I mean, Marx was also inspired by Capitalist Political Economy in the extent he was reacting against it fairly deliberately. If the Cultural Revolution was kind of the ultimate rebellion against Confucian social mores then it was a deliberate reaction against the Confucian social system.
The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
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I mean, Marx was also inspired by Capitalist Political Economy in the extent he was reacting against it fairly deliberately. If the Cultural Revolution was kind of the ultimate rebellion against Confucian social mores then it was a deliberate reaction against the Confucian social system.
The progidal son returns once again! Nice having you back. Hope you stick around this time.
There's nothing liberal about state-enforced atheism. Getting rid of a form of authoritarianism is not justified if it is replaced by an authoritarianism just as cruel and absolute.
Some stuff I just could not let go from the last 80 pages or whatever:
Social democrats and left-wing academics since the 1970s love Gramsci because his Prison Notebooks are full of obtuse and shrouded language for what amounts in most cases to be straight forward conventional Comintern politics, but provides limitless opportunities to get published discerning content from them which can be readily fitted to any hobbyhorse which is currently a fad. It also allows those with left-liberal petty bourgeois politics and theory a pretext to move the focus off class and class struggle and state politics. And of course, his whole discourse on organic intellectuals and the long march through the institutions is very self-gratifying for the petty bourgeois academic.
Use-value does not mean a substitute for money-prices in quantifying relative trade-offs in the production possibilities frontier. Use-value isn't a substitute unit of account in production planning. Use-value in Marx's critique of political economy is the literal functional capacity the product was produced to carry out. The use-value of a chair is you can sit on it. The use-value of food is you can meet your caloric and nutritional needs and subjective pleasure by eating it. It is somewhat confusing that "value" is used in Marxian theory sometimes to mean the very concept of universal commensurability in productive terms (for instance "the law of value" and "exchange-value") but in the case of use-value, it just means the direct function of a product or service produced.
Marx's use of the term "dictatorship" here is rather antiquarian and classicist by modern standards, and accordingly many modern Marxists avoid the term to reduce confusion. Marx was trained as a classicist and Continental lawyer, and "dictatorship" here is an analogy to the Ancient Roman constitutional legal extraordinary magistracy of the dictatura rei gerundae causa (lit. in Latin, "dictator for the matter to be done"). This is a fully legal and constitutional, but extraordinary / emergency state of government under extraordinary crisis, providing sweeping powers and mandate to accomplish an end (almost always, resolving an existential or severe military-political threat; in many respects an analogy with legal states of emergency or martial-law in modern politics), but remaining nonetheless a republican and legal measure, and limited in scope and duration. So Marx merely means to describe the working-class taking power to carry through its struggle and carry through the tasks to transition to communism, before this extraordinary and temporary state is disbanded. In the 1850s, "dictatorship" did not necessarily imply an extraconstitutional or extralegal despotism. Since it did not yet have that nigh-exclusive colloquial meaning, its use cannot be the cause of Marx-inspired political organizations and regimes.
By the later 20th century, the transition to communism is well underway, and there are other mechanisms besides fear of unemployment and concomitant impoverishment to regulate and coordinate production-processes and maintain adequate levels of labor-productivity (see: parecon).
Marx's Capital presciently observed the tendency for human labor-power to be displaced by productivity-enhancing technology, and foresaw the tendency under capitalist production to eventually objectively displace employees leading to what he called the absolute surplus population. Under workers' power in transition to communism, technological improvements are put into service in the opposite fashion. Rather than concentrating distributions of income and wealth accumulation, while abandoning employees to a limbo outside gainful employability, and thus economic insecurity and impoverishment, instead the average working day and working week is subject to continuous reduction ceteris paribus, and the transition to a state where work-obligation to society is relatively tangential to human experience, that people are not defined or bound to jobs to subsist that crowd out all creative and self-actualizing capacities of human beings. The idea that this could and should be the outcome of a secular improvement in productivity-enhancing production was not solely a Marxian or even communist one. John Maynard Keynes said his great-grandchildren's main challenge will be to occupy their lives now dominated by time outside of socially-required labor output; that they might be bored or listless, so decreased would be the average necessary work time.
