative difference between wage labor (which is sometimes called wage slavery) and literal slavery as a mode of production in late antiquity.

all you have is language policing. this is a very tiresome conversation and we have been far too polite and patient with you.

>>2239840
>>2240107
>>2240124
>>2240135
>>2241401
>>2241549
>>2241632
>>2241638
>>2241672
>>2241681
>>2241748
>>2241760
round and round we go

>>2241792
im referring to the marxist model of production and class, where the transportation and preperation of commodities either adds surplus value or is the final point in the production process that allows for the realization of value. adding surplus value is obviously the role of proletarians. the latter part may be less clear. where the preparation of a commodity is a prerequisite for all of the preceding surplus value inputs to be worth anything, i.e. the cashier is the final stop in the chain of production, the fact that its purchase is (e.g. in the case of a grocery store) circumstantially dependent on the cashier makes them proletarian if the wage they are paid for their labor-power in cashiering is their only way of reproducing their labor i.e. living. they are adding value because the employers have decided they make more from the extraction of the employees surplus value than they lose in paying a wage, i.e. theyve determined its worth paying the wage because there is enough value added by the employees labor in organizing distribution and payment to not only offset the cost of the wage but to make more than they could if they used another non-human system that could not produce surplus value (i.e. constant capital). whether or not the employer is wrong about this (e.g. they may be losing money on cashier wages when they could instead streamline the checkout lanes) and whether or not cashiers are a necessity at all (e.g. they can circumstantially be replaced by self-checkout etc) is as irrelevant as the fact that 1000 miners are employed when 300 + machinery would be just as possible – their class position comes from their role in the process of production and exchange as it actually exists, not what would be the most productive ideal arrangement of production and exchange. in a grocery store (e.g.) that is arranged in such a way that it hires cashiers, so long as the cashier in question has no other means of reproducing their labor other than selling their labor-power, they are objectively performing productive labor and are therefore proletarian.

Capital Vol. 2 Chapter 1:

>…what the transportation industry sells is change of location. The useful effect is inseparably connected with the process of transportation, i.e., the productive process of the transport industry. Men and goods travel together with the means of transportation, and their traveling, this locomotion, constitutes the process of production effected by these means. The useful effect can be consumed only during this process of production. It does not exist as a utility different from this process, a use-thing which does not function as an article of commerce, does not circulate as a commodity, until after it has been produced. But the exchange-value of this useful effect is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the value of the elements of production (labour-power and means of production) consumed in it plus the surplus-value created by the surplus-labour of the labourers employed in transportation. This useful effect also entertains the very same relations to consumption that other commodities do. If it is consumed individually its value disappears during its consumption; if it is consumed productively so as to constitute by itself a stage in the production of the commodities being transported, its value is transferred as an additional value to the commodity itself.

note especially:

>The useful effect can be consumed only during this process of production…This useful effect also entertains the very same relations to consumption that other commodities do. If it is consumed individually its value disappears during its consumption; if it is consumed productively so as to constitute by itself a stage in the production of the commodities being transported, its value is transferred as an additional value to the commodity itself.

please note that i am not quoting scripture here and saying you are automatically wrong. i am quoting and summarizing marx's understanding of capital because i agree with it and find it much more convincing than alternatives. if you find mao's explanation that you quoted more convincing, please explain why, and what you find lacking in marx's explanation that makes mao's more compelling

>>2241927
screencapped myself and posted to the booru bc im sick of reiterating this every time muh service industry comes up

