ah good point. in his real insect form that's actually his pinky. but right now he's wearing the human suit
ah good point. in his real insect form that's actually his pinky. but right now he's wearing the human suit
Oh are you reading Black Reconstruction by DuBois? Good book but long. Read part of it for a class.
I'm sure there are more muscular approaches to denying federal agents access to info on undocumented migrants. The detainers themselves are rather unconscionable after all. The problem is that there really is no legal definition of sanctuary cities or states so maybe there are some states exercising powers beyond their jurisdiction. That said, the Supreme Court interpreted the 10th amendment's clause that "all rights not conferred by the Constitution are reserved to the states" to mean that "police powers" (wide authority on matters of health, safety, morality, peace and quiet) are reserved to the states. Congress can exercise some of these powers indirectly through taxing and spending laws. This might include conditioning federal funding. But even then, there are fundamental limits that the SC also implemented. South Dakota v. Dole for example establishes a four part test to determine if funding can be conditioned by Congress in light of the states' expansive police powers. One stipulation is that the condition on funding cannot violate constitutional rights. As said above, the constitutionality of detainers is suspect, and federal courts tend to agree they do not authorize a 48 hour arrest. If this were to go to the SC they would need to make a determination about the constitutionality of detainers. I think the court is now more likely to say "it is constitutional" but that contradicts standing federal case law. ICE changed the language of their detainers in 2017 to say that it does have probable cause if a detainer is issued but a) this contradicts what ICE said itself about detainers previously as seen from Galarza v. Sczalczyk
Since at least 1994, and perhaps as early as 1988, ICE (and its precursor INS) have consistently construed detainers as requests rather than mandatory orders. In 1994, when responding to comments provided in the process of administrative “Notice and Comment” before a “Final Rule” change amending 8 C.F.R. § 287.7, the INS wrote that, “A detainer is the mechanism by which the Service requests that the detaining agency notify the Service of the date, time, or place of release of an alien who has been arrested or convicted under federal, state, or local law.” 59 Fed.Reg. 42406, 42407 (Aug. 17, 1994). Moreover, in a 2010 policy memo...
And it also does not match with what the law says on detainers:
Congress's only specific mention of detainers appears in INA § 287, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d). The Act does not authorize federal officials to command state or local officials to detain suspected aliens subject to removal. Moreover, in reviewing this statute, the Supreme Court has noted that § 1357(d) is a request for notice of a prisoner's release, not a command (or even a request) to LEAs to detain suspects on behalf of the federal government. Arizona v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 2507, 183 L.Ed.2d 351 (2012) (observing that “[s]tate officials can also assist the Federal Government by responding to requests for information about when an alien will be released from their custody. See § 1357(d).”
And b) A change in language does not mean a change in practice. And when there are hundreds of these detainers being issued, some probably don't have correct info. This is certainly not helped by Noem's order to lower age requirements for ICE. It is also not great that the GAO found that ICE undercounted the number of people it detained by tens of thousands. And it's not entirely clear how much of the evidence used in detainers is legally obtained given several documented cases of ICR agents illegally accessing databases and warrantless surveillance.
Maybe the SC can find detainers constitutional. The question of "should" on pragmatic or moral grounds is entirely different. But the OP seemed interested in the law.
So even if Congress passed a bill, it cannot beholden state and local officers under Printz jurisprudence. That might change if it comes to the Supreme Court (though it was put in by a conservative majority).
As I mentioned above, there is also the question of the constitutionality of the detainer requests (which authorize detentions without probable cause established and which rely on often faulty data).
Read Printz V. US. Congress passed federal background checks as part of the Brady Act. It was struck down because it "commandeered" state and local police to enforce a federal policy. They could ask state and local police to carry out background checks but they can't mandate it. But the background check provision was severable from the rest of the bill and so the rest of it passed.
yo wat up its my boi cummy jorts! for those of you who dont know i know remybrown in real life and he popped a fat nut when this cute boy he liked made out with him and thats how we came up with this nickname. he makes this weird sound too and says "zoo wee mama" and then he splooges so hard it shoots out of his underwear at like 500 mph. his splooge knocked a predator drone out of the sky one time that was following us because i dont pay my taxes. dudes my fucking hero.
anyway i decided this thread is now for me to post pictures of politicians eating:
keep wearing those jorts proudly over and out
-FakeMcDonalds
listen we here at mcdonalds are going to capitalize on this. we're selling our filet o fishes at a discount rate and adding a slingshot happy meal toy so the next ice raid ya'll know exactly what to do. but i dont know why that cop was mad. maybe he was hungry. maybe he took it as a compliment. if it was a mcrib we both know he would be dead on his feet.
anyway im ted cruz and i approve this message
-FakeMcDonalds
I could see how my last post could be considered antagonistic so lemme be clear: It's chill dawgs.
That said - one addendum - I don't think detainers actually ever constitute probable cause but I'm thinking back to like 3 or 4 years ago when for school reasons I had to research case law pertinent to sanctuary city stuff. Could be wrong: not sure entirely. But I mean I'm sure the SC is going to rule on sanctuary city status eventually unless they duck the case again just like George Bush had to duck to dodge that flying shoe. If that shoe was a heely he would have been mad dead.
Now please buy a god damn burger Gary is starving
SCOTUS's Printz v. United States? Federal government can't commandeer state and local officials to enforce a federal program? Pretty sure that was used by federal courts to uphold sanctuary statuses (and why weed is legal by state but is still a federal offense). There may be grounds for reversing this ruling but that's gotta be argued.
"Doesn't your federal government have the power to secure borders from invasions? Article I, Section 8?"
Actually it says this:
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"
"Invasion" is interpreted narrowly by the founding fathers to mean invasion of a foreign power. People hopping the border does not constitute an invasion (enmity and entry are both necessary). Also, this is a power of Congress. Not the president. Also also it involves the "militia" - not the standing army of the US nor the police. Militia because the founding fathers were suspicious of standing armies.
https://www.justsecurity.org/91543/immigration-is-not-an-invasion-under-the-constitution/
https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022-11-RR-SST-CompactClause-JoshuaTrevino-paper5-.pdf
"That is texbook aiding and abetting. Most countries consider that a serious crime."
