/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2446778
is it difficult being illiterate?

>>2443892
Grundrisse is an unpublished work of younger Marx though. We can assume that he might have changed his thoughts?

>>2446788
irs okay to cry, knowing that marx is a totalitarian capitalist apologist
>>2447216
yes, he changes his thoughts for the worse. he begins consistently, saying that value did not exist before capitalism, but a decade later, he says that value inherently exists between two commodities - this is backed up by engels' comments that the law of value has existed for milennia. what is contradictory in this is that he is saying that value is *not* a mere abstraction, but a "law" for conducting trade which implies itself in the relation. this would be fine as a mere deduction, but marx gets metaphysical by positing labour as the "substance of value" in all cases. this would imply a physical explanation rather than a social one. this would be formalising value as a transmission of energy however, and so naturalising economic reality (which he expressly speaks against at the end of capital vol. 1, chapter 1; he also anthropormorphises the concept of labour, so he cannot be merely speaking of energy).

a second contradiction is marx claiming that a use-value consumed via the medium of exchange constitutes a value relation, while the same process performed by a medium of direct distribution does not entail the relation of value (the contradiction is that both may confer "productive consumption", yet they are given different ends, by their means). a capitalist state simply taking control of distribution would mean the eradication of value to marx thus, even with wage labour, exploitation and class society.

a third contradiction is that marx sees exchange being implied in money circulation, yet deems the purchasing of goods by labour certificates as terminating of value. this is because certificates directly exchange for a particular good, while money may trade for all goods; so again, to marx, the ends of production and consumption dont matter; its the means. for this reason, he preserves wage labour, exploitation and money in his vision of "lower phase communism", amounting to stalin and mao's "socialist commodity production", which is wrongly vilified by leftcoms looking to defend marx against revision, when the leninists and maoists have only been consistent with marx's political vision; a type of totalitarian capitalism, as he first affirms in the manifesto - the state controls everything, which means man losing his political subjectivity and being converted into a basic economic unit to feed the machine. obviously, the capitalist west have also been loyal to marx in this respect.

>>2443892
you have no hegel under your belt so that-s why you see contradictions where there are not. The abstract concept of value as characteristic of modernity does not exclude a retroactive application of such a concept to antiquity, in fact, such a retroactive application is henceforth necessary as modernity has "unlocked" this concept which was already operating implicitly but explicitly recognized by us. The same thing goes for the concept of "right", for example: just because the ancients did not have the abstract concept of "rights", aside from local germs, doesn't mean that slave did not have, in themselves, human dignity. The historical situation was such that general consciousness and the invoentory of concepts we had to apply to reality where not advanced enough, we did not have enough conceptual experience, to recognize such a fact, but modernity unlocks a great amount of concepts that can retroactively be used like that.

>>2447252
this would only make sense is value is a law governing social relationships or a physical relationship between objects. if it is a social phenomenon, then what are its constituents? to marx, its not about production or consuption, but only about exchange - the issue is that in circulation, there is no substantial difference between distribution and exchange. marx even understands them as extensive concepts:
>Production creates the objects which correspond to the given needs; distribution divides them up according to social laws; exchange further parcels out the already divided shares in accord with individual needs; and finally, in consumption, the product steps outside this social movement and becomes a direct object and servant of individual need, and satisfies it in being consumed.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
so the only difference between P-E-C and P-D-C is that in P-D-C there's a monopoly on how people receive the social product, yet to marx this entails an abolition of value (a law of social relations, as you put it), because money becomes coupons and capitalists become bureaucrats.

>>2447244
The simple answer is that Marx is engaging in some clever charlatanry that superficially makes sense. You can reduce the objects of exchange to an abstract unit. You really can't do the things Marx asserts you can do with surplus value without a lot of qualifications, that were never necessary for capital to continue nor things the capitalist found interesting.

