fun guy

4y

spent my morning in a cafe surrounded by old white people

felt like such a hipster, i was listening to jazz

liking the book so far. makes problems such as under and overproduction easy to understand

• "Walmart has gone on to become the largest company in the world, enjoying eye-Watering, People's Republic of China-sized cumulative average growth rates of 8 percent during its five and a half decades. Today, it employs more workers than any other private firm; if we include state enterprises in our ranking, it is the world's third largest employer after the US Department of Defense and the Peoples' Liberation Army. If it were a country - let's call it the People's Republic of Walmart - its economy would be roughly the size of a Sweden or a Switzerland. Using the 2015 World Bank country-by-country comparison of purchasing-power parity GDP, we could place it as the 38th largest economy in the world."

• "In 1970, Soviet GDF clocked in at $433.4 billion in today's money, then the second largest economy in the world; Walmart's 2017 revenue was $485 billion."

the reds

4y

Funny and sad

fun guy

4y

spent my morning in a cafe surrounded by old white people

felt like such a hipster, i was listening to jazz

liking the book so far. makes problems such as under and overproduction easy to understand

• "Walmart has gone on to become the largest company in the world, enjoying eye-Watering, People's Republic of China-sized cumulative average growth rates of 8 percent during its five and a half decades. Today, it employs more workers than any other private firm; if we include state enterprises in our ranking, it is the world's third largest employer after the US Department of Defense and the Peoples' Liberation Army. If it were a country - let's call it the People's Republic of Walmart - its economy would be roughly the size of a Sweden or a Switzerland. Using the 2015 World Bank country-by-country comparison of purchasing-power parity GDP, we could place it as the 38th largest economy in the world."

• "In 1970, Soviet GDF clocked in at $433.4 billion in today's money, then the second largest economy in the world; Walmart's 2017 revenue was $485 billion."

Womanpuncher69

4y

Id argue against Lenin if Lenin wasn't born Russia he wouldn't have had been as revolutionary, Russia at the time was home to greatest contradictions at the time, Russia at the time was the weakest imperialist power, and the most backwards at the time, but only at Russia you had the the feudal contradictions in the peasant side, you had colonial contradictions as well, and proletarian contradictions, the largest factory at the time was in Russia, and huge contradictions between the capitalist mode of production in the cities, and the feudal countryside. Plus you even had contradictions between the ruling classes themselves. Also the Russian communist were faced with insane amount of Tsarist repression that forced them to be revolutionary while other parties could hide behind Parliamentarism. Other parts of Europes had strikes and revolution at the time but only Russia had the perfect combinations of contradictions to be able to be broken it was the weakest link at the time, if Lenin was born anywhere else he'd still be a great thinker but more of Gramsci than being known as Lenin for example

But then again probably not a serious post

the reds

4y

Funny and sad

the reds

4y

Funny and sad

Scratchin Mamba

4y

The Netherlands does a lot of business in Cuba, this a guide for Dutch ppl who wanna invest in Cuba, it's in English, but def interesting to read from this perspective

https://www.rvo.nl/sites/default/files/2019/10/Doing-Business-in-Cuba-September-2019.pdf

krishna bound

4y

lowkey depressing read tbh

Scratchin Mamba

4y

Whenever a Marxist says "hey read this it's pretty interesting" do not do it if you're in an emotionally vulnerable state

krishna bound

4y

i don't really have an issue with like guides for business or something, but i hate the way there's so transparently framed as dehumanizingly capitalistic. It's like a cartoon where you have a fat banker with dollar signs popping out of his eyes. Like, describing the people in a non-human manner like "Strengths: population has a can-do mentality", like wtf they're not domesticated animals where you're comparing the type of people relative to business there like you can imagine if they're saying this as a positive, there has to be countries where they're doing the inverse like "Weaknesses: people are unmotivated and stupid" or something. At the same time that entire page of "weaknesses", "threats", etc. is just parody level. Like "hey i know you want to make money but just keep in mind the US wants them wiped off the map (: on the bright side, that means no competition though!!"

americana

4y

The contradictions continue to grow

americana

4y

Next market collapse will truly begin the fermentation of revolution

None of the big bodies will be dropping prices at all and the government will bail them out with money we don’t have. The dollar will likely die. And we’re where we’ll need to be to start working on things

Cudderwalks

4y

I swear sometimes communists be giving me more stress than capitalists

Scratchin Mamba

4y

https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-left-fidelity-castration-slavoj-zizek-fidel-castro-cuba-che-communism

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/europe-unequal-treatment-of-refugees-exposed-by-ukraine-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-03

God bless the trash can man but read these two articles and how different he looks at Ukraine and Cuba fighting a greater power, prolly the biggest example of Zizek's shortcomings in his politics.

On one hand, he dismisses great power politics and the idea that Ukraine should make any concessions to Russia in order to stop Russian aggression, and thus should keep fighting for... NATO and EU membership lol?

But Cuba on the other hand should admit defeat and accept great power politics as not just a descriptive, but a prescriptive idea and "negotiate the best deal possible" in order to end the embargo and give up all the gains of the revolution lol.

Somehow NATO and EU membership is a greater and more valuable cause to fight for than socialism according to him. I guess that's what you're bound to get with his lil enlightened Eurocentrism gimmick

Also when I read this part all I could think about is you @krishna_bound

I visited Cuba a decade ago, and on that visit I found people who proudly showed me houses in decay as a proof of their fidelity to the revolutionary ​“Event”: ​“Look, everything is falling apart, we live in poverty, but we are ready to endure it rather than to betray the Revolution!” When renunciations themselves are experienced as proof of authenticity, we get what in psychoanalysis is called the logic of castration. The whole Cuban politico-ideological identity rests on the fidelity to castration — no wonder that the Leader is called Fidel Castro!