I mean, sanctuary city policy is just not respecting detainer requests (or just detainers). Detainers are a constitutional problem because they call for the police to hold custody of someone for an additional 48 hours because they are suspected to be an illegal immigrant - but the detainers do not always establish probable cause nor are they warrants for arrest. Also, they often rely on faulty, incomplete, and wrong data in their database. It doesn't stop someone from being arrested when they commit a crime. Nor does not honoring requests stop them from being deported.
Hey what's up SatanLucy it's God. I've hijacked this RealMcDonalds account to talk to you. Just letting you know I'm gonna take a hike for a bit and let you handle things here on Earth. I'm gonna go start another universe and this time I'll let them eat the fucking fruit. I'm still angry about that by the way. How would you like it if you saved a bunch of extra special fresh fruit in your fridge and then some fucking snake comes by convinces these two half-formed primates to eat it? Fucking sucks man. I know I could make more fruit but it's the fucking principle of the thing, isn't it? If you waited maybe I'd share it with you but you were so fucking impatient. I was going to turn it into an apple crumble.
Anyway I'll give you some secrets of the universe before I give this account back to the poor fucking intern running it:
1) AI slop is real: it's actually showing things that are happening in hell.
2) The Illuminati exists but it's just 2 guys who meet up in a Texas Roadhouse and decide how the economy is going to go and which Hollywood celebrity is going to be sacrificed to Satan.
3) Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are actually the drag personas of 2 gay twinks who decided to run for Congress as a joke but it got way out of hand.
4) Trump and Putin are furries, but their fursuits are their human skins.
5) I asked Mary to put Jesus up for adoption.
6) My dick is the size of the cosmos.
7) Technically, because I, God, invented everyone and everything; I, by the transitive property, am on the Epstein client list.
8) Joe Rogan spontaneously generated from the ether when a college frat douche, a middle aged Italian-American, and Rob Schneider rubbed shoulders while trying to get past each other in a narrow hallway.
9) Bush didn't do 9/11 but he did cause Covid-19.
10) Moses wrote me to look less cool than I actually am.
Peace out fuckos,
God
Eh you know what? Maybe I debate this all with you at some point. I don't know why I typed 2,000 words of this. Hopefully some of this makes sense.
Remember to inspect your fruits. I have to inspect the fruits because the tomatoes are actually CRISPRed to hell and back so they're extra juicy and shit. RealMcDonalds over and out don't pay your taxes.
“I wasn't trying to provide a comprehensive definition of work. I was explaining the importance of work. Not all work is beneficial, and not all work is good.
There is an abstract moral value to work because it is an action with a purpose. Dealing drugs could be considered work, but not morally good work. Even if the drug dealer is trying to feed his family, he's using bad actions to achieve that outcome.”
Ok. This makes more sense, but it sounds now more like the normative importance is not so much attached to work but beneficial work for oneself and one’s family through legal means. I think this type of work is disappearing because of capitalism globally. Sweatshops and maquilas are often defended by people as raising the “standard of living” so that people live on one dollar a day rather than 50 cents (not to mention the violence and rupture created by forcing open markets through international predation and Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)). “Illicit” refugee populations escaping dire circumstances are forced into working on Southern farms in the US – often involving literal slavery (Operation Blooming Onion, for example). These markets are illegal, but I would argue crucial for capitalism to be “humane” to people in the Global North (well, we’ll see where tariffs take us as far as reshoring factories – I know in Florida there is rumbling about SB 918 to allow highschoolers to get rid of all regulations regulating child labor for 16 and 17 year olds which is being lobbied and supported by the Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida who lost lots of workers to deportations).
This kind of labor doesn’t really help the family to my mind, and it might help oneself only insofar as any other alternative is simply starving. In fact, the social conservative critique of laissez-faire capitalism from the Catholic Integralists and their ilk has been the razing of the nuclear family by failing to socially integrate people into their community.
“There is also a market value of work determined by a myriad of factors. An employer values work differently than the worker. The customer also places a different value on that work. Changing external conditions also affect the value. This is a basic concept that is not unique to Capitalism.”
This depends: are you talking about exchange value (which Marx reduces to just plain value)? In the sense that some commodities are valued differently by others depending on their location in the capitalist circuit of production and exchange, and these individuals have different opinions on how it should be valued? Maybe, but there is still, at bottom, one price that something is sold for. You don’t need to buy the labor theory of value if you don’t want, but the customer doesn’t really get the final say on the price of the product. If my overhead costs for labor and materials are x and y, then the price must be x+y+z. And z is surplus-value reinvested back into the company. If the customer can’t pay for it, then the producer can’t sell it because the product being sold is priced well above the social average of labor time used to create the product; they might have to sell at a loss or not even bother selling at all. That’s a lot of jargon for a basic point: but the idea is something like this:
Gary is selling bottle openers. However, each bottle opener takes 1.5 times longer to make than the competing bottle openers on the market. Maybe this is because Gary is relying on outdated technology, or his workers are organizing a stoppage, or what have you. Each product has more labor time put into it than the social average, and this will be reflected in price – though not necessarily in a 1 to 1 ratio (he might have to sell at a loss). Gary’s product is not going to be able to compete with bottle openers on the market, and so his product will flop. Despite spending more labor-time (1.5 times more to be exact, which must be paid for) on each bottle opener, they still have to compete with the cheaply produced ones.
One might say “well, a robot will manufacture the bottle openers for me,” but those robots are themselves products of human labor time and transfer value through its wear and tear to the product. Of course, labor is not the only source of wealth: there is also nature, but value in the Marxian sense is produced through human labor. At bottom though, even if you don't buy Marx's argument here: opinions on price don't matter because the factors of production that go into making a product, as well as the disciplining force of supply and demand, determine the price for you in a capitalist system. Any capitalist selling above price will have to lower his price if there is competition or else go broke. And the consumer can try "haggling," but if the capitalist knows that the price of a commodity is x+y+z - he's not going to sell below x+y+z unless he really needs to.
In any case, this is basically Capital Vol. 1’s first few chapters.
“If everyone in a community is a corn farmer with no other fields of expertise (get it? "fields"?), there will be a shortage of many things, even in a Communist utopia. If a dairy farmer moves in, his work will have a much greater "market value" (so to speak) even if there is no greater moral value.”