It comes about because Marx was tasked with short-circuiting critiques of money by confusing what money is. Money is only a tool. It only has power because states and dominant mercantile interests issue it, rather than money appearing by any organic or necessary function it serves. All the way up until the classical empires, "money" as such didn't exist, in that states didn't have anything to do with money directly. The merchants had to pay their tax in something useful to the state, and were always checked from becoming too strong in society. You didn't have any mentality that suggested merchants were to be trusted with anything until the middle ages and the late middle ages at that, and that strangely enough occurred because everyone who wasn't a merchant had to follow stringent rules about how they could conduct commercial activity, and there was an opening for lending services that used to be things done in the commons or by what amounted to mafias. The big reason why the merchants gained power was because the campaigns of feudal warlords began to concern places more remote, and require technology that wasn't required before like guns and ships.

The way we treat money in modern banking is very unusual; but, people always had concepts of value and the comparative worth of objects. The comparisons they made weren't always in some fungible unit of currency, because that was and always had been retarded and counterproductive. The capitalist never purely saw their products as "just another commodity". Everything they produced had purposes, including purposes that were not the design of the capitalist but that the capitalist had to acknowledge lest the product he made turn into a weapon used against him. From the very start of modernity, the capitalist was obsessive about controlling technology and production, because his existence was dependent on technology in a way no other class was before him. So too did the states of modernity adopt this thinking. The idea that capitalism was ever a "free market" is rather bizarre when you look at what actually happened, and how free markets were always a disaster every time they were tried.

You know why "free markets" exist? They exist for opium dealers to come in and shit up a country. That's all it was ever for.

>>2447293
>The simple answer is that Marx is engaging in some clever charlatanry that superficially makes sense.
if his position was simply that "socialism is when the government does stuff" for the benefit of citizens, there would be no controversy (since this is how most people understand socialism to begin with). the theoretical baggage comes with certain erroneous assertions, such as the "abolition of the state", "abolition of money", "abolition of the division of labour" and the "abolition of wage labour", of which can never be demonstrated by marx, since on all accounts, he appears to preserve them.
>From the very start of modernity, the capitalist was obsessive about controlling technology and production, because his existence was dependent on technology in a way no other class was before him.
yes and marxists propose a class system where governments rule over citizenry in the same way.
>>2447294
as smith and ricardo demonstrate, there is a "law of comparative advantage" which allows for cheaper commodities being traded via international competition (by specialisation of production). foreign trade makes sense in this context, even where smith says there are necessary regulations, such as the protection of national defence industries (he uses the example of the navy):
https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/book-iv-chapter-2
he sees the class element also; the cheaper commodity is beneficial to the consumer, while a more expensive commodity is beneficial to the merchant and manufacturer; thus, a monopoly of domestic markets benefits the domestic merchant and manufacturer over the consumer. economic nationalism can entail this dynamic, but i would claim that some αὐτάρκεια is necessary for a society.

>>2447333
>which can never be demonstrated by marx, since on all accounts, he appears to preserve them.
looks like we have come full circle to my original point last year that only reading capital turns you into an idiot

>>2447244
how do you maintain such confidence in the face of reality constantly proving you wrong? is this the power of psychosis?

>>2447244
>which means man losing his political subjectivity and being converted into a basic economic unit to feed the machine.
In what way is the liberal keynesianism that you love so much different than the Chinese model? You know, besides it actually working…
What you claim to want is essentially Dengism but its been pointed out multiple times and you just dodge.
>obviously, the capitalist west have also been loyal to marx in this respect.
Or maybe its industrialization in general that turns people into economic units. Marx of course does have an answer to this and its the same one you missed by saying he intends to preserve the state.

Of course this makes it pretty obvious that you know keynesian doesn't work and why and you pretend to advocate it because it will simply preserve the status quo as proven historically.

If you are still confused you should pick up Lenin, he merely repeats Marx, as you know, but his writing is much more precise.