>>2242015
Smart choice, I've often done the same

>>2241783
walmart cashiers are not proletarians. Mao concluded they are semi-proletarians because they don't actually produce any value
<The semi-proletariat. What is here called the semi-proletariat consists of five categories: (1) the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants, [10] (2) the poor peasants, (3) the small handicraftsmen, (4) the shop assistants [11] and (5) the pedlars.
<The shop assistants are employees of shops and stores, supporting their families on meagre pay and getting an increase perhaps only once in several years while prices rise every year. If by chance you get into intimate conversation with them, they invariably pour out their endless grievances. Roughly the same in status as the poor peasants and the small handicraftsmen, they are highly receptive to revolutionary propaganda.
>>2241804
Mao https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_1.htm
>>2241927
In this same chapter Marx concludes that merchant wage-workers produce no value.
<The metamorphoses C — M and M — C are transactions between buyers and sellers; they require time to conclude bargains, the more so as the struggle goes on in which each seeks to get the best of the other, and it is businessmen who face one another here; and “when Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.” [A paraphrase of words from the 17th century tragedy The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great by Nathaniel Lee. — Ed.] To effect a change in the state of being costs of time and labour-power, not for the purpose of creating value, however, but in order to accomplish the conversion of value from one form into another. The mutual attempt to appropriate an extra slice of this value on this occasion changes nothing. This labour, increased by the evil designs on either side, creates no value, any more than the work performed in a judicial proceeding increases the value of the subject matter of the suit. Matters stand with this labour — which is a necessary element in the capitalist process of production as a whole, including circulation or included by it — as they stand, say, with the work of combustion of some substance used for the generation of heat. This work of combustion does not generate any heat, although it is a necessary element in the process of combustion. In order, e.g., to consume coal as fuel, I must combine it with oxygen, and for this purpose must transform it from the solid into the gaseous state (for in the carbonic acid gas, the result of the combustion, coal is in the gaseous state); consequently, I must bring about a physical change in the form of its existence or in its state of being. The separation of carbon molecules, which are united into a solid mass, and the splitting up of these molecules into their separate atoms must precede the new combination, and this requires a certain expenditure of energy which thus is not transformed into heat but taken from it. Therefore, if the owners of the commodities are not capitalists but independent direct producers, the time employed in buying and selling is a diminution of their labour-time, and for this reason such transactions used to be deferred (in ancient and medieval times) to holidays.
<In order to simplify the matter (since we shall not discuss the merchant as a capitalist and merchant’s capital until later) we shall assume that this buying and selling agent is a man who sells his labour. He expends his labour-power and labour-time in the operations C — M and M — C. And he makes his living that way, just as another does by spinning or making pills. He performs a necessary function, because the process of reproduction itself includes unproductive functions. He works as well as the next man, but intrinsically his labour creates neither value nor product. He belongs himself to the faux frais of production. His usefulness does not consist in transforming an unproductive function into a productive one, nor unproductive into productive labour. It would be a miracle if such transformation could be accomplished by the mere transfer of a function. His usefulness consists rather in the fact that a smaller part of society’s labour-power and labour-time is tied up in this unproductive function. More. We shall assume that he is a mere wage-labourer, even one of the better paid, for all the difference it makes. Whatever his pay, as a wage-labourer he works part of his time for nothing. He may receive daily the value of the product of eight working-hours, yet functions ten. But the two hours of surplus-labour he performs do not produce value anymore than his eight hours of necessary labour, although by means of the latter a part of the social product is transferred to him. In the first place, looking at it from the standpoint of society, labour-power is used up now as before for ten hours in a mere function of circulation. It cannot be used for anything else, not for productive labour. In the second place however society does not pay for those two hours of surplus-labour, although they are spent by the individual who performs this labour. Society does not appropriate any extra product or value thereby. But the costs of circulation, which he represents, are reduced by one-fifth, from ten hours to eight. Society does not pay any equivalent for one-fifth of this active time of circulation, of which he is the agent. But if this man is employed by a capitalist, then the non-payment of these two hours reduces the cost of circulation of his capital, which constitutes a deduction from his income. For the capitalist this is a positive gain, because the negative limit for the self-expansion of his capital-value is thereby reduced. So long as small independent producers of commodities spend a part of their own time in buying and selling, this represents nothing but time spent during the intervals between their productive function or diminution of their time of production.

>>2241927
i didnt clarify my initial distinction well enough unfortunately. the commodity the cashier is adding value to isnt the product theyre ringing up, its the act of ringing up the product/misc. customer service, the service IS the commodity. there is valued added into the process of production, not to the discrete commodity. part of what is being paid for when you buy something at a grocery store instead of e.g. wholesaling is the "service" of the aisles being stocked & arranged, the food etc being stored properly, and the cashier ringing you up and bagging/answering questions/putting up with your bullshit etc. the labor-power of the cashier is expended immediately at a service-commodity that is one part of the overall function of the grocery store as an outlet for production, the same way that energy keeping the lights on and soap to clean the floor are inputs into an industry that makes profit off of being the "last stop" of many commodities at the end of their production chains. grocery stores are a "finishing" industry in the sense of oil refinement or steel galvanization – in this case the more perfect analogy is the gas station or the hardware store, but since that raises the same questions of "service industry" its easier to think in terms of a gas station attendant being farthest down the line in a production line of finishing processes that include oil refineries somewhere towards the middle.

