My English college textbook is desperately trying to convince me that Communism is still relevant.
>>24744141It is in academic circles, in the real world, not so much.
>>24744141What uni?
>>24744146I don't want to dox myself but I am going to a state college in very conservative state.
I can't tell if this is a joke or them severely downplaying the Soviet Union's censorship.
>>24744155>Stalin soon banished Trotsky"Banished" is an interesting euphemism for "assassinated with an ice pick".
>>24744158Trotsky was killed in Mexico, where he was in political exile.>>24744153They're just seeing if you can think outside the box. You don't have to agree with it but try to think about the underlying logic of historical materialism and class analysis. You'll do well. Good luck, anon.
The commies always love to pose the question "Socialism or Barbarism?" as if we don't know the answer to that. As if we don't know that it's always going to be Barbarism, because people are shitty. The fact that they think we might ever NOT choose Barbarism is the reason they'll always lose.
>>24744161>Trotsky was killed in Mexico, where he was in political exile....by an assassin sent by Stalin.
>>24744141Communism will always be relevant as long as we live under capitalism. We might end up practicing it in a different way than the Soviets did. Maybe even call it something else. But essentially people's rule over their workplaces, their work and their lives should be the goal.
>>24744170>But essentially people's rule over their workplaces, their work and their lives should be the goal.Should it? Unions gained control of the automobile industry in America and they destroyed it.
>>24744169... After Trotsky, a revolutionary jew, was exiled by every nation where he was an asylum seeker (because he was constantly trying to incite a communist revolution), Stalin (and NOT the Mexican capitalists), after expelling Trotsky from the communist party 10 years before and 8 years after exiling him from the USSR, decides to eventually kill him. Why? Who knows. But we trust the propaganda comics, so this must be exactly what happened.
>>24744174Well I'm not well versed in intricacies of US automobile production. But I presume the manufacturing was shifted overseas. But in that case what are we even witnessing here? If one set of workers hit the elite class' bottom line, they will shift to another set. That's why it's essential for all workers to take power into their own hands
>>24744174If the porkie trasferred all his industries to China because in the US the salaries are too high, should the US reduce the salaries in order to accomodate the porkie? Would (You) work for 2 bucks an hour in the US?
>>24744199Workers demanded unreasonably high wages, so the cost of American cars went up. People larely quit buying American cars, so the factories closed down. Part of being a leader is making tough decisions, which isn't something workers are not always interested in doing.
>>24744205Ironically you can counteract some of this with tariffs, but since Trump likes those every Democrat hates them.
>>24744167It's the age old Rousseauvian naive trust in human nature versus the Hobbesian cruel distrust in human nature thing. I think there are people who wouldn't choose barbarism, but the problem with them is they all tend to be too naive to not get icepicked by the people who truly don't give a shit.
>>24744211I think the issue is we are stuck looking at the microcosm of the system here instead of the system itself. Automobile workers demanding higher wages isn't exactly socialism. One could look at it the other way round and conclude that the solution to higher automobile prices is higher wages for workers in other industries and the general populace.
>>24744261>higher wages for workers in other industries and the general populaceWages are high in America compared to most countries but Americans still refuse to buy American products. Americans want high wages and cheap products too.
>>24744141Your college is trying to teach you believe. It's its main hussle.
Did they quote another person with the last name Marx simply due to this coincidence?
>>24744174UPS are unionised and they’re cheaper than FedEx or Purolator, which are not unionised. It’s not even like American autoworkers were demanding unreasonably high wages. Just decent ones. But Schlomo could save a buck by paying some Chinamen a dollar a day instead to make shitty cars. So naturally that’s the financially prudent choice.But as we see in logistics or public services that can’t be offshored wholesale unions can proliferate and Schlomo will just have to seethe about it. Visible in how Amazon fears them so much.
>>24744211Yet, despite offshoring to China and saving a fortune in labour, the price of American cars still only kept going up. Ask yourself who’s really demanding unreasonably high pay in that industry.
