Engels translated his own name as Fred actually

We have evidence of this as early as the 1838-9 letters to his sister Marie (Engels was in the habit of using random bits of English even in his earliest letters).

And it becomes more prominent ofc once he moves to England and lives there. Marx himself used ‘Fred’ to refer to Engels often, including in this Dec. 6 1868 letter

Assimilation of the Roman variety (i.e., the main language isn’t forced on anyone, but all the popular media and good-paying jobs require it) go brrrrrrrrr.

Economic penetration and entwinement with Anglo empire has sociocultural ramifications (homogenization of social and economic structures to resemble Yankland).

Similar process shrunk a lotta the native languages in the east/north of the USSR, despite state efforts to prevent that.

Class society, capitalism, empire all lead to such homogenization, historically with a large state or market comes homogeneity.

Given enough time I imagine the global north nations would fully anglofy, with the english language turning into a language family (similar to latin turning into the romance languages)

:RIchard-D-Wolff:line:RIchard-D-Wolff:go:RIchard-D-Wolff:down:RIchard-D-Wolff:

:crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party:

:cool-dad:Marx:cool-dad:says:cool-dad:he:cool-dad:told:cool-dad:you:cool-dad:so:cool-dad:

:crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party::crab-party:

:kropotkin-shining:Communism:stalin-shining:is:mao-shining:inevitable:10000-com:

As one of the “sex repulsed ace” folks who gets shot at / tokenised / ignored / etc by all sides

Allosexuality deeply normalised and world is scream. Can’t use goddamn pleading emotes anymore because the goddamn allosexuals stole the goddamn emote to mean “bottom” and have turned anxious behaviours, nervousness, etc, into sexualised “bottom behaviour” to contrast “top behaviour” (fucking hell my fellow queers have recreated masculine and feminine gender roles down to their association with sexual behaviour! Infuriating!).

Also its fucking creepy that “pickup line” “stutter/blush/etc” “kissing / etc” being taken as “consent” is BACK but now its fine bc its gay? Like god i don’t want my anxieties taken as “i just secretly want the hornies??”

Oh and the jokes from other queers about turning everyone gay etcetc and i’m like “fuck you i don’t wanna be gay i hate this whole sex and romance thing”

So yeah notta fun month here ! ! !

If the sun destroys capitalism by frying all our technologies i will immediately convert to a sun cultist

Trade. Specifically, trade overseas (sea transport is much faster than land transport to the point of qualitative difference) allowed by long-distance ships. This seems to have had dramatic effects from very early on centred around the Mediterranean (e.g. Bronze age, Hellenic world, Rome, etc for more detail see Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea). The secret to merchants’ capital and hence merchants’ power is found in ch5 of Kapital:

The form of circulation within which money is transformed into capital contradicts all the previously developed laws bearing on the nature of commodities, value, money and even circulation itself. What distinguishes this form from that of the simple circulation of commodities is the inverted order of succession of the two antithetical processes, sale and purchase. How can this purely formal distinction change the nature of these processes, as if by magic?

But that is not all. This inversion has no existence for two of the three persons who transact business together. As a capitalist, I buy commodities from A and sell them again to B… [A&B] step forth only as buyers or sellers of commodities. I myself confront them each time as a mere owner of either money or commodities, as a buyer or a seller, and what is more, in both sets of transactions I confront A only as a buyer and B only as a seller. I confront the one only as money, the other only as commodities, but neither of them as capital or a capitalist, or a representative of anything more than money or commodities, or of anything which might produce any effect beyond that produced by money or commodities.(258)

Even in the relatively even playing field of the Mediterranean, this creates the ability of one party, the capitalist, to hold an overwhelming advantage of knowledge of (closer to) the entire process of exchange, instead of one part. In addition, this creates impetus to find new sources of valuable materials (a source of relative surplus value) spurring expansion. These twin impulses help drive and enable early European expansion. The next key to super-imperialism lies in the medieval monasteries.

Moving quickly (for more detail; Landes The Invention of Time and parts of Crosby The Measure of Reality), medieval monks became very fixated on routine, schedule, fixed times unchanged by the movement of the sun, etc. This made them efficient workers, and it spread into the cities. This conception of time (time composed of homogenous, discrete units instead of heterogenous, continous movement) is a necessary precondition for the existence of the capitalist mode of production, but here we are interested in its relationship to the construction of the modern escapement clock (as opposed to e.g. water clocks, sun-dials, etc).

