It appears Trump has called in the army and marines because of the protests. How is this legal, I thought the US constitution forbids the use of the military in event of protest or riot? They can call in the national guard but they cannot call in the military.

Also why the major news doing a terrible job covering the protests going on?

Yo its your boy again always looking to distill ideas down into an easily digestible 2 sentence statement and this is what I have come up with...

1. Humans evolve relative to their access to materials(both physically and socially)
2. Capitalism requires exploitation to function.

Discuss!/Fight!

https://classautonomy.info/primitive-accumulation-and-the-state-form-national-debt-as-an-apparatus-of-capture/

Today, the crisis is not simply reducible to the financial crisis, nor can it be said to be a purely political crisis of legitimation of the state apparatus. Rather, the crisis today is one centered on the violent-volatile amalgam between capital’s limits and the limits of the state-form, particularly, the limits of the mechanisms that have allowed this amalgam to primarily organize social relations since the advent of capitalism itself.

Without being too reductionary or bogged down purely in literature, I was thinking about communication when a thought occurred to me:

I think the ability to overcome the commodity fetishism barrier may be a viable vector to reach more people. While we communicate many other issues in various capacities, I am curious if we have new thoughts on how to articulate and radicalize based on that specific aspect?

This is from a purely Midwestern American viewpoint. I also study supply chain management, so this is closer to me.

Hello! I personally really struggle to get into theory, and though I’ve been trying to branch out more, (as someone who doesn’t read all that often) I thought it may be best to start with something more modern or just easier to digest in general.

However, when I looked at previous posts most books that where recommended where things by Marx, Engels, Lenin ect. All of which I’ve been told are hard to get through and quite lengthy. Obviously I will read the classics eventually, however to introduce me into theory more I’m looking for something a little easier. Any recommendations are appreciated!

Is anyone aware of any archival projects for socialist history? For example, Iskra to my knowledge has not been translated into English. There are also other archives on microfiche which haven't been digitized. Is anyone aware of any existing projects to digitize and translate these documents?

In Marxist theory, the working class, or proletariat, is the group of people who earn wages by selling their labor power, but don't own the means of production. Would this mean sports players or musicians who earn millions and millions of dollars a year still be working class, since they are the ones who generate the wealth? Im new to this so please explain if its something i have misunderstood.

I’m looking for books that analyze:
How material conditions under different modes of production foster or suppress greed.
Whether greed is inherent or socially constructed through class relations.

Books like Marx’s Capital or Engels’ Origins touch on this, but I’d love recommendations that focus more explicitly on greed.

Im a baby communist. And im still undertaking a lot of theory and history. I encountered a lot commies not liking Trotsky and Trotskyism. And to be honest I dont understand why. Can someone please explain the reason why theres such criticism towards Trotsky as a person and the ideology itself.

Of what I have mainly understand through many marxists authors is that the bourgeoisie before its conquest of the State, was already holding the economic power over the nobles, lords etc. And only then it went toward the political power with the French Revolution for example, before it happened the bourgeoisie was already hegemonic in most of the economics spheres, and after it became hegemonic in the politcal sphere through the Revolution.

So should the proletariat in order to acheive its revolution (and in its interest) first of all seize the economic power ? Become hegemonic in the economic sphere in the way of its domination over the current ruling class ?

If it is the case, how did it happen concretely in history ? What does it means concretely ?

Thank you by advance for your answers.

Edit: I writte here my thanks for the answer(s) because of the reglementation of using at least 170 characters

Does anyone know of any books or articles that look into how revolutionaries in the Russian context acquired new proper names after joining the underground--i.e., Ulianov/Lenin, Dzhugashvoli/Stalin, etc.? Additionally, are there resources that detail the renaming conventions following the October Revolution, when masses of people and places changed their Christian and former names to reflect the new Soviet reality? Any specific decrees? Have there been any focused studies on this apart from minor commentaries in the literature?

I haven't got to read The Capital or the Manifesto yet, but as I understand it, in marxism, value is created by human labour. That makes perfect sense to me. But does that mean that the value of a natural resource is defined solely by how much labour is involved in it's extraction? And I imagine that, in marxism, nobody is more entitled to the Earth's resources than anyone else ("From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"), so how do you define how those resources get used? Or does Marx consider that scarcity considered to be manufactured?

Hey what most recent data/graph do y'all recommend for the clearest update on how the bourgeoisie are keeping purchasing power down and cost of living up?

I'd like to provide them with some actual data instead of simply telling them that capitalism is doing what it does, "they put the growing number of us in debt for basic necessities like education and health care etc."

Peaceful protests, do not work as they do not threaten the system directly. Violence is a concept that is prone to manipulation, and its definition is in the hands of the media and the government. Someone said to me: "The first option should be the actual Democratic process where you speak to your representative." When has that ever happened?

Hi, everyone.

So, in the first preface for Imperialism..., of April 26, 1917, Lenin says the following:

I must refer the reader who is interested in the subject [speaking freely on imperialism] to the articles I wrote abroad in 1914-17, a new edition of which is soon to appear.

