pogfan1996 posted:is anyone interested in doing a study group with a weekly reading and discussion topic?
That's this forum
We know the anti-Christ's number, but not his name. he will be easily recognized, however. A member of the European Common Market will suffer a head wound which would normally be fatal. Miraculously he will be restored to health. That will be an unmistakable signal.
parabolart posted:I just started Caliban, might buy a paperback, it's good
i felt this way, bought it, and have not regretted the decision at all, because it is an excellent book.
levoydpage posted:Just started Bataille's work on sovereignty... the table of contents really made it irresistible... anyone else fall prey to this text yet?
What its about
The other book isn't even an interesting history. It lays out the Wallerstein-Brenner debate which is part of the reason I wanted to read it and then attempts to bring Trotsky's 'combined and uneven development (pre-Lenin which is the first problem) into IR theory to explain a global history of capitalism that is interconnected. A noble goal and they have some interesting concepts that I hadn't thought about before like the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production in a nomadic mode of production and how this necessarily impacted other modes of production. Unfortunately after that their actual cause of the rise of capitalism is the black death. When confronted with the fact that this is a contingent event which doesn't lead to any theory-as-such they dismiss theory as 'supra-historical' in favor of a reading of Marx where everything is only expressed in real history. That's great for describing what happened irl, but in their attempt to avoid either the 'world-systems' theory which inevitably eliminates capitalism as a structurally unique mode of production entirely and 'political marxism' which inevitably can't explain anything outside of England, they stop looking for the essence behind the appearance. the actual content of the book is basically a very basic summary of other people's research with a veneer of theory stuck on top.
you can criticize Brenner and Wallerstein but at least they tried to explain the world rather than merely describe it. and as someone who has studied the collapse of feudalism in Korea and the aborted rise of capitalism, justifying this with the boogeymonster of 'eurocentrism' doesn't scare me. I think for every brilliant, creative, and sometimes organic intellectual there are thousands of parasites who have mediocre minds and are really just technically trained researchers who have to publish books to get tenure. maybe it's always been that way or at least the number of brilliant people hasn't changed but it does make reading anything that isn't already a Marxist classic or something heavily recommended by normal, non-academic human beings a losing proposition. We were lucky to have the LF reading list which led me to many good books even though looking back on it now a large majority was liberal garbage. The kids now really are lost at sea after they read Capital if they are even capable of reading something that dense without constant facebook updates.
those are my rambly thoughts after sitting through another rant against 'Stalinist degeneration' just to get to something interesting and being disappointed.
babyhueypnewton posted:sitting through another rant against 'Stalinist degeneration'
have you tried reading standing up?
babyhueypnewton posted:parasites who have mediocre minds
feels like someone just walked over my grave...
Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction -- Immanuel Wallerstein
One Dimensional Man -- Herbert Marcuse
shriekingviolet posted:i read Ancillary Justice last weekend while I was with my family and had nothing better to do. it won some awards, was written by a woman, and the protagonist is an AI that has trouble understanding gender. it made alt-right toadies so caremad about Cultural Marxism that they tried to stuff the ballot on the Hugo or Nebula awards or something. the book is a condemnation of imperialism and the shitty garbage future transhumanism will bring us, so that was nice. it has a shift in pacing in the middle that bored me a bit and i don't know if the author intended the climax to be as goofy as it is, but i had fun.
babyhueypnewton posted:parasites who have mediocre minds
feels like someone just walked over my grave...
i like that it depicted artificial intelligence as basically autistic
cars posted:https://theoutline.com/post/352/memes-do-not-matterthe ultimate betrayal..
*clears throat* former rhizzone poster zeitgeist.
babyhueypnewton posted:I've pieced together an understanding of Korea but i have no overall picture nor a good grasp on asia, the flaws in the "asiatic mode of production" and what Marxist Leninists should replace it with, and how to integrate that into an understanding of imperialism
i've heard good things about Jairus Banaji's Theory as History, and its table of contents seems to suggest it might help, but I haven't personally read it.
here's mccaine's review fwiw
Constantignoble posted:babyhueypnewton posted:I've pieced together an understanding of Korea but i have no overall picture nor a good grasp on asia, the flaws in the "asiatic mode of production" and what Marxist Leninists should replace it with, and how to integrate that into an understanding of imperialism
i've heard good things about Jairus Banaji's Theory as History, and its table of contents seems to suggest it might help, but I haven't personally read it.
here's mccaine's review fwiw
Thanks for the rec. From what i can tell Banaji is an old trot (probably why mccain likes him) but might still be useful for stimulating ideas and further research. Ill check this out and be grumpy about it 
tears posted:Might read Thompson's Makings of the English Working Class next as I seem to be on a book reading high.
500 pages in and i've just about had enough words about weavers, thomas paine, coresponding societies and methodism for a lifetime....only another 450 pages left to go -_-
Zak Cope - Divided World Divided Class
Walter Rodney - How Europe Underdevelped Africa
Josephus - The Jewish War
too many books, who the hell wrote all these books
cars posted:josephus
the methuselah of smug
babyhueypnewton posted:
Vivek Chibber's first book was a comparison between India and South Korea's post-war industrialization efforts from a Marxist perspective. unfortunately, i don't know of anything that covers as broad a territory as Anderson's work
i really liked Passages and it tied together a lot of disparate strands for me, but i read it in the sleep-deprived haze that newborns bring, so i could only read maybe 10-15 pages at a time before falling asleep and by the end it was agony and i just wanted it to be over no matter how interesting it was