The west tries to hush up actual popular resistance while magnifying color revolutions. That’s a good litmus test to see that yes, this is genuine popular resistance.

All you need for commodity exchange is for people to accept something is yours and be willing to exchange something they own which you desire in return for it. That thing being a product of labor is not necessary. You can own land based on agreement without taking any trouble to cultivate or defend it, and exchange it for other things based on agreement. You can exchange naturally occurring things without rendering them ~crystallizations of social labor.

Yes? Marx talks about natural resources. Land is covered more in volume 3, but nevertheless this is fully accounted for. Natural resources take extraction to refine and produce, and the concept of owning land requires a body to uphold that, the state, and the value of land itself is tied to how productive it can make you. All value comes from labor and natural resources, this is straight from Capital.

Marx’s argument is invalid in another way because there are so many qualities commodities share besides being products of labor.

This does not make his argument invalid, though. What’s common is that the makeup of commodities can be reduced entirely to the labor and raw materials that went into them.

Now, I know that the law of value is supposed to come specifically with highly developed industrial society with large scale social production which makes the abstract real etc etc however the issue is that this then messes with Marx’s argument I went over in the prev comment where he tries to prove the LTV by going over the concept of commodities/commodity exchange as such without regard for this.

No, you never disproved anything.

The argument only doesn’t apply for the first reason. There’s no necessity even for Marx that commodities be arbitrarily “difficult” to produce.

There is, though. A commodity’s value isn’t dependent on how much labor went into that individual commodity, but that commodity as a social product, ie on average. If someone spends 10 hours on a mud pie that takes 2 seconds to create on average, it’ll be just as close to worthless as the rest. Further, labor that is more skilled (harder to socially reproduce) or more compressed than the social average does produce more value. Value is a social characteristic, not an individual one.

How is this a response to what I said?

Because you’re confusing the fact that prices reflect value with the idea that people independently think of that before purchasing.

This is both incorrect (for Marx, value is entirely determined by socially necessary labor time) and doesn’t mean anything (this is like multiplying 3 apples by 7 pears, what does it mean that the value of a commodity can be reduced to labor and natural resources?; with value being determined by labor time you can reduce things to a certain quantity, but then you just add on a qualitatively different thing and you return to the original problem of needing a third equivalent, or a value to unite the components of value).

You’re mixing up Exchange-Value with Use-Value. All use-value comes from labor and natural resources, but natural resources themselves can be reduced to the labor required to gather them and refine them, etc. All socially necessary labor time means is that it takes society on average a certain amount of labor to create something, and natural resources can be themselves reduced to labor. 3 apples and 7 pears both may take the same amount of labor on average to create them, and thus their prices naturally gravitate near the same value.

You forgot to explain how this actually occurs. You just say that capitalism does it.

Through the market. Buying and selling of goods, competition, all of this from the perspective of the capitalist confronts them as input costs and profits. Competition forces prices towards a floor, lack of competition brings in new competitors which then brings the price back to being roughly as profitable as the rest. Capital essentially functions as a control system.

You should tell Marx this since he expressly says that he thinks the only universal is labor. You both happen to be wrong, though.

You should actually read Capital, because Marx quite literally states this.

Use-values like coats, linen, etc., in short, the physical bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements, the material provided by nature, and labour. If we subtract the total amount of useful labour of different kinds which is contained in the coat, the linen, etc., a material substratum is always left. This substratum is furnished by nature without human intervention. When man engages in production, he can only proceed as nature does herself, i.e. he can only change the form of the materials.[17] Furthermore, even in this work of modification he is constantly helped by natural forces. Labour is therefore not the only source of material wealth, i.e. of the use-values it produces. As William Petty says, labour is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother.[18]

Marx isn’t wrong, and neither am I, it seems you genuinely haven’t opened Capital because this is in the first few pages. I’m not sure whose alt you are, given that this is a 2 comment account, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to start an argument on Capital without even reading the first chapter of the first volume.

I have never once said states and revolutions are the same thing, only that the only way to create a leftist state is revolution, and that states themselves are inherently violent towards the non-dominant class. Regimes are just scary words for states in common lingo, so please explain what a regime is.

I’ve been talking about both revolutions and states, which you call “regimes” to sound scary. States are itself tools by which one class dominates the rest, this is inherently violent.

Yes, of course I can read. You rejected my interpretation, and I very clearly explained how your rejection is baseless. What is a “non-violent leftist regime?”

So we are back to square one: since all leftist states are the result of revolution, it is definitionally correct that “tankies” are those who support socialist states. All states are tools by which the ruling classes retain their dominance, in socialism this is the working class. Therefore, all states are inherently violent, and trying to label some as uniquely violent misses the entire point of the state, a monopoly on violence.

