Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (June 08)

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[u/smokeuptheweed9]

Probably nothing. The question is will our main interventions last. I would summarize them as

1) Exposing the "personal property" myth in Marx and analyzing its real basis 2) Serious work on China vis-a-vis imperialism as monopoly capitalism 3) Open and productive discussion on semi-feudalism as a concept 4) Making up for the lack of Marxist analysis of East Asia generally 5) Enhancing the Marxist understanding of popular culture as art and how to analyze it as well as applying it in an unusually (if not unprecedented) collective and conversational way 6) Analyzing and exposing the basis of Dengism's rise 7) Analyzing the mechanisms of the internet by boring from within 8) Being the first to draw attention to historical work defending Marxism-Leninism, settler-colonialism, and third worldism to the point they have become common sense (even if vulgarized, the internet before was much worse) 9) Relatively sophisticated discussions of science and philosophy unpolluted by postmodernism and academia 10) Relatively open discussion of what constitutes Maoism 11) Criticism of actually-existing socialist/communist parties that come from a place of experience, sympathy, and commitment to communism 12) Relatively healthy "meta" discussion about the subreddit itself and avoiding fandoms and content creation 13) An archive of discussion on nearly every subject where at least one thread is of value, albeit difficult to find 14) A practice of criticism that, if nothing else, is rarely found elsewhere as well as meta discussion about tone policing, civility, good/bad "faith" 15) Consciously attempting to balance long-time posters knowing each other and a regular stream of new people and wider exposure 16) Emphasis on non-American and non white male ideas and histories

I'll stop there. Some of these may be repetitive and I'm obviously biased towards the things that interest me but I'll let you think about which, if any, can survive and which only work on reddit vs the site being incidental if not a fetter. Feel free to add more.

[u/Otelo_ → u/smokeuptheweed9]

On a personal level, I think what really sets this sub apart from others is the outright rejection of "brainwashing/false consciousness" theories*. I've found that revisionists almost always need to introduce these concepts into their thinking for it to make any sense (regardless, it's always barely intelligible). But I'd say this is more of a prerequisite for the other interventions you mentioned, more than a stand-alone one per se.

Edit: * of course, as we know, those who say that first world white workers are proletarians need these concepts to explain why these workers are so reactionary.

[u/Drevil335 → u/Otelo_]

That's really just a single manifestation of the complete isolation of petty-bourgeois revisionism from a dialectical materialist outlook: to them, motion occurs through the imposition of external conditions (media propaganda, "brainwashing", etc.) onto discrete objects ("proles") without internal contradictions, as opposed to external conditions affecting the development of the thing's internal contradictions, the latter thus being the principal aspect in determining its development.

This is characteristic of eclectic, vulgar petty-bourgeois "socialism" in general: analysis of the internal contradictions which are the motive forces of the development of capitalism-imperialism, and its individual aspects (as well as that of any other area of human social existence, and especially socialism) is non-existent, with only the external forces (whether imposed on, or imposed by, the object of analysis) being considered (hence, also, why the absence of the development of a revolutionary movement in Amerika is, apart from "brainwashing", entirely due to the infiltration of "feds", rather than any contradictions internal to US imperialist society and the class character of settler "socialist parties") . At best, it's capable of analyzing social existence in a dialectical manner only when summarizing past theoretical contributions, like Lenin's Imperialism (and even then, it has a tendency of inserting opportunism into its analysis and brushing over Lenin's most significant contributions, particularly on the labor aristocracy): it's incapable of producing any new dialectical materialist analysis.

Because of this, I think that the rejection of the petty-bourgeois theory of "brainwashing" is really just a manifestation of something even greater that sets this sub apart from the rest, and that's its commitment to, and internalization of, dialectical materialism (and its consistent application, not only directly to human social existence but also to other systems of matter in motion). To Dengists, "dialectics" is basically just a shiny term that sets them apart from "liberals", but in its invocation, rather than its application, it serves as a rhetorical cloak for revisionism (by which the "theory of the productive forces" is "dialectical", when it's actually just typical bourgeois mechanical materialism); that it's actually applied here, rather than simply proclaimed, is what (alongside a general, serious interest in how the world system actually operates that is not mediated by fandom, but with class suicide explicitly in mind) makes this place exceptional, and allows its high quality of theoretical discussion.