Ideally, a workers' republic's sole criterion for naturalization and enfranchisement will be residing in its territory and providing socially necessary labor (working in the country). If you contribute to the social wealth of a society, you deserve a say in its disposal. That is it.
I have some more remarks about the economic system and the constitutional order I will expand on later.
Social democrats and left-wing academics since the 1970s love Gramsci because his Prison Notebooks are full of obtuse and shrouded language for what amounts in most cases to be straight forward conventional Comintern politics, but provides limitless opportunities to get published discerning content from them which can be readily fitted to any hobbyhorse which is currently a fad. It also allows those with left-liberal petty bourgeois politics and theory a pretext to move the focus off class and class struggle and state politics. And of course, his whole discourse on organic intellectuals and the long march through the institutions is very self-gratifying for the petty bourgeois academic.
Jello, a question - you explain that the UASR assigns things a use-value but what do they do to represent this - is it just an arbitrary number i.e Tank Type A has a use-value of 10 but Tank Type B has a use-value of 20 (higher being better in this case)? That'd make the most sense to me and it's an effective way of showing how much something is worth and it works - currency is just an arbitrary representation of worth (subjectively of course). Economics - the science of arbitrary numbers to represent value!
And if I'm right, the use-value only indicates whether or not something should be produced, not whether it is worth it to produce - it's cost effectiveness as it were? To go back to the tank examples, Tank Type B may be effective in the field but costs 100 times more resources than the Type A, making the Type A more cost-effective once cost is taken into account but less useful in and of itself and vice-versa for the Type B.
Use-value does not mean a substitute for money-prices in quantifying relative trade-offs in the production possibilities frontier. Use-value isn't a substitute unit of account in production planning. Use-value in Marx's critique of political economy is the literal functional capacity the product was produced to carry out. The use-value of a chair is you can sit on it. The use-value of food is you can meet your caloric and nutritional needs and subjective pleasure by eating it. It is somewhat confusing that "value" is used in Marxian theory sometimes to mean the very concept of universal commensurability in productive terms (for instance "the law of value" and "exchange-value") but in the case of use-value, it just means the direct function of a product or service produced.
Marx's use of the term "dictatorship" here is rather antiquarian and classicist by modern standards, and accordingly many modern Marxists avoid the term to reduce confusion. Marx was trained as a classicist and Continental lawyer, and "dictatorship" here is an analogy to the Ancient Roman constitutional legal extraordinary magistracy of the dictatura rei gerundae causa (lit. in Latin, "dictator for the matter to be done"). This is a fully legal and constitutional, but extraordinary / emergency state of government under extraordinary crisis, providing sweeping powers and mandate to accomplish an end (almost always, resolving an existential or severe military-political threat; in many respects an analogy with legal states of emergency or martial-law in modern politics), but remaining nonetheless a republican and legal measure, and limited in scope and duration. So Marx merely means to describe the working-class taking power to carry through its struggle and carry through the tasks to transition to communism, before this extraordinary and temporary state is disbanded. In the 1850s, "dictatorship" did not necessarily imply an extraconstitutional or extralegal despotism. Since it did not yet have that nigh-exclusive colloquial meaning, its use cannot be the cause of Marx-inspired political organizations and regimes.
By the later 20th century, the transition to communism is well underway, and there are other mechanisms besides fear of unemployment and concomitant impoverishment to regulate and coordinate production-processes and maintain adequate levels of labor-productivity (see: parecon).
- Gerrymandering is eliminated through centralized electoral authorities representing all registered parties and because electoral districts correspond to organic constituencies (i.e., a commune, a raion (IOTL counties).
- The very wealthy no longer exist. There may be a few outliers like very successful artists with royalties, but possessors of large money-hoards no longer exist. There are significant wage-differentials to secure the compliance of the credentialed and experienced professional class (which are subject to progressive taxation), but there is no "rich" to speak of. There are a few small and medium capitalists in the early years because their firms are not rationally suitable for immediate collectivization and they play a buffer and interstitial role in the national economy, but even for them there is market catering to them like in our society. There is only the shadow of private capital markets, no ultra-luxury consumer good markets, no private housing industry for the provision of mansions. The society no longer has the infrastructure to support "the rich" in the sense you and I are familiar with it.
