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Marx's writings on alienation were what sold me on the concept. I was a exhausted dishwasher at the time and I distinctly remember the part of the manifesto talking about alienation speaking to me.
@@missZoey5387well people under capitalism don’t actually choose their jobs, they often “choose” what they see immediately in order to not die of starvation, etc.
Very seamless presentation of alienation! This is definitely a concept I feel divided about. On the one hand it seems to have a lot of sticking power for people new to Marxism, on the other hand, its clear dependence on liberal influences in Marx’s early works makes it pretty theoretically unstable. I really appreciate your inclusion of Althusser here (big shock, I know). He's challenging to read, but his critique of humanism is very valuable for studying Marx. I highly recommend, in addition to what you cited, Althusser's "On the Marerialist Dialectic" and "Contradiction and Overdetermination." And of course, thank you for the shoutout!
I think there’s something to be said about alienation from others in today’s neoliberal era. It has not only maintained the individualism that capitalism has always incentivized, but turned it up to 11. The gutting of social welfare, the rampant privatization of the economy, and the globalization of…well, just about everything encourages many of us to focus on ourselves and our own personal struggles. I’ve seen this plenty in America with the “fuck you, got mine” philosophy embedded in millions of us, including myself at times. 😕 What I hate most is that it’s all intentional to keep the working class divided so that the bourgeoisie can keep their riches safely tucked away.
Because democrats destroyed the family and got men out of the home in exchange for handouts. Everyone is now less resilient and lacking direction. Unable to cope as society gets more and more perverse😒
Based timing! I release a video about the potential automation of labor and you release a banger on the alienation of labor! Honestly I really enjoy this side of Marx. Idealism aside, I always thought young Marx was onto something with the "species being" question and the sacrificial tendency of humans to create a surplus. Its a thing that some french marxists like Georges Bataille analyze
Between both of you and Second Thought, my head is filled to the brim with information. Hakim's bit on UBI also fit in nicely with these. I have a lot to think about here on my night shift😎
I recently got involved with a local socialist group, most of their understanding is far more advanced than mine. Your videos help close the gap thanks m8.
It all makes sense now. Why I've been so depressed, and anxious too. I wake up and dread going to work. I'm happiest when I get off work, but then I dead going back. I feel like I have no purpose. I'm literally a cog. And I only work part time!!! I'm not crazy, this isn't normal. I love this series. So much is starting to come together and be explained. But what do we do?? Can socialism be accomplished in our lifetime? Looking forward to learning more ❤️
@@abolisher As someone who soul crushingly works full time and doesn’t make anywhere near a living wage, I would like to point out that dismissing other people’s experiences isn’t productive.
I've just sat and binge-watched your Socialism 101 playlist, and have thoroughly enjoyed each and every video! A HUGE thank you for putting so much effort into creating such a fantastic, engaging, and easy-to-follow resource. Absolutely looking forward to your upcoming videos!
This resonates with me so much. It's something I haven't been able to put my finger on, but which I _knew_ was a big problem I've found myself faced with in recent months. I keep thinking: _"If we finally had a different system that didnt force me into pointless labour, then I could finally realize my own potential, focus on hobbies I'd been meaning to pick up and do a LOT more volunteering work."_ I've just felt so drained of energy and motivation to do any of that, and this video helped me put into words why that is. Thanks a ton for sharing!
@Heinrich Himmler It's like unplugging from the matrix and learning that the world you thought you knew is actually just a global forced labor camp. That can be daunting for many.
This is just atheism. Religious people are happy regardless of situation because of the family and community that comes with it. I say this as an atheist.
I'm glad late Marx came to disagree with himself; many types of birds live to create art through the form of song and dance, so as to find mates. Humans are potentially able to create without thinking about material needs only because we've become The apex predator of the entire world: we can't know what other species would be doing if it weren't for humans stealing their land, the fruits of their labor (such as honey), and ruining the planet.
Birds don't create art. The mating rituals of birds are just an extension of the animalistic urge to copulate. Humans make music for the sake of music, not for the sake of reproducing
Thank you so much! My gratefulness to your series is beyond words. Just finished the entire series of Socialism 101 and can't wait to review and reflect on my notes and get set to Socialism 201!
Glad you found it useful. Thanks for the comment. Now it's your turn to try pass on that learning to others around you. As we say, "Each one teach one"
Thanks for this education, comrade! I'm 21 and stumbled into left tube during the pandemic, inspired by climate change, the failure of our politicians to act on it, and police violence against protesters in supposedly "free" countries like the US and Canada. I tend to stay on the live stream "news" side of the internet though, watching the spectacle in the US and trying to figure out what a "Zoomer Marxism" looks like. How do we move forward, how do we agitate, when our grandfathers have soiled words like Communism and Socialism, how they are synonymous to existing authoritarian regimes. How does the invention of the internet and Post truth fundamentally change our society? And of course trying to wrap my head around the vast number of economic, social and environmental problems we are and will be facing. I get lots of flack online from leftists insisting that I read theory, actually READ MARX. I feel like I have a far better understanding than most my age. I watch John The Duncan and lots of other essays. I tried to read a copy of Capital online, but there is NO WAY I can actually follow what he is trying to say. Not only was he smart and difficult to understand at the time, but the old English and phrasing takes so much time to parse, especially because he is discussing such a "Classical" form of capitalism and not the retail oriented, car dependent, Neo-liberal, uniquely socially isolated internet era. This video did a great job of explaining his ideas more concretely without just reading excerpts and going "See, wasn't this guy smart!! Moving on...." In particular, Alienation from the product of labour helped me see the contrast of social relations to the relations of things that Marx was trying to explain. When I go into a grocery store I spend so much time wondering if this cheap shirt was made by a slave, checking labels and identifying terrible imperialist ingredients (like palm oil in EVERY soap and every processed food). When everyone else goes into a store, all they see is colorful things to buy for cheap. They dont understand why im so stressed. "No. I want to buy pants at the thrift store, I dont CARE that these Walmart jeans from Bangladesh are only $10. I refuse." Thank you, this accidentally became a leftist essay comment, whoops lmao. I'm excited to watch the rest of this seiries.
