>"The history of all hitherto existing society is the

>>601638

Don't forget that his conception of what constitutes a "class" is a giant step backwards from Machiavelli's formation centuries before.

>>601638
Maybe not class struggles, but economics in general is probably the biggest driver of history

>How does anyone take Marx seriously as a historian?
No one does that in the first place.

>>601642
No one contends that.

What makes Marxist historiography laughable is that it puts forth the notion that every historical event is some amorphous "proletariat" trying to establish a Marxist state and a conspiracy of telepathic immortal lizardmen stopping them and lying about what actually happened after the fact.

>>601642
You are mistaking "consequence" with "cause" but there is a great chance economy is both

>That feeling when capitalist give the means of production to the consumer with 3D printers.

Are you even relevant anymore Marxists?

>>601638
>>601641
>>601642
>>601645
I see you've not read any Marx.

>>601652
>What makes Marxist historiography laughable is that it puts forth the notion that every historical event is some amorphous "proletariat" trying to establish a Marxist state and a conspiracy of telepathic immortal lizardmen stopping them and lying about what actually happened after the fact.
Chris Hill, EP Thompson, New Left Review

I think that's a sufficient set of citations to disprove your little idiocy.

>>601676
>production is the ability to create little plastic trinkets
Not a Marxist but c'mon m8

>>601686
I've read communist manifesto

>>601686

I see you haven't read my post.

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>>601652

I'm not even a Marxist, but that's a really silly way to characterize their historiography. There are some highly competent Marxist historians.

>>601652
>What makes Marxist historiography laughable is that it puts forth the notion that every historical event is some amorphous "proletariat" trying to establish a Marxist state and a conspiracy of telepathic immortal lizardmen stopping them and lying about what actually happened after the fact.

You should try reading some Marx, bud.

>>601686
fifel put your name back on

>>601642
No one would dispute that economics drives history, but so does culture, religion, and even genetics. You can't define a "biggest driver".

>>601689
>I've read communist manifesto
And I've wiped my arse. How late did your parents stop praising your for your anal phase?

>>601695
Which one were you? The person making easily falsified claims about the contents of Marxist historiography?

The one making blantantly untrue claims about the field of history's acceptance of Marx's value to history (Wallerstein)?

The one claiming that "economics" is a transhistorical phenomena?

The one who hasn't bothered with Marx's constitution of a class and wants to retreat into idealism?

Or OP, the faggot, who is attacking a widely respected meta-history?

>>601701
Didn't Genovese abandon Marxism and became a conservative in the end?

The only Marxist historian I respect is Karl Polanyi.

>>601747

The one who has in fact bothered with Marx's constitution of class, and have compared it rather easily to actual predictive power as well as popular consciousness of identity, and determined it's significantly inferior to Machiavelli's conception. There is no "retreat to idealism" in such a stance, it's merely noting things like how the urban poor and the rural poor rarely have equivalent interests, despite both being in similar economic conditions when it comes to the ultimate product of their labor and how they earn their livings.

>>601748

His wife helped him find Jesus and they became really Catholic in their dotage, which explains his conservative shift

>>601771
Rip his brain

>>601765
>popular consciousness of identity

How is this not a retreat into idealism?

>the urban poor and the rural poor rarely have equivalent interests
Try Hammond & Hammond, Rural, Town, Skilled Labourers

Also US Popularism, and Australian Labour Farmers kind of act as clear disproofs in societies where the value form is predominate in institutions and social relations.

>>601803

>How is this not a retreat into idealism?

Because it's an observable phenomenon as to how such societies act? I mean, I guess it's idealism in the hardest sense of political science, that the ideas people hold in their heads affect political relations, but only the most absurd neo-realists would deny that, and then try to construct fanciful webs of reasoning and evidence to assume why states try to spread ideologies like they did during the Cold War.


>Try Hammond & Hammond, Rural, Town, Skilled Labourers

Care to summarize them, so I can respond sometime before next month when I'll have time to read through a trio of novel-length publications?

>Also US Popularism, and Australian Labour Farmers kind of act as clear disproofs in societies where the value form is predominate in institutions and social relations.


Which has nothing to do with what I'm saying.

Let me give you an example, clear things up. If we ask the question:

>Why did the Roman Republic collapse into the empire?

Machiavellian historiography into class provides a very simple and compelling answer. While you had bickering and class conflict since about day 1 in the Republic, you had a rough kind of stability. Sometimes the urben plebiscate won a round, sometimes the socii won around, sometimes the senators won a round, and power, money, prestige, privielges shifted between these classes. However, none of them could ever afford to dispense with the other classes entirely due to the atmosphere of military hostility in Italy, so everyone clung together.

Eventually, and in large part because of those external threats, you have the Marian reforms, and the creation of a new, career army. This created a new class where one hadn't existed before, and the previous balancing measures couldn't contain it, in large part because this professional soldier class rendered the others militarily superfluous.

How do you answer the same question in light of a Marxist conception of class?

>>601865
>I guess it's idealism in the hardest sense of political science, that the ideas people hold in their heads affect political relations

This is the only sense that matters.

The reason why the states of the Cold War attempted to spread ideology rather than class practices is that they were bourgeois states. You can actually see inside Western communist parties the competition between bourgeois bolsheviks and class struggle proles over allocations of resources and direction for obeying the line. The Rich spend on parliament and newspapers. The Proles spend on working class campaigns. Quite interesting actually. And validates Marxist class.

>Hammond & Hammond in summary
The factors causing proletarianisation in the United Kingdom were common across country, town and mines/docks. They produced common reactive cultures hostile to the poor laws, the balliff and parliament. (Consider "Fuck the police in the pre 1990 context).

These labouring consciousnesses were immediate to the material relations, and even when the foreman differed between the poor law's slavemasters and the mines' seam hirers, the common consciousness of employer and employee was constant.

>Which has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
I just demonstrated marxian commonality of class interest across town and country in the areas where marxian class interest ought to be most predictive of a class response.

It invalidates your claim of town and country workers having different interests.

>>Why did the Roman Republic collapse into the empire?
Because the senatorial class produced through civil war a requirement for a state beyond themselves to mediate the spoils system without lapsing into civil war.

It isn't a revolutionary moment like the conversion of the plebian gens into an unenslaveable (excuse the historical pun) class of people forbidden from selling their children.

>>601638
Are you really this retarded?

>>601748
No one cares about your opinions.

This thread has been infiltrated by 4chan's Marxist spook. He does not engage with anything of substance that you post, but only extracts some fragment that can be construed as contrary to his very idiosyncratic interpretation of Marxist theory. When challenged he retreats behind a wall of texts and names with the injunction that you simply MUST read them first if you are to have standing in a dialogue with his irrefutable eminence. He crashes every thread he posts in. It is pointless to continue. Sage and hide.

>>601922
Oh my god, texts and references. Retreat to your platonic cave.

>>601922
Nice flounce

>>601922
>liberals

>>601928

The last conversation I attempted to have with you was about Marx's faulty algebra in expressing the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and all you did was accuse me, bizarrely, of being a dialectical materialist.

>>601936
I have so many conversations with so many ignorant arseholes. Were you using Bohm-Bawerk's critique?

>>601940

No. Unlike you, I am capable of thinking without the assistance of others.

