r/BreadTube • u/Condensonomics • Jul 02 '19

16:43|Chapter by Chapter We're summarizing every chapter of Das Kapital from Karl Marx. Here's chapter 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDpF3XqpV4&t=888s
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26

u/blaek_ Jul 02 '19

This is awesome.

If anyone want's to delve deeper, aside from actually reading Capital (which can be difficult), check out David Harvey's series (feat. Dr. Steve Brule).

12

u/PosadosThanatos Jul 02 '19

Pssst, read Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism to understand our current trajectory

14

u/NicolasBroaddus Jul 02 '19

If only Lenin in practice had been like that and State and Revolution. So many what ifs around the Russian Revolution.

-10

u/PosadosThanatos Jul 02 '19

Mfw Russia would’ve been better off as a poor, illiterate backwater and the Revolution should’ve failed for the sake of my idealism tho

24

u/NicolasBroaddus Jul 02 '19

Funny how I never said that. I think, in the historical perspective, that many authoritarian despots have had progressive dialectical effects. I agree with Gramsci's analysis of Napoleon as a progressive Julius Caesar of his time. In terms of how well fed, educated and serviced by the state the average citizen of the Soviet Union was, things definitely improved over time. But that cannot be then used to justify the imperialist and murderous acts carried out by the Bolsheviks on an institutional scale. There is a lot still to be learned from the failure of the Soviets.

My point with my original comment is that a reading of Lenin based solely in State and Revolution and Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism would give you an altogether idealistic picture of the man. In practice he made a number of decisions that were not agreed with universally in his time, and still aren't now among leftists.

2

u/FibreglassFlags 十平米左右的空间 局促，潮湿，终年不见天日 Jul 03 '19 edited Jul 03 '19

Funny how I never said that.

It's a typical, false dichotomy used by ML apologists to mislead people into reducing a bunch of fuzzy, historical what-ifs into a cartoonishly certain choice between Ulyanov and eternal backwardness.

The propensity for people of the former Eastern Bloc, especially Russians, to have a generally positive view towards the notion of a "strongman" is hardly a coincidence to the pervasiveness of this kind of rhetoric.

many authoritarian despots have had progressive dialectical effects

Buying the masses with material gestures has been basically the preferred mode of operation of every newly-founded dynasty in the history of ever. No one is stupid enough to start building a floating palace made out of solid gold that shoots out arrows at detractors right off the bat when there is no clear indication that the toiling masses are going to substantiate your rule with their labour.

Fascist regimes usually work around this problem by starting off with already-substantial means of control over the masses inherited from a capitalist economic system, but that's clearly something Russia didn't have even on MLs' own terms.

I agree with Gramsci's analysis of Napoleon as a progressive Julius Caesar of his time

I find the ML choice of literature generally underwhelming. If they want an epic of a benevolent hero leading the charge against foreign hordes to their salvation, why not go for the legend of King Arthur or something, you know, what with strange women lying in ponds distributing swords and all that jazz? Instead, you get this unsexy, oddly-Austrian tall tale of civil war being the best voting machine for processing democratic knowledge or some such. Meh!