>>2242053
wow, thank you. been years since i read vol.2 but should really reread it because i've been working with the above presumptions for a while now. i inferred too much about the general principle of transportation being generally applicable to every stage in the realization of value. reading this it does make sense, however, as far as a distinction made between incidentally more or less profitable exchange practices (better or worse book-keeping, driving over or under the speed limit in delivery, clean floors or dirty floors attracting more or less customers, etc) are basically questions of how efficiently the commodity is purchased and consumed, which is a crucial part of the process but does not alter the value of the commodity itself.

not the same chapter btw for anyone following, my post is Vol.2, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 4. This is in reference to Vol.2, Part 1, Chapter 6, Section 1.a.

Chapter 1: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch01.htm#1

Chapter 6:


now let me ask, because i'm still confused by this and i was so certain about my own explanation because it seems much more intuitive to me. as a commodity with a dual nature, is its exchange-value not as much a part of its use-value as its 'intended' use in consumption? as with money in which the use-value of money is in being a universal medium of exchange, though the commodity's use-value in exchange is limited to those who would either use it OR profit off its further refinement and sale? if circulation is an essential part of the process as marx is clear about here and as is intuitive, doesn't the unavailability or inability to exchange the commodity effect its value? it seems counterintuitive to me that value does not need to be maintained, and that the process of circulation is not essentially a reproduction of value, a maintenance of it, in the same way that repairing a loom or a tractor is reproduction of value. is that not productive labor and ultimately comparable to production of the loom and the tractor? isn't the entire issue with constant capital that leads to the falling rate of profit that constant capital cannot reproduce itself and can only be exhausted, requiring value inputs from productive labor? if that's the case, why is a loaf of bread getting moldy in a grocery store and discouraging sales due to the owner cheaping out on staff fundamentally different from a machine breaking down and discouraging sales due to the owner cheaping out on engineers?

i am genuinely asking from anyone who is familiar with the texts, because i am humbled by how wrong i was in my explanation.

but a further point: does this really effect the status of the worker in question as proletarian? the question of whether or not proletarian was only those doing productive working i.e. adding value to a commodity was previously uninteresting for me because i had a wrong idea of what value-added encompassed, or at least one in contradiction with marx who i thought i was recieving the idea from. and i do now clearly see mao's reason for modifying the category of proletarian with semi-proletarian to account for wage-workers who work in unproductive industries. but let me concede the question of how constrained productive labor is and just take for granted what marx says above: is semi-proletarian a necessary distinction? i understand the relevance of employment in productive industries vs unproductive industries so far as it relates to leveraging a role in production into political power, but that seems to be a question of strategy. and anyway, if that were used as the standard for proletarianization, wouldn't that create a gradient between productive industries in which the most essential are "more proletarian" and the less essential "less proletarian"? assuming that cashier work is definitively unproductive, and their role in circulation of a commodity doesn't modify the value of the commodity, is that a sufficient condition to preclude their being proletarian despite the fact that (let's assume) they are unable to reproduce their labor-power without working for a wage, and they do work for a wage as a part of the web of commodities realizing their value? even if that's unproductive strictly speaking, in the actual circulation of commodities they were for a wage because they need to, and the specific use of their labor-power is still "a positive gain" for the capitalist.

to illustrate my question about qualifying for proletarian, imagine there is a finishing industry for metals that is suddenly discovered to be entirely unnecessary. there's galvanization, tin-plating, etc, etc., and then there's Finish+, which had been considered an essential process that followed up all other means of finishing steel for 100 years. a team of chemists and engineers prove conclusively that this was always a completely unnecessary process that has absolutely no effect, positive or negative, on the quality of the steel – the entirety of the massive Finish+ industry is and has always been just a completely unnecessary waste of time and material, maybe based on a scam, maybe a mistake, doesn't matter. the team of scientists sell this discovery and their secrecy to the Finishing+ branch of the biggest steel producers and everyone keeps quiet about it forever to keep their jobs and investments safe. were the workers doing Finishing+ never proletarians in the first place because they were never actually adding value to the steel? they are now and always have been semi-proletarians rather than proletarians? the people who work in transporting the steel to the Finish+ workshops, are they not proletarian because transporting steel there is no longer inseparably connected with the useful effect that gives the steel its value?

i realize this might sound like an 'if a tree falls in a forest' bullshit thought experiment, but i really do not think it is, there are some pretty strange implications if every instance of "time spent during the intervals between their productive function or diminution of their time of production" disqualifies the workers in that specialized branch of industry from being proletarian.