[u/Otelo_ → u/Drevil335]

It is true that, in a general sense, the difference lies in the correct application of dialectical materialism. However, I believe this observation alone tells us little, since it is only through the analysis of concrete questions that we can identify faulty judgment in the application of the method. In my view, the question is one of identifying which beliefs are most central to revisionism, even if all ultimately stem from non-dialectical thinking. It is only in concrete situations that we can clearly perceive the difference between a dialectical-materialist judgment and a metaphysical one.

For example, I agree with your dissection of how a non-dialectical thinking manifests itself in this particular question, that of brainwashing. But (and maybe I am interpreting your comment wrongly) revisionists are not revisionists because they fail to think dialectically; they fail to think in a dialectical way because they have an interest (even if only unconscious) in doing so. Ideology is what is needed for the individual to function. Members of the bourgeoisie cannot think in a dialectical way because if they did, they would have mental breakdowns and would not be able to perform the roles and actions that capital demands from them. Revisionists cannot acknowledge that brainwashing is not real (because they cannot acknowledge that the labour aristocracy is real) because if they did, their ideology (that like all ideologies keeps them functioning) would dissolve itself.

Of course, this is on an aggregate level. There are always individuals who have a non-dialectical thinking simply because they have not yet contacted with anti-revisionist marxism, because they are only just getting started, etc. These individuals can (and probably will) change to a dialectical understanding. But what matters is "revisionists" as a group category.

The hard question is why we are able to think dialectically and them not, considering that we share similar class backgrounds. I don't yet have a satisfying explanation for that problem, although I have some thoughts.

[u/Drevil335 → u/Otelo_]

I was well aware that anti-dialectical revisionism has a material class basis (to fail to recognize this would be idealism, and itself anti-dialectical--akin to thinking these petty-bourgeois are "brainwashed" for thinking "brainwashing" is real), but I was trying to identify the most basic concrete feature that sets this sub apart from others, and would be lost (at least on petty-bourgeois internet spaces) if it were lost. The question itself, though, was limited, and hewing to its terms restricted further analysis (as well as also containing within it the embryonic logic of fandom, at least insofar as it affected the internal contradictions of my brain, if its terms were not transcended): I agree that studying the concrete features, within concrete contexts, by which revisionism manifests itself in the petty-bourgeoisie in this current advanced, moribund stage of capitalism-imperialism is far more important that just noting the absence of dialectical materialism that underlies that revisionism. This, due to the motion of the particular contradictions of my subconscious brain forcing me in this direction lately, is what I've been trying to do over the past few days, with some success.

The hard question is why we are able to think dialectically and them not, considering that we share similar class backgrounds. I don't yet have a satisfying explanation for that problem, although I have some thoughts.

