> The person who comes up with an idea like that won't be very excited on their own un till they find out that people are willing to pay a good amount to buy their technology.
Why do you think this? Is it because money is the only thing that would drive you, so you assume that will be true for everyone?
This is Blender. It is industry-leading 3D modelling software developed by the best and brightest in the field, and it's entirely open source. It's free to anyone who wants it, and it is continuously updated and improved by a community of passionate and dedicated people. Blender stands as a shining example that legions of people are motivated by things other than monetary gain.
I don't know how hours of reading can be avoided. One book I've found very valuable is Richard Wolf's Contending Economic theories. https://www.amazon.ca/Contending-Economic-Theories-Neoclassical-Keynesian/dp/0262517833
As far as left economics it really only deals with Marxist style socialism. But it does so by contrasting it with Keynesian and Neoclassical theory in such a way that you come out the other end with a pretty good picture of the entire economic horizon (at least in the minds of the most influential thinkers in economics today). From there I'd look for books on other variants of post-capitalist economics.
I currently use ProtonVPN and they advertise they do not keep records at all. I agree, I'm not looking at doing anything illegal. I'm just concerned that as LE gets more aggressive, they may take things that we on the left say and do and build a scenario around the information to suit their needs. I know some people may consider this a bit extreme, but look at our history in this country and tell me it hasn't happened before.
The internet just adds a lot of easy ways for LE, and Corporations, to track and collect information on people. I don't particularly want to share without them asking permission first and me granting it.
Mark Fisher talks about it in Capital Realism: There is no Alternative? might be worth Ctrl F some of the words or terms that came up in your discussion to see if they are explained in the book. If you can access the BBC, Adam Curtis's new documentary explores how we've created a dream world (consumerism in late stage capitalism) to deal with the chaos and touches on how "it's easier to see the end of the world than the end of capitalism". They might be able to give you a deeper understanding of their mind set and how "capitalism is too strong".
Check their understand of socialism and capitalism is correct, they may misunderstand something about socialism that makes it more possible. They may think capitalism is more than what it is.
On the other hand, there is a strong likelihood that Capitalism will usher in societal collapse due to the climate catastrophe. But keep in-mind (some) people will survive and adapt and the survivors would probably think twice before trying Capitalism again.
Additionally, Socialism is a form of Post-Capitalism but Post-Capitalism isn't always Socialism. There are many progressive Heterodox (economic and Political) schools of thought that paint alternatives to capitalism but aren't necessarily socialist. Just getting them on a page of "an alternative is possible" is better than "there is no alternative".
For Molyneux, go over to r/askphilosophy, nobody is more pissed at Molyneux crackpottery than members of the discipline he claims to have revolutionized with his UPB hogwash.
A Vindication of the Rights of Man by Mary Wollstonecraft iirc directly responds to Burke.
For Hoppe, you are likely to benefit from looking at the left-liberal whom Hoppe plagiarizes his argumentation ethics from: Habermas. Habermas is by far the better thinker and derives opposite conclusions from the same ethical starting point as Hoppe, so is likely a good source for how Hoppe's work fails. His ethical work is mostly contained in A Theory of Communicative Action.
The philosopher Philip Pettit responds to arguments that Milton Friedman has made to absolve corporations of any sort of ethical responsibility. His critique can for example be found here.
It should tell you something about Oswald Spengler that the ideas he is most famous for, his theories of history and racial mysticism, are thoroughly rejected by experts in the disciplines that they belong to (history, biological anthropology, etc). His views are pseudoscientific in the extreme.
These may be relevant to your interests.
https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/
But not every revolution needs "weapons" AND "numbers," though they definitely help. A small group of armed fighters can punch above their weight class rather effectively even if the general population isn't actively fighting, so long as they support the insurgency more than they support the gov. On the flip side, if enough of the general population revolts, they don't need weapons. See Tunisia in the Arab Spring and the Carnation revolution in Portugal. Granted, those required the military to defect towards the popular will instead of backing the government.
The conquest of bread - Peter Kroporkin
You can download it in here in any filetype. It's from an anarcho-communist, it's very simple to read and very good.
They're doing a type of labor, and it's benefiting themselves and others. I'd prefer they used Liberapay because it's a non-profit and as such isn't trying to exploiting them, but it's otherwise harmless.
> Plato's Republic definitely isn't an example of socialism. It's not really an example of anything since such a city is purely idealist.
I've not personally read much of Plato's work, so I've not read the Republic by Plato, so, would you mind expanding on what you mean by this as I'm rather ignorant as to what you mean by your comment?