- The FBU is able to maintain its colonial empire in part because native property owners and bureaucratic as well as traditional elites are under these conditions more afraid of the specter of communism than they desire home rule.
- I think the society described therein is bravely leading the charge to emancipate humanity from all systematic exploitation and oppression. I think that's a desirable thing and it would be nice to be involved in such an effort, though clearly I lack the socialization to function organically in the alien norms of TTL's America.
Marx's Capital presciently observed the tendency for human labor-power to be displaced by productivity-enhancing technology, and foresaw the tendency under capitalist production to eventually objectively displace employees leading to what he called the absolute surplus population. Under workers' power in transition to communism, technological improvements are put into service in the opposite fashion. Rather than concentrating distributions of income and wealth accumulation, while abandoning employees to a limbo outside gainful employability, and thus economic insecurity and impoverishment, instead the average working day and working week is subject to continuous reduction ceteris paribus, and the transition to a state where work-obligation to society is relatively tangential to human experience, that people are not defined or bound to jobs to subsist that crowd out all creative and self-actualizing capacities of human beings. The idea that this could and should be the outcome of a secular improvement in productivity-enhancing production was not solely a Marxian or even communist one. John Maynard Keynes said his great-grandchildren's main challenge will be to occupy their lives now dominated by time outside of socially-required labor output; that they might be bored or listless, so decreased would be the average necessary work time.
Ideally, a workers' republic's sole criterion for naturalization and enfranchisement will be residing in its territory and providing socially necessary labor (working in the country). If you contribute to the social wealth of a society, you deserve a say in its disposal. That is it.
I have some more remarks about the economic system and the constitutional order I will expand on later.
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I'd like to stay focused on the war; the last great power war in human history is still mostly in 1941-42 and has quite possibly been the arc that has taken the most real world time to progress. Me and Jello have been doing quite a lot of work on the conflict, and I'm wondering if you're up for taking part in the discussion of the second great war with us in the gmail chat.
Oh freaking Lord.... Someone is back!
This is amazing.
Welcome back Comrade IP! I f*ck*ng. missed you, and I'm sure E. Burke missed you too, despite calling you an asshole. Hahaha. (I'm not sure if there is animosity between you two). Though, since you both know each other, I'm sure that both of you correspond or something.
By the way your link about him calling you an asshole is a bit off. It's in page 178 when I asked about your whereabouts. He replied to me in that. I'm sure you've read of that since you seems to have noted that post... by the way, here it is.
Maybe, my anarchist side is really trying to comprehend this, but I am still confused of how UASR managed to got away with a social revolution without significant deformities despite the entire effort to suck off the feet of certain sections of the upper middle class and the bourgeoisie. I can't help but think of the unfortunate outcome of the Spanish Revolution IOTL and what the Communist Party did there. I think the fact that many grassroots oriented American communists ITTL are simply on that boundary of anarcho-syndicalism and left communism in their practical belief system really helped. The Ultra-Left did a great job in organizing and protecting the rights of the working class.
What happened to the Congress of the National Economy? It's not mentioned anymore in the revisions. Is it replaced by the Central Labor Commission now?
Maybe a deeper historical background on the political dynamics of Solidarity can explain how there haven't any significant splits within it the way that the moderate syndicalists and the FAI fought off within the Spanish CNT in OTL and then the moderates leaving.
What are the organized factional groupings now within the WCPA? What is the name of that group of Emma Goldman again? The Libertarian Federation? So the anarchists are formally outside the Workers' Party before right, with de facto participation within it? Then with the Revolution, the anarchist movement just went inside the party right?
By the way, it seems that the ideological boundaries of Rocker's anarcho-syndicalism and DeLeonism are going to be very blurry ITTL isn't it?
I also wonder if there are ongoing anarcho-communist local arrangements in certain communes as of the period covered by this thread.
This is amazing.
Welcome back Comrade IP! I f*ck*ng. missed you, and I'm sure E. Burke missed you too, despite calling you an asshole. Hahaha.