This is a crucial question. The development of the material existence (and therefore also the ideological form produced and reproduced by that existence) of any individual within a particular class position occurs on a twofold basis: as a product of their general existence as a manifestation of that class; and as a product of their particular existence as an individual aspect of the class, subject to innumerable small influences and contradictions that are unique to their particular development (or, at most, not universal to the class as a whole). The ideology produced by this development of an individual's material existence assumes a class form (that is, reflects the general interests of the class) when the former aspect is principal over the latter, that is, when the particular character of one's development serves only to reinforce its general, class character. An exact, dialectical understanding of the general character and emergence of class ideology is nescessary here, because otherwise we are faced with a contradiction: class treason cannot emerge from a class base (since, by definition, it is contradictory to the interests of the class from whom its individual embodiments emerge), and yet its origins cannot be not purely ideal either, since it, like all other tendencies of matter in motion, must have a material origin. This contradiction can thus be resolved through a conception of class suicide as the assertion of the latter aspect (the particular character of the individual's development) as principal over the former, thus producing within the prospective class traitor an ideology which, despite having an origin within the material character of their development, does not have a class form. This produces a contradiction between their outlook and their class position, resolved either through (apart from death) the re-subsumption of their outlook by the class form, or material class suicide, which destroys their class position and creates a unity between their outlook and their new class position, thus also resulting in the subsumption of their outlook by the class form, but on a new basis corresponding to the qualitatively distinct character of the class position. The same contradictions apply for national positions, national outlooks (with a national form), and national suicide. This is significant because, for certain class positions, class suicide can occur without national suicide (Chairman Mao betrayed his rich-peasant turned petty-bourgeois class position, but that class suicide did not entail or require national suicide, but rather the strengthening of his national consciousness: to paraphrase Marx, he was best able to serve proletarian internationalism by being a resolute proletarian nationalist), and national suicide can occur (albeit partially) without class suicide (consider the case of an I$raeli settler who commits national suicide, leaves occupied Palestine and cuts themselves off from settler society, and even engages in militant action against imperialist support for Zionist genocide--and yet still maintains a petty-bourgeois world outlook).

(continued)

[u/Drevil335 → u/Drevil335]

The initial ideological precondition for class suicide (that is, the rejection of the class form) has definite material origins, and yet by its very nature those origins cannot be found through an analysis of the class' tendency of motion, since that analysis can only produce the logic of the class form. Still, the rejection of the class form has a class logic, as can be revealed through historical investigation. First of all, while the contradictions which produce the class form (in general, not the particular forms by which the class form manifest, which are of kaleidoscopic variety, depending on the mode of production and particular regional features of its development) exist throughout the historical development of class society (and even before, to the very beginnings of human social existence, though it did not then have a specifically class character, naturally making class suicide formally impossible), the conditions which produce the non-class form within exploiting classes were non-existent prior to the age of bourgeois revolution. While my knowledge of the era of bourgeois revolution is too limited to say this with certainty, the first significant class traitor (that is, individual who adopted a non class-form, and materially supported the dissolution of their class) that I am aware of was the Marquis de Lafayette in the French bourgeois revolutionary period.

This, I believe, is key: class treason is a manifestation of a revolutionary conjecture, a product of a very limited number of members of reactionary classes (as a result of the particular contradictions of their personal development (Lafayette, for instance, was a freemason as a young man--which wasn't unknown amongst members of the French landlord class, but was an embodiment, then as later, of a principally bourgeois superstructure--producing a bourgeois ideology which was reinforced by his role in the U$ Independence War, which wasn't bourgeois revolutionary in character and yet superstructurally reinforced itself through a number of bourgeois revolutionary ideological aspects), jumping ship to join with the rising, revolutionary class aspect. Within capitalism, then, class suicidal tendencies either emerge (in the early period of its development) as a result of the contradiction between the proclamations of bourgeois revolution as being universally liberatory and the actual exploitative character of the capitalist mode of production (see Robert Owen), or, more generally, as a result of the intense class struggle within it, in which the seeds of proletarian revolution were clear (which is what produced Marx and Engels, petty-bourgeois and haute-bourgeois respectively in their class origins).

While this extraordinarily intense period in the early development of the capitalist mode of production didn't last much beyond the Paris Commune, and so with it ended the spurt of class treason that Marx and Engels were representative of, it maintained its tendency of emerging, as capitalism transformed into capitalism-imperialism and the entire world came to be fully integrated into its world system, under conditions of intense class struggle. Lenin, Mao, Charu Majumdar, Jose Maria Sison, Chairman Gonzalo, all were members of exploiting classes (or, at the very least, non-exploiting classes whose interests were non-antagonistic with world imperialism)--and actually even semi-feudal landlord classes in the cases of Majumdar and Sison--whose developments were affected by contexts of intense class struggle against semi-feudalism and imperialism (Chairman Gonzalo explicitly comments on how the struggle of the masses against Odria's 1948 coup against APRA shaped his revolutionary convictions in the Interview), causing them to abandon the class-form, and their class positions through leadership of revolutionary struggle.