>>2447797
im not referencing capital though? 🤔 you have one line, i guess. be proud of your contribution. to help you comprehend, i will be specific in my citations. here's marx in the communist manifesto claiming that the political state is substituted for a productive state:
>When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
again, in "poverty of philosophy":
>The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02e.htm
and engels in "socialism, utopian and scientific":
>Yet what is here already very plainly expressed is the idea of the future conversion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction of processes of production – that is to say, the “abolition of the state”, about which recently there has been so much noise.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm
so the state is "abolished" when it controls the means of production and men are converted from political subjects into economic objects. here's marx on communist wage labour, value, taxation and money:
>Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.
>Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost.
>Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be deducted again, from it: First, the general costs of administration not belonging to production. This part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops. Second, that which is intended for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc. From the outset, this part grows considerably in comparison with present-day society, and it grows in proportion as the new society develops. Third, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
so in marx's lower phase communism, everything is basically the same except that the government is our new boss, and we get coupons instead of money.

>>2448069
it would actually be nice to be proven wrong for a change
>>2448219
>In what way is the liberal keynesianism that you love so much different than the Chinese model?
keynes wanted a 15-hour work week:
<we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter—to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/keynes_persuasion/Economic_Possibilities_for_our_Grandchildren.htm
>Or maybe its industrialization in general that turns people into economic units
and thats a good thing to you because "progress", right?
>Marx of course does have an answer
yes; to make everyone a slave of the state. im too western for this despotic nonsense, as keynes confers:
<Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the Red bookshops? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here [USSR], unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.
https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/keynes_persuasion/A_Short_View_of_Russia.htm

what is this generals opinion on friedrich list and henry carey

>>2448597
Keynes would have supported modern China. It's why MMTers always point to China. A genuine Keynesian becomes a socialist always because Keynesians think that the economic question can be easily solved and as soon as hard evidence proves that it can't, they realize that the only way to realize their preferred policies is under a hardline socialist state.

>>2448603
all these manners of socialism are just repackaged asian despotisms. they work for eastern peoples, but not for westerners.
>all keynesians become hardline socialist statists
not at all. keynes' politics were based around opposing both lasseiz-faire and state socialism, by a doctrine of "new liberalism" focused around social justice. his economic concern was around full employment. as i have cited many times also, he places silvio gesell against marx as a way to articulate his feelings:
>The purpose of the book as a whole may be described as the establishment of an anti-Marxian socialism, a reaction against laissez-faire built on theoretical foundations totally unlike those of Marx in being based on a repudiation instead of on an acceptance of the classical hypotheses, and on an unfettering of competition instead of its abolition. I believe that the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch23.htm
>Thus I agree with Gesell that the result of filling in the gaps in the classical theory is not to dispose of the ‘Manchester System’, but to indicate the nature of the environment which the free play of economic forces requires if it is to realise the full potentialities of production.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch24.htm
gesell was radically free market, but equally in favour of "free money" which he saw the liberals of his day abandoning for the sake of political interest. i criticise gesell's vision by positing the classical hypotheses in its place, so as to thus counter both gesell and keynes:
>>2391702
>>2391805
so i find classical liberalism more legitimate than new liberalism.

>>2448615
>all these manners of socialism are just repackaged asian despotisms. they work for eastern peoples, but not for westerners.
The funny thing about that is most of these asian despotisms was influenced by what western countries developed first. There is a economic line starting from mercantalist britian to camerialist germany/american school america to meiji japan. And then you can connect this meiji japan link to post war japan, south korea under park, chiang kai shek taiwan. And then you can link these lines to modern prc china.
It might seem bizaree but theres a fascinating link that goes from modern prc china back to mercantalist britain. The german economists (like the list fellow here alongside the german historical school) based their economic theories on the historical expirences of mercantalist britain. Meiji japan was highly influenced by germanys economic expirence (germany was one of the major models for meiji japans reforms). Park chung hee south korea and chiang kai shek taiwan was influenced by japans colonization (and also park chung hee was a former imperial japan soldier). Post war japan kept a lot of pre war figures which helped form japans major economic planning agency called the ministry of international trade and industry. And finally chinese officials during dengs reforms went out and looked throughout the world, some of these (japan, taiwan and etc) being major influences.
So in a way what you call the asian despotisms can be linked back to the west

