Welcome again to everybody. Make yourselves at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread!
P.S. Update on those stability improvements/enhancements I mentioned in my previous weekly thread: they’re finished. The matrix server uptime is now better. Suspiciously better, some might say. Anyway, enjoy the reliability >:3
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive
I had the idea of making this meme on Cuba. I was unsure if it was tactless given Cuba’s current situation, but I still wanted to put it somewhere.
Cuba sweep
Was reading blackshirts and reds and remembered a certain subreddit (tankiejerk) when reading this passage:
Orwell (with Orwellian doublethink) characterized the condemnation of communism as a lonely courageous act of defiance. Today, his ideological progeny are still at it, offering themselves as intrepid left critics of the Left, waging a valiant struggle against imaginary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist hordes.
Writing idea:
Stereotypical greedy old-school businessperson, except they are a Communist because they think that raising common prosperity is the most stable way to raise their own wealth.
Glad to be back here, i think i was gone for a month
Went to a football match in Germany and despite the criticism I have for their fans, especially regarding Palestine, it was a breath of fresh air compared to The Netherlands. Saw several anti Nazi and far right flags, anti homophobia stuff, rainbow flags even. There were 6000 away fans present and there was no barrier between them and the home fans. Just vibing with each other. Stuff like that would be unthinkable back home.
And this was at Schalke. Not even a prime example of a left wing club. The Netherlands really is a shit country in a lot of ways.
trying to introduce friend to marx’s theories by first discussing the way they are taught economics
quite a lot of it is just the shock that marx wasn’t a moralist and that’s what all diamat fervently seeks to avoid, but now i’m graduating to trying to use the economic ideas of rate of profit to fall/guiding things around price signals and value itself, and this is where i fret if i get the concepts wrong i’m fucked
was on youtube and saw in my feed a 2 week old “what north korean life is like beyond pyongyang” video from CNN. has something happened that they need to rehash “remember our REAL enemy, socialist korea we’ve bombed beyond belief, because uhhh, they don’t have like, reddit”
I tried to watch that movie “Soy Cuba”. Old Soviet cinema right?
I couldn’t finish the first part where a woman works in a brothel (looks like a brothel/party place mix) and an American goes with her to her house (against her will but she needs to pay rent). Next morning, her fiancee finds her in bed with the man.
I felt so terrible watching this. I don’t know how to describe it. Disgust maybe?
i like the movie a lot. the later chapters go more into the resistance aspect of pre socialist cuba, and its super interesting
I’ve noticed that fascists have a obsession with Argentina.
Zionists, Nazis etc. have all considered doing settler-colonialism on Argentina at some point.
Its incredibly fertile land.
Argentina are usually only seen as white Latinos, so they are more favorable to white racists than their darker counterparts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanqueamiento
damn
Hi, I am back.
I have been in Zaragoza, Spain for more than a month.
This may be best thing that ever happened to me.
It is still stressful and nerve-wracking getting all this off the ground though, getting settled in and hopefully away from my family’s influence and reach as humanly possible.
Truth be told, I may be desperately in need of donations regarding my private insurance (can’t get public yet while getting settled in and everything).
I don’t want anyone kicking me out while people out there (such as my abusive father, his whole rotten family, my two siblings, etc.) want to drag me back under their influence.
Being away from it all has been freeing in ways that I couldn’t quite fathom before, if at all.
But honestly, I may actually need to pull a Hail Mary by the end of next week or October to make it stick.
I dunno how to ask for money here or anywhere; never really had a GoFundMe.
This is not even getting into the process of getting my NIE or doing HRT.
It’s a struggle but I will not be dragged back to some dumb suburb in the United States.
I don’t know how to quite go about this tbh or how to begin.
I may start a fundraiser thread here tomorrow.
Anyway, good night.
have you checked out local orgs for support? ive found this while searching but there might be others you can find: https://somoslgtb.com/
It is not simply about HRT and transitioning, I may literally need donations for this particular episode in my life to make getting settled in Europe viable and finally being free of my family (which, I mean, would also go a long way to making my transitioning and HRT viable).
Still, thanks for the comment and link. :)
LGBT orgs can also help with resources in general. I imagine they get quite a few migrants
Not sure about that and DIY is not really done here as much as it is in, say, the United States.
Btw, I already have access to SOMOS or am at least friends with them (I am in a WhatsApp group with them right now and have the director’s phone number even).
