lol you obviously don't know much about Stalin, because he grew up in an extremely poor family. His class interests were not with the petty-bourgeiosie or the peasantry, but only with the workers. In fact that was one error he made. He didn't see the peasantry as a class which had a revolutionary potential, which is why he sent urban workers to collective the countryside

Are you referring to 89-90?

I'm refering to 1991, when the so-called 'new ruling class' "gave up their state without a fight, against all historical precedent."

Uh... the coup?

How quickly one can neglect the coup attempt, one of the most peaceful interactions known to all humanity

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Quote: Why would there be a worker's revolution in a feudal nation? There has never been a coherent answer to this question. It was semi-feudal, for one..

Yes, 80% of the population being peasantry implies a "semi-feudal" mode of production (whatever that's supposed to mean).

What is absolutely fascinating is that in 1789 France had the exact same percentage of their population as peasantry (source - it's a pdf).

France was revolutionary because it was the first to ever have overthrown the feudal mode of production completely. Russia however was one of the last. That's why Marx and Engels agreed that:

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Originally posted by Marx and Engels@ The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.

(from The Communist Manifesto Chapter Two)

There really was nothing remarkably different from how Russia dealt with it in the early part of the 20th century compared to how most bourgeois revolutions were.

Insomuch as the French revolution was a bourgeois one, so too was Lenin's rise to power a bourgeois revolution.

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Then there's thing about imperialism, which Lenin pointed out (in his most significant contribution to communist theory).

The problem is that his "most significant contribution to communist theory" is completely useless.

It provides absolutely nothing new to communist theory. For example, Lenin defines the five characteristics of Imperialism as:

Quote:

Lenin

(Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin)

Well, point one was covered in sections 7 and 8 of Das Kapital, vol. I. (I won't waste space quoting the sections unless you would like me to, just ask and I'll happily provide quotes )

Point two is a logical consequence of the accumulation process. Recall that "Bank capital consists of 1) cash money, gold or notes; 2) securities." (Das Kapital, vol. III chapter 29)

So in other words, it's a point in the accumulation process where we have (essentially) modern day corporations that have a modern day stock market mechanism.

But this is predicted and explained (albeit minimally since it's essentially in the format of a collection of notes) in Das Kapital, vol. III, chapter 27.

Points three, four, and five were predicted (if not explicitly stated) in the manifesto.

So his real claim to fame is merely point two, which anyone could have deduced from reading Das Kapital. This is precisely what Marx did.

This "significant contribution" is perhaps one of the smallest, indeed non-existent, corollaries I've ever seen.

This point that Lenin's theory of imperialism as some sort of ingenius deduction that only an "Einstein" of the social sciences could have done always makes me laugh, as though imperialism didn't exist "way back" in "Marx's times"

Well, the Russian Revolution was nothing more than one of the last bourgeois revolutions.

Based on the material conditions empirically compared to others that caused bourgeois revolutions, Russia's revolution was a bourgeois revolution.

The revolution was a revolutionary change for Russia, but it was no worker's state nor was it socialism.

It was state capitalism with red flags and leftist sounding rhetoric to disguise imperialist actions...like all bourgeois revolutionary states.

Based on textbook analysis of cobweb-covered formulations that cry "academic!", I have deduced that because the situation before the revolution in Russia was similar to the situation before the revolution in France, we can ignore who actually took power and just say they were both bourgeois revolutions.

And you accuse dialectical materialists of an ontological and deterministic view of social science?

I suppose the Paris Commune had absolutely no example of proletarian power? And Russia magnifying the Commune into the workers' Soviets that took power meant nothing either?

Or the bourgeoisie starting a civil war after the Czar was dead and Feudalism defeated, and being expelled, I guess that says the bourgeoisie took power even while they were expelled.

Wow... I'm impressed with empiricism, a priori examination while throwing out the actual historical events of the revolution itself are alot of fun.

I could prove you're a monkey from how many fingers you have.

Uh... the State Emergency Committee wasn't fighting to prevent counterrevolution.. in fact, it really wasn't fighting at all (Go back and read accounts of the soldiers driving the tanks into Moscow, they didn't even know what they were supposed to do!).

