So, after seeing the latest drama on reddit involving leftcoms, I have to ask:

>reddit.com/r/FULLCOMMUNISM/comments/52uecs/mod_psa_users_of_left_wing_harassment_subs_will/
>In light of recent events where a mod of /r/socialism was doxxed by rooster and his crew of leftcomm socks, all active posters of any ultra left/leftcom harassment sub will be banned. Even if they haven't cross posted any FC content on those subs. This ban will be permanent, and irrevocable. These subs include, but are not limited to, /r/ultraleft /r/shittankiessay /r/shitleftistssay . If you have any questions or comments please feel free to make them.
So there might be other boards you can be banned from r/FULLCOMMUNISM for using, but are not listed. Sounds to me an awful lot like secret laws. Just like the FISA court.

no all you do is shout "That's not how you do it!" while proceeding to do nothing

What's up with blacking out the name. This is Holla Forums, not plebbit. Here's the permalink:
reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/52uciz/mod_psa_users_of_left_wing_harassment_subs_will/d7nfdw7

Annexation when?

what? why would we annex those filthy leftcoms?

Nice, I was just looking for that exact comment but I see you beat me to it.

r/socialism is filled with liberals and constantly triggered SJWs, no wonder they'd start a drama war like this. This is also why I don't engage with redditors on reddit but watch from afar away. This is also why chans are superior to plebbit, something that says a lot.

on the chonz we say "normies".

seriously, who gives a shit

even if someone knows your address it's not like any of these spergs are seriously going to show up and harass you. you also shouldn't be dumb enough to use the same screen name on multiple sites or post identifying information where just anyone can come and see it

it sounds like these leftcoms did them a favor by exposing a completely retarded mod

Aren't SJWs and normies to different things? I thought normies were people who don't think to much, are passive and hope for the best. SJWs complain about working class men/cispeople and cultural appropriation. That's how I use the words, but if I have been mistaken I am open to learning.

normalfags are people that not only participate in normal things but insist that because they are normal they are right

sjws advocate identity politics and reject the primacy of the class struggle as the end goal of social struggles, and depending on the flavor is either racist in the modern liberal "multicultural" way or an advocate for cultural apartheid

reject the primacy of the class struggle and its abolition as the end goal of social struggles* fuck

They can seem pretty sectarian to be sure, but damn if some of them don't have it right on idpol and shit.

en.internationalism.org/icc/200412/617/12-partial-struggles-reactionary-dead-end

The "dox" was a picture of his face he posted in a chatroom for mods, someone in that chatroom posted his picture to a leftcom meme subreddit, it was promptly deleted. That's all that happened.

I think you mean "cultural Marxism" you fuckin brocialist. Peddle that shit on Holla Forums where they care about straight white men.

He doxed himself, someone else reposted, then he regretted? What a fucking retard! The r/socialism mod can blame himself, and no one else.

If you can even call it a dox, this pic of him, minus the blur of course, was all that was posted

lol, holy shit, it's fucking nothing

"Cultural Marxism" is the far-right way of blaming the left for the problems of capitalism plus whatever they don't like. Neo-Nazism is a form of idpol if you didn't know.

The mod posted voluntarily a picture of himself, with his own consent on the internet, someone reposted pic and now that person is the bad guy. Unless I missed anything, isn't that r/socialism mod dumber than a lobotomized rock?

Well, his argument is that because he posted his picture in a private chatroom for mods, it's doxxing because his pic was then posted on a public subreddit.

He posted it publicly. Just because that portion of the public betrayed him doesn't mean that he isn't a) retarded and b) at fault.

I don't disagree, but that is how he justified the bans

Retard mod should have read this before posting his pic online, expecting hundreds of random strangers not to spread the pic beyond the (public) chatroom:
The Declining Half-Life of Secrets schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/the_declining_h.html
This should be elementary school material. "Secrets don't stay secrets forever", "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead".

Reminder that the top mod(/u/cometparty) hates the sjw mods, idk why he won't remove them. He basically just squats on the subreddit while they actually moderate. He could easily make it idpol-free yet chooses not to.

reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/187gqk/rsocialisms_official_position_on_feminism_once/

idk about the rest but r/ShitTankiesSay was a prickly_cocktease / kekalonia-tier anti-communist sub, so let them be banned as far as I care

disgusting

That was three years ago though, he might be compromised now.

reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/52uciz/mod_psa_users_of_left_wing_harassment_subs_will/d7od1nd
Here he is talking about the last time he removed all the mods, says he might do it again. I think he's just an attention whore tbh but he could be useful.

What was so wrong about STS?

I hate leftcoms but I think think this time they might be on the right side, apparently this is just a tankie/stalinist plot to remove the isolate the leftcoms.

reddit.com/r/shittankiessay/comments/52vhn7/re_rsocialism/d7nmr2p

idealist calling people idealists

why havent you slit your wrists yet?

Everything philosophical is idealism since it is a consciousness that posits the very concepts it deems the world to be.

There abstract idealists, and then there are concrete ones. Marx and Hegel fall on the concrete side, although Marx himself falls into abstraction with communism. Leftcoms take this abstract idealism of Marx and go nowhere.

or

wer wer u when r/socialism saved the left

How about today's Science with it's naturalist materialism? Would it's mathematical platonism make it idealist?