That said, I only just met them about a month ago or so and the last meeting I went to with them was maybe two weeks ago (oof, even missed the Lesbian Day stuff too on the SOMOS schedule).
It is hard to meet with them now, I feel, due to time available, scheduling, and, tbh, sleep issues on my part (by the time night time comes, I am afraid of going at 7:00 or 8:00 or especially 9:00 PM because I deadass need to sleep but this Quviviq isn’t really helping with that so far…)
Also, to be clear, this goes FAR BEYOND just my access to health insurance (and my access to HRT or gender-affirming care by extension, never mind every other very important thing that comes with health insurance).
This is much more important than that and this window of opportunity may be a do-or-die moment tbh
reading something and having fun Marx’s Economic Doctrine
kewlio
A rise in the productivity of labor implies a more rapid growth of constant capital as compared with variable capital. Inasmuch as surplus value is a function of variable capital alone, it is obvious that the rate of profit (the ratio of surplus value to the whole capital, not to its variable part alone) tends to fall.
HOLY FUCK HE SAID THE THING
i don’t get the land and soil part so far
okay, eyes basically glazed over the last part. i think i’ll take a rest before coming back at all to this
only thing i saw when glazing over and thought for sure i should note down and thik about but idk anything about it aside from word recognition and faintest impressions ->(Co-operative societies, i.e., associations of small peasants, while playing an extremely progressive bourgeois role, only weakens this tendency, without eliminating it; nor must it be forgotten that these co-operative societies do much for the well-to-do peasants, and very little—next to nothing—for the mass of poor peasants; then the associations themselves become exploiters of hired labor.)
“law of diminishing returns”, which charges Nature with the defects, limitations and contradictions of capitalism, is profoundly erroneous.
he is against this law which i assume is popular and well defined economic theory and my basic outsider understanding or interpretation is that this is the one where it’s like it’s an absolute rule all input eventually returns diminishing payoff, but how does this not apply to soil and land, even if we account for real improvements in technology? (i’m thinking of green revolution/agricultural technology improvements irl, that i admittedy dont know anything useful or expert level about)
as i kept reading it seemed more related to discussing the relation of price, value, constant capital/input in the case of soil and land in selling crops, as naturally one acre of land may not produce same value for input as another
Further, the equalisation of profit in all branches of industry and the national economy in general presupposes complete freedom of competition and the free flow of capital from one branch to another. However, the private ownership of land creates monopoly, which hinders that free flow.
#dontgetit
get the first part i THINK where competition between enterprises necessitates extremely comparable profit margins (as price was defined earlier, in my probably faulty understanding,) which is a constraint on design and operations (as in, i can’t get too different from my competitor, let’s say i sell dolls and i make dolls that are higher quality and higher price, but my other competitor does not and C or constant capital is lower), don’t get the ‘branch’ thing STILL and what it actually refers to
Constant capital, which is expended on means of production (machinery, tools, raw materials, etc.), whose value, without any change, is transferred (immediately or part by part) to the finished product; secondly, variable capital, which is expended on labor power. The value of this latter capital is not invariable, but grows in the labor process, creating surplus value.
given this i understand at least in the relation to maximizing surplus value, and the idea marx and lenin both acknowledge where the pocketed value does not go merely to the individual capitalist, but for the sake of the enterprise’s survival, more capital or the expansion of the means of production/improvement
is this a correct understanding (below)
spoiler
Competition among capitalists, and their freedom to transfer their capital from one branch to another, will in both cases reduce the rate of profit to the average. The sum total of the values of all the commodities in a given society coincides with the sum total of the prices of the commodities, but, in individual undertakings and branches of production, as a result of competition, commodities are sold, not at their values but at the prices of production (or production prices), which are equal to the capital expended plus the average profit.
what’s the branch first off, did i i miss something
next part i understand as let’s say enterprise A and B sell the same commodity. obviously both must at least sell the commodity for the cost they expended in production!!! let’s say B is less effective and so the commodity is more expensive at the most basic! but to maintain the same profit margins and capital of enterprise A and continue competing they must upmark it to have the same profits as enterprise A in the end… which should be right, no?