>>2448624
i was speaking more of what concerns the political structures of various asian countries (including the middle east) than their economics. this clash of civilisations is even commented upon by marx, in his consideration of russia possessing a different destiny to the west:
>In dealing with the genesis of capitalist production, I have said that at its foundation lies “the radical separation of the producer from the means of production” (Capital, page 315, col. I, French edition) and that “the basis of this whole evolution is the expropriation of the agriculturists. It has as yet been radically accomplished only in England … But all the other countries of Western Europe are going through the same movement.” (L.c., col. II.) I have thus expressly restricted the “historical fatality” of this movement to the countries of Western Europe.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol08/no10/marx-zas.htm

>2448597
>it would actually be nice to be proven wrong for a change

>>2448591
>so the state is "abolished" when it controls the means of production and men are converted from political subjects into economic objects.
>so in marx's lower phase communism
the state is abolished in higher phase communism

>>2448615
>they work for eastern peoples, but not for westerners.
Tell us more.

>>2448640
>was speaking more of what concerns the political structures of various asian countries
well regarding politics what do you refer to that in particular. What exactly seperates the west and east politically? Asking in good faith so I can see the specifics of what you mean with that

>>2448650
>>2448645
statism, tribalism and illiberalism
i would characterise the present order of the west as "totalitarian liberalism" in its attempts to preserve liberal universality in the face of civic and economic antagonism, which is regretful, yet western ideals are still fundamentally liberal, where as it was once said by neoreactionary curtis yarvin, "libertarians and nazis want the same thing", in the sense of the state being a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. similarly, bourgeois revolutions in the west (the english civil war, the american revolution, the french revolution and the american civil war) all appointed temporary dictatorships to defend the cause, but never for the sake of the dictatorship itself - an example is oliver cromwell denying the title of king, the same as george washington. the east appears to glorify dictators as cults of personality in whom there is the expression of one's own identity. some still feel this way about monarchs, but no absolute monarchies exist in the west, while they still do in places like north korea. the western ethos then is liberal individualism, i would say, which then also implies that the rest of the world is not particularly interested in democracy and such, which i agree with, and so oppose the idea of exporting western values to the rest of the planet, which largely seems to be a guise for imperialism. all western reactionaries just want a period of restoring liberalism by force, you will notice; hans hermann hoppe and ludwig von mises express the same feeling. there is no post-liberal concept, since it is the end of history.
>>2448644
not according to marx; he makes even more fanciful leaps and bounds however, claiming that the division of labour itself will be abolished. another nonsense:
>In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

>>2448650
keynesian policies require a proletarian dictatorship to be sustainable so he pretends to support it while retaining capitalism knowing it leads to the current situation.

>>2448662
>not according to marx
yes, according to marx, and also engels as shown in the quote you provided
>the idea of the future conversion

>>2448666
lets complete the sentence:
>the idea of the future conversion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction of processes of production – that is to say, the “abolition of the state”, about which recently there has been so much noise.
so to marx and engels, the political state is replaced by an administration of things, which controls the means of production.

classical liberal, john stuart mill, on socialism: these "chapters on socialism" were originally unpublished and part of an incomplete manuscript dealing with socialism generally. written in 1879, he presents the positions made by socialists and his own objections, in 4 parts: "socialist objections to the present order of society", "socialist objections to the present order of society - examined", "the difficulties of socialism" and "the idea of private property: not fixed, but variable". mill concludes that for socialism to work, all members of society must be moral and intellectual, and for it to be legitimised, it should be conducted by trial and error in local experiments rather than wholesale political capture. he says that the future may perhaps be communist, but in the current era, it is functionally impossible.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38138/38138-h/38138-h.htm
https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/reader-mill-socialism

