Veblen was so prescient he basically articulates how western marxism went astray in 1906 & diagnoses this betrayal as the result of an undue influence of utilitarian/darwinian anglophone hermeneutics transplanting & displacing the “neohegelianism” that undergirds marxism. **
“The number of the “revisionists” is very considerable, and they are plainly gaining ground as against the Marxists of the older line of orthodoxy. They are by no means agreed among themselves as to details, but they belong together by virtue of their endeavor to so construe (and amend) the Marxian system as to bring it into consonance with the current scientific point of view. One should rather say points of view, since the revisionist endeavors are not all directed to bringing the received views in under a sing…
Veblen was so prescient he basically articulates how western marxism went astray in 1906 & diagnoses this betrayal as the result of an undue influence of utilitarian/darwinian anglophone hermeneutics transplanting & displacing the “neohegelianism” that undergirds marxism. **
“The number of the “revisionists” is very considerable, and they are plainly gaining ground as against the Marxists of the older line of orthodoxy. They are by no means agreed among themselves as to details, but they belong together by virtue of their endeavor to so construe (and amend) the Marxian system as to bring it into consonance with the current scientific point of view. One should rather say points of view, since the revisionist endeavors are not all directed to bringing the received views in under a single point of view. There are two main directions of movement among the revisionists: (a) those who, like Bernstein, Conrad Schmidt, Tugan-Baronowski, Labriola, Ferri, aim to bring Marxism abreast of the standpoint of modern science, essentially Darwinists; and (b) those who aim to return to some footing on the level of romantic philosophy. The best type and the strongest of the latter class are the neo-Kantians, embodying that spirit of revulsion to romantic norms of theory that makes up the philosophical side of the reactionary movement fostered by the discipline of German imperialism.” -Veblen **
Veblen defended the Bolsheviks against the “revisionist marxists” after the revolution. His project then became sketching out his vision of American Bolshevism in the form of “A Soviet of Engineers.” **
Specifically, he suggests building this soviet/party in America around “trained men at work in transportation, mining, and the greater mechanical industries”— that is to say, not amongst the menial servants & lumpens. **
The ACP is in this sense closer to Veblen than to “Western Marxism” in terms of strategy. The drayage truckers are precisely who Veblen meant. **
America’s fetishization of menial service work, which Veblen describes as “useless,” is a consequence of its ideological aversion to PRODUCTIVE LABOR— this is the “leisure empire” where professional athletes are considered “proletarian” because they have a boss **
The barista discourse will continue until people read Veblen. **
“Vicarious leisure refers to the non-productive consumption of time by one person as a sign of wealth for another, a concept popularized by sociologist Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class. This is exemplified by a lord or master whose status is displayed through the leisure activities of their wife and servants, who participate in it on their behalf. It’s a social display of wealth, where the leisure itself, and the consumption associated with it, serves to demonstrate the master’s ability to afford others not to work” **
America’s extensive menial servant class is a display of geopolitical “vicarious leisure” **
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More from @Logo_Daedalus
Nov 1
The biggest changes in my life have been the complete collapse of popular literacy (it used to be cool to actually read books, hard to believe now) & the emergence of a totalizing cultural japanophilia. Growing up they said “put down the gamebox pokemans and read your harry potter”
In a sense, popular literacy only exists now in the millennial-YA-to-erotica pipeline & in manga readers (most of which is erotica). That whole world I grew up in of David Foster Wallace being presented as a rock star, which provided this sense that such a fate was even possible, gone
The appeal of the “alt right literary space” in the year 2015 was the notion that this would somehow maintain this (elite liberal) literary culture— but the collapse of literacy was so total that by the time it was even viable there was no longer a market for it.
Read 10 tweets
Oct 29
Bugonia was very beautifully shot, great score etc— no complaints on a technical proficiency, acting performances were fantastic. It will probably be more beloved than Eddington for the same reasons I feel that it was not as good as Eddington.
