QTDDTOT - Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

What's the deal with Venezuela?

long story short its a liberal welfare state that ran out of money when the price of oil collapsed.

Give me a rundown on the basic ideas of Theodore Adorno, please?

Is Vietnam socialist?

No, capitalist.

Was it socialist in former times? Why it became capitalist?

No, but it did have a communist party. Then the Khmer Rouge was formed as a splinter sect of the People's Army of Vietnam lead by Pol Pot. He managed to get a lot of people killed and others sent to re-education camps in his quest to establish a national agrarian society to achieve some former "utopia." Marxist-Leninism: Not. Even. Once.
Colonial exploitation. Also the Vietnam war. TL;DR version:

Both theories are founded on spreading the revolution, they simply differ on the stance, with one being more offensive and the other being more defensive, I don't see why such change would be shocking.

How is egoism even remotely considered a leftist ideology?

congrats on not knowing history kiddo

It's the dialectics, comrade.

spook
But if you're thinking about Stirner, then his nominalist ideas are hard to reconcile with what most right-wingers believe, considering most of them do believe in things like nation etc.

It's not. However some parts can be synthesized with leftism, but leftism isn't the central point it's going after.

American detected.

A lot of my interactions with Stirner posters on here seem like they're ancaps who wanted a more obscure ideology. That or they never post anything of substance and think it's hilarious to call everything a spook.

im not a yank. im also not a retard who can't read a hisotory book. reagan wasn't president in the 60's. the guys who escalated the vietnam war were the liberal martyr kennedy and his successor johnson

That's how every meme is turning to shit.

Thanks for the responses guys.
Follow up question to mainly to MLs; why did Stalin flip-flop between left and right Bolshevik ideas?
For example; he went from justifying the NEP and supporting the right Bolshevik wing of the party to then adopting many left Bolshevik ideas such as rapid industrialization and persecution against kulaks.
This sudden change in Stalin's policy is basically what got Bukharin trapped in a sticky situation so quickly.
It seems to me that Stalin was opportunistically changing stance to stop himself from loosing the power struggle rather than being honest about his ideals.

He didn't ask about Cambodia, he asked about Vietnam. That's a retarded understanding of why the Indo-China wars happened and you utterly failed to explain why vietnam immediately transitioned from Dem soc politics to State capitalism. Idiot

also fucking lol at Ronald Reagan being involved. Reagan wasn't president until the 80's you Euro trash retard.

black flags proving that history is a capitalist lie yet again

i literally don't know how one would determine how much certain labor is worth. what would help in explaining this? i've read wage labor and capital expecting an answer but didn't get one (it helped a lot though but didn't exactly answer this particular question).

Please don't give historical overviews if you don't know history.

Yea nah

Then they're probably just memers. If they are, they oughta just read the book. It's not even that long.
Best be joking nigger, Stirnerites don't believe in property rights. Not even personal property.

Get to reading, here's a collection of everything he wrote.

Scarcity, which is often artificial. Doctors make a lot of money because school costs a ridiculous amount of money, which restricts poor people's ability to enter the medical field.

This one fam

nobody knows
try asking an economy grad how the value of money is determined.

its meme posting

Turns out being opposed to US imperialism and welfare state doesn't make the lefty. Still sorry, that chavez died, he at least improved living conditions for the people.

I know an explicitly right-wing stirnerite so I think you may be on to something.

Interesting ideology, since the guy doesn't fall back into the kind of deranged 'There is absolutely nothing wrong with the system except the government' of most right wingers whenever idpol comes up.

He has to be a memeshitter.

Why did his milk co-op fail?

So are leftcoms anything more than an ideology centered around everyone sitting on their ass and just expecting things to change?

no, thats the meme around them, leftcom is orthodox marxism

Not really. It can feel like that at times, but even Bordigists incorporate bits of Lenin. And then there's the whole Communization thing which goes way off the rails.

Yes - according to Bordiga, at least. From the Fundamental Theses of the Party:
So Bordiga believes in an active vanguard party which takes upon itself the role of accelerating historical progress towards the end of capitalism, spreading communist doctrines among the populace, and fighting alongside the working class against exploitation. He also states that the party "advances as permanent the triple task of the party: study, propagandise, and organise" which seems to directly contradict this shitty meme which leftcoms keep posting. Comparing these words to the average LeftCom post on Holla Forums, I'm inclined to speculate that most LeftComs are either memers who haven't actually read Bordiga, or have swallowed up some later revisionist bullcrap which degenerates Bordiga's emphasis on theory into total inaction.

Is stuff like Guns, Germs and Steel Marxist?

Leftcoms aren't the people pushing the armchair meme.

Spot on tho.

