I am trying to read Capital in English and am having some difficulty with the language.

When Marx says “as use values, commodities differ above all else in quality. While as exchange values they can only differ in quantity.”

Can commodities not differ in quality in exchange? Is purer gold not still gold, and with more exchange value than less refined material of the same quantity? I understand it takes more labor to refine the gold and thus more labor value is added. But would this gap widen with automation? Why is it that use value differs in quality mainly? Can’t use value be influenced by quantity? Can someone explain this in layman’s terms? Perhaps with an example?

Edited for grammar.

Hey everyone, I’ll keep this brief. The rise of fascism and the imminent threat of it has reached an all time high in the US. Donald Trump and the Republicans have a hold on all our chambers of government - including the Supreme Court.

I truly believe that though he may be dumb he is still a threat to the American people. I rather be over prepared than under prepared. I know a lot of folks think it’s just liberals over reacting but unchecked, and with full immunity, with vengeance on his mind - I refuse to rule anything out.

With that being said, a ton of liberals are losing their fucking minds right now. I believe that liberalism is in full decay in the US but also globally, we are seeing the rise of right wing reactionary ideologies all over the world (predominantly in Europe).

Now, I ask the question - is attempting to bring liberals into our movement right now dangerous to the movement or is this the time where we see them decide if they will join us or the fascists.

I’m just thinking here and I know a lot of liberals want to ‘participate’ and ‘get to work’ after elections but this - this feels different…

Earnest Question: How do you justify the atrocities commited by the soviet union?

New Communist Austria

https://ibb.co/h27XpX7

What are the class balance of forces in this strike? The demands of the strike are so far for a hostage deal to bring back the remaining hostages held in Gaza since 7th October. But nothing beyond that. No call for an end to the war and Israel's occupation. In fact the strike itself was first called for yesterday by Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition, who from the very beginning has backed the war, the IDF, and the regime to the hilt. His only criticism being that Netenyahu doesn't seem to care about the hostages, which is true. But I doubt Lapid has suddenly become an anti-imperialist and anti-war politician. Far from it.

But could this strike be a first step towards a more generalised anti-war movement in Israel which has the potential to develop the class consciousness of Israeli workers into an anti-imperialist and anti-state direction, or is it fully reactionary in nature? Or is it somewhere in the middle? This is after all the first such strike since the war in Gaza began. It is expected that the first murmerings are small in scope and perhaps even confused in political content.

And I know a "reactionary strike" can sound like a contradiction in terms but, whilst rare, they do happen. Examples include the North of Ireland during the Civil Rights Movement when some protestant workers went on strike to protest against equal rights for Catholics.

Obviously this is new and developing. The labour court in Israel just ordered the strike to end at 14:30 local time (it was planned to end at 18:00) and apparently the leader of one of the main trade unions has come out and "respected" the court's decision. Obviously this doesn't necessarily reflect the mood of the workers themselves. I'm sure a lot would have wanted to continue the strike.

Basically, how should communists approach this strike? What is its nature, what does it signify, and is there potential or not for an Israeli anti-war movement to develop from it?

Hello, i am here because idk shit about politics and i want to know what am i, i know im on the left wing, 100% but i need help to know better can yall ask me some questions and tell me what am i ?

thanks a lot :)

First question:Why do you believe Communism is better than heavily regulated capitalism similar to what the U.S. had in the 70s, before Regan. As a reminder when Regan came in the wealthy had a 70% income tax Along with unions and the FTC actually doing their jobs. Second question:What is your response to the common anti-communists saying of communism has never and will never work?

Note I am just trying to ask a question and understand someone who might be pro communist views.

As marxists we are well-acquainted with the idea that material conditions shape the dominant ideology in society, not the other way round.

As marxists we also know that it is not really worth analysing too much what a future classless, stateless, and communist society would look like, save for such musings being interesting points of discussion and imagination.