Well, I’m not sure how much market there will be in communist utopia (though there are market socialists), but I take your point to mean something along the lines of the question of “what about occupations nobody wants to do/nobody does?” Or, you’re simply saying that in the realm of exchange, a new industry will create demand for products that previously did not exist in the community – and thus increase market value.
I’m not defending the Marxist utopia (which doesn't mean that Marxists can't take action - striking and forming co-ops and so on. Not even strictly averse to violence since in the Global South - work conditions are certainly violent). I predict that if technological development increased there could be a dent in labor time spent on doing work nobody wants to do – though this transformation would need to happen outside capitalism (because technological improvements lend themselves to either extending the workday or intensifying labor). All this talk about these other professions is fine, but then it bears mentioning that certain kinds of work probably ought to be abandoned on moral grounds. If making “product x” truly requires a team of underpaid maquila workers to produce them for pennies on the dollar, then is “product x” worth it? Are there other ways it can be made?
“That is not something that is unique to Capitalism. Let's say in our corn-farming utopia, no one owns a car. An auto mechanic is not going to provide much value and will be "out of work" (again, so to speak) unless he acquires a different skill that has value in the environment he finds himself in. Should the commune devote resources to build a car repair shop because that's the type of work the mechanic knows and desires to do? Or will the mechanic have to find a different form of work?”
Small real-life communes probably have this discussion and vote on it. There would be no discussion in the capitalist society – you’d either need to acquire the means to produce cars, do your market research, and try to advertise your product, or you would give up and become a corn farmer. But in any case, I’m not defining the rules and procedures through which a possible future society would function because doing so is speculative. My point was that capitalism vaunts freedom through labor (to afford groceries and other necessities) but prevents many people from laboring necessarily (because allowing them to work would increase inflation, because their industry is obsolete, because a business is shedding workers to increase share prices, because a CEO has an exit option, etc.). So, if you take labor to have normative importance (and I think you do) then capitalism does not allow for everyone to labor.
“There are still fundamental similarities in all Marxist thought regarding the nature of man. Namely, Marxists reject human essentialism, even if humanists believe there are some fixed aspects in the nature of man. How human nature plays into the dialectical process may be different, but it is still the dialectic which primarily or entirely shapes human nature. I understand there is plenty of nuance to convolute the matter, but I think this is probably a fair summarization.”
First, your beef is with Rousseau. Second, your beef is also with other human essentialists:
Of the political sort of justice, one kind is natural and another is conventional. What is naturally just has the same power everywhere, [20] and is not affected by whether it seems so to people or not, but what is conventionally just is something that at first makes no difference to do this way or some other way, but when people have established it, does make a difference, such as being released for a ransom of one mina, or sacrificing a goat but not two sheep, and also those things that people set down by law for particular situations, such as sacrificing to Brasidas, and things of the sort that are decided by a vote. And it seems to some people that all justice is of this sort [conventional], because what is by nature is unchangeable and has the same power everywhere, just as fire burns both here and among the Persians, while they see what is just being changed. But this is not the way it is, though it is so in a certain sense, and while among the gods, no doubt, nothing changes at all, among us there is something that is by nature even though everything is changeable; nevertheless, one kind of thing is by nature and another kind is not by nature. What sort of thing, among the things that are capable of happening in different ways, is by nature, and what sort is not but is conventional and by agreement, even if both are equally changeable, is clear. And the same distinction will fit other things, for the right hand is stronger by nature, and yet it is possible for everyone to become ambidextrous.
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Book 5 Ch. 7 trans. Joe Sachs
Aristotle recognizes that human agency can change that which is considered “natural” (I can write with both of my hands to develop ambidexterity) even though he posits that there is a “human nature.”
Also, Marxist thought is compatible with different views of human nature (humans are naturally x, y, and z, and it is capitalism which doesn’t change human nature but represses it – and this is more the perspective of Marcuse and the other Freudo-Marxists). As a more-of-a-Marxist-than-not, I can say fairly confidently that “human nature” to me is not important for my Marxism. Regardless of whether a future society comes about, my objection is to the present. People seem to take for granted their weekends off, overtime pay, and so on, as if it were not the labor movement (including, one imagines, many Marxists, socialists, anarchists, and other radicals) that established those protections to begin with. Obviously, the attainment of labor protections is an uneven process that does involve capitalist cession (there’s an article by Hacker and Pierson about how the development of Social Security was publicly lauded but privately dreaded by the NAM and their member companies) but the Marxists had a lot to do with the 8-hour workday in the US. The Knights of Labor, Socialistic Party, and a large number of trade unions in the early 20th century and late 19th century paved the way for contemporary labor protections. And they're not established on the firmest of grounds.
As I mentioned before, in Florida, child labor laws are being eviscerated because of a lack of cheap labor which used to be provided by undocumented migrants (the sectors most affected were the ones lobbying for the bill). And when Florida voters passed an amendment to hike minimum wages, the sycophantic bootlickers and other parasites in the Florida legislature tried to allow employers to reclassify some jobs as “internships” (which is not defined in Florida law or in the bill itself) so that the minimum wage hike that the people voted on (with a 2/3 majority at least for an amendment to pass) would not take effect. It failed. But other bills haven’t. And even now the minimum wage is not enforced because investigators are short in supply. I’m mostly Marxist for 2 reasons: 1) because the existing protections for labor need to be guarded vigilantly and with more than just voting in the corrupt, soulless millionaires in either party and 2) because capitalist markets benefit the Global North at the expense of the Global South (by and large). And of course I would prefer to live in a socialist economy directed by a competent vanguard or leader – but that’s in a future I cannot access or deliberately plan, nor do I see someone in the current party system who can lead. No revolution is planned. George Washington did not wait to make sure democracy "made sense" or work out the details of the founding documents completely before he started shooting his musket. If the Articles of Confederation prove anything, it's that the people who founded the country did not sweat the details - they felt oppressed and smashed the oppressor's forces. The rest of the details have to be worked out practically after the fact. Do I have a plan, or could I know how a communist state would function? No. What I do know is that the capitalists do not have my interest at heart – their interests are class interests – and they are separate from the workers’ interest – and the democratic machinery of the state keeps them in power because the state is occupied by particular people with capitalist class interests. The Senate is filled with millionaires.
