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How does communism deal with the lack of natural selection in the market?
In short, in other systems, there is a mechanic that is naturally built in, where something that isn't efficient is destined to (economically) die, and that comes in 2 ways
Businesswise - say I produce a car, and I can create one for 5000 mesos, and the guy next to came up with a way to create the same quality car for 3000 mesos, he will sell his car for 3500 mesos, I will sell mine for 5500, and eventually the customers will only buy for him, which will force me, the inefficient business to either improve or to shut down, both of which options make the market better by either freeing up wrongfully used resources, or creating more car variety
When we look at individual workers, say there are 1000 carpenters out there, and there is work for about 800 carpenters, and there are also 1000 plumbers, but there is enough work to keep 2000 plumbers in business, the result of that would be that carpenters will have less work and earn less money, while plumbers will be able to charge twice as much as a carpenter will because of the scarcity of plumbers, that will incentive carpenters to learn plumbing and switch profession, which will fix the lack of plumbers in the market eventually
How does communism deal with that it is missing those mechanisms?
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Tudeh-Maki Joint Statement: Stop the Killing, End the War Now!
http://www.solidnet.org/article/Tudeh-Party-of-Iran-and-CP-of-Israel-Stop-the-Killing-End-the-War-Now/
https://redd.it/1lerpl3
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Structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have party congresses at the local level (republic, oblast, city, etc...)?
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Why was slavery incompatible with an industrialized labor?
Im attempting to understand historical materialism and how old relations of production become fetters on new productive forces. Am i correct in understanding that the u.s. civil war was in part caused by a need to bring the southern states relations of production into accordance with the industrialization in the north, as the u.s. spread west? And if so, why wasnt it possible for the northern industrialists to simply utilize slave labor in factories in the expanding territories?
Im also wondering why european industrialized labor wasnt spread on a larger scale to slave colonies during the era of colonization? For instance , prior to banning the slave trade, why didnt britain build textile factories in the west indies and use slave labor, instead of building them in london and using wage labor? Is the answer to these questions just circumstantial, or does historical materialism posit a theory that the relations of production under slavery and incompatible with the capitalist mode of production?
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Why did the soviet union fail?
Hi y’all!!! I’m getting into communism don’t know too much yet, but it sounds rlly solid and I know it has worked in some countries and in others failed due to western power interests. But I haven’t rlly dove into why the Soviet Union was deemed a failure, hope y’all can help me understand :D
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What does it mean to say Israel shouldn't exist?
I'm not sure if this question is for this sub reddit or not. And I'm sure someone has asked this question before, but I can't seem to find an answer. But either way I want to ask you guys because I have respect for this community and leftists in general.
TLDR: I'm making sure my dumbass understands the phrase because I never thought to ask anyone about it.
Little bit of background. I'm from the USA, raised in evangelical Republican area. Over the years I have deconstructed a lot of American propaganda and religious rhetoric that was shoved down my throat. However, I'm still learning and relatively young. I haven't gotten my grubby little hands on books that I still need to read (I'm dyslexic so reading terrible for me). I'm not sure if I'm a socialist or communist. All I know is I HATE USA capitalism, billionaires and corps. Well I also hate fascism as well.
Anyway, like many younger people, I was unaware of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the oppression the Palestinians have faced for over 70 years. That was until October 7th after Hamas attacked Israel. At first being the dumb white American I am, I condemned Hamas. Thank god some internet person told me I had no idea what I was talking about because I absolutely did not. So I decided to look further into stuff, just about the history, and the years of ethnic cleansing the IDF has done to Gaza and the regions surrounding it. Now, feeling pretty educated, I'm very anti-Israel. Their government makes me sick. I've watched to many children being pulled from rubble and families torn apart by the IDF. I won't ever forgive, nor will I forget what Israel has done. And my own country as well.
