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>>2381106Dump all the seemingly pointless, dubious, and frivolous questions that don't deserve their own shitty threads.
Got a question that's probably been asked a million times before? You're in the right landfill, buddy. Post it here.
Threads that otherwise might go in here will eventually find themselves become merged to this thread.
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https://archive.is/ga3OGHow come I asked the first question in this thread?
>>2745685Because I didn't shamelessly repost my question from the last thread soon enough.
———–
Could an Iranian regime change be used as an exercise in dialectic thinking? I know that "thesis antithesis synthesis" is often oversimplified to the level of a meme but is there something to it?
The removal of an anti-American force in the world and the expansion of Ameri-zionist imperialism hurts poor people
vs
Many people in Iran have long suffered under the theocratic regime and have awaited it's downfall however it may arrive
Synthesis: ???
For the sake of learning I would prefer an answer that doesn't boil down to "one of the arguments is wrong therefore the statement is invalid".
Thank you!
>>2745894you dont seem to really understand dialectics or contradiction (or even interesting factual statements)
>that doesn't boil down to "one of the arguments is wrong therefore the statement is invalid".first you cant avoid this simply by asking people to not do it, because indeed, your statements are shit
> The removal of an anti-American force in the world and the expansion of Ameri-zionist imperialism hurts poor people"poor people" is way to wide and vague, and "hurt" as well
>Many people in Iran have long suffered under the theocratic regime and have awaited it's downfall however it may arrivewhat means "many people" there? and sure some people may think that, so what
second, those are not in direct contradiction, both can be true without ever interacting with each other, second they are just statements, not actual evolving dynamics of two forces fighting each other describing part of the current state of reality
a synthesis is something that solve the contradiction by creating a new state of affairs and dynamics, with new contradictions. But your statements being so shit, we cant deliver a synthesis here.
a dialectical analysis of the iranian situation would identify multiple contradiction, first the class contradiction ofc (workers and capitalist ruling class in iran have diverging interest but depend on each other, synthesis -> solved by socialism); the religious contradiction (ruling class depend on capitalism but justify themselves through religion, and their behavior can either tend toward religiosity but loose capitalist opportunities and loose economic power, or tend toward capitalism and loose legitimacy with the masses -> synthesis secularization of the state); but the primary contradiction right now, the one that must takes the forefront in any analysis, is the imperialist one (the ruling class want an independent foreign policy defending their interest, and to develop the country through capitalism and use their resources for it, but the US empire want to exploit them, control their resources and prevent them from being a threat to their interests in the region, chiefly israel ->synthesis either become vassal to the USor destroy US grip on the region and global economy)
note I'm myself not an expert at all on that dialectic shit, this is just an humble attempt to convey what I understood of it
>>2746158This was helpful. As you may understand, what I was geting as was "could the invasion be helpful for the Iranian working class?". Even I've understood as much as that marxism isn't based on morals, or generally used to determine what's right and wrong, but surely a material understanding of the situation is needed to make any kind of judgement. Based on your examples I feel like I'm a tiny step closer to understanding the mode of thought, and thought about how to rephrase the contradiction(s) more in dynamic opposing forces, but it's probably not worth discussing further here.
did cpusa anon ever sell his gme?
>>2746256>what I was geting as was "could the invasion be helpful for the Iranian working class?". yeah I got that
I think what you wanted to identify is a contradiction specifically among the people wanting to overthrow the regime who want to do it for the interest of the working class
a better formulation would then be
"downfall of current iranian government would be an imperialist victory and would eventually hurt the working class of iran" in contradiction with "current iran government doesnt rule in the interest of the working classes and we want its downfall for that". The only way out of this one that I see is to defeat imperialist aggression and plans towards iran first, so that you can then change iranian government without giving a victory to imperialism and actually improve things for the lower class.
Well, the other way would be that the current government go comprador, so then fighting imperialism and fighting the current gov would be the same thing, but I think you can see how thats not a solution to the contradiction the marxists would favor.
Has materialism always been a minority position/worldview?
>>2747241depends a bit how you define materialism precisely
but overall, on the scientific side it always had a following, you can argue Aristotle was a materialist and he was a big reference for science everywhere, including by religious people that conducted research (iirc even the catholic church recognized him as mostly right), and now the dominant liberal ideology claim to be materialist (but often isnt), and most modern philosophies are materialist. Even religions today avoid contesting materialism on its home turf (what science can explain adequately), they just moved their idealist shit further up on shit science cant answer yet
materialism is just too useful because it give results, so it was never completely outright rejected
Do I need to read Hegel to understand better Marxism?