Modern clocks (basically the kind where time is measured by discrete intervals of sounds; the tick) arise from this conception of time, as a way to create clocks that are more consistent. At first, a main goal of such clocks was to regulate monastery life better; it spread to cities and burghers from there. At this point, we are at the pendulum clocks, and these serve well for use on land. However, the clock has applications for navigation.

In sea navigation you wanna know how far North/South you are (latitude) and how far East/West (longitude). Latitude is much easier to find to an accurate degree than longitude, so it was a major limiting factor in naval navigation. The pendulum clock allowed for much more accurate longitudinal readings, but pendulums do not work at sea. Even more complicated, smaller, mechanical clocks were needed, and they were created. This allowed Europe to reinforce its naval navigation advantage regarding trade.

From 1492 and even earlier, the ships developed through mass trade in the mediterranean saw Europe become a global middleman, buying (or stealing) goods in places where they were common and selling them in places where they were rarer. This was ultimately the source of European wealth and power, as they enjoyed a collective near monopoly on (direct) intercontinental trade, flow of information and military movement.

Europe’s dependence on those ships gave it impetus to develop more intricate clocks and ships, and the wealth flowing into Europe gave it the means. As Europe shifted more towards exporting manufactured goods, this created impetus for methods to rapidly produce tons of shit. As manufacture turned into industry (meaning; as the machine was invented and the human turned into a mere motive power and machine-minder), a more controllable motive power was needed, and coincidentally existed in large quantities in the centre of manufacture (Britain).

The information gap also makes resistance, or even intention to resist more difficult:

The circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products not only in form, but in its essence. We have only to consider the course of events. The weaver has undoubtedly exchanged his linen for a Bible, his own commodity for someone else’s. But this phenomenon is only true for him. The Biblepusher, who prefers a warming drink to cold sheets, had no intention of exchanging linen for his Bible; the weaver did not know that wheat had been exchanged for his linen. B’s commodity replaces that of A, but A and B do not mutually exchange their commodities…We see here, on the one hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks through all the individual and local limitations of the direct exchange of products, and develops the metabolic process of human labour. On the other hand, there develops a whole network of social connections of natural origin, entirely beyond the control of the human agents. (208)

…

Since money does not reveal what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into money. Everything becomes saleable and purchaseable. Circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as the money crystal.(229)

Conditions of production (e.g. extraordinarily brutal slavery, unprecendented ecocide, etc) are similarly in “the hidden abode of production on whose threshold there hangs the notice ‘No admittance except on business’”(279-80), so for example while someone might reject trading furs for alcohol if they knew the alcohol was made with horrific slave labour, the conditions of international trade kept most knowledge in European hands. Without being aware of the conditions of oppression, without lines of communication, without immediate knowledge of the Europeans’ goals, etc, co-ordinated defence against Europe is difficult.

irony poisoning, it’s bad folks! Boomers got lead in their blood but by god zoomers have iron in their brain

edit: i do wanna point out that this isn’t so much an issue of ‘smartness’ as “large groups generally fail to understand anything more subtle than a hammer to the head” thing (i.e. a critique of irony in mass consumer culture of which the internet is a part)

I spent a few days lurking in the China channel. I went into it hating China, and came out cautiously optimistic, so I’ll give this a go.

The rapid expansion of capital, foreign and local, and the reemergence of capital accumulation as a production goal in the end of the 20th century

So the basic reason for this is that the CCP wants to catch up to and surpass the US, as well as build the productive forces necessary for communism. Marx acknowledged that capitalism is very good at industrialisation, which is why the CCP is attempting to harness it. In general the goal of this is to use capital to build productive forces without becoming a bourgeois dictatorship, i.e. being under the domination of capital. So how’s it been going?

Pretty well, to be honest. First, the ideology of the CCP. According to US National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien(1)

“As China grew richer and stronger, we believed, the Chinese Communist Party would liberalize to meet the rising democratic aspirations of its people…We could not have been more wrong-and this miscalculation is the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s. How did we make such a mistake?..The answer is simple: because we did not pay heed to the CCP’s ideology. Instead of listening to what CCP leaders were saying and reading what they wrote in their key documents, we closed our ears and our eyes. We believed what we wanted to believe-that the Party members were communist in name only. Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization. The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor. In fact, as the journalist and former Australian government official John Garnaut has noted, the Chinese Communist Party is the last “ruling communist party that never split with Stalin, with the partial exception of North Korea.”