Can someone post the pic that has a tankie and a lolbert added?

Has it never struck you that the very idea of laws of physics, which either construct or mobilize matter, are nothing but a modern form of idealism? How does matter and law interact? You either have a Cartesian dualism of matter and abstract ideal law, or you have very weird things like panpsychism where matter 'knows' how to respond to these laws and other matter.

Idealism is not at heart tied to consciousness, rather it is tied to the belief that reality is ideal in the sense that we could actually fully know it. If materialism/physicalism are even coherent, they posit this same belief.

Would an Idealism tied to consciousness be primarily an epistemological idealism whilst the latter you just mentioned an ontological one?

It's the inverse: ontological idealism ties the world to consciousness, epistemological ties the world to intelligibility.

Hegel is an epistemological idealist, and Plato can be counted in such a category as well although he himself was not able to stay consistent on it, and he obviously failed to explain how his idealism was possible. Hegel does not deny that nature is mind independent, what he would deny is that one cannot think nature without an intelligible structure. Such a thing literally is the Kantian noumenal nothing which cannot be known and cannot be interacted with.

Personally I like to think more of the laws of physics as an exercise of circular reasoning, but I guess idealism works to. Although, it seems to me that their very nature makes it so they are not abstract or ideal. By definition they are concrete and it can be argued that the laws of physics are made from the material reality and not the other way around.

They are circular when we want to talk about their intelligibility. The law is only known because of the actions of matter, yet it is invoked as the explanation for matter's motion. Because we actually do not know what the hell the laws of nature actually are on their own, we have no true laws at all. We do, however, have concepts of some of these laws that despite being empty in physics can be made sense of by philosophy. The law of gravitation, for example, in Hegel's system is something that appears through the very concept of matter itself.

But can it not be said that the laws come from if not matter then at least substance (as we are aware of physical particles that seemingly have no mass). That the laws are merely the interactions of the inherent nature of these substances?

The concept of matter is what it means. If we really understand matter, we have the concept of matter, but Hegel thinks these true concepts are not empirical concepts. Other than that, yeah, you're right. The laws would just follow from what substance is and does. This would give a real explanation as to what and why the law is, something physics cannot do.

Fascinating.

I am for communist critique of communist projects, not for liberal anti-communism. There's a huge difference STS people can't seem to understand. A lot of posts on STS are pure demagoguery, but then again it's reddit…

But you would have to notice that substance/matter would of itself generate these relations of laws, and thus it has to be considered in a way to be its own subject which freely determines itself to be what it is, and not just an object of consciousness.

How is Plato's idealism primarily epistemological?

are you saying in his later dialogues such as Republic, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman & Timaeus-Critias are not primarily concerned with ontological statements about the nature of οὐσία? Is Plato's epistemological idealism mainly found in his dialectic? In relation to this question how about when Plato says that the Good is beyond Being & Intelligibility?

I think physics can do that though. At lest, from my understanding it does. (not a student of physics just saying preemptively) But aren't there 4 basic forces, gravity, electro-magnatism, weak force and strong force? And that these forces are the result of interactions between particles? It must therefor follow that particles have inherit qualities to them which produce these forces. While it is more useful to understand the laws of these forces, I don't think a physicist would deny this point.

But isn't that somewhat undermined by quantum physics? That extremely small particles have properties which are seemingly determined by external subjectivity. Certainly it appears that the qualities of substances are objective, as even the changes which occur from observation are predetermined albeit chosen at random (i.e. the paths are determined but which path is chosen is not).

It's epistemological because the intent of the ideas is to explain how there is such a thing as knowledge in the world at all, and how knowledge seemed to be timeless. Plato posited the ideas as the true reality because he could not make sense of how empirical reality itself had any intelligibility without them since what we encounter in concepts is an attempt to capture the universal aspects of things, not pictures. Furthermore, the ideas are the true reality because they have eternal enduring, they are true substance for substance is that which endures, and what endures in the empirical world? Not the world itself, but the idea of the world.

Plato had very good reasons for thinking what he did, he simply did not know how to make it fit together.

Regarding physics, you already said it: physics can only posit laws in circular manner. It finds lawful regularity in the action and relation of matter, and then posits this regularity to be the cause of matter's motion/relation. This is obviously nonsense on the level of saying that opium numbs because of its underlying numbing powers. You're using the effect to justify the cause, yet the cause you claim is really the observed effect restated.

No, QM doesn't undermine it. Hegel talks about this at length, about how nature is full of incomplete subjects that never fully self-determine. Material objects of the kind physics deal with suffer from mechanistic determinacy where matter's being is merely its relation to other matter, and not due to its own full self determination, and as such base materiality has no explanation beyond these abstract relations to itself by its laws.

The problem of the theory of ideas was that Plato could not make it work with what he had. Aristotle made an advance by saying that the objects of the world >were< the ideas themselves, that the ideas were in the objects and not in some noumenal realm. This made it possible to consider the knowing of the object to be the knowing of its idea, and the ideas were the essences, but Aristotle also could not explain the relation of substance and form, of object and concept.

