All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us
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Best Resources for Understanding The Capitalist System
Karl Marx wrote in 1848: Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by…
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Postcolonial Racism(s) & the Mainstreaming of Far Right Ideology
Originally written: 10.02.2022. The ideology and actions of the far right are often portrayed as an anomaly that is the very antithesis of liberal democracy or general nationalist conceptions: in many countries the authorities, political actors and the media claim that these ‘extremists’ have nothing to do with ‘us’, with ‘our’ values, with ‘good’ patriotism…
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Totalitarian Violence & Policing: From Counter-Insurgency to “Terror Capitalism”
Originally written: 11.02.2022. In the early hours of November 9, 2020, Austrian police raided the house of Salzburg University scholar Farid Hafez, pointing their guns at him and his family. Their warrant accused him of “terrorist” allegiances, wanting to “destroy Israel” and “establish a worldwide califate”, and supporting the toppling of Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah…
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Punching the Left and the Flat-Earthers of Political Ideology; & Why We Can’t ‘Give Passes’ to Any and All Anti-Authoritarian Critics
Originally written: 01.02.2022. According to some people who spend a lot of time denouncing the pitfalls of certain parts of the contemporary left, politics is basically like a circle in which one “extreme” on one pole leads to the other(s), thereby making the circle’s center the only space of reasonable ideas, discussion and principles. Not…
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Critical Notes & Sources on Rojava/AANES
Date: 02.02.2022. This will be an ongoing page/note where I put sources and some notes for a critical – but fair, not disingenuous or condescending – discussion and appraisal of the Rojava/AANES (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) movement/system/revolution. Like most (probably all) the authors I mention here, I definitely have some genuine sympathy…
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Chomsky’s Long Career of Bullshit: A Guide/Resource
Originally written: 09.01.2022. **note: I wrote this before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the [at time of writing this note – september 2022 – ongoing] war. Chomsky – very unsurprisingly, if you look at what is documented on this page – has peddled some crappy pseudo-anti-imperialist talking points about the whole situation. I haven’t…
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Marx’s Conception of Surplus Population and the Lumpenproletariat
Originally written: 27.01.2021. After having reviewed Marx’s conception of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the landowning class, and the ‘intermediate classes’ – notably the petty-bourgeoisie and the peasantry, we now come to two last specific categories or concepts that contributed to his understanding of modern capitalist society: the lumpenproletariat and the relative surplus population. Relative Surplus…
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Marx’s Conception of the Middle Class(es), the Petty-Bourgeoisie and the Peasantry
Originally written: 21.01.2021. It is pretty common to hear, when talking about Marx’s conception of classes, that he thought the development of capitalism would simply reduce the social pyramid to a bipolar opposition between, on the one hand, the proletariat, and on the other hand, the bourgeoisie. This is almost always based on a quote…
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Marx’s Conception of the Ruling Class (2/2): The Landowner Class
Originally written: 11.01.2021. Across his political writings, Marx often talks about the ruling class as being composed of both capitalists and landowners. For instance, in Fictitious Splits in the International: Contrary to the sectarian organization, with their vagaries and rivalries, the International is a genuine and militant organization of the proletarian class of all countries,…
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Marx’s Conception of the Proletariat
Originally written: 15.09.2020. Hello everyone, this is part one of a project I have been working on, attempting to understand “how” and “what” Marx thought about class, with the eventual goal of revisiting the class-based analytical categories of materialist theory. The origin of the term “Proletariat” goes back to Ancient Rome (around the sixth century…