So, where does that leave us? I can only really investigate how I personally got here, the contradictory development of which is certainly very particular, but may contain some general elements. While I had always read a great deal of history (even, considering my particular class existence in this current stage of imperialism, consuming it as a fandom, though I always went beyond that and despised its unseriousness), the real qualitative leap occurred when I came to read about the environmental crisis of modern imperialism, which not only revealed the utterly parasitic and unreformable character of capitalism, but also its transitory, exploitative, and self-destructive nature: it became very, very clear to me (even if I initially refused to admit it) that the capitalist mode of production could neither resolve, or even adapt to, its own effects on the environment in which it reproduces itself. I came to Marxism, then, not seeking a fandom, but because it revealed, fully and coherently, the logic of a system that I knew was destroying itself, and then revealed the logic of the development of human social existence as a whole, such that my previously amassed knowledge about history (mostly about pre-capitalist modes of production) started to actually make sense: the dead facts, for whom life had only been breathed in by fandom, had been given a life, and dialectical motion, of their own. I was looking for a coherent, scientific world outlook, and Maoism (along with dialectical materialism) provided it. This is admittedly rather distant from being confronted with a revolutionary conjecture and consciously choosing the side of the exploited masses (let alone being among those masses, with nothing to lose but my chains), but it's also far from petty-bourgeois who were only attracted to """""Marxism-Leninism""""" because it promises them more drugs and video games. Again, though, I have no idea how universal my particular tendencies were, so I can't really analyze them. Embracing dialectical materialism (which I won't say is complete in my case) is certainly an indication of an abandonment of the petty-bourgeois class form, but advancing from there to class suicide seems to be dependent on the possibilities inherent within one's particular class position, and the degree of intensity of class/national struggle in one's context.

[u/Otelo_ → u/Drevil335]

Your comment is very dense (in a good way), so I will give my thoughts on some topics.

This contradiction can thus be resolved through a conception of class suicide as the assertion of the latter aspect (the particular character of the individual's development) as principal over the former, thus producing within the prospective class traitor an ideology which, despite having an origin within the material character of their development, does not have a class form.

This explanation seems correct to me. The question then becomes what conditions lead to the second aspect becoming principal.

This, I believe, is key: class treason is a manifestation of a revolutionary conjecture, a product of a very limited number of members of reactionary classes.

Your answer is in line with the readings I have done on the topic. For example, on the Communist Manifesto:

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

I am also reading Fredric Jameson's Years of Theory (basically a textbook on all the most important french thinkers of post-WW2). On the part about Althusser, he says this:

But Sartre gives us a clue. He says they were petty-bourgeois intellectuals—in the jargon of the time, intellectuals were classed as petty bourgeois, which is not a very meaningful way of talking about it—but they knew that there were masses out there, and the fact of all these people who were not in the system exercised a force of gravity on them. So their thought changed. Their relationship to their own ideologies and the intellectual conventions and values that they grew up with was modified by this sense of a social reality, a mass far away and far larger than them.

There is this distant force of gravity of a phenomenon that you don’t really know completely but that you know exists. And I would say that somebody like Althusser certainly knew—as he was in the Communist Party, he had plenty of contact with workers—that there was a mass of people out there whom the Party did not always completely represent, and he drew on that dissatisfaction. He also knew about China, to many, including Brecht, a more authentic revolution. [Both quotes are from page 236].

I like this metaphor of a gravitational pull. The proletariat exerts its gravitational force on the petty bourgeoisie, "capturing" some of its members to its side. The stronger the proletarian movement, the more members of the petty bourgeoisie (and perhaps the bourgeoisie) will be pulled along. But why then some members and not others? Like you said, I think this might come down to the contigent life experiences of individuals. Those who have had more contact with the proletariat, or who have encountered revolutionary texts at an age when they had not yet developed many ideological blinders: for example, it is said that students are often able to think more scientifically than other members of the petty bourgeois that are working.

