I got interested in Hersh because of his counter-narative on the killing of Osama bin Laden. So I picked up this book because it dealt with my interests in the Kennedy assassination and US-Cuban relations.
One detail is that is that during Kennedy's assassination he was wearing a backbrace that kept his torso stiff after he was first hit by Oswald. The stiffness of his body allowed his head to be lined up perfectly for the second shot which ended his life. Kennedy had needed this back brace because he had severely torn a back muscle while seeing one of his mistresses about a week earlier.
The book reads like gossip trash until you take into account it covers just how grotesque US politics is.
glomper_stomper posted:i don't really know when the orthodox view went from political economy to market metaphysics
the 1880s, sort of. LTV was taken as a given by everyone from Adam Smith onwards and marginal theories of value, which basically are the germ of all of this crap, basically gained currency cos everyone was desperate to deny the conclusions of Marxian political economy
glomper_stomper posted:i'm reading this shitsleeve of a book for my basic economics course.
i never had much exposure to orthodox economics until now and frankly i'm pretty astounded at what a bunch of caveman bullshit it is.
for one thing, the theory goes that the movements of the marketplace (synonymous with society) will largely be determined by "economic agents" rationally optimizing their social consumption within several markets, ideally trending towards a state of equilibrium (in which no competitor, consumer or "supplier", can find better avenues of consumption). the general approach assumes perfect consumption within a perfectly competitive society in practice and any deviations from that outline simply means somebody's gotta hire an economist.
now, in theory the "economic agents" aren't people but rather ratfuck reptile-brain consumers and optimizers for whom wage levels are an existential force, draining about 8 bucks off their lives for every hour they waste on driving or sleeping through "opportunity cost". this is how bourgeois economists formulate class at this point and, as the rationale goes, life is ideally a means of increasing your opportunity cost. if you haven't reached $X/hr in monopoly money, then you're clearly not optimizing and maybe you should hire an economist.
i don't really know when the orthodox view went from political economy to market metaphysics but the way it pays lip service to scientific inquiry really fucks me up and i probably gotta be some aryan klan kountry motherfucker with an econ major to even get into decent empirical work. as it is i have to go down to campus every fucking week for supplementary instruction on the same drooling horseshit i've already read and piss my pell grant dollars down the drain.
i got anwar shaikh recently though
yeah the most fascinating thing is what people commonly think of as economics is not neo-classical economics which is absolutely nuts. for example, like you said, it does not distinguish between people and firms and instead has "agents" who have perfect information and equal power on the market (in which all transactions take place simultaneously). so when Mitt Romney said "corporations are people my friend" and everyone laughed at him he was only saying what the economics profession assumes is true. if you told someone that they would think it's insane but it's disguised by math and paywalls, the only thing anybody without thousands of dollars of student debt and years of indoctrination sees is the end results which say something like "lowering the minimum wage increases economic growth" and they see PhD behind it and go "hmm that makes sense I guess". and that's not even getting into the terminology they use like "market mechanisms" or "labor competitiveness" to disguise what they're really saying with the facade of terminological rigor. economics is such a weird religion and all the sociological and anthropological studies pretend it doesn't exist, probably to avoid pissing off other departments. academia is such a joke bro 
babyhueypnewton posted:yeah the most fascinating thing is what people commonly think of as economics is not neo-classical economics which is absolutely nuts. for example, like you said, it does not distinguish between people and firms and instead has "agents" who have perfect information and equal power on the market (in which all transactions take place simultaneously). so when Mitt Romney said "corporations are people my friend" and everyone laughed at him he was only saying what the economics profession assumes is true. if you told someone that they would think it's insane but it's disguised by math and paywalls, the only thing anybody without thousands of dollars of student debt and years of indoctrination sees is the end results which say something like "lowering the minimum wage increases economic growth" and they see PhD behind it and go "hmm that makes sense I guess". and that's not even getting into the terminology they use like "market mechanisms" or "labor competitiveness" to disguise what they're really saying with the facade of terminological rigor. economics is such a weird religion and all the sociological and anthropological studies pretend it doesn't exist, probably to avoid pissing off other departments. academia is such a joke bro
in my experience a lot of philosophy departments are pretty up front about how economics is an epistemological trainwreck overflowing with laughable bullshit. but everyone ignores their philosophy departments 
So there is a perverse situation where the profession has immunized itself from most criticism because they have sophisticated answers why people who don't like those first year courses are wrong, but then there is a vulgarization where bourgeois policy wonks and such just repeat those trivial mathematical insights given (at best) as fun examples as if they really explain how the world works. So I think it is more nightmarish than just the models being wrong.