I demonstrated for you, with a simple proof, using Marx's own terms, the flexibility of the profit rate.

>>601957
>I demonstrated for you, with a simple proof, using Marx's own terms, the flexibility of the profit rate.

Oh that's right, you're that cunt. The Autodidact who reads shallowly.

>>601961

Yep. That's me. Fuck off back to your troll hole, now.

>>601890

>The reason why the states of the Cold War attempted to spread ideology rather than class practices is that they were bourgeois states.


And why would only a bourgeois state want to have allies who saw things the way they did? It's a big, scary world out there, with lots of people who have the potential to hurt you very, very badly. Even if the state is completely dominated by a non-bourgeois class, it can be destroyed, and has a vested interest in forming and maintaining alliances.

>And validates Marxist class.

A tactical dispute between two classes who are pushing for the same thing at the moment validates marxist class? Please, you can come up with explanations for that without resorting to Marxism, and it doesn't address the rather large amount of crossing the lines you get even within the extremely narrow focus of communist parties in non-communist states.

>The factors causing proletarianisation in the United Kingdom were common across country, town and mines/docks.

Which isn't an act of class action on the part of county, town, and mine workers, it's usually a reaction to larger economic trends that weren't set in place by the poor: Furthermore, the "fuck the police" in late 20th century Britain certainly wasn't common across all strata of the proletariat. Go up north where you had those mines close and the police brought in to crack down on demonstrations and you'll find police hostility of a magnitude unheard of in places like Wales or Cornwall.

>the common consciousness of employer and employee was constant.

And they were also often joined by the petty bourgeois, the small struggling shop owners, whom in Marxist conception of class are a completely different body. The consciousness of employer and employee was hardly distinguishing, certainly not compared to overall income.

>>601890

>I just demonstrated marxian commonality of class interest across town and country in the areas where marxian class interest ought to be most predictive of a class response.

You did no such thing.

>It invalidates your claim of town and country workers having different interests.

Other than, say, a look at most of history and in any sort of wider look. Why are urban workers far more pro free trade of goods and services (but not people) than their country brethren? Why are rural folk generally more war-accepting and more hawkish internationally? Why does the clergy tend to be all over the damn place when it comes to social and class conflicts? Why do white collar urban employees and blue collar urban employees often have radically different values, politics, and organizations, even when we've got similar income brackets and both are wage earners as opposed to owning their own labor?

>Because the senatorial class produced through civil war a requirement for a state beyond themselves to mediate the spoils system without lapsing into civil war.

The senatorial class wasn't produced through civil war. Even the Tarquins had to answer to the notables of their day. And they didn't really mediate the spoils system, and caused a bunch of civil wars or near runs on them, like every time the plebs refused to fight.


>It isn't a revolutionary moment like the conversion of the plebian gens into an unenslaveable (excuse the historical pun) class of people forbidden from selling their children.

You don't think that the transformation of a civilian dominated government into a military junta counts as a revolution?

>>601971
>And why would only a bourgeois state want to have allies who saw things the way they did?
Because a proletarian society would be aware that only praxes changes the bases of consciousness (Lukacs, H&CC).

>It's a big, scary world out there, with lots of people who have the potential to hurt you very, very badly. Even if the state is completely dominated by a non-bourgeois class, it can be destroyed, and has a vested interest in forming and maintaining alliances.
So it is. Look at the way the Soviet Union tolerated the side affect of heightened proletarian class consciousness in the West even though it only wanted nomenklatura coups.

>and it doesn't address the rather large amount of crossing the lines you get even within the extremely narrow focus of communist parties in non-communist states.
Yes but a core-periphery model of the party returns to the validation. Compare the CPA's success in the Pig Iron Bob dispute to its failure with the proletariat in the Support For the War Line of 1942. The proletariat rejected the CPA as it turned to a bourgeois line.

>Go up north

Exactly. And this is the difference between the "working class" or those partly conscious as a "class-in-itself" and the proletariat who are conscious as a "class-for-itself".

>The consciousness of employer and employee was hardly distinguishing
So why was the threat of violence and boycott against shop-keepers essential to Chartism's "binding" of the shop and pub to the movement? As soon as Chartism lost the capacity for violence against these external allies, they shifted directly to supporting Manchester Liberalism.

>>601972
I like how you talk about rural people outside of class terms to validate that they aren't classed.

>Why do white collar urban employees and blue collar urban employees
They don't (Journal of Industrial Relations, 1960s, search for titles).

>>601972
>The senatorial class wasn't produced through civil war.
I didn't suggest that. I suggested that the civil wars demonstrated that their previous ways of mediating intersenatorial disputes had failed them.

>Even the Tarquins had to answer to the notables of their day. [and failed]
Yes, thus the republic

>You don't think that the transformation of a civilian dominated government into a military junta counts as a revolution?
Did the mode of production change? No.

>>601992
>>601997


Not even wrong.

>>601771
Every fucking time.
Many times I have seen a man get a girlfriend and completely shift his ideology to something batshit to appease her. He will lose his sense of humor, hate things he used to love, and just generally be a fucking lunatic in any way that he thinks will appease the only woman who ever seemed to take an interest in him. If you want a case study, just look at the guy who writes the webcomic Sinfest.

>>601748

Polanyi wasn't a Marxist. You do him a great injustice by claiming so.

>>601652
Proletariat is a capitalist class, not a universal one. It's unique to the current historical era of "capitalism" where people have been pushed into a very minimalist two class system. Those that own "the means of production"/factories/capital and everyone else who work for a wage from those owners.

Since private ownership of the "means of production" is also a current capitalist era feature it probably doesn't apply to the feudal era before this one.

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>>601638
marx was a shit historian and a worse economist
>mfw the value theory of labor

>>602656
http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/notes/Law-of-Value.html
Explain why this is wrong.

>>602656
Well at least he did good job at describing the workings of capitalism.

>>601966
hey you're the guy who knows a bit of value-form criticism, yeah?

>>602938
Yes.

>>601742
Did you just unironically imply that religion and culture aren't about economics?

>>602943
could you give me a bit about the flexibility of the profit rate you mentioned with the other guy

>>601747
>The person making easily falsified claims
>The one making blantantly untrue claims
>The one claiming that "economics" is a transhistorical phenomena
If you think what they are saying is wrong, then prove it with evidence, otherwise I could just say you are wrong and it becomes circular.

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>>602690
If I expend 2000 hours building a massive sculpture of marx out of human feces Marx claimed that it would be worth more than if I expend 50 hours making something productive.
>marx thought wasted labor had value because muh proletariat made it

>>602991
No he didn't
this is vol 1 shit bruv

>>602996
t. welfare chav

>>602958
Well the rate of profit varies by the ability to realise commodities on the market.

One example is the maintenance of the pre-capitalist textile market in China for an extended period of time in the 19th century.

The British were weaving fine cotton cloth, there was a market crisis (a "run" or "market downturn" as we call them), and they tried to offload a whole bunch of fine cloth on Europe. Didn't work: flooded market.

So they shipped it to China, where it was rejected. Chinese wanted thick stuff for northern winters.

So in that instance, the failure to realise the commodity resulted in a reduced profit, as not all surplus value was realised.

