Question: how does the value of a product affect the situation when the bottleneck is not the labor time needed to produce it but the resources of nature? Let's assume for the sake of an example that building a hydroelectric power plant has a cost similar to building a coal power plant and a mine. Providing the raw material needed to operate a hydropower plant is much easier than a coal-fired one. Water just flows, coal has to be dug out. Finding the right river is also easier. The candidate rivers can be seen with the naked eye, you just need to make some calculations to see if they are profitable. You have to find coal in the ground somehow, etc. However, a hydroelectric power plant produces much more energy than a coal-fired power plant despite similar or even lower labor expenditure for its construction and operation. However, we are prevented from building only these power plants by the small number of places suitable for their creation. In turn, we can find relatively many coal deposits. Well, one joule of energy produced by both power plants is worth the same as the other one, despite different amounts of work. How to explain this? (Maybe some things are not entirely consistent with the facts because I don't know much about power plants, but I just wanted to illustrate some logic)

I'm interested in learning more about Marxism, particularly the way in which was developed in to Leninism, and how later generations of thinkers inspired by Marx took his ideas and adapted them or added to them. I am also interested in the Frankfurt School and their relationship to Marx. However, I can't seem to find a book or books that cover the development of Marxist theories in the 20th century, nor can I seem to find a good introduction to the Frankfurt School/Critical Theory. I'm currently reading David Held's introduction to Critical Theory, but our definitions of 'introduction' appear to differ.

Something that I had initially glossed over, but later stuck out to me like a sore thumb, was:

Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does

His distinction of the word ``worldly``, is it code?

What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.

Earlier in the work, he uses ``worldly`` but not in reference to Judaism.

In the perfect democracy, the religious and theological consciousness itself is in its own eyes the more religious and the more theological because it is apparently without political significance, without worldly aims, the concern of a disposition that shuns the world, the expression of intellectual narrow-mindedness, the product of arbitrariness and fantasy, and because it is a life that is really of the other world.

Christianity attains, here, the practical expression of its universal-religious significance in that the most diverse world outlooks are grouped alongside one another in the form of Christianity and still more because it does not require other people to profess Christianity, but only religion in general, any kind of religion (cf. Beaumont’s work quoted above). The religious consciousness revels in the wealth of religious contradictions and religious diversity.

I also stumbled across this quote from Winston Churchill while addressing the 1937 Peel Commission:

``I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more wordly wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.``

This was in reference to the Palestinian people. The Peel Commission was created to divide the land 1/3 for Zionists 2/3 for Palestinians.

This may sound conspiratorial, and definitely needs to be fleshed out more. But just figured I'd put it out there and see if anyone else could provide some insight, or other connections.

Cheers!

China's Quantum Leap Forward: On the Significance of Xi Jinping Thought on China and its Development

Xi Jinping, the current Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China, is subject to extensive scrutiny and has been a topic of interest for the Left around the world. His actions have labeled him as the “end of Reform and Opening Up”, while simultaneously being described as the harbinger of a “new dawn of Marxism” in China, or internationally. This article is meant to go into the great significance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and what it has done materially to help improve the lives of the Chinese people.

This article is the fourth part of RTSG’s series of articles exploring China and her economy, with previous articles covering China’s state-owned enterprises, China’s financial system and economic growth, and China’s corporate governance.

If you found this article interesting, the previous three (linked above) may also interest you. Please feel free to share this article, or comment with your thoughts and feedback, and consider subscribing to the RTSG Substack to stay updated as future articles are released.

Hi guys, I'm relatively new when it comes to Marxism and leftist theory in general so I'm trying to read as much of the literature as I can so I can understand it better, but I'm struggling with the concept of surplus value. Where does the surplus actually come from, is it measurable or is it all just arbitrary and subjective? And why exactly shouldn't capitalist be entitled to some of it?

I'd really appreciate if you could use some examples for the explanation as well. Thanks 🙏 (excuse my English)

Greetings!

I'm looking for some recommendations in regards to an analysis of colonialism. I've read most of the first volume of Capital and I want to start reading more.

Reading can be a bit of a struggle for me (mental health) but I'm making it a goal to get myself more organized. I also don't know too much about colonialism (or what it is really)

Any recommendations would be much appreciated!

He’s Michael Parenti’s son, and I just listened to him on the Upstream podcast, and he has a lot of interesting things to say about primitive accumulation, formal and real subsumption, climate crisis and the American Revolution. He said too that he’s sympathetic to actually existing socialism, much like his father. But he also decried cancel culture and if you look at the op-eds he’s published online, he has more than a few times painted Donald Trump as a peacenik and also a victim of “lawfare”???