@@Marxism_Today Hey comrade. Wanted to ask your thoughts/opinions on RCA/RCI. I'm not a Trotskyist but I haven't found any parties that are doing the type of work they are. I will take Trotskyism over the revisionism of the CPUSA and supporting the Democratic party they and many other parties are doing. I can work with Trotskyists. Many are sincere. Are there any non-Trotskyist parties doing the same type of work that are not revisionist and don't support "main line" politics/politicians/parties?
Great presentation of the nuances there! I was getting ready to argue about the human nature/species being aspect, but you explained it really well. In lieu of the lack of modern scientific, materialist understanding of human behaviour by people generally, including some on the left, I'd highly recommend the book Behave : The biology of humans at our best and worst, by Robert Sapolsky. There's also a youtube series of his lectures. Very accessible, even if you're not up to date on biology, neurology, genetics, evolution, psychology, etc. Builds a great appreciation for the complexity of us
Marx's quote is very Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. If base needs are not met such as food, water, shelter, sex, then high self actualization cannot be achieved. When we are coerced into work we do not want for resources that will never let us reach a higher state of self actualization, we are shackled to that lower place in the hierarchy. Because once you are food, shelter, family insecure, you don't have time to learn about how your socioeconomic environment did this to you, or learn about the tools to dismantle it and how to use them.
Here’s a little gem for hegelians: many computer programs and certain statistical algorithms actually kind of implement the Hegelian triad. Any interactive computer program can be viewed as some state S (theses), at which we keep throwing actions (negations) so it will change to a new state S' (syntheses). In Bayesian statistics, we start from some explicitly stated prejudice (hopefully one that expresses ignorance and assigns nonzero probability to all possibilities), then we keep collecting (hopefully unbiased - this is very much not trivial) data and then we apply Bayes‘ law (a posterior probability of the model is proportional to our prior prejudice *and* how well the model explains the data) in order to arrive at a more informed prejudice. While this „reducer“ pattern is highly popular among programmers, we also learn on day one: if you only got a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. That’s why we learn all kinds of patterns, from decorators to monads. The only hammer that *might* have a chance to successfully look at every problem as a nail is category theory.
Actually, I do think there is some "human nature", but based on scientific principles, that is, in evolutionary terms. Modern humans appeared 200,000 years ago, but history began like 10,000 years ago, so, we can say that we are somewhat "designed" to be hunter gatherers. That means, we are more prone to live in communities, not too large, seek for pleasure, have some basic instincts like survival and reproduction, among others. That isn't the same as justify abhorrent behaviour because "we are no more than animals!", but it is a good tool to understand ourselves and know how to be happier.
Marx actually did mention this in a footnote in Capital. There's a limited human nature in the sense of the needs that all humans have in order to subsist - the need to eat, to drink, the need for shelter, etc. But it's much more limited in scope than the socially-determined human natures that we often hear about. He delineated this into "human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch." The issue is that we often conflate the human nature of each historical epoch - whether that's hunter-gatherer society, slave society, feudalism, or capitalism - with the base-line human nature in terms of the bare minimum that humans require to survive, which could rightfully be called human nature. Perhaps we could add in procreation and some other aspects on top of that - like how you've alluded to communal existence. But yes, as you say, it's a much more limited human nature based on scientific principles rather than on abstract notions of spirit or such
@@Marxism_Today Cannot agree more, that's why I find evolutionary psychology quite interesting as long as it is based on different kinds of societies. For example, they study some of the few societies that still live as hunter-gatherers. Keep up the good work comrade!
Awesome content as always. Can you do a video about small, realistic things the average person can do to help further the socialist cause? I get that we're suffering under capitalism but what realistically can be done about it?
At the root of our capitalist-involuntary-labor society is the use of debt, both public and private, and especially as the means to create what we call the money supply. Debt makes generating revenue and profit the most important thing in the world, without exception. Failure to pay debt ultimately means bankruptcy and loss of property, which is a nightmare for all. Debt is the fundamental unquestioned assumption in the world of private ownership of the means of production. Use value as the product of a voluntary economy can only emerge, much less flourish, if money as an instrument of debt is abolished. This means a planned economy to one degree or another. If debt threatens the viability of the production of use value, it will win. Creditors have ultimate power in our society. We give them that power, mostly because we never question the assumption that debt is a necessity that arises from the creditor being in a zero-sum relationship with society. The creditors' grip is in indirect proportion to the freedom of society.
Great video comrade! However I have one criticism: at 5:08 you use “anarchy” with the bourgeois definition that essentially means “chaos”. I understand you’re a ML but I feel it’s important for all leftists to not perpetuate the misuse of leftist terminology. I’d also like to see a video of your perspective on anarchism, as anarchists are certainly rising in number across the world right now
Just a quick note, many of the works of theory contain the term "anarchy of production" to describe capitalism, like Engel's "socialism: utopian and scientific" uses it several times. So in fairness it's actually a pretty common term in ml literature though I agree we should try to move to using terms that don't throw anarchists under the bus.