(I'm not sure if there is animosity between you two). Though, since you both know each other, I'm sure that both of you correspond or something.By the way your link about him calling you an asshole is a bit off. It's in page 178 when I asked about your whereabouts. He replied to me in that. I'm sure you've read of that since you seems to have noted that post... by the way, here it is.
Maybe, my anarchist side is really trying to comprehend this, but I am still confused of how UASR managed to got away with a social revolution without significant deformities despite the entire effort to suck off the feet of certain sections of the upper middle class and the bourgeoisie. I can't help but think of the unfortunate outcome of the Spanish Revolution IOTL and what the Communist Party did there. I think the fact that many grassroots oriented American communists ITTL are simply on that boundary of anarcho-syndicalism and left communism in their practical belief system really helped. The Ultra-Left did a great job in organizing and protecting the rights of the working class.
What happened to the Congress of the National Economy? It's not mentioned anymore in the revisions. Is it replaced by the Central Labor Commission now?
Maybe a deeper historical background on the political dynamics of Solidarity can explain how there haven't any significant splits within it the way that the moderate syndicalists and the FAI fought off within the Spanish CNT in OTL and then the moderates leaving.
What are the organized factional groupings now within the WCPA? What is the name of that group of Emma Goldman again? The Libertarian Federation? So the anarchists are formally outside the Workers' Party before right, with de facto participation within it? Then with the Revolution, the anarchist movement just went inside the party right?
By the way, it seems that the ideological boundaries of Rocker's anarcho-syndicalism and DeLeonism are going to be very blurry ITTL isn't it?
I also wonder if there are ongoing anarcho-communist local arrangements in certain communes as of the period covered by this thread.
Hey Illuminatus, what do you think of the recent rise of Trump and the like in the US? It seems like the right is rising, but the left has stayed flat. It's a scary thing, imho.
You can actually read the links that IP gave us,
It's in there already, though I don't know who wrote the article.You can actually read the links that IP gave us,
Thanks! I can sometimes read a bit too fast.
@Libertad: Theres a lot of different reasons why the American Revolution went differently from Spain. Most immediately, the WCP comes out decisively in favor of the revolution unlike in Spain where the communist party was the decisive leader of the counter-revolution. This develops for a lot of reasons. The right and center leadership most in line with Moscows vision dies in the putsch, and those who escape extrajudicial murder are those elements of the center most involved in the illegal work of the party who become convinced of the need for revolution as a consequence. Beyond that the communist party is fairly broad tent. The Trotskyists are never expelled from the sound of things, and they make up the party left (the largest immediately pro-revolutionary wing of the WCP), and the ultra-left are able to take quick advantage of the situation to end their marginal status in the WCP.
So the forces of revolution seize control of the party within the first month of the civil war. Which in addition to them having the democratic legitimacy conveyed by their election sparking the putsch allows for a particularly good situation for the various factions of the WCP to hold together and win.
So the forces of revolution seize control of the party within the first month of the civil war. Which in addition to them having the democratic legitimacy conveyed by their election sparking the putsch allows for a particularly good situation for the various factions of the WCP to hold together and win.
Oh, thanks for the explanation. I am quite aware of the entire stuff, but I guess I am still a bit....confused. I am an anarchist and I just thought that maybe it's better if the UASR just goes full anarcho-communism right away. Hahaha. But I understand why it's not yet going to come. IP's presence and assurance of the arrival of parecon and cybernetic based resource distribution makes me happy enough though.
I am an anarchist and I just thought that maybe it's better if the UASR just goes full anarcho-communism right away. Hahaha. But I understand why it's not yet going to come. IP's presence and assurance of the arrival of parecon and cybernetic based resource distribution makes me happy enough though.Oh, thanks for the explanation. I am quite aware of the entire stuff, but I guess I am still a bit....confused.
And from my perspective as a trot, I just don't get what the confusion is. The party isn't behaving like the PCE, it's behaving as a revolutionary actor fulfilling its entirely legitimate role as leadership, and working genuinely alongside the forces which are willing to work with it.
