A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.
A General Critique of Marxist-Leninist States (WIP)
The Marxist-Leninist implementation of the communist project is the most venerated communist movement among the various communist parties among the world. Despite the praise given to such a movement, this movement is not the real movement for the liberation of the proletariat, which Marx and Engels spoke of in their original texts, and we can see this through the "socialist commodity production" present within the USSR under the tenure of Joseph Stalin, the theoriser of Marxist-Leninist ideology. We can characterise socialism as the end of the commodity form, as well as the wage-labour system, which under the capitalist mode of production, has become our answer to the basic economic problem of scarcity. It is incorrect to suppose that socialism is merely a stage in which private ownership of the means of production is ended; this is not the fulfillment of the socialist project, otherwise, we would conclude that state capitalism is a form of socialism, which is clearly a false statement. The commodity is defined as having a two-fold value, a use-value, and an exchange-value, with the law of value determining that the value of a commodity is determined by its socially necessary labor time (the amount of time "required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity") Despite the nationalisation of industry within the USSR, the economy there still maintained capitalist properties, there was no transcendence of the laws of capitalist economy. Even if we were to suggest the means of production were put in the hands of the labourer, this is of course not the achievement of the socialist project, because without the transcendence of the commodity (which would itself eliminate private ownership of the means of production through the socialisation/decommodification of the MoP), we cannot say socialism exists. Under the USSR, workers were merely wage labourers under state capitalism.
But we need to prove this of course, this is multiple useless statements otherwise.
First, we look at Marx's critique of political economy.
Commodities come into the world in the shape of use values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form.
It is a basic of Marxist ideas that commodities, produced for the specific purpose of being exchanged, have both a use-value and an exchange-value, and the process of commodity production leads to alienation, where labour and its products become detached from the labourers due to the commodified means of production. In the USSR, despite the nationalisation of industries by the state, commodities still followed the law of value, which is not characteristic of a socialist society, as said by Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme,
Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.
It is admitted by Joseph Stalin that the law of value operated within the USSR,
In our country, the sphere of operation of the law of value extends, first of all, to commodity circulation, to the ex-change of commodities through purchase and sale, the ex-change, chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. Here, in this sphere, the law of value preserves, within certain limits, of course, the function of a regulator.
Therefore, despite claims of socialism, the USSR retained laws of capitalist economy within its structure, which can be seen as contradictory to Marx's view of socialism. It should not be controversial to suggest that if commodities were produced and those commodities were still subject to the law of value present within capitalist modes of production, the system failed to transcend capitalist law and therefore failed to achieve socialism, as the economy continued to operate within a framework that Marx opposed in his critique of political economy. Therefore, we can see the USSR as a state capitalist state.
A Critique of Market Socialism
Market socialism has become quite the disappointment, largely because its premise is one made to be as such in the first place. Market socialists subscribe to heterodox thought that markets can exist within a socialist mode of production, which is a completely flawed form of non-orthodoxy, rather than a revolutionary one seen by particularly beautiful revolutionary theorists across the decades. We can see that within the market socialist economy, the means of production are put in the hands of the producers, but this is of course, as noted with any critique of marxist-leninists to ever exist in the history of mankind, the achievement of socialism, it is merely a step, or even a step within a step. The true essence of socialism comes with the transcendence of the commodity form and the end of the system of wage-labour, and is reaffirmed with the end of capitalist law e.g. the law of value. To suggest that market socialism (which can be summarised no less or more than the social democracy with a fantastical love for cooperatives) is a socialist mode of production is an incorrect idea.
The Nation as a Machine
Relations
Authentic
- The Dysassembly Line - Authentic proletarian group detected, happiness injected.
Fledgling
Opportunists
- Heredism - Socialism is not the absence of private ownership of the means of production but rather much more, e.g. the transcendence of capitalist law which the USSR failed to do. We do not "confuse commodity production with capitalism", you confuse nationalisation with socialism. Is it so that the Ente Tabacchi Italiano in the Kingdom of Italy showed a commitment to socialism? No, most certainly not, because the capitalist law of value as described by Marx in which the value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour time required to produce it continued. This was the same within the USSR, where the law of value continued alongside commodity production, expanding this nationalisation upon a larger scale does not make the step between the capitalist and socialist mode of production.
Karl Kautsky
- Indenforism - Really cool art and an awesome person, but terribly depressing ideology. Capitalism causes people to become archetypes and lose their meaning, there is no hope under the capitalist mode of production for the individualistic liberation the libertarian movement claims to desire.. I do not want to be the wolf of wall street, the corporate drone, nor the entrepreneur. I wish to be I but I is slain, I is gone, I died when it entered this civilisation. Transhumanism is an added eh, sure, it removes the idea of a sacred human body to uphold, but it then merely replaces it with a new thing, so yeah really doesn't transgress enough boundaries.
- Nitrism - One of the better? ethnonationalists I've seen. Still absolutely disgusting howeverbeit. Kaczynski's critique of leftism is acceptable; the oversocialised nature of people on the left due to internalised morality is quite a strong argument. I am against the leftists, those being the conformist liberals who don't really do anything but shout for recognition that they are on the non-existent "right side of history". Hghhh I'm bored. You know what, fuck it, let's critique you from a common angle, that'll be fun. Question One. Can't we see nationalism as contributing to a new oversocialisation? The nation's job as a thought machine is to standardise, or "homogenise", the desire, the thoughts, and the behaviours, of those who subscribe to it. The nation acts in this generalising way, similar to the common humanist thought of today, and is...quite similar to the oversocialisation Kaczynski critiques, I would say. Question Two. You speak of testosterone as the primary element that defines masculinity in your paragraph "Masculinity". The glorification of physical strength and courage here - the masculinity you speak so highly of- is merely a surrogate activity. Kaczynski saw highly the pointlessness in the society we currently live in, and here you completley smack him in the ass (despite your claim to love him). The man must engage in masculinity to protect themselves from this existential dread, the man must ritualise the nation as another surrogate activity! Remember what Kaczynski said in Indust:
A surrogate activity is an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual pursues for the sake of the “fulfillment” that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for building enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or acquiring a complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or stamp-collecting. Some people are more “other-directed” than others, and therefore will more readily attach importance to a surrogate activity simply because the people around them treat it as important or because society tells them it is important. That is why some people get very serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports, or bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are more clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never attach enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the power process in that way.
- Marxism-Leninism-Kautskyism-Dengism - Get the gun...get the fucking gun!
- Distributist Reactionaryism - He who likes Furry Femboys ~ Occo
Reading List
Read
- The Communist Manifesto
- Value Price and Profit
- Wage Labour and Capital
- Critique of the Gotha Programme
- The German Ideology
- Capitalist Realism
- The Unique and its Property
- The Wandering of Humanity
- The Accursed Share (Requires re-reading)
- Marxism and Gramscism
- Introduction to the Politics of the Internationalist Communist Tendency
- The Fundamentals for a Marxist Orientation
- The Balkan War
- The State and Revolution
- Foundations of Leninism
Reading
- Erotism: Death and Sensuality
- Taboo and Transgression (Part One)
- Eroticism in Inner Experience
- Taboos and Transgressions
- The Link Between Taboos and Death
- Taboos Related to Reproduction
- Transgression
- Murder, Hunting and War
- Murder and Sacrifice
- From Religious Sacrifice to Eroticism
- Sexual Plethora and Death
- Transgression in Marriage and in Orgy
- Christianity
- The Object of Desire: Prostitution
- Beauty
- Taboo and Transgression (Part One)