The SEC declared martial law and told workers not to leave their houses. Is that how you mobilize folks to defend an (at the very least ostensibly) workers' state?? When Yeltsin mobilized folks behind the counterrevolution and set up barricades at the White House, the SEC didn't do anything (not even arrest Yeltsin)! Some fight!

In the way of a program, the SEC issued some bullshit statement that didn't even mention the world socialism, but instead promised to continue on the road to counterrevolution.. just in a different way.

Really, they wanted to be Washington's "go to guys;" but that position was already filled by Yeltsin.

You can't seriously be arguing that the SEC represented the "new bourgeoisie"?? You can't be saying that this was all the fight a propertied rulling class that ruled over a union of 15 republics could muster?? If it was that easy, we could have overthrown the bourgeoisie along time ago!!

So, like I said.. if there was a "new bourgeoisie" then "they were a bourgeoisie that was the first bourgeoisie in the history of capitalism to give up their power peacefully.

"They simply gave up their state without a fight, against all historical precedent."

No, property relations do.

It means not entirely feudal. Semi-feudal. Each society is born of the last society..

"The hand-mill" had not been entirely replaced with "the steam-mill."

What else can I say?

Only to a similarly small mind I guess.

The stage of imperialism both prolonged the existance of capitalism in the imperialist countries, and prevented its healthy development in the imperialist-oppressed countries.

And no, Marx did not live in the imperialist epoch; but he did predict it would arrise in a way (in The Poverty of Philosophy for example).

* * *

As for the last bit about the October Revolution being "bourgeois", CyM pretty much nailed that ridiculous notion.

lol you obviously don't know much about anything. I guess we can all see that he was a class traitor. His class interests did not side with the workers because he was not one and never was. So stop lying and vulgarizing marxism. Being determines conscious, not the other way around.

I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing, CDL. What exactly are you saying the leaders of the USSR were?

Yeah, I don't understand also your point CDL.

Actually, the Maoist is right on Stalin's economic background.

His father was a petty-bourgeois turned proletarian (shoe shop owner to bankrupt shoe factory worker).

In spite of this, yet another of his grave counter-revolutionary policies wasn't the sending of urban workers, but rather the preference of kolkhozy over sovkhozy (where the state was the actual owner of the farm and where the farmers worked for a wage).

I know what Kautsky said about "no socialist who is to be taken seriously has ever demanded that the farmers should be exappropriated, or that their goods should be confiscated,", but there were so many landless peasants before October. The Bolshevik mistake was the redistribution of land over "statification."

I have the sensation of talking to economists, empiricism is thrown out the window in lieu of a farce of a scientific method.

"Evil academic! How dare you look at reality!"

The class composition of society couldn't possibly tell us anything about the material conditions of the society! Much less how technologically developed a society is, or what mode of production it is!

Because as we all know from experience, 80% of the population in the capitalist mode of production are peasants.

Brilliant!

Instead, simply believe the explanation given by the local ruling class. They wouldn't lie, no never.

The USSR had the word "socialist" in it, it must have been socialist...just as Nazis are with the same reasoning "socialist".

Or perhaps we should look deeper than face value. It's a controversial approach to say the least.

Here's a little trick with causal relations. There are two similar events, say the changing of the mode of production from feudalism to something else.

First, check the causes (which I've done and you've ignored as "academic" -- though that's really no rebuttal).

Then check the results. If the causes and results are similar enough, then the events are considered similar (in this case a bourgeois revolution).

Marx points out:

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Originally posted by Marx Still, its development remained clogged by all manner of medieval rubbish, seignorial rights, local privileges, municipal and guild monopolies, and provincial constitutions. The gigantic broom of the French Revolution of the 18th century swept away all these relics of bygone times, thus clearing simultaneously the social soil of its last hinderances to the superstructure of the modern state edifice raised under the First Empire, itself the offspring of the coalition wars of old semi-feudal Europe against modern France.

The Civil War in France by Karl Marx.

France, after the revolution, abolished superstition and essentially removed the superstructure of feudal society whilst erecting the new, revolutionary superstructure.

Russia did similar motions with its revolution.

In §5 of section 2 of the Soviet Constitution was a radical turn for Russia: a complete seperation of church and state.