However I came across a comment on another post. Someone was calling out AOC for being very pro Israel has the right to defend itself. Which at this point just feels racially motivated or "Israel is our puppet. I can't condemn my puppet state." Anyways, the girl said Israel shouldn't exist. My understanding by that phrase is that by "Israel" they're referring to the corrupt ethno-state Natzi regime that is terrorizing the the region. This differs from the people residing there. By saying this, she isn't saying "the people residing in what is now Israel don't have a right to exist". I commented on that video saying exactly my interpretation of the phrase and claimed that if anyone who supports the Israeli government is in fact a Zionist. I in turn was told I don't know what I'm talking about.
That leads me here. I'm now wondering if I'm misunderstanding something again. So I ask you guys for help.
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The Time To Stand Up For Our Rights Is Now
I think as a species, we need to seriously ask ourselves: What’s worse? Working a career to make money and spending time off for leisure? Or being eradicated either by billionaire tech bros’ disregard of our well-being, or by superintelligent Skynet-esque robots? The answer is pretty clear to me. If we adopt a system of socialism/communism that doesn’t require endless growth and is sustainable, we can use AI for things that are, in the long-term, genuinely beneficial to our society and existence as a whole, not just tech billionaires or runaway misaligned robots.
But for right now, it is my opinion that we need to really put on the brakes for AI, regulate it, and push our current officials to truly represent us and elect future officials that truly hold our best interest at heart. We can have a discussion of AI’s place in the future, but right now it is being studied and implemented unethically. So don’t stop calling your representatives and senators, try to unionize NOW to protect your jobs against automation, and form groups and spread the word to come together to fight for our human rights and protest this, before we can’t anymore.
We did it to defy the evil of Donald Trump on No King’s Day, we can do it again if needed to defy what are arguably even more threatening evils in the form of tech billionaires trying to play God, who should all be arrested and imprisoned for their crimes against humanity.
Nobody wants to be replaced by automation just to be squandered and squashed by a new world order of an all-powerful tech oligarchy, which I feel like is a sentiment that will resonate with most people; and if these capitalistic billionaires wave a UBI in our face to stifle our revolutionary fervor, we must reject it and continue on our quest to reclaim power from them. UBI is a temporary solution to a permanent structural problem. It’s time to talk about this NOW. There’s no time to waste. Spread this word and sentiment to everyone you can. It’s time to come together.
United we can stand. Divided we will fall.
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Recommendations for biographies of Engels?
What’s your favorite biography of Engels? What makes you recommend it? Are there particular biographies to avoid?
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What do socialists think about the wave of Russian disinformation and bot farms as the leftists in USA talked about them?
The general opinion I have seen is that this is genuinely an overblown problem and paranoia based (partially) in Russophobia, but in my opinion there is definite evidence for the meddling of Russian bot farms and secret service meddling in elections. However…lately, Trump’s and Putin’s disagreements do put the idea of: “Agent Krasnov!” into a: “Doubt it…” zone, I’ll admit that.
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Questions on calculating depreciation of machinery
This is a question for all the math savants in this sub. I am currently on chapter 9 of Capital Vol 1 and have temporarily stopped at section 1 to practice the application of the formulae I have learned so far. My question is regarding how one would calculate the yearly percentage of value depreciation of instruments of production (ie machinery). I ask this because I recognize that calculating the yearly depreciation rate can be connected to production output assuming the same machinery is used (ie increased intensity of the workday coupled with increased raw materials being processed) but if new machinery is used to increase output, how would you calculate the rate of depreciation? I guess the two aspects of my question are how does one find out depreciation rate of a machine? And does one calculate depreciation of value by use (ie losing x amount of value per use of the machine in a period of time) or does one measure purely by percentage over time?
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Determinist communism/universalism
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it would really mean to build a worldview, maybe even a society, on determinism. Not just as a thought experiment, but as something you take seriously all the way down. If all human actions are causally determined ,shaped by genetics, environment, experience, and everything in between, then that should radically change how we think about justice, morality, and responsibility.