I laughed a lot— but it’s really all in service of a very cheap sort of misanthropy. This misanthropy is in some sense complicated by a reverence for authoritarian structures over what is implied as the ultimately evil nature of “populism” — but it is not so much a reverence for Communism as it is reverence for the World Economic Forum. A Greek director who after the EU raped his country comes to the conclusion “humans are sick apes.”
Joe Cross in Eddington is sympathetic to a degree— pitiable— but the way Bugonia wants you to feel about its Joe Cross equivalent is basically the way a Nazi wants you to feel about shtetl jews.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 28
I’m not here to moralize– I’m just describing how our economy was set up to work. Most EBT recipients work– they work, & their wages are not enough to pay for their cost of living & debt servicing etc. If you, as the state, intercede & cover their food costs (or subsidize them)– that means there is more money from the wages that can go to “debt servicing” etc.
If, now, every working EBT recipient has to pay for all their food– their new household spending will have to take more money from wages to pay for the food– this means, less money is available for “debt servicing” etc. Maybe now all those klarna debts stop getting paid off.
The reason we subsidize food is because America is a net exporter of food. We subsidize demand for Cereal. That’s the way you ought to think of it. Think of Cereal Boxes. Ok? So if a bunch of cereal boxes are bought with EBT every day– that’s the State writing checks to General Mills.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 26
We simultaneously celebrate Individualism, & recognize that Individualism is actually deeply evil unless wedded with a Collectivist sense of individual self-sacrifice. This is the paradox of the “Anti-Christian” West. We play fast & loose with “Individualism”– “Jesus Christ was a True Individualist”– but Jesus Christ was a Communist...
This is simply to say– that we celebrate Evil, & simultaneously collect rents for preaching against Evil. Everyone is very loose with this arrangement. Everyone’s got an evil side-hustle. Evil 6 days out of the week, but going to Church, touching home base, on the 7th.
This is across denominations, affiliations, etc. This is just the ethics of the West. Democrat, Republican, Mormon, Scientologist– it is the same pattern– there is the 6 days of evil, washed away by the 7th day of institutional forgiveness.
Read 11 tweets
Oct 26
Racism is not some universal thing– racism is always particular, because race does not transcend history. For Americans, China *must* be imagined as “pre-historical” ie: as the “Heathen Chinee” who have not yet “entered history” under the dominion of the Catholic Church/The West (etc). Americans do not think that the Chinese are less innately capable than themselves (in fact, they fear that they are more capable, even the White Supremacists have to make copes about how median population IQ doesn’t matter *that* much etc)– they simply say “the Heathen Chinee do not know good from evil in the way we do”– this means that they are also not capable of the evil we are capable of (& here– to impose your will by evil means & get away with it is simply called WINNING). The Heathen Chinee are considered “naive”– this is a distinct type of racism compared to, let’s say, the racism against Indians...
The racism against China is “they are not creative”– this means, really, they are not as comfortable with evil. Creativity is infernal, really– the arts are a “deal with the devil”– Lucifer, Angel of Music– Tubal-Cain, the creator of the arts– this is, in truth, what the West prides itself on. In “not following the rules”– in “anarchy”– in “individualism”– in “faustianism” as Spengler called it. In making deals with the Devil. An extreme fascination with evil, unparalleled in any other society.
I do not think “True Crime” is popular in China. Is that racist? There are population differences, historically produced, materially constructed distinctions in human adaptation to differing socio-political environments. I am simply describing what China looks like to the Folk Cosmos of the American Civic Religion.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 22
How deeply I wish the average reader of Dostoevsky’s Karamazov understood the scope of its intended sequel. Knausgaard misunderstands the parable of the Grand Inquisitor here– & also Dostoevsky’s proto-communism– because he just lacks the context of the work.
Knausgaard is not a very “political” thinker– so he doesn’t grasp that Dostoevsky was actually sentenced to death for revolutionary activism before the sentence was commuted (V. Nabokov’s grandfather gave him books when he was imprisoned).
The Grand Inquisitor is not a *materialist*– he is a CATHOLIC– which to the Slavophilic Dostoevsky– is to say a WESTERN SUPREMACIST– the Orthodox Church does not have a “Grand Inquisitor”
Read 8 tweets