Seems notable that under Stalin the orthodoxy was that economics was mostly descriptive of past events and shouldn't largely direct policy decisions, which were primarily political and engineering decisions shaped by physical and scientific reality. Like the economist's job was a specialized statistician which informed the people who actually made the decisions, and there was actually dramatic official hostility towards models that determined policy through cost minimization schemes. This was because socialism was not seen as structured by financial decisions in the same way that capitalism is. One of the things that Maoists criticized a lot was the reversal of this trend after Stalin where mathematical models were used to solve almost all policy problems (rather than putting politics into command).
and then you read the paper and it's using that to justify all sorts of bullshit (was right around the crash) , and you already have the experience of working and seeing the daily bullshit that encompasses. it's basically impossible not to renounce capitalism and all it's evils...
A: Barack?!
Q: Barack.
A: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?
Q: Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
A: Barack Obama?
Q: Yeah.
A: What the fuck?! That ain't no fuckin' name, yo. That ain't that nigga's name. You can't be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.
Q: You're telling me you haven't heard about him before.
A: I ain't really paying much attention.
Q: I mean, it's pretty big if a Black...
A: Wow, Barack! The nigga's name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain't his fuckin' name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, "Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit" "That ain't your fuckin' name." Your momma ain't name you no damn Barack.
https://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/marxism-bourgeois-nationalism/
pogfan1996 posted:going through some of my old favorite posts, came across this blog post about marxism and bourgeois nationalism. continues to be relevant after 5 years
https://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/marxism-bourgeois-nationalism/
i remember this blogger. they jumped ship from that blog and started another one in 2013 after having some revelation that transhumanism is the light
still has correct opinions and will occasionally let them out to play (like solidarity with venezuela and syria) but M-L stuff is definitely not their major focus anymore, which seems a real shame
edit: didn't notice at first but that particular article is a reprint originally written by vince sherman from Return to the Source, which also had a lot of good content
Edited by Constantignoble ()
given his lack of formal education and generally poor grasp of the concepts, i found myself at a loss for where to start and flippantly recommended The Rainbow Fish, as read by Ernest Borgnine
i now feel bad for being an impotent eggheaded piece of shit. what should i have been recommended instead of being a condescending asshole, 'zzone?
angelbutt_dollface posted:what should i have been recommended instead of being a condescending asshole, 'zzone?
t H E r H i z z o n E
angelbutt_dollface posted:so, some guy who makes "communism can never work because human nature" arguments told me he read "some of" the communist manifesto (which of course means he's never held it in his hands or he would have realized its a goddamn pamphlet) and challenged me to recommend a book he should read to learn about communism
given his lack of formal education and generally poor grasp of the concepts, i found myself at a loss for where to start and flippantly recommended The Rainbow Fish, as read by Ernest Borgnine
i now feel bad for being an impotent eggheaded piece of shit. what should i have been recommended instead of being a condescending asshole, 'zzone?
honestly, The Communist Manifesto is a pretty good start, i mean it was written to be a primer more so than any of Marx's other texts
it has to eventually be supplemented by other material, i didn't fully understand certain statements until i later read "Capital" or "Gotha" or "Brumaire"
shapes posted:angelbutt_dollface posted:so, some guy who makes "communism can never work because human nature" arguments told me he read "some of" the communist manifesto (which of course means he's never held it in his hands or he would have realized its a goddamn pamphlet) and challenged me to recommend a book he should read to learn about communism
given his lack of formal education and generally poor grasp of the concepts, i found myself at a loss for where to start and flippantly recommended The Rainbow Fish, as read by Ernest Borgnine
i now feel bad for being an impotent eggheaded piece of shit. what should i have been recommended instead of being a condescending asshole, 'zzone?