In this way, the well-known and indisputable fact of the divergence between prices and values and of the equalization of profits is fully explained by Marx on the basis of law of value, since the sum total of values of all commodities coincides with the sum total of prices. However, the equating of (social) value to (individual) prices does not take place simply and directly, but in a very complex way.
now i do not get it again it feels :(
me when the two different texts (which are using the same definitions of value and economics that marx presented so it’s not like it’s surprising in any way) have the same idea and i can recognize it: (forgot all the emojis are broken, imagine the nostalgia critic oh my god face)
also i remembered i have free will and can copy paste a passage from a text and give it line breaks if i want to. top ten tricks big capitalism doesn’t want you to know /j. i’m gonna save so much time on the minmax theory reading speedrun i think
Oh, that is a brilliant skill to have.
Honestly, philology and the process of correctly interpreting what is said and what it means and what it implies and even comparing and contrasting different excerpts or passages from different authors is a highly underrated field, practically something you need to develop into its own art (you can’t just read a book giving you instructions exactly on how to do all this, you gotta develop it over time).
Also, minmax theory? What exactly?
tbf i honestly forget what minmax means specifically as a speedrun term but i’m fairly sure it’s just maximizing achievement for least amount of time and that’s what i hope i do. finally getting faster at understanding things Better
Oh that, fair enough.
I try to take my time as much as I can nowadays but when it comes to jobs, education, finance, skills, etc.? Stuff you need to live and uplift yourself? I get it. The gloves are off.
Thoughts on this phrasing? “Capitalism is a system where society exists to serve commerce rather than commerce existing to serve society.”
As introductory rhetoric for criticizing capitalism in a somewhat less jargon heavy way, especially when talking to people who have pre-existing embedded anti-communism and so may be more reactive to obvious marxist critiques.
Then connecting it to examples: “In the capitalist US, society exists to serve commerce. In socialist China, commerce exists to serve society.”
Capitalism is a system where society exists to serve commerce rather than commerce existing to serve society.”
still feels jarogny. Maybe: Capitalism is a system in which society exists to further the growth of hoarded fortunes instead of fortunes being used to further the growth of society.
Fair. I probably underestimate the extent to which I’m using jargon sometimes…
I’ve made an effort to be more, idk, colloquial over the years in order to better communicate ML stuff. But I grew up around people who are (non-commie) nerdy and I pretty much embraced it. It doesn’t help that when I do read theory, some of it is academia language to the max and then it causes me to want to reuse that kind of language when talking about ML stuff.
I do think it is an important thing to improve on though. As Maeve pointed out:
I’ve been thinking about verbosity/garroulessness for several months, since I tend to swing from that to being terse to the point it seems rude. With declining literacy and reading comprehension rates in Western societies, it would behoove us to find a middle ground, since attention spans are also in serious decline, for many varied reasons, not the least of which is physical exhaustion and mental/emotional overwhelm.
Being able to meet people where they are at without also losing the core of something is a real pedagogical challenge. I appreciate your effort toward it. Makes me think of a dragon’s hoard.
Saying stuff in less technical terms while retaining the meaning is something LLMs are perfect for. Practicing on liberals on social media is a good way to hone your rhetoric.
Both good points!
This phrasing feels a bit cultural, I think? Like, couldn’t you also argue that Rome’s society existed mostly to generate slaves who worked to make products which were then sold on the market?
Fair. The phrase could probably be applied to exploitative systems predating capitalism and still make sense from a certain point of view. For that reason, it may be weaker as rhetoric than it could be.
Focusing on what makes capitalism unique may make it sharper, provided it doesn’t get lost in jargon. To that end, what does make capitalism unique even if in jargon form? On reflection, I’m not sure I could explain it simply, in a few words from recall. Something to do with private property and accumulation of capital, but that’s a bit vague. I think my internalized understanding of it is actually better than my verbalized one, if that makes sense; lived experience with it vs. theory language I guess.
Lenin defines Capitalism succinctly as
Capitalism is that stage in the development of commodity-production in which labour-power, too, becomes a commodity. (source)
The most important aspect of Capitalism is that the individual bourgeois exploits the entire proletariat class, rather than a group of people. This doesn’t happen in any other economic system.
Think of a slave-owner. They can exploit only the slaves they own. However, this means that they have the interest to take care of them since a loss of a slave means the loss of labor.
Meanwhile, a landlord doesn’t care who their tenants are or whether they have money for food after paying rent. There is always someone outside waiting for one apartment to get vacant.