Yet this is very clearly not something that all commodities have in common

This is not clear at all. Elaborate, please.

and that a thing’s status as a commodity and its ability to be exchanged for other commodities has nothing to do with its being a product of labor

Why not? Are you saying that the utility of a commodity to someone does not change whether or not it was made with labor? This doesn’t really matter, though, the point of the Law of Value is that commodities are socially produced, and socially distributed, which normalizes their price around their values. Arguments like the “mud pie” don’t apply, because mud pies are neither useful nor difficult to make.

The only way Marx’s argument can be accepted is if you start with the presupposition that commodities are valued by the labor required to produce them.

Incorrect, the exchange-value that price fluctuates around is representative of the value in a commodity. Another way to look at it is that the value of a commodity is the sum of its inputs, which can be reduced to labor and natural resources.

How this happens that commodities are exchanged at their “value” is a complete mystery by the way, since Marx says it has nothing to do with the conscious considerations of either the buyer or the seller.

Marx is correct, though this is no mystery. Commodities are social products, and are socially exchanged. What’s universal to goods bought and sold is that they require natural resources and human labor to create them, thus capitalism in being a social process acts as a price-finder for commodities, all based on inputs and outputs.

Revolution is the only way left-wing governments have historically been solidified. Bolivia tried the democratic process, and this failed, so now a potential revolution is brewing as clashes between the far-right and the primarily indigenous socialists are erupting. Allende tried the democratic process in Chile, and was coup’d for it.

The simple truth is that anyone can go and apply for it, and the data is already being spread around. I’m not arguing “in favor” of this system, just that this isn’t some tight-locked info. It’s not that I cannot get it, I already explained that I don’t want to give my personal info to a NATO official’s org.

Secondly, I never implied that the data was representative of anything other than perceptions, I included that in the first comment I referenced it in. I just added that it’s indicative of a strong, comprehensive democracy that perceptions are so high. This isn’t dishonest in the slightest.

I already admitted fault to calling you a liar, when it’s clear that we both aren’t. Not sure why you’re still doing this, it’s pretty clear that the definition bit is the one where we disagree, and you’re insistent that disagreement means I’m a liar. There’s nothing for you to really do, and you just imply that the source is faulty at the end for no reason whatsoever.

Imperialism is a stage of monopoly capitalism where domestic markets are saturated, and thus you must go outward. In this process, bank capital merges with industrial capital to form finance capital, and this dominates the economy, forcing export of capital rather than commodity. The world itself has already been entirely split up amongst the imperialist powers by World War I, as this was the primary cause behind it.

The Soviet Union was anti-imperialist and anti-colonial, and the dissolution of socialism in the USSR was devastating for all countries involved. As such, even if we were to assume Russia would be imperialist if it could, it inherited no colonies, only a broken economy, and the west had already split the world amongst themselves.

Russia is closer to something like Brazil than an imperialist country like the US, France, Germany, the UK, etc.

This isn’t hand-waving anything. I am talking about a specific, observable stage capitalism inevitably results in over time. When you’re trying to say that it’s about trying to get your way forcefully, then this means it was imperialism when the Statesian North invaded the Statesian South and liberated the slaves. It means it was imperialism when the Soviets defeated the Nazis in World War II. In other words, it’s clear that you’re interested in imperialism as far as it can be used as a condemnation, and not as an actual observable system.

For the sake of argument, let’s call imperialism as I described it “finance plundering.” Is your point that “finance plundering” isn’t a stage of capitalism, and that western countries are not "financial plunderers?* Is your argument that Russia also has the ability to stand with the west in that realm? Academics already recognize this as a real system, and it’s what is understood to be imperialism as it manifests in the modern era.

As for “authoritarianism,” I agree that it’s broad, that’s my point. It applies to anything with a state, as all states are tools by which the authority of one class is exerted over others.

All revolutions are inherently violent, so again, this just circles back to supporting socialist states.

The majority of people that lived in Eastern European socialist countries regret their fall, and over 90% of Chinese people support their government. Maybe you should talk to them.

To implement the provisions of laws such as the Constitution, the Civil Code, and the Employment Promotion Law, and to effectively safeguard citizens’ personal dignity against infringement, the Supreme People’s Court hereby clarifies the following adjudication rules:

First, regarding cases involving the public insult or defamation of an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts generally deem such acts to constitute an infringement of general personality rights; they order the cessation of the infringement, a formal apology, and compensation for emotional distress, thereby explicitly establishing the illegality of discriminatory speech and conduct based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Second, in the contexts of recruitment, hiring, job reassignment, or dismissal, should an employer engage in differential treatment on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, determine that the employer has committed employment discrimination; they shall order the revocation of the relevant decisions, compensation for losses, and other remedies, thereby explicitly prohibiting unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression within the sphere of employment.