There are a number of other sweeping revolutionary changes in the superstructure, but it would be trivial discussing it here. We both know that the revolution caused a huge change in the superstructure.

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Originally posted by Marx During the subsequent regimes, the government, placed under parliamentary control — that is, under the direct control of the propertied classes — became not only a hotbed of huge national debts and crushing taxes; with its irresistible allurements of place, pelf, and patronage, it became not only the bone of contention between the rival factions and adventurers of the ruling classes; but its political character changed simultaneously with the economic changes of society.

The Civil War in France by Karl Marx.

Is it any surprise then that the statistics of the propertied classes of the soviet union were party members as time went on?

To reiterate the statistics:

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Originally posted by ComradeRed Just looking over a few statistics here: in 1923, a mere 29% of the factory directors were in the party. Whereas in 1925 (you know, after that small victory for Stalin), 73.7% of the members of the members of the managing boards of trusts, 81.5% of those on the boards of syndicates, and 95% of the directors of large enterprises were party members(!). (See A.S. Bubnov and others, The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Russian), Moscow-Leningrad 1931, page 626) Wait, it gets better! In 1936 this figure raises to somewhere in between 97.5% to 99.1% of these chaps were in the party, and for the chiefs of trusts this figure is 100% (See USSR, The Land of Socialism (Russian), Moscow 1936, p.94.)

From the statistics, these are bourgeois positions. The people that fill them are, gasp, party members!

So the obviously this couldn't possibly be capitalism. It is common knowledge that the bourgeoisie aren't in the government and own the means of production in the capitalist mode of production, only in a worker's state is it run by the capitalists!

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Originally posted by CyM And you accuse dialectical materialists of an ontological and deterministic view of social science?

Red Herring, besides determinism never bothered me. Mysticism and Idealism, on the other hand, bothers me greatly.

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I suppose the Paris Commune had absolutely no example of proletarian power?

Marx's assessment of the Paris Commune is an example of proletarian power; the actual commune itself was not.

It was actually not all that different from the Soviet Union: a "vanguard" (in the Paris Commune, Blanquists, in the USSR, the well "vanguard") trying to act against the material conditions.

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And Russia magnifying the Commune into the workers' Soviets that took power meant nothing either?

Is that why Lenin said in 1919, when securing power was in the foreseeable future, "When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard...we say, 'Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party!'" (From Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, pages 532-539)?

And Lenin was right, it was effectively a dictatorship of the Party. It "just so happened" by "some random occurrence" that the party becomes increasingly filled with bourgeoisie over time and begins to remove the petit bourgeois elements from it.

A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie! That couldn't possibly be capitalism!

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CyM

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@ Or the bourgeoisie starting a civil war after the Czar was dead and Feudalism defeated, and being expelled, I guess that says the bourgeoisie took power even while they were expelled.

Or maybe just maybe the "vanguard party" was little more than the cadre of petit bourgeois revolutionaries led by haut bourgeois.

Why that couldn't possibly be the very point I made in my last post.

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Wow... I'm impressed with empiricism, a priori examination while throwing out the actual historical events of the revolution itself are alot of fun.

It's a new experience for you, critical thinking, but I have "faith" that you'll get the hang of it...eventually.

Or else you can continue to straw man, that appears to be moderately successful.

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I could prove you're a monkey from how many fingers you have.

Wouldn't surprise me that a dialectician would think that to be a proof

CdL:

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CdL

What's really interesting is looking at the irc logs recording the news of the coup doesn't challenge the notion that the soldiers didn't know why they were mobilized, but does indicate that the SEC was fighting to keep the USSR together.

It wasn't a worker's state, it was a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie!

No, the military defected from the senile ruling class to this radical middle class politician.

Gorbochov was under house arrest, and Yeltsin was besieged for several days until the military defected.

No, they were the "old" bourgeoisie trying to hold together the old USSR together.

Well, in late feudalism, the ruling class was senile, this is empirically observable. This is a characteristic of the late period of any mode of production.

Throughout the history of the soviet union, they have concentrated capital in the hands of very few, exported capital at a rather high level, formed an international monopoly capitalist relation, and - along with the U$ - divided the world among the two of them.