<(1) socialist objections to the present order of society:
>In the opinion of Socialists, the present arrangements of society in respect to Property and the Production and Distribution of Wealth, are, as means to the general good, a total failure […] First among existing social evils may be mentioned the evil of Poverty […] The reward, instead of being proportioned to the labour and abstinence of the individual, is almost in an inverse ratio to it: those who receive the least, labour and abstain the most [.] The very idea of distributive justice, or of any proportionality between success and merit, or between success and exertion, is in the present state of society so manifestly chimerical as to be relegated to the regions of romance […] These evils, then—great poverty, and that poverty very little connected with desert—are the first grand failure of the existing arrangements of society.

>Socialists consider [individualism] this system of private war (as it may be termed) between every one and every one, especially fatal in an economical point of view and in a moral […] Society, in short, is travelling onward, according to these speculators, towards a new feudality, that of the great capitalists […] But who is so blind as not to see that under the system of unlimited competition, the continual fall of wages is no exceptional circumstance, but a necessary and general fact? […] It is an industrial system by means of which the working classes are forced to exterminate one another.

>According to the political economists of the school of Adam Smith and Léon Say, cheapness is the word in which may be summed up the advantages of unlimited competition [.] Cheapness is, so to speak, the hammer with which the rich among the producers crush their poorer rivals [.] Cheapness is the great instrument in the hands of monopoly; it absorbs the small manufacturer, the small shopkeeper, the small proprietor; it is, in one word, the destruction of the middle classes for the advantage of a few industrial oligarchs. Ought we, then, to consider cheapness as a curse? […] Thus, and we cannot too often insist upon it, competition necessarily tends to increase supply and to diminish consumption; its tendency therefore is precisely the opposite of what is sought by economic science; hence it is not merely oppressive but foolish as well.

>It is evident that the interest of the trader is opposed to that of the consumer and of the producer. Has he not bought cheap and undervalued as much as possible in all his dealings with the producer, the very same article which, vaunting its excellence, he sells to you as dear as he can? Thus the interest of the commercial body, collectively and individually, is contrary to that of the producer and of the consumer—that is to say, to the interest of the whole body of society. The trader is a go-between, who profits by the general anarchy and the non-organization of industry […] It robs society by shameless and unlimited usury—usury absolutely appalling. The trader carries on operations with fictitious capital, much higher in amount that his real capital […] This principle of distribution makes a class in society whose business it is to buy from some parties and to sell to others [.] Their real object being to get as much profit as gain between the seller to, and the buyer from them, as can be effected in their transactions. There are innumerable errors in principle and evils in practice which necessarily proceed from this mode of distributing the wealth of society […] By this arrangement into various classes of buyers and sellers, the parties are easily trained to learn that they have separate and opposing interests, and different ranks and stations in society […] The distributers of wealth, under the present system, are a dead weight upon the producers, and are most active demoralisers of society.

>In the opinion of the Fourierists, the tendency of the present order of society is to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a comparatively few immensely rich individuals or companies, and the reduction of all the rest of the community into a complete dependence on them. This was termed by Fourier la féodalité industrielle. This feudalism, [says M. Considérant,] would be constituted as soon as the largest part of the industrial and territorial property of the nation belongs to a minority which absorbs all its revenues, while the great majority, chained to the work-bench or labouring on the soil, must be content to gnaw the pittance which is cast to them. This disastrous result is to be brought about partly by the mere progress of competition, as sketched in our previous extract by M. Louis Blanc; assisted by the progress of national debts, which M. Considérant regards as mortgages of the whole land and capital of the country, of which “les capitalistes prêteurs” become, in a greater and greater measure, co-proprietors, receiving without labour or risk an increasing portion of the revenues.



