Doomstead

This video suggests the military was involved in the production of the film version of "How to Blow Up a Pipeline".  What do you think.  Was the intention of Andreas Malm perverted?

"If we let the dominant classes take care of this problem, they're going to drive at top speed into absolute inferno." Andreas Malm has said."

In his book Malm advocates for a campaign of sabotage of fossil fuel infrastructure.  His intention is to break the taboo against targeting 'private' property. Private, not 'personal' property will cost us the earth.  Private property is 'capital' in Marxist terms.

The status-quo will deny and ignore the reality of our climate situation because change is uncomfortable.  Revolutionary thought has been removed from modern life at a time when revolutionary thought is desperately needed.

Reality needs an escalation of tactics.  I agree with Andreas.  Andreas also knows the escalation must happen, if it does, in a way that does not piss most people off.  Here is an interview with Andreas:


This video has a lot to say about the movie adaptation:


Is the HTBUAP movie a PsyOp? This video is important to see.  If people take the movie literally and do what the actors did people will get hurt.  To appreciate the warning message you have to see the movie:


Was the intention of Andreas Malm perverted?  Could the movie cause, people to blow themselves up.  Is the warning appropriate?

I of course am in full support of the idea that politics as usual with voting and political parties cannot succeed in bringing about the necessary amount of change in our goobermint and social power structure to fix our problems.  Sadly, at this point I don't think the problems we have can be fixed by any change that doesn't include a massive reduction in the global population of Homo Saps, but at least with a Revolution hopefully more of the people who deserve to die will be handed their tickets to the Great Beyond first.  :D

Insofar as Revolutionary Tactics are concerned and which one will garner the most support and which will be most effective in achieving the goals, that's a tough question to answer.  Is sabotage of Private Property more effective and acceptable to J6P than Assassinations?  The blowing up of a pipeline would cause a short term destruction in one part of the global supply chain.  Similar to the bridge collapse in Baltimore.  Logistics departments of transportation companies are working out alternate routes for the months it is likely to take to fix the problem as we speak.  We probably won't notice much change in the products available on the shelves at Walmart resulting from this collapse.

So, one pipeline wouldn't do much, multiple pipelines would need to be hit multiple times.  Defenses would be ramped up and any revolutionary group with enough resources and manpower to pull off such widespread actions would be subject to infiltration and capture.  All in all, it's hard to see how pipeline sabotage would be very effective in bringing down Industrial Civilization.

Alternatively, would Assassinations be more effective?  Say executives of Oil companies were targeted.  The top CEOs are well protected with bodyguards and hard to target.  Lower level managers would be easier ti hit, but they can be replaced easily and your methods would not be very palatable to most people, since those folks are mostly just doing a job and have families and aren't making the decisions, they just follow orders.

So, Assassination doesn't work very well either.  Thus, I have to conclude that unfortunately, Revolution doesn't provide much hope for substantial change either.

The one thing that DOES provide the necessary level of systemic change necessary is, fortunately in this case, GUARANTEED.  COLLAPSE will do the job well of halting the flow of oil through pipelines, when the payments don't clear because the bank used by the buyer to pay for the oil went BK and froze all the accounts the morning before the oil was to be pumped from storage.

Nobody will need to Assassinate Oil executives, they'll commit suicide when they lose their jobs and MaMansions are foreclosed on and their wives and daughters are working as street hookers strung out on fentanyl.

The Revolution has already begun.

RE

Revolutions can't succeed without most of the population buying in.  Buy-in can't happen without an informed public.  An informed public can't happen because our men in black pants and white shirts are here to prevent the public from being informed. 

Media and discourse are controlled.  All we get is misinformation disguised as mainstream truth.  Chaos and collapse is in our future.  Anyone who tries to change things to avoid collapse is on a fucking watch list labeled as an enemy of the people.  With 99 of 100 people on a watch list not even knowing what one is.


We are fish in a sea that can't see how polluted the water is.  Water? What is that?

Due to low ratings, the Revolution has been cancelled.

RE

But pretending about revolution can, for some people pay the bills.


Here the the 'capitalist' world's most famous 'Marxist' talks armchair revolution.  The court-jester, tool of the CIA speaks.