Look- I do agree with the critique that the democrats need a strategy beyond putting Trump in prison in order to win this election, and that their reliance on demonizing him to make up for the absence of any political vision is frankly infuriating. I also agree Biden should be tried for his crimes as well! But what I absolutely refuse to do is lift a finger to defend a billionaire war criminal who is being prosecuted for crimes which in most cases he absolutely did commit.

And yes- Trump postures as being anti-NATO and anti-interventionism, and to some extent he made some decent foreign policy decisions that would never have been made by a democratic president, such as engaging in a peace process with the DPRK, going so far as to even suspend military exercises in that region, negotiating with the Taliban, etc. But for fuck’s sake, the man loosened rules designed to prevent civilian casualties in drone warfare, he sold weapons to Nazis in eastern Ukraine, he sold weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel, he tightened the embargo on Cuba, and piled on sanctions against the DPRK and Venezuela- even attempted a coup against Venezuela with his puppet Juan Guiado! And Christian Parenti has the balls to say Trump has “anti-imperialist instincts”? The fuck?

I know Michael Parenti is tragically suffering from dementia- but can someone tell him to come get his boy? What a schmuck!

Lenin declared that Ivan Pavlov's research was a great study for working people around the world, and signed a decree providing Pavlov with housing and food, recognition of the publishing rights to Pavlov's works, and even funding for research. The reason Lenin acknowledged Pavlov's research was that Pavlov's research established the basis of materialistic theory of reflection, profoundly developed the proposition of dialectical materialism that consciousness is a product of the brain, and through this, metaphysical discourse or ideas about consciousness. , because it contributed to human liberation by eliminating the a priori.

Ivan Pavlov's achievements include Pavlov's second signal system theory. Ivan Pavlov stated that the first signal system is a common signal system shared by humans and animals, in which natural signals are acquired sensuously and instinctively. For example, when a signal such as the scent of food is detected, saliva accumulates due to a conditioned reflex in the cerebral cortex, which is a common characteristic of animals and humans. The second signal system is a unique signal system that exists only in humans and is a language that is a signal of signals through the first signal system. For example, when a writer says to someone, “Give me a pen,” let’s assume that the word “pen” is uttered in a language called the second signal system. At this time, the pen that the writer requested to be provided is implemented as a generalized, abstracted word that refers to all pens in the world, regardless of the size of the pen and its material, whether metal or plastic. Pavlov's second signal system theory proved that humans involve a chain of higher conditioned reflexes. For example, when a human utters “the flower is pretty” in the second signal system or thinks through language in the cerebral cortex, memories of encountering various flowers such as dandelions, roses, and azaleas related to “flowers” come to mind, and the flower comes to mind, With aesthetic syntactic sentences about , thoughts and verbal utterances become more specific, and higher conditioned reflexes occur in a chain. The second signal system is a signal system that humans have learned during the evolution process, and it is a high-level neurological and physiological property of the cerebral cortex, and it confirms that the highest concept that humans reflect objective reality is language through the physiological action of the cerebral cortex. This is a major factor that not only justifies the materialistic theory of reflection, but also supports the legitimacy of the Marxist-Leninist ideology that distinguishes between humans and animals through labor and language. In particular, Engels argued that labor brought about language, and Ivan Pavlov's theory suggests that if humans more clearly correct, identify, and Determine the passive imprint of the objective world, a chain of higher conditioned reflexes increases, which suggests that Engels' labor The view that language was Brought is explained based on conditional reflexes.

Therefore, Ivan Pavlov's second signal system theory supports the justification of the materialistic reflection theory of Marxist-Leninist ideology and is an important theory that can physiologically support Engels' claim that labor gave birth to language. Pavlov's work is a victory for the working masses of the world, a decisive theory that has rid the world of the metaphysical element.

I'm trying to figure out what this nonsense about inflation is that they keep repeating. As their usual story goes: if the amount of money increases relative to the amount of "stuff," the price of things increases!

Now, I'm trying to figure out the bits of the story they leave out. So lets say the banks print a bunch of money, or offer private banks bonds or however it is they essentially make more money available. But my incomplete sentence is an indication of a problem: available to whom? That's first question:

I know during the pandemic money appeared in either check form or direct deposit in people's individual bank accounts. The bourgeois story of inflation would then say: people were given more money, but there wasn't enough stuff. So as shopkeepers took notice of their dwindling supply of stuff, they started to raise their prices... because they could, and the people kept buying it at higher prices, because they needed it and they had the money to spend on it. So that's one little story of how inflation happens: as supply dwindles relative to the increase of money, vendors raise their prices. So commodity prices rise in response to a relative increase in consumer demand.