>>24744141it's been hot for over a century because humanities phds make dogshit money despite studying for all those years. broke niggas stay mad
>>24744141Considering capitalism vs communism arguments still thrives on the internet three decades after after the soviet fell it's not wrong.
>>24744167Bordiga wrote entire articles in praise of barbarismhttps://libcom.org/article/onwards-barbarians
>>24744574He just sat on his hands and let Mussolini take over
should highschools make Marx mandatory reading to better prepare them for college?
>>24744323That's not the point here. Everyone will want the cheapest they can buy relative to their wages. Increase wages and you will inadvertently increase sales despite higher prices. Comparison to non-Americans is a pointless diversion. In your hypothetical example, despite how much more Americans make compared to others, the sales will still fall with higher prices. Which could only be offset by higher wages.The goal ultimately is to make sure that less and less money goes into the pockets of owners all across the board.
>>24744580Only certain excerpts.
>>24744386>It’s not even like American autoworkers were demanding unreasonably high wages.They weren't demanding high wages, they were demanding bribes for the Mafia.
>>24744174that wasn't what killed the american automotive industry; what killed it was the one-two combo of entrenched arrogance of upper management in american automakers believing that pumping out mediocre products due to a lack of a competitive environment was fine and the appearance of cheaper, more well-built foreign cars taking large chomps out of the american marketfor example, in 1973 honda's groundbreaking CVCC technology allowed cars to run so efficiently that they didn't need a catalytic converter that new emissions regulations required, the CEO of general motors looked at this and said it was "well, I have looked at this design, and while it might work on some little toy motorcycle engine...I see no potential for it on one of our GM car engines."honda imported a chevy impala, implemented the technology into the engine and sent it back to the US, the EPA tested it and it passed. general motors had no answer and the japanese just kept taking larger and larger chunks of the american market share to the point that the toyota camry is now one of the top 10 best selling cars in the US and all of the american "cars" on that same list are actually trucks, which are not legally classified as passenger cars but as their own truck category which is entirely due to funny laws that discouraged the production of passenger cars and promoted the production of trucks insteadthis is a common story among just about every single US industry in the latter half of the 20th century
>>24744639oh and i forgot to to mention that the big 3 US car manufacturers actually completely collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis because their cars over the past 10 years prior to that were utterly abysmal in no small part due to the upper management having no clue about quality, taste or consumer demandsthe US government bailed them out for ~$80 billion
>>24744141Communism is still relevant.MARXISM and any other form of state socialism is NOT
>>24745126Based. Marx is still relevant Marxism isn't. State Socialism isn't relevant the "ideology of the future" is probably something closer to Rojava rather than the USSR. I think it will be more relevant in a few decades, but I'm not sure what comes out of the current instability in the world.
>>24744141>Communism is still relevantThe Defectors warned of strategic kayfabe, and the persistence of Lenninism in shell game communitarian swindles converging civil institutions is the quiet part out loud in what you're encountering in the Academy. A Badiou and Zizek at least declare all this immensely fake and gay, and in service to what Nick Land lays out as 'capital's cybernetic self-reinforcement aka Roko's Basilisk. If you're going to have fun with this at the content & teacher's expense, one-up them satirically. Immanent critique is the spice of undergrad rigamarole.
>>24744155>Robert Service's Cold War & Stalin bio>Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator, Oleg V. KhlevniukThe tension was between decentralization & internationalism from Trotsky and Lenin vs. Stalin and consolidating Socialism in One Country as the armed citadel for world socialist warfare. Stalin was a seminarian— that's why he was so successful. Terror is Faith in the socialist's benighted mind, and without true faith there is no Party Discipline among Last Men. To argue against STALIN ICKY FASCIST, you have only to point to the holistic mediocrity and failure of his successors. Art serves the State, the State controlled by Communists can only ever be acting in alignment with Party objectives for the Worker— freedom of expression in this framework is liberal, bourgeois, idiotic, subversive: aesthetics must labor for world revolution. The Artist exists and works at the pleasure of its absolute patron, the Socialist State, or not at all.
