Marxist career advice
I've been thinking about how marxism might be a reasonable guide for how to make some pretty big life choices lately, and thought I'd share.
There are three broad categories I'm placing work into at the moment: capital intensive, non-capital controlled capital intensive, and labour intensive. I'll explain each below, but the basic idea is that this is about capital accumulation and management. Most of it is intuitive, but I've found it interesting to frame it in a marxist way.
Capital intensive jobs are fairly straightforward: we know that most big companies, be they banks, tech, large manufacturers etc, are both capital intensive, and capital controlled. By that, I mean they embody large amounts of human skill in their accrued capital, and that they are managed by the capitalist class. A car manufacturer, for instance, is an example of this, insofar as they'll have de-skilled their workforce to some extent by applying Taylorist principles and embodying some skills into equipment, to automate difficult or expensive tasks.
Non-capital controlled capital intensive jobs are similar, requiring generally a larger organisation which has fixed assets or complicated enough operations that is controlled either by the state or a co-operative. It requires roughly the same skills to survive and isn't terribly interesting in and of itself, usually. Examples might be civil service departments.
The last group is fairly interesting to me at the moment, and prompted this thought. The labour intensive group is things where there isn't really capital accumulation at all, and skilled labour is the main source of "value add". Skilled builders, craftspeople, anyone who can add value to a material or process simply because they're good at something, with only very simple tools. These kinds of jobs are comparatively rare, and probably the kind of thing luddites wanted to preserve. There is an accrual of skill and experience, but not capital. I've found this group interesting because some jobs that fit this description don't have to interact with accrued capital at all.
That last part is interesting because it begs the question of whether or not there is any mileage in seeking to "decapitalise" certain kinds of work. That's to say, successfully navigating life in a capitalist economy, while eschewing the use and accrual of capital at work.
The way I'm thinking about the above, it feels like we (as marxists) can choose to either invest ourselves in capital-adjacent work that might or might not be controlled by capitalists, or we can aim to work in decapitalised industries. The requirements are, I suspect, very different, and I wonder if the embedded values might be as well.
Just a thought: I'd be keen to know what people think. It is a fresh thought, to me at least, that skilled decapitalised work might be a reasonable starting point in movement building. I suspect it is tacitly what Green minded people are up to, and although it does have a whiff of luddism, I wonder if there's a place for it.
Weirdly naive question when you have actual, existing socialism around the world to look at and learn from. Just saying.
The first right listed in the European Convention on Human Rights is property. There is no corresponding right to food and shelter.
What human rights ought to be is a contestable thing: under capitalism we've put property (literally) at the top of the list. Much of our society is organised around this principle. What if we gave people the right to democracy in organisations that affect their lives? Their workplaces, schools, local hospitals, universities, even shops? The right to habitable shelter, food, and free healthcare? The right to meet their needs through the formation of associations like cooperatives?
Human rights have a dual purpose, insofar as they both express and enforce a social ideal. They're both cause and effect of hegemony, and they'll carry hegemonic values within them.
Plus my guess is that most of the people complaining about this are happy to lob big words around on the internet but have never once actually campaigned for the rights of anyone whose rights have been violated.
Consistently between 18C and 25C during the day, very little wind chill, moderate humidity. Some signs of drought elsewhere in the country but the river near me seems fine, probably thanks to a nature reserve.
This hasn't stopped everyone panic buying portable air conditioners and complaining about the heat.
TIL, this is awesome! Thanks.
Course books about planning?
I'm curious about how places like Cuba do their economic planning and how it is executed on the ground. Does anyone kno of any materials that describe it in detail? English preferably..!
Almost like perpetuating a system of privilege and patronage based on social position doesn't lead to the best outcomes. Crazy, I know.
There's not much you can do except advocate for the use of DANE in browsers: this lets site operators pin their certificates in DNS. It is tricky because it is linked to the operation of DNSSEC at the moment. Have a read:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS-based_Authentication_of_Named_Entities
Stallman is pretty much one of us, actually. He has a relationship with Cuba, opposes US sanctions, and literally invented copyleft licensing.