> But calling it socialism is hugely misunderstanding socialism or Plato
Again, due to my ignorance, may I ask why?
Firstly, ignore the Communist Manifesto. It's outdated and essentially a piece of propaganda which serves more as a historical document than anything else.
"The Principles of Communism" by Friedrich Engels is essentially a communist FAQ
"Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" by Vladimir Lenin for an understanding on international relations between capitalist nations.
"The State and Revolution" By Lenin if you want to understand Leninism
"The Conquest of Bread" By Peter Kropotkin if you want to understand Anarchism
I should note that in case you are unaware almost all socialist literature is available on Marxists.org and The Anarchist Library
Save your money. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index
Good Continuation of Markx is to read bakunin who had similar ideas but also critique some aspect of markx theory (mostly the authoritarian stuff).
Also Proudhon is a must to understand the anti-property aspects of Markx writing.
I don’t know if this what you’re looking for but The Art if Being Ungoverned by James C. Scott blew my mind when I read it in undergrad. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Not-Being-Governed-Anarchist/dp/0300169175
I’ll see if I can find a free copy somewhere, or if you have a university library access it’s probably online.
As far as political quizzes go, the Vote 1 app is the best. Political Compass is extremely flawed. Of course you shouldn't solely rely on a quiz to tell you about your beliefs but fwiw I found Vote 1 to be uncannily accurate. It includes ebooks of political philosophy and such so you can use it as a starting point for further research.
Link to app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sipols.politics&hl=en
Description:
>The Vote 1 political spectrum is not just progressive left wing and right wing, but builds on the work of the political compass to give a two-axis spectrum of political ideology from collectivist (eg communism) to individual and from liberal(eg social democracy) to authoritarian(eg fascism) positions. Similarly, it shows the difference between progressive liberalism and conservative philosophy is not primarily economics, but attitudes to civil liberty. It allows anarcho capitalist and libertarian philosophy to be properly placed as an extension of liberal politics, not of Donald Trump and Republican Party's conservative philosophy. This spectrum also allows for the trains of radical progressive Marxist and communist thought which followed Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin(Luxemburg, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao) to be appropriately separated from liberal positions such as Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party. Similarly, it allows the true direction of national socialism to be identified as a radical reactionary extension of centrist populism to the left of fascist Mussolini, rather than just being radically conservative. The differences between the positions of the Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton, Republican Party of Donald Trump, Libertarian Party of Gary Johnson and Green Party of Jill Stein as well as others like the Constitution Party can be clearly displayed to assist your 2016 election vote for government, president, senate and congress.
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein talks a bit about this. I'm no expert, but the argument she makes is that it involved a concerted effort by western powers to implement their conception of free market capitalism in the former USSR.
According to Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, capitalism can only work if there is a strong judiciary which is free from corruption and able to protect consumers' and workers' rights, and a strong federal government which is also free from corruption and able to prevent and break-up monopolies. These, of course, are fantasies that never were and can never be, so long as humans are greedy.
But humans are greedy, and that is why capitalism has existed for so long, why it still exists, and why it is not doing well, at all. Increasingly, our government and judiciary are supporting monopolies and oligopolies, which pass themselves off as capitalist, but are not. Corporatism or plutocracy is not capitalism, but it is a stage in the failure of capitalism.
Security should always be proportional to your needs. If you are the editor of a radical transparency outfit like Wikileaks, and have a lengthy history of internationally relevant activism, then your needs are going to be pretty substantial. You can expect your mobile phone to be compromised, since (a) corporate mobile operating systems are not really under your control, and (b) you are worth targetting individually.
However, if you are organising demonstrations on a local basis, your needs are probably quite modest, and the things you've mentioned will probably be just fine. There is a balance of convenience and security to be had between these two poles. The answer may be different depending on where you live as well - your needs will be more demanding in Saudi Arabia than the United States, for example, since you have different baseline freedoms.
The general advice is to keep your computer up to date, use anti-virus tools, and if you can, have a separate machine for your activism (let the kids play with another machine, so you don't get malware on your main machine).
