star_wraith

joined 4 years ago
[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

This was Obama’s slogan, because he would always call out issues but then act like he was powerless to do anything.

Biden’s strategy is to act like problems don’t exist and actually it’s the people who are wrong, the economy is doing great. To say otherwise is to imply you actually support Trump.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

It’s honestly impressive how well Marx understands accounting. People who aren’t involved in accounting may not think it’s important but accounting is how you can understand how money flows within and without a capitalist enterprise. The whole idea about how fixed capital adds value proportional to its “wear and tear” is essentially the same thing as how we calculate depreciation on equipment. Cost accounting is how costs are allocated to things that don’t directly incur a cost that can be measured per item produced, and Marx uses that conceptually throughout Vol 1 & 2.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. Maybe I can just scan them to text and share, might be a bit disorganized since I just did it free form to help my knowledge but if it’s helpful I can share them.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I haven’t been involved in Vol 1 since it had been a while but I wanted to follow along still. But, I just finished Vol 2 so I really want to get involved there. I missed ch 1-4 but here I am.

Ch 6 is an absolute beast. It’s confusing and Marx isn’t clear in a number of areas. Even David Harvey I think got some conclusions wrong (no fault of his own, he’s never worked in accounting in a manufacturing setting like I have so it’s understandable).

That said, I think it might be one of the most important if not the most important chapter in the book, certainly in its relevance for modern capitalism. The idea that value is created only in the production sphere is ground breaking and the implications for an economy that has hollowed out its own productive capacity (like the US has) are profound.

Ch 6 is a struggle. I read it through and was really confused, so I sat down and took like 20 pages of notes (I write big though) and committed to not moving on until I finally grasped it. It was a ton of work but I’m at the point now where I think I get it.

If you’re struggling to understand what kinds of cost add value and which do not, I found that thinking about modern production is only going to confuse you. Instead, think about a grain farmer. For a grain farmer, storage adds value because grain, by its very nature, MUST be stored. Otherwise you can’t just have everyone eat grain for a month and starve the remaining 11 months. Likewise transportation costs must be productive because farms are far away from cities.

I highly recommend checking out Ian Gough’s paper Marx’s Theory of Productive and Unproductive Labour in conjunction with chapter 6. I’ll try and summarize my notes as best I can but probably easier if I try and answer questions as they come along.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago

I would call them “workhouses” but Americans have no idea what “workhouses” are and how horrific they were.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Death to Israel and death to America.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people), did horrible stuff for the environment, passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality, deported a bunch of ppl for no reason, and he supports isreal

All that is literally and precisely what Biden has done, too (except net neutrality I guess, but you’re also leaving out Biden signing off on the biggest expansion of the surveillance state since the Patriot Act).

He fucked over queer people in the us

Lots of queer people on Hexbear, ask them if the barest crumbs Democrats throw to queer people (i.e. doing nothing to stop anti-queer actions, but not being the ones to propose the laws) is worth supporting genocide.

increased the federal debt by 7 trillion

Imaginary number doesn’t matter.

You seem well-meaning, so let me put my cards on the table: I don’t believe in validating the invalid dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by voting for anything beyond the local school board and various propositions, so it’s not like I’d be voting for Biden anyway. But what I don’t get about when libs push leftists to vote for Biden is… at what point does someone committing heinous acts mean that not voting for them is the only moral action? If Joe Biden murdered my daughter, would I not be in the right to say I wouldn’t vote for him? Even if in this weird scenario Trump also would have murdered my daughter… at what point do we measure someone by what they do and not what the other person would have done? And it doesn’t matter if my kid isn’t actually involved, I have seen enough death and sadness from parents and children in Gaza that the fact that it’s not my kid is totally and completely immaterial to me.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 64 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I, as a German-American, feel very unsafe when people around me say things like “Nazis are bad” or “The Third Reich was genocidal”.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s fine, you could do a lot worse. I think it’s unreasonable to think that he’s going to give the precisely correct line on it all the time, but you can usually tell when the lib brainworms are talking. Probably won’t find a better source to learn about it in audio form. It’s 97% sticking to the facts.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago

@TransComrade69@hexbear.net , her comments are still there she wasn’t banned or anything, just moved on.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I was there when it all happened, “revisionism” is absolutely the word for it. So many cissies trying to weasel out of just doing one little thing to support trans comrades here. 100% behind patching this.

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The typical American probably thinks that, outside of Hong Kong, everyone lives in extreme poverty in shacks. Or at best, in very small apartments in massive plain concrete buildings that look like prisons.

Just last week, I was talking with a coworker who didn’t realize South Africa had paved roads.

 

Well over $100k in the higher cost of living states, too. And as the article states, that’s typically about double what the median salary is for a single person in most states.

I’d like to point out that AES states - while maybe they didn’t have all the same quality or quantity of consumer goods - were able to able to to provide a comfortable life for everyone without all the predatory that US workers currently have. And don’t take my word for it, take it from the neoliberal queen herself, Angela Merkel. When asked about life in the former GDR, she described it as “almost comfortable”. Now before you mention that “almost” is an important qualifier, note that the context of her quote was her trying to criticize the former GDR but she grudgingly conceded the comment above.