Now I'm skeptical of that for a variety of reasons, mostly because it's too downstream, or small consumer oriented. Now the usual way "money printing" happens is through central banks money laundering (ok, not exactly, but essentially). The central bank "buys securities," meaning they give money in exchange for IOU's that private banks hold. This gives the private banks "liquidity" -- or lets call it cash -- in exchange for the promises or IOUs they once held. Now the banks are desperate to get rid of this "money" because sitting money doesn't make money, so they loan it out like it's practically free (at very low interest rates) to whomever and whoever. So more people are able to get loans, or the same people can get more loans, and so the same thing as above happens -- supply of money outpaces demand for stuff and vendors start to realize this, upping prices. The reason central banks usually prefer this method is because, supposedly, it slows the pace of inflation (price hikes) down by having layers of mediation via the private banks.

Something feels off about both these narratives; they seem too neutral or neutered. Like there's an element of class warfare that the rhetoric or stories of inflation cover. And the two that immediately come to mind are:

a) wages are not the things going up, so "more money" usually means more money, but not in the worker's hands... in other words, inflation is another way of creating wage depression without lowering wages.

b) it's vendors, or producers, who are deciding to raise prices because they see an opportunity to make more profit and pass the cost onto the consumer...

But I'm not sure, "inflation" seems mystifying... as does a lot of bourgeois economics

I’ve been studying Mirsaid Sultan Galiev’s perspective. To paraphrase, my understanding is that he was trying to push the early Soviet Union to agitate for revolution among the East (particularly the colonized Muslim world) rather than in places like Germany.

From my perspective, he seems to be right. The USSR’s later turn to support anti-colonial movements is often lauded and the revolutions in Europe did not come to fruition. But I’m interested in alternate perspectives. To clarify - I don’t think I agree with his turn to the Basmachi movement or his idea of national communism specifically. More just his perspective on what approach to IR should be prioritized. Thanks in advance for sharing!

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is a marker in the child's development that indicates when a task is beyond the child's ability to solve on his or her own, and can be solved with the assistance of a teacher or other person competent in the task. Vygotsky emphasized that solving tasks in the zone of proximal development requires creating an environment where children can learn collaboratively with their peers.

However, Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development must be criticized for its internal and external contradictions with dialectical materialism.

In dialectical materialism, external contradictions are the assistance of teachers and competent others, and internal contradictions are the conflict and unification between ignorance and knowledge in which the self acquires knowledge to overcome ignorance. In Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, no matter how much a child's external contradictions are solved by a competent other or a teacher, it is not the same as the child's internal contradictions, where the child is unified with knowledge in the conflict between ignorance and knowledge as opposites. As a result, Vygotsky's external contradiction overlooks the internal contradictions of the child's agency and proactivity in resolving internal contradictions to solve tasks appropriate to the child's developmental level, and commits the error of dialectical materialism, which states that the child can solve tasks through the resolution of external contradictions by relying on external contradictions.

In particular, external contradictions are overcome through the resolution of internal contradictions. This means that when knowledge becomes the main aspect of the child's constant struggle and unification between ignorance and knowledge in the internal contradiction, the role of the teacher and the exceptional teacher in the external contradiction becomes redundant because the child has the capacity to acquire knowledge.

In this context, it is Jean Piaget, not Vygotsky, who emphasizes internal and external contradictions in dialectical materialism. Jean Piaget believed that the developmental level of the child precedes learning and that the active learner is the primary role of the child, while the social environment and the role of the teacher are secondary. This can be interpreted as the view that the active learner's conflict and unification between ignorance and knowledge in the internal contradictions of dialectical materialism is developmentally appropriate, and the teacher or environment is a secondary external contradiction, and that the external contradiction of the teacher or environment is overcome when the child overcomes the internal contradiction. In particular, Piaget's view that learning precedes development is consistent with Pavlov's endorsement of dialectical materialism, in which the passive imprinting of the objective world is more actively identified, corrected, and judged through cortical perfection.

Thus, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is an error when considered from the perspective of dialectical materialism. Rather, Jean Piaget's view that developmental levels precede learning, and his focus on the learner rather than the external environment, is a useful guide to surpassing the external contradiction of the teacher and the competent teacher through the conflict and unification of ignorance and knowledge in the internal contradictions of the learner, and is a view that applies the internal and external contradictions of dialectical materialism to the development and learning of children.

Ever since becoming more class conscious and aware it seems like a lot of the interests I had before the awakening seem all but pointless now, or better yet, they are counterproductive (i.e. an opioid for myself and the working class as a whole).

Religion/sports just seem like a money pit and hamster wheel so the working class don’t focus on their own horrible position in life and organize to make it better.

