Great, looking forward to it!

Study guide can be found here

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/guide.htm

You mean like tag people who have participated last? I’m not sure if I’d want to do that, just because I wouldn’t want to annoy people. Sometimes they can’t make it every week, and that’s okay! Maybe if individuals request it I can make that happen, I’m not totally against the idea, I just don’t want to step on toes. I’ll be posting it every week Thursday on c/communism, trying to be as consistent as possible, if I can’t do it for whatever reason I’ll be sure to let people know ahead of time. You can check out my profile if you want to find the latest post. Maybe I can even ask the mods to pin it on the communist community page for the day, if they’d be willing to do that, not sure how that works exactly.

I totally get it, 30 min a week isn’t a lot, but that’s on purpose. They say the best way to digest information is a little bit at a time. Plus to be honest, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, I wouldn’t be able to do more than that a week without it impacting my life negatively. CriticalResist8 has a study guide on prolewiki, GrainEater has a private Matrix study session as well, those are additional places where you can get more theory and discussion.

Thats cool, I’ll add it to my reading list!

I’m glad that made you happy. :) No worries about not being able to participate, life gets busy, I completely understand!

Yep, that’s where I got it from! Struck a chord with me because I’ve been getting a shitload of hate irl, so that was refreshing to read.

Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.

Follow your own course, and let people talk. - paraphrased from Dante

My reading suggestion this week is ‘Thesis on Feuerbach’ it’s a very short read on materialism.

Comrade roux suggested last time to read Wage Labor & Capital it was tied for first so I thought I’d put it up again.

Thankfully internet points do not matter at all. It’s the only thing these libs have to retaliate with as they see their worldview collapse around them.

You know what? You downvoting libs have done it. You changed my mind. Its over, its finished, you win again. I will go rethink my life now and vote for Hillary (it’s HER turn). Just please, for the love of God, no more downvotes. Please! Have Mercy!!

I’m glad that you agree with me comrade. I was trying to summarize my points without writing a book about it lol. Sometimes that can come across poorly, and requires more in depth analysis on. I’m glad that is seemed to have worked out for you, organizing in the states will be a real roadblock for the young US comrades.

I think you make a good point with your example. Let me clarify, I don’t think its unprincipled to use the law in our favor if we can. Personally I think that it’s damn near impossible to pull off just because of the massive arsenal of bourgeois laws the powers at be have at their disposal. If they want to eliminate you, they can and will find a way to do so within the law that’s specifically structured for that purpose. So if a fellow worker can find a way, despite all the limitations I mentioned, to make the law work in their favor by all means do it. I won’t personally take your commie card for pleading the fifth lol.

The text in question: *In America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat – that is, with the agrarian National Reformers. *

This statement is controversial for a few reasons, today bad actors use this line in particular to justify some messed up stuff. It’s kind of vague, but it seems like Engels is making the case that we should hitch our wagons to the party that plans on using the bourgeois constitution against the bourgeois in favor of the proletariat. I argue it cannot be done, if communists came to power in the US we’d have to start from scratch essentially, it’d have to all be re-written. It is a document that was written by and for the bourgeois, I struggle to see how that can be ‘turned against them’. Next he uses the 1844 National Reform Association as an example of how this can be done. This is controversial because that association was the beginning of the Homestead Act, which gave white settlers a free pass to move west and sped up the displacement/genocide of the indigenous people already living there. So was the homestead act a ‘win’ for the proletariat? For the settler whites it was a win. Overall it was detrimental, particularly to the indigenous population, and was a tremendous net negative (honestly it was beyond words how bad it was) from a communist perspective. Obviously Engels was limited in his perspective living overseas in 1840’s Europe where information received about these things was questionable at best. We now have the power of hindsight to see that was a very poor take, and that Engels was a product of his time. Finally, and the point of emphasis I wanted to make in my original comment, is that patsocs today still use this quote as justification for their bad beliefs. There’s a ton of resources out there from other comrades that go specifically into why they are a problem. You know very well these people and their toxic stances, based off of your PCUSA post from months ago (sorry that happened to you btw hope that situation is better now), so you know much more than I do about how much of a problem they are. Also there are non-patsocs that argue for similar things, like Gus Hall’s ‘Bill of Rights Socialism’. This again falls into the problem of using bourgeois tools against them, which I argue cannot be done on a large scale. This take also seems to imply that the law is just a neutral tool which can be used by anyone, that it’s impartial, which obviously isn’t the case. It also seems to imply that there’s some kind of pure redeemable essence in Amerikan values/law, which I would argue doesn’t exist. This is all just my takeaway from it, maybe I’m wrong, or overstating it’s meaning and importance.