Do these characteristics ring a bell?

They should, they are four out of the five characteristics for an "imperialist capitalist" state.

You know, the time when the ruling class begins its senility.

What a surprise, this is observably what happened.

All right, semi-feudal, late feudal, potato patato. Does this really change anything though?

No.

The main point is that the material conditions for a worker state to come about were not present in 1917-1920 Russia.

I've all ready gone over this point in rather extensive detail.

What a brilliant argument!

Rather than actually come up with something to counter my argument, just say "Oh yeah, you're stupid!" The argument of champions

But saying "You're stupid" does not refute what I pointed out. The characteristics of imperialism that you look for are logical consequences of the law of accumulation.

The problem is that this makes Lenin's theory of imperialism a bad theory. There are no unique predictions to look for, as they've been predicted by Marx all ready without Lenin's theory of imperialism.

To which you reply, as if for the comic relief of this debate, "Yeah yeah, you're an idiot!" As though looking at the strength of Lenin's theory were an absurd thing to do!

Yes, that is often the assertion.

But Lenin's theory of imperialism is a bad theory since the criteria you are looking for is present inherently with Marx's Law of Accumulation over time.

In other words, there are no unique predictions for the theory. That's the indicator for a bad theory; it would be a better theory if it made different unique predictions, even if wrong empirically.

Could you provide some quotes to substantiate this assertion? I've thumbed through my copy and couldn't find any indication of this in The Poverty of Philosophy.

^^^ That last part about The Poverty of Philosophy:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/ps4-a09.shtml (Trotskyist link)



Oh, and I seriously disagree with your position on the thoroughly proletarian Paris Commune. Its failure was political, not economic (which might happen to Venezuela today, too, if it doesn't nationalize the banks).



You forgot the fifth: the prominence of finance capital

Since that wasn't prominent, that already knocks down your "Lenin's theory was absurd" stuff. Furthermore, capital wasn't exported high enough to qualify for the imperialism criteria, given the stated yet backward attempts at autarky (funny how the Trotskyist website above said that the Soviet-Cuban relationship was "reverse" of imperialism, with the Soviets subsidizing Cuban oil purchases and the Cubans "super-profiting" from Soviet sugar purchases ). As for monopoly capitalist relation, again refer to my autarky stuff. Even the "privileged" Brezhnev, when realizing the need for greater Comecon integration, didn't practice what he preached.



Bottom line: Lenin's theory of imperialism is primarily economic (ALL FIVE CRITERIA MUST BE MET SIMULTANEOUSLY), wresting away the term from the usual political connotations. Yes, the post-WWII Soviet Union was POLITICALLY imperialist, but economically speaking? No.

That's supposed to be Marx's prelude to Lenin's theory of imperialism?

Quote:

Oh, and I seriously disagree with your position on the thoroughly proletarian Paris Commune. Its failure was political, not economic (which might happen to Venezuela today, too, if it doesn't nationalize the banks).

I never said the Paris Commune was thoroughly proletarian, I said Marx's assessment of it was.

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You forgot the fifth: the prominence of finance capital

Which is why I said:

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Originally posted by ComradeRed+--> (ComradeRed)They should, they are four out of the five characteristics for an "imperialist capitalist" state.[/b]

--emphasis added

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Since that wasn't prominent, that already knocks down your "Lenin's theory was absurd" stuff.

No, it really doesn't!

Lenin's theory was a bad one because there were no distinguishing features of it, compared to the accumulation of capital over time as described by Marx.

That makes Lenin's theory a bad theory!

When you make a theory that has nothing significantly new to look for, that makes it a bad theory.

That's simple scientific logic right there though

Quote:

Furthermore, capital wasn't exported high enough to qualify for the imperialism criteria, given the stated yet backward attempts at autarky (funny how the Trotskyist website above said that the Soviet-Cuban relationship was "reverse" of imperialism, with the Soviets subsidizing Cuban oil purchases and the Cubans "super-profiting" from Soviet sugar purchases ).

