/lit/ - Literature

>>15807805
What made you change your mind friend?

you sure you're not one of the /pol/tard who've been shitting up the board with loosely related political threads for the past few months? prove yourself

>>15807816
I coped with politics because of my shitty life, now that I realize that I meaninglessly wasted last 5 years of my life I'm ready to become a normal functioning being, that means stop politicoping or caring about marxism
>>15807840
I'm not a polfaggot, I just want to be proven wrong so I can stop caring about politics

So you want to take the blue pill?

>>15807805
Though you've probably already read it, a good start is Animal Farm

>>15807805
It's never worked. Literally, never.

>>15807805
Not a book but politics doesn't work. They claim to want to solve justice but that's about as big a job for it as cooking can be used to solve justice. The definition of politics has nothing to do with that

>>15807805
Cringe

>>15807868
It definitionally can't be concerned with truth or justice. It's only interested in power and thus redistribution. If there's a drought you can only redistribute so much, you have to study other fields. I love the self consciousness of politicians now saying 'defer to experts'. Like no shit lol. It's almost as bad as celebrities acting like they're important

>>15807868
Wanting to stop caring about politics is a political decision op. As for communism being unachievable, it probably is, but the point of an ideal is to work towards it so that, even if you don’t achieve it, you still end up better off.

>>15808039
Wanting to stop caring about politics is a philosophical decision. It is not a state of power plays about governing.

>>15808039
This >>15808054
and you do not if you become better off because you're not fiddling with truth you're fiddling w power

>>15808020
Wrong thread, anon.

>>15807805
First list the books by Marxists and 'communists' that you have read.

>>15808073
No stfu, that's never an argument and always the dogmatic reply you make

>>15808093
What?

>>15807805
that must be books on crowd psychology.

>>15808106
I hate hearing 'communists' lose a debate then say we should refer to the almighty texts of inerrancy and creation.

>>15808106
I can make an argument without having to refer ppl to several books. Ask me what a problem is and I'll directly cite if I need to but more importantly I can explain it simply in a paragraph or two.

>>15808073
Wage labor and capital
Value, Price and Profit
The German Ideology
Critique of the Gotha Program
The Civil War in France
Principles of communism
State and revolution
Terrorism and communism

>>15807868

Even though I’m a leftist, I agree with >>15808039, the goal of the left is to theorize new ways man can become the master of his own destiny. That’s why it’s sad to see so many “leftists” resign themselves to these mass political movements that are clearly part of a broader capitalist agenda. That view of politics is not without its share of futilities, but you wouldn’t be much of a reader if you didn’t enjoy thinking through such issues critically and creatively. Though I won’t try and convince you any further.

What I will say is that if your goal is to no longer be concerned with politics, I wouldn’t read a book so mired in the political and reactionary as one devoted to refuting communism. That seems like a recipe for you just sinking yourself into another ideology. I want to say you should read some philosophy or psych about what makes people susceptible to ideology, but again that’s also not helpful for making you apolitical. Instead I’d recommend novels about finding hope in the face of futility. Unironically Moby Dick is my go to for this. When my hypos about the meaningless of politics get to me, I go a whaling.

If by communism you mean a money-less state-less society, then it is possible (we are nowhere close to it) but you can't just force that to come about through pushing your ideology like many communists believe. Honestly I think their ideal society is pretty religious in nature, and I don't think it's a new idea, it's just the contemporary version of it.
I think I could get a long with most communists if they could see that ideology cannot bring about their vision of society. In fact, as long as they are trying to push ideology they are guaranteeing that their society will never come to fruition.

>>15808117
>>15808128
Are you the OP? He literally asked for book suggestions.

Bless you fren but I beg to differ.

>>15808164
Politics is not life you god damned retard. I can teach an ai every bit of political knowledge and it still will not know
1. How to cook
2. How to farm food
3. What is justice not what justice is for workers etc
4. How to restart the industrial revolution
5. Any bits of technology

Gtfo your high horse. Politics is a dumb bitch to reality and that you must defer to experts to make an opinion shows the castration of your field

>>15808199
Was the list meant to be contradicted? That's using politics to fight politics it's dumb. All politics is refuted in Plato, Augustine, many books.

>>15808222
What list?

