Marxist Theory

[K-Dog]

Getting the basics is pretty easy.  Understanding the details and the connections to formal logic is harder.  Confusion results.  Some people even think dialectics is in conflict with formal logic.  That is not true.  Formal logic in dielectrics is a subset where system change becomes differential change in a way like algebra becomes part of calculus.

I know the study of dialectics is worth doing, it affects the way a person thinks and in a way that better adjusts me to reality.  Read a little of the theory and you feel a bit restless in a good way.

The concept of the 'negation of the negation' is slippery like the Stoic claim that "the obstacle becomes the way".  That concept was hard for me to get at first.  Now it is automatic for me to consider how adversity can be used to advantage.  To do other is foolish.

Things are always changing and if compassion is to spread, the class struggle can never end.  A study of Dialectical Materialism makes this obvious.

[RE]

I am a Groucho Marxist.    His dialectics are impeccable.

Re

[K-Dog]

We know you are a grouch, that's for sure. 

And here is another Marxist, one who can be smart.  Without being an ass.

[K-Dog]

The setting is Edwardian England.

As for those who rode with Harlow in the last coach, most of them, as has been already intimated, were men of similar character to himself. The greater number of them fairly good workmen and—unlike the boozers in Crass's coach—not yet quite heartbroken, but still continuing the hopeless struggle against poverty. These differed from Nimrod's lot inasmuch as they were not content. They were always complaining of their wretched circumstances, and found a certain kind of pleasure in listening to the tirades of the Socialists against the existing social conditions, and professing their concurrence with many of the sentiments expressed, and a desire to bring about a better state of affairs.

Most of them appeared to be quite sane, being able to converse intelligently on any ordinary subject without discovering any symptoms of mental disorder, and it was not until the topic of Parliamentary elections was mentioned that evidence of their insanity was forthcoming. It then almost invariably appeared that they were subject to the most extraordinary hallucinations and extravagant delusions, the commonest being that the best thing that the working people could do to bring about an improvement in their condition, was to continue to elect their Liberal and Tory employers to make laws for and to rule over them! At such times, if anyone ventured to point out to them that that was what they had been doing all their lives, and referred them to the manifold evidences that met them wherever they turned their eyes of its folly and futility, they were generally immediately seized with a paroxysm of the most furious mania, and were with difficulty prevented from savagely assaulting those who differed from them.

They were usually found in a similar condition of maniacal excitement for some time preceding and during a Parliamentary election, but afterwards they usually manifested that modification of insanity which is called melancholia. In fact they alternated between these two forms of the disease. During elections, the highest state of exalted mania; and at ordinary times—presumably as a result of reading about the proceedings in Parliament of the persons whom they had elected—in a state of melancholic depression, in their case an instance of hope deferred making the heart sick.

This condition occasionally proved to be the stage of transition into yet another modification of the disease—that known as dipsomania, the phase exhibited by Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk.

Yet another form of insanity was that shown by the Socialists. Like most of their fellow passengers in the last coach, the majority of these individuals appeared to be of perfectly sound mind. Upon entering into conversation with them one found that they reasoned correctly and even brilliantly. They had divided their favourite subject into three parts. First; an exact definition of the condition known as Poverty. Secondly; a knowledge of the causes of Poverty; and thirdly, a rational plan for the cure of Poverty. Those who were opposed to them always failed to refute their arguments, and feared, and nearly always refused, to meet them in fair fight—in open debate—preferring to use the cowardly and despicable weapons of slander and misrepresentation. The fact that these Socialists never encountered their opponents except to defeat them, was a powerful testimony to the accuracy of their reasonings and the correctness of their conclusions—and yet they were undoubtedly mad. One might converse with them for an indefinite time on the three divisions of their subject without eliciting any proofs of insanity, but directly one inquired what means they proposed to employ in order to bring about the adoption of their plan, they replied that they hoped to do so by reasoning with the others!

[K-Dog]

Wrong

Kohei Saito's degrowth rewrite of Marxist theory is not only incorrect — if taken seriously, it would lead to political disaster for both the socialist left and the environmental movement.Kohei Saito's degrowth rewrite of Marxist theory is not only incorrect — if taken seriously, it would lead to political disaster for both the socialist left and the environmental movement.

Kohei Saito's "Start From Scratch" Degrowth Communism

People have it tough, we need better arrangements.  There should be no argument about that, but there is.  The modern world of easy living has scrambled brains causing many to like where they are far too much.  Resulting in a bullshit article and excessive comfort with existing arrangements.

The world is in overshoot and to reduce the human footprint as it must be, it must be easier for people to get by.  Free health care, perhaps a basic income.  A social safety net that eliminates the need for dog eat dog living.  Dog eat dog living currently represents our social relations.  Such social relations cannot deal with overshoot.

workers in rich countries are participants in the "imperial mode of living"

The failure of socialists to unite against imperialism at the start of WWI made this clear.  Nationalism came first.  Then as now, the triumph of ownership seeks to destroy all culture.  Now as then, either socialism triumphs or desolation, depopulation and a vast cemetery lies before us.  The truth is ugly, and it hurts, but it is the truth.