That leads to this idea: Determinist Rehabilitationist Anti-exceptionalist Universalism, or DRAU. It’s not a brand or ideology. It’s just what naturally follows from applying determinism consistently. The determinist part is the foundation. If nothing happens without a cause, then behavior, whether good or bad, is never truly free-floating. No one could have done otherwise in the metaphysical sense. So moral blame, in the traditional sense, stops making sense. There’s no villain hiding inside anyone. There’s just a long chain of causes.
Once you internalize that, the only rational response to harm isn’t punishment or revenge. It’s intervention. That’s the rehabilitationist part. You don’t fix a malfunctioning machine by yelling at it or locking it up. You analyze the structure, the inputs, the conditions. People work the same way. If something harmful is happening, you fix the environment, the education system, the psychological inputs. You change the structure. You design things better. That’s what actually reduces harm.
Anti-exceptionalism means you can’t make excuses for some people and not for others. You can’t say one person deserves compassion because of their background and another deserves punishment because of theirs. No one is outside causality. No one gets a moral escape hatch or a special exemption. That includes criminals, parents, presidents, soldiers, entire nations. If you believe in determinism, you can’t pick and choose who gets to be causally explained and who gets condemned.
Universalism ties it all together. There’s only one reality. One species. One logic. That doesn’t mean erasing cultural difference or identity, but it does mean you apply the same principles to everyone. No one gets a unique moral framework because of where they were born or how they were raised. Different histories, yes, but shared structure. Shared accountability. Shared need to intervene at the level of causes instead of just reacting to outcomes.
DRAU isn’t a dream. It’s just consistency. It’s what you get if you stop pretending people are magic and start treating them as real. It’s not soft. It’s not sentimental. It’s rigorous and cold and compassionate all at once. No blame. No excuses. Just reality. Just cause and effect. Just better design.
This is also why I don’t throw out the idea of technocracy. Not in the sense of worshiping credentials or turning scientists into gods, but in the sense that policy and governance should be handled by people whose models actually track reality. I don’t believe in merit as a moral justification for power. I don’t think someone “deserves” control because they went to the right school or can recite the canon. But I do think expertise can be measured in outcomes. If someone can reliably anticipate the consequences of their proposals, if their understanding of systems leads to better predictions, fewer harms, and more robust results, then yes, they should have more influence over how we shape society. That’s not elitism. That’s basic epistemic hygiene.
It’s like the relationship between a parent and a child. A parent doesn’t have authority because they’re better. They just happen to know more about how the world works. They understand risk, time, nutrition, emotional regulation, what causes harm and what prevents it. Their role isn’t earned in a moral sense it’s justified by predictive capacity. That authority should shrink as the child gains their own understanding. It’s temporary, transparent, and entirely functional. That’s what technocracy should be. Not permanent control, but provisional influence based on how well someone’s reasoning
both sides, it is a reactionary and capitalist war and conflict. In order to escape the danger of this war spreading, the working class, the toilers, and the free people of Iran have no choice but to expand and intensify the struggle against the Islamic Republic, make a more intensive effort to organize their ranks, and form a nationwide leadership for a mass uprising and the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic Republic regime. Some of the bourgeois opposition forces, who are excited, must not be allowed to lead the people to premature measures such as an uprising, which requires a high degree of organization and skill, and which they are not yet ready to carry out.
The Communist Party of Iran, while condemning this reactionary war and conflict, calls on all workers, toilers, and free people of Iran to expand and intensify the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic Republic, and calls on the activists and leaders of the labor movement and other progressive social movements to expand their efforts to organize and form a coordinated and nationwide leadership. Only by accelerating and intensifying the efforts and struggle to prepare the prerequisites for the revolutionary overthrow of the Islamic Republic can we save the people of Iran and the region from this criminal regime, thwart the efforts of the bourgeois and right-wing opposition forces to create an alternative from above the people, and place a bright horizon before the workers and oppressed people of the Middle East against the imperialist and reactionary regional order of the United States and Israel.