Now O’Brien is obviously far from a trustworthy source. He may be attempting to stir up anti-China sentiment here. But you can at least be assured that this isn’t CCP propaganda. The point of this program is that it allowed China to trade with the rest of the world. When SWCC was started, China was pretty weak. Look what happened to the USSR, even with how strong it is. Look what’s happening to Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and the DPRK. Embargos, sanctions, and so on. By tricking the west into believing China would liberalise, it seems that China has managed to avoid being attacked by the west during a fairly critical period. This also allowed them to basically capture most of the west’s heavy industry. Now the west has to keep trading with China, because it’s entire economy is tied up in Chinese manufacturing.

Regarding Xi Jinping personally, the NY Times(Bad source, but not tankie propaganda) writes that “China watchers all need to stop saying this is all for show or that he’s turning left to turn right…[moving towards the left] is a core part of the guy’s personality. The leftists certainly feel he’s their guy.”(6) This, combined with Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, tells me that there was likely some sort of power struggle in the CCP, and the left won.

There’s also the typical capitalist argument of poverty reduction, which may be relevant. China has gone from (the world bank’s terrible definition) 66.2% poverty in 1990, to 0.5% in 2016,(2) but I’m not going to dwell on it, beyond noting that generally lower poverty rates are a sign of more developed capitalist economies, which is a prerequisite of communism.

The existence of megacorporations, especially private megacorporations such as tencent and foxconn

The main thing to note here is that the CCP doesn’t appear to be controlled by billionaires, and thus is not under the thrall of capital. Chinese billionaires are often executed for breaking laws, for example.(3) Furthermore, examining their response to covid, China was able to shut down entire cities to fight it.(4) The west has been unable to do this, because that would dramatically impede the flow of capital. As stated above, the goal of the CCP in SWCC is to use capital to develop. So far, it appears that the CCP has mostly succeeded in keeping it’s capitalists under control. Where the west is under the thrall of capital, the CCP seems able to tell capital to shove it when it wants.

the state of labor rights in the aforementioned megacorporations, and the state of labor rights in the industrial sector as a whole

This is a problem. Labour rights are bad in China, especially for migrant workers. There are attempts to address it,(5) which are unfortunately often opposed by the state. I remember seeing some sources in the China channel talking more about how the CCP does support labour action a lot, but since the channel is closed I can’t find the sources. So please do note that while I’m negative here, there are positive aspects to worker’s rights in China. I’m just trying to have sources for claims I’m making.

The repression of marxist and leftist protest and critique of the current state of the system

Since he came to power, Xi has emboldened maoists in China.(6) And there is critique and debate in the Chinese left.(7) A lot of it doesn’t get seen over here, because it’s in Chinese. I would also wager that, because of democratic centralism, we don’t see most of the debate. This is an old source, but it’s an account of a westerner going to a Chinese conference about policy.(8) So there is definitely western debate.

The apparent lack of repression of non-leftist critique (I could easily be convinced that this is just because they’re amplified by American media)

Probably this.

The great firewall (I could be convinced this is protectionism to avoid Western silicon valley capitalism’s supremacy on the internet)

There’s an interview with Castro where he talks a bit about free speech in Cuba, and how it doesn’t apply to people supporting Yankees. I think it’s applicable here. Also, it seems pretty easy to get around the firewall, and no one seems to care.(9)

The social credit system

I don’t know enough about it, but I’ve heard that it doesn’t actually exist.

Uyghurs

Continued in reply

(1) https://www.miragenews.com/chinese-communist-party-s-ideology-and-global-ambitions/

(2) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?locations=CN

(3) https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/26/billionaire-death-sentence-execution_n_5393883.html

(4) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-18/over-100-million-in-china-s-northeast-thrown-back-under-lockdown

(5) https://madeinchinajournal.com/2020/06/25/leninists-in-a-chinese-factory/

(6) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/world/chinas-maoists-are-revived-as-thought-police.html

(7) http://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/?p=1621

(8) https://monthlyreview.org/2007/09/01/the-state-of-official-marxism-in-china-today/

(9) https://old.reddit.com/r/Kaiserreich/comments/hutfa5/explaining_the_chinese_kr_community_yes_we_do/