Another, more ordinary, case is when the same goes on in a day to day basis. Google can realise almost all of its ad revenue, and does so, because of high demand and high OCC (easily reproduced). In contrast the Bangladeshi slave capitalist making underwear can't realise all of his underwear because of the low OCC and low demand: the market is flooded with underwear.

The real result of this is that excess value produced by labour in underwear is channelled to google to realise as profit, as one commodity obtains below and the other above its market price.

Is that what you were interested in? Volume III stuff?

>>603007
you in a bad way if you know less on a topic than what you presume to be a "welfare chav" bruv

>>603008
Yeah, I'm in the middle of vol 3 in the first place.

>>602991
>Charles Andrews, in his classic textbook on this subject, differentiates exchange-value and value as follows:

>"The magnitude of value is the quantity of abstract labor required to produce a commodity. The magnitude of exchange value, or prices, is the amount of abstract labor that a commodity obtains in exchange." [p. 34]

Devine, opcit.

>>603008
>>602943

Stop pretending to be me.

>>603039
who is who

>>603040

We are all one or none, but that doesn't mean you aren't an imposter.

>>603046
but I don't even know what I'm posing as

>>603051

Then you aren't a very good imposter.

ITT noone is capable of using simple english or they choose not to in order to hide the fact that they are talking bollocks

>>603068
I know manual labourers with a better command over Marxism than myself, and they don't talk bollocks, they talk about burning people to death.

>>603060
I'm able to pose without knowingly posing. I'd say that makes me a fairly good imposter.
>>603068
well what specific point did you have in mind for us to str8 talk you on?

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>>602690
Done

>>603134
>copyright

>>603093

No, it makes you the Manchurian candidate.

>economics drives human ideas
yeah, sure

>human ideas don't drive economics
What? Of course they do. Come up with a better theory.

>>603134
Value is not a theory of prices in Marxist analysis. They are probably related, but they are not the same.

>>601922
Leave fifel alone. He's an autist, but he's our autist, and he adds greatly to the general gaiety of /his/ as well as scaring away the shitmunchers

>>603629
Value is subjective. Can't prove me wrong. Tee hee.

>>604354
Autist is not a valid category of proletarian praxis. Read 18th Brumaire

>>602991
>>603134
Please actually read the source and respond to it.

>>604724
The source is right. Labour has nothing to do with value.

>>601922
>4chan's Marxist spook
His name is Fifel actually.

>>601638
Marx isn't a historian, he's a historical philosopher at best, like Foucault. The message is more important than the actual historical evidence for them.

>>606605
A bit. But he listened to Engels whose historical capacity was much greater.

>>602690
>Completely redefine value to mean something completely different from what Marx was talking about
>MARX DEBUNKED, MUH DAS MUD PIE FALLACY

I swear to god, I've never actually read a rebuttle to Marx, even an academic economist one, that actually bothered to even get through the first chapter of Kapital part 1.

Even Rothbard, who's criticism is so often held up by bourgeois economists makes fundamental mistakes that contradict fucking PAGE 2 of Kapital.

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>ITT: people who never read any Marx bitch about what they think Marxism is
it's entertaining really

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>>608043
>>607477
>marxists trying to justify their ideological failures and "bourgeois" way of life"
1. Value is subjective and I've never heard a counter-argument to that.
2. Marxists shouldn't own IPhones

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>>608079
> Value is subjective and I've never heard a counter-argument to that.
>AKA I've never read Capital volume 1
not really disproving me here bucko

>>604706
Anon, you card.

>>607477
I've never read the Koran, but I'm pretty sure it's not actually the word of God, and that Islam is just another religion not the objective truth, whatever Muslims claim

>>601638
One of the most influential archaeologists, Childe, spread the ideas of Marxism in the West in the first half of the last century.

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>>601686
>Chris Hill, EP Thompson, New Left Review
>I think that's a sufficient set of citations to disprove your little idiocy.
Based, but the lunacy of antimarxists knows no bounds.

Additional marxist historians:
Philip Foner
Eric Hobsbawm
Georges Lefebvre
Herbert Aptheker
Robin Kelley
Colin Barker
Daniel Guerin
EH Carr

>>602690

>In sum, values present an alternative accounting framework to prices, one that shows the interdependency of society. Without values, we have no quantitative way to examine society besides prices. If prices actually equaled values, then much of the social relations of capitalism would be more obvious to the casual observer within the system and to the economist. But since they don't so, Marx needed the "acid of abstraction" to cut through surface appearances. That's what the LoV is for.

Could he at least have bothered to provide an example? How the fuck does it show the interdependence of society, and what social relations become more obvious? Is literally the only reason for this concept even existing to pass moral judgements on society?

>>608205
forgot Eugene Genovese

>>602690

>The sum of all the prices of all commodities sold (price times quantity for all items sold) equals the sum of all values of commodities sold

Marx never wrote this. Where the fuck did this come from?

>>608205
Which should I read if I have an interest in sociology?

>>601638
I refuse to read anything by Marx because history has proven him wrong, more than once. Whatever he thought to be the solution, it wasn't. Reading Marx is like learning astrology as means to predict the future. We've got better stuff. Sure they're people who still believe it but they are misguided and superstitious.

>>608205
>>608420
read first*

>>608446

Surely this must be a commie roleplaying to make anti-Marxists look bad.

>>608467
Nah, whatever Marx wrote it was either misunderstood by smarter people than me, or it's shit. Either way it resulted in shit results. Why bother.

>>608446
How do you what's contained in Marx's histories if you've never read Marx.
Aside from labor theory of value crap his assessment of capitalism is still relevant btw.

>>608479
I see actual marxists and the majority of them are basically fascists in the "I want to ban free speech" and "everyone who has a different opinion is my enemy" kind of sense.

How do you know about Hitler being bad without reading Mein Kampf?

>>608501
I mean. If you see a healthy person taking crazy pills and turning into a flaming hippie, would you think you had to take crazy pills as well, in order to prove their toxicity? This isn't a perfect metaphor, but whenever Marx has a point or not, everybody who touches Marx turns into an intellectual mutant. Some become immune after their 20s, but they don't remain Marxists.

>>608446

He correctly predicted that an economy must continually grow in order to compensate for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall [which is true within a given business cycles], the existence of business cycles, the eventual dominance of large firms over smaller ones, the proletarianization of workers, and an ever-increasing wage gap between owners of capital and workers.

He seems to have been doing something right, because those tendencies were not really obvious in 1867. Unfortunately Das Kapital is almost unreadable because it uses terms whose definitions are not made entirely clear, which leaves us with modern alternative economists constantly searching for new definitions for his terms in the hopes that they'll eventually find some that make sense and explain his predictions adequately.

It's far beyond the comprehension of your average person, and many highly intelligent people just dismiss major aspects of it as obscurantism because it's so fucking complicated. Internet communists like to use this confusion to turn the whole thing into a sort of economic mysticism whereby Marx is always right and capitalism's doom is just around the corner.

Shame you deleted that post because it seemed reasonable. I don't like the infinite growth paradigm and I suppose it leads to a collapse eventually, but I think communism isn't the solution. At least I believe change has to happen naturally.

>>608526
*Nevermind. I guess you just reformated.