Zizek has disdain for real-world project of socialism.  He advances his career by promoting western consumer society and the global theory industry.

QuoteI am not a Marxist, I am a Hegalian!

Oh really Zizek, well then.  Kindly go fuck yourself.  I happen to know what you were talking about.  It stands to reason.  Idealism is a passive point of view, but good for armchair riches.  And as a tool, passivity is your product.

* You-Tube does not let this video be embedded.  'They' want to know who watches.  But as the video is short I made our own copy. 

Nobody is watching you watch it here.

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 30, 2024, 03:29 PMBut pretending about revolution can, for some people pay the bills.

This sort of call for revolutionary action is not what I would call inspirational.  lol.  First off, he begins his little speech by letting people know there's nothing they can do to stop the inevitable collapse of their society.  Then he informs them that he's not going to risk his own neck to do anything, since he'll be dead soon anyhow and he figures we still have a couple of decades left of happy conspicuous consumption left before we're all eating bugs and living in tents.  Finally, he comes up with the powerhouse and novel (sic) idea of Boycotts and Strikes to change the dialogue.  Like these methods haven't been tried numerous times, particularly in France and other European countries that lean socialist?  It's practically a daily occurence.

So, if he indeed makes a living by pontificating on this toppic with this message, it just underscores how bankrupt of ideas we are as a society to actually effect change.  It's not going to come from people who watch these videos, that's for sure.

RE

QuoteSo, if he indeed makes a living by pontificating on this toppic with this message, it just underscores how bankrupt of ideas we are as a society to actually effect change.  It's not going to come from people who watch these videos, that's for sure.

Being the court-jester for empire pays very well.

Žižek is the most well-known 'Marxist' of neo-liberal anti-communist propaganda.  He has made a good living being a trickster.  Many people are taken in by him.

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 29, 2024, 02:25 PM

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline_%28Cover%29.jpg)

This video suggests the military was involved in the production of the film version of "How to Blow Up a Pipeline".  What do you think.  Was the intention of Andreas Malm perverted?

"If we let the dominant classes take care of this problem, they're going to drive at top speed into absolute inferno." Andreas Malm has said."

In his book Malm advocates for a campaign of sabotage of fossil fuel infrastructure.  His intention is to break the taboo against targeting 'private' property. Private, not 'personal' property will cost us the earth.  Private property is 'capital' in Marxist terms.

The status-quo will deny and ignore the reality of our climate situation because change is uncomfortable.  Revolutionary thought has been removed from modern life at a time when revolutionary thought is desperately needed.

Reality needs an escalation of tactics.  I agree with Andreas.  Andreas also knows the escalation must happen, if it does, in a way that does not piss most people off.  Here is an interview with Andreas:


This video has a lot to say about the movie adaptation:

Is the HTBUAP movie a PsyOp? This video is important to see.  If people take the movie literally and do what the actors did people will get hurt.  To appreciate the warning message you have to see the movie:

Was the intention of Andreas Malm perverted?  Could the movie cause, people to blow themselves up.  Is the warning appropriate?

Radleft hipster parasite voluntarist. The Scandinavian ones are the fucking worst owing to decades of the crème de la crème of NATO/OECD social fascism. For a communist the starting point must be substantive equality not more equality which basic logic tells us is not and never can be equal to the former. Let alone charity and social welfare, both of which are reactionary unless directly serving the needs of an international working class movement which will soon render both irrelevant. I don't care how radical they are, how many instagram pics they've posted getting dragged away to three hours in 'prison' by pigs at protest events (arranged and organized with pigs and local authorities).

But more concretely, neither Marx nor Lenin nor Mao postulated any inherent distinction between private and personal property and these parasites on the corpse of 20th c communism have distorted their meaning beyond coherence. These were specific technical terms in Marx's political economy. Personal property was the direct ownership of small means of production by artisans peasants etc. And that was already being abolished by 'private' big bourgeoisie (via primitive accumulation) by the time of Marx's floruit.