The individual bourgeois has leverage over an entire class, so you have no leverage against them. The only leverage against the bourgeoisie is when the proletariat class gets organized. One individual is hopeless.
So, I think I would summarize it without jargon as “Capitalism is the system which you have to auction your precious time in the market to the lowest available wage to people who don’t care whether you eat well because there is an entire line of people ready to take your spot.”
It’s a bit wordy, but I think it does the job. Every worker has some fear of getting replaced.
The existence of a worker who is “free” in a double sense: free of all constraint or restriction on the scale of his labor power, and free from the land and all means of production in general, a free and unattached laborer, a “proletarian”, who cannot subsist except by selling his labor power.
so i can hopefully explain it to people as: “at its most basic, there is a self-feeding and self-causing loop. a person who owns the means of production can buy the labour power [which you can understand as working hours] of another person. anyone can sell their labor, and under capitalism, everyone must, to make the money they can exchange for the basic necessities of life. if they do not want to participate in this system, it’s death. since it becomes an existential need to sell your labor, the reserve army of laborers is created, where the capitalists, who own the means of production and in essence monopolize money amidst themselves in their firms, [especially since we must buy from them the necessities in the firts place] can simply set the buying price of labor power, there is in effect a very abundant supply of ready workers, because the ultimatum is work or death.” i think…
and then the contradiction also of capitalist firms must always maximize profit and sequently surplus value pocketed, to survive in face of competition , and at a certain point you can pay your workers no less before they start dying or being unable to work (also they can’t buy your commodities that they need for life anymore?)
and at a certain point you can pay your workers no less before they start dying or being unable to work
Not exactly. The individuals of the bourgeoisie aren’t concerned about their workers dying. They are concerned about the proletariat class dying (or being unable to self-reproduce).
You can see this in Occupied Korea or Japan for example. The population is increasingly elder and there is less and less workers having children.
The bourgeois can make a significant percentage of workers be unable to have time to have children, or overwork themselves to death, but they can’t do that for every single worker.
Interesting, thanks for the breakdown.
So with that in mind, here’s an attempt to simplify it a bit more in a way similar to the phrase I started with: “In the capitalist US, the capitalists force you to sell your labor power to the market in exchange for temporary relief from starving. In socialist China, organized labor power allows the market to exist in exchange for its consistent contribution to thriving.”
Heavier than the original in terms of “big words”, but maybe a better halfway point between jargon and “losing important distinctions”. What do you think? Better? Worse? Both?
Yeah, that’s great. The only issue I would have is that if you are mentioning the US, then your audience is probably Amerikans, who are very Sinophobic.
But considering that China is getting a lot of good rep, then I think it’s fine to use it as an example.
If you want to drive the point home, why not ask a concrete question like “how did China go from a nation of starving farmers to a global powerhouse in a couple of generations if it wasn’t socialism?” after your definition of Capitalism.
i think what’s interesting is that the thick veil of misinfo was super strong in internet/west in 2010s simply because… whatever interactions westerners had with mainlanders was very limited, esp thru internet, and it was really extraordinarily easy to think of them as faceless and unreal if there god forbid were any users on western internet (great firewall is such a benefit to PRC it’s not even funny anymore).
but because of how xhs and rednote became actual things you could use if not the very small flux of people being exposed thru brief tiktok ban, people actually saw chinese as real people and not just imagined suffering drones (before that i really legit think everyone thought that a chinese that was happy in mainland was bot or drone or spy, it doesn’t sound absurd to them, and even now that persists, and i’d say it’s still a majority now). now i feel you see a lot of anglosphere/diaspora chinese (and i suspect a lot are. CIA asset adjacent) making big fusses about social things there so that people never really think it’s too goodl… it feels as if a corrective measure or propaganda, especially since we know how controlled and astroturfed the net is in the west
i think the phase of chinamaxxing had a peak but is now going to dip or plateau if we return to the normal state esp of little exposure or organic interest in PRC, and i’m rather sad the mainstream opinion will revert into the programming we used to have once more. fingers crossed the bigger push and continued huge growth of PRC continues to make containing the china good narrative impossible, even in spite of whatever mediastorm they conjure
Fair point, I’ll try to keep that in mind. Could probably apply to imperial core audiences in general, asking a rhetorical question like that. Or elsewhere if somebody is being Sinophobic.
