Ep 175 - Imperialism: When Capitalism Gets too High w/ Erin Hagood
Added 2022-03-16 10:00:01 +0000 UTCAndy, Sean, and Platypus Erin Hagood go over the details of a historic panel on the crisis in Ukraine, then segue into the question of Lenin's definitions of imperialism and revolutionary defeatism and what clarity they offer today, if any.
Show notes:
Lenin - Socialism and War
Crisis in Ukraine panel: https://youtu.be/Uyoe5ml05LQ
Michael Roberts on Ukrainian economy: https://brooklynrail.org/2022/03/field-notes/Ukraine-The-Economic-Consequences-of-the-War
Spencer Leonard on Bonapartism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv6hY8AhT20
song: Oxxxymiron, Porchy, LSP - Imperial
Comments
I’m just relistening to this because I’ve encountered a few platypus people recently and have become curious. I noticed that they are almost invariably rude to whatever host, even sympathetic ones. And they speak about the DSA the same way Andrew Tate talks about star wars. It’s very abusive, also has kind of living marxism/sp!ked online vibe. Bunch of deranged weirdos.
Feedbag
2023-03-20 01:20:27 +0000 UTC~41:00 “bourgeois economics [describes what the economy is] just fine.” 🤔 I know that it’s a long time to talk and anyone can pick things someone says apart after the fact, but this is just really bad. There are whole categories and questions from Marx that the prizefighters for capital could not and would not develop. Onboarding for Platypus members seem to steep them in the history and political lines of the left, often individuals then go onto to their own advanced academic work, but why do they to a person always seem so thin when it comes to vol’s 1-3? “And so when i address the politics i really also am attempting to address political economy for Lenin.” For whatever else one can say, they really are just another stripe of political determinism (ie belief that political and legal changes, not changes in actual relations of production are key determinants of social change) and haven’t got their value theory down. ps Idk if Lenin had a crisis theory in the way you mean, or much of an understanding about the fact that you can’t just *manage* your way out of exploitation. After all he agreed that the postal service is “an example of the socialist economic system,” which “when freed from bureaucratic machinery of the modern state, we shall have a splendidly-equipped mechanism, freed from the ‘parasite’” and “rid the working ppl of exploitation.” He can be somewhat forgiven since the horrors of state-capitalism were not apparent to him. Of contemporaries we should be less genteel. Btw still looking forward to whenever y’all chop it up w Kliman. :)
Mike
2022-03-24 20:09:39 +0000 UTCHomegirl really said "Lenin is the reason people still read Marx" 😭🤯🤡
Turtle Bugg
2022-03-21 15:24:43 +0000 UTCErin needs to touch grass, modern Leninists r so cringe 🤣
Turtle Bugg
2022-03-21 15:21:40 +0000 UTChey max thanks a lot for listening and subbing! tons more good stuff coming down the pipe <3
The Antifada
2022-03-20 18:39:24 +0000 UTCWhat I got from that is that until the proletariat as a whole is able to rule, authentic democracy will always look like one faction of society against another faction of society. That's why Louis Napoleon was authenticly democratic and a dictator. So there is a portion of the working class that has an interest in the CIA stomping around the world to open up markets for some American workers so that the things they make can be sold. This is what keeps them employed because of course you have to work to survive in capitalism. Does that mean that the CIA is socialist or something? Of course not, not any more than Louis Napoleon but the both represent factions of workers when the workers as a whole can't rule.
ChapliKababHat
2022-03-19 14:15:52 +0000 UTCI really liked this discussion! I resubscribed so I could hear the second part. You rarely hear an earnest Left-Comm engagement with Lenin and I was stoked to hear y'all's critical engagement
Max M
2022-03-18 19:41:30 +0000 UTCsean here. tbh the platypus line on politics and leninism (and the world!) is very alien from how i think about things which both made this a very interesting and at the same time very difficult conversation to have. there's probably a ton of places in retrospect that we could or should have intervened, but i think we gave her a fair hearing at least
The Antifada
2022-03-18 14:39:30 +0000 UTCbullseye
The Antifada
2022-03-18 04:42:27 +0000 UTCGuest was quite irritating sadly
Peter Fishbeast
2022-03-17 22:38:24 +0000 UTCVery interesting and does a lot more justice to making lenin's thoughts relevant and worthy of attention than what your average ml does. I learned a lot But Honestly making a distinction btwn Lenin and stalinism or still clinging to the party form seems like a dead end to me that is only confirmed every single time a movement is led or influenced by leninism or parties claiming to be the people.
Guadalupe Romero
2022-03-17 19:45:46 +0000 UTCI really enjoy this discussion! Yet, something still irks me in the way contemporary party Leninists view the world and it was going off the whole time. I cannot put it into words, but it just rubs the wrong way (it might be in part to how they communicate it). Still, I appreciate their analysis and can agree on /some/ aspects.
Samuel Jesse
2022-03-17 04:54:57 +0000 UTCI liked this persons perspective! Different from mine but it's nice to hear different ideas ! 💡
dillards dept.
2022-03-16 22:42:12 +0000 UTCThat weirdly seemed to start off very dense and then got less dense as it went on so I’ll have to re-listen. I wish that the term “authentic democracy” or “authentically democratic” was questioned and clarified early on because the idea that the CIA or imperialism its self being an expression or somehow a creation of the American working class I think required a lot more discussion because that is the first time I’ve heard that. I know that it can be really annoying and digressive to continually define terms in left discussions but I’m not sure about how “democracy” is being defined in that instance, let alone “authenticity” which is a concept I would debate the merits of. That being said, all around great conversation though lol
Fellow Worker
2022-03-16 15:14:44 +0000 UTCThe platipoids are almost always smart and maddeningly cult like. The verbal tick of the fake question “right?” is one cosmetic marker of the Chris Cutrone programming.
J D
2022-03-16 12:30:44 +0000 UTC