Hey Malm, your communal pine-green smart studio cabin in the woods costs several times the human lives and climate footprint of a 2k/m white settler racist American apartment. Indeed a not inconsiderable portion of that cost is likely in service of you getting to pretend otherwise. It ain't 'personal property' but rather what Marx would have commented upon thusly:

In the development of productive forces there comes a stage when productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being which, under the existing relations, only cause mischief, and are no longer productive but destructive forces. These productive forces receive under the system o f private property a one-sided development only, and for the majority they become destructive forces.79 Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence.
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm

He thinks there will be 'escalation', well who tf doesn't? How is that relevant to his argument? The rational democratic management of fossil fuels is the only option for 8 bn people, or 4 bn for that matter. You want a few bn to unfortunately die while you advertise yourself doing everything possible to help them, then after shedding some manly tears get on with the important work of building eco-socialism? That's fine, just stop calling yourself a fucking communist. Rant over.

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 11, 2024, 01:55 AMThe rational democratic management of fossil fuels is the only option for 8 bn people, or 4 bn for that matter.

How does democratic management help if the majority of people will choose to keep burning ffs to retain their standard of living longer?

RE

Karl Marx distinguished between private property and personal property in several key ways. According to Marx, private property refers to the means of production (such as factories, land, and machinery) that are owned and controlled by a small group of capitalists, who use these resources to exploit the labor of the working class.

Personal property includes possessions such as homes, clothing, and consumer goods, which individuals use for their own personal use and enjoyment.

Generally only an American idiot uses the words equality and Marxism in the same sentence.  Marxists advocate for the elimination of private, not personal property.  This is misconstrued into thinking Marxists want to equally distributed wealth by trolls and others.

In a communist society money is eliminated.  But that will never happen.  Communism is an unobtainable ideal.  It is only the direction to move to, subject to the constraints of of actual material conditions.

I have a retirement account.  My retirement account is PERSONAL property.  My House is PERSONAL property.  There has been no free money given to me. I earned all of mine.

Marxism does not advocate for brain dead, across-the-board equality.  An equality where everyone has exactly the same wealth. Instead, Marxism eliminates fundamental inequalities arising as a contradiction in and from the capitalist system.  A small capitalist class owns the means of production and exploits the labor of the working class.  A small capitalist class makes all decisions and the mass of humanity must abide by their decisions.

A small capitalist class is committed to making the mass of humanity extinct.

Many philanthropists of the ragged pants distort the reality of Marxism into 'making everything equal'.  They fear Marxism will interfere with their god given right to give the rich everything. 

And they are not wrong about that.

*  Marx, Lenin, and Mao all acknowledged the distinction between private and personal property.  With each proposing different approaches to property ownership based on their respective revolutionary theories.

QuoteThe distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. -- Karl Marx

QuoteBut more concretely, neither Marx nor Lenin nor Mao postulated any inherent distinction between private and personal property.

I take pride in not confusing this abomination with personal property.

(https://www.charterworld.com/images/framework/554/yacht-rising-sun.jpg)

Because I know that if I confused this with personal property there would be seriously something wrong with me.  To earn that boat I would have to work for ten thousand years.  And dogs don't live that long.


I imagine a world where no one individual could own the Rising Sun.

The HORROR !

Does land count as Personal or Private Property?

Since land is the Means of Production of Food, that would make it Private Property.

Since it is also used to build Homes on, that makes it Personal Property.

In the common case where farmland is taken and subdivided to put McMansions on, you lose what theoretically should be Commons and turn it into Personal Property, thus losing its productive capacity for the general population.

If you do accept land homes are built on as personal property, how big a parcel of land can any individual own?  What if the individual has a big family?  What do you do when in a given neighborhood all the parcels of land are owned as Personal Property and more people are born and/or migrate to the neighborhood?

Can an individual who owns a home pass it on to one of his children as Inherited Wealth?  Can you have inherited wealth at all?  What if an individual carefully saves his money over the course of his life, before he dies can he give it all to some other person (a child)  thus giving that child an advantage over other children starting out in life?

A few questions I would like to know the answer to from our forum Marxism experts.

RE

Land is used for different purposes.  I posted "Marx's Theory of Land, Rent and Cities" in our resources section.  I am looking it over.

QuoteBy the 1990s, long-standing public assets were being privatised, giving the private sector ownership of profit-making monopolies such as airports, water services, toll roads and so on. In addition, hard-won government regulations, price controls and trade barriers that protected the interests of national industries, labor, consumers, tenants and residents were deregulated so that capital could cut costs, globalise and take other measures to maximize profits.