I haven't tried it, but the Tails Operating System might be worth a go. Would not surprise me if you need to be a bit technical to use it though!
the anarchist library has a ton of stuff and is entirely free https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index
you can also find non-free ebooks on sites that are mentioned in my pinned post about textbooks
https://www.amazon.ca/Thomas-Sankara-Speaks-Revolution-1983-1987/dp/0873489861
If ur interested in the idea of Socialism in Africa Id also suggest
https://www.amazon.com/UJAMAA-Socialism-Julius-K-Nyerere/dp/B00130TYZ8
Ah, yes. My comment on virtue ethics was basically that I acted like there's only two mainstream types of ethical theories but that ignores the (somewhat less popular but still mainstream) virtue ethics theories. If you are interested, the seminal text is the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. As you may have guessed it's the oldest of the three.
The gist of it is that what is ethical is solely that which expresses the virtue of a given person. So doing things that are intentionally brave, or intentionally generous are good, things that are intentionally vengeful or manipulative are bad, etc. Aristotle says that one should always strive for the middle, the happy medium between extremes. Bravery is a virtue and you should have some of it, but too much is foolish.
That being said, it of course works fine within socialism, it's just not as obviously relevant.
If you're interested in Marx specifically, definitely read Capital. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels is also quite good. If you find yourself struggling to understand, I highly recommend the podcast Marx Madness, which provides chapter-by-chapter analysis like a book club.
It might also benefit you to read some of Bakunin and Proudhon so you understand the ideas Marx's own work was in dialogue with. Proudhon's What is Property? and The Philosophy of Poverty are good places to start.
If you have time you should listen to some of the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. Most of their work has free librivox recordings both on YouTube and on https://librivox.org/
I don't know what others would think of this list, but it's what I started with on reading theory: https://www.socialist.net/the-fundamentals-of-marxism-suggested-reading.htm
I would pick put "The Communist Manifesto," "State and Revolution," and "Wage Labor and Capital" if you onky have time for a few. They're good explanations of the basics behind Marxism, "State and Revolution" is of course Marxist-Leninist, but considering Lenin's tremendous influence reading some of his work is a must.
According to Marx the socialism is merely the next stage of capitalism. As a capitalist society grows the means of production shift from human labor to physical capital(land and factories)
However as we reduce human labor we also reduce the net flow of money into the household sector(income).
According to Say's law
https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.economicsdiscussion.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F11%2Fclip_image00240.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economicsdiscussion.net%2Fsays-law%2Fsays-law-a-close-view-macro-economics%2F1...
The inflow of firms money is equal to the outflow of household spending minus leakages. When the firm reduces their labor force(to reduce costs) they also reduce their revenue.
Since cost reduction is the core of a capitalist society it incentives efficiency, but eventually the firm will become "too" efficient that there is no one left to sell to.
THIS is the revolution. The market will simply break itself and in order to for the economy to sustain the some form of basic income will be put in place.
A violent revolution is a premature one, there is no way the bourgeoise can remain in power if they strive to be profitable(in the long run)
Marx's Labor and Capital is an amazing read because it sort of gives a very in depth look at the capitalist machine as it has always been and gives insight as to how it works today. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire is also very important since it describes the best way to achieve class consciousness.
Post Anarchism A Reader js also interesting and for a little more philosophical stuff I recommend you sort of look into Jean Paul Sartre. His philosophy almost single handedly brought post modernism into the world and gave the wider public the permission to question authority, tradition, etc instead of following it for its own sake. Another recent one Breadtube Serves Imperialism by Caleb Maupin which kind of exposes the sort of radlib responses to a capitalist crisis which does not seek to end capitalism, rather is trying to force one set of capitalists to fix the crisis instead of another.
And for all your free book needs, we have this website.
Jason Stanley argues that fascism is an inseparable feature of capitalism, that fascism arises from capitalism periodically in waves.
Pretty much every Marxist Revolution was immediately undermined and attacked from the outside and within, from the bourgeoisie. The choice was crack down, or be defeated. For choosing not to be defeated, these states were derided as authoritarian by the west.
For example, check out the anti Castro terror campaigns backed by the CIA: https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Other-Side-History-Terrorism/dp/0745330401/ref=nodl_
The banning of factions was a catastrophic error that unfortunately paved the way for later Stalinist repression. But the other big criticism I would make of Lenin would be his utter naivete about the state. In her book Inside Lenin's Government, Lara Douds makes the point that Lenin seems to have had a vision of the revolutionary state's relationship to the masses that unintentionally paralleled the czar's understanding. To overcome bourgeois representative democracy, the revolutionary state for Lenin would have to have direct contact with the masses through meeting with peasants one-on-one. Obviously, that's not sustainable, and what it meant in the long run was a bureaucracy that ran roughshod over sections of the people while claiming to speak in their name. In the Bolsheviks defense, they were making a lot of this up as they went along and I really don't think they intended to allow power to consolidate in the hands of a bureaucractic elite, but it is, I think, one of the significant failures of traditional Marxist thinking that it doesn't have a developed understanding of what the democratic socialist state needs to look like.