honestly, The Communist Manifesto is a pretty good start, i mean it was written to be a primer more so than any of Marx's other texts
it has to eventually be supplemented by other material, i didn't fully understand certain statements until i later read "Capital" or "Gotha" or "Brumaire"
yeah, i didnt find the manifesto terribly satisfying when i read it. partly because of its nature as propaganda rather than a serious work of theory, and also because of the sections that are basically just him beefin' with by now irrelevant strains of utopian communism etc
the brumaire and historical materialism was what really made everything click with me, but if this guy didn't make it through the manifesto (he says he did but he clearly didnt understand it in any case) there's no way he's gonna bother with all the meandering and descriptions of all the different french factions in the brumaire
im wondering if there's any more recent primer that might be more approachable, direct and hopefully not trot as all fuck
i mean ultimately yall are right that the guy isnt going to read whatever i recommend anyways, but it raises an important issue which is that i really dont have anything accessible to recommend to people who may have a genuine but casual interest in marxist ideology. which is kind of shitty
Edited by angelbutt_dollface ()
nobody should fall into the trap of being coy about using words like communism, marxism, etc, but equally you cant drone on about a bunch of crap that means nothing to someone without giving them a chance to extend their understanding first (if theyre interested.)
Final Note: theres nothing more pointless than the whole liberal "challenging each other to read books" thing though. god knows ive done it before. neither of you will ever read what the other person recommended, and even if you do you wont like it. i should be writing my thesis but here i am talking about something i know nothng about. good bye again
Gibbonstrength posted:marxist ideology is the result of peoples learning about the world rather than the entry point. how many people here just started reading the communist manifesto without catching wind of some lighter socialist stuff or anti-imperialist stuff beforehand? i would be guessing none. also just reading a marxist text doesnt mean anything really. i know plenty of bourgeois shitheads who are now marketing directors or guardian writers or whatever other fake arselicker career, who have read the manifesto and read lenin and whatever else. Hell im sure Sam Kriss read a bunch of marxist stuff and hes virtually hitler now (Sam Kriss Hitler, Sam Kriss Intfada) .
nobody should fall into the trap of being coy about using words like communism, marxism, etc, but equally you cant drone on about a bunch of crap that means nothing to someone without giving them a chance to extend their understanding first (if theyre interested.)
Final Note: theres nothing more pointless than the whole liberal "challenging each other to read books" thing though. god knows ive done it before. neither of you will ever read what the other person recommended, and even if you do you wont like it. i should be writing my thesis but here i am talking about something i know nothng about. good bye again
post in the australia thread dude
Gibbonstrength posted:theyre really into lame conspiracy theories
Gibbonstrength posted:and not knowing anything.
Gibbonstrength posted:how many people here just started reading the communist manifesto without catching wind of some lighter socialist stuff or anti-imperialist stuff beforehand?
angelbutt_dollface posted:so, some guy who makes "communism can never work because human nature" arguments
why are you spending time arguing with someone who has the cognitive capacity hamster. feed him some carrots and watch his cute lil cheeks poof out. you will both be much happier.
shriekingviolet posted:someone who has the cognitive capacity hamster
this thread has been visited by the cognitive capacity hamster
the cheeks of the proletariat will swell with food for a later time etc etc
shriekingviolet posted:nothing soothes a hangover quite like reading over terrible posts that you don't remember making and cringing at the atrocious grammar errors
i thought it was p funny
I like this series
marimite posted:https://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/law-of-value-introduction/I like this series
its a pity because i think this is a good intro and kliman is a very interesting economic thinker. but they're both wrapped up with dunayevskaya weirdos? idgi
glomper_stomper posted:skipped one to catch up on soledad brother, skipping the next to read blood in my eye, which so far seems like one of the most astounding political works ever written
its really good and it sux that soledad brother is so much more widely available. not that soledad brother is bad, but theres a lot less explicitly political content and jackson's consciousness and thought is far more developed in blood in my eye.
