https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=842
I assume everyone is like me and has a big backlog already but hey, picking up a bunch of left wing books for $5 each isn’t a bad deal
Tönnies - Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (trans. Harris and Hollis, Cambridge University Press, 2001) posted:When abstract reason engages in a technical investigation it is scientific reason, practised by someone who is capable of recognising objective relations, i.e. who thinks in abstract terms. Scientific concepts are judgements about the origin and nature of things, by means of which complicated structures of sense data are given names – which circulate within the world of science in the same way as goods do in society. They come together in the system like goods in the market. The most abstract form of scientific concept which no longer denotes anything in the real world, like for example the concept of the atom or the concept of energy, is similar to money.
Tönnies - Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Quoted in Lukacs - History and Class Consciousness, trans. Livingstone, Merlin Press, 1971) posted:A special case of abstract reason is scientific reason and its subject is the man who is objective, and who recognises relations, i.e. thinks in concepts. In consequence, scientific concepts which by their ordinary origin and their real properties are judgements by means of which complexes of feelings are given names, behave within science like commodities on the market. The supreme scientific concept which is no longer then name of anything real is like money. E.g. the concept of an atom, or of energy.
lmao :rolleyes:
pogfan1996 posted:Turning Money into Rebellion is a fun read, it’s structured into four parts: background on the blekingegade group, an essay from a couple members on their actions, an interview, then internal documents. Really interesting deep dive into one potential expression of a labor aristocracy analysis
I'm putting this on my list, it sounds rad. Thanks
The first book to document the efforts of the FBI against the most famous American folk singers of the mid-twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Burl Ives.
Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Burl Ives, etc., were also political activists with various associations with the American Communist Party. As a consequence, the FBI, along with other governmental and right-wing organizations, were monitoring them, keeping meticulous files running many thousands of pages, and making (and carrying out) plans to purge them from the cultural realm.
In The Folk Singers and the Bureau, Aaron J Leonard draws on an unprecedented array of declassified documents and never before released files to shed light on the interplay between left-wing folk artists and their relationship with the American Communist Party, and how it put them in the US government's repressive cross hairs.
At a time of increasing state surveillance and repression, The Folk Singers and the Bureau shows how the FBI and other governmental agencies have attempted to shape and repress American culture.
I was listening to a podcast interview, he was originally going to do the book on folk singers of the 60s and 70s, but the FBI wouldn't release their files, but he was able to get his hands on a bunch of FBI files from the 30s, 40s, and 50s which is around the time the FBI was building its concentration camp lists for communists
pogfan1996 posted:PM Press is clearing out some books that sat in an Amazon warehouse then got shipped back, 4/$20 or 20/$100. You can’t pick the books but you can pick the category. Use promo code FREESHIP.
https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=842
i ordered the marxism grabbag and got:
Maoism and the Chinese Revolution - Elliot Liu
Living and Dying on the Factory Floor - David Ranney
Pictures of a Gone City - Richard Walker
In, Against, and Beyond Capitalism - John Holloway
started with the Ranney book and it's really good so far, will probably order from the armed struggle grabbag later this week, thx for the heads up
vimingok posted:Ranney's book is interesting for as long as it's about his own activism then turns into generic radleft anti-neoliberalism critique. It's almost a pattern/ritual in these types of books. Talking about giving up labour struggle for more prosperity (fallen out of a tree) but eventually devolving into 'everyone is oppressed now' etc. If stronger labour/rights movements (as opposed to bourgeois redistribution of colonial plunder intended to pacify them along racial lines) led to better living standards within the metropolis, why didn't those things diminish alongside the movements themselves? They line up all the ingredients but refuse to do anything with them!
thanks for the spoiler alert a-hole!!!
pogfan1996 posted:Greetings Comrades!