Have any of you experienced this too and what now seems pointless, which you enjoyed before?

Hi there,

​

I don't know what I am looking for exists but I would love if I could receive recommendations of books or articles that explore how Capitalism is depicted in art. To give you a better idea of what I have in mind: something like how X movie depicted capitalism or how X novelist/author critiqued capitalism or how a X painter showcased capitalism.

Something along these lines, thank you so much!

Basically the title, I'm looking for the passages where Marx discusses this. It is the first mode of production to attain total dominance over the production of society, with peasant economies remaining widespread in slave and feudal modes of production. maybe/probably in Capital??

Doing some solidarity work around Palestine and want to keep things principled from a Marxist standpoint, while also opening space for the masses to come as they are. Looking for resources on organizational structure, especially those that may mind to models which help alleviate errors such as tailism and commandism, etc.

https://theacheron.medium.com/how-socialist-can-commodity-production-really-get-c88acdae0628

“2) Commodity production necessarily leads to capitalist production, once the worker has ceased to be a part of the conditions of production (slavery, serfdom) or the naturally evolved community no longer remains the basis [of production] (India). From the moment at which labour power itself in general becomes a commodity.

3. Capitalist production annihilates the [original] basis of commodity production, isolated, independent production and exchange between the owners of commodities, or the exchange of equivalents. The exchange between capital and labour power becomes formal.”

- Marx, Commodities as the Product of Capital

The obscure man falsely attributes to me the view that “the surplus-value produced by the workers alone remains, in an unwarranted manner, in the hands of the capitalist entrepreneurs” (Note 3, p. 114). In fact I say the exact opposite: that the production of commodities must necessarily become “capitalist” production of commodities at a certain point, and that according to the law of value governing it, the “surplus-value” rightfully belongs to the capitalist and not the worker.”

- Marx, Notes on Adolph Wagner's “Lehrbuch der politischen Ökonomie” (Second Edition), Volume I, 1879]

The “exchange of labour for labour on the principle of equal valuation” {256}, in so far as it has any meaning, that is to say, the mutual exchangeability of products of equal social labour, hence the law of value, is the fundamental law of precisely commodity production, hence also of its highest form, capitalist production […] [Duhring] wants to abolish the abuses which have arisen out of the development of commodity production into capitalist production, by giving effect against them to the basic law of commodity production, precisely the law to whose operation these abuses are due. Like him, he wants to abolish the real consequences of the law of value by means of fantastic ones.

- Engels, Anti-Dühring

Such an idea, applied to the national question, resembles Proudhon’s idea, as applied to capitalism. Not abolishing capitalism and its basis—commodity production—but purging that basis of abuses, of excrescences, and so forth; not abolishing exchange and exchange value, but, on the contrary, making it “constitutional”, universal, absolute, “fair”, and free of fluctuations, crises and abuses—such was Proudhon’s idea.

Just as Proudhon was petty-bourgeois, and his theory converted exchange and commodity production into an absolute category and exalted them as the acme of perfection, so is the theory and programme of “cultural-national autonomy” petty bourgeois, for it converts bourgeois nationalism into an absolute category, exalts it as the acme of perfection, and purges it of violence, injustice, etc.

- Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question

Pages 7-8, 1) destruction of capitalist production relations?—Socialist production[1] taking the place[2] of commodity production, 2) the expropriation of the exploiters, 3) the conversion of the means of production into public property? The conversion of private into public property.

- Lenin, Material for the Preparation of the Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.

A year or so ago, I embarked on an in-depth study of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin. I knew that the publications which were heavily critical of the USSR and Stalinism far outnumbered those that were sympathetic to it, therefore I thought I would do well to read one pro-Soviet/pro-Stalininist text for every one anti-Soviet/anti-Stalinist.

Thus far, as far as pro-Soviet/pro-Stalinist books are concerned, I have read the following:

• Domenico Losurdo's 'Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend'

• Ludo Martens' 'Another View of Stalin'

• Grover Furr's 'Kruschev Lied;' 'The Murder of Sergei Kirov;' 'Yezhov vs. Stalin;' 'Blood Lies;' 'The Mystery of the Katyn Murder;' 'Stalin Waiting... For Truth'

• Ian Grey's 'Stalin, Man of History'

• Henri Barbusse's 'Stalin: A New World Seen Through One Man'

• Robert W. Thurston's 'Life & Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941'

• 'History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) - Short Course'

• Anna Louise Strong's 'The Stalin Era'

• Douglas Tottle's 'Fraud, Famine and Fascism'

Apart from the works I have listed above, are there any other pro-Soviet and/or pro-Stalinist works that I could read?

Thanks!