>>15808229
The list you asked for you fucking moron. I fucking political heads. I think the reason you hit each other with bats is to keep your heads on tight.

>>15808248
Fuck off, schizo. You're not making any sense.

>>15808265
Derr you need a commie book to reference so you can understand?

>>15808280
He really does, you're breaking his programming.

>>15807868

Being an NPC normie and not gaf about politics is really cringe, especially how unstable and illegitimate the US is becoming. Political agency is required now more than ever.

>>15808280
This board is about books. The OP of this thread asked about books. If you hate books, you're in the wrong place. Go back to >>>/x/.

>>15807961
lmao, you clearly don't know what you are talking about

>>15808296
Fuck off normalfag drone I want to enjoy life again

>>15808208
I really don’t see where you’re coming from with this comment, as I was encouraging anon to be apolitical and not read politics. If you’re trying to refute that theory isn’t an integral part of the left or really any modern political program, you’re just wrong. That is the argument I hear used by nazbol zoomers, ironically, who are too young or stupid or busy to actually read theory. Yeah reality is important, but the problems we face as a society don’t have to do with people not being able to cook, unless it’s the political conditions that make them unable to cook for themselves. I’m not really sure what you mean when you say justice for workers, as it implies that leftist theories aren’t striving for justice for workers and that their “reality” is good for them. It makes me think you aren’t working class and don’t know how many working class people, but of course you haven’t, because any notion of the proletariat in the West no longer exists.

>>15808332
My issue is you're trying to put politics overhead things when it's literally derivative. Whether you have the political power to cook or not is really just nonsense that's self-serving to just politics and either way it wouldn't solve any issues of drought or food shortages. It just redistributes what's already there.
Idc about justice for workers, I care about justice because justice for workers is solved by understanding justice itself. You're just trying redistribute the justice we already have, or the notion of it. Similarly I'm against justice being borne of any group or man. It is necessarily deficient and just redistribution.

>>15808388
Yeah but I don’t think politics should govern cooking, I only brought it up because I was confused to how you could possibly think those two things are related. I don’t need politics to tell me how to live my life, I need it to tell other people how to live theirs. No one likes politics if they don’t like power. Power as dominance has failed throughout history and only brought about the death of the powerful, I’m just trying to find a more sustainable model of power for all involved by theorizing new models of the state, political economy, and justice.

As to understand justice for workers in terms of justice, please explain to me how capitalism is more just in an Aristotelian sense than a system like communism. Or do you have a different definition of justice.

>>15808442
I've replaced capitalism. Nobody else has.
I get your points and the relationship between farming and politics about farming is asymmetric.

>>15807805
The People's Republic of Walmart proves that our modern corporations are the most advanced producers in human history, and why they are better than the USSR, etc. Strong rec if you want to own the libs.

>>15807805

Socialist Planning, by Michael Ellman
The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism, by János Kornai
Why Not Capitalism?, by Jason Brennan

Robin Dunbar's work on the cognitive limit to the number of people we can maintain stable relationships with kind of blows more decentralized, gift-based forms of communism out of the water. It just doesn't scale.

And of course, the obligatory Hayek. I'm not a free-market type myself but his essays on socialism and the coordination problems that arise are definitive regardless.

I could recommend papers and books that deal with Marxism itself rather than communism/socialism, which isn't an inherently Marxist idea.

>>15807973
>history is over innovation is not possible

>>15808945
As long as farming involves a contract between two or more parties its political. Cooking, not so much. But no use to talk about cooking without talking about farming.

I would be a very good leftist if I didn’t think my way to replace capitalism was the best.

>>15807805
János Kornai's work on the shortage economy and other failings of socialist and mixed economies. Hungarian economist during the Cold War who wrote from behind the Iron Curtain about the fundamental problems first hand.