Hegel is the one who finds a way to link the gap by showing that concepts and objects share the exact same structure of self-development/determination. This identity allows their unity, and when we unify an object under its concept we finally have its idea. We are assured we really do know the object in itself as it is without any subjective injections.

Marx's theory of Capital hinges on this relation of concept and object, which is why he uses the apriori structures of the Logic to develop the concept of capital and match it to the empirical world of capitalism.

But obviously they are not abstract they are material. My whole point has been that the abstract has its ontological roots in the material. Clearly the interactions of particles occurs on a material basis, unbound by abstract laws like the laws of physics, and that these interactions rather create the laws. Particles and their interactions are concrete, they exist. Abstractions are only descriptions of what exists, the appearance of the material base. I think the problem we have now is similar to what marx described as subject/object inversion.To him prices are the appearance of abstractions of value, only that since prices are a social phenomena the prices are the real results of material interactions decided by a multitude of things and but we treat prices like value, suddenly we become objects and the prices become subjects. With physics and qm, the abstractions are also real because the physical base is real, but here the abstractions(the laws of physics) are the appearance and the material relations are what would be in a dialectic the abstract, but obviously it cannot be abstract because the particles are not subjects, they are objects in the material world.

I'm also super tired right now so this might all sound really stupid.

Okay thanks for the answer, then are there any ontological "properties"/ontology of Plato's forms or we shouldn't bother with this question?

No that sounds good.
Meanwhile A.W like Hegel himself spews meaningless verbiage.

And what is material? What validity does such concept have? Why are you presupposing it despite it not being the first thing you know?

That's a Marxist saying this. You can't just assume matter to be the ground of reality despite the obviousness of it not being true when you're a consciousness thinking about said matter. You have to explain how you have access to knowing what itself is not a thought.

I'm presupposing an ontology. The fact that the foundation exists, and that eventually we'll reach a point where all attempts to break down concepts becomes recursive. Since it appears that objects have properties outside of my subjectivity, I think I'll go with objects and substance as the foundation of that ontology.

Ah but my consciousness already pre-supposes the concrete existence of matter to operate correctly. So if matter is concrete and does not exist then my consciousness is not working properly and thus no conclusion I make is of any significance unless I can understand in what manner I am not working properly, which would be rather hard to do since my mind would not be working properly.

Of course I cannot know for sure what is a thought and what is not, since I can only think. But I can make educated guesses. And yes, I must work under the assumption that things exist which are not thoughts, otherwise I could manipulate the world itself with psychological tricks and so my doctrine would become the same ineptitude of the stoics.

but even if we were to suppose that the material world was not the foundation of a universal ontology, and thus had to say that only thoughts existed, it still seems clear that acting on those thoughts which represent material things brings forth the best results, the most change and the most satisfaction for my ego.

Is that the same guy that was red rooster on reddit? I once did a search on labor vouchers and found several posts of that guy (going over a time span of several years) where he flipped out again and again over some people posting stuff by Paul Cockshott. Did you know that labor vouchers are capitalist and utopian and anti-Marxist rahrahrah? (The last part I find a bit odd given that Marx and Engels themselves were for labor vouchers.)

In general I consider people weird who self-identify as left and then spend an insane amount of time denouncing other obscure and microscopic leftwing groups. As if millions of people were mislead by these false prophets, and this being the number one obstacle (or the only one, even!) on the way to achieving the glorious communist future. It seems to me people who argue like that are really talking to themselves, trying to convince themselves why joining group X is the right thing, and, being unable to differentiate between characters in more complicated ways than either super-good or super-evil, everybody else is of course the fucking anti-christ.

It's tedious when people talk like that, sometimes you can see some valuable analysis of other group's flaws aside from the bathos (talking like this is the final battle in some anime and the criticized comrade is about to be unmasked by our hero to be one of the lizard people), but in this case, it was some twat who has literally argued the opposite of Marx calling the position of Marx anti-Marxist. My impression was that rooster was mentally ill. It doesn't surprise me that he ended up doxxing people. I heard he also doxxed people on Revleft.

Bump for answers

/r/socialism is so shitty

they claim to be non-sectarian, but anybody who expresses support for leftypol will be banned

the mods truly think we're all bigots because our name includes "pol"

How about /r/communism? They think North Korea is a socialist country (they have probably never read the works of BR Myers debunking this), like Stalin & Hoxha unironically and thinks Grover Furr is a good source on history.

/r/communism manages to be even worse

/r/socialism_101 is the only acceptable socialist community on reddit

Because we read, and we expect others to read, and we explain what we read to all those who refuse to do so - but after the umpteenth time of having to explain to people who just will not read, we get annoyed and frustrated, so we will just lash out "Just fucking read already! Read Endnotes, read Bordiga (though he's generally not used as anything more than a stepping stone these days), Read Negri, read anything beyond Chomsky or your party approved pamphlets!"

And then people call us assholes, because we simply don't have the patience any more.

A.W. This is a shitty strawman and I know you can do better, almost all modern theories of practice has come from the modern melting pot of leftcoms and ancoms: Autonomism, communization, etc.

but theres /r/fullstalinism now

Y'all like us anyways tbh

Why no Chomsky?

He's pretty big with his works on Western imperialism

I would rather argue with a leftcom than a Stalinist. They know their bullshit back to front.
May as well read Foucault, at least he had something novel to say.
One also thinks of Tiqqun and the Invisible Committee.