Hi, I'm interested in both of this authors, but I have a feeling that Mark Fisher (because of his popularity) will just repeat lot of the arguments made by Jameson in " Postmodermism: the cultural logic of late capitalism". Is it worth it to read both of them? If not wich is better?

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1976/ecology.htm

The ecological crisis discovered by the Club of Rome and others can be seen as a new attempt-similar to the efforts of Malthus and Ricardo-to explain social difficulties as the result of natural conditions, since to them the form of society appears to be natural and unchangeable. The novel element is that today there is agreement from the "Marxist" side, with either a good or a bad conscience. Of course, Harich's position differs from that of the Club of Rome in that he remains aware that even with a full understanding of the crisis situation the capitalist world is in no position to take measures to preserve human life for the distant future, even if on a more modest basis. The Club of Rome, Harich notes, indeed speaks of an expectable impoverishment and destruction of the world, but "it does not say that the rich must disappear from the picture." People are indeed ready today "to ration gasoline," but not prepared "to ration everything." But why shouldn't everything be rationed, and indeed on a socialist basis, asks Harich; "Wouldn't that already be communism?" Would it not be, "as a result of a rational distribution, Babeuf's communism, to which the workers' movement must now, having reached a higher level, turn back with a dialectical spiral movement-the negation of the negation-after the 'springs' of capitalist wealth have flowed for nearly 200 years?"

But why stop with Babeuf? Why not return to the perfect ecology of Paradise before Original Sin? The one is as much an impossibility as the other, on which Babeuf must come to grief. History cannot be made to go backwards, not even through the "negation of the negation." A rationed distribution itself presupposes productive forces which are a match for the needs of four billion people, and with this continued productive development, in order to counter the law of increasing entropy, i.e. to support the negative entropy of the living world with the least expenditure of "free" energy.

But apart from this, the rationing of which Harich speaks is not at all foreign to the capitalist world, where it is to be found, applied more or less thoroughly, in wartime (and also in "war-communism"). Besides, capitalism is based, in the form of the law of surplus value, on a form of "rationing" of proletarian living conditions, something that also characterizes the relations of production in the putatively "socialist" countries, although there surplus value can appear directly as surplus product. In fact, the existence of capital, as Harich himself explains, hangs on the continuing "rationing" of the producers, in order to satisfy the growing surplus-value requirements of accumulation. When and to whatever extent it is necessary, capital will also seek political ways to push the living conditions of the workers down to a more modest level. The expanding poverty on the global level is a product of surplus value production, the result of capitalism's "rationing" of the conditions of life of ever greater masses of people, and can therefore not be recommended as a solution to the ecological crisis. If it were a solution, capital would be in the best position to carry it through.

...

The absolute maintenance of an ecological balance is impossible. But today the prolongation of human existence by respecting the limits set by nature is a possibility, but one whose realization would require the end of the capitalist overexploitation of natural resources. The limits set by nature are in any case not yet the most important. What is necessary, today and tomorrow, is to end the human misery due to the capitalist relations of production, as the starting-point for a rationally planned mode of society in accordance with natural conditions-one based not on further privations but on a higher standard of living for everyone, on which the diminution of population growth depends, and which would make possible the further development of society's productive forces.

The progressive destruction of the environment is not so much the result of growing productive forces as of the development of these forces under capitalist conditions. Were capitalist production really what it is claimed to be, production for the satisfaction of human needs, the development of the productive forces would have had a character different from the actual one, with a different technology and different ecological consequences. With respect to this, enlarged reproduction with a growing population and increasing needs makes no difference in principle. But the development of the productive forces takes place on the basis of capitalist production relations and is thus bound to the production of capital; it can serve human needs only insofar as they coincide with the requirements of capitalist accumulation. This rules out any direct reference to true social needs and to the natural limits of social production. Under the conditions of capitalist competition, which are not abolished by monopoly capital, and to which the state-capitalist systems are subordinated as parts of a global system, the development of the productive forces advances blindly, especially as attempts are made to bring production under conscious central control on the national level. This process requires an enormous wastage of human labor power and natural resources, which would not occur (at least to the same degree) in another social system.

...

Whether fragment by fragment or all at once, the breakdown is inevitable, according to the computer's logic; it follows that it is up to "statesmen" to pull the carts out of the muck. Here we encounter the mentality of the Club of Rome's scientific experts, for example, M. Mesarovic and E. Pestel, responsible for the second report. They refer throughout not to capitalist society, but to "society" (or simply to "humanity"), threatened by nature. From their point of view the ecological crisis has its roots in activities that "arise from people's best intentions." That these intentions involve the exploitation of the workers does not occur to them; to the contrary, they are convinced "that the decrease of human labor through the exploitation of non-human sources of energy is a project with which every person must agree." They are unable to grasp that it is exactly the increase in the exploitation of human labor that makes necessary the overexploitation of natural resources. They have either no understanding of the society in which they live or they feign a lack of understanding in order not to be offensive. But looking at their proposed solutions, it is the first of these that seems correct.