Thanks! I understand the criticism, but it's not an attack on anarchism, it's a specific Marxist term referring to the boom-and-bust cycles that capitalism necessarily entails: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_of_production
@@Marxism_Today Ah fair enough, looks like it was coined by Engles, which makes sense. So I suppose this is just a broader critique of MLs, anarchists would certainly play a huge role in any revolution so I’d encourage you to avoid using that term and the like
I agree that anarchists will very likely play an important role in many of the proletarian revolutionary struggles moving forward and will keep that point in mind moving forward ✊
Video suggestion (if it hasn't been done yet): I'd be curious to see how the Marxist framework of alienation would apply to jobs that aren't commodity-based, such as nursing, in which the "production" (I would assume) is the care provided to patients.
What's always confused me about alienation is that I don't understand why it's a problem with capitalism specifically. Wouldn't the same thing apply to any mode of production which is sufficiently large and industrialised? Division of labour is kinda inevitable in a large economy, and it's impractical to know all of the 100 people which made all the tiny parts in your phone.
It's not so much about 'knowing' all these people, that would indeed be too much to ask. It's more about the way labour is stored in a commodity, but we as consumers can't know how and under what circumstances these commodities are produced. We just see the commodity. So, in Capitalism, as consumers, we keep on buying products that come from exploited labour, with surplus ending up in the hands of the few, at other times, we are the workers and produce commodities that other people will buy and so we are exploited. We alienate from each other through the market. That is sort of the idea, but I'm still figuring this stuff out myself. Division of labour in itself is not a bad thing, it's practical and no problem if everyone is working for the needs of society
Another good video! I also feel that communist party people need a bit more feelings and spiritual side, because it is hard sometimes dealing with them and just throwing big words and creating a human connection, which then you can show the way to raise another comrade.
Will do. The English captions are being uploaded and synchronized to the video's timings at the moment, so they should be ready in the next couple of hours
Marx clearly got Hegel wrong (just like so many others) when he used man‘s species-bring as an argument without qualifications. True: in hegel‘s dialectic, entities are driven by their essence - but Hegel does not state that this essence pre-exists; instead, it is constantly being constructed as the world keeps throwing negations at the entity. The job of the dialectic philosopher is to analyze upcoming (material!) negations, make educated guesses how the process of essence-construction may react to those and point out the dangers of future negations given those guesses.
Not sure if it isn't worth avoiding the phrase "anarchy of the market" in order to sow less discord among leftists. Anomy, chaos, disorder, lawlessness, randomness, arbitrariness?
In this case, that’s obviously what “anarchy” means, so I imagine many anarchists are capable of understanding that. On the other hand, I’ve thought the same way about what you said. However, I still doubt it’s a problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I know this is more of a theory channel but man I'm sick of the "socialism is evil and leads to mass murder" takes. Any links or information would be appreciated.
Thanks. Have a read of Marxism and Humanism if you haven't yet to dive into this question more: www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1964/marxism-humanism.htm
There could just be something alienating about industrialized labour. A worker in a factory is never going to have the same connection with the product as an artisan. The worker just becomes another unit, however, without such labour practices the modern world couldn't exist. So I don't think we can get rid of alienation, rather we just have to limit it to a minimum. If the working week is shortened to a three day week, maybe people wouldn't be so miserable. Or if work shrunk to two days a week, it might even come as a welcome distraction. But there's no doubt about it, making a widget on an assembly line, is never going to be a labour of love, I mean I once worked in a Scotch Egg factory, and I don't care if I had a share in the profits, or even owned the means of production, or even if I got a medal for being a model worker, I was going to be alienated from that job. Still won't eat a scotch egg, since I worked there.
Marx is wrong about alienation being result of capitalism. Its due to division of labor, detailed division of labor. Socialist run factory is still running same way unless you want 1 guy to build whole car from scratch. Most jobs are repeat and dumbed down whether system is capitalism or communism
Wait isn't that what he said that it isn't just because of capitalism... Idk I haven't watch the whole thing yet but from the beginning he said that it exist in any class society including slave society which is true including socialist society because socialist is still have a class
OK. So, it's not inherently about class as the focus... but it is about the historical materialism that led to this point. Right... so class is only the appropriate word to use when it is being used in a prescriptive manner? How is history leading to this point not pointing at class or internal bias led classism? If they are not the same thing... that is what I need explained. OK I get intent, I guess that's enough. Observation: I boarded dogs for a few years. They all have different drives, desires, and instinctual behaviors. No two dogs ever responded the same way to the same stimulus, reward. And if you don't teach it, they can't know it. Calling poor people undesirable is doing the exact thing he blaims capitalists for doing. His version of progressive exploitation is to demolish the ruling owner class so that history can move forward. But it's not a concerted effort... it's the frog waking up and realizing the water is too hot. So, marxism is not a verb it's an adjective. The claim that labor is what humans do is asinine on its face. 3rd places, art, stories, leisure, and hedonism are pretty good examples of drives and desires that require a distinct lack of labor. And B.F. Skinner makes a compelling argument for how societies built on socializing instead of identity and labor could work. Marx says nothing about the lowest classes other than holding them in contempt. Skinner builds from the bottom only. Marx wants to just shift the dynamic. Skinner wants to burn the whole dynamic to the ground. The self, Skinner argues, is being stifled by the framework of cultural baggage that comes along with history and how the act of absorbing that history slants the image of the world individuals end up filtering reality through. He says, Remove the baggage and just give people the reality part. That seems pragmatic... pragmatism. Hmm. Another good idea. Moreover, a framework for Co mingling the best ideas from Marx and mixing them with the best most compatible ideas from Skinner. That's just the fabric of society. You still have to invent your own life upon it. Early childhood development, immersive Waldorf style Dewey style education along with traditional math reading and other necessary prescriptive language tools.
So the main reason this doesn't actually seem to be possible is because there are just not enough actually educated people to realize their plight. This means the early development tactic to shift the circular nature of culture and language back towards egalitarian is actually the first step in the waking up process. Knowledge is not idealistic. It's not romantic. It's material and takes time and effort to do it correctly.
