/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Very honored to speak with you, Professor Cockshott.
Could you please make a blogpost or video on what you think about Maoism
as a contemporary international communist movement, developing since your youth? In particular I'm very curious about what your assessment is about:
1. western European 'Mao spontaneity' for example Gauche Proletarienne, COBI(?)
2. the controversial history of PCP-SL in Peru and CPN (Maoist) in Nepal
3. the reconstituted MLM movements of CPI (Maoist) in India and CPP in the Philippines, who, after reorganizing following the critical analysis of various mistakes made by their Peruvian and Nepalese contemporaries, have seemed to develop MLM onward beyond the 2000s and have shown to be able to maintain protracted people's wars in both countries to this day. They also publish advanced theoretical works. Have you read On the Maoist Party by Ajith of CPI (Maoist) for example?
Does Marxism-Leninism-Maoism make sense as a "rupture" with Marxism-Leninism, integrating a refocused importance on mass line, criticism-self-criticism, continuous / cultural revolution even under socialism, recognition of the ability of a new bourgeoisie to reemerge within the party, the critique of the monolithic party, etc.?
And would you consider yourself a (heterodox) Maoist still (in reference to COBI)?

Dr. Cockshott, do you estimate the United States will be able to successfully reindustrialize in the coming decades. Currently it seems like they are just using tariffs but aren't actually building new infrastructure or upgrading existing infrastructure, which is critical for reindustrialization and modernization stagnant industry.

Dr. Cockshott, Is it possible to do labor time calculation with non-physical commodities, like software which is sold as a subscription service? Clearly necessary labor goes into creating it, maintaining it, and updating it, but since it is not sold as a commodity unit, like a hard disc, but is given as a subscribed service, a complication emerges.

>>2276470
*DOCTOR my apologies.

Question on our movement and cause:

Doctor Cockshott,

What is the best way forward for the socialist movement in the west, specifically Britain (and America).

What is tactics and strategy should we use, to mobilise and organise for socialism?

How should socialism be presented and promoted to the general public?

Do we have the objective conditions (crises of those below and those above) and subjective conditions (zeitgeist and organisations) for a revolutionary situation?

>>2276476
>How should socialism be presented and promoted to the general public?
We have to come up with a new name for it. Something like the "Abundance Party"

Mr. Cockshott

I am too late to think of a good question but I want to thank you for your great work. While the microphone is a bit lacking, the points you make are often keeping sense in a world that loses Atlas' grip

>>2276480
> While the microphone is a bit lacking,
He started using OBS finally

>>2276480
>>2276483
Oh right.

Professor Cockshott would you please let me do some minor editing work on your videos and send them back to you for upload? I ask for nothing in return and you already have my email address ( we conversed on Skype briefly once)

>>2276483
he should get a boom mic like picrel. they're like 50£ these days. would help in spreading the message

>>2276446
>I am reading Towards New Socialism, I want to ask, given that it was written in the 90s, are there parts of it you would consider obsolete? If you were to write the book now, what new things would you add to it, what would you change?
The technologies proposed to link factories to the center are now obviously obsolete with the internet. That is the main point that has changed.

>>2276490
>Professor Cockshott would you please let me do some minor editing work on your videos and send them back to you for upload? I ask for nothing in return and you already have my email address ( we conversed on Skype briefly once)
Could you not just download them to edit?

Dear Mr. Cockshott,

I've been intrigued with your writings for a while, and I am very interested with navigating putting your theories into practice.

On your "new socialism", which has come to be known as cybercommunism, I wish to understand how such a society would come about. My theory is that it would have to come about through existing means produced under capitalism, as a sort of "social network". Social networking has provided a means of making connections, and this website is certainly no exception. However, I believe that it would need to be transactional, with each member contributing to its development. We would need to build on what has come before in order to create a digital platform for a socialist movement. What is your take on this idea?

Secondly, I am also interested in cybercommunism as a means of nation-building. In our digital age, the internet has provided various ways of contributing to causes (i.e. crowdfunding). I believe that this could be an effective strategy for developing nations, autonomous zones seeking independence from their parent nation, or nations that have yet to exist. Though this largely exists in the form of taxes, could we see a crowdfunded nation come to fruition through your proposed digital society?

Lastly, I have recently come across a more right-wing influenced idea of a network-based society, known more commonly as the "network state". The idea is a decentralized economy based on cryptocurrency in which people can create based their ideas without interference from a state. One such movement is called "Praxis", who seek to build their own nation with the premise of "saving Western civilization", building a new "great city" and eventually creating a new space race. I'm curious where cybercommunism and cybercapitalism differ? Beyond planned economy vs laissez-faire, both seem dependent on the need for mutual aid.

Thanks for your time!

>>2276501
people can (with varying success) use command line tools like yt-dlp to edit, but those open source command line tools are always in an arms race with youtube's digital rights management.

>>2276501
I can, I just want them to be available readily. My channel has no viewers.

>>2276470
>Mister Cockshott, what do you think of attempts by Andrew Feinstein and others to establish a new left party built on local groupings? Would you join such an outfit? What electoral stances do you suggest they take up?
I am in the CP so it would depend on what attitude the CP took to it

>>2276381
>Dr. Cockshott, Is it possible to do labor time calculation with non-physical commodities, like software which is sold as a subscription service? Clearly necessary labor goes into creating it, maintaining it, and updating it, but since it is not sold as a commodity unit, like a hard disc, but is given as a subscribed service, a complication emerges.
You have to distinguish the actual process of production from the commercial model that it is operated under. Software, like books, audio etc requires considerable labour to initially produce, but can be distributed easily. So the issue is how society supports those workers doing the initial work of creating something which can later be copied. Its final cost to the consumer should be no more than the cost of copying.