Third, should a school impose inappropriate disciplinary measures against students—or fail to fulfill its administrative duties, thereby leading to campus bullying—on the grounds of the students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, hold the school liable, thereby reinforcing schools’ obligation to protect students’ personal liberty and dignity. These cases collectively demonstrate the people’s courts’ unequivocal stance: that the legitimate rights and interests of sexual minorities are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that any unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is strictly prohibited by law.

…

Moving forward, we will continue to systematically review cases nationwide involving the protection of sexual minorities’ rights and interests, summarize adjudication rules, and standardize adjudication criteria. At appropriate junctures, we will formalize established adjudication rules through various mechanisms—such as judicial interpretations, conference minutes, guiding cases, reference cases, and exemplary cases—to enhance the provision of legal norms. Furthermore, we will incorporate topics such as the protection of personality rights into judicial training programs, thereby ensuring the protection of citizens’ personal liberty and dignity in accordance with the law.” — Reply to the “Proposal on the Application of Law to Explicitly Prohibit Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Judicial Adjudication”

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/U1VX7omSTbnMjpoBTHIt-A

China has a fair way to go to reach more socially progressive countries like Cuba, but the state does not categorize LGBTQIA+ individuals as “obscene” or “vulgar,” and instead has protections against discrimination based on gender and sexuality.

Imperialism is a stage of monopoly capitalism where domestic markets are saturated, and thus you must go outward. In this process, bank capital merges with industrial capital to form finance capital, and this dominates the economy, forcing export of capital rather than commodity. The world itself has already been entirely split up amongst the imperialist powers by World War I, as this was the primary cause behind it.

The Soviet Union was anti-imperialist and anti-colonial, and the dissolution of socialism in the USSR was devastating for all countries involved. As such, even if we were to assume Russia would be imperialist if it could, it inherited no colonies, only a broken economy, and the west had already split the world amongst themselves.

Russia is closer to something like Brazil than an imperialist country like the US, France, Germany, the UK, etc.

Not sure what you’re really getting at, my takes are very standard among Marxist-Leninists. What makes you think I’d be unqualified to speak on socialism? Are you saying you think Pol Pot was genuinely a socialist?

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Nah, the problem was that it wasn’t even close to socialism, and instead was a sort of reactionary agrarian system with brutal repressions. It was stopped by the communists. Pointing out that the US Empire backed it is to prove the point that it absolutely wasn’t leftist, and that “tankies” don’t support it.

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Of course I’m not going to get it, your only source was effectively “trust me bro” in the face of hard evidence and materialist analysis from multiple people. All you’ve made clear is that it’s the “tankies” that actually seem to know what we are talking about. Have fun back at MeanwhileOnGrad, where bigots stalk leftist accounts for screengrabs.

I just gave you several well-sourced comments giving an approachable introduction to the systemic demonization of the DPRK, as well as a brief intro on how the electoral system works, and numerous articles, books, and documentaries to choose from, including Wikipedia. How on Earth could I do better for you? Stoop to your level and just say “you’re clearly wrong?”

If I were a conspiratorial onlooker, I’d suspect you of being one of my alts to legitimize what I’m saying here.

This is, again, nonsense. Do better.

The Black Panther Party was not the only group to maintain ties with the DPRK. Cuba was already allied with the DPRK and has remained extremely close, and the DPRK aided numerous African liberation movements Castro had this to say of Kim Il-Sung:

Comrade Kim Il Sung, our closest brother and friend, has shown deep concern for us. He is a model of genuine internationalist.

He was the first to provide Cuba with unstinting political and material support when it was in the most difficult situation. We will never forget the care he shows for the Cuban people.

Those who met you Comrade Kim Il Sung expressed their feelings of respect and admiration for you, saying that you are so modest, sentimental, passionate and kind. Every time I heard them, I could not repress my urge to visit your country to see you. You were already fighting against the Japanese imperialists when I was born. So I took it as my due obligation to visit you.

You keep framing this as purely being self-interest, with no actual care for the people. To that I ask, why is it that these movements all happened to be on the side of justice? Why is it that the DPRK continued to retain ties with some of the most socially progressive countries on the planet, and enmeshed itself with liberation movements globally, if it was only concerned with “Realpolitik?” Even if we all call it self-interest, it doesn’t change the fact that this self-interest was in aiding liberation!

Regarding my sources being “bias,” again, this is nonsense. I am giving you hard evidence explaining exactly how the DPRK works, why it is so propagandized against, and how this propaganda works. I am always opposed to the bourgeoisie, I clearly critique capitalism and support socialism. Simply stating that socialist states are “oppressors, just with a different flavour” is the peak of ignorance when it comes to the massive gains made by the working classes once they take control of the state and can run society in their own interests.

Do better.