Under actually existing socialism (AES) in countries like the Soviet Union, all of this was basically still true, except the multiplicity of corporations was simply replaced by a single state owned monopoly. You still had managers and you still had to STFU and do as they say in order to earn your wage that varied according to a wage scale. The main difference is that under AES, the method of coercion was much more direct than under capitalism. Yes, if you don't work under capitalism, you'll end up homeless, but as I can personally attest, these people are free to do nothing all day and can be seen wandering about in streets near where I live. In the USSR, being unemployed was a crime under article 209. So you were very directly forced to work for your state-monopoly issued wage under AES.
The USSR turned to State Capitalism the soon after Stalin died. That is why it turned to shite. In the 1970s or the 1980s, for example, Kolkhozes were treated like Sovkhozes.
@@Natadangsa Try to stay on topic. The video is about "alienation" and how workers are "coerced" to work under capitalism. My point is that under Lenin, Stalin, and all the way until the collapse of the USSR, workers did not just spontaneously work out of their own good will. Under Stalin it was illegal for an able bodied Soviet citizen to be unemployed. Under Stalin you still had to STFU and do whatever your manager told you to do. Under Stalin there was a wage scale, some workers were paid more for being more productive or taking on more responsibilities. If this is "alienation," then there was alienation under Stalin.
@@gymnopedie4445 well that was because in truth, the USSR wasn't ready for Socialism yet, due to a. It was still a backward country and b. It was completely destroyed during the Russian Civil War. Stalin used this type of State Capitalism to prepare the USSR to enter Socialism. Yet after his death, they did not. They maintained this State Capitalism, yet further increased State power instead of diminishing it. Causing a series of factors that would led to the collapse of the USSR.
U aware that materialism in the sense of „matter is the root cause of everything“ is just another branch of bourgeois ideology? Those scientists who came up with this most definitely worked within the capitalist framework and probably endorsed capitalism. Many contemporary scientists find this bipolar „everything is spirit“ vs „everything is matter“ just tired old metaphysics. Phrases that don’t tell you anything. Just cut that crap and jump right into the concrete analysis of concrete situations.
I don't agree with Marx on the part about human beings having an essence. I personally think Marx was wrong here. Essentialism is really a cornerstone of conservative ideology. Also, humans aren't the only species to produce surplus value, Beavers build dams for example. I think the reason why animals only produce things in response to immediate physical needs is because they lack the privilege to do otherwise, humans have this privilege because they are the only species to have mastery over nature (aka civilisation). In other words, I don't think humans are the only species that have the tendency to realise the full potential of the organism. Carl Rogers makes a good case for this.
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BANGER INCOMING
It's already here!
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(You. You're the banger ❤️)
Comrade Yugopnik!!!!!! Thank you for blessing the comments. 🙏✊
Well hello there yugopnik!
Marx's writings on alienation were what sold me on the concept. I was a exhausted dishwasher at the time and I distinctly remember the part of the manifesto talking about alienation speaking to me.
dishwashing is the worst and I could totally see how easily you could relate
yeah I remember reading it and I got chills, which I've never felt that from literature before lmao
@@xXEvangelXx ehh, not a fan of government assigned jobs but sure
@@missZoey5387well people under capitalism don’t actually choose their jobs, they often “choose” what they see immediately in order to not die of starvation, etc.
True. @@yuborthedominator687
Very seamless presentation of alienation! This is definitely a concept I feel divided about. On the one hand it seems to have a lot of sticking power for people new to Marxism, on the other hand, its clear dependence on liberal influences in Marx’s early works makes it pretty theoretically unstable.
I really appreciate your inclusion of Althusser here (big shock, I know). He's challenging to read, but his critique of humanism is very valuable for studying Marx. I highly recommend, in addition to what you cited, Althusser's "On the Marerialist Dialectic" and "Contradiction and Overdetermination."
And of course, thank you for the shoutout!
I am forever grateful to you and all the other Marxists and leftist content creators who make videos like this, TY, ❤
I think there’s something to be said about alienation from others in today’s neoliberal era. It has not only maintained the individualism that capitalism has always incentivized, but turned it up to 11.
The gutting of social welfare, the rampant privatization of the economy, and the globalization of…well, just about everything encourages many of us to focus on ourselves and our own personal struggles. I’ve seen this plenty in America with the “fuck you, got mine” philosophy embedded in millions of us, including myself at times. 😕
What I hate most is that it’s all intentional to keep the working class divided so that the bourgeoisie can keep their riches safely tucked away.
Right wingers: why does it seem like everyone has depression these days!
Me: *links this video*
Because democrats destroyed the family and got men out of the home in exchange for handouts. Everyone is now less resilient and lacking direction. Unable to cope as society gets more and more perverse😒
Based timing! I release a video about the potential automation of labor and you release a banger on the alienation of labor! Honestly I really enjoy this side of Marx. Idealism aside, I always thought young Marx was onto something with the "species being" question and the sacrificial tendency of humans to create a surplus. Its a thing that some french marxists like Georges Bataille analyze
Between both of you and Second Thought, my head is filled to the brim with information. Hakim's bit on UBI also fit in nicely with these.
I have a lot to think about here on my night shift😎
I recently got involved with a local socialist group, most of their understanding is far more advanced than mine. Your videos help close the gap thanks m8.
It all makes sense now. Why I've been so depressed, and anxious too. I wake up and dread going to work. I'm happiest when I get off work, but then I dead going back. I feel like I have no purpose. I'm literally a cog. And I only work part time!!! I'm not crazy, this isn't normal.
I love this series. So much is starting to come together and be explained. But what do we do?? Can socialism be accomplished in our lifetime? Looking forward to learning more ❤️
Socialism has already been achieved about a century ago.