We are excited to announce that Foreign Languages Press is co-sponsoring an online book launch with BAYAN, and the University of the Philippines-Center for International Studies (UPCIS) of two books by Pao-yu Ching:
From Victory to Defeat: China’s Socialist Road and Capitalist Reversal
And
Rethinking Socialism: What Is Socialist Transition?
The books will be reviews by José Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and J. Moufawad-Paul, writer, philosopher and author of From Victory to Defeat’s introduction.
The book launch will feature a message from the author, who will be available during an open forum to answer questions.
FLP will be giving a short message, as well as Carol Araullo, Chairperson of Bayan.
Philippines: Saturday, November 7, 2020 at 9AM
North America (West Coast): Friday, November 6, 2020 at 5PM
North America (East Coast): Friday, November 6, 2020 at 8PM
* please note the time correction
JOIN US HERE:
https://up-edu.zoom.us/j/84236496726
Meeting ID: 842 3649 6726
Passcode: MustRead
This starts in an hour
The Formation and Evolution of the Soviet Union’s Oil and Gas Dependence in the hopes of learning something about the effects of Oil & Gas extraction in the USSR. Article is okay, seems like there was some impact but author concludes that problems lay first in the political system itself. Also USSR's bad agricultural policy, which got me thinking that China becoming food self-sufficient under Mao may be one of the most underrated achievements.
Got interested in the matter of the Soviet energy sector after reading Simon Pirani's excellent little book "Burning Up: a history of fossil consumption", which refers a lot to differences and similarities between the West and the USSR wrt energy consumption and efficiency. If anyone has some other works on the subject, I'm very interested!
Edited by sovnarkoman ()
dizastar posted:the mystery about how its pretty much unknown
dizastar posted:its a book about how imperialist pressure pushes for countries or regions to become monocultures which deeply damages their own subsistence and also damages the land they sow food on
Euro-communist parties are allergic to sensible discussion of racism and imperialism in favor of misreadings of Lenin and "the unity of the working class". Mystery solved!
This post only slightly inspired by bitterness at the state of the communist movement
lo posted:does anyone know what the original source of the lin biao quote "the essence of revisionism is the fear of death" is? i've only been able to find people quoting it
I tried searching for it in Chinese and couldn't find anything.
However, the earliest reference to the quote I can find in Badiou's writing comes from Théorie de la contradiction, a pamphlet he wrote in 1975 for the Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste:
Au plus fort de la Révolution culturelle, on disait en Chine: l'essence du révisionnisme, c'est la peur de la mort. Cet énoncése divise, en sa part idéaliste et subjective son versant Lin Piao et sa part de vérité: le révisionniste ne supporte pas quela bourgeoisie meure.
I don't speak French, but Google Translate suggests he's saying that it's a slogan floating around during the GPCR rather than something Lin Biao said directly.
liceo posted:liceo posted:a thousand plateaus
benjamin is the only proust that remains, and the quasi-historical personal sentiment of lost time is replaced with a time that never existed and never will.
slightly talking out of my ass here but i think this is the sense in which deleuze talks about proust in difference & repetition, connecting it to a conception of the past which is never a 'past present' as its generally conceived but a past which always coexists as virtual with present experience in various degrees of 'contraction' or 'tension'
Bergson: "each present is only the entire past in its most contracted state"
Deleuze: "The paradox of pre-existence thus completes the other two, each past is contemporaneous with the present it was, the whole past coexists with the present in relation to which it is past, but the pure element of the past in general pre-exists the passing present"
its in the chapter repetition for itself if you're interested in looking at it, specifically the second passive synthesis of time (i glanced at my notes so im not sure if he acutally talks about proust here)
Belphegor posted:I just started that book yesterday! Which you would have known if you were in the chatroom...
glad i got to see it
Belphegor posted:I just started that book yesterday! Which you would have known if you were in the chatroom...
much like the nomadic pastoral mode of production after it has conquered a sedentary society, the chatroom is parasitic on the forum, merely stifling the growth of the forum's production while producing nothing of its own.