>Internet communists like to use this confusion to turn the whole thing into a sort of economic mysticism whereby Marx is always right and capitalism's doom is just around the corner.

That is bothering me the most about it. There's something religious about it. Again, I can't really tell if what Marx actually meant was right or wrong, but I see the influence on some people. All would be a stretch, but still.

In terms of predicting the fall of capitalism I'm thinking I could make some complex theory about how the sun will cease to shine one day, which is the case as far as I know. Doesn't mean it's true.

>>608105
See >>601922
How about you deliever the counter-argument yourself?

>>608526

I deleted it because I'd forgotten that the original topic was Marxian historiography rather than economics, and since the person I was replying to was replying to the OP it felt off-topic.

>>608540
The conclusion would be true, but not actual theory trying to explain the mechanics that lead towards the end of the sun.

>>608565
>>608540

also somebody else copied it and posted it again.

>>601957

>I demonstrated for you, with a simple proof, using Marx's own terms, the flexibility of the profit rate.

would you mind reposting this for the rest of us? IIRC there is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall within a given business cycle.

>>608540

>There's something religious about it.

Absolutely. Marxism has taken on the characteristics of a secular religion, complete with its own holy book, tracts, apostles, evangelists, prophesies, sins, and heresies. Much like Christianity it targets the poor and downtrodden for evangelism and offers them a hope of salvation (communism) after an apocalypse (the fall of capitalism). It is filled with terminology that requires in depth knowledge to understand and which few adherents understand completely.

A lot of these tendencies appeared while Marx was alive, and he may have considered them beneficial towards his ultimate goal but he was also frustrated with how few people really understood his works. He also had a passion for mercilessly shitting on people that he disagreed with or considered stupid, and strongly rebuked Pierre Proudhon in part for daring to recommend tolerance of alternative views within the communist league.

>>608630
I think it's pretty dangerous when ideology becomes the essential part of ones personality. I have friends with total different views, but I still like them. But marxists can't seem to be friends with you if you reject their ideology.

>>608523
Business cycle theory began development in France after the British bust in Latin America post-Napoleon.

>>608653
This is the essence of mass movements. The True Believer expounds on this a bit.

>>608467
> Surely this must be a commie roleplaying to make anti-Marxists look bad.
Hell, no. This is the standard for Russian (and most post-Soviet) anti-Marxists: Marxism is essentially banned in schools/universities. They are literally incapable of making any statement regarding Marxism directly.

>>608653

definitely. I was a hardcore Marxist my senior year in high school and my first year of college before I realized how much I was alienating people. Thinking that you hold a theory of everything leads to a fair bit of arrogance. I was fortunate that I had professors who cared about me and who were patient enough to show me that Marx isn't the final word in history or economics.

>>608686
>I was a hardcore Marxist my senior year in high school and my first year of college
So which industry were you organising in?

>>608708

my school's janitorial staff. They succeeded in winning an extra $0.50/hour for every year they'd worked there after the first three, which is actually something I don't regret doing from those years.

>>602991

I'm not a marxist but

> people making this argument against the labour theory of value

REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>604460

I don't think anyone is suggesting that products don't have value in the colloquial sense because people psychologically 'value' them - saying that is tautologous.

when marx refers to value he refers to an abstract quality that he's hoping to use in his economic analysis, in the tradition of smith and ricardo. this doesn't have the same meaning as the word 'value' in the venacular does.

I realise this perhaps seems like a load of unessecary distortions on a very simple problem, but at least give the guy a chance to establish *some* theoretical analysis rather than misread him. criticizing the LTV because 'marx thought just working on something meant people valued it!!!' is no different than saying stiners is wrong to see 'spooks' as a negative thing because casper is a friendly ghost. just missing the point due to conflating terminology

Is it just me or is critical theory or whatever it's called meaningless anyhow if we had enough to go around for everybody? I mean who needs communistic distribution if we had cheap sustainable energy for everybody and automated production.

>>608523
>>608523


This is an accurate post. I'm a tankie and still find this book hard to wrestle with every few years

I agree with these conclusions though. Its not a magic book, and it is an analysis of capitalism only. It was however almost prophetic for its time in how true much of it has been proven to be. Moreover unlike what Western Internet Marxists claim the doom of capital is not nigh right now and certainly not over some redditcore bullshit like one new piece of legislation

>>602947

religion and culture are affected by economics but they're not about economics

>>608794
So far, no one has been able to explain why the LTV should be considered correct over subjective value.
>inb4 read Marx, Mandel, Gramsci and all the other authors mentioned on this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Marxist_writers

>>609264

Those two theories aren't even referring to the same thing, as per this post >>608811 so it isn't particularly a case of one being more 'correct' than the other as they aren't really referring to the same thing.

further, if you want to get into details, as far as i can understand, the subjective theory of value is essentially a tautology, it's no different than explaining human action by stating that 'people act to fufil their preferences' or some such formulation. that's fine, as a basic clarifying statement, but it isn't directly comparable to a theoretical construct like the labour theory of value. note i'm not saying the STV is 'wrong' or worse, just that it doesn't really do any of the work in theorizing that the LTV does -- in marginal econ, that work is done by other constructs.

as per why you'd even want to have a theory of value, rather than just surmise the contribution of various factors towards the price of goods at the point of sale, i dunno, economics seems to have progressed fine without it. but also i can understand why early economists, branching off from more directly philosophical questions, and attempting to lay out 'fundamentals' would be interested in seeking a sort of deeper construct which would allow them to see the laws of motion, the rules by which the capitalist economy operates at a level which just discussing prices doesn't seem to fully capture e.g.

the extra bonus for marxists is that it is very difficult to explain profit with a LTV aside from that it comes from underpaying workers, a problem with marginal economics doesn't have as it can just assign profits to the capital contribution to production etc etc

>>602947
They're not.

>>601638
You're thinking in terms of contemporary, postmodern historiography, which doesn't believe in a meta history. That's a pretty ahistorical analysis of Marx. Before he came around, everyone thought of history as "great people doing great things." The idea that the everyday actions of ordinary people had any impact on history was a huge step forward for historiography.

>>601686

>new left review

Bernie pls, the adults are talking

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>>608854
> I mean who needs communistic distribution if we had cheap sustainable energy for everybody and automated production.
You don't really understand Marxism, do you?

There is no "communistic distribution". What you are talking about is socialism at best. Rationing is not directly related to it.

On the other hand, "cheap sustainable energy for everybody and automated production" is mostly communism (I'm vastly oversimplifying things, of course).

It helps to try to universalize the terms that Marx uses and understand his aim. He's writing in response to the Industrialized Capitalist system in which he's living. What he sees is great inequality and that's essentially what he's saying: That all of history is a struggle between the have's and have-not's.

Whatever lines may be drawn, and for whatever reason, the history of Europe is populated with Land Barons and Serfs, or Kings and Peasants, or Owners and Laborers.

He keeps seeing these dichotomies and that's what leads him, like Hegel, to the idea of Material Dialectic. Marx's belief is that if the many outnumber the few, yet receive less of the portions, eventually something has to give.