These proposals amount to a series of noncommittal forms of talk, such as emphasizing the necessity of a global solution of the ecological problem; a more balanced world economy through the simultaneous abolition of under- and over-development in the respective regions; an appropriate worldwide allocation of non-renewable raw materials and fuels; an effective population policy; a turn towards solar energy instead of more nuclear reactors; increased support for the poor countries by the rich ones; and similar praiseworthy measures. Not a word is wasted on how this program is to be put into practice. The experts are certain only that the solution of the problématique humaine requires the closest cooperative work on the world scale, since there can only be a future "when history no longer, as earlier, is determined by individuals or social classes, but through the devotion of material resources to the security of human existence." The recognition of capitalist reality is on the same level as Harich's understanding of the "socialist" world. In both cases we have to do only with conjurations spoken into the wind.

...

Indeed, we had two world wars and many smaller skirmishes behind us before the threat to the ecology entered our consciousness. These wars happened not because nations fought like dogs with a bone over declining supplies of raw materials but because the capitalist competitive struggle over the surplus value extracted from the laboring population played out on a worldwide field. The competitive struggle exists under all circumstances, with or without shortages of raw materials, and thus has nothing to do with the latter but arises from the capitalist mode of production. Even when a shortage of raw materials and consumption goods leads to war instead of some other solution, this results from the form of society and not from the shortage as such. On this question, however, Harich again comes close to the Club of Rome's one-sided conception of the problem as purely ecological, with no reference to the actual capitalist world. This world is for him too, despite the "intertwining of natural and social factors," only a subordinate factor: it is the ecological crisis which can lead to war, so that avoiding war presupposes solving the ecological crisis. But war can break out tomorrow, while the ecological crisis is not expected till the middle of the next century. It can even be forestalled by an atomic war, which would provide a ghastly demonstration of humanity's destruction not by nature but by capitalism.

...

As the movement of the world is determined by profit, the capitalists concern themselves with the ecological problem only insofar as it affects profit. The capitalists have no interest in the destruction of the world; if it turns out that saving the world can be profitable, then the protection of the world will become another business-all the more because environmental destruction is itself an instrument of competition for shares of the total profit. This problem appears in the economic literature under the heading of "externality," the distinction between private effects and the social concomitant symptoms of capitalist production. Social phenomena are also ecological phenomena, as when the emission of pollutants of all sorts, which enter into natural cycles, finally destroys the necessary global balance of oxygen. In this way the destruction of the environment, which is often taken to be faster and more dangerous than the rapid use of material resources, is bound up with the exhaustion of resources. Such widely known phenomena, which can both be ascribed to profit production and also curtail profit production, affect different capitals differently and thus themselves provoke attempts to limit the destruction within capitalism. It depends on the mass of surplus value whether these attempts can be successful, i.e. on the increasing exploitation of the workers or on their "modest standard of living." On this point Harich's proposals are at one with the measures recommended by capital, as expressed by the Club of Rome.

...

The warnings of Harich and the Club of Rome would be completely senseless if they were not accompanied by the conviction that the threatening ecological catastrophe can be prevented. The idea that this is a real possibility in itself means that whether humanity still has an indefinite future depends on society and not on nature. For Harich the destruction of capitalist production is the unavoidable presupposition for this future. Only in this way can the ecological problem find a general solution. But what he has in mind is not a revolution that might lead to a communist society, the only kind of society that would be in a position to solve the ecological problem. The Club of Rome cannot even imagine Harich's pseudo-revolution but relies on the good will and readiness of enlightened statesmen to take the measures necessary to solve the ecological problem. But we cannot expect from this quarter measures that would do away with the social structure and so with its statesmen themselves.

I am coming at this question in good faith but I have no idea about the topic. In post-revolutionary settler colonial states, such as the US, how would decolonization work and what happens to the nations on the land that the US proper is on? (or any other settler colonial state)? Is it that the nations that the US colonized would regain control of where they used to have control of, and how would that work? Would current settlers (like white US citizens) still have a say in what happens? Basically all I know is that it’s super important for the oppressed and colonized nations to decide for themselves but I don’t really know what that practically means or what indigenous people would do to decolonize.