Disclaimer: I did not compile this list of sources/arguments. This was compiled by low_poly_space_shiba, who has since left this server.

the BBC made a documentary on the “concentration camps” that makes them seem like neat schools

https://medium.com/@sunfeiyang/e284934a7aab

UN guy visited

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/china-says-reached-broad-consensus-with-u-n-after-xinjiang-visit-idUSKCN1TH00T

pakistan guy visited

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/422970-pakistani-diplomat-narrates-visit-to-chinas-xinjiang

world bank investigated

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china

China invited EU and they said no

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-exclusive-idUSKCN1R10QQ

just like they said no to check in Venezuela

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-un-idUSKCN1GO2J0

American and British imperial pigs explain every aspect of the modern anti-China approach, both goals and methods:

Churchill, 1902: What? (https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-159/wsc-a-midnight-interview-1902/)

Kennan, 1948: Why? (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v01p2/d4)

Brzezinski, 1998: How? (https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview)

https://imgur.com/gallery/iclU9H4<-relevant quotes

in tweet form

https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1285603816172380160

One of the main voices claiming atrocities are happening in Xinjiang is Rushan Abbas.

https://medium.com/@RobertArlan/a-reddit-ama-claiming-to-be-a-uiyghur-quickly-exposes-a-cia-asset-slandering-china-1d667c098b77

She did a Reddit AMA and people found out she’s a complete State Department asset. She literally worked at Guantanamo Bay as a translator

https://imgur.com/gallery/Xo7cYyq<-relevant stuff

Then there’s the other guy, Adrian Zenz:

Adrian Zenz is the expert on Xinjiang Genocide.

He

works for Victims of Communism, the organization that added worldwide COVID tallies

he is a Rapturist, he thinks he was sent from God to fight the anti-christ embodied in China

he has already been caught lying

https://mobile.twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1259300068227760128

basically keep an eye out for the name “Adrian Zenz” he’s behind almost EVERY SINGLE uighur genocide story in the NYT/WaPo/Guardian

there’s also a massive “grassroots” campaign on social media

https://twitter.com/j_bigboote/status/1182726991675625472?s=08

this guy basically went and collected samples you can peruse them yourself

another thing worth looking at is just “atrocity propaganda”, that is, how the USA just says horrendous things about their enemies, smearing them with impunity and destroying their public standing before moving into sanctions, then invasion

the classic case is Nayirah Testimony

https://imgur.com/gallery/jYTvY1T<-relevant stuff

(wiki Nayirah Testimony)

other examples

https://imgur.com/gallery/BHb8LOV<-relevant stuff

here’s an interview with a CIA agent talking about how the whole goal is to bribe and cajole journalists into creating an image that communists eat babies

I don’t know how to post video, but if you tell me how I can

“We didn’t know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure raw false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast.”

For a more in depth view, check out this doc (also not compiled by me)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d0lynghlCnR6Hs57pypEEhlhHczFVgaYX-TIZD61s_w/edit#

I found this later on.

Not about China specifically, but this article from the Guardian(sorry for the lib source) talks about DPRK defectors lying about DPRK

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart

“Cash payments in return for interviews with North Korean refugees have been standard practice in the field for years…This practice also drives the demand for “saleable stories”: the more exclusive, shocking or emotional, the higher the fee.”

“But many refugees say they feel pressured for defector stories. Ahn Myung-chol, a former prison guard at Camp 22, said people liked shocking stories and these so-called “defector- activists” were merely responding to this desire. Chong Kwang-il, a former prisoner at Camp 15, said the fame brought by media exposure trapped them, forcing them to reproduce a certain narrative.”

I’m not saying we should dismiss people’s stories out of hand, but there is a large issue with people creating more shocking stories. due to both the profit incentive, and also for propaganda value

tldr; There’s lots of terrorism in the region, much of which is likely supported by the US, in an effort to weaken China/manufacture consent against them. Rather than sending in troops, like the USSR did in Afghanistan, or the US did in the entire middle east, China is trying to de-radicalise them. The worst I can honestly say about them is that there’s probably some corruption and institutional racism in them, as in all prisons, and they remind me a bit much of residential schools in Canada for my liking. Still definitely a more humane choice than bombing the place to the ground though.

Khrushchev? What good has Khrushchev ever done?

-Deng, 1980