woodenghost

Same. Though I also like me some "dangerous radicals" as comrades. Or maybe some "dirty commies", if I'm in the mood. But my dream would be to become a "red menace".

Relevant song.

What? No. Comrad, of course you deserve to have it good! You're not a villain. The idea of labor aristocracy is about people allied to imperialist interests. People with privileges are free to reject them. Depression or other issues can lie to you and skew your self image but remember you still deserve to be happy.

They proved it for n=5 and 10.

Might have something to do with Iran and Russia being capitalist, torn by contradictions, led by liberals and ideologically idealist.

This was some years ago. I tried, but couldn't find it again. Crimethinc is a bit like this though. They were never anarcho-capitalist, but they changed from vaguely apolitical lifestyle individualism in the 90s to actual anti-capitalism around the time they wrote this book called "Work" in 2012.

I totally feel and understand your frustration. Vijay Prashad is great though, isn't he? The thing about Marxists is, that they are always pretty harsh with each other, always polemic, but still comrades in the end. So I won't take sides against any of the people you mentioned in general but still disagree with them on certain points. I've read biting polemics critiquing Michael Roberts too. And Harvey's Answer to Smith isn't pulling punches either. I guess some stuff might have been taken out of context and he definitely spend decades teaching thousands of students Marx's labor theory of value. I'm still thankful to Harvey for getting so many people to read Marx, even if I've grown beyond lots of stuff and always looked to other teachers for insight on imperialism.

In the end, it's not purity of theory that counts, but the impact on organizing movements. People who read theory on that level to inform their on the ground organizing efforts can definitely think for themselves anyway and will only take what is useful for their place and time and leave the rest.

from what I can gather, he seems to have imperialism flipped on its head - saying that its Global North workers who are actually exploited by the global South.

Really? I didn't hear him saying that. But he does seem to have a rare speech impediment, that prevents him from saying the word imperialism: here is his friend and comrad Vijay Prashad rightly and brilliantly chewing him out for that.

Value and circulation. MMT is not completely wrong, it's just incomplete. And it's weird to see incomplete alternative economic theories pop up again and again who's main selling point is avoiding the term Marxism. Keynesianism is another example. And there was this weird phase in US anarchism, where a whole lot of anarcho-capitalists finally started becoming anti-capitalist (which is good of course) and they wrote a whole book about it like they just personally came up with the idea capitalism is bad for the first time ever. And it's weird every time because, like, Marx is right over there, way, way in the back of the economics departments library. Ready to be read whenever you decide to become a serious scientist.

Even David Harvey started out like this. He just started calling himself a Marxist after people had repeatedly pointed out to him that he had become one. And his response was something like like:"Oh, I guess I am a Marxist then. I didn't set out to become one, I was just looking for theory that makes sense for a change."

Of course, most economists would do everything to avoid being called a Marxist in order to keep their funding. And that's where things like MMT come in.

Falseknees webcomic

Both have multiple schools, so that is a very broad question. I think the most interesting direction to take it is to look at philosophical differences. But even that is much too broad to answer. Also these philosophies are seldom if ever representative of theological orthodoxy.

Historically and very broadly speaking, Sunni philosophy could be said to be more Aristotelian or peripatetic (Ibn Sina, Falsafa) and Shia philosophy more platonist or neoplatonist (Ismaili Shia). But that's a huge oversimplification, since there is a huge overlap, especially with Aristotle, since Ibn Sina is sometimes claimed by both. Both are connected to different mystical Sufi traditions. Shia has Illuminationism and transcendent theosophy (existence over essence, Twelver Shia, Mulla Sadra). Sunni also had Averroism (Ibn Rushd). Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) together strongly influenced almost all medieval European Christian thought and scholasticism.

If you want a good overview, you can listen to the 75 episodes of Peter Adamsons podcast "History of philosophy without any gaps" on philosophy in the Islamic world.

Honest question is there any evidence of any contemporary real life (not talking about online forums) political parties, that self-describes their political orientation with the primary identity label "stalinism"? Or is it just a pejorative used by trotzkyists? Like a fictional straw man baddie they can rally against and feel morally superior. Again not talking about people defending historical Stalinist politics. I'm asking if the label is always and solely used from the outside.

Stalin definitely did not call himself "Stalinist", but Marxist Leninist. Hoxhaists come close, but they would probably identify as "anti-revisionist Marxist Leninist" (or just "Hoxhaist").

Basically, I'm asking if someone can link to the website of a real party with members that has as the first sentence in the "about us" section the line:"We are a Stalinist party, that aims to..."

If not, we should stop using the word as if it was equivalent to all the others in the meme.

There was a book club on menby about The Will to Change half a year ago. Maybe you'll find the discussions interesting. I loved the book as a primer for self reflection.