>>24744141>an alternative form of government to capitalismThe retard thinks capitalism is a form of government, LMAO.
>>24744229>It's the age old Rousseauvian naive trust in human nature versus the Hobbesian cruel distrust in human nature thingWith this in mind, primitive Communist ideation in the unstructured artist mind is inherently reactionary and subversive.
>>24744639>>24744652>cheaper, more well-built foreign carsAnd why were they cheaper?
>>24744170>people's rule over their workplaces, their work and their lives should be the goalProletarians generally lack the talent and the work ethic to start their own enterprises, which is why this will never happen.
>>24744414Transgenderism arguments thrive on the internet due to a small number of delusional obsessives. The same applies to Marxist arguments.
>>24745126>Communism is still relevant.Then name one example of communism in practice today.
>>24745494mainly because the engineering principles that went into their design and manufacture was more cutting-edge they placed a high emphasis on value engineering, so their production meant that very little was wasted and costs were saved, enabling cheaper pricesi'm not sure why you think that workers unions destroyed the american car industry, seeing as how japan and germany have even stronger unions than the americans do but have more respectable car industries, though they are going through a rough patch at the moment thanks to... stubborn upper management, once again!i guess americans just don't care about workers; that seems to be a recurring theme whenever i study american industry cases
>>24744141What English book is this? I bet the school is some liberal shit hole like UT.
>>24744141How could the presumably marxist author type all that and just not be struck by the fundamentally marxist realization that if the system lets you do all this in its core institutions like academia, it's because it does not feel like it has anything to fear from letting you do all that? That you're the intellectual equivalent of a neutered Chihuahua?
>>24744141Anon, be honest: is this a basic introduction to literary criticism? With a chapter or two on the various positions out there? Chapter 8 being merely called "Marxism" with a milquetoast epigraph makes me think this is a baby course. Learning the basics is important and basic, not indoctrination.
>>24744141>communism isn't relev... ACK
>>24745629I agree with the statement but China isn't communist
>>24744141>monuments>sicDid he spell monuments wrong in a way I'm just too blind to see?
>>24745640>Ran and ruled by the Chinese Communist Party with an iron fist>State enterprises still comprise critical sectors of the economy; large state-centered planning with private enterprise everywhere else>Openly gunning to achieve full socialism by 2049>Current development plan policies centered around robotics & AI is literally working towards establishment of a communistic, cybernetic automated command economy.
>>24745642It’s not that “monuments” is misspelled. It’s that it should be singular, not plural, since it is the predicate nominative for “Art”. The author of the quote gets it right the first time with “confession”, thus no [sic].
>>24744141It is. If you think it's not, you've already let it beat you. This is the nature of adversity.
>>24745650You don't know what communism is.Why don't you just ask?
>>24744155There's understatement, then there's this shit.
>>24744169What kind of lunatic brings an icepick with him to Mexico?
>>24745650Yeah and the DPRK is Democratic. We'll see but I think the CPP is just state capitalist and is not moving towards socialism let alone communism. So it's not a communist "state". Is it stateless, classless, or moneyless? Is it moving toward any of those things?
Socialism and Marxism are more popular than ever. Zoomies are either Marxists or literal fascists these days. The libs lost
>>24744155God I hate Trotskyites
>>24745763Shut up retard.
>>24745770He's right
>>24745763>>24745770>>24745821I feel like this is incorrect; it's not so much that marxism, fascism, socialism, etc are on the rise, but rather that confidence in liberal democracy is the lowest it's ever been; mostly because the mask is coming off that it's essentially a means of placing the plebes and that whatever policy that the capitalist class want pushed is going to end up happening no matter how outspoken and vicious the opposition is. The younger generations are essentially finding out you can't vote your way out of economic recession, being priced out of home ownership, breakup of the family, infinity immigrants, and infinite money to israel.
>>24744141It is
