Basically what the title says. If someone works as a foreign service officer for the American (colonial) empire would they be considered a class traitor. My understanding of a class traitor is someone who betrays the proletariat to work for the interest of the bourgeoisie. Do embassy workers, who from my understanding mainly approve visas and work with paper work, work for the bourgeoisie?

(I haven't found any other posts talking about foreign service workers)

I have recently been reading about Marx's theories on class while trying to better understand 19th century European societies. Marx considered the new Bourgeoisie to own the means of production, while the traditional landed nobility did not. I don't really understand this, the land can produce value through growing crops or raising animals, so why doesn't it count as a means of production?

Hi I just wanted to come on here and ask for some book recommendations, I’m relatively new to communist ideals and I’ve only read the communist manifesto. I want to expand my knowledge but idk what literature to start with.

I'm reading Capital and my interpretation of it was that value as Marx means it is a property of capitalism, but I recently saw Paul Cockshott's interpretation of value here and his interpretation is that value is a category universal to all human societies, meaning anything produced by labor, and the value-form is just the form value takes in capitalism, but it can take another form in feudalism or socialism.

My thought is that he misunderstands it, but I've only read the first third or so of Capital and I could be mistaken.

One of the first ‘communist’ things I read was Capitalist Realism. I don’t need to explain why I don’t see this as communist now but at the time it was convincing.

I’ve read now and even looking at Mark Fisher see clear traits of anti-communism and advocacy for reformism via the British Labour Party. I’m even skeptical if what he said is interesting or original.

Which leads into my point, because ignoring someone is sort of neutral compared to ignoring someone for a real reason. Mark Fisher I think constituted a specific historical moment that proved the inefficacy of 2000s post-Marxism and everyone agrees we see that in Zizek but not enough in Fisher.

So the question. I’m young so I can’t pretend to get it and this is a niche subject of cultural critique. My boyfriend called Fisher a “syncretist.” What made this wave in the 2000s of which Fisher was a member and how do we fight and ignore it?

That people in the first world view persynal computers as innocent persynal property and not private property is to me the most apparent manifestation of petty-bourgeois thinking. When we consider where the labour that enables us to own such devices comes from, it becomes obvious why. It's not sustainable for everyone to have their own device. What would be done with the confiscated computers? Would they assist in central planning, be used in public libraries at a larger scale, or sent to comrades in more exploited nations? What have communists done historically?

According to Marx, there would be a "withering away of the state," to be replaced by an "administration of things." What does he mean exactly by the "administration of things"? Is it any different from a government, ie does Marx differentiate between "state" (as a uniquely capitalist institution) and "government?". And if communism is against both state and government, how is it different from social anarchism?

Maybe you fellow comrades know any authors of communist views who write nice books,not abt politics?

When reading revolutionary works, it's very common to see the discussion of the contradiction between freedom and necessity, and that through the transformation of necessity, the "true realm of freedom" can come into existence.

Marx notes the following:

beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with the realm of necessity as its basis.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/capital/vol3-ch48.htm

When discussing this topic in MIM Theory 9, they quote Marx as saying:

With his development of this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants.

and they explain with:

So freedom cannot happen just by meeting current necessity but by transforming it.

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/mim-theory/mim-9.pdf

MIM later goes on to talk about how "freedom is the understanding of necessity and the transformation of necessity", but this leaves me wondering what is meant by necessity? As I understand it, what is meant by necessity is the overcoming of class society as a means of ending the oppression of humyns by humyns. Or is it the necessity for unleashing the creative power and true potential of the masses? Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around it.

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What would be the difference between the two? The concepts seem similar to me since they both abandon ineffective, ecologically disasterous and imperialistic methods. Why does one enjoy much support and the other one is met with harsh reactions among liberals and social fascists?

Maoism, as I understand it, is widely accepted to be a continuation of Marxism like how Lenin synthesized Marx's ideas in the early 20th century. Does Maoism have "room" to grow, and are there examples of such reading?

In the last 6 months, I, like many people, have become anti-capitalism and US to the point of not believing democracy can save us. In this time, I’ve turned to reading Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, etc. and have joined the local communist movement here in my city.