Use the search bar on his site for "Cuba": https://stallman.org/
To be honest, after 20+ years of using Linux and working in tech I've concluded it is not the openness of the tech that matters, but the governance of the providers. I've been tinkering with running a little ISP doing email, nextcloud hosting, etc, and running it as a cooperative.
That's to say that the socialist thing is public ownership, and the nearest we can come to that is coops, at the moment. Governing provision is much more interesting on the basis that it enables people who aren't terminally online to make good choices.
I've had a scroll through and many of the answers seem to relate to the US, which doesn't show any evidence of undergoing decolonisation any time soon.
A better example is the Chilean constitution that was put to a referendum relatively recently, albeit unsuccessfully: its key features were recognition of Chile's plurinational status, with added rights for indigenous people and communities. Have a read about it here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Chilean_national_plebiscite
Bolivia has a plurinational system too, but I am not as familiar with it so can't vouch for it.
In any case, Latin America is where to look. From a brutal experience of colonisation and US/UK backed dictatorship to what is slowly becoming a recognition that justice needs to be done. They're way ahead of the west.
"People Operations" was one variation on that I was surprised by
NLNet are fine - they tend to fund projects that promote free and open alternatives to gigantic american companies. If memory serves they've funded mastodon, and lots of other small projects too.
"Tax burden" gets me. Sure is a burden to have public services that improve the world you live in, right?!
Their "you use technology" thing is weird too. We're not Amish. We just want to end the domination of the world by capital, not get rid of all capital goods.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people can be so reflexively and unthinkingly wrong.
Turns out I didn't see this reply at the time, but: yes! The focus on individuals blinds us to the processes. I've an interest in the splits that occurred that we're talking about here and I honestly have no idea what forces out there in the world could have led to them: the Great Man approach is blinding.
On that note.. any idea what a good not-Great Man book covers this kind of thing?
Long read - NATO: Weapon of power, matrix of management
NATO’s twin dynamics—eastward expansionism within Europe, aggregated military operations outside—have brought it to the brink of a major international war, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But what is Washington’s real interest in the Alliance? Grey Anderson provides a sweeping historical analysis...
Just a long read about NATO. I didn't realise quite how grim it was until I read this. tl;Dr, vassalage with no easy exit path.
Tito lovers of the world, unite!
Anyone here care much about Yugoslavia? I'm pretty interested at the moment, namely because:
- worker self management seems rad
- pretty cool multiethnic state that balanced minority rights, regional autonomy, and party oversight pretty well
- a bit like a red precursor of the EU
- property law was radically different and separated nominal ownership (pretty much all the state) from use rights (enterprises etc) in basically the same way old English common land did
- choosing industrial democracy over political democracy doesn't seem like a bad choice at all
Same applies to the UK. It'd make a good dozen states, none of which could plausibly project themselves in the same way that the UK does today. Critical support for secessionists is a good move.
All three of those require fuel. I don't think anybody could plausibly hope to win a war or revolution without it. So, maybe start with helping to unionise oil refineries and distribution networks? Or, hypothetically, let's say they ought to not be available to the state. Ahem.
What are the perks of de-dollarisation?
Western sanctions on Russia are leading to trade being denominated in other currencies between eg, India and Russia. Iran and China are both in on this too.
Aside from a general undermining of the US, what are the implications?
As far as I can see, some would be:
- The US ability to interfere with other countries' foreign currency reserves is severely limited (since those reserves don't need to be in dollars)
- The US ability to print endless money might come under pressure, potentially endangering its ability to spend freely on its military
- Financialisation and de-industrialisation bite harder as US financial services might become less useful and America has lost much of its advantage in actually making stuff.
- Lessened capacity for the US to exert hegemony over other states via fiscal and monetary domination/coercion (a la gramsci)
Is that stuff right? And what else is there?
PS, sorry if this isn't quite the right community, I'm new here.