I have a bone to pick with so called « Marxist’s » . The entire idea behind the ideology is to raise hell against the bourgeoisie and form a better structure from the ashes. All these western marxists do is sit on there ass, go to art class, and hang up posters. They consume like a god loving capitalist swine, but they claim they’re «marxists to their core ». Sorry for the harsh language, I’m just annoyed with « marxists » acting like they are for the proletariats only to join in on the bourgeoisie circle jerk.…. If your a marxist you make the system live around you, not the other way around.

Had this thought and wanted to share it immediately. Please don't excoriate me for any flaws or shortcomings. Of course, constructive criticism is invited.

2 observations and insights: Who are the contemporary proletariat, and who has their hands on the REAL levers of power within industry and state?

Tech workers. Coders and programmers. The exploited salaried employees who went to college for tech degrees with wide-eyed dreams of becoming the next Silicon Valley billionaires, but are TODAY being layed off in record numbers, forced to face the prospect of diminished incomes and thwarted ambitions.

And think of the real world power they have, and damage they could do, if properly educated in class consciousness. Military, industry, finance, energy, transportation, communications. You name it, really. A properly motivated and radicalized cadre of software designers and hardware networkers could hand society back to the masses.

Me thinks, perhaps, San Francisco should be ground zero for any serious organizing towards a Leninist revolution in America.

Firstly, here's a quote directly from the man:

"But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes. The centralized state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature – organs wrought after the plan of a systematic and hierarchic division of labor – originates from the days of absolute monarchy, serving nascent middle class society as a mighty weapon in its struggle against feudalism."

And per Wikipedia (on the distinction between lasalleanism and marxism):

"Marx advocated a revolutionary strategy and focused on organizing through workers' organizations. Lassalle, on the other hand, emphasized pursuing socialism through electoral institutions, particularly through universal suffrage. Lassalle focused on organizing through engagement with the state via political parties. Opponents of Lassalle critiqued his socialism as state socialism."

But then there are a variety of quotes which seem to imply the opposite. Another from Marx:

“the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy” (this of course implies winning control over a democratic state)

or from Engels:

“Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseam that for us the democratic republic is the only political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalised and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat.”

and another from Engels:

“Even if the general franchise (voting for socialist candidates) had offered no other advantage than to permit us to count our numbers once every three years…it would be more than enough. But it has done much more.” (he then gives further examples of the benefits)

Not to mention the entire concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; a strictly proletarian-controlled state!

So basically, it seems to me like there's one side of Marx and marxism which says that the state cannot really be seized in the interest of socialism; rather, the notion that the state should be the center of our strategy is an erroneous lasallean notion, as the state is essentially a bourgeois structure which cannot be utilized to our ends.

But then there's another which seems to say the opposite; that achieving domination over the state is in fact completely reasonable and necessary.

You may also have noticed that several of the quotes I selected refer specifically to democracy. And that would have been old, 1800s pseudo-democracy at that. So this raises a second level of confusion; to what degree did Marx (and Engels) see it worthwhile to participate in parliamentarianism and establish control through it, rather than through organized labor or violence, etc? How does the context of the time and what "democracy" even meant in Marx and Engels' days differ from now, and what wrenches does that through into our attempts to apply their logic to the present?

Now to be clear, I don't suspect I've found some new glaring contradiction in Marx's views. I'm not that groundbreaking lol. I'm just wondering how these two perspectives are reconciled, and what exactly I'm missing or misunderstanding.

TL;DR:

Did Marx believe in establishing control over the state to build socialism? To what degree did he believe this should be done through democratic means, or that democratic means could assist in the process? If he did believe in controlling the state, what exactly did he propose be done with it so as to achieve our goals--and how important did he think it was as compared to other means? How did these perspectives of his differ from those of Lasalle's?

Thanks for any answers. Hope I've made my question clear and that this wasn't too complicated.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/tsushima/labor-certificates.htm

Even if Stalin says that the law of value will disappear in the second stage, this is in words alone, as we have already seen that Stalin does not understand the essence of the matter. And this is no surprise. If he had truly "digested well Capital so that it was in his blood and bones," (Sakisaka's expression) he would emphasize that as a rule the law of value would disappear already in the first stage (socialism) without having to wait for the second stage. Stalin should have acknowledged that if the law of value has not withered away, a society is far from being socialism. The basis for saying this is Marx's theory of value according to which a communistic social structure―whether in the first or second stage―is premised on labor that has become directly social labor, which is to say a form of production that is diametrically opposed to commodity production, so that the law of value withers away and this law of value only arises under the opposite case. This question has no room for any sort of scholastic philosophy to be introduced and is instead perfectly clear. Stalin and the Stalinists have rejected this pillar of Marxist political economy, both theoretically and practically.