It Materialist and not every Materialism is Marxism, all tho it usually highly compatible with it…

I call guns germs and steel "Geographic Essentialist" highly materialist and very grounded…

Marxist geographer David Harvey takes quite a dim view of Guns, Germs and Steel. The short of it is that Jared doesn't understand overdetermination. "Materialism" isn't enough for something to be Marxist.

They do sometimes. This meme was made by a LeftCom, for instance. And /r/Ultraleft is a LeftCom meme subreddit which basically runs on armchair jokes. As was once said about Holla Forums, any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company. I feel like something similar may have happened to LeftComs where their ironic references to the armchair meme caused them to be joined by actual lazy armchair critics who liked the idea of an ideology which legitimized doing literally nothing.

David Graeber is a much better read. He's as a bit of an anarkiddie but his ideas are incredible, esp for debating capitalists.

Because it got more bombs dropped on it in a day than all of WW2 combined and millions of liters of chemicals dumped on it as well before having to clean up America's mess in Campuchea. Then it fought another war with China, and then the Soviet Union folded and it was either assimilate into global capital and try to rebuild or go it alone.

Originally it is, but ultimately it doesn't need to be, since it basically boils down to viewing economics as the primary engine of history, politics, and social evolution. It's more of a sociological concept than anything else, arguing for a particular view of the forces that govern human social behaviour on its largest scale.

really, I feel it was the other way around. everyone was joking about armchairs and some became actual cancerous leftcoms.

What's the difference between idealism and materialism? And how does it relate to the interpretation of the historical process?

ya gotta read some books, son

Is Luxemburg a Leftcom? Because that's what wikipedia says, but people keep on thinking I like Bordiga.

is wikipedia just wrong?

Leftcommunism didn't exist for Rosa. She's just a council communist. Although many leftcoms are council communists, not all are, see: Bordiga.

idealists think ideas/human thought shape society and the world. materialists think it's the other way around.

most leftcoms here are bordigafags because memes.

are Pannekoek and Gorter the spiritual successors of Luxemburg, or should I not even bother

I don't know too much about their ideology, but I can tell you right off the bat they are far less cancerous than bordigafags.

What is a non-meme definition of Marxist Leninist?

I feel like it's anyone who is authoritarian and Marxist.

Leninism is characterized by use of the Vanguard party primarily for a revolution, or in other words a dictatorship of the proletariat

Minor characterizations call for democratic centralism (as opposed to a de-centralized economy) and Lenin was accepting of national self determination.

What the fuck does "Western" mean and what's up with "white people make up the majority of western countries"
If this is wrong can someone explain?

Europe and north america. The NATO countries, the first world countries.

Western Europe (i.e. non-slav/not communist historically, except maybe Poland by some definitions.) + America, Canada, NZ, Australia.

This isn't exactly a political question, but ebooks get shared a lot on here and I'm looking to get a new tablet for reading. Do any of you have an ereader/tablet you'd recommend? I'm looking for something cheap that doesn't need a lot of feature. I just want something to read that lets me highlight and bookmark pages. I was looking about the Fire tablet from Amazon because it's only $50 and I can do monthly payments on it. Is there anything better for the price and what I want?

Did Marx and Engels accidentally doom the future of Earth and humanity at large by revealing the inner workings of Historical Materialism/class struggle, therefore giving the Bourgeoisie the blueprints and know-how to prolong their position in society?

;

Are nihilists suicidal?

It's a joke you autists, an muddled run down of events unconcerned with chronology or cause and effect, feels like something out of the old 4chan. I legit loled.

Yes they do, LeftCom flag made like 70% of all the OC regarding LeftCom, the calling them armchair leftists obviously didn't come from them but they accepted and wore it as a badge of honour.
I'm pretty sure the Holla Forums definition came from GMiL too.
LeftCom criticism of activism is often spot-on and most of Holla Forums already rightfully denounces anarkid rioters and entryist trots.

Marxism-Leninism is Leninism as followed by Stalin (who claimed to simply be following Lenin's precedent but only /marx/ believes that) and other Socialist Leaders at the time which were under his wing of the Comintern.
Non-Stalinist varieties (like Trotskysm) of Leninism exist so you shouldn't mix up the two.
Also people like Bordiga weren't Leninists but believed in a Vanguard Party so authoritarian Marxism doesn't fly either.

that's some debord shit right here. no they didn't.

What makes you guys think communism will work this time?

only ironically

What are you implying? You do realize that there are multiple schools of leftist thought that have different ideas about how to achieve communism, right? Which discipline are you talking about "working" this time around?

Honestly, I'd feel more comfortable if someone else killed me instead.

How does leftist theory address women's monopoly on sexual capital?