As i’m still working to wrap my head around it all, i’m really trying to adsorb the language and make it digestible to my friends and family who I talk about this with. My friends are curious and not totally against the idea of a communist state, but they ask the simple questions:

• What would our jobs look like? Could we still buy homes and have families?
• Would restaurants, markets, etc. still exist?
• Would innovation stall?
• On a granular level, how would our every day lives look?
• How would crime be held accountable? Could we still ensure feeling safe at night walking home?
• As LGBTQ+ folks, is trans healthcare still available / what do these things look like?
• Do we all make the same amount of money? If I want to work more and save more, why couldn’t I own a bigger house or bigger land?

Please be kind of these are dumb questions — But storytelling I found is the most effective way to help explain these thoughts in the current and future tense and I’d like to be empowered with the answers to these questions, as they always seem to come up when I’m talking about communism with someone who is new to it.

Thanks!

why not make the entire romania to be an SSR or let it be incorporated into the socialist republic of romania? feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

Recently there was a protest in my area by immigrants demanding housing and I've heard a lot of working class compatriots claiming that these people don't have the right to make demands, some have been extremely violent and xenophobic. I understand that a lot of nationals have unmet needs but it's wrong to direct their anger at those who have even less, I know it's a systemic economic issue and that it's counterproductive for all working people to divide and fight over racial and national differences but it's difficult to explain these things in a way that's appealing to people. Could I get any advice on how I should approach this kind of rethoric? Both advice by yourself and sources to research are useful, thanks.

Do you not think it’s not replicable in other countries or do you have another issue with it? If a country could consistently achieve high living standards and a low-income disparity (also being incredibly happy) would that not be something to strive for rather than something much more extreme and less practical.

In Capital, Marx states that every commodity "may be looked at from the points of view of quality and quantity". But I don't understand the distinction between quality and quantity. Can't you say that quantity is just another qualitative property like color, texture etc.? That an apple is red, or round, or soft, or hard, those are qualitative properties, but if there are two apples, then suddenly that becomes its all own category, separate from quality. Why can't we say that the number of apples is itself a quality of the apple? Intuitively I find this distinction kind of arbitrary and it confuses me, so hopefully some of you can explain this to me.

I understand that private property is large equated with capital, or any material thing that can be used to produce wealth. This is presented as distinct from personal property, which, to my understanding, is private property that cannot be used to produce wealth.

I have two questions about this topic.

1. I am having a difficult time understanding how this distinction is precisely drawn. Take a computer for example. In an office space, it is certainly a means of production. At my home, it COULD be a means of production, even if I just use it to record music, make a youtube video, or create art. However, I could also just the computer for recreation. Does the private/personal distinction lay entirely on what the material thing is currently being used for? If I have a loom in my garage sitting there and gathering dust, is it not capital because I'm not using it?

2. Does communism inherently not care about non-capital possessions? I was always under the impression that equity of wealth is a key feature of communism. If my family has been accumulating and passing down wealth so that my home is relatively luxurious compared to other people, is that completely permissible? What about luxury goods like jewelry or high-end clothing? If they are acquired with only allotted income and do not produce wealth, are they completely outside of the control of anybody other than their owner? I would imagine that some people could blow their money on entertainment while another saves and accumulates, and that would produce inequity in the end. But those possessions are not capital, so they cannot be redistributed?

Thank you!

Even if individualism as a term was used as a term of critique by socialists, did its ideals predate capitalism?

I recently finished Michael Parenti's Blackshirts And Reds, and it opened my eyes to an incredible degree of things, one of them being that fascism emerges as something of a defense mechanism for the bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes against capitalism under attack and in decay. This made me wonder what forms fascism took in the West during the cold war, given capitalism was both under attack and in decay. My historical knowledge of the cold war era is not really much above surface level, and I would like to know what in forms fascism manifested, either partially or fully, during the cold war.