Now, you may disagree with what he concludes, that workers must seize the means of production and work collaboratively to ensure everyone receives a fair stake in what is produced, but if you've ever read Marx it's kind of impossible not to see how some of what he prescribes about Capitalism is indeed true. Especially if you've worked a day in your life outside the realm of scholarship. The worker is alienated from the product by virtue of their labor appearing to be meaningless in the grand scheme. The worker will always have his wage sacrificed before any other considerations. There is no Capitalist society totally bereft of class, since Capitalism by nature of creating winners and losers also creates groupings based on the soulless quality of how much cash one person can attain.

Get a portable copy of Das Kapital (I like Marx and even I'm not reading that whole fucking thing) and do a little reading, m8's.

Oh, and I don't know that I'd even call him a historian. I know you say that to discredit him, but he's doing something far more speculative/theorectical than traditional academic history.

>>609900

Why would anyone bother with Marx's class analysis rather than say, Machiavelli's, which is more nuanced as well as more able to both describe past historical movements as well as predict future ones?


Lumping all the "have-nots" into one class is ridiculously reductionist, and very often has to skip over real, important, divisive issues between different segments of the "have nots"

>>601638
Marxism is based off idealism which introduces the idea of spirit of history leading the world somewhere.

Of course any actual historian using positivist approach will find that silly, while continuing to rave about guns and butter because in the end they're looking for the same thing from philosohistorical point of view - as in they try to find principles in history.

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I have a question (don't wanna start a new thread for it just yet).

What are good contemporary book on Dialectic Materialism?

>>609933
Yeah, I get it. You've rubbed your boner for Machiavelli all over this thread. I read all your posts and I get it. I'm just saying Marx has useful insights too, you fanboy.

What's truly reductionist is reposting one theory as if it's the one true answer.

>>601890
Not the guy you replied to:

>Hammond & Hammond

This seems to take an extremely small population sample to make conjectures about a universal class. All those towns citizens of the same country, belong to the same culture and have the same social beliefs. It is logical they will react similarly.

>>601922
Yep, that's Fifel in a nutshell. He also loses his shit when he reads the word "opinion"

Love the guy, he idles at #4chan and we used to have debates all the time before /his/ was a thing. But he's so horrifyingly difficult to talk with, and impossible to talk history with as he brings humanities into everything.

>>602690
It rests on the faulty premise that value exists outside of the valuer, and that regardless of common trends and agreements, all statements of value are preceded by a tacit "in my opinion".

The "value in use to human beings" is not a set property of an object. "Human beings" is an infertile concept. The value of use for a single individual however, is the valid proposition. And such value is never a static conception, nor the same between two parties. Exchange value is simply the externalization of the intimate value judgement of the individual, not in the market price of the commodity, but in the acceptance or refusal to buy or sell the commodity at said price.

Any form of economic analysis rooted in non-exchange values is a dishonest attempt to win a debate by preemptively redefining the core issue to your advantage.

>"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
"How does anyone take Marx seriously as a historian? That statement alone discredits him as a credible interpreter of historical events."
The question is: If Karl Marx thought that society history is the collection of recordings of class struggles and if history is defined to be the description source of human data then is he a credible interpreter of historical events? Is he accurate in saying that human data equals struggles or collections of fights?
If Marx was a historian then his texts would be used as accurate event data source by the school group. It is not. Really, the actual documents are used from the original items like soldier descriptions, accountant notes, and actual books from the era of the time - with reference to the collection in areas of teaching. Therefore, Karl Marx is not taken seriously as a historian - I do think he was more of a political philosophy or economic philosophy writer.
Note:
With reference to question (3) my reply is: If he presupposes that the master-slave antagonism is what society is then the contradiction in his thinking writing is that he just has the definitions wrong
I'm dizzy; kill the Marxists - I suppose, collect their texts.

>>610190
With reference to "the definitions wrong," I mean, in a ordinary style of writing: he is very obviously not a writer of history. It's more like he interpreted the articles and notes of his days and then published his conclusions on them.

So, no, he was not credible as a historian - though, he was reliable as a political philosophical writer etc.

I'd like some reasons why the concept of a mode of production should be abandoned? I think it's a pretty useful idea. OR is this specifically about economics?

>>610190
>If Marx was a historian then his texts would be used as accurate event data source by the school group.

Your first language isn't English, so you'll be forgiven.

>data source

If you're going to talk about history in English, you really ought to learn to speak historiographical English.

Marx is regularly used by historians, such as EP Thomson or Wallerstein as a source of metahistorical theory.

>Therefore, Karl Marx is not taken seriously as a historian

And you're arguing that historians use primary sources as the basis for the rejection of Marx. "The school group," I assume you mean "academic historians," regularly use Marx, as I pointed out. Further Engels is most notable for his detailed document based analysis of change over time, whether history, historical sociology or historical anthropology. Engels, writing before the infliction of discreet disciplinarity, is usually considered a seminal and foundational author in these areas.

Go fuck a dead dog.

>>611421
"Economics" as a discipline is restricted to marginalist accounts of price sales. They abandoned political economy when they went to the price-proxy for utility.

Mode of production as a theoretical term spans a number of contemporary disciplines, so much so that some writers have attempted to produce a "new" discipline specific to the Marxist analysis of society. Obviously, Gramsci indicates that this is a futile effort, much like the production of "socialist screwdrivers" is a futile effort.

>>609993
>This seems to take an extremely small population sample to make conjectures about a universal class.

Using Southern England to conjecture about capitalism is traditional. Your lack of awareness about this is curious.

>>611464

>Marx is frequently used by Marxist and Marxist-derivative historians

Creating an impenetrable hermeneutic circle that only thickens as time goes on.

>>611472
The Marginalists have all been dead for over a century. But I shouldn't be surprised that an outdated ideology uses outdated terminology.

>>611464
My class on the historical method specifially explained to us that marx and other "scientific" theories of history are outdated. Some historians do use marx but just as many do not care for his work as a historian

>>609711
>the extra bonus for marxists is that it is very difficult to explain profit with a LTV aside from that it comes from underpaying workers

Profit is the difference between the cost of labour power (ie: potential labour) and the realised surplus value produced by the labour hired. Profit is experienced by capitalism-as-a-whole, rather than individual capitals because of non-productive services (finance, marketing), and because of market coercion (rent seeking) between capitals.

Workers aren't underpaid for their labour power. C' = lp + mp + c. Marx makes pretty fucking clear in volume one that lp is set arbitrarily as a result of political contests, and can be BELOW the requirement for simple reproduction of actual living labour (ie: starvation). Given that lp is set politically, and is thus socially justified as a norm, there is no "underpayment" of workers. "c" arises from the free sale of labour power at the market price.

>>609824
>Bernie pls,
As you'd know, the NLR was established by EP Thompson's Reasoner/New Reasoner '56 group in alliance with some red labourites and proto-Trots. The British new left being radically different to the little campus shites from your country.

Don't open your mouth fuckhole. Sew it shut with silver wire.

>>609951
>What are good contemporary book on Dialectic Materialism?
Dyer-Witheford, Cyber Marx
Mandel, Late Capitalism
Braverman, Labor & Monopoly Capitalism
Banaji, Theory as History.

Nobody does dialectical materialism any more except for die hard tankies, because people rejected Engel's metaphysical claims in Anti-Dühring and Lenin's metaphysical claims in Empiriocriticism that the physical world was dialectically organised.