Consider yourself lucky you only work part time try being a person who works full time 40 hour a week 5 days a week and can’t even pay rent
@@abolisher As someone who soul crushingly works full time and doesn’t make anywhere near a living wage, I would like to point out that dismissing other people’s experiences isn’t productive.
This isn't normal. Capitalism turns you into something that's not human. It turns you into an animal. I agree you become a cog in the machine.
I've just sat and binge-watched your Socialism 101 playlist, and have thoroughly enjoyed each and every video! A HUGE thank you for putting so much effort into creating such a fantastic, engaging, and easy-to-follow resource. Absolutely looking forward to your upcoming videos!
Thanks Charan! Glad you enjoyed it :)
This resonates with me so much. It's something I haven't been able to put my finger on, but which I _knew_ was a big problem I've found myself faced with in recent months.
I keep thinking: _"If we finally had a different system that didnt force me into pointless labour, then I could finally realize my own potential, focus on hobbies I'd been meaning to pick up and do a LOT more volunteering work."_ I've just felt so drained of energy and motivation to do any of that, and this video helped me put into words why that is.
Thanks a ton for sharing!
Now I feel sad, angry, and helpless to change anything. Becoming a Marxist was a mistake (it wasn't but I'm still sad and angry)
@Heinrich Himmler
It's like unplugging from the matrix and learning that the world you thought you knew is actually just a global forced labor camp. That can be daunting for many.
@@GhoulsWinnfield That is a frighteningly accurate comparison
That is what I feel since 2017
There is no reason to dispair. Get pissed, be the change you want to see in the world
This is just atheism. Religious people are happy regardless of situation because of the family and community that comes with it.
I say this as an atheist.
"If you live for the weekend..."
*shows man drinking*
Oh no. That's me.
well done, thanks Paul
Mashallah daddy Marxist Paul has uploaded
When I watch your videos I find great solace. Thank you, comrade! 🚩🙏🏽
Alienation is specifically what sold me on Marx.
Yet another absolutely vital video. Thanks for making these, Paul!
Much love to anyone experiencing this alienation 🕉️♥️ hopefully we'll all make it through this
Thank you for your work, Paul!
You're very welcome, R Al!
I'm glad late Marx came to disagree with himself; many types of birds live to create art through the form of song and dance, so as to find mates.
Humans are potentially able to create without thinking about material needs only because we've become The apex predator of the entire world: we can't know what other species would be doing if it weren't for humans stealing their land, the fruits of their labor (such as honey), and ruining the planet.
Birds don't create art. The mating rituals of birds are just an extension of the animalistic urge to copulate. Humans make music for the sake of music, not for the sake of reproducing
Well, birds sing different tunes, but they all have the same lyrics:
"Hey, b*tches! Wanna amash? Oy, that branch is mine!"
My first language is not English so it took me around 2 to 3 times reviewing this video to actually understand the ideas and concepts.
Absolutely fantastic, even better when watching while at work o7
seconded. Whenever I work from home I’m listening to shit like this
Workers of the world, watch socialist videos while working and unite!
Thanks!
Thanks Daca! Really appreciate that 🙏
Thanks a lot. This video really made me see clearer about alienation and the young Marx vs later Marx
Thank you so much! My gratefulness to your series is beyond words. Just finished the entire series of Socialism 101 and can't wait to review and reflect on my notes and get set to Socialism 201!
These videos are incredible. Paul, you are an absolute treasure of the left!
Nice one Comrade
Great series! Looking forward to the next one
Now that I've finished this series, I have to say it was an awesome learning experience. Thanks.
Glad you found it useful. Thanks for the comment. Now it's your turn to try pass on that learning to others around you.
As we say, "Each one teach one"
@@Marxism_Today Yes, of course. 💪🏾
Thanks for this education, comrade! I'm 21 and stumbled into left tube during the pandemic, inspired by climate change, the failure of our politicians to act on it, and police violence against protesters in supposedly "free" countries like the US and Canada. I tend to stay on the live stream "news" side of the internet though, watching the spectacle in the US and trying to figure out what a "Zoomer Marxism" looks like. How do we move forward, how do we agitate, when our grandfathers have soiled words like Communism and Socialism, how they are synonymous to existing authoritarian regimes. How does the invention of the internet and Post truth fundamentally change our society? And of course trying to wrap my head around the vast number of economic, social and environmental problems we are and will be facing.
I get lots of flack online from leftists insisting that I read theory, actually READ MARX. I feel like I have a far better understanding than most my age. I watch John The Duncan and lots of other essays. I tried to read a copy of Capital online, but there is NO WAY I can actually follow what he is trying to say. Not only was he smart and difficult to understand at the time, but the old English and phrasing takes so much time to parse, especially because he is discussing such a "Classical" form of capitalism and not the retail oriented, car dependent, Neo-liberal, uniquely socially isolated internet era.
This video did a great job of explaining his ideas more concretely without just reading excerpts and going "See, wasn't this guy smart!! Moving on...."
In particular, Alienation from the product of labour helped me see the contrast of social relations to the relations of things that Marx was trying to explain. When I go into a grocery store I spend so much time wondering if this cheap shirt was made by a slave, checking labels and identifying terrible imperialist ingredients (like palm oil in EVERY soap and every processed food). When everyone else goes into a store, all they see is colorful things to buy for cheap. They dont understand why im so stressed. "No. I want to buy pants at the thrift store, I dont CARE that these Walmart jeans from Bangladesh are only $10. I refuse."
Thank you, this accidentally became a leftist essay comment, whoops lmao. I'm excited to watch the rest of this seiries.