Comecon is really the means by which the USSR exported capital. From the Country Studies in the Library of Congress' archives:

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Ostensibly, Comecon was organized to coordinate economic and technical cooperation between the Soviet Union and the member countries. In reality, the Soviet Union's domination over Comecon activities reflected its economic, political, and military power.

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In 1960 the Soviet Union sent 56 percent of its exports to and received 58 percent of its imports from Comecon members. From that time, the volume of this trade has steadily increased, but the proportion of Soviet trade with Comecon members decreased as the Soviet Union sought to increase trade with Western industrialized countries.

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The membership of Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam in Comecon has served Soviet foreign policy interests more than the economic welfare of Comecon members. In general, the more economically developed European members have supported the three less developed members by providing a large market for their exports, often at above-market prices. Most of Cuba's sugar and nickel and all of Mongolia's copper and molybdenum have been imported by the Soviet Union.

An imperialist country never leeches off of its colonies, just like the Soviet Union didn't leech off of the members of Comecon.

The plain fact of the matter is that Comecon was used to coordinate the Soviet Union's dominance over other countries in practice.

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As for monopoly capitalist relation, again refer to my autarky stuff. Even the "privileged" Brezhnev, when realizing the need for greater Comecon integration, didn't practice what he preached.

What "auturky stuff" are you referring to exactly?

Quote:

Bottom line: Lenin's theory of imperialism is primarily economic (ALL FIVE CRITERIA MUST BE MET SIMULTANEOUSLY), wresting away the term from the usual political connotations. Yes, the post-WWII Soviet Union was POLITICALLY imperialist, but economically speaking? No.

Recall Marx's definition of Bank Capital:

Quote:

Marx

Quote:

@ Bank capital consists of 1) cash money, gold or notes; 2) securities. The latter can be subdivided into two parts: commercial paper or bills of exchange, which run for a period, become due from time to time, and whose discounting constitutes the essential business of the banker; and public securities, such as government bonds, treasury notes, stocks of all kinds, in short, interest-bearing paper which is however significantly different from bills of exchange.

Das Kapital, vol. III chapter 29

Well, the USSR had cash money, so check number one off.

Securities is the trickier part. Well, curious enough, just do a google search and Marxists.org has data on Soviet Securities which did in fact exist.

Could it have practically have taken the shape of "finance capital" after world war 2? Well, looking at the historical record from the library of congress:

Quote:

Library of Congress

Hmm, the soviet union "investing" in other countries' industry that is subservient to the USSR? That appears to be finance capital.

So it turns out I was wrong, the Soviet Union qualifies five out of five, and is a "genuine" imperialist nation.

Think of it this way: Marx was predicting the phenomenon using Hegelian dialectic. Since Lenin's time and moreso now, that dialectic in identifying the phenomenon is only good as a history and/or philosophy lesson, because the phenomenon is fact. My signature is a re-phrasing of the synthesis.

Sure there was: the prominence of finance capital over industrial capital in the new "monopoly finance capital" marriage. <_<

Actually, I'll call the finance capital sub-theory the "Hilferding-Lenin" theory of finance capital for the purposes of this discussion. Marx was overly focused on industrial capital as the driver of the economy (hence the albeit valid LTV stuff). Read up on Hilferding's Finance Capital, and Lenin's response:



Now:

On that matter you and I will agree, given another imperialist phenomenon that has arisen: the IMPORT of capital into the U$ (all the talk of US debt being owned by China). Like I said, Lenin tore away "imperialism" from its old definition, wherein feudal empires DID leech off of its far-away subjects. The "world's policeman" is being exploited, as well.

Economic self-sufficiency

That's rather debatable since:

a) The Hegelian dialectic has not been coherently presented, so one could argue that a huddled mess of metaphysical psychobabble is "Hegelian"

b) The only "Hegelian-looking" part of Capital is chapter 1 of volume 1. Part 7 of vol. I was not hidden in the cobwebs of such an idealistic method.

c) Marx is more like the Einstein of his time (actually this is remarkably true). The latter was working with a great deal of independent ideas (thermodynamics, electrodynamics, and mechanics) and combined them together (eletrodynamics + mechanics -> special relativity, mechanics + thermodynamics -> brownian motion, electrodynamics + thermodynamics -> photoelectric effect). Marx did the same thing, borrowing from the French Socialists, English Economists, and Scottish Enlightened (Historian) philosophers (Leninists like to assert that German philosophy is more important, but since it's incoherent and nonsensically idealistic, it's utterly useless).