<(2) socialist objections to the present order of society - examined
>But the strongest case is susceptible of exaggeration; and it will have been evident to many readers, even from the passages I have quoted, that such exaggeration is not wanting in the representations of the ablest and most candid Socialists […] In the first place, it is unhappily true that the wages of ordinary labour, in all the countries of Europe, are wretchedly insufficient to supply the physical and moral necessities of the population in any tolerable measure [.] It has yet to be proved that there is any country in the civilised world where the ordinary wages of labour, estimated either in money or in articles of consumption, are declining; while in many they are, on the whole, on the increase; and an increase which is becoming, not slower, but more rapid.

>Next, it must be observed that Socialists generally, and even the most enlightened of them, have a very imperfect and one-sided notion of the operation of competition […] In truth, when competition is perfectly free on both sides, its tendency is not specially either to raise or to lower the price of articles, but to equalise it; to level inequalities of remuneration, and to reduce all to a general average, a result which, in so far as realised (no doubt very imperfectly), is, on Socialistic principles, desirable.

>It seemed desirable to begin the discussion of the Socialist question by these remarks in abatement of Socialist exaggerations, in order that the true issues between Socialism and the existing state of society might be correctly conceived. The present system is not, as many Socialists believe, hurrying us into a state of general indigence and slavery from which only Socialism can save us. The evils and injustices suffered under the present system are great, but they are not increasing; on the contrary, the general tendency is towards their slow diminution.


<(3) the difficulties of socialism
>Among those who call themselves Socialists, two kinds of persons may be distinguished. There are, in the first place, those whose plans for a new order of society, in which private property and individual competition are to be superseded and other motives to action substituted, are on the scale of a village community or township, and would be applied to an entire country by the multiplication of such self-acting units; of this character are the systems of Owen, of Fourier, and the more thoughtful and philosophic Socialists generally. The other class, who are more a product of the Continent than of Great Britain and may be called the revolutionary Socialists, propose to themselves a much bolder stroke. Their scheme is the management of the whole productive resources of the country by one central authority, the general government. And with this view some of them avow as their purpose that the working classes, or somebody in their behalf, should take possession of all the property of the country, and administer it for the general benefit. Whatever be the difficulties of the first of these two forms of Socialism, the second must evidently involve the same difficulties and many more. The former, too, has the great advantage that it can be brought into operation progressively, and can prove its capabilities by trial.

>[…] It thus appears that as far as concerns the motives to exertion in the general body, Communism has no advantage which may not be reached under private property, while as respects the managing heads it is at a considerable disadvantage. It has also some disadvantages which seem to be inherent in it, through the necessity under which it lies of deciding in a more or less arbitrary manner questions which, on the present system, decide themselves, often badly enough, but spontaneously. It is a simple rule, and under certain aspects a just one, to give equal payment to all who share in the work. But this is a very imperfect justice unless the work also is apportioned equally […] But further, it is still a very imperfect standard of justice to demand the same amount of work from every one. People have unequal capacities of work, both mental and bodily, and what is a light task for one is an insupportable burthen to another. It is necessary, therefore, that there should be a dispensing power, an authority competent to grant exemptions from the ordinary amount of work, and to proportion tasks in some measure to capabilities.

>Other and numerous sources of discord are inherent in the necessity which the Communist principle involves, of deciding by the general voice questions of the utmost importance to every one, which on the present system can be and are left to individuals to decide, each for his own case […] Here, then, is a most fruitful source of discord in every association. All who had any opinion or preference as to the education they would desire for their own children, would have to rely for their chance of obtaining it upon the influence they could exercise in the joint decision of the community.

>The one certainty is, that Communism, to be successful, requires a high standard of both moral and intellectual education in all the members of the community [.] It is for Communism, then, to prove, by practical experiment, its power of giving this training […] If practical trial is necessary to test the capabilities of Communism, it is no less required for those other forms of Socialism which recognise the difficulties of Communism and contrive means to surmount them.