I did a (very quick) search on academic portals and found this dissertation (quite old, but history of socialism has somewhat stagnated since the 1970s), about the "class struggle in the Southwest" that includes a study of Arkansas. YMMV, but might be worth checking out.
The book I actually would recommend is this history of Walmart by the great labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein. Ostensibly a history of the company, it is actually a great social history of Arkansas and why its specific economic conditions (and above all, its rural poverty) enabled Sam Walton's rise. I learned so much about Arkansas from it - it's quite an amazing story about how a small state pioneered the now-dominant model of global capitalism.
Unfortunately I have to say that Hobsbawm is the best introduction there is, even if it is not as "introductory" as some people think. Both Marxism and sweeping synthetic histories have been out of fashion for some time now. Christopher Bayly's T<em>he Birth of the Modern World</em> is a justly celebrated global history of the industrial revolution (which talks far more about China and India than Hobsbawm does). It is very valuable, but in my opinion suffers a bit in analytical coherence from trying to be a postmodernist "cultural" history (with Foucauldian themes like "bodily practices" and stuff).
It's gathering dust on my bookshelf too. David Harvey has a companion volume as well as audio and video lectures to guide reading.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A7FFF28B99C1303
Sorry for the Amazon link. https://www.amazon.com/Companion-Marxs-Capital-David-Harvey/dp/1844673596
I've only read sections from it in school but Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine has a brilliant critique of how neoliberal policies exploit disasters such as hurricane Katrina or the earthquake in Haiti for private gain through lucrative reconstruction contracts etc.
<em>The Prince and the Showgirl</em> is a Marilyn Monroe film about this situation that is very funny. She plays an American showgirl in Russia who basically uses her privilege as a woman (not part of his hierarchy) to sweetly and politely troll the prince until he makes the country into a democracy.
AND, LASTLY, this is Paul Cockshott's newest book on Socialist economic planning, WITH the aforementioned Dapprich and Cottrell
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BKHZMVQC
The kindle edition is just 8 pounds
Then you may as well say that according to him the sky is green, because Mussolini wrote the friggin' ideological manifesto of Fascism xD
Your friend is a lost cause, get a new friend. This one's broken.
Fascism isn't really a fix ideology, it rather manifests itself in ideologies like Nazism. Therefore there isn't really general fascist theory. Instead, it is more interesting to narrow down and look at analysis of fascism.
I can recommend Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism". It's very popular and still widely used to characterise fascism.
Here's a summary/introduction, but there's also a link to the full essay: http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
In addition to what the user you’re responding to recommended as a source, I just thought I’d mention this book if you want an in-depth analysis of one of the countries as an example. Unfortunately I’m not sure if you can get it online for free, but regardless it’s a good read.
The CIA is basically the high priesthood of the American capitalist empire. Their ultimate goal is not stopping terrorism or intelligence gathering — that’s just a means to an end. The preservation of global capitalism is the CIA’s purpose. It’s not a coincidence that we didn’t need a vast intelligence bureaucracy until communism began to take off as a competing social order in the world.
When you view the American intelligence apparatus through this lens, critique of the CIA starts to sound a lot less paranoid and conspiratorial and a lot more reasonable. If their end goal is to protect capital by any means necessary, then all of their nefarious activity is perfectly rational, not just evil for evil’s sake.
As someone else in the thread said, about 95% of what you hear about the CIA is mostly true. I would highly recommend that you read William Blum’s Killing Hope (you can, ironically enough, read part one of it here on the CIA’s website, but I’d highly recommend that you find the full text) and <em>Washington Bullets</em> by Vijay Prashad. These are great accounts of CIA coups and assassinations that can be proved to a reasonable academic certainty.
Acts 2-5 describes the earliest followers of Jesus as living a communal lifestyle. A book came out last year called After Jesus, Before Christianity that may be of interest, but I'm only halfway through it. Redistribution of bread and fish seems in line. The issue I have with Christianity (that I didn't have until after I stopped attending church, incidentally) is that the promise of a rewards in the afterlife is used to justify exploitation and oppression in this life.
I like this one. Not so much the biography, which is somewhat brief but it includes many texts by Lenin including The State and Revolution. It's definitely worth the read.