What have they achieved? Genuine question.

ell oh ell

Are leftcoms worse than Stalinists? How could Leftcoms be worse than stalinists?

Leftcoms are bad because at their worst they're even more anachronistic and delusional than the tankies, and at their best they realize Marxism is almost entirely outdated and doesn't appeal to anyone anymore. Then, instead of abandoning Marxism for something a little more sleek and elegant like technological critique, they go full retard and decide we need to somehow "Rescue Marxism."

Imagine Marxism as a rapidly sinking ship. The tankies delude themselves into thinking everything is fine and go down with the ship. The Leftcoms jump off at the last minute on pieces of driftwood. Looking at this driftwood (the parts of Marxism that are still useful and valid) they say "We can still save the ship!"

If anyone suggests perhaps, that we should find a new ship, or at least cobble together a raft, the Leftcoms drown them.

If anyone presents alternatives, they denounce them as incomplete, idealist, and naive, when in fact left-communism is all of those things.

They're worse than tankies in that the cognitive dissonance levels are astronomically higher.

Antrans flags usually post garbage but this is something new. At least it's not as bad as that one Rojava flaggot who said left coms are reformists.

No it isn't.

From my conversations, plenty of leftcoms think that Marx needs to be "extended" or updated. The ones who don't think this are even worse.

Good one.

Dude, almost all modern forms of revolt take their inspiration from autonomist theory. If you ask "Well where are the leftcoms societies huh? We tankies/anarchists established our own!"

Well… see how that worked out. Leftcoms are the only one's who have produced any serious critique of what went wrong based on the internal limits and problems of these tendencies, rather than blaming it all on some external or subversive evil such as fascists/revisionists/US/Bolsheviks. This is why Bordiga is recommended as an introductory reading, since he early on analysed why the USSR would fail to develop communism: libcom.org/library/communism-is-the-material-human-community-amadeo-bordiga-today

Honestly, beyond Bordiga, Théorie Communiste has developed a better theory of the historical limits of communism in the 20th century: libcom.org/library/who-are-we

Egerios if you think my critique of Marx is that he is "outdated" you've completely misunderstood the point of a theory developing, being contextualized.

I would also not call a eschatological hope in technology saving us from all our problems (including death!) "sleek and elegant". What you have is a complete lack of theory, you only have faith in a messiah.

I literally don't think that is the truth.

So are you the admin on De-Classcucking Memes for Commie Proles or?

Everyone analysed why USSR would fail. Bakunin did it before Bordiga was even born.

The question is whether they managed to produce something better than USSR.

I must say - that's my impression too.

Anarchists don't believe in transition phase. They need "proper true Socialism" (aka 100% undiluted Communism in Marxist discourse) and will accept no substitutes. Which is why Communists (Bolsheviks) are often considered by them to be even worse enemy than the Capitalists (and this is how AnCap are born - they are a natural evolution of anti-Marxist Anarchism).

As opposed to what? Revolt? Where's that going? Nowhere.
Trotsky argued the same. So what?

That Théorie Communiste intro was long on waffle and short on clarity. The gist of what I read is that the proletariat is in contradiction with itself and present struggles aren't sufficient for a revolution defined as the abolition of classes. First, that's bullshit, short of a better explanation, and second, revolution is not the abolition classes; that's communism. We don't go full communism right away. We know it will fail. Do fill me in on what I've misunderstood or missed, in your own words.

Except TC lterally argues otherwise, we're finally in the era when communization is possible.

Kek, no you have to present something better than that.

On the contrary, it's the alternatives who have failed. If you want a longer, more in depth introduction, I'd suggest you read endnotes #1.

Trotsky took Kautskyist vanguardism to it's limit by blaming the entire failure on the wrong people being in charge, he literally developed a Great Man theory of communism. This kind of "outside enemy" is exactly the kind of thinking that left communism has opposed. I mean, considering your poor reading of TC I'm not surprised you didn't even read my post to begin with - since this was exactly what I was addressing.

Please, you can do better than this.

Is not a valid answer to a critique of why you failed. You sidestep the entire question, why did you fail? Because you did fail, there was no abolition of the value-form, no disintegration of the state, not a single sign of communism after the Party has tarnished any faith in it.

No?

I invited you to correct me, but you obviously can't. Rather than explaining your literature you dump it and expect it to speak for itself. You're the same as any other ideologue and I won't waste my time.

the sheer level of idealism is unbearable

Okay, this is pretty fucking simple:

Brilliant critique.

I did not fail, IIRC.

Nope.

Since I already had this discussion, let's clarify first: how (do you think) this should've looked like? Because "magic palaces falling from the sky" is not an answer.

Depends on what you call "state".

That's pretty bold statement you have here.

Actually, we are kinda close. Not to the "everyone has a palace", but to "predominantly Communist economy", of course.

are you for real?

is there no division of labour?
is there no divison between countryside and cities?
is there no division between mental and manual labour?

and don't give me that bullshit about post-industrial society
we did not became immaterial beings
we still need material things to survive
someone somewhere made that shit that you use daily

Frankly said it's not. While some scholars and academics manage to argue that the USSR was neither capitalism, nor socialism/approaching socialism(non-mode of production), most marxist scholars are positive that the Soviet Union definitely wasn't socialist. Just because tanks manage to put words into Marx's and Engels's mouth through some elaborate sophism and idealism (muh socialist commodity production) it doesn't follow that the Soviet Union was a free association of producers.

there's a difference?