This statement is entirely meaningless, shrouded in the ambiguities of dialectics.

As for your signature, it too is little more than dialectical voodoo. Marx put it far simpler in section 7 of Das Kapital volume I...without using a method decoupled from reality.

Well, the problem here though is -- as I've pointed out earlier in this thread -- Marx identified this "championship" of bank capital over industrial capital in Das Kapital vol. III from his law of accumulation. (Thank goodness people are reading my posts <_<)

There goes the last great hope for having a unique prediction for Lenin's theory of imperialism.

That assertion of yours is nonsense, given "Leninism's" materialist and political emphasis. Notice that the original, orthodox Hegelians (Right Hegelians) were reduced to theological issues. If anything else, later Marxists like Luxemburg and Lenin also put Hegelian dialectics to the backburner in favour of revolution.

[BTW, what is your opinion on Luxemburg?]

Oh, and by calling Marx an Einstein figure, you glorify him too much, even if his "thoughts" ceased to exist by his death (as Engels said). Like Einstein's FAILURE to cough up a Unified Field Theory (a jab at your physics-related occupation ), Marx couldn't link up the three Marxian economic thoughts as outlined below.

How can it be "voodoo" when it describes cold facts, using very economic terms?

You really should read up on Sweezy's criticism of Marx being the all-knowing prophet you claim him to be, in spite of his brilliant thinking:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1004lebowitz.htm

Accumulation theory alone is NOT enough to explain monopoly power. Even Lenin failed to emphasis monopoly, continuing to focus on the fourth and fifth characteristics of imperialism instead of the first three (at least after October, but this should NOT be a negative offsetting point against his major contribution to the theory of monopoly capitalism) - hence my first question on this board: why the continued usage of "imperialism" instead of "monopoly"?

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0102jbf.htm

<_< When discussing the influences of Marx, Lenin thought otherwise. It has caused Leninists ever since to be drawn into dialectics like moths to a flame.

A great many deal of Leninists continue to think that dialectics are "useful" despite the obvious idealism. You may disagree with them, but that doesn't change the fact they exist.

Dialectics were used as a scaffold which Marx and Engels constructed superior tools; keeping dialectics has no real advantage over evil "metaphysical" formal logic.

I'm intrigued by her criticism of the Leninist paradigm, but I'm critical of her paradigm.

Perhaps it's because I can appreciate Einstein as human more than you can because I'm a physicist that deals with Einstein's work every day and realized that Einstein too fucked up a great deal. He was no a mythical saint who instantaneously perceived the truth, as his name now is synonymous with.

His ingenuity was in taking concepts that pre-existed, and combining them together. That was what made Einstein a genius.

That very characteristic is what made Marx a genius. He was not a saint that mythically perceived the truth however!

And it's relatively difficult to argue that Marx didn't combine elements of different social sciences into his final theory; largely because you'd have to be blatantly ignorant of the Marxist paradigm, how it came about, or the predecessors to it.

Oh pardon me, I didn't realize that "exact opposite", "conflict", "a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts", and other dialectical jargon were "economic terms".

I never said that Marx was a mythical saint that instantaneously perceived the truth, don't put words in my mouth. I explained this above.

And despite your assertion, I have read some of Sweezy's work.

I merely reject Sweezy's case for monopoly capitalism to be recognized as a special form of capitalism. Here's why:

Given by our good Hammer (what a terrible pun, an affront to the worst of comedians): http://www.monthlyreview.org/1004lebowitz.htm

Yeah, trying to explain why there were no "big crashes" is a serious problem

Here's my crack at it: there were "crashes" but because after the war (from 1950 onward, there was a post-war recession remember when the troops got back to the capitalist nations) Europe had to rebuild itself and the former colonies were not quite self-sufficient.

Well, if you have a country with the industrial capital destroyed and no means to rebuild itself, that's a perfect place to make more factories. You hire construction workers to do it, which creates a market to buy the goods made by the factories created, the construction workers are laid off and become factory workers, thus perpetuating the cycle.