The land you put a house on is taxed as if you used it to make money.  Current arrangements make no distinction between private and personal property.  Land ownership as it is now is capitalist.  Public ownership vanishes under a religion of privatization.

And this is old news from 2021.  https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments (https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments)

Wait long enough and the problem of McMansions on farmland (or what should be an ecological reserve) goes away.  When Bill owns it all, he will rip the McMansions down to grow potatoes.  You just have to wait for the wisdum of the market to catch up.

Imagine owning a chunk of land that is HALF THE SIZE OF RHODE ISLAND.  Just from privatizing software.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 11, 2024, 02:00 PMLand is used for different purposes.  I posted "Marx's Theory of Land, Rent and Cities" in our resources section.  I am looking it over.

QuoteBy the 1990s, long-standing public assets were being privatised, giving the private sector ownership of profit-making monopolies such as airports, water services, toll roads and so on. In addition, hard-won government regulations, price controls and trade barriers that protected the interests of national industries, labor, consumers, tenants and residents were deregulated so that capital could cut costs, globalise and take other measures to maximize profits.

The land you put a house on is taxed as if you used it to make money.  Current arrangements make no distinction between private and personal property.  Land ownership as it is now is capitalist.  Public ownership vanishes under a religion of privatization.

And this is old news from 2021.  https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments (https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments)

Wait long enough and the problem of McMansions on farmland (or what should be an ecological reserve) goes away.  When Bill owns it all, he will rip the McMansions down to grow potatoes.  You just have to wait for the wisdum of the market to catch up.

Imagine owning a chunk of land that is HALF THE SIZE OF RHODE ISLAND.  Just from privatizing software.

Absolutely, land can be used for different purposes, and can be transfomed from one purpose to another depending on what you build on it, or what you raze to reclaim the land itself to use for another purpose.

The point is, that the same land under your definitions can be considered either Personal Property if you build a house on it and live in it (not used for rental), Private Property if used for Rentals, Farming where the produce belongs to the owner, or a Factory where the goods Produced also belong to the owner under a Capitalist system.  Under a Communist system as you describe, if used for house to live in it would again be personal property, and used for any of the other purposes would be Common Property of the community, where all the produce or profits would be distributed evenly among the community members.

Under either Capitalism or Communism as described, the problem comes in the transformation of the land originally in its natural ecological state without homo sapiens in the neighborhood, to a state where it is either used for housing or used for agricultural production of food or for industrial production of goods.  At that point it becomes divided and into 2 possible states, Personal Property vs Private or Communal property.

The conflict is in deciding how much land is allocated as Personal Property vs Private or Communal Property.  How much land can one person hold as Personal Property?  What if more land is needed for housing and the ag land gets carved up into a subdivision?  What if there is a food shortage and houses need to be razed to reclaim ag land?  How are the owners of the personal property compensated for the loss of their home by either the Community run farm coop or the Capitalist farm owner?  How is the population density determined and square footage allowed as personal property per person?

The further problem is with families and inheritance.  Back in Feudal times, the first born son of a landholder got title to the property, all the rest of his kids were shit out of luck and became Commoners.  If they were finacially successful, the families might buy neighboring properties and increase the size of their personal property.  Conversly, debtors might be forced to sell their land and become Commoners  at best if that covered the debt, or be thrown in debtors prison if not.  Thus some families became extremely wealthy and powerful nobility, while everybody else were tax paying, rent paying cannon fodder the next time the King decided he needed more land and commoners to tax.

Out of this system was born Capitalism, where land was just one asset class you could use to leverage up to immense wealth by building factories or apartment buildings etc on land your family now owned.  The question is, how do you avoid the use conflicts, allocation problems and decision making probles of how to use the land and what to put on it, regardless of whether it is communist or Capitalist in nature?

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 11, 2024, 06:46 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 11, 2024, 02:00 PMLand is used for different purposes.  I posted "Marx's Theory of Land, Rent and Cities" in our resources section.  I am looking it over.