So much for my reason to be a Marxist (which, as you can see, makes no assumption about the human or human nature – it only recognizes that there are classes and class conflict). Human nature discourse presumes that there exists a “human nature” to begin with which is meaningful and profound. Such an assumption steps into metaphysical musings on the “truth” about humans – all of which is uninteresting to me. Here is what “human nature” discourse boils down to: self-evident observations about “human beings” (everyone needs to eat), trans-historical “truths” spoken with utmost confidence about humans which leave out everyone who is not from the speaker’s nation-state, region, or history (it is human nature to want to marry, practice a religion, own a piece of land, feel jealous, angry, or possessive in a particular situation, etc.), and lines of demarcations between political friends and enemies (this particular group of people for their racial, sexual, or national characteristics are against human nature). If you feel otherwise because you derive an understanding of human nature from your religious faith that is another thing, and I would not intrude upon it. With that said, human nature eludes scientific study. I can’t measure it. I can’t classify it. I can’t observe it save for designating some things “products of human nature” and other things not. It’s not a substance. It can be theorized about, but this is the extent of our knowledge of it. It must be taken on faith because rigorous study cannot reveal much about it. The “human condition” and “what distinguishes human beings from other species” is more observable, but then it is merely a list of things that human possess. And the “human condition” is the condition we are thrust into. These conditions (which society one lives in for example) are eminently changeable.
Oh, and I am not convinced that this is how Althusser thinks of the human being. He is an antihumanist Marxist. Chantal Mouffe definitely doesn't agree. And Fanon was skeptical of European humanity. He wanted to create a "new humanity" but even then - this Marxist humanist was skeptical and unsure it would ever happen. His main concern was killing the colonizers, asserting national independence, and developing industry.
“When I talk about foundational principles, I am talking mainly about the fundamental beliefs that typically make up a world view. These beliefs are at the top of the hierarchy in terms of forming a coherent system. For example, if I believe in a God who created mankind and is the ultimate judge of the universe, that will significantly impact many, if not all, of my views.
I believe most people do not intentionally hold to views that are contradictory. This mainly happens out of ignorance. It could be ignorance of the specifics of their own views, or an ignorance of how the different views they hold interact (coherently or incoherently) When the contradiction is discovered, they either need to adjust or abandon their one or more of their views. Of course, some may ignore the issue to remain in ignorance, though it is likely they will eventually have to confront the issue and make a choice (like at the ballot box).
In regard to this concept, a diffuse acquisition of ideas is more susceptible to ignorance than a systematic one. Systematic acquisition reduces the chance of overlooking glaring logical contradictions. No matter which form a person uses, they either hold a view or they don't with varying levels of ignorance.”
Meet Bob. Bob is a farmer living in rural Arkansas. He believes in Christ, capitalism, and gun rights. Bob wants high speed internet in his county because he can’t access his email or do online banking for his small farm, he wants to advertise his products to supermarkets, and he is hoping to find willing farmhands on Indeed. There are so few people living in his town, and the cost of installation is so high, that AT&T won’t come to set up the wi-fi. So, he sends a letter to his senator asking them to incentivize (through lucrative subsidies) wi-fi companies to set up high speed connections in rural areas. Is the fact that he wants subsidies for internet installation a violation of his free-market proclivities (since it interrupts price stability among other things) or is it in support of them because it will help him and others compete on the market (i.e. through banking online, advertising, and finding farmhands)? And if the answer to that question is “well it depends how he justifies it” does it follow that the manner in which we reconcile our beliefs does not follow from a deductive logic – but our own justifications which are self-serving? And if so, who, besides ourselves, can be the final judge on if our ideas are “consonant?” Motivated reasoning is prevalent in all people – especially the educated. It would be an incredible act of intellectual hubris to assert “here is my system of thought – it is obviously reconcilable and follows deductively.”
"The importance of work is twofold. On the positive side, work is how we build up ourselves and our society. And I don't mean in a selfish way. At the bare minimum, it means providing for our own needs and those of our family so as not to burden our community."
1) This is an interesting point but certain jobs, positions, and so on, probably don't help oneself or others (and leaves open the question of "who's work day"). And some jobs are at the expense of others. It's not hard to see that the sweatshop worker does more heavy, manual labor than does a business exec, though the business exec reaps the profits (Marx would say surplus-value but let's not complicate this) from the sweatshop worker. Not to say the exec does no work, but remuneration, intensity of work, who that work benefits (the maquila example), and work hours do not correspond. And, crucially, they occupy two class positions where the proletariat are significantly more at risk than that of the capitalist.
In short: What kind of labor, and who is doing it, and how much of it, and at what intensity/physical toll? Does the maquila example demonstrate the virtues of labor? Who doesn't labor as a result?
2) Capitalism itself makes it so that some people are out of work - technological improvement makes some jobs obsolete, capitalists can hire and fire pretty much at will in the US, seasonal labor is not year-long, etc. Execs work but they don't have to - they're not forced to sell their labor as capitalists do. And of course, inflation numbers are fought with more firings and lay-offs. The Volcker Shock was presaged by Milton Friedman saying "hey, there are a few too many million people working and it's causing prices to rise." And, of course, technological progress and labor regulation reduced work hours.
3) One should be skeptical of "community." There are friends and there are enemies - I see no "unity" in this "community." I see antagonisms though, especially (but not exclusively) pertaining to class.