While I agree that the post-revolutionary period will be characterized by the "the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges" I don't think that it's fair to say that the abolition of class society isn't part of the revolution / communism. In fact, the abolition of classes will probably be the first thing to happen due to the abolition of private property the material base of class society.

Holy shit this shitty fucking website wont let me post.

so what are you proposing?
free association stinks of market association
and you will inevitably embrace market because the alternative is planned economy, means no free association

you are just libertarians in denial

what a shame

This is important, you peon.

If you define "state" as means of one class to oppress the other, once you have no classes, you have no "state". This doesn't mean that administration doesn't happen, nor that paper-pushers disappear, nor the laws cease to exist. If you define "state" by presence of laws, of administration, and of people who organize things, then you still have "state".

Engels' wall-of-text quote:
> The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production in the first instance into state property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state. Society thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the state, that is, of an organisation of the particular class, which was pro tempore the exploiting class, for the maintenance of its external conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labour). The state was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. 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. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase "a free people's state", both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the state out of hand.

Post-Trotskyism is not necessarily Marxism.

Just. Read. Actual. Marx. And. Engels.

Still no arguments. Only statements.

free association means that there is no social constraint (right now it's the constant possibility of starving when not working). There are no consequences to not wanting to work in communism.

Oh, you actually put some effort in: well done. The abolition of work and the value-form. Very easy. Two sentences, yet you couldn't do it unless you were forced, and even then it took you two paragraphs. Yet that leaves much to be explained.

The proletariat remains defined by the bourgeoisie. The latter are the main objective of a social revolution, the immediate, concrete objective which must be overcome. The value-form, which you haven't defined, but lets assume we're on familiar Marxist terrain, will not be abolished at a stroke but as part of the long march towards communism. Similarly, occupations such as waitress at McDonalds will cease to exist only after production is wrested from the bourgeoisie by none other than the dictatorship of the proletariat. The preconditions to both are social revolution. Not revolt or communization. There will be no realization of communism under capitalism. That capital "I" in Idea smacks of idealism in the Hegelian sense.

Going further, saying that the proletariat has to shift its objective from overcoming the bourgeoisie, class struggle, to abolishing the value-form requires a massive rethink which largely precludes social revolution. Saying we must abolish work in the absence of our control over production requires yet another rethink – it perhaps explains why revolt appears to be the main achievement, because that's the only option outside of social revolution. And it's a dead end.

Communism is a goal. Revolution is at first an event and then a process towards that goal. And it's very appropriate that you quote Marx because the other poster defined communism as an Idea to which the proletariat will have to adjust itself.

Developing and Contextualizing is synonymous with bringing things up to date. All you're doing is rephrasing. You have an obsession with calling things Marxist, when what's required is a total reinvention, not an "expansion" or "extension." Even if Marxist theories were still 100% applicable you're already setting yourself up for total political failure by calling yourself a Marxist.

Technological critique of capitalism is not something I invented and has little to do with my teleological theories.

I support technological critiques as I find from personal experience it's highly effective at convincing even hardcore conservatives that capitalism has to be trashed if we don't want to be killed off by the bourgeoisie. Technological automation is not science fiction, it is happening as we speak, people are much more willing to believe that. Abstract theories are things people just don't give a fuck about

They don't really help in the realm of political organization in which the most important factor in success is having good rhetoric. The useful bits of Marxism are nothing insightful and anyone could tell you about them without needing to resort to the flat-out wrong labor theory of value, which appears correct only after the fact. Read The Economic Singularity for a good technological critique.

might have to post in parts because this website is shit.

Love you too user.

cont.

a single sign of communism after the Party has tarnished any faith in
it.

That's a nice bunch of words that don't really mean anything other than "well, reality got in the way." The real problems behind the failure of the USSR were mostly because of the desperate times of the Russian Civil War. Desperate times called for desperate measures and it irreparably damaged the character of the state, which never had any chance of coming out intact to begin with by the nature of revolution. Read a history book about the war perhaps and you might get an inkling about how absolutely fucked everything was for everyone forever. I recommend "Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War."

There wasn't time to "abolish value-forms" when the average person in Petrograd was receiving ~300 calories daily, and that was just Petrograd.

It's always "just around the corner" for the idiot communists. Remember Khrushchev?

Either that logic will be proven wrong at some point (and "idiot Communists" will be right), or Communism will never happen.

Which is it, you intellectual coward?

If communists keep on clinging to outdated ideologies, communism will happen, but it will be the victory of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, instead if the reverse as Marx predicted.

I'm quite familiar with your argumentation, I went there at least a hundred times. The problem is that you ignore the state's main function which is setting the general conditions for accumulation and protecting the process. Class domination is an important factor as well but it's just the consequence of the state following the dictate of capital. By being a social relation capital doesn't necessarily need capitalists to enforce its interests. After all capitalism can function without capitalists. In the case of the Soviet Union the absence of a capitalist class led to the state assuming the position of the *ideal* capitalist to further the primitive accumulation in Russia.