>>15809434

>>15809440
These seven essays by the Eastern block's most important economist address and explore many of the critical social and economic issues inherent in the socialist economy. Published in Hungary in 1983, they are the firsthand observations of an insider who attempts to be as frank and impartial as possible about the experiment in his own country.The essays distinguish the classical or traditional form of a highly centralized socialist economy from a system, like that of Hungary's, that is in the process of institutional reforms. They focus on a few important characteristics of social economies, rather than providing a broad description and analysis of socialist systems, in order to stimulate thinking along comparative lines. The wider problems and issues related to socialist systems that they address will interest sociologists and political scientists, historians, and philosophers as well as economists.Kornai points out that because real modern societies are different from the pure models of capitalism and socialism, combinations and mixtures of socialist and capitalist systems, sellers' and buyers' markets, centralized and decentralized management occur widely and intensively in both socialist and highly developed industrial market economies and in the nonsocialist third world countries in some segments and to a certain degree. Looking at these phenomena comparatively reveals both the deep differences and the similarities and analogies between the systems.The essays are: The Reproduction of Shortage. "Hard" and "Soft" Budget Constraint. Degrees of Paternalism. Economics and Psychology. Comments on the Present State and the Prospects of the Hungarian Economic Reform. Efficiency and the Principles of Socialist Ethics. The Health of Nations.

>>15807805
Are you me OP
This last year has just been too much.

>>15807805
Communism is simply the communal ownership of goods. Communism predates Marxism, and in fact, was organically a Christian movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism
All socialists want is labor to managed in a co-operative, communal way , and must be voluntary. Just check out projects such as Co-opertion Jackson, or even Co-operation town, and check out mutual aid networks. Stop getting your politics from twitter. And stop caring so much about "pure communism", the USSR, China, and do some voluntary work - okay?

>>15809288
Farming is farming. It has its problems solved in agricultural science.

For humans the answer for equality and justice is in law, ethics, metaphysics. It is not in politics

>>15809288
Yes I agree that's why I'm not a leftist. My replacement is analytically proven

>>15807805
The entirety of the Austrian school, specially Mises (Socialism and Human Action books) and finally Hoppe.

>>15809517
Fuck off

>>15807840
Hmm yes... I've seen noticed him too anon

>>15809517
I'd consider myself a capitalist more than anything but fuck off with Austrian school shit. Heterodox economics is junk.

>>15807805
Frans De Waal Chimpanzee Politics

>>15807961
>The first counterargument is a fictional book about talking animals

>>15810663
>Why yes, how did you know?

My Disillusionment in Russia-Emma Goldman
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution

Anon while I agree with you that the socialist tradition in western societies has lately been encumbered by softness and decadence, there is still hope. Much can be learned from observantly applying Xi Jinping thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics™ to the governments of Europe and America.

[THIS POST NOT SPONSORED BY CCTV]

>>15810746
Share the pdf

>>15807805

Any history of the 20th century will do.

>>15807805
Of course it can. Will it, is another story

>>15809465

It's called growing up and acquiring property/attaining skin in the game of life. Recent events are just an acceleration which may benifit the right, to the good of all humanity. I don't think they've pushed quite far enough though but it's close.

If you are an American, even if you dislike him, unironically vote Trump in November. Otherwise you can kiss your remaining freedoms good bye. I'm being perfectly serious, unironic and correct. Make sure you can vote and vote straight ticket Republican.

>>15810746

Apparently a third volume is forthcoming, a "welcome" development. I sorta thought he/they party editors might stop at two and call it good, but if the current pattern holds we get another 500-page tome of Xi speech excerpts once every three years. The big difference being that these are published in major languages and marketed (somewhat) abroad. Not like the raft of literature on the Three Represents or similar.

>>15807805

>>15807805
u know u can be a leftist and not be a socialist dipshit right

>>15810801
Retard

>>15810801

>>15810898
Reminder that access to weaponry is the only right that matters.

>>15810866
u know u can be a socialist but not a leftist right?

>>15810801
Do you even know what the fuck you're droning on about you fucking retard. Stop speaking in vague generalities and just admit you don't give a fuck either way. You make me fucking sick.

>>15811129
Are you classifying the internet as a weapon?

>>15811129
You'd probably need other rights to protect that right too dumbass

>>15807805
12 rules for life

>>15811145
go clean your room, Jewden Patreonson

>>15807805
Why I Am Not A Communist by Bertrand Russell

>>15808015
Not that guy but truth and justice needs power distributed to it.

>>15811137
Go back to /co/ homo.

>>15807805

>>15811087
unironically narcan for college woke syndrome. not the best out there by any means but it will get your ass to work

>>15811191
Post your name and address

>>15807805
Dostoyevsky’s The possessed
fathers and sons by Turgenev was pretty good for that too.

>>15807805
Carl Schmitt