Make sure you don't stop at Vol 1. Capital is a history book, and Lenin's Imperialism is essentially Vol 4 (Capital in the 20th century, it's "highest stage". If you skip 2 and 3, you won't understand why China's model (party control over the MoP and banks) is socialist construction. By preventing the development of monopoly capital, China has prevented itself from becoming trapped in imperialism while protecting itself from Western imperialists in ways that the USSR and Albania failed to do. If you don't get to this level of understanding, you'll end up like American "Maoists" who call China imperialist because of their efforts to protect infrastructure projects that are lifting up the Global South. Or you'll end up wondering why China doesn't overextend itself, which is what the US wants, in supporting revolutionary movements that it doesn't have the military means to protect because doing so would guarantee a direct confrontation with the US that would threaten China's stability. And that stability is growing more important by the day. Imperialists *want* a destabilized China because a stable China gives the Global South hope for an end to their subjugation.
Done and done! That book club's the right idea at the right time. I ordered Capital--I never thought I would slog through that thing again, but it's worth it.
It sticks with you. Helped keep me sane a few times because living in a capitalist world is so damned crazy sometimes.
Is this a time for mass education, or for vanguard party building, or should both run concurrently, and can they? I read how the cpc basically achieved its anti poverty goals through a huge deployment of its member base to all the nooks and crannies of the country, a strategy that could only, perhaps unfortunately, emerge from a strong central leadership. Education presumably entails the goal of party recruitment, because if and when the social political conditions reach a critical peak, something has to be in place to refute the inevitable bourgeois bombardment that will be launched, so are you party building and recruiting, or simply informing heavily conditioned consciousnessess about their condition whose reality includes the internalized mechanism of its own denial, mostly in lazy consumerist escapes?
Perhaps i am missing all points entirely, knowledge is a slippery fish.
Great questions that I don’t have straightforward answers to. Right now the US left doesn’t have a vanguard party. Even the parties that are available are typically reformist or revisionist in their positions and orientation. This is why I am focusing on education with the hopes of eventually helping to build a vanguard party. A party which isn’t revisionist or reformist (fingers crossed). As Marxist, education never ends and it never hurts to read theory especially the classics.
Uneven development: some people are just starting to learn. Others have mastered Marxism. Some need to study more. Some are in a position to lead. Even some party leadership still has studying to do (i.e., those who don't understand that China is building socialism according to the principles of communism and through the correct application of Marxism in today's geopolitical context. It is always a time for education, especially when you see how many people are uncritically joining "No Kings" protests without even asking who is funding 50501, and how their "movement" consumes all the oxygen in the room.
Capital. Been there, done that, decades ago, but this is a great idea. I'm in. I'll have to get the bloody book first, but I'm sure that won't be too hard.
Capital's a slog, and I promise to bitch about Marx including what seemed like 32 examples too many to prove the same point sometimes. The sheer logic of his examples is enough to beat down a Vulcan.
Now is the time when it is important to spread real comprehension of Marxism. If this wasn't one of those times, I'd never offer to do this because I'm too damned lazy.
Capital. Bloody frigging slog, but it sticks with you for a lifetime. It's worth it.
I posted the PDF in my subscriber chat if you don't want to track it down and are able to use an e-reader/app. There's a mix of first-time readers and more experienced (this will be my third read-through). I'm excited to read it with people for a change!
This will be weird for me in some ways. The last time I read Capital all the way through was in a History of Philosophy class at the University of Texas in the late 70s.
There was so much information to process I dreamed about the damned thing. Probably why it stuck, even when I didn’t want to believe it.
I am about to read David Harvey's "Madness of economic reason", should I hold back on that as I have not read "Capital" ? I have ordered it and will join in your book club.
The second time I read Capital, I read Harvey’s Companion to Capital along side it (I know that’s not the exact book you have). I would read a chapter of Capital, and then the companion…back and forth (always starting with Capital). I found this approach very helpful.
