Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Whenever you'd like to continue. I've just been real busy with music, tutoring, and social commitments.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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eumaas wrote:
11 Jun 2018, 12:53pm
Whenever you'd like to continue. I've just been real busy with music, tutoring, and social commitments.
OK - will move on by this time tomorrow, schedule permitting.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Any thoughts on Ch V, G?
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eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Silent Majority wrote:
20 Jun 2018, 2:00pm
Any thoughts on Ch V, G?
Migrained so not equipped to write at length. Do you have any questions so far or is everything clear?
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Also owing to obligations and busy shit I am probably not going to be abke to keep up reading. But I can answer questions or discuss specific points as you come across them.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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eumaas wrote:
20 Jun 2018, 3:44pm
Also owing to obligations and busy shit I am probably not going to be abke to keep up reading. But I can answer questions or discuss specific points as you come across them.
No prob. I'm reading this extremely slowly, I know.
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eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Silent Majority wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 1:37am
eumaas wrote:
20 Jun 2018, 3:44pm
Also owing to obligations and busy shit I am probably not going to be abke to keep up reading. But I can answer questions or discuss specific points as you come across them.
No prob. I'm reading this extremely slowly, I know.
Just a bit out of sync too--I've been easing off of politics as best I can in order to read things that make me happy. So every time I read Sweezy I just get mad again.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

Post by Silent Majority »

eumaas wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 12:47pm
Silent Majority wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 1:37am
eumaas wrote:
20 Jun 2018, 3:44pm
Also owing to obligations and busy shit I am probably not going to be abke to keep up reading. But I can answer questions or discuss specific points as you come across them.
No prob. I'm reading this extremely slowly, I know.
Just a bit out of sync too--I've been easing off of politics as best I can in order to read things that make me happy. So every time I read Sweezy I just get mad again.
Totally understood. I see the next chapter's on the falling rate of profit - I'll have some questions on that.
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eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Silent Majority wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 12:49pm
eumaas wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 12:47pm
Silent Majority wrote:
21 Jun 2018, 1:37am
eumaas wrote:
20 Jun 2018, 3:44pm
Also owing to obligations and busy shit I am probably not going to be abke to keep up reading. But I can answer questions or discuss specific points as you come across them.
No prob. I'm reading this extremely slowly, I know.
Just a bit out of sync too--I've been easing off of politics as best I can in order to read things that make me happy. So every time I read Sweezy I just get mad again.
Totally understood. I see the next chapter's on the falling rate of profit - I'll have some questions on that.
I'm editing Andrew K's name out because he is a name searcher and extremely tendentious. I wouldn't put it past him to register on here just to troll.

To make it simple:
Sweezy is basically of the opinion that countervailing tendencies interfere with the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The alternative he offers gets worked out in more detail by Paul Baran, and then by the two of them together in Monopoly Capital. Basically, the capitalists are able to extract more and more surplus and create a crisis of overaccumulation. Luxemburg had a similar "underconsumptionist" view, and it was widely accepted among Marxists until Andrew K and some bloggers started up the neo-Orthodox position. Jack says this means Sweezy has stripped away the revolutionary core of Marxism, which is funny because K is a Clinton supporter and Sweezy & Baran were friends with Che Guevara and vocal defenders of numerous revolutions while also sharply critical of the defects of these post-revolutionary societies. I think in K's view if a revolution happens outside of Europe, it doesn't count. The critics of Sweezy also believe that the argument against the LTRPTF hinges on his interpretation of the transformation problem, which isn't actually true. Instead it's more about the ups and downs of class struggle, social relations, & state actions--various counteracting tendecies--that affect it and tend to halt the TRPTF.

Because I am not at all concerned with fidelity to Marx (although Marx has plenty of underconsumptionist passages or else so many of his followers wouldn't be underconsumptionists!), I just compare the world and competing theories and see which looks more accurate. I look at the world today and it seems to me that the capitalists have been real successful at driving down labor costs and extracting extreme amounts of surplus, a surplus they have no real ability to consume. I see that class struggle has had an effect on surplus extraction--the working class is in a weaker position now. For K, the working class is better compensated than ever (he gets this by lumping in benefit payments from corporations as well as state benefits and by including compensation to highly paid managers), while the capitalists are struggling with shrinking profits. Moreover, the class struggle has no effect on this--stripping away unions and labor laws has had no effect and the working class is as strong as ever. To me these views are just plain false, and it makes no difference to me whether he is more faithful to the text of Capital.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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K also doesn't really believe that imperialism exists and is a new form of capitalism that Marx didn't talk about, and he thinks that the financialization of capital is a trivial thing, whereas the Monthly Review school helped create dependency theory and are very focused on financialization (which is how they predicted the recent crisis).
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

Post by Wolter »

Hey, quick question: got a fairly mainstream liberal Democrat twitter follower asking me for good leftist readings as he feels the leftward pull, and I’m honestly not certain what to tell him to read, as I am well aware I’m a bit on the extreme edge of things. Any good recommendations that might not scare him off, but make a good case? I’m not even thinking anarchism. Just solid leftist stuff.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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A People's History of the United States, if he hasn't read it yet.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Wolter wrote:
15 Jul 2018, 11:27pm
Hey, quick question: got a fairly mainstream liberal Democrat twitter follower asking me for good leftist readings as he feels the leftward pull, and I’m honestly not certain what to tell him to read, as I am well aware I’m a bit on the extreme edge of things. Any good recommendations that might not scare him off, but make a good case? I’m not even thinking anarchism. Just solid leftist stuff.
Not entirely sure what you're asking here. Is this about more political philosophy, current politics, history, or something else? Offhand, tho, I recommend Dwight Macdonald's extended essay, "The Root is Man," is a humanist, non-Marxist left piece that has influenced me a great deal. John Ralston Saul is no leftist, but his Voltaire's Bastards or The Doubter's Companion or The Unconscious Civilization are decent entry points to critiquing so much received wisdom about neoliberalism/globalization. Thomas Frank and the late Christopher Lasch are good for approachable critiques of liberalism but also the left. George Lipsitz is a Western cultural Marxist scholar of popular culture and race. Pretty much anything of his is thought-provoking, but his A Life in the Struggle about a St. Louis activist named Ivory Perry is quite good.

edit: John Patrick Diggins' The Rise and Fall of the American Left is a useful overview of four periodizations of leftism in the US in the 20th c.
Last edited by Dr. Medulla on 16 Jul 2018, 10:48am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

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Re: Anarchism, Marxism and Radical Politics

Post by Wolter »

Clarification: probably a fairly modern summation of current left-leaning positions that move past neoliberalism as well as some good intro level Marx stuff. I’m not as up on theory these days and can barely remember half the things I’ve read
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