And honestly, they had a Police, secrete services, property laws, prisons and other things which are quite characteristic for states. If it smells like shit, it's probably shit.

neither is Marxism-Leninism.

pic related
Other than that Marxism doesn't mean we need to treat Marx and Engels like saints. The principle of ruthless criticism applies to them just as much as it applies to other people.

No, this isn't how "an"caps came to be.
It came from a filthy liberal (Roth) who decided to co-opt the term because he thought that is was really kewl to describe his anti-state position.
That's it.

I'd remind you that all this happened only in America during a time where the anarchist movement was very weak. I'd also remind you that Social democrats and ML's played a part in this by playing down anarchists with their rhetoric.

I only mentioned Chomsky's works on the US's foreign policy and such.

..and you say that communism is a state of affairs. You can disagree with Marx on this issue but I think that distinguishing between the revolutionary process and "actual" communism leaves space for counter-revolution acting as a "temporary" solution, as a stepping stone towards communism while basically being restoration of capitalist relations (market socialism and the likes).

I've addressed these so many times I'm just going to link to some old critique of them:
bunkerchan.xyz/left/res/2151.html#q2161
bunkerchan.xyz/left/res/1806.html#q1874
bunkerchan.xyz/left/res/1879.html#q1880

Oh yeah, his collection of info is great, and I really recommend him as an introduction into a critique of capitalism, as he was for me.

Sadly, once it's comes to a positive project, or a critique of exactly why previous attempts to dismantle it have failed, his response isn't far above a shrug.

I'm not disagreeing with Marx. You're disagreeing with me, pettily I might add. I said it is a goal, not a state of affairs. Who knows if we will ever agree on a state of affairs called communism, even after the revolution.

I've literally summarized what's in the article, I can't be blamed for your lack of engagement. As I've noted in my very first post, I've also grown increasingly tired of one-line attempts to hand-wave away critiques. I'm very happy that can actually take the time to engage in some argumentation.

If you mean in the sense of a new Mode of Production (or rather, Life), none has claimed this.
You might have forgotten upon whose work Marx built on. Hell, even Althusserian pupils such as Badiou and Zizek use this terminology.

Here you're being stuck in the programmatism of Orthodox Marxism and Leninism. As noted the entire critique of TC is against this understanding of communism as the end goal of a struggle within capitalism, whether lead by a vanguard or councils. It's the idea that everything will reach some breaking point and then overturned.

Against this TC claims that modern struggle will take the form, not of this calcifying form where the militant gladly wait until the proper place for them to lead the charge, where struggle is counted in sold newspapers. Rather, struggle must take the form of constant subversion, abstention from participating in work and the establishment of centres that undermine the capitalist mode of production - squats etc.

Now, I'm not so arrogant as to claim that revolution will just be people leaving their work, TAZ springing up everywhere and we will shift to a hemp-based economy (Tho Tiqqun might claim otherwise). The critique is rather directly aimed against this idea of the revolution being at some point in the horizon - against this we must emphasize revolution as currently ongoing. 1917 was just not that, it was the continuation of constant revolts and strikes Europe-wide since the turn of the century.

Communization is the realization that we are in fact participating in the revolts that build the revolution.

This is so much fail, I don't even know where to begin. Bourgeoisie is in the "victory" position at the moment, if you haven't noticed. How are they going to "win" Communism? By exterminating Proletariat, becoming workers themselves, and then making Revolution happen?

Either way, outdated ideologies cannot affect anything, if they aren't relevant. And relevance is measured either in numbers, or in practical applicability.

Communists are hardly the majority of the (self-proclaimed) Left, nor does ML enjoy some preferential treatment. Therefore, if Marxism is still dominating the Left thought, it could mean only one thing: the majority failed to come up with anything worthwhile (well, either that, or Communists are using Black Magic of Stalinism to keep people under their thrall).

Who the hell is this "Capital", if it has "interests"?

Where are Stirner fanboys when you need them?

No. "Capitalism" (as unregulated economy) creates Capitalists, while Capitalism (as mode of production) by definition presupposes existence of Capitalists (i.e. people who use/abuse power over economy by owning Capital).

Only Capitalism as purely technological basis of society (industrial economy, as opposed to agrarian or post-industrial), fits this description - i.e. it can function without Capitalists. But then any Socialist state would be Capitalist (i.e. industrial) in this sense, until we will get to the over-abundance of MoP (Capital), the Communism is characterized by.

Which is why it is pointless to use definition of Capitalism as industrial economy when we are talking about Socialism. We need to use Capitalism as mode of production. And this kind of Capitalism does not exist without Capitalists.

This is you on post-Trotskyism. Stop being on post-Trotskyism.

Especially this bit is retarded:
Accumulation period is NEP. I.e. State Capitalism. Period when private entities were allowed to roam free-ishly. It's not about state-run enterprises.

So … no laws? Real Communism(tm) is full-on AnCap?

Not an argument. If you want to appeal to authority (which is dumb by definition), you need to prove that authority is valid. Not throw shit at other things.

I literally quoted Engels, you illiterate peon.

I.e. I need to refer ONLY to Marx and Engels, but if I do - that's dogmatism and quote is not valid.

