Post: #26

Here's a Wikipedia entry on leading frankfurt School writer Marcuse, book "One Dimensional Man."

I hadn't read it, sounds like a very "red-pill" indictment of consumerism. But it can't be, because it's Frankfurt School.

Hmm, maybe increased granularity of thinking is needed. Maybe actually learn what people said.

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society is a 1964 book by philosopher Herbert Marcuse, in which Marcuse offers a wide-ranging critique of both contemporary capitalism and the Communist society of the Soviet Union, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of social repression in both these societies, as well as the decline of revolutionary potential in the West. He argues that "advanced industrial society" created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.[1]

This results in a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and behaviour, in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behaviour wither away. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the "great refusal" (described at length in the book) as the only adequate opposition to all-encompassing methods of control. Much of the book is a defense of "negative thinking" as a disrupting force against the prevailing positivism.[1]

Post: #27

(08-29-2016 07:50 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  To Churros -- how are you interpreting Marx's version of the post-capitalist state? Do you believe that in the absence of private ownership, there will be no coercion?

Marx says that individuals should own the products of their labour. In his view, capitalism separates products from those who produced them.

To TheBeast: It's simply wrong to conflate liberalism and Marxism. You should read more political history and sociology. It's not my responsibility to correct lazy, black and white thinking. Life is more complicated than what youtube intellectuals would have you believe.

I'll say it again. Marcuse, Adorno etc. had nothing to do with feminism. They famously clashed with feminists in Germany during their later years. Adorno called the police when they interrupted his lectures by flashing their tits, for example.

Post: #28

Great video which is relevant to the topic:






In short, all radical leftism, social (in)justice, feminism etc are products of the Frankfurt School - a Communist institution.


Fuck, I would dare to say that even Nazism and Fascism (Mussolini was a Communist in his youth, by the way) share the same roots with Communism!

Post: #29

(08-29-2016 10:44 AM)churros Wrote:  

(08-29-2016 07:50 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  To Churros -- how are you interpreting Marx's version of the post-capitalist state? Do you believe that in the absence of private ownership, there will be no coercion?

I'll say it again. Marcuse, Adorno etc. had nothing to do with feminism. They famously clashed with feminists in Germany during their later years. Adorno called the police when they interrupted his lectures by flashing their tits, for example.

When Communism took over China feminism was a huge part of the platform. The phrase "Women hold up half of the sky" was brandied about constantly. I think you'll hard pressed to find any Socialist or Marxist today that isn't at least sympathetic to feminism. I don't see how anyone can deny that feminism has always come hand in hand with any sort of leftist ideology. It's like someone denying that nationalism and ethnic pride is a part of fascism.

Post: #30

(08-29-2016 10:44 AM)churros Wrote:  To TheBeast: It's simply wrong to conflate liberalism and Marxism. You should read more political history and sociology. It's not my responsibility to correct lazy, black and white thinking. Life is more complicated than what youtube intellectuals would have you believe.

Bro, I sat through my fair share of poli sci classes and could make the same statement to you.

The whole point i'm trying to make here are that ideologies grow and change over time from their own original theorists. Shit, I wrote a whole paper on this very subject and had to deal with a grad student making the same smug judgements you are. Thankfully, the professor felt differently.

Personally, it sounds like you're too stuck up in your own world to write an argument worth reading which I would enjoy reading to broaden my own perspective.

Frankly your attitude here, smug ivory tower intellectualism, and condescension in this thread and the personalities thread on Marx and Engels is saddening and weak. It is the epitome of what is wrong with academia and the liberal arts.

Which is a shame because I was looking forward to reading your thoughts on these matters!

Post: #31

(08-29-2016 10:44 AM)churros Wrote:  

(08-29-2016 07:50 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  To Churros -- how are you interpreting Marx's version of the post-capitalist state? Do you believe that in the absence of private ownership, there will be no coercion?

Marx says that individuals should own the products of their labour. In his view, capitalism separates products from those who produced them.

Cheers -- thank you for answering. Okay, so here is how I see it:

- Marx/Engels push a labor theory of value (one major mistake)
- theorizes about "exploitation"; the capitalist is a parasite (another major mistake)

End goal, no more capitalist exploitation (among other things), then the state will "wither away".

But in the meantime, state coercion is required to dispossess the capitalists of their power. Perhaps by different state actors than the current ones that are under the thrall of the evil capitalists -- "to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy".

So, even if Marx says he thinks all his proposals will cause the withering of the state, his major blind spots stop him from realizing that (like so many revolutions before) he will simply replace the state with a new one. And any insights he may have had into predatory economic relationships are horribly muddied by the foolish labor theory of value and exploitation concepts.

End result -- public property and statism.

Related reading: https://mises.org/system/tdf/9_2_5_0.pdf...e=document
(cites Marx, Engels, Oppenheimer, Schumpeter, among others)

Relating to modern colleges, the fallacies of labor theory of value and multitudinous (never-ending) examinations of "exploitation" are strongly at root. Call them what you will... leftist, Marxist, feminist, socialist, blah blah blah. Sadly most conservatives fall into this belief trap as well.

But just because someone calls himself a conservative or whatever doesn't mean that his actions and beliefs are consistent with that. Let's look at what the Communist Manifesto says needs to happen before the state withers away (such a good anarchist, this Marx!!):

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank
with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the
State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the
bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of
all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the
populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s
factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, &c, &c.

Hmm... a lot of that has already happened. Is the state weaker or stronger?

Outside of #4, how would your average college prof (and their students) feel about this list? To be totally fair though, the belief in these things is widespread, far beyond colleges.

Post: #32

Marxism and leftism in general? It's been some time.

Modern liberalism as we know it today? The 60s:

Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline is a 1996 non-fiction book by former United States Court of Appeals judge Robert H. Bork. Bork's thesis in the book is that American and more generally Western culture is in a state of decline and that the cause of this decline is modern liberalism and the rise of the New Left. Specifically, he attacks modern liberalism for what he describes as its dual emphases on radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. The title of the book is a play on the last couplet of W. B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming": "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Bork contends that the "rough beast of decadence … now sends us slouching towards our new home, not Bethlehem but Gomorrah."

Bork first traces the rapid expansion of modern liberalism that occurred during the 1960s, arguing that this legacy of radicalism demonstrates that the precepts of modern liberalism are antithetical to the rest of the American political tradition. He then attacks a variety of social, cultural, and political experiences as evidence of American cultural decline and degeneracy. Among these are affirmative action, increased violence in and sexualization of mass media, the legalization of abortion, pressure to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, feminism and the decline of religion. Bork, himself a rejected nominee of President Ronald Reagan to the United States Supreme Court, also criticizes that institution and argues that the judiciary and liberal judicial activism are catalysts for American cultural corruption.

In this light, Bork advocates an amendment to the United States Constitution which would allow Congressional supermajorities to override Supreme Court decisions.[1]

The book received a critical response by The Mises Review, which stated that "Bork's failure to set forward his arguments rigorously leads to a crucial error in his approach to constitutional interpretation" and that the "omni-competent state is, for Bork, not a monster to be dispatched but a tool to be used. Whether the state is likely to enforce the values he favors is a question he leaves un-examined".[2]