>The result of our review of the various difficulties of Socialism has led us to the conclusion that the various schemes for managing the productive resources of the country by public instead of private agency have a case for a trial, and some of them may eventually establish their claims to preference over the existing order of things, but that they are at present workable only by the élite of mankind, and have yet to prove their power of training mankind at large to the state of improvement which they presuppose. Far more, of course, may this be said of the more ambitious plan which aims at taking possession of the whole land and capital of the country, and beginning at once to administer it on the public account. Apart from all consideration of injustice to the present possessors, the very idea of conducting the whole industry of a country by direction from a single centre is so obviously chimerical, that nobody ventures to propose any mode in which it should be done; and it can hardly be doubted that if the revolutionary Socialists attained their immediate object, and actually had the whole property of the country at their disposal, they would find no other practicable mode of exercising their power over it than that of dividing it into portions, each to be made over to the administration of a small Socialist community […] It is saying but little to say that the introduction of Socialism under such conditions could have no effect but disastrous failure, and its apostles could have only the consolation that the order of society as it now exists would have perished first, and all who benefit by it would be involved in the common ruin—a consolation which to some of them would probably be real, for if appearances can be trusted the animating principle of too many of the revolutionary Socialists is hate; a very excusable hatred of existing evils, which would vent itself by putting an end to the present system at all costs even to those who suffer by it, in the hope that out of chaos would arise a better Kosmos, and in the impatience of desperation respecting any more gradual improvement […] If the poorest and most wretched members of a so-called civilised society are in as bad a condition as every one would be in that worst form of barbarism produced by the dissolution of civilised life, it does not follow that the way to raise them would be to reduce all others to the same miserable state. On the contrary, it is by the aid of the first who have risen that so many others have escaped from the general lot, and it is only by better organization of the same process that it may be hoped in time to succeed in raising the remainder.


<(4) the idea of private property: not fixed, but variable
>The preceding considerations appear sufficient to show that an entire renovation of the social fabric, such as is contemplated by Socialism, establishing the economic constitution of society upon an entirely new basis, other than that of private property and competition, however valuable as an ideal, and even as a prophecy of ultimate possibilities, is not available as a present resource, since it requires from those who are to carry on the new order of things qualities both moral and intellectual, which require to be tested in all, and to be created in most; and this cannot be done by an Act of Parliament, but must be, on the most favourable supposition, a work of considerable time.

>Again, if rights of property over the same things are of different extent in different countries, so also are they exercised over different things. In all countries at a former time, and in some countries still, the right of property extended and extends to the ownership of human beings. There has often been property in public trusts, as in judicial offices, and a vast multitude of others in France before the Revolution; there are still a few patent offices in Great Britain, though I believe they will cease by operation of law on the death of the present holders; and we are only now abolishing property in army rank […] Under this condition, however, society is fully entitled to abrogate or alter any particular right of property which on sufficient consideration it judges to stand in the way of the public good. And assuredly the terrible case which, as we saw in a former chapter,[*]Socialists are able to make out against the present economic order of society, demands a full consideration of all means by which the institution may have a chance of being made to work in a manner more beneficial to that large portion of society which at present enjoys the least share of its direct benefits.

>>2448669
>so to marx and engels, the political state is replaced by an administration of things, which controls the means of production.
the "administration of things" happens after a sufficient increase in productive forces that work becomes lifes prime want, that is, in the higher phase of communism.

they are pretty clear about this idk how you missed it

what are some resources to learn more about Marxian economics other than marx and engels?

>>2449386
why would work ever become "life's prime want"? lol
keep quoting scripture.

>>2449470
Because it will be scarce and you will gain social status for doing it, simple as

>>2449473
more nonsense.

>>2449475
How so?