>>2747336It seems to me materialism is not something most people hold.
>>2747353people hold plenty of contradictory views at the same time
>>2747338I means, it prolly help (if you can understand it), but most everyone agree he is fucking unreadable
>>2747473
The same thing it offers everyone else
>>2747336please stop shadowboxing ffs.
>>2747241in aristotle's metaphysics (book 1-2), he explains how most of the presocratic philosophers (600-450 BCE) were all materialists. The last in this line was Empedocles, who in positing the 4 elements as the composition of things, also established dualism, carried on into the pythagoreans, who to aristotle, were the first non-materialists (by positing the real essence of things as "number"). Later with Socrates do we get the burgeoning of idealism, by the inquiry as to the nature of things in themselves. Socrates' student, Plato, is most often seen as the father of idealism, by basing the reality of things in their abstraction. according to diogenes laertus, Plato is also the founder of dialectics (e.g. the socratic method). From this formalism, Aristotle later develops Logic. Plato also writes that the ancient poets (e.g. Homer, 800 BCE) were materialists, hence attributing the first cause of things as Oceanus - the same way Thales (the first philosopher) saw that all things are of water.
So then, we can deduce that materialism was the standard worldview of people before Plato, but it also persisted afterwards, such as in the atomism of Democritus and Epicurus, which was carried into stoicism, which took over Ancient Rome. After Theodosius canonised christianity as the official religion of Rome in 380 CE, we can see idealism as the appointed ontology of the ruling class, which for about a milennia, dominated by scholastic teaching. Coming into the mid-14th century, we see the decline of catholic authority in western europe, eventually leading to the Reformation (1517-) which is concurrent with the development of capitalism and technical achievement. Moving into the 18th century, the enlightened men of europe had become sufficiently deist and scientific.
>>2747473
>Self-employed
Better public services, a non-corrupt government, no wasted money spent on pointless wars, better environmental and safety regs so you're not breathing in toxic chemicals or eating poison, lower taxes for everyone who is making 200k USD/year or below, a path to home ownership through mass construction of housing, lower energy/utility bills, etc.
>Service industry
Unionization + Higher wages and everything above
>>2748563>please stop shadowboxing ffs.the fuck are you talking about retard
>>2747338It depends on what you want to understand.
We can see Hegel's logic as the preliminary basis of Marx's analysis of history and capital (which he regards as synonymous). To Marx, history begins in the abstraction of labour by exchange, which through its self-development (as value), establishes progress.
Hegel's logic is as follows: being-essence-concept
being is: quality-quantity-measure
essence is: essence-appearance-actuality
concept is: objective-subjective-idea
To Marx, the being of value has its quality in concrete labour, its quantity in abstract labour and its measure in money ("the absolute commodity"). The essence of value is mediated by its "necessary" form of appearance in exchange, which is actualised as a process by consumption. Once we thus have money, it gains self-determination as "money in motion" (which is the self-moving substance) which seeks to expand. So then, money (as the form of value) grows by surplus value (money making money is the meaning of capital). When capital is sufficiently developed, Marx informs us that it is made of two components; "living" labour and "dead" labour, which are its conceptual logic: living labour is subjective, dead labour is objective, and capital achieves "absolute knowing" by this perpetual self-relation. Thus, the hegelian "spirit" is to Marx, the substance of value become subject, in the force of capital. This we might then say is Marx's criticism of Hegel; that to Hegel, history is about progressing freedom abstractly, but as Marx sees, what is made free is abstract, but is thus alienated from man, as his spiritualised labour (this is following the young hegelian critique by feuerbach). So then, that is how you can adapt hegel onto Marx.
I was always hazy on how communism would solve alienation and the division of labor. Unless one envisions returning to modest settlement of small producers, where you have a little shop where you make shoes or clocks or whatever, I don't see how you have relations between people in a global industrial economy, let alone individual autonomy. Workers will still be in a factory, there's still going to be a division of labor for the sake of efficiency, and you'll be making shoes and clocks according to someone else's plan, it's just gonna be the "administrator of things" instead of the CEO. Any input you have will be diluted.
Basically: how to have "a society of individual producers associating freely" more complex than a feudal hamlet?
Marx said that it'd be the enslaving subordination to the division of labor that'd be abolished, not the division itself. Huh? So is the idea that we could take turns farming, or installing electrical lines, or roofing, or whatever, so surgeons and physicists would waste their valuable time? I thought communism was supposed to be more efficient than capitalism. What about dangerous jobs? Gonna let doctors die in collapsing mineshafts? Sounds like the stuff anarchists get mocked for.