In Japan a blatant example of this can be seen in the following ramblings of a "Marxist" named Toshio Hiradate. If his statement is taken at face value, Hiradate must be considered a "Marxist" who lacks the gumption of the Russians who rejected Marx and Engels. In a June 1949 article that appeared in the journal Hyōron he writes:

"Many of the things written by Marx and Engels indicate that they rejected the need for the operation of the law of value and money and commerce in socialist society." (Kazrov)―Marx and Engels only said that there is no need for capitalistic commerce or money in a socialist society, but they never said that about socialistic commerce or socialistic money. In this manner, Kazrov is misinterpreting Marx. As Kazrov himself notes, when reading Marx's sentences, one must distinguish between the letter and the essence.

"One must distinguish between the letter and the essence"! Is that so? What would Marx have to say about this variety of "Marxist"? No doubt he would say: "I am no Marxist"! Marx laughed caustically at the followers of Proudhon who sought to shake free of the hell of money on the basis of commodity production. And yet here, conversely, "socialist commerce and socialist money" are being dragged into socialism, which is a society of communal labor. In either case we are dealing with terrible idiots. The difference is that in the case of the former, money is unable to be pushed into hell or knocked off, while in the case of the latter, socialism is truly pushed into hell! But since such socialism is not feasible, it must be said that both share the common trait of calling for the impossible. Under socialism, the category of commodity value, and therefore all commerce and all money, wither away. This is the necessary corollary of Marx's theory of value, and this is also what Marx and Engels themselves spoke of. They clearly stated that labor certificates do not become money. It is ridiculous to say that Marx never said anything about this. Hiradate is not thinking straight. I would like to ask him whether "money" and "commerce" are possible without the law of value. Or we could ask him whether it is possible for the law of value to arise when labor has become directly social labor? If it is said that it could arise, this is the view of commodity production as something supra-historical, which would mean that Marx's labor theory of value in Capital is mistaken!

In the early 1930s, during the initial period of Stalin's government, a Soviet economist had the following to say:

The emasculation of the essence of Marxism in order to eternalize capitalism to demonstrate the inevitability of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union involves eternalizing the main categories of capitalism and mechanically applying these categories to a transitional economy or a socialist economy. For example, the theorist of the worldwide social fascists, Karl Kautsky, along with the Menshevik theorists and the theoretical luminaries of social fascism in Russia, say that "the law of value still penetrates in some form in a socialist society" and that "socialism should not do away with money" (Die proletarische Revolution und ihr Programm, 1922), and they offer the explanation that in a socialist economy the contradiction between use-value and value still remains and that even capital and surplus-value are maintained. All of these theories do away with the qualitative limits that fundamentally separate capitalism from socialism, thereby mechanically identifying these two different social structures, which is the basis for demonstrating the possibility of capitalism to develop peacefully into socialism without a revolution.[5]

The passage above expresses some sound ideas. But who was it that ended up tailing after the idea that "the law of value still penetrates in some form in a socialist society," which was expressed by the "theorist of the worldwide social fascists, Karl Kautsky"? Who were the ones to "do away with the qualitative limits that fundamentally separate capitalism from socialism"? It was none other than the Stalinists themselves!

Can anyone name a few non Marxist philosophers that came after Karl Marx, himself?

It occurs to me that Marx not only thought of some cool stuff, but changed they very act of thinking, and I'm curious how this is dealt with by non Marxists. Another way of putting this is, how could western philosophy not have been influenced by Marx's work?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading about the reported state of Cuba as it is today. It seems like they are facing a lot of problems due to their unique situation in the geopolitical sphere. I think this also an opportunity to study and learn ways to better implement Marxist philosophy in different societies.

Some things that affect Cuba, off the top of my head:

• The US embargo restricts trade with Cuba, although the magnitude of this impact is debatable.
• The dissolution of the USSR in 1989-1990 had a negative impact on the Cuban economy, who relied on Soviet support and tourism, etc.
• Cuba is very much reliant on imports and carries a huge trade deficit. I would think a nation would have to be able to produce things to sustain an economy.
• Cuba has very much been historically reliant on tourism dollars to pump money in the planned economy, and things like COVID have deeply affected tourism. Cuba’s lack of diversity in their commodities/production, AKA, putting all of their eggs into one basket, has been very problematic.
• Reflecting the fourth point, the reported food shortages that occur in Cuba point to a need for agricultural self-sufficiency to a degree. This would be challenging to establish, considering things like climate change increases the frequency of severe storms, which presents real threats to agriculture and infrastructure on the island. This climate change is perpetuated mainly by large, capitalist, industrialized nations.

What’s some of your opinions on all of this? How would one approach these issues from a Marxist perspective without compromising revolutionary values?