Why do a lot of internet leftist communities drive a hard anti-idpol line, when historically communists refusing to acknowledge or care about race relations beyond "It's all capitalism fam just focus on that" was one of the biggest reasons they lost ground in minority communities?

Because the other half are so focused on IDpol that all the leftists lost interest.

If its an epub file, I found this page with a lot of nice links

lifewire.com/what-is-an-epub-file-2621084

I am using Calibre myself.

If its another file type, I think you can find similar pages on that site.

You mean a minority. The majority of the real life left and online left are massive SJW retards. You cannot even imply the slightest criticism of their booj feminist bullshit without being banned on reddit or harassed on twitter. They are the cancer that killed the left and made it utterly worthless and unappealing.

what should i read? i've already started direct action: an ethnography

It's only deterministic in the same way that its inevitable that our current technology and use of non-renewables and fossil fuels will destroy the planet.
Doing things that have negative consequences lead to change, either because people try to negate the consequences or because the size of the consequences lead to disaster.

by anti-idpol do you mean SJW types claiming to be commies, or people who are opposed to issues regarding idpol being used to distract the masses from overthrowing porkie?

Wrong, it's actually the exact opposite. Focus on idpol is what made us lose ground there.

I'd argue a lot of minority communities are tired of being treated like a fucking bulwark. Hedge fund whites in their early 20s trying to convince you that Hillary will shoot unicorns out her ass if you vote for her is why Trump won. You don't win votes by acting as though you HAVE to vote for someone on the basis of identity.
If people talked about issues like poverty, crime, drug addiction, etc it would be addressing things that affect their communities - not some magical thing like "I carry hot sauce everywhere - I'm like you blacks so vote for me!"

He didn't.

This is part of propaganda campaign to slander workers as incapable, as the ones always electing inept politicians to manage affairs of the state - instead of making "smart" choice by letting "elite" to take its "rightful" place and decide everything.

Stalinist faction never "justified" NEP (it was always State Capitalism, not Market Socialism) and never supported Bukharin's Revisionist clique. It simply held the same opinion as Bukharinites about some practical measures - not ideological. Bukharinite Revisionism (the one about co-opertive market economy somehow being Socialist - one of the things RDWolff is supporting, btw) was always rejected and argued against.

And here we have factually wrong statements. Or, to be less polite, but more correct: blatant lies.

Claims that Trotsky had anything to do with industrialization (the one that begun in 1929) or dekulakization/collectivization - is an outright falsification of history. One has to simply read his works of the period to see it. Neither actual industrialization, nor collectivization were suggested by the "Left" faction - in truth, Opposition was defined primarily by opposing both.

What "Left" Opposition was suggesting was not dekulakization/collectivization, but higher taxes on kulaks. Not Central Planning, but higher taxes on nepmen. Not industrialization to get an independence from Capitalist economies, but increase of foreign trade (and dependence on Capitalists) to get industrialization at some later point.

marxists.catbull.com/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch03.htm

marxists.catbull.com/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch04.htm

As it should be easily seen, "Left" Opposition was Left in name only. In all actuality it was Right-wing, pro-Capitalist faction. It was so Right-wing that even Revisionist Market "Socialists" of Bukharin balked at their suggestions and joined united front against them.

This is the true nature of "Stalin's flip-flopping". Please stop perpetuating this bullshit meme.

...

Trotskyism is not Leninism.

I have to wonder, if life is ultimately pointless, wouldn't that make death pointless as well?

Duh

The reason nihilists are so obsessed with death is because everyone else is so obsessed with life.

I don't understand the obsession with either TBH.

Immortality would be neat, but people should have the right to die or take chryo naps if they wish.

So I was looking over some video I took of myself playing a game online a few months ago, and it dawned on me that the footage of me having a conversation with someone else felt "more real" or "more genuine" or something than my actual memory of that conversation (which is intact. It was a slightly uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, despite there not being anything particularly odd under discussion.), but I thought it was an interesting phenomenon. (There were other feelings that I can't articulate too, but I suppose it's widely generalisable to modern society where everything must be photographed or recorded, and perhaps even in turn into the popularity of Let's Plays versus actually playing.)

Is this an example of "the spectacle", or otherwise some extrapolation of capitalism and it's knock-on effects on culture, or am I over-reaching here to tie a personal oddity into a wider political trend?

Hello can anyone do a short and sweet explanation on how landlords exploit their tenants?

Land to live on is a necessitty of life, therefore anyone who can't afford their own land is forced to pay the landlord rent. The landlord doesn't work, he doesn't produce anything. He makes a fortune off arbitrary property rights.

Thank you ❤️

Another question for you guys, is who do you respond to the Spectacle?

any good Lenin biography?