Alexandros Semjenow

[disorder-rat]

If you are at work - remember to put minimal effort and act your wage, okay? Do as little as you are allowed to. It's okay, really. It makes us all a bit closer to actually demand something from our arbitrary superiors. Your health and time is much more valuable, than they think and make you think. Don't let them brainwash you into being their slave.

[socialmaya]

[alexsmjnw]

AI art Marx and mushrooms

[alexsmjnw]

Need

[dailymarx]

“Everything that the proletarian can do to improve his position is but a drop in the ocean compared with the floods of varying chances to which he is exposed, over which he has not the slightest control. He is the passive subject of all possible combinations of circumstances, and must count himself fortunate when he has saved his life even for a short time; and his character and way of living are naturally shaped by these conditions.”

— Engels - Condition of the Working Class 1845

[dailymarx]

“everything has a double meaning, one real and one bureaucratic”

— Marx - Notes of a Critique of Hegel 1843

[dailymarx]

“Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations.”

— Marx - Poverty of Philosophy 1847

[macrolit]

“At this point I have a request for our fans. If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us: leave us the fuck alone. Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.”

—

Kurt Cobain

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 29 November 1864, the Sand Creek massacre took place, when US troops attacked a peaceful gathering of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, camped under a US flag (content note, this post contains graphic descriptions of genocidal and sexual violence). The United States had recognised that the Cheyenne and Arapaho possessed large swathes of land covering parts of present-day Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and Kansas. But after the discovery of gold in the area, settlers invaded the land to mine it, and eventually the government forced the Indigenous peoples to sign a new treaty and give up over 90% of their land. Some chiefs believed the new treaty to be a betrayal, and ignored it, but Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne and Arapaho wanted peace above all and so signed up to. They first moved to Fort Lyon when directed by the US, then relocated to Big Sandy Creek again at the direction of government. Despite doing everything they were told, even flying a US flag and a white surrender flag above their government-designated camp, up to 900 troops attacked them while the warriors were out hunting. The soldiers butchered up to 170 or more unarmed people, mostly women and children, torturing them then scalping and mutilating the victims and cutting out womens’ genitals and attaching them to their hats. Only between 9 and 24 of the attackers were killed. Robert Bent reported in the New York Tribune that he “saw one squaw lying on the bank, whose leg had been broken. A soldier came up to her with a drawn sabre. She raised her arm to protect herself; he struck, breaking her arm. She rolled over, and raised her other arm; he struck, breaking that, and then left her without killing her. I saw one squaw cut open, with an unborn child lying by her side.” Meanwhile a local newspaper praised the “brilliant feat of arms” and stated the soldiers had “covered themselves with glory”. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2148196922032113/?type=3

[alexsmjnw]

If there’s one thing you do today, read this. Understand the horror unleashed by Amerika.

[dailymarx]

“By selling his labour to the capitalist, the worker obtains a right only to the price of labour, not to the product of his labour, nor to the value which his labour has added to it.”

— Marx - Grundrisse 1857

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 28 November 1985, an internal document circulated within the Shell oil corporation stated that “there has been a global warming over the last 100 years, that the 0.5 degrees increase is a result of CO2 [carbon dioxide] buildup, that we will see a further 1-2 degree warming over the next 40 years… Such a rise would be greater than any change in the last 1,000 years… The global mean sea level has risen by some 15 cm over the last 100 years… By 2050, the range of uncertainty of the rise in global mean sea level is 20-120 cm.” It formed part of an extensive confidential internal report by the company produced in 1988 on the greenhouse effect which definitively showed that from at least 1981 Shell was aware of climate change, that it was man-made, that burning fossil fuels was its primary cause, and that it would have catastrophic effects. Despite this, for decades the company covered up its findings, sponsored fake public studies to try to deny climate change, and fought any government attempts to limit CO2 emissions. * We only post highlights on here, for all our anniversaries follow us on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@workingclasshistory https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2146804345504704/?type=3

[alexsmjnw]

since abstract labor implies the threefold reduction of 1. individual labor-time to necessary labor-time, 2. whether it meets social demand, and 3. skill, does this mean that in the lower phase of communist society individual renumeration would have to ignore whether the worker succeeds in creating a social use value? since the absence of abstract labor means that the threefold reduction can't take place, so 2. would be irrelevant along with 1. and 3.

This is a very complex topic I can’t pretend to have a good answer to tbh. However, I think this question is probably moot due to central planning? Marx says that as soon as people work for one another, labour is social. If you recall first chapter of capital he walks through different forms of society and explains how labour is directly social although no commodities are produced. Same with LPC—labour is directly social, a plan is in place to meet social needs (social needs are known in advance) and there is no generalized exchange where labour must be posited as social. It already is from the outset. Marx discusses this a bit in the grundrisse, one of the few places I’m aware he does it. Ofc this all sounds good in theory, the technicalities of the issue is more complex than I can helpful in answering I’m afraid

[alexsmjnw]

what's your favorite movie?

I’ve always really liked dead poets society

[alexsmjnw]

it seems to me that engels thought value is transhistorical, am i correct? he seems to differ from marx on this. stuff engels says in his commentary on vol 3 gives me the impression at least

Depends on how we define transhistorical. When we say value is historically specific to capitalism, it does not mean in a literal sense one day there is value and one day there is not; there is a gradual development of the value-form. But where value exists, it is on the fringes of society still. It is only in capitalism that value truly dominates society.

Another aspect to this is how we view value in post capitalist society. We can admit that there are contradictions in how M&E understood value in precapitalist societies while acknowledging that this doesn’t affect the abolition of value in their writings (at least in my humble opinion). On this point, I believe M&E are more than clear.

Hopefully than answers your q! If not I’ll try again 😅

[alexsmjnw]

AI art of “Karl Marx’s value theory” no idea who the other men are. Anyone recognize them or are they just randoms ? Lol

[alexsmjnw]

what's your opinion on the bolsheviks? when did they go wrong

I’m actually reading a couple books on the revolution atm so I’ll have a better idea of my thoughts when I’m done.

[alexsmjnw]

what got you into marxism? what were your politics like before that

Basically from high school I aligned with the social democratic party of my country (NDP in Canada). In uni I was introduced to Marx and came across Jacobin—was subscribed to them for a good year or two. All in all, quite a boring political development. Just became more left wing as I got older and learned more.