1. Hey professor, it was you work that first got me into direct democracy. Do you have any plans for a full book on it?
2. Are you ever going to write an autobiography or memoir about your early days, how you got into computers, socialism, etc.

>>2276466
>What are your thinkings on the ways that social media will influence socialism? It seems like a handy combination between computerized data and social organization. Perhaps we can draft the five year plans on facebook live.
I doubt it. You need formal procedures to ensure the accuracy of data being supplied by economic units, and consequences for providing misleading info

>>2276491
>he should get a boom mic like picrel. they're like 50£ these days. would help in spreading the message
The mike I have looks like that minus the boom, it is on a desk stand

Hey professor cockshot, what's your writing process like?
I have a hard time finishing coding projects, so it's always impressive to me when someone can write big ol' books

>looks like Paully C shot has bailed out the thread
I was being locked out of the thread

Do you miss RevLeft forum? I enjoyed your posts there!

>>2276516
>Hey professor cockshot, what's your writing process like? I have a hard time finishing coding projects, so it's always impressive to me when someone can write big ol' books
I ususally write collectively. We agree on a division of labour and a time table. That discipline is a great help.

>>2276520
I suppose you iterate on revisions of different chapters in parallel?

>>2276471
>would you consider yourself a (heterodox) Maoist still (in reference to COBI)?
Broadly yes. If you look at the defence of Maos on Contradiction in our book in defence of Materialism you can see that.

Good evening Professor,
I have watched your videos about the economic and political reasons for the dissolution of the USSR. You emphasized the importance of its electoral system which favored the factory managers, a class that would benefit from a return to capitalism.
My question is: if a new socialist country were to appear, how should it handle the fact that its most educated workers would benefit from emigrating to a capitalist country, or from a return to capitalism in their home country?

Greetings Dr. Cockshott I for one first want to say it's a pleasure having you on our little niche image board for Mongolian throat singing. Jokes aside. I wanted to ask about your take on the increasing cannibalism of the LLM AI that we have seen?

Then my follow up to this is how should we address the rise of AI in a cybernetic socialist manner?

>>2276463
>I'm wondering what your thoughts are on FOSS and what lessons can be learned from the movement when it comes to broader socialism.
>Also what your favorite proglang and why
Strongly in favour of free software.
I mostly code in Java, it is ugly but its portability is good. I also write a lot using the Vector Pascal compiler I and my students developed.

Please enjoy this gift from our userbase.

Posting this once more, sorry.
>May i distribute a PDF of economic planning in an age of climate crisis i made ( for myself) from a copy i bought legally? It is hard to get the info to comrades with little money.

>>2276506
>I can, I just want them to be available readily. My channel has no viewers.
If you want to edit some and send them to me I can put them up as new versions if they are better

>>2276440
>May i distribute a PDF of economic planning in an age of climate crisis i made ( for myself) from a copy i bought legally? It is hard to get the info to comrades with little money.
Yes

>>2276372
Can commodity production be socialised or is it inherently a feature of capitalism. If so did the USSR achieve socialist commodity production?

>>2276533
Thank you kindly.

Hello professor,
You propose a system of non-transferable labor credits for consumer purchase to prevent the emergence of black markets. However, couldn't people agree to trade with each other using a non-perishable, fungible product they could buy off the shelves with their labor credits? Do you see this as a possibility, and if you do, what do you think should be done about it?

>>2276435
>do you consider your atomic materialism "physicalist", or "abstract"? to clarify, do you consider "atoms" tangible objects, or only abstract (mathematical) entities?
When you touch anything you are touching atoms, so yes they are literally 'tangible'.
Mathematically expressed laws, for instance Einsteins formulae for Brownian motion are software by which we can predict the effects of atoms. But the atoms are not the software, the software/calculation is used to simulate the effects of the atoms.

It was accepted that they were real because the actual movement of tiny particles of latex corresponded to the movement that the calculation predicted for random bombardment by water molecules.

>>2276508
that was my instinct but I couldn't word it so succinctly. thank you!

>>2276388
do you expect an answer when you mock his name like that? be serious for one day lol

Do you have a favorite out of all the socialist countries, revolutions and projects?

>>2276539
>couldn't people agree to trade with each other using a non-perishable, fungible product they could buy off the shelves with their labor credits?
What would be the point?
If you can get what you need from state shops with your labour credits how would you get it cheaper by people buying stuff in state supermarkets and then engaging in swaps in the supermarket carparks?

>>2276442
>What do you think of gun rights and do you believe an armed working class is a good thing?
It is clear that Marx strongly opposed any surrender of arms by the workers. Mao said similar things.

>>2276396
>Hello sir, it is my understanding that you reject dialectics because dialectical materialism is an invention of Joseph Dietzgen, not Marx, and your contention is that the soviet union mistakenly attribute these ideas to Marx, and that dialectical materialism is not Marxism, and that true Marxism embraces empiricism over dialectics. Is this a correct characterization or is there more nuance to your position?
A bit of an oversimplification. Dialectical materialism certainly comes from Dietzgen not Marx. But Mao's dialectics are a means of anlysing political and military conjunctures and as such are a genuine innovation, bringing to the fore things which were not clearly expressed by Marx and were just implicit in Lenin's politics

>>2276550
based and Zardoz pilled

Ok signing out now, have too many other discussion threads ongoing on other media.

>>2276548
>If you can get what you need from state shops with your labour credits how would you get it cheaper by people buying stuff in state supermarkets and then engaging in swaps in the supermarket carparks?
If that is the case, is there any point in labour credits being non-transferable? Would their potential tradeability cause any complications to planned economy?

>>2276559
It was a pleasure!

>>2276559
Thank you for your time.

>>2276559
thank you for answering our questions! sadly mine didn't get answered

Moved to >>>/leftypol_archive/599158.