E. Burke
Banned
I wasn't defending it, i was just saying that in terms of being culturally conservative Maoist China wasn't. Also most Arab nationalist regimes saw Islamic cultural conservatism as a threat to modernization, so they supported some level of gender equality and other things. Lots of dictatorships are founded on the ancien regime. Many dictatorships, however, are viewed as means to an end. That end being modernization of the country against entrenched forces like the church (or local equivalent) so they tend to be in favor of liberalization of cultural norms. In fact they enforce that liberalization.
The Gmail invite? Yes.
The general admonishment for getting off topic regarding the time period is directed at everyone and I'll keep on scolding people for it until it sticks.
Please don't do it.
Maybe, we should stop the restrictions on the discussion. Just do Jello's approach, and refrain from commenting so much on the speculations on others, you don't have to reveal much of what you Big Three are discussing behind the scenes. I don't even know if Jello approves of the restrictions you've made (and we agreed timidly just because we got tired of it).
Sure, maybe we all got annoyed of each other on the continued speculations and disagreements on stuff in this thread and in the Reds fanfic thread, but honestly, I am fine with it. Let's just keep exploring options and besides, Jello considers her role as merely typing what people here largely agreed upon, or suggested (though it's the three of you now that's making the most contributions).
I remember back in Red Dawn wherein IP and a mutualist are posting tons about their economic ideals and differences and in the end, Jello said "oh do go on". Both decided to stop it but Jello doesn't have a problem with it.
Sure, you main guys can focus on the war, and your focus on the war yourself is only going to help in accelerating the work on this thread.
But please drop the restrictions. I don't think others like it (or maybe they do). We all just got tired before of discussing stuff. But let's not make this a strict policy.
And when I've made my questions to IP, It's focused on the prewar stuff. It's not even postwar stuff. It's about that gap between the early 30's and 1940. IP wanted to most more, and I think you should not stop him, since I'm sure he's going to talk of prewar stuff anyway. And he just came back! Come on. Let's give space.
I just love the discussions before on so many things, even before Jello makes an update that either incorporates ideas of people that commented on lots of stuff that's related to the update or she did not. It's up to her.
I thought this is still a collaborative work?
Based on that, I'm presenting a motion to drop the restrictions on Cold War speculations or of any era.
If I am alone in this, fine. I'll accept the majority decision.
Thanks comrades.
Oh, this is all fine with me. I am probably thinking too much of 1936 Spain again, and yet this is very different from the circumstances there.
You've explained well that it's largely because of the ability of the Ultra-Left to respond to the crisis and the decimation of the moderates that allowed for the social revolution to proceed. That's fine.
I really don't disagree with how the events happened. I just wanted my ideal revolution through a more anarcho-syndicalist oriented revolution happening here. But it happened, in a way, anyway. We have War Syndicalism. I am probably a bit confused of the transformation towards a more politically "bourgeois" and "parliamentary" oriented system and the associated state socialist economic system after the Civil War. But I understand that this is where our differences are going to enter, so I am not going to push it. It's not that important and it's not that big of a difference.
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I do find it frustrating to speculate on an era we don't know really anything about because the post war reality is still mostly unknown. I prefer to discuss the war and what we think will happen at its end, which then leads neatly into talking about the post war reality. Discussions about particularly scenarios are more useful than discussions predicated on different or competing visions of the post war world which would be difficult to square. Like I'm not sure how much of Italy ends up split in the war of its split at all, or how much of Germany each side gets especially because the western industrial heartland is exactly where I'd expect to be key towards socialist construction in Germany. How much of the empires go independent? All of these are key questions mostly unanswered so far and I don't expect them to be by the authors. But the post war discussion does need this.
Ok so let's talk about the Life and Labor Commune, which can easily survive in Reds thanks to High Stalinism being butterflied away. I think that the Commune's survival would have considerate butteflies in the USSR by serving as a pro-democracy fifth colummn- I never thought I would ever say those two words in same sentence.
I think we need an revisions update focusing specifically on the Soviet Union's politics and the impact the socialist America would have on the internal policies of the USSR and the landscape of the Communist Party. Such an update was sadly missing from the Red Dawn thread.