1. There won't be much work to do
2. How else to collect social status? your big golden throne and fancy clothes, big whoop everybody else can get one too

>>2449470
because a sufficient increase in productive forces means work becomes scarce and products become abundant. thats how the dynamic of from each according to ability to each according to need comes about, it requires a sufficient material foundation.

this is really basic stuff. the lower phase dictatorship of the proletariat rationally plans the economy to increase productive forces until it reaches that situation. its also in more of what you quoted

>after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want

and right before the engels quote
>The knowledge that economic conditions are the basis of political institutions appears here only in embryo.

and another one from engels
>State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished". It dies out.

see hes saying that, for example, as the state monopolizes agriculture and increases mechanized harvest, after a period they no longer have to coerce people to farm, and simply distribute the massive surplus of food, and this happens in each sector as the productive forces become sufficient, and after its completed in all sectors the state withers away

>>2448662
yeah it figures you are a crypto fascist that wants to live in peter thiels company town paid ubi by ai powered company scrip

unfortunately for you china is winning

>>2449524
Everyone loves red fordism.

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1016518

>>2449501
>because a sufficient increase in productive forces means work becomes scarce

I don't remember that part. It was more about socialism freeing up the creative aspects of human labor so it would be desirable compared to capitalism. It was an undercooked idea though. No one has ever explained how dirty and dangerous jobs can involve creative self expression of our species-being. Hunter-gatherers and independent farmers had to be forced into factories with violence and theft on a grand scale.

>>2449561
It's in the Grundwisse

>>2449561
>I don't remember that part.
its like the entire premise of marxism. industrialization unleashes human productive capacity but private ownership for profit creates artificial scarcity despite potential abundance. thats the difference between utopianism and materialism as marx sees it. utopians think you could have had socialism at any time in history by passing a law or convincing enough people but marx sees it as something rooted in the social reproduction of society and a sufficient means of production as a prerequisite. creativity and desire come after the material base to facilitate it is built

>>2449488
>>2449501
>work will be scarce therefore it will become "life's prime want" …?
still not making sense. why not just say marx was not cooking with that line?
>>2449524
lol
>>2449611
>marxism is about abundance
idiotic, wasteful worldview

>>2450177
so if you had all your needs met you would just do nothing all day? you dont have any crafts or hobbies?

sad

>>2450206
>hobbies
do hobbies count as "work"? 🤨
you must know youre not making sense.

>>2450211
people do unpaid volunteer work as a hobby all the time like moderate websites, record tutorials, design open source software, etc.

>>2450221
you mentioned "hobbies" specifically
are hobbies in themselves "work"?

>>2450223
>you
not the same anon but volunteer work is a form of hobby. like if you go hiking you might also teach others how to hike.

>>2450226
so two people cant answer a simple question then?
if i play videogames as a hobby, is that "work"?

>>2450227
No that specifically is not work but that was also not the original question.

>>2450228
>that is not work
okay, so hobbies are in themselves not work
try a new angle.

>>2450251
hobbies in themselves mean Hobbies abstractly (H).
this means that all particular hobbies (h) are included within the category of something being a hobby, so if one part of (H) does not conform to its common identity as "work" (w), then (H) in itself ≠ (w). as a formula we may express it likewise:
(H) = (h1, h2, h3…); (h1) = (H)
proposition: (H) = (w); = (h1)
counter: (h2) ≠ (w)
conclusion:
(h1) = (w); ≠ (h2)
(H) ≠ (w)
so in particularising the variable, we come to say that only some hobbies may be work, while not all hobbies are work, thus hobbies are not work in itself, causing contradiction in the abstract generality: >>2450206
(i.e.) "hobbies are work". a middle term, or condition, is then required to qualify the statement correctly, so as to give it correctness; "some hobbies are work". my line of questioning then determines this by deduction.

>>2450277
They targeted gamers.

Gamers.

We're a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.

We'll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it's fun.

We'll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.

Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know every little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.

Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?

These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We're already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren't shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We've been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that's already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they've threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can't is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.

Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You're not special, you're not original, you're not the first; this is just another boss fight.