The longest chapter in Capital is the fifteenth, on “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry.” At almost 150-pages, it’s really a book in itself, a staggeringly dense and expansive discussion that could easily standalone—not only as a brilliant exegesis of capitalist machinery, but also as a sweeping social history of technology. At its broadest reach, the chapter is a vivid demonstration of historical materialism in action, of Marx’s method put through its dialectical paces. As ever with Marx, his footnotes aren’t to be passed over glibly: they’re worth studying, pondering over for the nuggets of insight they contain.
Marx on technology
Tag: Karl Marx
The Palmer Raids and the First Red Scare: The Roots of Liberal Anticommunism in the United States
Critics of Biden as being a ‘progressive’ are mistaken. Understanding what ‘progressive’ means isn’t so easy.
The difference between “progressive” and “liberal” gets to the core of what politics in the real world is actually about, and of whether the nation is being controlled by the public (a democracy), or instead is controlled by the tiny percentage of the population who are enormously wealthy (an aristocracy — a capitalistic dictatorship, or also called “fascism” — so that the public are actually the nation’s subjects, instead of the nation’s citizens). Whereas progressivism is 100% supportive of democracy, liberalism is supportive of control by an elite, but one that supposedly represents the interests of the public. There is a big difference between progressivism and liberalism. Most simply phrased: Aristocrats always control the public by employing the popular mythology so as to motivate the majority to accept their own subordination to the aristocracy; and, whereas liberals support that, progressives don’t. This deception by the aristocracy minimizes the amount of physical coercion that will be needed in order for them to control the public. Progressives reject any mythology, and oppose any aristocracy. Liberals simply do not. Conservatives are the aristocracy. The noblesse oblige conservatives are the liberal aristocrats who say that they serve the public interest, but the other aristocrats say that they have no such obligation, and that their being an aristocrat proves their worthiness. And that is the way things function, in the real world. The ‘news’-media are important in deceiving the public so as to enable the aristocracy to control, and this is the reason why aristocrats buy ‘news’-media even regardless of whether those ‘news’-media are directly profitable: owning the ‘news’-media is providing a major service to the entire aristocracy, and therefore becomes repaid to such an owner in many other ways — all aristocrats want to please that member. It’s gratitude to a fellow-aristocrat, and that check can be cashed in many different ways.
Critics of Biden as being a ‘progressive’ are mistaken. Understanding what ‘progressive’ means isn’t so easy.
Biden considering executive action on gun control, Psaki says
Biden considering executive action on gun control, Psaki says
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Marksman who is Asian American says gun control laws are racist, puts Asians at risk
Gun control’s racist reality: The liberal argument against giving police more power
The racial politics of gun control
THE (REALLY, REALLY) RACIST HISTORY OF GUN CONTROL IN AMERICA
Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse
Caleb Maupin: The Definition of Socialism + What is Scientific Socialism?
by Caleb Maupin, Writer, Dandelion Salad, March 22, 2021
“We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.” — Karl Marx
Caleb Maupin: The Definition of Socialism + What is Scientific Socialism?
Capitalism Keeps Us Pacified As It Drags Us Ever Closer To Doom, by Rainer Shea
Within today’s capitalist world, particularly the core imperialist countries, the system is held together by a type of cultural hegemony which fits our increasingly grim conditions. This cultural hegemony goes deeper than the set of myths and propaganda narratives that the imperialist media spins to justify the U.S./NATO empire’s perpetual war operations, or the free market fundamentalist dogma that our ruling class uses to justify its cruel neoliberal economic designs. These ideological constructs remain dominant in our culture because for the average person in our society, no cohesive alternative cultural narratives are detectable. It’s due to our lack of culture and guiding ideology that the hypocritical, dishonest ideologies which our ruling class has manufactured are allowed to go unchallenged.
Capitalism Keeps Us Pacified As It Drags Us Ever Closer To Doom, by Rainer Shea
“I was, I am, I will be” – 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg
[2018] Is China Still Socialist?
Naysayers and purists* will highlight flaws and inconsistencies, but this is nothing new or interesting. “Actually existing socialism will always fall short of the socialist ideal because it is precisely that ideal implemented within the confines of reality.”
Is China Still Socialist?
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Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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