>>2748671most importantly, dont forget that marx wrote that the division between mental and physical labour will itself be abolished (which of course, is utopian rubbish). to put it in context, we can see that the factory system to marx appeared to comprise the whole world of productive relations, which if we go back to saint-simon (1817) creates a sense of inherent order (the same way that engels sees the principle of authority as inherent in production). if we take the division of labour within factories, we then simplify, between those on the factory floor, upper managers, and technicians. making each worker sufficient in these seems adequate, the same way a manual labourer in a contemporary warehouse might graduate to operating machinery like forklifts, and finally becoming a manager.
in terms of wider society, however, it is necessarily impossible, especially due to specialisation. we see after the death of marx, new and revolutionary techniques which intensify the division of labour (the least of which being the fordist assembly line). we also have computers following ww2 and everything else which comes from this, stratifying management in increasingly authoritarian ways.
as for any positive solution marx suggests, the most i can find is in "the german ideology" (1845) where he suggests sharing labour between people - such as what concerned prehistoric man; e.g. hunting and fishing. of course, many positions are functionally "refundant" today, due to automation, which de-skills and proletarianises the masses (including elites, like university graduates), so the analysis still holds, but i ultimately agree with you, that abolishing the division of labour is a false start, the same way that central planning can become an inefficient way to distribute resources, if taken as an end in itself. you have to compromise with reality.
>>2748678China is already abolishing manual labor thru robotics, try to keep up
>>2748692did you even read my post?
How do to start start with Marxism for ignorant dumbfucks like me?
>>2748671>Workers will still be in a factory, there's still going to be a division of labor for the sake of efficiency, and you'll be making shoes and clocks according to someone else's plan, it's just gonna be the "administrator of things" instead of the CEO. Any input you have will be diluted.the effect will be greatly diminished though. First, the capitalist model force to impose a hierarchy made to enforce the will and interest of the capital owner, in a socialist run factory, the manager is just another worker with no higher status, and can be dismissed by the workers he manages if they feel his job is not satisfactory or if he is abusive. The workers can have a lot more say in how they work, the pace of work, the processes, the safety regulation etc.
Second, the specialization of labor is usually enforced by the capitalist through his managers who does not care for the input of the workers and pay them for a specific work that is contractually fixed, but if the workers in socialist enterprise want to involve themselves in the design for example, its a lot easier to accommodate in a socialist framework.
Ideally, a socialist factory is not simply swapping the private capital owner for public ownership, its also run a lot more democratically by the workers involved. This reduce the alienation significantly.
>>2748757read the communist manifesto first, it's short encapsulate the basis very well. Critique of the gotha program is often recommended early too
>>2748757Philosophy:
(i) Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Introduction (1843)
(ii) German Ideology - Chapter 1A (1845)
(iii) Theses on Feuerbach (1845)
Politics:
(i) Communist Manifesto (1848)
(ii) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
(iii) The Civil War in France (1871)
(iv) Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
Economics:
(i) Wage Labour and Capital (1847)
(ii) Grundrisse, Introduction (1858)
(iii) A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface (1859)
(iv) Value, Price and Profit (1865)
Misc.
(i) 1844 Manuscripts (1844)
(ii) Anti-Duhring (1877)
>>2748757https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htmi think engels' principles of communism is actually one of the quickest, easiest intros out there, including the manifesto, which develops on the PoC.
>>2748903later editions of the manifesto include the principles as an appendix
>>2748757Read everything on redsails org, sorted from shortest to longest
>>2746264bumping for an answer to this. i gots to know.
What countries (In EU) are good to be in currently, for organising and political education? (global north, imperial countries and skkkandinavian countries don't count). Not being opportunist just seeking to escape the hellhole that is the global north.
Materialist explanation for the prospect of honest days work being a horryfying one?
>>2750798Considering you excepted all the good ones, bone whatsoever
>>2752846alienation, honest day work concept being a prole cope, shitty bosses and colleagues
>>2754296So because of le alienation one dreads the tomorrow's work?
>>2752846Different economic systems
generate their own concepts of what is fair and just. If cost-covering prices are considered fair, then a wage you can just survive on should be considered a fair price for your time.
Now, you may already know this and you didn't say "fair" or "just", you said "honest". But you conjecture that somebody is dishonest when the way they talk and act seems to go against common sense, the common expectation of fair behavior… So it's really about the same stuff.