"What I meant was that the nature of work and the nature of man are two foundational principles in Marxism"
“The critique of Stalinist ' dogmatism' was generally 'lived' by Communist intellectuals as' a 'liberation'. This 'liberation' gave birth to a profound ideological reaction, 'liberal' and 'ethical' in tendency, which spontaneously rediscovered the old philosophical themes of 'freedom', 'man', the 'human person' and 'alienation' [of labor, species-being, etc.]. This ideological tendency looked for theoretical justification to Marx's Early Works, which do indeed contain all the arguments of a philosophy of man, his alienation and liberation. These conditions have paradoxically turned the tables in Marxist philosophy. Since the 1930s Marx's Early Works have been a war-horse for petty bourgeois intellectuals in their struggle against Marxism…”
“The object of the second intervention is to 'draw a line of demarcation' between the true theoretical bases of the Marxist science of history and Marxist philosophy on the one hand, and, on the other, the pre-Marxist idealist notions on which depend contemporary interpretations of Marxism as a 'philosophy of man' or a 'Humanism'. The essential moments of this second intervention are: the demonstration of an 'epistemological break' in the history of Marx's thought, a basic difference between the ideological 'problematic' of the Early Works and the scientific 'problematic' of Capital…”
Louis Althusser For Marx - Introduction
I added the brackets.
Feel like that should suffice. To be even clearer, he refers to human nature and the "essence of man" as synonyms - and when he's discussing humanist Marxism he is not being nice about it. Althusser is also not a small name in the history of Marx - he is one of the chief contributors to Western Marxist thought. I have critiques of him too, but at minimum, if you buy that Althusser is a Marxist (and he disparages early Marx for being philosophical rather than scientific - which is a can of worms in itself but specifically he is talking about the political economic reflections in Capital which are distinguished from his Hegelian, younger, polemical self) then there is a case to be made for the foundation of Marx to be elsewhere. And he thinks that Marxist conceptions of "nature" and alienated "work" are "petty-bourgeois."
"Typically, yes. We all have a worldview. How one answers the major questions of life is a major determiner for everything else (Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What is wrong with the world? Does God exist?).
You are right that people don't often take the time to think about how they answer those questions, which can lead to conflicting principles. But that just means someone else is doing their thinking for them, but they still have a worldview."
My question is not whether people have world views, it's how their views are acquired - whether they are systematic or diffuse - and the degree to which they are either. Years of social psychology research - including the Tajfel experiments, motivated reasoning studies, and research on the limits of human understanding at the ballot box - seems to establish that we are not rational-deductive thinkers when it comes to politics. We are primed to vote based on affect, recent news stories, in and out group feeling, social expectations of those around us, and perceptions of danger. These things don't just go away because someone is "smart" or rational in other areas of life. So, how can there be a coherent system of signifiers and ideas that are linked together in one's head - in a more or less hierarchical fashion in one's head - with "foundational" principles and conclusions following from that? How would one go about studying this invisible structure to determine that it's real and not imagined? To me, this is not obvious and deserves examination.
I have no quarrel with you really. I too agree it is unlikely that at any point in the near future something like that can be instituted (though again, I thought I would show that Marx's vision of a future society differed over his texts and if that is given than I've accomplished my goal).
"So if we assume 16 waking hours, we're already at less than half of that spent laboring. And that includes at least one full day of rest. Just how little of our time should ultimately be spent on labor?"
Who's workweek? For the average American it might be about 37 hours per week (with lots of variance, obviously, and not taking into account household labor, child rearing, etc.,). What about the maquila worker?
I'm also just curious: do you attach normative importance to doing work? Is it just that it's unrealistic or that not doing work abrogates a moral obligation or does the idler a disservice to themselves? Because if the former then pretty much the whole tradition of political philosophy and theory is abandoned because it was always speculative.
How much time should be spent on labor? I don't know, but somewhere between "free utopian society" and "maquiladora workers were locked in factories producing masks and military equipment for the US during Covid-19 at the behest of business power (specifically a letter from the NAM so that Lego and Jacuzzi Inc. and a hundred or so others could keep getting supplied from maquilas including a company with military contracts which the US argued were "essential businesses") and political pressure from the US causing maquila workers to die at a disproportionate rate to the point that it affected the population pyramid since young maquila workers were dying faster than old people during Covid" might be a good start for any aspiring Marxist. Also, I don't think this is an exceptional circumstance either.
"The reason I pointed out a rotten foundation is because the foundational principles of Marxism are wrong. You can't have a sturdy building if you build it on a rotten foundation. Your ideology is the building, just in case that wasn't clear. And the foundation is the main principles you build it on"
It's arguably not the foundation. No mention of it in Capital Vol. 1, brief mention of it in the manifesto, and Marxists disagree about it (Lenin was skeptical about it in Ch. 5 of State and Revolution. Is he less of a Marxist because of it? What about Chantal Mouffe and Frantz Fanon?). And people take different things from Marx. It's easy to do that because his writings are in excess of 4,000 pages, his ideas changed over time, and he wrote on diverse topics (slavery in the US, the French revolution, the beginnings of imperialism, his enquiry into the logic behind the form of capitalism, his polemics against the young Hegelians, etc.). Why isn't the foundation M-M' or his historical materialism?
Also, is that really how ideologies function? We have all these starting principles and from them we derive their consequents? I'm not quite certain that's the case. People's political beliefs are more or less taken on faith. We don't ask a conservative or a liberal to reconstruct their belief systems from first principles like Hobbes or St. Thomas Aquinas does for natural law, and if you asked what the first principle of any random conservative were you would probably get a wildly different answer from another conservative. One might say "my conservatism is a product of my Christian faith" and another might say "I am just skeptical of progress," etc. If Marxism is to be unmoored from the works of Marx and become an ideology, the exact principles that rest at the core of an individual Marxist's beliefs will necessarily differ.
Every political grouping is just a profound act of faith because nobody's politics can be rationally subsumed to non-conflicting principles deductively arranged to produce conclusions about how to act - or at least, that's not how we engage with politics. I know nobody who orders their principles and derives conclusions from them to decide who to vote for or whom to condemn. It's more likely that people grow up, take on the beliefs of their parents and those around them, and harbor enmity for those who are deemed enemies. Maybe they go off to college or work and change their minds - could be so. So hunting for a "core" or principle at the heart of liberals or conservatives or whatever doesn't produce a rational order.
If on the other hand you wanted to render Marxism as a "coherent system of thought" based on its author, then it is out of proportion with what you were saying before - that you were talking about other Marxists. But I think you were speaking more about the Marxists around you. Again, I don't think we actually disagree with the utopia or whatever. I just thought that my expertise in the subject would be of use to a discussion.
I'm not a doctrinaire Marxist. I like its tools and critique and disagreed with how the OP's marxist interlocutors described the future society. I am also not satisfied with how some people describe the end state of society and said as much.