Again, everything you're saying seems to imply you'd really get on with anarchism. Robert Evans visited Rojava earlier this year and did an episode that's like an overview of that whole region before Turkey invaded, and it might help you understand why anarchists seek to dismantle hierarchy as much as possible in pursuit of communism. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-worst-year-ever-49377032/episode/the-rojavakurdish-genocide-episode-why-so-51194587/
Yeah, it's going to be super frustrating talking with tankies because their analysis of history seems to just gloss over these issues where significant power imbalances create a situation where a socialist state ends up never transitioning to communism or even just outright sliding back into neoliberalism as part of a bid to keep ahold of that power. And whether or not you end up identifying as an anarchist, better understanding the role power plays in society and how it shapes' ones actions in defense of it can help you better understand both capitalism, authoritarianism, how they feed off each other, and how authoritarianism might persist in capitalism's absence.
Jacobin's podcast The Dig put out an episode discussing automation in this context less than 24 hours ago. Worth a listen.The Dig - Don't Blame Robots
Someone already posted an audiobook, but I'd like to point out that audio reader software isn't half bad in a pinch. I often use NaturalReader to listen to text that isn't available in audio format otherwise. It's obviously not as good, but it will handle most texts pretty well.
https://www.naturalreaders.com/index.html
I'm sure there are other options as well.
I use calibre to convert PDF's to epub or mobi format for my kindle. I also discovered https://z-lib.org/ which has a ridiculous amount of ebooks available for free including heaps of socialist books. I know the link looks dodgy but it's allowed me to find ebook versions of books that were tricky to find otherwise.
Eclectic idealism that was founded by ultra leftists in France post 1968, never been based in any actual movement. Swampside chats just did a collaborative episode with the Antifada and Rev Left Radio on it if you’re interested Link
Mike Duncan hosts a podcast called <em>Revolutions</em> that breaks down revolutions of history to the fine details. He has done excellent series on the French Revolution, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, and is currently going through the Mexican Revolution, with the Russian Revolution planned for the next series. Duncan does a particularly good job of outlining the political, economic, and social causes of these revolutions, especially class conflict.
They didn't just send satellites into space. They were literally the first society on earth to send humans into space. That may be the greatest achievement of humanity... this is really good on the soviet space program https://castbox.fm/vb/83834619
This isn't precisely what you are looking for, but it is about racism in the US, specifically implicit bias. The book is called Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do. I'm currently reading it, and it is a good and informative read about how implicit bias plagues the US, all from the police, jury, communities, media, schools etc. I hope this helped (:
Get an android tablet and (this app)[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pdf.and.djvu.reader]
E-readers suck for reading theory because they are so slow turning pages and you will do that alot because you can't just read them like you would read a novel. There will be lots of instances where you need to look something up or re-read a paragraph or reference something.
“Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundation’s of a Movement” by Angela Davis. This is a great introduction to left politics. The writing is clear w/o sacrificing complexity and most importantly Davis weaves these struggles together to give a structural analysis that is both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (the latter is sorely missing in the 1st world left rn).
Because it’s Angela Davis, it’s grounded in a) the black radical tradition, which itself is a very heterogenous and b) a prison abolitionist framework, noting that its the same private prison contractors building prisons in the US as in Gaza, and that the IDF is involved in training US police forces etc. Her analysis is definitely a precursor to the recent struggle w the Whitney Museum, Decolonize This Place and the forced resignation of weapons manufacturer Warren Kanders from their board. https://hyperallergic.com/511683/decolonize-this-place-after-kanders/
It’s a great entry point because it weaves together history w contemporary issues that are probably somewhat on your radar BLM, Palestine, Mass Incarceration. And again I really have to emphasize that her writing is really accessible and passionate enough to really keep you turning the page. I’ve included a pdf below https://www.docdroid.net/rfDRFWv/freedom-is-a-constant-struggle.pdf
The google translate is pretty much accurate
I'm from China and I think China is not socialist.
The rapid development of capitalist modernization since the Deng era has caused inequality and exploitation, and the Communist Party still needs the title "Socialism" to support its legitimacy. The survival of a Communist country depends on the success of bureaucratic capitalism that it created, which in turn relies on the Communist Party to oppress workers.
Maybe you can learn more about the Christie's rights defense last year and the Peking University Jockey accident last year, combined with the recent handling of pneumonia, and think about why this party, which should represent the interests of the working class, stood on the opposite side of the people.
