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For anyone wanting a place to start with theory, I made a basic Marxist-Leninist study guide. feel free to check it out!
O7
O7
I just watched that movie again a few weeks ago. such a good one.
I was on a work trip with a couple colleagues, and we were having dinner and drinks. One of the colleagues and I were discussing a book he recently finished, and then moved onto other books we really enjoyed or were very impactful in our lives. The third coworker eventually says, is all you talk about books?
Guess which way that guy voted …
🤣
crazy how they try so hard to disencourage us from it anyway then can huh.
yeah couldn’t imagine why
one hour later and less than 5 paragraphs… only half read/understood. lol
It’s about ghosts or something, which is cool, I guess!
It takes you more than an hour to read five paragraphs?
is it possible to ready anything from capital and understand it the first pass? lol
It is possible to read capital and understand parts of it in the first pass, yes. Especially if read with a group, and/or with supplementary stuff. PSL’s Reading Capital with Comrades podcast was a great review every two chapters. I also recommend David Harvey’s lectures or supplements for deeper dives, after its had time to digest. David Harvey’s got some funny views on Marxism, but he digs into a lot of the footnotes and history which is where all the flavor is.
Reviewing Harvey’s material while criticizing his politics is a great practical application of Marx’s method of critique!
Have you checked out the new lectures going over the Reitter translation? Was considering following that for my next read of Capital.
Not yet, I’m gearing up for a re-read though. I’ve heard mixed things about the new translation. Good to know Harvey’s got some lectures out on it though! I’d be interested to hear his takes about differences. I might check out his lectures on it as a pre-read, def a good call-out!
Do you have a copy of it yet? When are you planning on rereading it?
It isn’t actually Harvey that has lectures, but instead Paul North, the editor! That’s why I am curious about it, more than anything. I do have the book, but have not begun it and don’t plan on reading it until next year at the earliest (too many works ahead of it on my reading list for now).
He’s talking about the manifesto, which was written so thay your average literate person could understand in the 19th century. Marx himself suggested that you don’t start capital from chapter one because its the most philosophical and complicated part of the book. He suggested people look at chapter three or something I can find my copy of capital with an intro from the 1890s where he said kinda sexistly that women shouldn’t start with the first chapter because of how heavily it leans on Hegelian philosophy.
“A linen coat costs what it does because women be shopping”
Is that John candy?
yup
What movie this from?
I think saw that one when I was a kid. Need to do a rewatch.
It’s not that great the scene where he joins the maosits is kind of funny though.
Yup
All policies should be testable and tested. If it works to increase the HDI and decrease environmental impact then I would consider that good enough to implement. If a policy doesn’t increase the wellbeing of the society and humanity as a shared organism on earth then it may not be a good policy. If it’s neutral then it’s an arbitrary call.
Theory must be met with practice, they mutually inform and reinforce each other. The important bit is that we cannot rely on simple empiricism and feel out better or worse policies when the entire system needs to change. This is where theory helps us understand what our systems are naturally leading towards, and what will replace them. The world will not be made better by imperialist countries trying slightly different policies gradually, but instead by the adoption of socialism and the end of imperialism and neocolonialism.
You make a claim, try it and test it. If it does not work then try the next. Science should be the core of political philosophy.
I’ve been concerned that since the invention of science and it’s now centuries of success that science is not the core of a political ideology. At best it’s a shit eating sidekick that gets called upon anytime someone needs to bolster their legitimacy. Most political ideology floats around as is without any concern to prove itself measurably.
If one were to control a nation what they control is the potential to run many experiments. Even without intending concepts are being tested. Maybe what your actual concern is some concepts may not operate on the small scale and begin to operate at a higher echelon. Now that makes them particularly difficult to test.
Ultimately what should be done is that humans should come together globally to run experiments to prove to themselves what actually works over a span of a generation or two and then revisit and question on a regular basis. Now that would be enlightened behavior.
Why just make a bet and guess? We can literally experiment and know. Why have “feelings” when we can have knowledge.
Socialism itself is scientific, the problem is reliance on vulgar empiricism over using empiricism to supplement dialectical materialism. To use a comparison, engineering begins by understanding the laws of physics, then proceeds to apply these laws and create a prototype, before relying on empiricism to refine and improve. Theory in this instance is the study of the laws of social science, and this is tested and affirmed with practice. Your approach denies the theory and overly relies on iterative micro improvements, which can be disastrous while we already have identified root causes of modern ailments as well as solutions.
This is how socialist countries already knew socialism was the answer before implementing it, which they then work on gradually and iteratively improving once it is established.
The absolute core of any political philosophy should be that it is testable and the goal is measurably increasing human wellbeing. It shouldn’t matter from which philosophical house a policy comes from if it works then it works, if it does not then it doesn’t. Also how did we identify the root causes of modern ailments? With measurements? You keep running and then legitimizing via the scientific method but ensuring it is an unnamed party in the endeavor.