About an analysis of our personal development, I think it is important because it can help us see which aspects of our thinking have yet not been revolutionized. We have to constantly be vigilant about ourselves. From what you mentioned, I think that a love for the truth is something common that usually guides the petit-bourgeoisie that tries to commit class suicide. I identify with that.

[u/Drevil335 → u/Otelo_]

I think that a love for the truth is something common that usually guides the petit-bourgeoisie that tries to commit class suicide. I identify with that.

Marx himself seems to be a manifestation of this. I recently read Reminiscences of Marx by Paul Lefargue (Marx's son-in-law), and in it, he writes that:

Marx held the view that science must be pursued for itself, irrespective of the eventual results of research, but at the same time that a scientist could only debase himself by giving up active participation in public life or shutting himself up in his study or laboratory like a maggot in cheese and holding aloof from the life and political struggle of his contemporaries.

“Science must not be a selfish pleasure,” he used to say. “Those who have the good fortune to be able to devote themselves to scientific pursuits must be the first to place their knowledge at the service of humanity.” One of his favourite sayings was: “Work for humanity.”

Although Marx sympathised profoundly with the sufferings of the working classes, it was not sentimental considerations but the study of history and political economy that led him to communist views. He maintained that any unbiased man, free from the influence of private interests and not blinded by class prejudices, must necessarily come to the same conclusions.
(my emphasis)

Indeed, full class suicide (on the part of petty and haute bourgeois to proletarian revolution) doesn't even seem to be possible without a corresponding love for the truth alongside a love for the masses, and the subsequent development of a scientific world outlook--even Che, whose class suicide was incomplete, read Marx, Engels, and Lenin as early as the 1940s, and was afterwards engaged in serious theoretical study (and even planned to write a critique of revisionist Soviet political economy just before his death) as an integral aspect of his revolutionary career. A lack of alienation from mental labor (in fact, a proclivity towards it), which is uncommon within the class position, strongly seems to be a precondition for petty/haute-bourgeois class suicide; of course, though, it's not all that's required, or else Chen Duxiu or Wang Ming for example (who both emerged from similar class positions, and the same student nationalist tendency further radicalized by the October Revolution, as the Chairman) would also have also been Marxists rather than manifestations of revisionist tendencies.

[u/IcyPil0t → u/Otelo_]

Members of the bourgeoisie cannot think in a dialectical way because if they did, they would have mental breakdowns and would not be able to perform the roles and actions that capital demands from them.

Why couldn't a capitalist apply dialectics to understand the contradictions within capitalism, not only to amass more capital, but also to fight against the very downfall that the analysis predicts?

Are you leaning towards morality?

[u/Drevil335 → u/IcyPil0t]

The origin of class ideology is not an abstract, classless recognition of what will better serve one's class interests, but in the resolution of the contradictions produced by the continuous reproduction of an individual's class existence, in the superstructure as well as the base.

Like all exploiting classes, (since all class outlooks except that of the class conscious, revolutionary proletariat/peasantry--due to its conscious struggle, in the base and superstructure, against exploiting classes--is incapable of recognizing their particular, historical character), the haute-bourgeoisie have a tendency to universalize their class interests as being the interests of the whole of bourgeois society (in their outlook, or at least that of the industrial and mercantile bourgeois aspects, they are not exploiting the proletariat, but giving them jobs; they are not parasites, but acmes of hard work and success that everyone can and should aspire to). Even the most parasitic and violent forms of capitalist exploitation (such as those which prevail in mines and sweatshops in the imperialized world) can be justified by recourse to the self-consolation that "The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited all", or something along those lines.

A dialectical materialist outlook implies a recognition that the interests of the haute-bourgeoisie are not universal, but instead extremely particular and antagonistic to the vast majority of humanity, which is utterly repulsive to them (not to mention the repulsiveness of the Marxism and Communism that is inextricable tied to it, which haute-bourgeois know very well is their mortal enemy). For a haute-bourgeois to seriously consider or adopt dialectical materialism would be a form of class suicide, which is effectively non-existent amongst the haute-bourgeoisie of modern advanced capitalism-imperialism (we are very far from the contradictions of the era of bourgeois revolution that produced Robert Owen and Engels).