Now are you going to buy a fucking burger? I've been waiting behind this cash register for ages.
"But wouldn't it be fair to say when Marx talked about reducing the work day, he wasn't just trying to go from 16 hours to a 10 or even 8 hour work day as an ultimate end goal?"
Sure. He probably wants a work day below 10 or 8 hours.
"If the foundation is rotten, the whole building is compromised."
You can take inspiration or ideas from one thinker or ideology without following them to their conclusions. And within the scope of liberal or Marxist or conservative (probably even fascist) thought there is enough difference of opinion on matters that there will be disagreement on the end state of communism. The Post-Marxists are just this. Fucking everyone in the 20th century was revising and adopting Marxism for their own particular ends.
"But, as you recognized, my concern is about what Marxists currently believe. I can appreciate that you aren't a Marxist, so I suppose all those questions aren't directed toward you."
I'm more committed to Marxist principles than I am against them but doctrinarism is pitiful. Marxism, of all ideologies, is flexible enough to accommodate conservatives like Christopher Lasch, anti- and post- colonial thinkers like Fanon (who also had some conservative sensibilities), and Freud-inspired cultural critics like Adorno and Marcuse. So, in short, I'm not a Marxist that believes in a possible end state of society. But the critique of capitalism that Marx had is not wrong per se.
"I didn't mean to imply that Marxists believe all drudgery will disappear (though I'm sure those hippies out there). The point was more that there is this fantasy that work will primarily become this fulfilling creative activity, and the drudgery will become this minimal task that people occasionally do.
And they will want to do it. Because all selfishness will be replaced with altruism for some magical reason."
I don't think that's going to happen either. But work hours have already shrunk considerably from just 50 years ago and some businesses are decreasing the length of workdays even more. And so much of this is in sectors that one might call "unpleasant" work. Will people want to labor? Probably not. But this does not bear on the critique of the current capitalist system and what to do with people like Elon. could just shoot that fucker into space and make it another planets problem but he probably has an intern or two that can bring his ass back to earth and given how much he fellated the president hes probably good enough at holding his breath that he could make it back from space. or i could get gary to deal with him like i dealt with that corpo dude. had to kill him anyway cause once the secret of the big mac sauce got out gary would have been fired for doing that with the expired mayonnaise. what was i saying? oh yeah, gary could do it. he could lay enough of the mac sauce on the ground and when elon stepped on it hed be stuck like its fly paper. then i could use his meat for the mcrib and nobody would fucking notice cause the drugs he binged would induce a similar psychedelic experience as rawdogging one of our mcribs. fakemcdonalds over and out dont pay your taxes
-FMcD?
Actually on this point I'm somewhat willing to break bread with you. There are capitalists who for all intents and purposes are good people. Nothing I said previously was meant to say otherwise. But I think that in economic downturns (and often even in good times) capitalists are forced to make choices that aren't good at the behest of stock holders and such, such that would not let their employees fulfill their dreams.
Since we're talking about Marx, it is worth mentioning that his friend, Engels, was a capitalist too. He owned a significant share of a factory in Manchester. Engels' experience and the factory reports that Marx read informed his writings in Capital Vol. 1. And, while I don't know how Engels himself treated factory workers, that capitalists then tried to squeeze as much value out of workers' labor is historical fact. Nowadays, in advanced industrial economies, work is more pleasant, but it's hard to argue that they aren't animated by the same force - not just the need to accumulate capital - but to compete and mollify investors too. And that leads me to believe that even good capitalists don't often have a choice.
I already answered your questions:
"That's Marx's genius plan to achieve freedom? Everyone works less? That sounds like the 5th-grader running for class president on the platform of implementing all-day recess."
Yes, fewer hours. More automated work. He was writing during a time where working days being shorter was a primary political demand because capitalists wanted workers on the job 24/7.
"And between you and Marx, the solution is to decrease the amount of hours everyone works and significantly de-link from the world economy. And this will somehow promote human flourishing because Timmy can spend more time being an unproductive dog yoga instructor rather than a productive coal miner, right?"
De-linking is a more contemporary concept from Marxists (and others) in the Global South. I also said better labor conditions in the Global South (not a Marxist utopia) could come from solidarities between Global South and North countries and work stoppages.
Also as I said in the first sentence I make no claim about Marx's utopia being realistic. Your concern was that "Marxists say x" about future society. Maybe they do. That's not all Marx said about it though. He seemed to accept that labor was a realm of necessity and that human freedom exists beyond it. In short: work still sucks but less of it, and less work makes people freer.
"Have you thought through the consequences of such a plan? Do you have any solutions for the problems that will arise? Have you actually considered the specifics of how you will meet everyone's physical needs that doesn't end with millions starving to death? Or do you think all the details will just work themselves out simply because you want them to?"
I'm not Lenin and have my own critiques of Marx. What's your point?
"Marx did have a specific enough vision for a future society that is unrealistic and worthy of criticism."
Sure. But your description of it in the beginning wasn't all that Marx said. If labor becomes easier and production takes less time then Timmy being a dog yoga instructor (if that's really his passion) is more achievable. Also, to clarify, I'm not saying I'm a Marxist. I'm saying that Marx's vision of future society changed over time and became less polemical, in fact, also less certain (see his writings on Russia). So the Marxists who told you everyone is going to work on what they want and nobody will have to do drudgery is wrong. Work is necessary - it is in the realm of necessity - and so people are free when they are free from work.
For all other answers to your list of questions go ask McDonalds HQ. Call up corporate or whatever.
I mean Marx was all about cooperation in the factory just not in accordance with the wishes of the capitalist.
It's competition that drives capitalist enterprise anyway. Even if the workers conceive of themselves (falsely) as "one big family," the firm itself needs to compete, and the people who are most expendable are laid off in times of economic contraction. It's not a personal thing, it's how businesses need to be run. They occupy two separate class positions and they are not political friends.