I also recommend a book (this book also inspired me a lot): https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=8ADE50B4D6D8CC20B77BB5978B99510D
You can also find Traditional Chinese, Simplified and Simplified.
I'm from China and I think China is not socialist.
自邓时代以来的高速发展的资本主义现代化已经造成了不平等和剥削,而共产党依然需要“社会主义“的头衔以支持它的合法性。共产党国家的生存依赖于它所创造的官僚资本主义的成功,而资本主义反过来又依靠共产党以压迫工人。
也许您也可以再了解一下去年的佳士维权、北大马会事故,结合最近的对肺炎事件的处理手段,再思考一下为什么这个本该代表工人阶级利益的政党站在了人民的反面。
同时推荐一本书(这本书也给了我很大的启发): https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=8ADE50B4D6D8CC20B77BB5978B99510D
您也可以找中文繁体版,简体有删节。
I don't off hand know if it is integrated into any kind of blockchain credit, but you can help fold proteins: https://foldingathome.org/
separately, I think this community is intersting: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoUBI/
https://clockify.me/working-hours The US ranked 19th in the world for average number of hours worked per week at 38.59. China is at 46 hours/week. The number of hours worked per week in the US and Western Europe has decreased since the 1980’s. So where exactly do you get your 12 hour days and 7 days a week idea? Reddit?
Btw, I don't have a background on economy. Would you still recommend me to read on dependency theory?
I'm sure you found this book. I haven't read it personally since I'm not an American and I have a million others I want to get to first. I'm not knowledgeable on this.
It’s usually a good idea to work your way up to reading Capital — it’s fucking hard to read, but worth it. Before you do that, you can read <em>A People’s Guide to Capitalism</em> by Hadas Thier for a very good short but thorough explanation of Marxian economics, written in no-nonsense plain English. In addition, you can read Marx’s Value, Price, Profit and Wage Labour and Capital. these are earlier works that present many of the ideas that would be further developed in Capital, and are only roughly 50 pages combined. If you’ve already read Engels and the book I linked above you should no problem reading it.
As for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, I can recommend Roland Boer’s [Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners] as a starting place. Try finding it online somewhere because the textbook is really fucking expensive to buy lol.
Also, apparently if you email your country’s Chinese Embassy, they’ll send you educational books or DVDs for free. I can’t speak to how good the content is because I haven’t done it, but many people have.
Keep in mind here that I am not apologizing for the party’s role in the famine. My broader point is that our current conditions are more far more friendly to planning than the Stalin era’s. In places other than Ukraine in 30’s, planning worked astonishingly well, especially when you factor in that it was all done on paper, by hand.
Our agricultural sector is not controlled by a peasantry — there would be no one to confiscate grain from. Big agriculture controls our food production, not nobility, and machines, not serfs, work the fields. The relationships of production are different and there is simply no evidence that in the modern era, planning would create a China or Ukraine-type famine, even if a highly authoritarian party were at the wheel.
East Germany did not have a peasantry system prior to becoming a one-party state, and they were very successful in the agricultural sector. You can read about that in this book, if you care to.
Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom:
<strong>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08Q9PN8SV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0</strong>
No, it was a bunch of different units that were moved around and used at different places in different context.
Hoffman is a German, of course he is revising his assessments and giving some extra qualification beyond the facts at hand
You aren't discussing anything, you are denying the truth
"The first two Kalmuck squadrons were activated independently by the 16th Motorized Infantry Division... On 12 November 1942, the two existing elements were given the following designations: 1./Kalmuck Squadron 66 and 2./Kalmuck Squadron 66.
On 14 January 1943, the Kalmuck Legion became the Kalmuck Detachment "Dr. Doll" with six company-sized squadrons... By February 1943, the unit had grown to regimental size and was named Kalmuck Formation "Dr. Doll," and contained three separate battalion-sized detachments. By April, the unit had added a fourth detachment.
By December 1944, the formation had grown enough to be re-organized into two brigades of two regiments each..."
https://www.amazon.com/Steadfast-Hussars-Cavalry-Divisions-Waffen-SS/dp/1475061234
Further changes & re organizations & different delineations and groups were formed after this
You literally are denying reality
I read this book. It claimed that at a local level there is competitive elections, as well as in their equivalent to the House of Representatives. Cubans don't directly elect their federal government, and something like half of their legislative chamber is appointed by the federal government. The problem is that the people they do have the ability to directly elect have limited power. Cuba is one of the more democratic socialist nations, but I'd still hesitate to call them a democracy.