Haha glad you found this useful. Welcome to the channel, and enjoy the series
@@Marxism_Today
Hey comrade. Wanted to ask your thoughts/opinions on RCA/RCI. I'm not a Trotskyist but I haven't found any parties that are doing the type of work they are. I will take Trotskyism over the revisionism of the CPUSA and supporting the Democratic party they and many other parties are doing. I can work with Trotskyists. Many are sincere. Are there any non-Trotskyist parties doing the same type of work that are not revisionist and don't support "main line" politics/politicians/parties?
Finally finished the series. Can’t wait to jump into the readings, thank you
You're quite underrated tbh
*watching on a Monday morning from my cubicle, while filling out the Quarterly Company Team Satisfaction Survey*
Yeah.... yeah.
What a wonderful series. I hope you continue it, or make another one.
Thank you very much, Paul! Easy to digest, very well explained
Glad you found it useful, Lesya!
"EHH YOO, HURRY UP WHERES MY COFFEE BARISTA!!! IT"S BEEN 3 MIUNTES!!!!!" - ppl estranged from the worker.
Lol
Great presentation of the nuances there! I was getting ready to argue about the human nature/species being aspect, but you explained it really well.
In lieu of the lack of modern scientific, materialist understanding of human behaviour by people generally, including some on the left, I'd highly recommend the book Behave : The biology of humans at our best and worst, by Robert Sapolsky. There's also a youtube series of his lectures. Very accessible, even if you're not up to date on biology, neurology, genetics, evolution, psychology, etc. Builds a great appreciation for the complexity of us
Great explanation brother
Watching from Kashmir
Marx's quote is very Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. If base needs are not met such as food, water, shelter, sex, then high self actualization cannot be achieved. When we are coerced into work we do not want for resources that will never let us reach a higher state of self actualization, we are shackled to that lower place in the hierarchy. Because once you are food, shelter, family insecure, you don't have time to learn about how your socioeconomic environment did this to you, or learn about the tools to dismantle it and how to use them.
Here’s a little gem for hegelians: many computer programs and certain statistical algorithms actually kind of implement the Hegelian triad.
Any interactive computer program can be viewed as some state S (theses), at which we keep throwing actions (negations) so it will change to a new state S' (syntheses).
In Bayesian statistics, we start from some explicitly stated prejudice (hopefully one that expresses ignorance and assigns nonzero probability to all possibilities), then we keep collecting (hopefully unbiased - this is very much not trivial) data and then we apply Bayes‘ law (a posterior probability of the model is proportional to our prior prejudice *and* how well the model explains the data) in order to arrive at a more informed prejudice.
While this „reducer“ pattern is highly popular among programmers, we also learn on day one: if you only got a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. That’s why we learn all kinds of patterns, from decorators to monads. The only hammer that *might* have a chance to successfully look at every problem as a nail is category theory.
Fantastic video!
Actually, I do think there is some "human nature", but based on scientific principles, that is, in evolutionary terms. Modern humans appeared 200,000 years ago, but history began like 10,000 years ago, so, we can say that we are somewhat "designed" to be hunter gatherers. That means, we are more prone to live in communities, not too large, seek for pleasure, have some basic instincts like survival and reproduction, among others. That isn't the same as justify abhorrent behaviour because "we are no more than animals!", but it is a good tool to understand ourselves and know how to be happier.
Marx actually did mention this in a footnote in Capital. There's a limited human nature in the sense of the needs that all humans have in order to subsist - the need to eat, to drink, the need for shelter, etc.
But it's much more limited in scope than the socially-determined human natures that we often hear about.
He delineated this into "human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch."
The issue is that we often conflate the human nature of each historical epoch - whether that's hunter-gatherer society, slave society, feudalism, or capitalism - with the base-line human nature in terms of the bare minimum that humans require to survive, which could rightfully be called human nature. Perhaps we could add in procreation and some other aspects on top of that - like how you've alluded to communal existence.
But yes, as you say, it's a much more limited human nature based on scientific principles rather than on abstract notions of spirit or such
@@Marxism_Today Cannot agree more, that's why I find evolutionary psychology quite interesting as long as it is based on different kinds of societies. For example, they study some of the few societies that still live as hunter-gatherers.
Keep up the good work comrade!
Awesome content as always. Can you do a video about small, realistic things the average person can do to help further the socialist cause? I get that we're suffering under capitalism but what realistically can be done about it?
At the root of our capitalist-involuntary-labor society is the use of debt, both public and private, and especially as the means to create what we call the money supply. Debt makes generating revenue and profit the most important thing in the world, without exception. Failure to pay debt ultimately means bankruptcy and loss of property, which is a nightmare for all. Debt is the fundamental unquestioned assumption in the world of private ownership of the means of production. Use value as the product of a voluntary economy can only emerge, much less flourish, if money as an instrument of debt is abolished. This means a planned economy to one degree or another. If debt threatens the viability of the production of use value, it will win. Creditors have ultimate power in our society. We give them that power, mostly because we never question the assumption that debt is a necessity that arises from the creditor being in a zero-sum relationship with society. The creditors' grip is in indirect proportion to the freedom of society.
Great video comrade!
However I have one criticism: at 5:08 you use “anarchy” with the bourgeois definition that essentially means “chaos”. I understand you’re a ML but I feel it’s important for all leftists to not perpetuate the misuse of leftist terminology.
I’d also like to see a video of your perspective on anarchism, as anarchists are certainly rising in number across the world right now
Just a quick note, many of the works of theory contain the term "anarchy of production" to describe capitalism, like Engel's "socialism: utopian and scientific" uses it several times. So in fairness it's actually a pretty common term in ml literature though I agree we should try to move to using terms that don't throw anarchists under the bus.