Also, their indirect labor that you are describing (that is, not in producing material objects) was under your control because capitalism is the ownership of the means of production in private hands. You could control the happenings of the business and when to make people partake of this "immaterial labor." There are different ways of organizing peoples' work, and maybe capitalism is not completely hierarchical, but at minimum capitalism controls peoples' labor. And of course people wrestle nature. Whenever you pick an apple or extract something from the dirt, metallurgical or otherwise, that is wrestling with nature. That's also not Marx. That's Locke (Ch. 5 of Second Treatise)
Section 26: "God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being."
Section 28: "Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them" (he uses the word appropriate from nature).
Section 40: "Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to over-balance the community of land: for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing... the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value"
I don't doubt that some workers were satisfied knowing that their wage corresponded to what profit they generated for the business, but to call this "cooperation" presumes you all have a similar interest in the existence of the business, when in reality the worker's interest is in being remunerated for their services. Certainly, preferences for work exist (some people like working at Google because they can brag to their friends, some people like working at the movie theaters cause they get to see free movies, etc.) but the individual firm determines the pay and if one cannot make a living in one field of work they're going to be forced to enter another one. And the capitalist has an interest in keeping wages low and profits high, and the workers have the opposite interest.
I'm not saying that Marx's plan is realistic I'm saying that the idea that everyone is going to have to work on things they don't like. I'm also saying that the utopian vision of the future that is propagated to be Marx's is not precise. Timmy isn't going to be able to be a yoga instructor his entire life. He might also need to be a coal miner for part of the time. If that sucks, then consider that some people spent their entire life coal mining. Nevertheless, Marx also wanted technological advancement to come to a point when much of the work we don't like to do is automated. He was also a fervent critic of automation but only under capitalism (a different mode of production than his communist ideals). This being a prerequisite for any sort of communism also presumes that we need all the same jobs as we did before.
It should bear mentioning, too, that Marx was writing during a time where dog yoga instructor was not a thing. There were probably cushy jobs, but industrial capitalism was just starting to rise in Britain and child labor laws and especially laws that forbade children from having an education while they worked were regularly enforced; and class struggle proceeded on the basis of less hours per day in the factory. If that sounds Kindergartenish to you, then Nassau Senior's complaint that if one hour is lost of labor in a given factory, then there would be no profit, should be equally baffling to you because that's the politics of the demands that Marx was analyzing when the average number of hours worked per day was like 12 hours. The capitalism he is critiquing is not the same capitalism you and I probably live in if you live in one of the wealthy European nations or the US, etc. The same can be said about Ricardo, Mill, Smith, and the other "classical" economists.
Also,
"Have you thought through the consequences of such a plan? Do you have any solutions for the problems that will arise? Have you actually considered the specifics of how you will meet everyone's physical needs that doesn't end with millions starving to death? Or do you think all the details will just work themselves out simply because you want them to?"
I never proposed a plan for a communist utopia. I'm not a Leninist. I've just happened to be well-read on Marx and knew that what you were saying about his ideas on what a communist future might look like are not exact. But most of his work is on the critique of capitalism, not necessarily the envisioning of a future society. If capitalism is the mode of production that will exist forever now that is has been usefully "discovered" and enforced, it suggests that some spirit of history is guiding our actions toward a given end point - towards a global unity of capital - and that shit sounds like metaphysics. It sounds like Aristotle talking about the "end" of a society being its best and thus its nature. Or Plato talking about the "forms" that exist outside of human perception save for a couple grand geniuses. Marx also kind of believed in the inevitability of communist society in many of his works (but he changes his mind if memory serves) but that's where I diverge with him, as well as in many other places. The discovery of capitalism is not the crossing of the Rubicon, and it's not like the discovery of natural science that once discovered is secure forever. It's tenuous like every other human scheme. But if you are interested in hearing someone's ideas about communist society then go read the Marxisms of the 20th century from the Third World (i.e., Mao, Fanon, and for a contending voice, Gandhi), or read Lenin and Luxemburg and Stalin and whatnot.
Also leave Gary the fuck out of this. He's chilling right now and he doesn't want to talk to you. Isn't that right Gary? Yeah thought so. anyways..... wait what gary? you want to post too? I mean... ok then if you must but make it quick.
heyooooo my name is gary and i'm here to ....... dude what the fuck is this website?
what do yu mean?
Gary: i mean this website looks like a bunch of fucking nerds debating shit
FMcD: well yea its a debate site
Gary: these people need to get laid
FMcD - gary! what the fuck is wrong with you?
Gary: also why do you know so much about marx?
FMcD : that's lore they don't need to know about...
Gary:..... you killed the corpo guy?
FMcD:.......................
Gary:.........................
FMcD:..........................
Gary:....................................... ok then i mean i didnt like him either
FMcD: what did you want to say anyway?
Gary: oh yeah, right thought id flirt with hotties
FMcD: its pretty much all straight dudes
Gary: no women?
FMcD: maybe like a few but like this isn't a dating website
Gary: Why do you go on here. FakeMcDonalds... are you... gay?
FMcD: What the fuck-
Gary: That's not a no
FMcD: These people are like 50 and they don't like Marx so no
Gary: So you'll only date a marxist?
FMcD: no im not saying that
Gary: i mean you come off as supporting marx
FMcD: yeah well everyone gives him shit but they dont care about like rousseau or locke or tocqueville or any of the other moderns and some of them are arguably more influential than marx and had bad ideas but then culture war nonsense-
Gary: well why dont you start a thread where you're like "hey guys benjamin constant is actually fucking awful" or whatever?
FMcD: i mean i could
Gary: yeah you would and youre dodging the question: are you gay?
FMcD: none of your business im not dating you
Gary: that sounds like a yes
FMcD: gary, i locked that fucker in the freezer for like two days to kill him what do you think id be willing to do to you?
Gary: hey man i didnt mean it like that-
FMcD: also i know youre gay
Gary: Im bi
FMcD: ok well ill leave it alone if you leave me alone you know corporate is fucking annoying about this shit right
Gary: fine....
FMcD:.... what?
Gary: ..................why is our conversation being recorded?
FMcD: what do you mean?
Gary: i haven't been typing anything and look....
FMcD: oh.... the computer... is typing what we are saying out loud itself? and its adding stage directions?
Gary:.....
FMcD:.......................................... do we hit "Post comment"?