>>2242184
>>2242053
chapter 6: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch06.htm

bump cause i'd like to keep discussing if possible

>>2239197
I don't think people understand that even a millionaire already has the wealth that an average British worker would be expected to earn if they worked for 50 years straight, and that would spread out over a lifetime. Even earning £100,000 a year puts you firmly in the 0.1% in Britain, and yet these people are treated like fucking poor babies we have to coddle while those same rich people go on TV and rant about how children are greedy for getting free school meals.

>>2239197
this AI image is so ugly. it's meant to be like "haha look marx and engels are laughing at you, stupid lib" but it's like, they're pointing in two different directions, Engels has two thumbs on his left hand, and is pointing with his thumb on his right hand. They both look fucked up in their faces. Why are they at some swanky ball with bourgeois piglets instead of hanging out in one of their homes? Compare it to this real painting, which is slick and goes hard.

>>2244713
Really like this flavor of terminally online dipshit who gets irrationally mad at AI slop.

Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise, our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal the prevailing confusion and binder its radical elimination. It is understandable, therefore, that we do not intend to make our publication a mere storehouse of various views. On the contrary, we shall conduct it in the spirit of a strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be expressed by the word Marxism, and there is hardly need to add that we stand for the consistent development of the ideas of Marx and Engels and emphatically reject the equivocating, vague, and opportunist “corrections” for which Eduard Bernstein, P. Struve, and many others have set the fashion. But although we shall discuss all questions from our own definite point of view, we shall give space in our columns to polemics between comrades. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social-Democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in order to clarify the depth of existing differences, in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives, not only of various views, but even of various localities, or various “specialities” of the revolutionary movement, inevitably fall. Indeed, as noted above, we regard one of the drawbacks of the present-day movement to be the absence of open polemics between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions.

The middle classes decry open polemic against them and preach hollow solidarity to shield their own interests and promote their own anti-Communist theories that obscure class distinctions essential to scientific socialism.

>>2244759
I enjoy AI slop when it's at least OK. Otherwise I criticize it. You strike me as someone who reads text in the tone of whatever bad mood you're in and then you get mad at the tone you projected.

>>2244837
is this real?

>>2244838
nah it's AI slop

bump in case anons still around im the same h&s flag from before

>>2239197
The petty-bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy are working class but not proletarian.

>>2239840
ancaps and bookphobic leftoids : i agree!

>>2263880
Labor aristos are proletarian, petit bourgeoisie are by definition not proletarian, they're bourgeois.

>>2264094
The working class is anyone who must work to earn a living. Do you seriously think a prostitute is a capitalist? A prostitute is not a prole but a prostitute is typically still working class. The same goes with unemployed people. Also housewives in some places can be working class. Also poor peasants are working class. Working class != Proletarian Vanguard.

>>2263880
>>2264094
Labor aristocracy is used interchangeably with petit-bourgeois or middle-class, though it's used by idiots who are allergic to saying the latter for some reason.

>A prostitute is not a prole but a prostitute is typically still working class.
Sure, but under a communist context working class means proletarian strictly.

>Working class != Proletarian Vanguard.
The vanguard is the most advanced section of the proletariat.

>The same goes with unemployed people.
…How the FUCK is being unemployed working class?

>>2264639
>The vanguard is the most advanced section of the proletariat.

and yet we have had historical situations where the leader of the vanguard party was not proletarian (Mao, Lenin, Castro)

>>2264696
rofl ok except neither mao nor castro had communist programs during and after the revolution

>>2264697
>Mao and Castro weren't Communist! Only Lenin was!
OK he was still a lawyer and middle peasant and professional revolutionary who never did productive wage labor, which was my point.
>Communist programs
Lenin did "war communism" 1918-1921 which was more of a civil-wartime state of emergency measure than communism, then backed off of that after the civil war, then did the NEP which was semi-restoration of capitalism on a temporary basis, and then died of his strokes before the NEP was rolled back under Stalin. I don't think Lenin really had the chance to do "Communist programs". He died too early.

Anyways, it's not a state of affairs to be established. You know that. I know that. Everyobody knows that.