QuoteBy the 1990s, long-standing public assets were being privatised, giving the private sector ownership of profit-making monopolies such as airports, water services, toll roads and so on. In addition, hard-won government regulations, price controls and trade barriers that protected the interests of national industries, labor, consumers, tenants and residents were deregulated so that capital could cut costs, globalise and take other measures to maximize profits.

The land you put a house on is taxed as if you used it to make money.  Current arrangements make no distinction between private and personal property.  Land ownership as it is now is capitalist.  Public ownership vanishes under a religion of privatization.

And this is old news from 2021.  https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments (https://www.vox.com/recode/22528659/bill-gates-largest-farmland-owner-cascade-investments)

Wait long enough and the problem of McMansions on farmland (or what should be an ecological reserve) goes away.  When Bill owns it all, he will rip the McMansions down to grow potatoes.  You just have to wait for the wisdum of the market to catch up.

Imagine owning a chunk of land that is HALF THE SIZE OF RHODE ISLAND.  Just from privatizing software.

Absolutely, land can be used for different purposes, and can be transfomed from one purpose to another depending on what you build on it, or what you raze to reclaim the land itself to use for another purpose.

The point is, that the same land under your definitions can be considered either Personal Property if you build a house on it and live in it (not used for rental), Private Property if used for Rentals, Farming where the produce belongs to the owner, or a Factory where the goods Produced also belong to the owner under a Capitalist system.  Under a Communist system as you describe, if used for house to live in it would again be personal property, and used for any of the other purposes would be Common Property of the community, where all the produce or profits would be distributed evenly among the community members.

Under either Capitalism or Communism as described, the problem comes in the transformation of the land originally in its natural ecological state without homo sapiens in the neighborhood, to a state where it is either used for housing or used for agricultural production of food or for industrial production of goods.  At that point it becomes divided and into 2 possible states, Personal Property vs Private or Communal property.

The conflict is in deciding how much land is allocated as Personal Property vs Private or Communal Property.  How much land can one person hold as Personal Property?  What if more land is needed for housing and the ag land gets carved up into a subdivision?  What if there is a food shortage and houses need to be razed to reclaim ag land?  How are the owners of the personal property compensated for the loss of their home by either the Community run farm coop or the Capitalist farm owner?  How is the population density determined and square footage allowed as personal property per person?

The further problem is with families and inheritance.  Back in Feudal times, the first born son of a landholder got title to the property, all the rest of his kids were shit out of luck and became Commoners.  If they were finacially successful, the families might buy neighboring properties and increase the size of their personal property.  Conversly, debtors might be forced to sell their land and become Commoners  at best if that covered the debt, or be thrown in debtors prison if not.  Thus some families became extremely wealthy and powerful nobility, while everybody else were tax paying, rent paying cannon fodder the next time the King decided he needed more land and commoners to tax.

Out of this system was born Capitalism, where land was just one asset class you could use to leverage up to immense wealth by building factories or apartment buildings etc on land your family now owned.  The question is, how do you avoid the use conflicts, allocation problems and decision making probles of how to use the land and what to put on it, regardless of whether it is communist or Capitalist in nature?

RE

My view is that inheritance should be taxed. 

Your questions about land introduce no new issues.  Regardless of what form ownership would take if there were a socialist revolution in America, things really would be no different than what we have now regarding land issues.  Law, government and courts decide land issues now, and nothing would change under kdog socialism.  There is still a government, and there is still the rule of law.  Currently land can be seized by eminent domain.  When that happens there is supposed to be just compensation.  Your worries about land seem reactionary to me.  Here is what I mean.

• How much land can one person hold as Personal Property?  -- The current limit is infinity so what is the concern?  Bill Gates owns a circle of farmland that is 24 miles across and I own with Mrs. Dog 1/4 of an acre of land that would otherwise be Pacific Northwest forest.  I am not worried about a citizen assembly deciding we have too much land.  117 feet across compared to over 24 miles is not so much.
• What if more land is needed for housing and the ag land gets carved up into a subdivision?  Since nobody gives a rip now, how could things get worse?
• What if there is a food shortage and houses need to be razed to reclaim ag land?  Citizen Assemblies and Soviets would decide.  Which is in contrast with the current system of fuck all.
• How are the owners of the personal property compensated for the loss of their home by either the Community run farm coop or the Capitalist farm owner?  They get paid same as now.
• How is the population density determined and square footage allowed as personal property per person?  Why are you asking this.  You know nobody does math in America.  Since nobody cares now, you do not have to worry about sudden chaos if there is any change.