 

I’m white. My daughter is also white. She’s 3 years old, almost 4.

Up to this age, my approach to teaching her about race has been to focus exclusively on skin color. Meaning, we talk about how people can have all different colors and tones to their skin. Talking about skin color on a spectrum. But always emphasizing that people are all the same and that everyone should be treated the same.

In isolation, this all sounds lib. I of course want to get all into structural and institutional racism et al. But… she’s 3. Up until a few months ago she was still pooping and pissing in a diaper. My thinking is that emphasizing this more lib understanding of race is more age-appropriate now, and we can get into the real stuff a little later on when she has the mental and emotional maturity to handle it (that said, I have told her that the cops aren’t very nice to people who don’t look like us. Whatever, the daycare has pigs come over and talk to the kids even at her age, so fuck em I’m gonna counter that shit now).

Is this the right approach? Is there more I should be doing? If you all have any age-appropriate books on this topic you can recommend, definitely let me know.

 

(Specifying “post-NEP” since think the war communism economy and the NEP should be viewed as it’s own thing)

Trying to get into the real fine details regarding the Soviet economy - either the total period from Stalin to Gorbachev, or segments of that period. Really want to understand what went wrong, and what went right.

The problem I’m having is when I go to the bourgeois economic historians, they unsurprisingly shit on the economy under Stalin (or rather, emphasize the unsustainability of it long term) and praise Khrushchev and Gorbachev. Obviously that’s a biased route I’m not interested in going down.

However, whenever I go in the opposite direction, I feel like I’m reading sources that are maybe a bit too uncritical of the Stalin era economic policies. And you know what, maybe Stalin did actually get everything about the economy right. I’m open to that possibility. Obviously the track record is there. But idk, I haven’t found one source yet who has sufficiently shown their work on that (that I’m sure is due to me not finding the right sources yet). Like, when it comes to economic history, I don’t feel an overwhelming need to defend Stalin or criticize Khrushchev and Brezhnev, just trying to find a sober analysis from a Marxian source. I have a background in econ so I would feel comfortable handling something that’s a bit more technical, if such a resource exists.

Any suggestions welcome!

 

amerikkka Death to America and viva la revolucion! diaz-canel-troll fidel-bat che

Was just thinking about this since I’m wearing my Cuba WBC cap around town (from the most recent WBC when Cuba was actually “allowed” to be in charge of their own team).

 

I don’t have any myself, but thought you all might know some.

 

I’m not a native German speaker obviously, but doesn’t “Das Kapital” translate to “THE Capital”?

Also, English-speakers should call it just “Capital”. Calling it “Das Kapital” is just propaganda to make the title sound more menacing than it is.

 

Liberals will point to how improvements in quality of life have occurred in capitalist countries in recent centuries (debatable, and certainly not true for the entire world, but let’s assume they are correct for now). What is usually implied is that it’s all thanks to capitalism that we have the quality of life that we do, thus capitalism should be allowed to continue.

The thought I had was, do most of the quality of life improvements come down mostly to how agriculture and medicine developed? Meaning, famines were a harsh reality of life for much of human history, and modern agriculture has allowed us to now be in a position where globally, we can produce more than enough food consistently for the whole planet.

Likewise in regards to medicine… in the past just getting sick could be a death sentence. People had to live with incredibly painful conditions their whole life that we now have cures for. Honestly modern medicine is the one reason why I would rather live in 2023 than any other time.

What I’m getting at is… though these advances did occur under capitalism, I don’t think I would give capitalism the “credit” for them. Obviously socialism was not possible 200 years ago. I’m not denying standard Marxist historical progression. What I am doing though, is trying to attack the liberal narrative of treating capitalism as some god who has bestowed his mercy on us - that everything good we have is from Him, and thus we must give Him our praise and continue on His economic system into eternity.

The Soviet Union and China were/are both able to be incredibly productive in agriculture and ended their historic, periodic famines. The Soviet Union (and Cuba!) were/are renowned for their advances in medicine.

I think the only things you can give capitalism “credit” for is developing the productive forces, allowing for high levels of commodity production, and increasing levels of wealth (though not equally shared).

 

This is shaping up to be the thing right wing nuts get outraged about this upcoming week. I feel like this is a good litmus test… anyone who gets angry about this is probably way more of a white nationalist than they are letting on. You think these same people who be angry about a blue/white/orange tricolor, saying it’s too close to the Dutch flag?

 

This looks kinda fun. The trailer kind of assumes you’re familiar with the “magical negro” trope, but I’m sure the movie fleshes it out.

Of course, white folks are getting in a tizzy over it, lots of comments about “well I don’t ask any black folks to make ME feel comfortable!!!” and “this is divisive!”, entirely oblivious to both the trope and broad social implication: that in 2023, black folks are not allowed to bring up historical injustices (much less they look for them to be remedied), be angry about anything, express displeasure with the current state of this, etc lest the white folks be made to feel uncomfortable.

 

Wherever he is, I hope he’s doing good. I don’t remember if he was an open communist when he was in the Virginia legislature but probably the least lib politician in America in a generation. Seemed like a pretty genuine dude, too. Feels like he dropped out of politics and has been pretty quiet since.

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