Most Marxists hold with "historical materialism," that the social world of human beings and their culture are dependently and historically organised through the relations of material subsistence of society (how we relate to each other when making the things we consider necessary: ie, class and technology).

>>611500
None of you cunts have abandoned the price-proxy for utility as a central element of your discipline. You're still all fucking Marginalists.

>>611485
>Creating an impenetrable hermeneutic circle that only thickens as time goes on.

Welcome to the humanities. Next try some work on theorising knowledge. A nice thick hermeneutic circle is all we can hope for in the interpretation of texts. It is far better than your horrible little broken filament.

>>611515
>explained
Your academic has some problems with pedagogy then. Especially as you're making an appeal to authority rather than displaying a separate capacity for reason. Do you hold that Marx's description of telos is outdated? Are you aware of what Marx's attitude to teleology actually was from his writings? Is history from below centred on labour relations in capitalism (for example) "outdated?" What relationship to texts do you hold to be most fruitful?

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Classes don't even exist.

There are only castes, and the intellectuals who promote Marxism are one of them. The heirs to the Brahmin of Vedic India and the Magi of Sassanid Persia.

There is no greater proof of this than the fact that Karl Marx is more respected and influential than Vilfredo Pareto.

>>611581
>cool theory of knowledge bro

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>>611590
At least no one ever killed anyone over it.

>>611596
>At least no one ever killed anyone over it.
I'm pretty sure that nobody killed anybody over Marx's contributions to epistemology either.

Whereas states which have used Pareto's works in policy have killed people.

Take your tar brush home.

>>611549
They're all dead. Been dead. Get with the times.
You can't play your obscurantist games, mincing words over your pseudo-"scientific" ideology which has been left behind by both proper philosophy and economics alike, and then suddenly forget those standards when discussing forms of economics that are actually valuable.

>>611622
>that are actually valuable.

I see you enjoy informing states on how to repress people. Are you going to take your Masters at Chicago?

I'm sorry that you feel offended that your discipline is marginalism. Maybe if you introspected on your discipline more you'd come to terms with the game and the sausage factory.

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>>611607
>one proclaimed their ideology would lead to Utopia and paradise on Earth and anything was justified in its inevitable pursuit
>the other was a social scientist and economist who was accidentally wank material to fascists because of his belief (not his hope, mind you) that a ruling class always emerged in any society to enrich itself

Not that guy, but Pareto doesn't sound all that bad compared to Marx at all.

>>611627
>this entire post

What is he supposed to feel, exactly? You haven't said anything at all.

>>611542

>Late Capitalism

I fucking hate this phrase. How can any modern economist or historian presume to know when capitalism is going to end? The term "modern" would be far more effective and less pretentious.

>>611634
>>one proclaimed their ideology would lead to Utopia
I'd like a citation for this. Cite up or fuck off. Marx and Engels both were very very cautious about talking about post-capitalism in Utopian terms. They both believed in a distributed set of capacities present in humans, many of which were surdetermined by long term cultural trends.

>>611634
>What is he supposed to feel, exactly?
I am not responsible for your feelings unless I cause you to cease feeling.

>You haven't said anything at all.
I said that the price-proxy for utility is still the epistemological justification of "economics" as a disciplinary activity, and the epistemological disconnection over the price-proxy and the further disconnection between the price-proxy as effective demand and the possibility of equating this to individual utilities is an insurmountable task in terms of producing a "justification" of the work of the discipline of economics as true.

Doesn't mean people shouldn't do it. Just means that their hysteric claims to accurately represent external reality flounder on the failed price proxy and the more substantial impossibility of commensurating individual utilities which sunk the utilitarians.

When an undergraduate passes Quals, they ought to know the limits of their discipline in terms of epistemology. I know the limits of mine: nobody can securely read meaning from documents.

>>611644
>I fucking hate this phrase.
I agree, it is pretentious.

>How can any modern economist or historian presume to know when capitalism is going to end?
Mandel cites some pessimistic OCC related declining rate of profits stats in Intro to Capital 2 (Penguin) that there's another 400 years left in capitalism. He himself thinks there's about 80. Note that Mandel was writing before the proletarianisation of white collar and service work generally and the commodification of service, domestic care, health care, education and information was thorough.

Personally, given that I think Lenin's imperialism is juvenile ("Highest stage of capitalism," arse), that the best we can do is observe the long wave trends in economics: cotton to steel, steel to chemical, chemical to data, and posit a necessary OCC crisis like the 1960s-1980s crisis wave at the end of data commodification.

Unless a further commodification / proletarianisation is found.

>>611648

"everyone could give himself a complete education in whatever domain he fancied." Everyone would have "the possibility to do this today and that tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to go fishing in the afternoon, to do cattle breeding in the evening, to criticise after dinner"

"Communism as the positive abolition of private property as human self-alienation, means the real appropriation of human entity by and for man; thus the complete, conscious return – accomplished inside all the riches of the past development – of man for himself qua social, that is, as a human being. This Communism is, as perfect Naturalism, identical with Humanism, and as perfect Humanism identical with Naturalism; it is the real solution of the antagonism between man and nature, between man and man; the genuine solution of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectivisation and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. It is history’s solved riddle and is conscious of being the solution."

"perfect naturalism" that solves all human problems. Gee that doesn't sound Utopian at all, does it? All taken from The German Ideology and his Economic and Philosophic manuscripts.

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>>611648
It's the ultimate goal of his entire theory of history, he believed that everything was going to lead up to one big revolution to end them all and the class struggle would end forever. In terms of how he viewed history up until that point, it was very, very Utopian and promised an end to the eternal suffering of the class struggle.

>all this gobbledygook

You didn't say any of that, actually, but I think I've found another reason no one likes Marxists. Explain shit in plain English, without all the ideological qualifiers and memewords.

For fuck's sake, you could afford to be less of a smug prick too.

>>611676
wew lad

I've actually had conversations with a Frankfurt School semi-Marxist friend of mine, who had unironically told me that the masses are kept dumb by TV and capitalism in general, and that if they were freed they would all turn to scholarly/literary/poetic pursuits. AKA, the shit he likes to do while being paid grant money from a publicly funded university while others actually work for a living.

I told him that was a pretty stupid idea, but this is the actual thinking of some of these people.

>>611676
The first is quite obviously "species-being" Marx, as is the second.

>All taken from the german ideology.

You could bother reading Althusser on the scientific and the "humanist" Marx.

Guess which one actually influenced the movement? The hard as fucking nails "scientific" Marx.

Please though accept my compliment on your scholarship. Engel's section of Anti-Dühring, reprinted as "Socialism: Utopian & Scientific" ought to provide the contrast to the idealist Marx you've quoted. Anti-Dühring by the way was the most commonly read marxist text for proletarians.

>>611690
Unlike the other poster, you didn't fucking cite. You produced a spurious and bullshit exegesis.

>Explain shit in plain English
GET A JOB
JOIN THE UNION
SHOOT YOUR BOSS

>For fuck's sake, you could afford to be less of a smug prick too.
I could if you paid me the going rate for these services.