Socialism has been around arguably for two centuries (in some different named form for much longer) and yet we don’t have even a single nation existing in what anyone would consider to be a utopia. I’m not denouncing anything, just arguing there is room for improvement and that it is through experimentation and measurement we can gain that improvement.
The singular most important philosophy and most fruitful by far humanity has yet to create unfortunately is not socialism or any other political ideology or religion or culture but science. Science should be the core of any political ideology full stop.
It is through science that we know. We should know the best structure through which to organize people and commerce, to organize power and production and by best I mean that which produces the most human wellbeing while being reasonably neutral towards nature of which we require for survival.
At the beginning and end of it all Truth is king, we all must obey what is true, and our primary focus as minds should be discovering truth as best we can manage. Testing and measurement is so far the best means we have regardless of the other creative, colorful, and downright beautiful mental constructs human minds create. We must test and measure to know, otherwise it is no different than religion.
The problem here is that, by holding to vulgar empiricism, you are taking an anti-scientific approach while claiming to support science. Again, returning to my example, if I say dropping a ball at sea level into a pit will result in an acceleration towards the Earth at roughly 10 meters per second squared, this is because we have studied gravity. We can test it and verify this, but we already know beforehand how it will end up. In the off chance this fails, we have to obviously reevaluate our understanding of gravity.
When engineers design a new prototype, they do so based on already studied laws of physics that have been tested in real life. They do not begin from scratch, rediscovering the world each time, but instead rely on collective knowledge of how the world works, the laws of physics. Social science is also a science.
Philosophy too is scientific. There is anti-scientific philosophy, such as idealist branches of philosophy like Solipsism, as well as mechanical materialist branches of philosophy like physicalism and vulgar empiricism. These world outlooks do not adequately explain the world and how it functions, even if mechanical materialism is superior to vulgar idealism.
No socialist country has ever claimed to be a utopia. Marx denounced and debunked the mechanical materialist and idealist socialists of the past, and turned socialism scientific by advancing the world outlook of dialectical materialism. The theory of evolution is one such example of a development in science that proves the necessity of dialectical materialism over vulgar mechanical materialism and empiricism. If everyone was a vulgar empiricist, then evolution would be unobservable.
Socialism, once established, already relies on experiment and relying on theory and analysis to plan ahead and deal with problems as they arise. Empiricism is a core part of how this works. The problem is exclusively relying on empiricism, which becomes a rejection of science and knowledge in favor of a vulgar, small worldview.
Why is it vulgar? Also if it’s anti-science it’s probably bullshit like religion or other such nonsense. Yes if there is new evidence that contradicts what is known then what is known needs to be reevaluated, not held onto like dogma (like anti-scientific views). Where do you think those already known laws of physics engineers use comes from? Testing and experimentation.
We can reasonably define human wellbeing and happiness in a way that is measurable. We can definitely define environmental impact and environmental wellbeing in ways that are measurable. The goal is to maximize the wellbeing of our species and our environment we depend on.
Now if you believe that an anti-scientific method will get you to an optimal state that’s fine, you’re free to think whatever you want. I simply disagree. At the end of the day every last mind only knows through experimentation and measurement. For instance I can touch my nose through experimentation and measurement when I was an infant. Now if you think you know something through some other means beyond experimentation and measurement it would be intriguing to discover this new mechanism unknown to any human or creature ever in history.
“Vulgar” meaning dogmatic, underdeveloped, and incomplete. I haven’t once denied the utility of experimentation and empiricism, just on the reductive use of it. I am aware of the fact that theory comes from experimentation, but it isn’t experimentation itself. A dogmatic use of empiricism is saying we cannot know if dropping this specific apple in this specific place will result in the apple falling until we test it, perhaps that’s a better explanation of the issue.
Contrary to your assertion, I believe in a more scientific approach than that. We move beyond simple, vulgar, underdeveloped empiricism to dialectical materialism, which itself makes abundant use of empiricism. It is the opposite of anti-scientific, it’s the assertion that through practice we form a more and more complete view of the world, and better and better predict what will happen if we do something. Vulgar empiricism removes that predictive element and treats each moment as new and disconnected.
Returning to capitalism and socialism, we can observe definite trends towards centralization and socialization of production, while retaining private distribution. This naturally heightens the gap between the capitalists and workers, despite also killing off competition. The resolution of this is therefore socializing ownership of the means of production, not just the production process itself.
In other words, by analyzing scientific laws through practice, we can better understand how to get what we want without reinventing the wheel every time. Ignoring the laws of science and instead treating everything as disconnected and new, as the vulgar empiricists do, is anti-science.