Go kill yourself, AnCap.

Except Egerios, here's the kicker: your argument is "we need to seize power, not call ourselves Marxist."

Well? Where is that theory? How do we do that? I've noted this before, and I say this again: you don't have a theory for the actual question that is asked: How do the exploited seize power? If your argument is "Well, we'll just vote" Then congratulations, how's SYRIZA doing?

The first building block for that lies in Marx, because so far there exists no theory that has so successful critiqued capitalism. It does not matter how much personal dislike people have at this current moment (I foresee it will change pretty soon) with the name of Marx, it's still the one that has successfully been proven right - every time.

What are we arguing about? My critique was against the fact that the USSR was anything but a bog standard welfare/warfare state.

On the other hand (and I can understand you don't want to handle this issue since socialism will arrive on the back of a winged angle called Singularity) power is always seized in times of crisis, things will always be at their absolute worst - and it's exactly under these absolutely worst of circumstances we should expect to work from when we try to implement communism.

And you claim to have read Marx kek
youtu.be/qyFMKiHFZXg

Nope. I can trace roots of AnCap as far as Paris Commune. Like an Alien's larvae, embryo of AnCapism was inside Anarchism all along. Anarchism needs a healthy dose of class consciousness to protect itself from it (at which point it should just call itself Marxism).

Well, then don't expect me to answer any time soon.

And now I'm not even going to read your links to bunkerchan. Into the trash you go.

Burden of Proof is on you, inb4 mutualism.

You are what's killing the left.

Except I told you to investigate the technological critique and directed you to a book. There's a thread in the catalog about that book too. You seize power through whatever channels are open. Currently reformism and crypto-anarchist memery seem to be the only "viable" options to me. Establishing a UBI is probably the most important thing to do as it would buy time for more radical change.

I'll be kind enough to summarize it for you: If capitalism continues to innovate it will no longer be preferable to continue the current mode of production because producing for profit will stop making sense even for the Bourgeoisie, who would benefit from ending wage-labor. Whether or not we are along for the ride is up to what we do in the coming years.

This is self-parody practically. Marxism has been wrong so many times that it's built up hundreds of ad-hoc propositions to explain why things went wrong, leftcommunism being one such ad-hoc proposition.

I'm not even talking about the singularity, Christ, Automation is not a fairy tale, it's happening right now. Even if just the trucking industry was automated it would cause massive economic upheaval.

By getting enough automative power to be self-sufficient then exterminate the proletariat.

I'm sorry, but if you aren't familiar with the events of Paris Commune, I'm not going to bother. That's a lot to write (and it was written already - I recommend Marx's Civil War in France, as sufficiently authoritative (for Marxists) source; i.e. you can use it for quotes, rather than some Gluckstein - or whoever that was - that guy from Anarachist FAQ used).

And don't pretend that you being uneducated is somehow justifiable and gives you bonus points. Althusser or Bordiga might or might not be relevant, but Paris Commune is the starting point of any discussion that involves Socialism.

You're such a fucking retard.

I can trace ML's fascism back to Russia.

Go away, red fascist.

This presupposes that Bourgeoisie will stop using Capitalist mode of production between themselves and will abolish private property. That's the kind of thinking that is common to Proletariat, not Bourgeoisie. Their whole system of ethics is based on owning things (Marxism, yes).

And, as I've said: your argumentation implies that ML Communists are somehow hogging up the resources of the Left. This is hardly the case.

...

I like how you ignore the key points of my argument in favor of nitpicking a few lines, behavior which you claim to be tired of yourself. I won't restate them since you obviously can't be bothered engaging properly either.

I'm not here to argue what a social revolution is: your attempt to discredit me on these grounds is what matters, and it's fruitless. To argue that communism requires a social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is not programmatic – it's foundational.

I like how you suggest that revolutionary struggle must be subversion etc. yet in the next breath realize that, yes, it is a bit arrogant to claim these things as revolutionary – they are not. To state that squatting, for example, undermines the capitalist mode of production is laughable. Is this the future of work-free, value-free production under communism? Doubtful.

Finally, there's a contradictory thread throughout your argument, namely communism as the end goal of a revolutionary struggle being wrong, yet you arguing that revolts are struggling to build "the" revolution. Also that the revolution is ongoing yet lacking a goal, having only an idea of communism as existing via absenteeism, squatting, and so on. How are these building anything other than professional communists, who don't fear being exiled from capitalist production? Are these not a proto-vanguard?

Also, do yourself a favor and ignore the Stalinist. I have to sleep but I'll take up any further points when I wake up.

Remember how I mentioned that social democrats and ML's made it worse with their rhetoric which further lead to this liberal stupidity? This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Anarchism and capitalism are contrary. You can't have both.

I'll just do what you do though:

You deep into liberal propaganda.

Just give me the page i have The Civil war in France By Marx here with me now.

You know who loved UBI? Milton Friedman, because he realized it was a great way to replace wages with state founding, which have already been done to certain extents here in Sweden.

This is a completely utopian preposition with absolutely nothing to back it up. If you already agree that we can fix scarcity at this very moment then why hasn't it been fixed already, since profit "no longer makes sense"? Maybe it's because the entire Mode of Production hinges upon continued drive for capital? Maybe it's because capital has no 'end point' when it feels satisfied and comfortably cocoons into FALC?