>I told him that was a pretty stupid idea, but this is the actual thinking of some of these people.
It is backed by historical examples from the 19th and 20th centuries prior to television where proletarian autodidacticism and workers self-education societies were the most common non-religious leisure pursuits outside of sports.

>>611694

>It is backed by historical examples from the 19th and 20th centuries prior to television where proletarian autodidacticism and workers self-education societies were the most common non-religious leisure pursuits outside of sports.

Clubs in general were just way more popular back then. It's not because of some innate proletarian hive mind, it's because mass media was limited to newspapers and books with few ways for people to discuss them with each other outside of letters or face-to-face contact. Further, just because workers come up with an idea on their own doesn't mean it's less stupid or complacency-inducing than an idea you see on TV.

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>>611694
Lmfao at those suggestions familia.

>implying we've all got time to read your Marxist wank material and don't have lives to attend to

>you didn't fucking cite
>proceeds to say that most people were aspiring scholars in their free time in the 19th century without sources

The only people hitting the books in significant numbers in the late 19th century US were Russian Jews, whose most common leisure activity as a group average was library visits. Unlike you, I've actually been trained in history, not this ideological "how can I use history to my ends" bullshit Marxism.

Also
>claim to be a Marxist
>hate the prole for asking for simple language

Marxists are the biggest hypocrites. And you got a word-a-day calendar or something? I'm not impressed by your ability to say big words because what you're saying doesn't mean much of anything. I thought we were done with the post-modern, 1990s fascination with Big Words for Big Thoughts. It's what you say that matters, not how you say it, and you don't say much of anything worth thinking about.

I teach, I'm used to dumbing shit down even more than I asked you for. It's not degrading to get your point across.

>>611734
>Further, just because workers come up with an idea on their own doesn't mean it's less stupid or complacency-inducing than an idea you see on TV.

No, of course not. There's no "special sauce" to being proletarian other than alienated wage labour in capitalism. But clubbing played important roles in organising horizontal solidarity networks, roles which were dissipated by private "petits-bourgeois" style working class sitting rooms. Can Dialectics Break Bricks is fairly good on this, "He's become a foreman and bought a colour television."

>The only people hitting the books in significant numbers in the late 19th century US were Russian Jews, whose most common leisure activity as a group average was library visits. Unlike you, I've actually been trained in history, not this ideological "how can I use history to my ends" bullshit Marxism.

Yeah, sorry mate, but British, Australian and American labour histories of class practices refutes this. Try EP on the frame knitters & methodism.

>Also
>claim to be a Marxist
>hate the prole for asking for simple language

On an American japanese pornography website.

You seem to assume I have some "liberal" conception of ideologically recruiting you through persuasive language.

>I teach

And yet you willingly degrade your own capacity for thought in a research environment. I hope you teach children, because school teachers either have to be experts in self-degradation or class conscious unionists. And I know which one of these you aren't.

>>611694

If "scientific" vs "humanist" Marx is the same as "young Marx" and "mature Marx" then I already know the distinction. Just because Marx toned down the more fantastic elements in his published tracts doesn't mean that communists didn't look forward to a classless, stateless society following a bloody revolution akin to how Adventists look forward to paradise after the apocalypse; ie as a final relief from their awful lives and the only real goal worth striving towards. I'd also contend that a classless, stateless society is itself a utopian idea because humans trend towards hierarchy and tribalism and I've seen no evidence that this aspect of "human nature" (an awkward phrase, to be sure) can be eliminated by society's mode of production.

>>611858
It kind of proxies the young/mature marx, but Althusser felt that even the mature marx was never properly scientific and then started an exegesis of the hidden "scientific" marx. Amusing, but the only place you could really play that game would be in the PCF if you were disconnected from proletarian praxis.

I think that Marx's concrete political work brought him more into line with the immanence of communisation, as opposed to the imminent apocalypse. More Munster than Luther or Calvin.

>I'd also contend that a classless, stateless society is itself a utopian idea because humans trend towards hierarchy and tribalism
These aren't necessarily reflected in state or classes of course. The mobile agricultural populations dealt with in "The Art of Not Being Governed" weren't particularly pleasant societies.

>and I've seen no evidence
I have personally found that in moments of class conflict that the negation of property really comes forward in sections of proletarian movements: spontaneous solidarity, etc.

>>611857

There's two of us here, but we're both responding to your responses to each of us. I'm the (ex) Marxist.

I've read far too much Marx already and I've abandoned all hope of ever fully understanding the Law of Value in a way that's consistent with observable reality. I can't stand having to learn and unlearn innumerable terms that have no apparent use other than to criticize society using abstract ideas which have ceased to accurately predict the future or reveal worthwhile insights about the economy that could not be more adequately explained through mainstream economics.

>>611892
I find Harry Cleaver's approach to Marx's works, in the introduction to Reading Capital Politically, most useful: Marx provides a tool kit for resistance. I've found it useful once you get down to the brass tacks level of pushing wages. This is apparently the approach that many tankie organisers took in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s which explained why they stuck with a party that to a liberal mindset looks abhorrent.

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>>611857
Learn to reply right m8.

And what the fuck, of course "labor histories of class" will say exactly what you wanted them to. That's the point of being ideological history.

Fuck off with this whoring out of history for ideological ends. History happened, your "interpreting" of it gets in the way of actually seeing what happened.

>research environment

I work with kids and help them to understand history as it happened, I don't live at a uni while the public pays for me to be a waste of space studying something that is absolutely useless to anyone. Not all of us are like you with endless free time on others' dime, you know.

And I get that you *think* you're smart, but you're just blowing off a lot of hot air about a political theory that got millions killed in the last century, was an abject failure even by its own standards whenever it was attempted, and isn't taken seriously by anyone at all these days.

So you can act like you're some kind of new-age philosopher king all you want, but you're still king of bullshit and the idea of *you* insulting people who actually work for a living in laughable. The fact that all you have to insult me with is snark (as if I give a shit what the self-appointed high cleric of the retards has to say about me) is the best, you've got nothing else. No successes (I don't see the downfall of capitalism, do you? No book deals in the wings, anon?), you don't produce anything, you don't help anyone, you don't do anything but think about what has been historically proven to be bullshit (inb4 true communism, never been tried rote). How hilariously depressing.

>>611926
>And what the fuck, of course "labor histories of class" will say exactly what you wanted them to. That's the point of being ideological history.

…

>History happened

You really wasted your time with that history degree.

>I work with kids and help them to understand history as it happened

You're a fucking scab.

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>>611939
>really wasted your time

As opposed to you? Really, what are you going to do with your PhD in bullshit at the end of the day?

I work for a private company too. They're entirely funded by donations and what they make at admissions from the park-side of things, besides the educational programs we offer to schools.

>you're a fucking scab

I earn a living that's not dependent on people being forced to give me money via the government, and I'm doing something that I love while serving the public as an educator. I teach more real, useful things than you could ever try to. Upset, friend?

>>611967
>Really, what are you going to do with your PhD in bullshit at the end of the day?

Make sausages, play the game, have a firm epistemological basis for my claims, understand historiography.

>I work for a private company too.
So? There's no special origin of capital as to trusts, funds, banks, or states.

>I teach more real, useful things than you could ever try to.
I'm not upset. I'm just glad I'm not deluded about epistemology or history being a concrete thing separable from documents.