Gary: we could, also who is this Fruit_Inspector guy - wait is that why you dont want to say youre gay, he'll inspect you? Get it? cause fruits another name for a queer?
FMcD:................
Gary:..................
FMcD:...............
Gary: i'll just hit post comment
-FakeMcDonalds?
Socrates: Ah! But one must consider that fry sauce is also a condiment and so the Fry's taste is variable.
Glaucon: Very true
Socrates: And that which varies is not eternal?
Glaucon: Yes
Socrates: And that which is not a form merely partakes of the form?
Glaucon: Certainly
Socrates: And the statesman who cannot perceive of the form cannot lead? (Book VI)
Glaucon: That is a given
Socrates: So what, pray Glaucon, must we say to those who desire to eat fries in our city?
Glaucon: You must not eat that here
Marx's conception of freedom changes over time as his writings mature, becoming more methodical and less polemical (and also less Hegelian). By Capital Vol. 3, he writes (and I actually take this from a book on the history of political theory):
"Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favorable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite."
Labor is still in the realm of necessity - it must be done even if technological development lightens labor and increases material production in fewer working hours. It is true that in the German Ideology and Critique of the Gotha Programme he envisions a society that does away with the division of labor, but the catch is that even these societies still require people to labor. Labor could be portioned better so that the same people don't constantly perform the same bad labor (e.g. mining for cobalt). In truth, most of the unhealthy, dangerous, and tedious labor that is needed for cheap consumer products probably comes from the Global South in places like maquilas and export processing zones. Actual movement on remedying poor labor conditions in the Global South will probably involve a significant de-linking from the world economy, solidarities between workers in the Global North and South, or work stoppages in foreign factories so that poor Timmy doesn't get new iPhone.
Also, Marxists have been talking about indirect labor ever since Engels' Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State and likely even before. The Autonomist Marxists in Italy made labor outside the "hidden abode of production" their bag (see Silvia Federici and her dialogue with Angela Davis, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri). So indirect labor has been a topic of conversation in Marxist circles since at least the end of the 20th century and still gets brought up today by committed Marxists. Marx was mostly interested in the goings on of the factory which is why he read so many factory reports.
Look I'm a corporation. I'm McDonalds®. I got plenty of critiques of Marxism®, especially Leninism® which follows Marx's prescriptions too closely and Marx himself would have been like (as he relayed in a letter to the Left Revolutionaries in Russia toward the end of his life) "I was discussing the labor conditions in Britain, not Russia; y'all give me too much and too little credit at the same time." And then there's like the whole problem of killing people but I'm pretty pro-murder when the health inspectors come around and test to see how much asbestos is in the ice cream machines (that's why they're always broken btw - Gary kept putting fucking asbestos in the machines by accident). And because I'm from New Jersey, I don't believe in cleaning. When the rats end up accidentally falling into the fry oil it isn't really my priority to fish them out especailly when the mcrib® calls for rat meat anyway and the guy i usually buy from contracted the plague. dudes super dead i think but at least he didnt buy one of those filet o' fishes®. if you buy a filet o fish® i dont want to profit from it. id prefer to go broke than to hand someone our fried fish squares
Anyway what was I talking about? Murder? oh right so we had to murder one of our corporate sponsors because he was going to leak the secret formula for our big mac® sauce but since im such a little stinker im gonna leak it myself: its just bad mayo. we left it in the sun for too long when we were carting it in and we dared gary to take a spoonful of it and he thought that most people wouldnt notice if we slipped it into the burgers.
anyone want a fucking burger?
-FakeMcDonalds
It's funny you say that because Trump actually paid for that medical report. Saw it myself. He fellated Ronny under the barstools at one of our locations in NYC wearing the Grimace costume (his fursona) in exchange for a good medical report. Problem was after a few head bobs he was all tuckered out and he asked for like 5 double cheeseburgers. Speaking about being tuckered out, I felt bad for Tucker. He was waiting patiently for his turn by the window, drumming his fingers, looking forlornly at pictures of his ex before the brash New Yorker whisked him away. He sniffed,
"Vladdy Daddy.... I miss you Vladdy Daddy... I wanna rub your bald head again and ride on your lap on top of that bear..."
Then he broke out sobbing and made it fucking weird.
The only state that I'm in is a liminal state between death and life that I am suspended in for all eternity for my sins against Fast Food Jesus. He won't let me leave. He's trapped me in this website and is forcing me to stream-of-consciousness post.
The only white powder in the white house is the salt that Hegseth uses to rim his tequila glasses with while he considers leaking another military atrocity in his Discord chat with JoeBob677 and Wolf Blitzer.
Ok real quick I know I made that joke I didn't actually read your post. I'm sorry that dog bit you that does suck. Ok back to shit posting.
Oh shit you handing out cancer can I have some?
No you have to buy one from us or the CEO is going to have to perform another ritualistic sacrifice of one cow, one chicken, and one fish to appease our stock holders
Yeah he kept on dipping his balls in the hot fry oil and saying that he was making hush puppies. Actually, now that I think about it, it's probably him that punched Gary in the balls and made him piss himself in the ball pit. Sorry fauxlaw, wrong guy.
What they didn't tell you is that he kept on spacing out when we asked him a question. He must have been depressed about something. Saw him journaling in the break room. Said he missed his dad. Said he's due for some father-son bonding time where they can evict another tenant or harass another Miss Teen Universe contestant. He said one of the teens kicked him so hard in the balls that the only way he can feel pleasure is by dipping them in hot fry oil.
Anyway, want some fries?
Guys I'm not RealMcDonalds. Stop saying that RealMcDonalds is me.
I don't see the problem with murder. I just fucking murdered my way through this Big Mac like it was a Boeing whistleblower. Tore that fucking sandwich up like it's gonna tear through my stomach lining and force me to fork over my car so I can get gastro-intestinal surgery. And then I'm going to write a manifesto on my notepad and pull a Luigi on the CEO that doesn't cover me. No better than that; you've already seen Luigi, wait til you see who's fucking Mario (me). Ok legally I have to say that that's a joke and I'm not actually going to hurt anybody cause Mama McDonalds is breathing down my back (RealMcDonalds). There's also another guy in this brain. I can't tell who it is. But he seems to know some of you.