tears posted:

uh, can someone re'write capital 1-3 in less thn a hundred pages with fewer references to lenths of linen; like something u could actulally sit down with a marxism neophyte in 2016 and work thru together rather than something which is mostly used as a doorstop

Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically is about 150 pages and is great. Not a Marxist-Leninist text, he was more into the Italian Autonomia scene but it's great and has a rare clarity. I always recommend it to friends who are interested in learning more about what Karl Marx's ideas actually were.

'As social movements waned in the late 70s, the study of Marx seemed to take on a life of its own. Structuralist, post-structuralist, deconstructed Marxes bloomed in journals and seminar rooms across the US and Europe. These Marxists and their interpreters struggled to interpret the world, and sometimes to interpret Marx himself, losing sight at times of his dictum that the challenge is not to interpret the world but to change it. In 1979, Harry Cleaver tossed an incendiary device called Reading Capital Politically into those seminar rooms. Through a close reading of the first chapter, he shows that Das Kapital was written for the workers, not for academics, and that we need to expand our idea of workers to include housewives, students, the unemployed, and other non-waged workers. Reading Capital Politically provides a theoretical and historical bridge between struggles in Europe in the 60s and 70s and, particularly, the Autonomia of Italy to the Zapatistas of the 90s. His introduction provides a brilliant and succinct overview of working class struggles in the century since Capital was published'

https://libcom.org/files/cleaver-reading_capital_politically.pdf

karphead posted:

also, did MarianneSadd's account get hacked? the last post on the account seemed out of place: http://www.rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13698/

i think that's a parody of greaves/kahina style posts

karphead posted:

i'm thinking about transcribing the rest of this and putting up readpolitzer.org

I posted my transcription on the last page. If you want, I can try to put it in HTML for you.

But I think the criticisms that fape was making were not insignificant. I started reading the book already sorta knowing the philosophical bases of Marxism, and having only casual knowledge of philosophy in general, and even then I was wishing Politzer had been more rigorous or more nuanced with his attacks on idealism. (The internet atheists that fape was talking about came to mind more than once while I was reading.) He spends nearly the entire first half of the book talking about idealism vs. materialism, which is ample time for people who are less sympathetic/charitable/stupid than me to get impatient with Politzer's treatment and stop reading before they get to the actual dialectics.

It's better than nothing, though. An update or a rewrite following Politzer's general outline would be ideal, but we must manage with only what is material.

karphead posted:

i would sincerely put up a grumblefish review if you reviewed it sincerely

Ok I disavow my initial, stupid comment and might one day read it and be more serious.

stegosaurus posted:

Let's set up a web ring. What should it be called

Oi I do have the text of Caliban and also I have readcaliban.org so how do I just put the text of the one book into the format of your website. I have been pausing on the thread because I want to do a midbook summary / discussion that hasnt happened. Hold my hand please

stegosaurus posted:

The 211 Communist Organization