bdazman [he/him]

honey, go outside.

the original (the 1890s one by Engles I believe) is super good compared to the Penguin one because some of the newer publications of Capital literally added words by selectively translating words that may or may not have been translated previously. Concepts like Valorization are essentially linguistic artifacts of such translations, as argued by Cockshott --> https://youtu.be/XV518Z6ob_E

Socialism4All did a capital volume 1 audiobook reading and the commentary he offers is absolutely transformational while also being very minimal. --> https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXUFLW8t2snu8BtqMfedSA6AaNcfXjFmN

This is a stark comparison to Heinrichs “Introduction” to Capital which reads as quite revisionist to me as I am not a “Value-Form” advocate who denies the TRPF as Henrich does.

Meet other marxists by any means neccesary. Mine is full of maoists and folks whose red line is democratic party entryism. Give them a shot, you might be pleasantly surprised. Get into a reading group. Its better than nothing (unless they’re doing democratic party opportunism then it might be worse than finding something else but at least find some other marxists to talk to).

Its such a good fucking book, as well as his next book on Make Believe Media as a snapshot of a kind of socialist media criticism in the early 90s that’s a dazzling work of materialist analysis.

I know a lot of people that poopoo Parenti but I think his books are fucking excellent.

I recall an important note from the first paragraph of Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxembourg.

In it, she states clearly that reforms are not fundamentally in opposition to revolution. This is something a lot of people mistake or forget. The key is whether the reforms are the goal in and of themselves, A La Bernstein, or if the reforms are a means towards revolution.

I’m not sure to what end a wealth tax or a tax which attempts to convert more companies into so called nonprofits would forward either to be honest, but I feel like these could very easily be mistaken as ends rather than means. I don’t see how either of these directly meets a concrete need for working class people (who live in the Untied Snakes of Amerikkka of course) or make a dent in imperialism or unequal exchange. From an ecosocialist point of view, I think rapidly shifting the housing stock and transportation/energy infrastructure to being less capital intensive is an incredibly important step which can happen now, because as the rate of profit falls, it will become increasingly impossible to house and transport people, which are some very useful forms of propaganda as they address concrete problems with concrete solutions.

I would love to hear your review of the book in the newsletter if you get around to it. It’s next on my reading list.

“Officer this arrest is entirely unwarranted! Communists get what they want too and there’s plenty of Uranium to go around!”