No to this reactionary war
Down with the regime of the Islamic Republic
Long live freedom, equality, and workers' rule
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran
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The Communist Secret of Love | Richard Gilman-Opalsky
https://illwilleditions.com/the-communist-secret-of-love/
https://redd.it/kzcne1
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Canada knew about plan to assassinate Iranian Gen. Soleimani before it happened
https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/canada-knew-about-plan-to-assassinate-iranian-gen-soleimani-before-it-happened
https://redd.it/kzafht
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Good documentary/YT video on the Russian bolshevik revolution?
Most videos I find seem too short to get truly deep into the state of Russia at the time,the military side of the clashes between the Red and White armies,the aftermath etc.
Any suggestions appreciated!Thanks in advance comrades.
https://redd.it/kz6qwl
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How does one get involved in the anti war efforts to support Palestine and Iran? I’m in Texas near Austin.
Thanks in advance for any and all information and or contacts.
https://redd.it/1lf0x84
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Is it wrong to join or participate in multiple orgs with differing opinions?
I want to join the PSL, and another, smaller org near me that seems to have no respect for the PSL. From my understanding they’re both ML. Is it counterproductive or looked down upon to participate in different orgs like this? Have you guys had any experience in this regard? On the other hand, can a marxist-Leninist work with a trotskyist or are the goals too different?
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A few questions
How much politics philosophy and economic should i know before reading marxism?
I think i know what communism and socialism is and their differences but i have some questions:what is marxism?is someone who defends socialism first and communism after ammunism socialist or marxist? And why do some people say “im not a communist im a socialist”?
Is socialism 101 by kathlen searsa good book to start?
What to read after?
Any good podcasts?
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Nazariya Magazine Issue 5 "Combat Revisionism!"
https://redd.it/1ld61q8
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When is something peace policing?
I came here because I trust that there will be little liberal discourse here.
If I’m at a protest or direct action, I’d obviously never call the cops or collaborate with them to keep the action ‘safe’. I’m also aware that overwhelmingly it is the police which escalate violence, and that the goal is disruption or some specific demand / resistance rather than safety. But in your experience what happens when someone escalates beyond what those who are organizing the action think is increasing risk beyond what people had prepared for?
Is it fair to ask those people to not join you next time? Should we accept any and all action?
I’m avoiding specifics because I hope it creates more diversity in the responses and also because I’m not comfortable posting certain things online.
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From a Marxist perspective, how did post-soviet Russia go from being friendly to the West to it's current, more hostile state of affairs?
In the chapter "The Free-Market Paradise goes East" in Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds, he describes how shock therapy and the penetration of western capital was encouraged by post-soviet neoliberalism in the early 90s under the Presidency of Boris Yeltsin and Bourgeois economist Jeffrey Sachs.
What brought me to this conclusion were the following paragraph's:
>"The Russian security minister calculated that one-third of Russian oil and one-half of Russian nickel shipped out of the country was stolen. Among those enjoying "staggering profits" from this plunder were Shell Oil and British Petroleum. In April 1992, the chairman of Russia's central bank admitted that at least $20 billion had been illegally taken out of the country and deposited in Western banks."
>"Multinational corporations are moving into Russia to exploit vast oil and natural gas reserves and rich mineral deposits at great profit to themselves and with little benefit to the Russian people. Over the protests of U.S. and Russian environmentalists, U.S. timber interests, with financial support from a venture fund sponsored by the Pentagon, are preparing to clear-cut the Siberian wilderness, a region that holds one-fifth of the planet's forests and is the habitat of many rare species"
>
>"Yeltsin also benefited from multi-million dollar donations from U.S. sources and a $10 billion aid package from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank."