Check out this book, i think you would really like it. It's about the history of socialism in the US.
I think historical materialism is still the opposite of the colloquial idealism (i.e. unrealistic) because it grounds socialism and communism in the reality of societal conditions. I do like your points about the idealism of capitalism! I think that gets at the role of American exceptionalism and they way it obfuscates violence in defense of imperialism. I just started the book, https://www.amazon.com/American-Exceptionalism-Innocence-News_From-Revolutionary/dp/1510742360. It is good so far and I am learning a lot.
I see a lot of people here saying the Penguin edition, and I have no problem with that, Penguin Classics are really good. But if you want something a bit cheaper, I got myself the Wordsworth Classics of World Lit edition and I really like it. It has Vols. 1 and 2 for under 15 dollars. Vol 1 is the one translated by Moore and Aveling, and Vol 2 is translated by Untermann.
I personally prefer the Moore and Aveling translation because the audiobooks I find all read from that.
Buy The Penguin. I also recommend reading Georg Fülberth's Kapital Compact and Kapital for Beginners before reading Kapital. Otherwise, your brain will turn into a sponge.
Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises by Anwar Shaikh
https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Competition-Conflict-Anwar-Shaikh/dp/0199390630
I listened to Socialism. . .Seriously on Audible. It's a great short primer on what socialism is and imagines a socialist society so you can get a feel for what socialism is and is not
Historically they were hamstrung by the information problem, the inability to acquire, access, interpret and apply the correct information for adjusting production and prices in real time. This was an enormous burden in multiple ways, causing inefficiencies such as an enormous burden on clerk labour to keep tabs on patterns of production and consumption of goods, as well as anticipating what people actually wanted. In the fashion market for example it was a well known phenomenon that by the time the economic planners had produced a given item that was in demand in sufficient numbers to satisfy said demand it was already out of fashion.
Today, things are very different however. The information age has ushered in a world where computers can effectively anticipate demand in near real time. We already do this with corporate economies that are as large as developed countries, such as is already the case with Walmart's centralised planning and distribution system, which is at least the size of Sweden's entire national economy.
In fact there's evidence that reveal the H.W. Bush wanted to prolong the life of the USSR for reason such as his fears of the newly independent Russia having access to the former Soviet arsenal. He had already made good and treaties with Gorbachev (USSR), but dealing with Yeltsin (Independent Russian Federation) would mean starting from scratch.
My main interest is reading books like this or this that explain the evolution of its system from an "objective" perspective. Generally someone who is "able" to give an "unbiased" explanation with the ups and downs of the economic reforms. Books like "Little Red Book" are "biased" in a sense because they omit or embellish certain data that a foreigner mightn't do. Nevertheless I would still be interested in reading the equivalent (if the is one) of "Little red book" from Deng Xiaoping because I think it is interesting to study a phenomenon from every perspective possible. To "really" understand a subject from the "biased" and "unbiased" data and thus know what drove them to do that.
I tried reading the first volume of capital, and I can confirm it is densely packed with dry economic terms and concepts. However, I bought an introduction to marxist political economy, and I am currently reading it with a friend, and I would recommend it strongly.
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https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910885444/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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You can probably find other places than amazon if you wish
Check out Socialist Thought: A Documented History.
It looks like there is going to be Abridged edition of the The Anarchist Encyclopedia in English,published in march 2019
Have you considered the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, or Independent Jewish Voices? I think it's headquartered in Montreal.
There's a lot of Anglophone peace activists on MePeace.org, which is dedicated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I've read Canadian author Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, with a friend, and it was excellent, though highly disturbing at some points. (She's a socialist and Jewish and has been involved in some peace activism, as well as other causes.)
Corey Gil-Shuster, the founder of the Ask Project in Israel, is also Canadian.
At the risk of earning the ire of everyone here - I'd recommend a reading of Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom, as well Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, which go into detail about why, throughout the modern age, almost every generation grapples with this same question and the idealists almost always come out on the wrong side. Can this system work? Probably (if humans weren't humans). Has it worked? No. Why? Because it penalises achievement and hard work. A rudimentary example to illustrate this would be to ask a student who received an A grade to share his grade with everyone else in the class so everyone can have a better grade - thereby earning an average C for everyone. The difference between socialism and capitalism is not too dissimilar to the difference between wanting the government as a surrogate parent and wanting to stand on your own two feet. Real equality and fairness is surely in a system that ensures that one must trade something of value, a product or a service or time or effort, to another in order to receive something of value in return, rather than an arbitrary third party that a majority decides should redistribute property and wealth as they see fit. The latter is still thievery albeit by using the collective as a force. No offense intended towards anyone here.