Every child you "teach" you set back history as a discipline further than John Green ever could in his entire working life.

>>611914

Marxism is an undoubtedly useful political ideology, but Capital isn't a political tract. Capital is a dispassionate and calculating list of observations about political economy, wherein the various actors are powerless to prevent their fate as they go about working for pennies or accumulating capital / cutting costs to stay abreast of the competition. Separating communist politics from Marxian economics is impossible because the politics relies on Marx's theories of exploitation and value. Without the economic framework these concepts are simply slogans that vaguely match up with peoples' passions, which is one of my greatest critiques of communists is that they typically do not understand the economic aspect and are essentially resorting to economic mysticism for the sake of maintaining their world view. If these people want higher wages, more/less hours, better conditions, etc. then they would be much better served using rhetoric that isn't seen as outdated or revolutionary and instead working within capitalism through trade unions or learning skills that either give them an edge (like learning how to brown nose) or a skill that allows them to alleviate their poverty more directly such as through smart investing.

>>611566

We don't all ascribe to every single lesson of the phenomenologists, and so don't believe closed-circuit engagements are inescapable. Nor do we all hold the opinion that every artifact must be treated as a text; that there is, to the contrary, a supra-textual 'real world' that we can try to understand, even if our understanding is necessarily anthropogenic. Further, we don't all believe the Marxian framework is tenable, or even instructive, when trying to understand this 'real world'. So we formulate our own.

>The difference is I'm not paid to be a useless waste of space

Congratulations you've won this argument

>>611995
And that's reasonable, far more reasonable than an argument from authority. Back fill the citations and it'd be a HD. Shit on Hayden White and I'd enjoy it immensely.

>>611994
Cleaver's argument is that every relationship described in Capital can be dismantled, or at least contested. This is what he means by a political reading. There are non-Marxian communist politics.

>Marxist at the very least makes arguments and cites sources
>Opponents respond with truisms and non-arguments well represented here >>611926 and literally "u mad"
America does it again

>>612032
One of my opponents has been supplying reasonable arguments and citing and gesturing at appropriate literatures we share and agree on. That portion of the discussion has been fruitful.

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>>611990
>I have a better understanding of historiography because my ideology that explains the way the world works colors everything so I know it's better

Sure you do senpai.

>le sick John Green burn

Gold star for this one, best I can do. Good to know you're running low on smug at least.

>>612032
Thanks senpai. In order to "debate" this guy on grounds that he would accept, I'd need to read his Marxist wank material, stuff that's already been proven to be bullshit by the human experience of the 20th century.

I've been burned one too many times with these so-called "discussions" with Marxists on /his/, constantly refusing to accept things that don't fit into their pre-ordained worldview. Every time I get told to go chase some obscure source who is told to be incredibly reliable, whereas actual historians get scoffed at. So no thanks, I'm not going to waste my time with that shit; I just like to poke fun at them now.

>>612040
>someone who's read a shitton of Marxist stuff and is a former Marxist is more able to speak in the ideological language I'm comfortable in accepting as it easily fits my rigid worldview

Well gee, who could have guessed?

>>612075
>Sure you do senpai.
Go read Thompson's Poverty of Theory instead of playing strawman.

I no longer believe you got a degree from an accredited institution.

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>>612083
>Google-fu EP Thompson
>This classic collection of essays by E.P. Thompson, one of England’s most renowned socialist voices...

>complain that I always get directed to a socialist source while all other historians are denigrated
>get pointed to a socialist source

This is why I don't even bother with you close-minded idiots anymore. Still fun to laugh at you, though.

I mean wow, you really just played right into that, didn't you? Holy fuck, I'm dying.

>>612094
You don't even know who Thompson is or what he did for historiography. Go back to >>>/int/

>>612029

>Cleaver's argument is that every relationship described in Capital can be dismantled, or at least contested.

I already have faith in the ability of workers to demand higher wages and better living conditions, even in China they've been making gains. The closest thing I can think of to changing the actual nature of the capitalist / worker relationship would be workers winning Employee Stock Ownership Plans to make themselves quasi-capitalists.

>there are non-Marxian communist politics

The only ones I've met were idealistic utopians who lacked solid frameworks for their theories

>>612040

Thanks, I've enjoyed the conversation too. It's made me revisit and scrutinize some old beliefs and has been fun mental exercise.

>>601900
shit everyone stop posting!

>>612110
If you ever want to investigate whether employee stock ownership is relevant to workers you might try looking into the Australian superannuation system and the Mondragon firm in Spain. IMHO being your own boss still means you're bossed and alienated. Also formal ownership on paper versus substantive ownership as in control.

>>612138

>Australian superannuation system

Thanks, that seems really interesting. I'll look into it.

>being your own boss still means you're bossed and alienated

Hard work is hard to avoid

centrally planning your economy is just inefficient

>>612094

Thompson's actually great. He's empirically minded, and his takedown of Althusserian structuralism is definitive and devastating. A superb piece of historiography in itself, too.

>>611994
>Marxism is a useful political ideology
Is that why it is so widespread outside academic wanking circles?

>>612199
Marxism is not about planning economy. Also it is extremely efficient.

Except, when you own the factories, you don't wanna share the profits. And central planning basically precludes that.

>>612496

You are in a history board, son. What the Fuck even was the Cold War.

>>601638
It's because he cherry picks.

His conception of feudalism is based upon the crusader kingdoms in general and Acre in particular. That was a small moment in time created by exceptional circumstances and it's not indicative of feudalism as a whole.

Marx only sees what he wants to see.

>>608453
any area of history interest you particularly?

>>612590
>Marx only sees what he wants to see
Exactly. This is the definitive point.

>>612535
>Marxism is not about planning economy.
>Also it is extremely efficient.

Why do Marxist make up bullshit wherever they go?

>>612757
Because they have wasted a huge portion of their lives believing in this bullshit and read all sorts of obscure marxist authors to try to justify the failure of their ideology by blaming outside forces and misunderstandings.
>inb4 go read all of the following authors because I don't know how to make a counter-argument: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Marxist_writers

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>>612757
Will you dare to actually refute those statements?

>Similarly, certainty as a connection is an immediate pure connection; consciousness is 'I', nothing more, a pure 'This'; the singular consciousness knows a pure 'This', or the single item.

What did Marx mean by this statement

>>612733
Modern history of the 20th century

> all this pompous Marxist verbiage in this thread

you know if you put half as much effort into winning votes as you do writing elaborate rebuttals on a manganese embroidery powwow you might actually get somewhere. As it is you are being beaten by the likes of Ukip and Tony Abbot.
> inb4 b-but w-we don't need to win elections

>>612859
Go to bed Nige

>>612859
>winning votes

It isn't a matter of not needing, it is that parliament is the funeral home where working class movements go to lie in state upon leather benches.

Is this me

>>612891
The funeral home of working class movements is actually found in meetings of irrelevant socialist groups. Whenever two or more Marxists meet, there is the grave of proletariat politics

>>613026
>The funeral home of working class movements is actually found in meetings of irrelevant socialist groups.

>grave
>irrelevant

Contradicting yourself during a single sentence is an art you have perfected.

>grave of proletariat politics
The adjective is proletarian you idiot.