Thanks! I understand the criticism, but it's not an attack on anarchism, it's a specific Marxist term referring to the boom-and-bust cycles that capitalism necessarily entails: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_of_production
@@Marxism_Today Ah fair enough, looks like it was coined by Engles, which makes sense. So I suppose this is just a broader critique of MLs, anarchists would certainly play a huge role in any revolution so I’d encourage you to avoid using that term and the like
I agree that anarchists will very likely play an important role in many of the proletarian revolutionary struggles moving forward and will keep that point in mind moving forward ✊
just to boost the algo, thanks for your work
This is a fantastic video. Amazing stuff.
Would alienation apply to people working in the public sector?
Video suggestion (if it hasn't been done yet): I'd be curious to see how the Marxist framework of alienation would apply to jobs that aren't commodity-based, such as nursing, in which the "production" (I would assume) is the care provided to patients.
Good to know that money i sent you went you were down is paying off dog. You're the man these videos are sick!
Thanks Breeze! You really helped to get me through a pretty rough time 🙏
Awesome work!
What's always confused me about alienation is that I don't understand why it's a problem with capitalism specifically. Wouldn't the same thing apply to any mode of production which is sufficiently large and industrialised? Division of labour is kinda inevitable in a large economy, and it's impractical to know all of the 100 people which made all the tiny parts in your phone.
It's not so much about 'knowing' all these people, that would indeed be too much to ask. It's more about the way labour is stored in a commodity, but we as consumers can't know how and under what circumstances these commodities are produced. We just see the commodity.
So, in Capitalism, as consumers, we keep on buying products that come from exploited labour, with surplus ending up in the hands of the few, at other times, we are the workers and produce commodities that other people will buy and so we are exploited. We alienate from each other through the market.
That is sort of the idea, but I'm still figuring this stuff out myself.
Division of labour in itself is not a bad thing, it's practical and no problem if everyone is working for the needs of society
Fabulous!!!!
I think the subject of alienation is very up-to-date in the context of AI.
Another good video! I also feel that communist party people need a bit more feelings and spiritual side, because it is hard sometimes dealing with them and just throwing big words and creating a human connection, which then you can show the way to raise another comrade.
Can you provide captions for this video? The only option I see is auto generated Vietnamese.
Will do. The English captions are being uploaded and synchronized to the video's timings at the moment, so they should be ready in the next couple of hours
@@Marxism_Today Thank you!
Thanks for the ❤️ I edited a typo and it removed the love XD whoopsie
Thanks for the video
Marx clearly got Hegel wrong (just like so many others) when he used man‘s species-bring as an argument without qualifications. True: in hegel‘s dialectic, entities are driven by their essence - but Hegel does not state that this essence pre-exists; instead, it is constantly being constructed as the world keeps throwing negations at the entity. The job of the dialectic philosopher is to analyze upcoming (material!) negations, make educated guesses how the process of essence-construction may react to those and point out the dangers of future negations given those guesses.
🔥🔥🔥
Are you still making videos?
aaaaaaaaaaaand, done. Ready for 102.
Once alienation under capitalism has been defeated I can finally fulfill my dream of becoming a trauma cleaner!
Cool video
Make a video on the black panther party
Comment for the algorithm.
I needed this video. Great!
I don't see how the concept of species-being is contingent on it being trans-historical.
Not sure if it isn't worth avoiding the phrase "anarchy of the market" in order to sow less discord among leftists. Anomy, chaos, disorder, lawlessness, randomness, arbitrariness?
In this case, that’s obviously what “anarchy” means, so I imagine many anarchists are capable of understanding that. On the other hand, I’ve thought the same way about what you said. However, I still doubt it’s a problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I know this is more of a theory channel but man I'm sick of the "socialism is evil and leads to mass murder" takes.
Any links or information would be appreciated.
😮
This is a great video but I don't see this supposed epistemic break. Marx remained a humanist for his entire life.
Thanks. Have a read of Marxism and Humanism if you haven't yet to dive into this question more: www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1964/marxism-humanism.htm
@@Marxism_Today Thanks. I will check it out when I have the time to properly go through it.
There could just be something alienating about industrialized labour. A worker in a factory is never going to have the same connection with the product as an artisan.
The worker just becomes another unit, however, without such labour practices the modern world couldn't exist.
So I don't think we can get rid of alienation, rather we just have to limit it to a minimum. If the working week is shortened to a three day week, maybe people wouldn't be so miserable.
Or if work shrunk to two days a week, it might even come as a welcome distraction. But there's no doubt about it, making a widget on an assembly line, is never going to be a labour of love,
I mean I once worked in a Scotch Egg factory, and I don't care if I had a share in the profits, or even owned the means of production, or even if I got a medal for being a model worker, I was going to be alienated from that job. Still won't eat a scotch egg, since I worked there.
Marx is wrong about alienation being result of capitalism. Its due to division of labor, detailed division of labor. Socialist run factory is still running same way unless you want 1 guy to build whole car from scratch.
Most jobs are repeat and dumbed down whether system is capitalism or communism
Wait isn't that what he said that it isn't just because of capitalism... Idk I haven't watch the whole thing yet but from the beginning he said that it exist in any class society including slave society which is true including socialist society because socialist is still have a class
Bro! Dude! How smart was Marx?
OK. So, it's not inherently about class as the focus... but it is about the historical materialism that led to this point. Right... so class is only the appropriate word to use when it is being used in a prescriptive manner? How is history leading to this point not pointing at class or internal bias led classism? If they are not the same thing... that is what I need explained. OK I get intent, I guess that's enough.
Observation: I boarded dogs for a few years. They all have different drives, desires, and instinctual behaviors. No two dogs ever responded the same way to the same stimulus, reward. And if you don't teach it, they can't know it.
Calling poor people undesirable is doing the exact thing he blaims capitalists for doing. His version of progressive exploitation is to demolish the ruling owner class so that history can move forward. But it's not a concerted effort... it's the frog waking up and realizing the water is too hot. So, marxism is not a verb it's an adjective.