Is it possible to destablize a nation with right wing values?
>>2754510>>2754296Uygha im asking why work is scary
>>2752846>honest days workMarx points out that "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work" is a conservative motto which does not seek abolition of the wages system:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm#c14
<[The working class] ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!" >>2757246Superiority is a relative category which generally assorts itself into a division of labour, so the market solves that problem. On I.Q. it is also relative, since intelligence and creativity can be at variance, where for example, the "borg" civilisations of Scandanavia lack the degree of invention that continental and British societies do, with I.Q. being a deciding factor, in terms of width rather than length. A wider I.Q. band from a sample with lots of stupid and smart people will foster greater average creativity than a narrow band of generally intelligent people (e.g. women are smarter than man on average, yet are less inventive; the same is true for Scandanavia). Africans equally display a wide I.Q. bracket, which leads to greater inventiveness, even from the time of the "golden age" (1870-1940):
<With 50,000 total patents, Black people accounted for more inventions during this period than immigrants from every country except England and Germany. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-innovators-who-elevated-the-united-states-reassessing-the-golden-age-of-invention/So then, general intelligence is… general, so accounts for competency, but can lead to static equilibrium. The "whitest" countries are more stable, but uninteresting.
>>2754625Yeah, look at the Warsaw pact in the 1980s
>>2757246>transnaziwhat does this even mean
Most of my experience with women online are them being reactionary subhumans, which has nevatively polarized me on the gender, what should I do to approach them as a group (conceptually)?
>>2757371This post virtually raped me.
>>2757292nazism is vibes evidence #54489
>>2758250Idk, they're still out there, and if they arent garbage people, they're defending them.
>>2758420>garbage peopleWelcome aboard.
can i be both a communist and a member of a roman LARP group ?
why hasn't a group hostile to the US ever targeted the panama canal?
>>2759069Should I? I'm a little knew
>>2759069>>2759069I'm back now, here's the summary i got for pages 7-8 (Introduction)
>James P. Cannon, national secretary of the Socialists' Worker Party got put onto trial along with 28 other members of the same party and Minneapolis Teamers 558. James P. Cannon (the book's author) argues that America was in World War I & II in order to spread capitalism, despite what American slogans say. He also claims that the attempts to spread capitalism are reactionary (i.e. trying to control the masses). He says that Marxists are to help the oppressed of capitalism in these attempts of subversion. He adds that soldiers should be given all the rights of a basic citizen. How do I convince stalinists that trotskyism is the superior ideology?
Can religion and communism be compatible? Can a Muslim, a Buddhist, or anyone else be communist?
>>2759234Depends on the religion, but most religions come with laws included already that can't be replaced, like the Sharia in Islam.
proletarians as revolutionary class status?
>>2759133show them all the succesful trot revolutions
What is the difference between determinism and fatalism?
>>2759630One starts with a D and the other starts with an F
>>2759561Russian revolution
What happened to leftypol?
>>2763020Metzitzah B’peh.
>>2745331Hey can one of you guys come and pick up this lost child?
It's getting kinda sad
Do materialists believe that "time is an illusion?"
I see that posted sometimes but it doesn't make sense. Does it mean that we can live forever?
>>2764531Time is motion; this has been understood since ancient times.
whats the difference between strasserism and national bolshevism
>>2764531If you get up everyday at the same time, go to the same job, do the same things and go to bed at the same time, your brain starts to skip memory in order to safe power. Then some day you wake up and you are scared, because you are 65yo and wasted you life paying taxes to pedophiles.
>>2764647kek, also interested
>>2764647>StrasserismOtto Strasser was a 'guild socialist' who favored de-urbanization and agrarian self-sufficiency.. Basically what Marx would call a reactionary socialist. He was still completely anticommunist and an early proponent of a NATO/EU style alliance against the USSR.
>NazBolNational bolshevism was born from elements of the KPD and German leftcoms in reaction to the treaty of Versailles, when a lot of leftists were turning to nationalism. Decades later the Nazbol manifesto was published by Karl Otto Paetel which rejected marxist philosophy but advocated a planned economy and an alliance with the soviets. Russian Nazbol is a pretty different thing that came much later in the 90s with Limonov and Dugin and took some influence from the Germans but I'm not sure how much. It seems largely right wing mixed with some left-leaning nationalists like Black Lenin.
why is there a leftypol and a leftychan? personal drama or is one site for one leftist tendency and the other for another
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