Make sure you don't stop at Vol 1. Capital is a history book, and Lenin's Imperialism is essentially Vol 4 (Capital in the 20th century, it's "highest stage". If you skip 2 and 3, you won't understand why China's model (party control over the MoP and banks) is socialist construction. By preventing the development of monopoly capital, China has prevented itself from becoming trapped in imperialism while protecting itself from Western imperialists in ways that the USSR and Albania failed to do. If you don't get to this level of understanding, you'll end up like American "Maoists" who call China imperialist because of their efforts to protect infrastructure projects that are lifting up the Global South. Or you'll end up wondering why China doesn't overextend itself, which is what the US wants, in supporting revolutionary movements that it doesn't have the military means to protect because doing so would guarantee a direct confrontation with the US that would threaten China's stability. And that stability is growing more important by the day. Imperialists *want* a destabilized China because a stable China gives the Global South hope for an end to their subjugation.
Done and done! That book club's the right idea at the right time. I ordered Capital--I never thought I would slog through that thing again, but it's worth it.
It sticks with you. Helped keep me sane a few times because living in a capitalist world is so damned crazy sometimes.
Is this a time for mass education, or for vanguard party building, or should both run concurrently, and can they? I read how the cpc basically achieved its anti poverty goals through a huge deployment of its member base to all the nooks and crannies of the country, a strategy that could only, perhaps unfortunately, emerge from a strong central leadership. Education presumably entails the goal of party recruitment, because if and when the social political conditions reach a critical peak, something has to be in place to refute the inevitable bourgeois bombardment that will be launched, so are you party building and recruiting, or simply informing heavily conditioned consciousnessess about their condition whose reality includes the internalized mechanism of its own denial, mostly in lazy consumerist escapes?
Perhaps i am missing all points entirely, knowledge is a slippery fish.
Great questions that I don’t have straightforward answers to. Right now the US left doesn’t have a vanguard party. Even the parties that are available are typically reformist or revisionist in their positions and orientation. This is why I am focusing on education with the hopes of eventually helping to build a vanguard party. A party which isn’t revisionist or reformist (fingers crossed). As Marxist, education never ends and it never hurts to read theory especially the classics.
Say i were to establish such a party, what stances should i adopt? I am currently getting a party of my own off the ground: the Phoenix League.
Uneven development: some people are just starting to learn. Others have mastered Marxism. Some need to study more. Some are in a position to lead. Even some party leadership still has studying to do (i.e., those who don't understand that China is building socialism according to the principles of communism and through the correct application of Marxism in today's geopolitical context. It is always a time for education, especially when you see how many people are uncritically joining "No Kings" protests without even asking who is funding 50501, and how their "movement" consumes all the oxygen in the room.
Capital. Been there, done that, decades ago, but this is a great idea. I'm in. I'll have to get the bloody book first, but I'm sure that won't be too hard.
Capital's a slog, and I promise to bitch about Marx including what seemed like 32 examples too many to prove the same point sometimes. The sheer logic of his examples is enough to beat down a Vulcan.
Now is the time when it is important to spread real comprehension of Marxism. If this wasn't one of those times, I'd never offer to do this because I'm too damned lazy.
Capital. Bloody frigging slog, but it sticks with you for a lifetime. It's worth it.
I posted the PDF in my subscriber chat if you don't want to track it down and are able to use an e-reader/app. There's a mix of first-time readers and more experienced (this will be my third read-through). I'm excited to read it with people for a change!
This will be weird for me in some ways. The last time I read Capital all the way through was in a History of Philosophy class at the University of Texas in the late 70s.
There was so much information to process I dreamed about the damned thing. Probably why it stuck, even when I didn’t want to believe it.
I am about to read David Harvey's "Madness of economic reason", should I hold back on that as I have not read "Capital" ? I have ordered it and will join in your book club.
The second time I read Capital, I read Harvey’s Companion to Capital along side it (I know that’s not the exact book you have). I would read a chapter of Capital, and then the companion…back and forth (always starting with Capital). I found this approach very helpful.
no dates yet?
We are starting this week
ok here ya go:
capitalism is the name of
the british empire divides its court system into two court systems
one for equity
one for law
it is abolished by the constitution of the united states
this is undefaceable
it already happened
Interested!
Starts today (each ‘session’ is 2 weeks).