Now imagine doing this with the entire world as opposed one country. You can imagine that the general direction of the country that will be doing this re-industrialization would make a mint.

And indeed, the U$ did.

But there were "dips" in the economy, as predicted and explained by Marxist economics. This is noticeable in the real GDP of the U$ from 1950 to the present in chained dollars.

Curiously, these dips have a strong correlation with the dips in the labor force, again as predicted by Marxist theory. (If anyone really wants to see the statistics for this, if I can find a site or a way to make it into an image, I can present them here)

Monopoly power or imperialism? The former, it is easily achievable, it's called "the concentration of capital in fewer and fewer hands".

The latter is not possible by the Law of Accumulation alone, but by Marx's theories alone yes...as I've pointed out the five characteristics are empirically observable from Marx's theories alone.

Which is exactly why Lenin's theory of imperialism (or whoever you wish to attribute it to, it doesn't matter) is a bad theory.

In my opinion, Sweezy's theory of monopoly capitalism is a load of bullocks.

I'm sympathetic towards Mandel's criticism.
Here is where Marx is human. The error Marx makes in volume 2 of Das Kapital is the very same error that bourgeois economists make with their economic models: he tries to mix apples and oranges in an oversimplified model.

Using a painstakingly more accurate model with N-sectors that can be divided into two collections (each collection reminiscent of the model delivered to us by Marx in volume 2 of Das Kapital).

We can then describe this economy with M-commodity inputs as an M by N matrix. We can then explain the creation of new sectors through the introduction of Matrix multiplication, and so forth.

We can further complicate things and make these systems of differential equations that are themselves systems of differential equations. But since the audience here is not math nerds, I will not continue to elucidate how we can make things more precise.

Economists are quick to reduce things to their price, and how much they cost and so forth, adding up things which are otherwise incapable of being added together (e.g. hours of labor with tons of steel, or whatever).

Marx makes a similar simplification.

This is an unnecessary simplification. It's something I reject from Marx.

However, one can retain the important characteristics of Marxist economics from volume 1 of Das Kapital relatively unscathed.

Citations? <_<

I'm not saying that he didn't combine anything. It's just that his "final" theory - accumulation and crisis - opened new doors to connect it to other related phenomenon (monopoly capitalism and imperialism, the former being my primary focus thanks to selected portions of a certain "outline" ).

You're quoting what I quoted: said "Marxist theory" above INCLUDES Marx's isolated accumulation theory, even itself being a synthesis of what you said above. <_<

Actually, his theories came after Michal Kalecki's link between Marx's theory and the theory of monopoly:

Having beaten Keynes to the business cycle analysis and actually drawing upon Marx's thoughts on accumulation is a big plus for Kalecki.


On that we agree, but on the other hand, didn't Marx struggle just to cobble up the last two volumes, anyhow? And what of Kautsky's Volume IV (you still didn't respond to HIS comments)?

From Lenin's The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism; as far as Leninists still using dialectics today, you'll lure me into starting a semantics argument over what party today is Leninist, Trot, etc. etc. etc.

Frankly I haven't seen very many parties (all of which are various flavors of Leninism) in the U$ that aren't employing dialectics in one fashion or another.

I disagree, it didn't "open doors" to "monopoly capitalism" and Lenin's theory of imperialism insomuch as "monopoly capitalism" and Lenin's theory of imperialism were based on faulty partial observations.

No, I'm saying that the above is not a problem if one properly uses Marx's analysis of capitalist dynamics taking into account the disastrous effects of world war 2.

Being a physicist, I went to look at the empirical data of the U$ and unsurprisingly Marx's theory accurately predicted what happened.

Interesting but it still doesn't change my opinion.

From my understanding, it was a random assortment of quotes that Engels organized and "glued together" with his own commentary.

I'm an old man, get off my lawn and let me just take a damn nap!

Seriously though, be patient, I have pressing things to attend with physics (as I said, I'm a physicist and I'm working on quantum gravity...but it looks like quantum theory has been falsified or at the very least demonstrated empirically as not a final theory, which is starting to demonstrate some of my work to be valid; it's very exciting!).