Do you have any comment about Thomas Widlok's book?
Are you familiar with the concept of "demand-sharing" in anthropology?
Demand-sharing is kind of a literal translation of the old communist formula ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ into something that people do in their everyday lives.
It's similar to what the anarchist David Graeber calls "communism" which he views as a social relation and which he defines as:
"An open-ended agreement between two groups, or even two individuals, to provide for the other; within which, even access to one another’s possessions followed the principle of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’."
(‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’, the old communist formula, basically means if you have a need and I have the ability to meet that need, I do it.
Keeping count or reciprocating is very frowned upon in these sort of situations.
This sort of communism is quite common (even under capitalism), in families, between friends and there's a little of it in every non-hostile relationship.)
Widlok documents this with lots and lots of evidence and theory in his book:
https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Economy-Sharing-Thomas-Widlok/dp/1138945552
> However, don’t you think other methods would better control that?
No.
>Also, what is the issue with providing more options, even if those options fall into subpar categories, such as, junk food?
The options aren't the problem, the manipulations are. If everyone was able to eat unhealthy food to the extent they wish, that wouldn't have much of a personal or economic cost. Unfortunately in the pursuit of profit capitalists have made food to be addictive. Addictions are not choices. Here's an informative book on this issue. How do you prevent this in capitalism?
After 3 months... I finally... I did it.... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reality-Ignored-Undermined-Institutions-Endangered/dp/1456391860
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10788402-reality-ignored
Finally a decent book slaughtering Milton, Jesus Christ
No problem! Okay, so you're looking for more of an actual textbook. (OMG, sorry, wall of text ahead. I'm drunk and avoiding other work.)
Yeah, I'm fairly familiar with Baumol & Blinder's micro book. Just gonna be honest here: I definitely don't think it's BAD--it's totally standard, covers most of the bases, and you could do a LOT worse--but it wouldn't be my top rec.
One of the main things I don't like about it so much is the organization: students often seem to find it pretty unclear and hard to follow, and I can see why...like, there's just a LOT of stuff thrown on the page and the focus kinda bounces around. The next thing could be good/bad/both, depending on what you're looking for: it focuses on policy issues more than most intro to micro texts. I think B&B do a pretty good job of it--they're thoughtful, reasonable, not total ideologues or propagandists. But that also means (IMHO) the theoretical foundations and technical skills aren't covered as well as they could be.
My favorite intro to micro book at the moment is David Colander's. (Sigh...so this is what I've come to..."favorite" textbooks.) It's a good combo of theory/policy, it presents the technical basics without going into overwhelming, unnecessary detail, and I think it's clear, well-structured, and has one of lowest concentrations of bullshit I've seen in an intro econ textbook.
So...I hope that was actually helpful and didn't just complicate things. Happy to chat about it more if you have more questions.
"gift economies" are not a past thing that is no longer. Most of our economic activities among families, friends, lovers ...etc are "gift economies".
https://www.amazon.com/World-Gift-Jacques-T-Godbout/dp/0773517510
Historical Dictionary of Socialism would be my go to-reference.
Not exactly a breeze to go trough, but worth it.
This is correct. The PDA (Afghanistan's Communist Party) took land from political opponents and, most notably, rural Islamists. They also killed a bunch of folks and weren't extremely well organized (due to infighting). For those who want to learn more: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Gamble-Soviet-War-Afghanistan/dp/0061143197
Ok. I do intend to read it.
The camping trip reminded me that it has already been answered by capitalists. I have not read this one either.
https://www.amazon.ca/Why-Not-Capitalism-Jason-Brennan/dp/0415732972
Socialism...Seriously by Danny Katch
This seems like the book you are looking for. It's a pretty short handbook for explaining the general critiques of capitalism, and explaining what socialism is. A great introduction, I recommend it a lot.
There's multiple ways that already exist in other countries to show how to transition/start a coop. Richard Wolff explains this in his book . Basically workers can buy it from an employer who is sympathetic or retiring and wants to sell. Or as Wolff likes to bring up, it can model Italy's Marcora Law which allows for unemployed workers to get in groups of 10 people to start a coop. If they do, the government will pay each worker their 2 years worth of unemployment in one lump sum to help with investment capital in their self directed business. This law has existed since the 80s. Also there are banks that currently will loan to coops although not as reliably as normally structured businesses.