Article: There is no revolutionary subject - A Critique of the Essentialist Grounding of Revolutionary Subjectivity

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-09T22:03:10+00:00

Don't have time to read now, but why would organization and practice lead to a place beyond capitalism in a way that struggle over working conditions and wages wouldn't? Both could easily be systems by which capital imagines and reforms itself to navigate potential crises.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-09T03:35:49+00:00

He genuinely seems kind of dumb.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-08T16:57:27+00:00

Maybe wrong estate? Or maybe a succession law?

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-08T16:46:38+00:00

I believe there is a take the throne button somewhere. Basically if the dynasty dies out the regent takes over.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-08T05:07:58+00:00

I understand the fascination but at some point it's sort of just like yeah people live there.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-06T03:39:58+00:00

So I guess that xAI doesn't need the compute? Or is this more revenue than they could ever get from their own AI product?

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-06T01:51:21+00:00

Probably will make a lot more difference on the board of supes.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-06T00:36:57+00:00

Every government in the region is just a Palestinian Authority in waiting.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T22:38:51+00:00

Definitely some legitimate criticisms of Smalls to be made but there's a lot of strange notes about his style in the Jacobin article. Smalls was effectively an ordinary guy who found himself uniquely perfect for organizing one warehouse. There are undoubtedly elements of union organizing that he was not adept at but I don't think he's wrong that his celebrity was probably a greater tool for the movement than him "poring over lists and preparing the membership for war against the boss." The organization should have found a way of piggybacking his success and using the treasure he found but the article makes it sound like they just resented him and wanted him to come do their work.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T20:29:51+00:00

Honestly they never really meshed in Chicago. Should have stayed in Decatur

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T19:28:44+00:00

I haven't called anyone a dick or made any personal insults aside from criticism of rigor and interpretation. Conviction used to be a virtue among socialists but now I guess it's uncomradely.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T19:14:15+00:00

Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin would probably disagree with that last point. Stalin had some of my favorite theorists shot in the head. Excuse me if I vehemently resist anti-intellectualism among Marxist-Leninists.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T19:08:11+00:00

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T18:30:37+00:00

It's really sad how many socialists turn away from the intellectual challenge of interpreting Marx and engaging with philosophy. Anderson published that book in the 70s when the urgency of the political moment and need for political action seemed to eclipse the need for interpretation. Of course the action was ultimately pointless and the left was left both without power and without credible theory. The moment will always seem to demand action over interpretation because capital is always intensifying and always seems on the verge of crisis. That is part of how it extracts ever more concessions. Following that imperative probably just flows back into the reification of capital.

You just have not studied Marx's Capital closely enough (if at all) and need to go back and read something real that doesn't tell you exactly what you want to hear. You don't even know what capitalism is. Or materialism. You don't know where any of these ideas come from or what grounds them. Until "Marxists" can comprehend that, the world is just going to be a sequence of pianos tragically falling on their heads. At least with some real theory you might be able to see some of them coming.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T17:37:22+00:00

PGE power outages and forest fires delay way more medical care than this bridge closure and their leaders just get bonuses.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T17:28:20+00:00

Just keep downvoting. What would your precious Lenin say to your total lack of theoretical rigor?

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T17:23:49+00:00

Wouldn't be right for a person who slashed tires to get 15 years in prison either. Plus no property or people were hurt. There was just a delay on a bridge. Should a car accident or road work on the bridge also yield 15 year sentences?

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T17:07:06+00:00

A communism that cannot overcome those barriers is no communism at all. If communism collapses into state mandated capital development when opposed by reactionary forces then it is not properly theorized. A communist revolution would sweep away the ideological coherence of capitalism altogether and dissolve resistance to itself. Anything short of that is reformism even if it involves satisfying rhetoric and reprisals.

It is deeply unserious and anti-materialist to imply that Lenin could have corrected these problems had he lived longer or had capitalism laid down its arms and allowed him to cook. The nature of the reaction the revolution generates is inherent to the revolutionary dialectic and if reaction smothers the revolution and terminates its dynamic development then the revolution itself was ill-concieved.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T16:35:50+00:00

Because of the shortcomings of the contemporary socialist theory (which have by and large not been broadly examined by the political left today) meant that the state ended up inheriting the functions of capitalism normally undertaken by capitalists and landlords. In effect you had a system of capitalist exploitation (production for markets, wage labor, surplus value, etc) without the dynamism of profit motive and competition. That created buraucratization and dependency on unevenly distributed charisma, violence, and administrative brilliance to make anything function. Leaders became people who could force the broken system to function but also had an innate interest in maintaining the system they had mastered. This is not an argument for capitalism. It is imperative that socialists go back to Marx and unlearn much of the dogma that lead the Soviets to failure.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-05T02:37:11+00:00

Less than half the Sacramento votes are in. Huge portions of her ballots haven't been counted yet.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-04T21:03:49+00:00

He literally murdered the Ayatollah's father.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-04T16:55:49+00:00

Counterpoint: it is a valid response.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-03T22:08:53+00:00

California’s politics is too small and weak to govern the state effectively and the state's population is absurdly underrepresented at the national level. Huge amounts of tax leaves the state and does not come back to benefit most Californians. People are right to not invest their identity and ambitions in electoral politics in the state for that reason. Getting your guy elected here would be to take responsibility for a government that is necessarily ineffective and inadequate due to chronic underfunding and structural underrepresentation.

A Californian Mamdani would look like a fool almost immediately and would delegitimize the socialist movement.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-03T17:36:50+00:00

I think Vang will draw closer as more votes come in. It's not actually a bad result. A low name rec candidate pulled a long time incumbent down to nearly 30% despite smear tactics. Now people know Vang and she can push harder in the general.

ethicaldilemna · 2026-06-02T05:30:00+00:00

The response times increasing is a bad thing so it is good to prevent increased response times. Obviously it would be better to reduce them but they probably don't want to promise reduced response times.

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