However, there do exist some writings on possibilities of what such communist societies would look like. One good one is Trotsky's Literature and Art. Specifically in Chapter 8 "Revolutionary and Socialist Art" we find this striking quote:

All forms of life, such as the cultivation of land, the planning of human habitations, the building of theaters, the methods of socially educating children, the solution of scientific problems, the creation of new styles, will vitally engross all and everybody. People will divide into “parties” over the question of a new gigantic canal, or the distribution of oases in the Sahara (such a question will exist too), over the regulation of the weather and the climate, over a new theater, over chemical hypotheses, over two competing tendencies in music, and over a best system of sports. Such parties will not be poisoned by the greed of class or caste. All will be equally interested in the success of the whole. The struggle will have a purely ideologic character. It will have no running after profits, it will have nothing mean, no betrayals, no bribery, none of the things that form the soul of “competition” in a society divided into classes. [My emphasis]

Let's read that again:

"The struggle will have a purely ideologic character."

When there are no classes, no states, when poverty, war, and exploitation are so far in humanity's past that the concepts are almost folklore, could it really be that the driving force of human history would be ideas and not material forces? In other words, that an idealist view of history will supercede a materialist view of history?

Of course, if such a future history is determined purely by ideas, then that would only be possible on the material basis of a communistic mode of production. So an idealistic view of history would have a material basis, which is in keeping with historical materialism.

And this contradiction would of course be entirely in keeping with dialectics.

Thoughts?

The subject fascinates me. I love pondering about what human culture would look like far into the future of a classless world society, where things like class society are by that time "ancient" history and social classes and all the horrors that come with class society are so distant that they're not even in cultural memory anymore.

Perhaps a subject for Marxist sci-fi writers! But I'm also looking for a serious answer to my title question: Would a stateless and classless communist society lay the material basis for ideology actually being what determines historical development? I.e., is an ideological view of history "correct", just not in our epoch and not in past epochs, but potentially in future epochs if material conditions allow it?

From the article...

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-a-united-class-not-a-united-left/

"As long as the business world and the state depend on the labor of workers, class unions will probably be the foremost tool for improving living conditions and ultimately abolishing class society. But if class organizing is to have a future, it must be made clear how it differs from labor parties and other left-wing groups.

In the USA, it is common to label everything that is not connected to the Republican party “The Left”. This left is so broad that it encompasses Wall Street bankers, top Democrat politicians, union bureaucrats and a large part of the working class. A broad left in this sense means class collaboration and a dead end.

Likewise in Sweden, a large part of the working class has voted for the Social Democrats for decades and still belong to the party’s approved union: LO. Thus, in both countries, a broad left enables workers to vote for and pay union fees to elites that screw them over. Workers get a light version of neoliberalism instead of the worst version.

A proposed solution to the crisis of the Swedish left is to unite a “real left” to the left of Social Democracy. This is expressed by the Swedish Left-Wing Party (Vänsterpartiet). But again, this proposal is a kind of class collaboration – a coalition of workers and bosses, union bureaucrats and politicians. Such a coalition would repel the large part of the working class that don’t see themselves as part of the left (and perhaps never will). It would also repel left-wing workers who want to conduct independent class struggle rather than class collaboration.

Yet another proposal is to unite a radical left, an extra-parliamentary left, to the left of Vänsterpartiet. Once again, this is not the way to organize workers in general.

While the leaders of Social Democracy have become integrated into the state and business world, and to some extent have disarmed the working class, the extra-parliamentary left has marginalized itself from the class. It doesn’t get any better when leftists sometimes approach workers as self-appointed leaders to steer workers in some direction.

By contrast, rank-and-file unions are about workers listening to and mobilizing fellow workers. Then, workers will act by and for themselves as a collective..."

Thoughts?

So, as I am learning more about all types of Marxism, I met a guy (who we'll name Evgeny for privacy purposes) who is well-educated when it comes to this subject. Evgeny and I discuss many topics, but he argues the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was single-handedly better than any communist country. Is he correct?

https://socialistrevolution.org/trump-assassination-attempt/

Must be a few die-hards surely. Anyone there up from a revolution ????

#Russia #communism #Communists #revolution

So, AnCap here, I just want to ask a question here because I was banned off other communist subreddits because I asked a question and made a joke.

Firstly, Wouldn't democratic communism destroy competition between companies, leading to a lack of work and less motivation on development?

Secondly, wouldn't a dictatorship over communism be the only motivation to work because they would be shot?

Third, what would become of free expression and free speech?

Just asking questions about communism. I've read the manifesto, but some things are still blurry for me.

Thank you.