I think the phrasing is also general enough about the principles we went over concerning capitalism that “In the capitalist US” could be replaced with “In capitalist Canada” or EU or whatever and still be accurate. It might not land as hard if someone is in an area where unions are stronger, but my impression is that although organized labor is stronger in some parts of the imperial core than others, it’s also been in decline for a while, owed largely to it only having achieved buffer status rather than controlling the state.
That’s a good point.
Adding to your point, in a place with strong unions, maybe it’s good to question why things keep getting worse even with union protection. Unions in Capitalism is just delaying the inevitable (the tendency for the rate of profit to fall).
The Nordic countries are seeing this happen in real time.
I’ve been thinking about verbosity/garroulessness for several months, since I tend to swing from that to being terse to the point it seems rude. With declining literacy and reading comprehension rates in Western societies, it would behoove us to find a middle ground, since attention spans are also in serious decline, for many varied reasons, not the least of which is physical exhaustion and mental/emotional overwhelm.
I’m struggling with how to find a way towards tercity and unintended rudeness. I need to also work on patience, since impatience fuels intentional rudeness.
Most people are capable of reading long texts as long as they are interested in them. Maybe we can focus on “stepping stones” in order to build this interest.
Informative memes and pamphlets can be used to agitate workers with false consciousness. If they become advanced workers, then they will be able to read The Capital or something.
At the end of the day though, most workers won’t reach advanced levels.
deadass attaching the esoteric meme you did to that post about capital as a true god (or basically the essay just restating WHY capitalism dictates US rather than us being able to delude ourselves that we control its whims was very effective to getting me to read.
i think here you’re also mostly making reference to memes which in effect are like slogans or other heuristics or rhetoric like that that still simplify things in ways that might be erroneous, but are at least effective in capturing people’s attentions and somewhat transmitting the ‘right’ idea (however vulgar or rudimentary it may be at the end compared to the actual full logic/theory)
but at least for me memes about history (not the mainstream whitewashed ones but actual documentation and broadcast of imperial crimes) attached to elementary observations/diamat were able to push me out of the simplistic idealist worldviews i had before (anarcho communist adjacent) and make me desire to Read theory. and i also think that it helped me be able to transmit otherwise very extremely out there ideas to friends who wouldn’t have received the idea of reading lenin or stalin or mao well (even if sometimes i worry at the start my own mistakes might have poisoned their understanding.) i think it’s a good starting point, especially with the most casual or simplistic events like the gazan genocide or even explaining how things like epstein’s island can be an unequivocal bipartisan horror (if usa centric discussion/peers)
I want to begin this comment by saying I am in no way perfect but holy shit the bar for dating men is low. Like, the stories I hear from women around me about people they meet either in rl or online are wild. It’s as if men are completely unable to function in a normal way.
Now I’m curious what you’re hearing in the specifics. Like bad hygiene? Strange views or attitudes? All of the above and more?
Always just attitude. If it isn’t manosphere bs it is just general antisocial behavior. Just not being able to have a conversation without hinting at sex within half an hour. Having no interest at all in the women they match. Wanting to meet at their place for the first date. I could go on and on really.
Like, I have autism and you’d expect me to struggle socially to some degree but the NT’s out there seem to be far worse for some reason.
Yikes, yeah, that sounds bad. Basically sounds like people who are interested in hookups and nothing more, but also aren’t being upfront about that in a mature, humanizing way if they’re going to go that route. I wonder how much of it is fueled by PUA (pickup artist) material out there; from what I understand, a lot of that stuff is very sexist at its core and frames women like they’re a game console with a Konami Code you need to put in to get sex (not that they are using that analogy specifically, but that it’s very objectifying).
Marx’s mathematical manuscripts are very underrated. There’s this footnote which I think it’s pretty interesting despite being very vague:
Marx distinguishes in each equation two sides (where now we speak of two parts), the left hand and the right hand which do not always play symmetric roles. On the left-hand side of the equation he frequently places two different, equivalent expressions joined by the conjunction ‘or’. (source)
So, for Marx, x = y is not the same as y = x (even though they mean the same thing in modern math).
I am interested in doing math for fun ever since seeing an old Soviet mathematics textbook lol
hi sorry i just realized the passage you attached here repeats itself! not bad or confusing i just got halfway through the repetition before thinking “wait a minute i’ve seen this before… like two seconds ago”
oh thanks, I didn’t notice