Soviets and citizens assemblies would generate the necessary infrastructure to see that the appropriate law and control structures are put in place.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 11, 2024, 10:58 PMSince nobody gives a rip now, how could things get worse?

Because my question is not how things could get worse, it's how could things be made better?  Your response in no way addresses the issues I raised.

Forget Bill Gates owning Rhode Island.

What I'm talking about is the fundamental inequity of many people living in McMansions on 1/2 acre with 4 bedrooms, while many more are either homeless or live with 3 kids  in a 600 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment.

I'm talking about some people leaving their McMansion to their kids when they die while other kids born the same time in poverty work hard their whole lives and will never own a house in their lives.

I'm talking about some people who live on 5 acre doomsteads with off grid power and permacuture gardens and chickens while other people live in public parks in tents and dumpster dive for food.

I want to know how were going to fix this prroblem and more equitably distribute the resources of land and living space among the majority of the population.

Just taking back Rhode Island from Bill Gates and nationalize it does not resolve the more widespread social problem we have where 1 large class of people lives in comfort in large, energy intensive suburban McMansions, while another large class of people live in cramped apartments with no outdoor space or in tents on the street or refugee camps.

How do we level this out a tad at least?

RE

We appear to be having ourselves an online debate even if I didn't ask for one. I thought I was agreeing with you on Malm, guess I didn't read between the lines. That in itself would be fine but you're acting like a two-bit yellow union lawyer, calling me a CIA plant for saying things you don't like. Let's try this again.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 11, 2024, 09:16 AM

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.dzUm1GV0wxtYDIV_mXPbrQHaIi%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=3287f6cab6f84dff00faaaf98e1bac055f20d6307e62ff9ecdc20f6b0e7322b7&ipo=images)

Karl Marx distinguished between private property and personal property in several key ways. According to Marx, private property refers to the means of production (such as factories, land, and machinery) that are owned and controlled by a small group of capitalists, who use these resources to exploit the labor of the working class.

Personal property includes possessions such as homes, clothing, and consumer goods, which individuals use for their own personal use and enjoyment.

Your definition of personal property is oblivious to the reason that distinction materialised to begin with. Here's Marx mocking people like you from beyond the grave, from the exact same part of the Manifesto your Marx quote comes from:

The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

The highlighted parts are the 19th equivalent of the /s tag. He ain't talking about what you use for 'enjoyment', whatever that means. He is specifically talking about pre-capitalist petty producers. Not to mention that even petty producers' property was socially owned (hence the sarcasm). But since society itself was organized differently, the use value of a family farm had nothing much to do with the world beyond the ambit of a few villages and towns ruled by a feudal warlord. Yes, Marx and others did distinguish between the two (like I've already acknowledged) because he correctly identified the usurpation of one by the other.

None of that has anything to do with what you're saying i.e the 'good' kind of property is preserved and the 'bad' abolished. These distinctions would have zero relevance in a society founded on substantive equality, where all production is already democratically managed. No one would care whether my Mexican Fender stratcaster is 'collective' or 'individual' property, and no one would have any reason to seize it from me on those grounds.

QuoteGenerally only an American idiot uses the words equality and Marxism in the same sentence.  Marxists advocate for the elimination of private, not personal property.  This is misconstrued into thinking Marxists want to equally distributed wealth by trolls and others.

What members of the American 'middle-class' who have latched on to radleft hipsterism in the age when the illusions which upheld the modern state are withering away to reveal it's true character of cynical impotence in the face of acute social crisis actually do - is unfailingly conflate formal and substantive equality. Men need more food than women because they are generally physically larger and stronger. Everyone getting the same amount of the same food in the name of 'equality' would be madness, not communism. Men and women getting unequal quantities of food and being equally satisfied is simultaneously formal inequality and substantive equality. Seizing the property of the rich to fulfil the needs of the poor is also formal inequality, in the service of substantial equality. Formal inequality being a fact of nature doesn't contradict the validity of substantive equality in any way, let alone disqualify it as the foremost objective of any movement claiming to represent the oppressed.