Apart from these, it seems Parenti makes the point that the reactionary elements of the west, the corporate media and then president Bill Clinton himself, praised Yeltsin for his "Democratic reform", which we Marxists know is a dog whistle for the appraisal of bourgeois friendly policy friendly to western capitalists.
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Fast forward to today and Russia seems to me to be has increasingly emerged as a formidable adversary to western imperialist aggression, engaging in its own imperialist proxy conflicts that often collide with the interests of western imperialism.
May I know from a Marxist perspective, what imperialist conflict interest of the Russia and the west have caused this sharp turn from the pro-western stance of Yeltsin to Russia's current anti-west stance?
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Why didn't Engels publish Dialectics of Nature?
Why was such a revolutionary worldview left unfinished and posthumously published? The concept of applying dialectical materialism to nature has given me an immense sense of clarity, but I would be less inclined to make it my core understanding of the natural world if Engels or socialists at large found the work to be flawed or superfluous.
https://redd.it/1lc56e7
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How come people criticizing "just the CPC" are almost always racists?
This pattern has been like 90% with Americans, 5% are Falun gong Far-right diaspora, 5% are liberals with some minimum of decency to not be racist out right. These guys will go from criticizing the CPC to calling chinese robots and bugs within one sentence.
https://redd.it/1lbyvdp
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accessible resources for distro
does anyone have a primer, a leftism 101 resource (article, zine, essay, pamphlet) that i can print out and distribute to the community? i’m looking for a beginner 101 intro, something using accessible language especially for ppl who don’t have english as their native tongue. something to hand out to ppl who have never even considered the us government isnt their friend. recs? pls help
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aligns with reality.
This doesn’t mean we let technocrats rule unchecked or elevate knowledge above empathy. It means we stop confusing charisma, confidence, and inherited status with competence. You can reject meritocracy and still build systems where more accurate ideas win. In fact, you have to. To even propose an idea is to do so.
Determinist technocratic rehabilitationist anti-exceptionalisnst universalism
DTRAU lol that’s such a descriptive name.
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On misogyny and the party
We know bias against women exists both overtly and covertly, as we know capitalism is patriarchal. I have experience this first hand, even from self-proclaimed communists and inside communist organisations. Women are not are not immune to these biases.
This bias means women are not treated with equal respect and trust that men are, and whatever is written or said by women is more likely to be ignored or discredited.
Revisionism is inevitable when this bias goes unchecked. But how bad is it, and what can we do about it?
If a thread addressing this issue already exists I’m happy to be redirected, I’ve been unable to find anything discussing this subject.
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Greek universities need your solidarity
During the pandemic and as the Greek universities have been closed for one year, the government decided to bring a relevant authoritarian bill.
Some of the key point are:
Creation of police forces (1.000 policemen will guard the universities, sth like a campus police, which won't be held accountable to the University authorities, but to the Ministry of Civil Protection).
Surveillance system in all over the campuses.
Entrance checks for anyone who enters the campus.
Criminal prosecutions and expulsions of students, for putting put up banners, posters or due to noise pollution. Most of the academic community is against the bill, as it violates both our rights and the freedom to disseminate ideas and knowledge.
We fight, but its not enough, we need the international solidarity of other universities! We ask you to spread the news and help us stand against this bill!
https://redd.it/kz981j
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Can anyone please help me debunk this??
Hello comrades, I'd really appreciate if anyone could provide academic sources to disprove the RW rhetoric that minimum wages for workers are apparently detrimental to capitalists and by extension to the whole economy as it allegedly causes inflation and unemployment??
Thanks in advance,
Have a nice day
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Marx's Reproduction Schemes as an Unbalanced Growth Model
http://copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/andrew-kliman-marx_s-reproduction-schemes-as-an-unbalanced-growth-model.pdf
https://redd.it/kz9iyy
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Months after historic trial, Golden Dawn leaders evade justice
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/15/disgrace-high-ranking-golden-dawn-members-evade-justice
https://redd.it/kz5psl
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