Hi, I'm trying to find the German original text of Comments on James Mill, Éléments D’économie Politique, but seems no good. Does anyone know a accesible place? Plus I don't speak German, could be one of the reason why. Thank you

Bolsonaro is a fascist, but there isn't any threat to the capitalist system in Brazil and there is no big organized communist movements in Brazil that could threaten capitalism in the country. Can someone explain how fascism is capitalism in decay?

I've read Lenin's definition, but my question is: why is it not enough to describe imperialism as exporting capital? If a country is exploiting the working class of another nation to bring profit to its own, wouldn't that be enough to be considered imperialist or at least not socialist?

I am of the understanding that Marx refers to objects as commodities and since people are subjects with inherent value, that should mean we cannot be viewed as commodities right? But how come black people, especially women, were treated as such during chattel slavery? They were viewed as property and bought and sold.

Perhaps in the modern day that black people in America are not commodities because we know are viewed as people by society. However, « blackness » can be commodified because it is a characteristic that is objectified as being valuable? Through workplace diversity initiatives for example. And that black performance is seen as desirable? (ex. Cultural appropriation, selling items inspired by black culture).

Or does this argument exist OUTSIDE of Marx since he could not imagine that objects could resist or speak (as black people did in the times of slave rebellions) because he did not consider commodities to be a human possibility ?

I'll give an example first:

Say that someone buys a chicken. They raise the chicken, selling the eggs that it lays. Later, they slaughter the chicken, and sell the meat from the chicken.

We can determine the value of the chicken meat and eggs laid together from the value of the chicken initially, the value of other commodities used in raising the chicken, and the average labour time to raise and slaughter the chicken.

However, how can we get the value of an egg alone? Or of the chicken meat alone? There doesn't seem to be a clear way to split the value between them at first glance.

So, my more general question is that, given some commodities (such as a chicken, chicken feed, ...) and a process that uses labour to turn these into multiple distinct commodities (such as eggs and chicken meat), how is the value of the set of commodities produced split between those commodities if they are sold separately?

They have correct stances against the EU and NATO, and I$rael; however, in some of their documents, they denounce marxism-leninism, calling it "stalinism", and it seems they often pander to the labour aristocracy.

I'm a novice marxist, and I still have a lot to learn from the knowledgeable posters here and reading theory. My current understanding is that in the EU, most "communist" political parties are not revolutionary. So I would like to ask specifically: are my suspicions of KSČM, and perhaps of most communist parties in the EU, being liberal valid? and are there any anti-revisionist communist parties I should know about and learn from?

E: Their stance against I$rael is not correct.

I recently was searching for a communist party/group/org in Arizona and stumbled upon something very unnerving. I have included a link (if allowed) to the article describing ARS 16.805 below. Am I understanding correctly that, being a communist, I am afforded no political rights here in AZ?

ARS 16.805 (AZ Government Website)

In 'Dialectical and Historical Materialism' by J.V. Stalin, the following is said:

Contrary to idealism, which regards the world as the embodiment of an "absolute idea," a "universal spirit," "consciousness," Marx's philosophical materialism holds that the world is by its very nature material, that the multifold phenomena of the world constitute different forms of matter in motion, that interconnection and interdependence of phenomena as established by the dialectical method, are a law of the development of moving matter, and that the world develops in accordance with the laws of movement of matter and stands in no need of a "universal spirit."

"The materialistic outlook on nature," says Engels, "means no more than simply conceiving nature just as it exists, without any foreign admixture." (Marx and Engels, Vol. XIV, p. 651.)

Speaking of the materialist views of the ancient philosopher Heraclitus, who held that "the world, the all in one, was not created by any god or any man, but was, is and ever will be a living flame, systematically flaring up and systematically dying down"' Lenin comments: "A very good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical materialism." (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, p. 318.)

What exactly is said here? That Marxist philosophical Materialism holds that the world is composed out of matter? That it is not a creation of some God, idea or whatnot. The world is just matter, with nothing supernatural about it?

What is the difference between Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism? I keep seeing that Social Democracy is bad, is there a difference between the two?

And what decides if you are? Is it determined by how much money you make? What you do? Where you live? And are they excluded from being leftists?