Whatever quote fragment you're thinking of where Marx disparages his rivals pointing out that communist equality is ridiculous was in reference to its cynical mischaracterization as formal/mathematical equality, not what I was talking about. And your mischaracterization of my point is likewise intellectually dishonest.

QuoteIn a communist society money is eliminated.  But that will never happen.  Communism is an unobtainable ideal.  It is only the direction to move to, subject to the constraints of of actual material conditions.

BULL. SHIT. Communism is not an 'idea', it is the living movement and struggle for equality by the people who desperately need it to live a dignified human existence, and realise the illusions of the Enlightenment. The true heroes of 1789 like Babeuf and Marechal recognized this almost as soon as the revolution had ended.

Everywhere and at all times men were lulled with beautiful words; at no time and in no place was the thing itself ever obtained along with the word. From time immemorial they hypocritically repeat to us: all men are equal; and from time immemorial the most degrading and monstrous inequality insolently weighs upon the human race. As long as there have been human societies the most beautiful of humanity's privileges has been recognized without contradiction, but was only once put in practice: equality was nothing but a beautiful and sterile legal fiction. And now that it is called for with an even stronger voice the answer us: be quiet, you wretches! Real equality is nothing but a chimera; be satisfied with conditional equality; you're all equal before the law. What more do you want, filthy rabble? Legislators, rulers, rich landowners, it is now your turn to listen.

Are we not all equal? This principle remains uncontested, because unless touched by insanity, one can't seriously say it is night when it is day.

Well then! We aspire to live and die equal, the way we were born: we want real equality or death; this is what we need.

Moreover, the whole point of socialism (i.e dictatorship of the proletariat, not Bernie or Corbyn) is to eliminate class society. To advocate for 'pragmatic' socialism over 'ideal' communism is just a roundabout way of saying there is no need for socialism, we just need to be better parasites and give stuff to poor people.

QuoteI have a retirement account.  My retirement account is PERSONAL property.  My House is PERSONAL property.  There has been no free money given to me. I earned all of mine.

No it isn't and no you didn't, and the same applies to me and anyone else whose salaried labor is only possible in a globally interconnected capital system that has to subject the majority to poverty dispossession and death in order to reproduce itself (not because it is 'evil' or controlled by evil satanic elites). This is precisely what Marx was mocking in that quote. He already predicted and deconstructed people who think the house built by immigrant labor is their 'personal property' because they had a handshake with the white manager who drives in all the workers and stands around yelling at them in broken Spanish.

There are billions of people who earn money and there is nothing special about you that makes you wealthier than them. The system is the people, the people are the system. To pretend otherwise would be like attempting to treat an infection by eating large quantities of antiseptic cream.

QuoteMarxism does not advocate for brain dead, across-the-board equality.  An equality where everyone has exactly the same wealth. Instead, Marxism eliminates fundamental inequalities arising as a contradiction in and from the capitalist system.  A small capitalist class owns the means of production and exploits the labor of the working class.  A small capitalist class makes all decisions and the mass of humanity must abide by their decisions.

Either eliminating fundamental inequalities means substantive equality, or it means 'a small class that owns the means of production' decide to calm things down by selectively ameliorating inequality in the name of 'eliminating fundamental inequality'. Which side are you on?

Quote from: RE on Apr 11, 2024, 07:53 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 11, 2024, 01:55 AMThe rational democratic management of fossil fuels is the only option for 8 bn people, or 4 bn for that matter.

How does democratic management help if the majority of people will choose to keep burning ffs to retain their standard of living longer?

RE

This is an example of honest difference of opinion, which I have no problem cordially engaging with. To answer your question, democratic management is necessarily rational. The majority of people aren't choosing to do anything with fossil fuels. If they were in a position to do so, it would only be through the complete transformation of the current society. People would be communally rearing children/caring for the elderly, would concretely identify their own interests with those of the entire human race, would want the society they are genuinely involved in building to endure for thousands of years etc. Why wouldn't they choose to rational manage fossil fuels, population etc?

You can argue that none of this will happen given the time we have left and/or other constraints, but that is a different discussion to claiming 'human nature' doesn't allow for those things.