Boston Marathon Explosion - Today's Topics: Public Schools

jooka_sl said:

Thread needs less Mikhail and Hodj

Click to expand...

Araysar_sl said:

At least you give us the courtesy of spoilering your posts.

By the way, you PM'ed me an impressive list of books back on FoH. I never printed it out but kept it in my inbox so I can reference it until the Tyen fiasco, where all was lost.

Do you remember by chance what they were and can you resend them to me please?

Click to expand...

Dumar_sl said:

Spoiled for those who don't give a shit.

Spoiler

It's not appealing to anything, especially not some idea of nature or tradition. It's a pointing out of the huge contrast of opinion, an opinion which many or even most, aren't even aware of historically.




LTV was defined mostly by Ricardo, but that's a digression. The USSR has absolutely nothing to do with Marx whatsoever, even mentioning it shows your ignorance on the topic. I suppose next you'll discuss how Mao instituted many Marxian theories and failed also.




You ask for citations and when they're given you resort to the rhetoric of claiming religious zealotry to justify why they're wrong. I never said Marx was the greatest thing since sliced turkey, which is gross. He was wrong about many things, as was every great thinker in human history. That doesn't mean his analyses of how modern political economy conducts itself is not accurate - Kapital, and even his earlier works like the Paris Manuscripts, are very accurate. If you want to talk about modern political economy, Marx will inevitably show himself because, again, he is the, or one of, the institutional founders of social science (this isn't really debatable) and a school of economics.




You obviously need to pay more attention in class because everything you've said so far regarding Marx is utterly erroneous. The USSR and Maoist China weren't communist as defined by Marx whatsoever. Outside of the Manifesto, his writings are not clear or easily accessible to millions at all. The Paris Manuscripts of 1844 weren't even translated into English until around the middle of the 20th century. And it takes years, with the help of academics, to even attempt to fully understand Kapital.

Your education has failed you thus far, unfortunately.




Yes, but like I said in my previous post, it's about control. And the difference between owning someone on a piece of paper and owning their life, that is, their economic output and time throughout most of the day, bears little difference in reality, outside of the semantics of the piece of paper. Therein lies the outrage.

If you want to talk critical theory, you need to read Fromm, who was the best of the last century, including Chomsky.




Oh he's certainly on par with Newton, no question. He's the last true Enlightenment scholar.





His biggest contribution has nothing to do with culture. It has to do with materialism: that is, how consciousness is formed from social productive life, and not vice versa. This is seen most obviously when people make statements about how their own socioeconomic organizational structure is 'organic' or 'natural' when it isn't whatsoever (hint!).





Okay, and how do these archaeologists refute the organizational and institutional evolutions put forth by Marx?



Ah, so it's useful!





We can certainly look to some data, such as wage repression and stagnation that would lend itself to the notion of wage slavery I alluded to earlier but you ignored. And Chomsky, while great, sits mostly in the realm of political theory as it relates to capitalism.




I think you're missing the point, actually. Veblen states early in his treatise that indeed, early agrarian societies were such as this. It was only when the concept of property came into play did these agrarian societies turn hierarchical. The conversation you need to have as an anthropologist (outside of just learning more Marx - which you obviously need), concerns the type, if any, of the hierarchical relationships that occurred before the concept of private property, during communal ownership. Because that's the stage where I would make the appeal to nature, and where Marx and Veblen want to take us.




I don't think you quite understand Marx's dialectic theory of history, which is different than what we're discussing here, but related. It has nothing to do with physical quantities like bone structure, but an evolution of social institutions.



Um... if by humans, you mean the humans in control. I don't think the average Chinese laborer at Foxconn you guys discussed earlier would consider his socioeconomic situation as 'organic'. I'm sure someone like a Kim Kardashian would agree to it being created organically, however!



People don't 'choose' this interaction; they're forced into this interaction. I don't have a choice how I socioeconomically act towards others. As you said, it's the product of thousands of years of culture and socioeconomic changes to institutions (which is the Marxian dialectic). I don't act as a laboring farmer to a tribal chieftan. I don't act as a serf towards a lord. No one does anymore. I act as a worker to a manager. However, because of these methods of production of our lives, we see this relationship as 'natural' or 'organic'. It's not. The laboring farmer to the chief wasn't. The serf to the lord wasn't. But they each thought it was natural also. This is the Marxian concept of the methods of productive life defining consciousness.

Now, because none of these are natural methods of organization of a society, yet modern economics claims as such, the onus is on it to explain these relationships you and others mistake as 'organic': the concept of private property to to labor, to capital, to even the money system. Again, it takes for granted what it's supposed to deduce, like religion.




Who should I cite; who should I reference? Do you want Fromm, Gramsci? Adorno? Luk?cs? Who? How about Debord? His Society of the Spectacle is a great critique of modern capitalism, but not from a purely economic perspective.

It's not adulation or religious fervor. Marx is pertinent and relevant to any conversation regarding modern political economy. He's the gigantic beast in the room that can't be ignored with regards to how things actually work on a societal level. If you want to get into specifics of a certain area, then someone like Fromm or Debord can provide more context, but they are all influenced by Marx. Sorry if that offends you, but it's reality.

edit: this is long, blah.

Click to expand...

chaos_sl said:

I would love to read a long, detailed post informing me about issues. I would not love to read several pages of masturbatory Marx fantasy or anything written by Mikhail. Length isnt the issue here, really, it is lack of interesting content.

Click to expand...

chaos_sl said:

Which topic is that? Certainly not the Boston bombing, or public schools, or ball shaving, or the current economic status of China. I dont really know where we are anymore.

Click to expand...

BrutulTM_sl said:

I read plenty of long articles. Big fan of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker and all that shit.

Click to expand...

Dumar_sl said:

Well, it's just the flow of conversation. A discussion of the economic situation in China will obviously lead to a discussion of income inequality, which then leads to a discussion of the definition of slavery, and then taking a turn into wage repression and of wage stagnation. Then you're now talking about exploitation and class struggle, because that's what wage repression is. If you go that far down the rabbit-hole, you're going to be talking about what people like Marx had to say.

Click to expand...