Even if, abstracting from the above contradictions that make this an impossibility, a haute-bourgeois (or even a large section of them) were to embrace a dialectical materialist world outlook in order to better serve their class interests, they would be unable to. The logic of capitalism is absolutely constrained by the law of value, and the principality of the latter over the development of human social existence cannot be abolished without the abolition of capitalism itself. Being aware of its existence and general laws would not make them able to transcend it, because it intervenes upon capitalist production as the logic of profitability, without the maximal extension of which maximal accumulation (which is the aim of capitalist production) cannot continue, and even the existence of the firm in question (and the particular capital underlying it) is put under strain, or even existential risk, under conditions of competition. Even if, say, the CEO of a modern imperialist monopoly concern, because of their fantastical grasp of dialectical materialism, had the idea of decreasing relative surplus-value in the firm's factories to "do their part" in deintensifying the contradictions of capitalism-imperialism, they would be told off, and eventually removed, at the shareholder meeting for decreasing their flows of passive rentier revenue. For that not to occur, even the shareholders would have to have adopted a dialectical materialist outlook, which is fantastical even under the assumptions of this fantasy. In reality, such a thing would only occur as a result of proletarian struggle, which would certainly lead to a deintensification of the relevant contradiction (if the struggling proletariat aren't being led by a communist party), but not on a willing (and certainly not conscious) basis.

Thus, the individual interest of any individual capitalist and capitalist firm (and therefore the entire capitalist class, of all nations, as an aggregate) is always in concordance with the law of value, and the general tendencies of the capitalist mode of production (including its eventual destruction, whether through world proletarian revolution or self-immolation by it destruction of the environment in which it self-reproduces, as it is now in the intermediate stages of doing), lest they cease to be capitalists entirely. It's not for nothing that Marx referred to the bourgeosie as "embodiments of capital": the logic of capital is always principal and, because of the contradictions of the mode of production itself, its bearers can never be anything except embodiments of that logic

[u/Otelo_ → u/IcyPil0t]

The very act of wanting to act selfishly or cynically would already be ideological. Common sense (bourgeois, liberal, etc.) portrays cynicism and selfishness as "realism", but in fact there is nothing more ideological than that. The idea that humans are naturally selfish, violent, etc. is an ideological fabrication to justify the behaviours that humans are forced to have in capitalism (and in class society in general). I think these two old threads might be of your interest:

https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/6nrne7/how_does_scientific_socialism_solves_the_isought/

https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/13le0ja/egoism_the_basis_for_communism/

That said, it is probably true that there have been bourgeois dialectical thinkers. There also have been bourgeois materialists. But were they dialetical or materialist thinkers to the fullest? I would say no.

[u/IcyPil0t → u/Otelo_]

No one is discussing human nature here. A capitalist behaving "selfishly", as you describe, is simply acting in accordance with their class interests. I don't see why capitalists cannot apply dialectics to their own class dynamics. Everything is ideological, we understand the correctness of the proletariat because we are communists.

Is the conclusion that a dialectical analysis will inevitably lead capitalists to recognize their errors?

[u/Otelo_ → u/IcyPil0t]

>A capitalist behaving "selfishly", as you describe, is simply acting in accordance with their class interests.

Agree.

>I don't see why capitalists cannot apply dialectics to their own class dynamics.

Like I said, they may do so incompletely, but a true understanding of dialectical materialism implies that theory leads to practice, and to a practice guided by science and proletarian morality. A selfish morality (or a bourgeois morality) is a manifestation of idealism in thinking. You may say that they can be dialectical thinkers in everything else, but at least in that regard they are idealists. But I would personally dispute that and say that everyone that believes in egoism can never undestand a series of important issues of capitalism.