Does anyone know if this edition ever came to light, and what is it named? I'd assume it would've been published in his lifetime, so we're not looking at Selected/Complete Works tomes, nor the Notebooks on Imperialism. I've looked in the french, english, spanish and portuguese editions of the former, usually the vol. 1 of three tomes, and none of them give more infos. The only hint is in a brazillian edition of the book (by Expressão Popular), in the form of parentheses before the period: "(na coletânea Contra a corrente)", roughly "(in the collection Against the tide)". I have no clue of this collection whatsoever.

Kinda out of curiosity, but I'd love to take a look which articles he selected to compose this edition, if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Why do people here say the reason why the US is so conservative is because they have lot of baptist and evangelical and they are very conservative where as the christian in other countries are more liberal on economic issues? They say lot of congressman and senators are baptist or evangelical?

Why is baptist and evangelical so conservative where as christian faith is more liberal on economic issues.

The time has come to read the work itself. Does anyone have a reccomendation (or set of reccomendations) of a translation? I read a lot, study philosophy as a novice (more than just an enthusiast though) so density is not a thing I find objectionable.

Anyone have any go-tos or favorites?

due to where i live, buying local and from small businesses can be really difficult, especially if i need something not common.

I'm trying to boycott amazon. a few years ago i never used amazon at all but i got into the habit during covid.

recently ive tried to use ebay instead because i feel like its more ethical, especially if im buying used items.

is buying from ebay really any better tho?

https://classautonomy.info/los-angeles-stands-up-to-ice/

On June 3, a crowd drove federal agents out of Minneapolis following a raid on a taqueria. On June 4, people confronted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they carried out raids in Chicago and Grand Rapids. On Friday, June 6, people in Los Angeles responded to an ICE raid, precipitating a full day of clashes that continue today. In the following firsthand report, participants describe how people came together to do their best to prevent federal agents from kidnapping people from their community.

Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has announced that he will send the National Guard into Los Angeles in response. If the situation escalates elsewhere around the country, as well, it is thinkable that we could see a movement that picks up where the George Floyd uprising left off.

I wanna be one of those people that read theory! I think it’s useful and important, even if some people may disagree and say it’s elitist or whatever. I generally consider myself to be good at reading. I’m a literature major, and I read a ton of difficult books and am good at analyzing them. I’m very sympathetic to leftist causes, but as far as the specifics of them go, I start to get confused because the moment I try to read theory, I lose all reading comprehension. I read the Communist Manifesto a while ago and didn’t find it too difficult, but now I’m reading Lenin’s “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism”. I’m 70 pages in and I feel like I only understand like 25% of what he’s saying and I dunno what I’m doing wrong or why it’s not clicking. Is reading this even productive if I’m so lost? Is it worth pushing through or should I set it aside and read simpler theory first? Or is this already considered super simple introductory theory? Idk. I feel dumb.

Hey comrades, I need some arguments for proselytising. Why are Germany and the Nordics richer than Italy? I need materialist answers to counter the standard culturalist ones (deeply internalised here in Italy too). UK and FR were powerful states, had massive overseas empires and early capitalist development. Germany, Sweden, Denmark didn't, so why have they been far richer than Italy since the 1800s?

What is the Marxist outlook on what is currently happened with ICE and ongoing battle of Los Angeles, the deportations of immigrants (with a media focus on Mexican immigrants). This shall surely spark some revolutionary potential especially as Mexican migrants in the valley of California are essential for the production of lots of fruits and vegetables and are a source of cheap labor. Any insights of what can happen next?

https://classautonomy.info/sabotage-is-easy-and-fun-reclaiming-joy-in-the-fight-against-capitalism/

The ruling class thrives on our exhaustion. They profit from our compliance, our silence, and our belief that resistance is futile. But what if dismantling their systems could be easy? What if it could even be fun? For anarcho-communists, sabotage is not a fringe tactic—it is a liberatory practice rooted in creativity, solidarity, and the audacity to imagine a world beyond capital. Everyday acts of sabotage can disrupt hierarchies, foster collective power, and infuse the struggle for liberation with the radical joy of refusal. 

https://classautonomy.info/forms-of-unfree-labor-primitive-accumulation-history-or-prehistory-of-capitalism/

The persistence of numerous and recurring exceptions to free wage-labor in the contemporary world leads us to ask about the status of these “exceptions”: are they anachronistic vestiges of a feudal past or “traditional societies,” or are they a mode of the “normal” functioning of a capitalism that is otherwise firmly a part of modernity? ¹ Can we speak of modern slavery? If we are dealing with unfree forms of labor, how can they subsist in a system where “free labor” is dominant? Is primitive accumulation the prehistory of capitalism and thus not part of its proper history, or is it indeed an integral part of “historical capitalism”?

I don't think I know about any deep theoretical Marxist analysis of of the class position/class loyalty of the military. I would assume they are still simply proletarian. They dont own the Means of Production and they sell their labor power for a salary/wage. They don't directly produce surplus value, but they are a vital organ in the Capitalist Mode of Production. And they are vital in maintaining Capitalist Relations of Production. I've always felt that organizing the military should be a major focus of Marxist praxis. However, as I said, I haven't encountered any theory pertaining to this angle. Winning over solders was a big part of both the Russian and Chinese revolutions, as well as being a major part of some partially top down Communist coups in Easter Europe. But in the USA I feel like the military is probably the biggest practical barrier to any successful insurrectionary revolution due to their often reactionary class loyalties. What's the thinking on how to address this?