Beautifully put, that was a very accurate summary of the text. I’m glad that this is well received, it makes me happy to know other comrades find these posts useful. I’m still working out some kinks, like finding a good time to post it, and using proper formatting. Hopefully I’ll get a little better at it each post I make!

You’re welcome! It’s incredible how an almost 200 year old book can provide us such great insights into our modern society.

1. My personal dislikes/disagreements about the reading: Engels prediction for the simultaneous victory of the ‘’’’civilized’’’’ proletariat in England, Amerika, France, and Germany clearly was wrong. These places are the heart of capital & reaction today, and that doesn’t even touch on the loaded language of what he deems as ‘civilized’. Next, while I do agree with his takes on creating a ‘well rounded’, atheist, proletariat with no national allegiances. I have to wonder how exactly would we get this done, his answers weren’t exactly convincing. He seems to argue that the proles will just become experts in everything, disintegrating the roles people fill in society, disintegrating classes, and blurring the lines between urban & rural life. Meanwhile the need for religion and the state will just naturally vanish into thin air. While I do believe in these end goals, I struggle to see how this is all possible using the road map he provides. Maybe I’m just misinterpreting what he is saying, or have a limited creative perspective on the issue. Finally, he opens up a can of worms in section 24/25 in a few ways. He seems to advocate for the use of electoralism to further the cause, working with democratic socialists to a limited degree, and even going so far to advocate support for the bourgeois coming to power over the monarchy. He also seems to take a patsoc angle, ‘turning the constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat’. This is obviously a nuclear grade take, the constitution was written by and for the bourgeoisie, there will be no ‘turning it on them’.

2. My personal likes/agreements about the reading: There was quite a bit that I enjoyed about the reading, I thought that the way he believes in replacing competition with association was a great line. Also the way he beautifully states, ‘revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes’. The entirety of section 18 is a banger, reading it made my heart flutter and give me chills. Section 18 beautifully states how exactly communists intend to get the project done. I also found it interesting how he states that with the fall of private property, the fall of prostitution will follow, given that prostitution is based off of private property. We’ve had plenty of discussion on sex work on the grad, so I implore people to read further on the subject there. Finally, the way Engels DESTROYS the various flavors of fake socialists with FACTS and LOGIC was just a cherry on top.

3. How this could be applied today: The need for to abolish private property is absolutely necessary today, as it was made clear by Engels that this is a core theme of communism. The very fabric of our society revolves around the protection of, and rights for, property owners. I’m sure we can all think of a few examples where property rights are given priority over everything else, including human lives. Private property needs to go, this is as true then as it is today. ‘Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society’. I hope the anarchists among us are taking notes, Engels explicitly states that this won’t be done overnight. Next, it is very apparent to me that all of the steps laid out in section 18 are being done, or have already been done, in actually existing socialist countries in one way or another. Thus making section 18 in particular incredibly relevant to today, and personally was my favorite take away from the reading. Lastly there’s the subject of electoralism, as we should know electoralism historically speaking hasn’t been the driver of social progress. Electoralism can be useful, it can be a good addition, if we can make even a small bit of progress through elections then we should be practical in doing so. However for the most part this avenue is a dead end, voting for bourgeois candidate 1 over bourgeois candidate 2 in the bourgeois run election wont bring any meaningful change. At best this avenue will be a temporary band aid solution. There’s a ton of great content by fellow comrades that go into the details of this, please go check them out for a deeper analysis on the subject.

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We’ll have a week break between texts, during the week break we will conduct the voting.

This is a great response, it’s cool how we all can have so many takeaways from the same text. I too found it interesting that how our class relations over time will funnel into these relationships to production. I had to go back and read your third section a few times to grasp it. You’re right though, I overlooked that key element on my first attempt at reading it. Great observation!

This is a high effort response, thank you for that! Your comments on how selling ‘labor’ morphed into a better defined ‘labor-power’ was a great catch. Personally I wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t for the footnotes describing that. As far as the slave-prole comparison goes, I can see why people would debate one way or another who’s worse off. Especially considering the time frame this was written in. Personally I don’t see the point in it. Its like debating what’s worse, burning to death, or drowning. The answer is both would be terrible, and there isn’t a great way to measure it, so why bother? Seems kind of irrelevant, just my two cents, maybe I’m wrong here. I’ll have to add that book to my reading list!