The claim that labor is what humans do is asinine on its face. 3rd places, art, stories, leisure, and hedonism are pretty good examples of drives and desires that require a distinct lack of labor. And B.F. Skinner makes a compelling argument for how societies built on socializing instead of identity and labor could work.
Marx says nothing about the lowest classes other than holding them in contempt. Skinner builds from the bottom only. Marx wants to just shift the dynamic. Skinner wants to burn the whole dynamic to the ground. The self, Skinner argues, is being stifled by the framework of cultural baggage that comes along with history and how the act of absorbing that history slants the image of the world individuals end up filtering reality through. He says, Remove the baggage and just give people the reality part.
That seems pragmatic... pragmatism. Hmm. Another good idea. Moreover, a framework for Co mingling the best ideas from Marx and mixing them with the best most compatible ideas from Skinner. That's just the fabric of society. You still have to invent your own life upon it. Early childhood development, immersive Waldorf style Dewey style education along with traditional math reading and other necessary prescriptive language tools.
So the main reason this doesn't actually seem to be possible is because there are just not enough actually educated people to realize their plight. This means the early development tactic to shift the circular nature of culture and language back towards egalitarian is actually the first step in the waking up process. Knowledge is not idealistic. It's not romantic. It's material and takes time and effort to do it correctly.
Under actually existing socialism (AES) in countries like the Soviet Union, all of this was basically still true, except the multiplicity of corporations was simply replaced by a single state owned monopoly. You still had managers and you still had to STFU and do as they say in order to earn your wage that varied according to a wage scale. The main difference is that under AES, the method of coercion was much more direct than under capitalism. Yes, if you don't work under capitalism, you'll end up homeless, but as I can personally attest, these people are free to do nothing all day and can be seen wandering about in streets near where I live. In the USSR, being unemployed was a crime under article 209. So you were very directly forced to work for your state-monopoly issued wage under AES.
The USSR turned to State Capitalism the soon after Stalin died. That is why it turned to shite. In the 1970s or the 1980s, for example, Kolkhozes were treated like Sovkhozes.
@@Natadangsa Everything I just said applied to the Stalin era just as much as any other era of the USSR.
@@gymnopedie4445 Then why was the food quality was the best between 1937-1941 and 1947-1960s ?
@@Natadangsa Try to stay on topic. The video is about "alienation" and how workers are "coerced" to work under capitalism. My point is that under Lenin, Stalin, and all the way until the collapse of the USSR, workers did not just spontaneously work out of their own good will. Under Stalin it was illegal for an able bodied Soviet citizen to be unemployed. Under Stalin you still had to STFU and do whatever your manager told you to do. Under Stalin there was a wage scale, some workers were paid more for being more productive or taking on more responsibilities. If this is "alienation," then there was alienation under Stalin.
@@gymnopedie4445 well that was because in truth, the USSR wasn't ready for Socialism yet, due to a. It was still a backward country and b. It was completely destroyed during the Russian Civil War.
Stalin used this type of State Capitalism to prepare the USSR to enter Socialism. Yet after his death, they did not. They maintained this State Capitalism, yet further increased State power instead of diminishing it. Causing a series of factors that would led to the collapse of the USSR.
f̷̩̜͚̤͇͔̿̋̓̐͜͝͝e̷̞͍̲̜̔̃́͝e̷̠̭͎̽̂̾̕d̷̛͈͓͉̮̦͔̼͈̳͔͙͊͌̌̊̔̏̊͂̔̚̚t̸̢̛̤̰̯͕͊̀̈́̈͛́̈̒̓͝͝h̴͖̠̱̝̣̼̩͕̥̭̜͊̍͗̋͛̾͋̌̍̒̓̍͝ę̴̛̯̮̰͖̝͎̼͎͙̼̻̻̺̈́͒̈́͐͂̔͒͘͠â̵̬̰͍̾̉ĺ̸̞͌̐͐̉̑̐̓͒̎̊̈͘͝g̸̛̩̥͌͋̌̊̑̌̈̓͝õ̴̡̯̥͔͓̙̪͓̫͓̞̞̣̜͓̅̀̑̉̒̋̇̄̐̋͝r̸̨̤̤̔̆̍͌̾̈́͆́̚͜į̶̨͓̗͚͚̳͉͕͚̝̪̳͍̲͌̈̊͗͛̎͌̌͒̏̒͋͘͝t̶̨̘͕̂̽̀̉͐̈́̎͌̌̿́̆̿h̴̡̥̺̤̳̘̳̜͈̝̤̱̾̐̽m̷͉͊̾̊̽̅́͋͋̍̂̋́̚̕͘
U aware that materialism in the sense of „matter is the root cause of everything“ is just another branch of bourgeois ideology? Those scientists who came up with this most definitely worked within the capitalist framework and probably endorsed capitalism. Many contemporary scientists find this bipolar „everything is spirit“ vs „everything is matter“ just tired old metaphysics. Phrases that don’t tell you anything. Just cut that crap and jump right into the concrete analysis of concrete situations.
zhina!
100th comment
I think alienation is more to do with psychology
I don't agree with Marx on the part about human beings having an essence. I personally think Marx was wrong here. Essentialism is really a cornerstone of conservative ideology. Also, humans aren't the only species to produce surplus value, Beavers build dams for example. I think the reason why animals only produce things in response to immediate physical needs is because they lack the privilege to do otherwise, humans have this privilege because they are the only species to have mastery over nature (aka civilisation). In other words, I don't think humans are the only species that have the tendency to realise the full potential of the organism. Carl Rogers makes a good case for this.
Fantastic video!
Thanks Michaela!!