Laughable.

god for some fucking reason I can't post

Thank you, god.

it's a social relation and its main interest is self valorization. But I'm not surprised that a suckdem stalinite thinks of capitalism as a form of personal domination. If anything capital dominates capitalists. Reification etc.
Lol what's the difference between "capitalism" and capitalism?

But capitalism as a mode of production is characterized first and foremost by generalized commodity production and capital accumulation, not by the presence of a capitalist class. Capital as a social relation can and does in some cases exist without the presence of a capitalist.
the accumulation period started with the separation of producers and means of production, ie the nationalization of agriculture:
Capital Vol1

Read Pashukanis, tankie.

ok Stefbot

And lol at you dismissng my pic because it says Marx instead of Engels. I didn't think you can get any more pedantic.

and likewise, suckdem.

It's because they are frequently right about the shitty things the other fractions do.

Stalinists are not leftists.

Then read it. All of it.

Key points would be Proudhonist's respect towards private property (mutualism, yes):
- Finance that wasn't nationalized (even railroads weren't nationalized, IIRC; despite First International's program!)
- Moneylenders running amok (because muh private property and voluntary deals)
- weapons not being confiscated
- most of Labour laws never being introduced (few where, but never uniform)

In theory, refusal of Proudhonists to treat things at state level in general is also AnCap imo, but that's debatable. The same could be said about newspaper articles (from La Commune, La Sociale, etc.) - which also declared support for Bourgeoisie (unity of employer and employee), but it was declarations, not acts.

And - no. I don't actually remember pages. And I did actually do quite a bit of reading on Commune in addition to Marx.

There is no god.

so there was no capital accumulation during NEP? give me a break

and kulaks employed labour, so they appropriated part of the surplus value produced by their workers

plus kolkhoz were coops
they could decide who to sell their remaining product, after state took its fixed share

Would you also reccomend reading the history of the whole paris commune before diving in Marx his reflections of it? (I also got Proudhon, Kroptokin and Bakunin his reflections on it)

Ok.

Ok, but Milton Friedman's negative income tax doesn't have much to do with an actual UBI as it wasn't a UBI, it was a negative income tax.

Except the necessary innovation (automation of certain key industries like transportation) is happening right now, not even in development any more, it's in the deployment phase.

The problem is that this doesn't jive with your earlier statement that Marxism "has successfully been proven right - every time."

Which one is it, having problems and needing correction, or right all the time?

...

Has it ever been wrong?

...

What exactly are leftcoms? Leftist-communists? It seems like too much of a loose term to be seriously used.

God damn it.
Stop paying so much attention to just the name.

Left communists. The term refers to communists who criticize Marxism-Leninism from the left while maintaining the October Revolution was proletarian in nature. Commonly critical of front strategy, any kind of nationalism, and parliamentarianism.

And stalinists still think they are leftists somehow

So? I mean, none of that is bad, imo. Marx, Engels or whatever other philosopher you have it, aren't beatified deities that should be put on pedestals and beyond criticism. Their theory should be criticized and adapted to newer times, because, although the core of their work has remained the same, the manner of their applications are not as relevant today as they were previously. Adapt and survive.

Point out what's outdated.

I thought it was fairly implicit that there is an "if" in there

Which parts? I'm curious, I always hear Marx's theories are outdated but never specifically what is outdated. Just that it was written in the 19th century, but he mostly focused on the core of capitalism that remains the same today.

I don't know man. I never read them myself. That's why there is an implicit "if" in there. I was arguing merely from a rhetorical position

youtube.com/watch?v=FosfvOdXrrw
Have a listen. Yes, it's a hour long, but it's an easy listen, and it gives you some idea of what has changed and how he was wrong (and right).

STS isnt liberal you fag. its a bunch of bordigafags and some frankfurtfags. you're sipping the /r/socialism koolaid.

They ban pretty much anyone that has posted in the Venezuela subreddit too.

You made me remember this neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=776087

technically it's because of the NazBols and other idiots who have a kneejerk response to any discussion of how class and race intertwine, they are just appalled that we don't ban them on sight like they do.

he more memed him/her than anything but it's not important.
it makes me feel all fuzzy inside knowing that that's Just One Autist because i thought "god damn there's no way 1000+ people are this fucking sectarian that they criticize anything that isn't 'leaderless directx' (that will never get anywhere like OWS demonstrated)"

it is

what i want to know is why they ban anyone with a critical opinion on feminism/blm/idpol etc. writing them off as racists. these people are pretty "general" and you can only make weak inferences that they're racist.

oh hey i thought i was the only one who thought hegel was interesting but useless

exactly i've never seen a single leftcom in literature or online provide an actual game plan for how to create a revolution but here's my take

yeah in the "always" strip it's written by someone who's a disgusting and alarming combination of trot and leftcom just off the top of my head they dislike corbyn

baby steps people

You wanted me to show you the AnCap in 19th century. I'm pointing towards the actual facts, rather than interpretations.

Read some books, you triggered piece of American education.

I was talking about military supplies. There were warehouses full of weapons and Commune did not take those weapons and did not distribute to the army/population.

Nah, I'm good

Express yourself better, statist.