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thetldrplace · 1 year

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Socialism: Utopian and Scientific- Friedrich Engels

This was originally the first three chapters of a larger work- Anti-Duhring, published in 1878.

The initial idea was that Engels would write a more approachable condensed version of Marx's larger Das Kapital, which was a difficult read.

1 The Development of Utopian Socialism

Engels outlines the development of earlier forms of socialism by Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen.

Engels writes that the 18th century French philosophers saw reason as the ultimate answer to the betterment of society. They thought that history prior to the enlightenment had been one long age of unreason, and if only universal reason were applied, the problems of humanity would disappear. Despite the promises of the enlightenment, Engels sees the actual application of these 'inalienable rights of man' as being nothing more than further entrenchment of the bourgeois.

None of the three utopian socialists, says Engels, represented the interests of the proletariat. They sought the emancipation of all humanity, not just workers. Their mistake was to attempt to apply enlightenment values of reason and justice, rather than deal with what Marxists saw as the real problem- class antagonisms.

Engels notes that the French revolution tried installing enlightenment values, but ended in the Reign of Terror, therefore the application of enlightenment reason to society was a failure. Engels ignores the American experiment, which has been successful, and focuses on the French revolution in order to appeal to facts that support his assertion.

There had been Utopian socialists that had tried experiments in small scale communism. Engels sees their theories as crude responses to crude conditions. Capitalistic production had not developed enough to bring about the necessary conditions for revolution, so the utopian socialists' designs were pure fantasies.

The first was Henri de Saint-Simon, a son of the Revolution. While the revolution was a victory by the third estate (the common people), that victory soon showed itself to be essentially bourgeois in effect. The French revolution was an antagonism between the idlers (aristocracy and all those that earned without working) and workers. The idlers had lost the capacity to lead, as the revolution had proven. The new leadership would be a union between science and industry and a reformed new Christianity. But these were all lead by the bourgeois.

Second was Charles Fourier, who was a critic of modern society and wrote of the moral and material bankruptcy of the bourgeois. He contrasts the reality with the promises made by those promoting reason. He divided history into 4 stages: savagery, barbarianism, patriarchate, and civilization (which Engels says it the same as bourgeois society). He says these move in a vicious circle, constantly reproducing.

Third was Robert Owen, a Scottish cotton mill owner who had noted the conditions of the working class, and implemented humane conditions in his factory as a response. The result was a model colony. But even then Owen realized his workers were still essentially at his mercy, and he recognized that, while relatively better off, his workers were still far from being allowed rational development in their character and intellect.

While the factory had been highly profitable, he was still paying proprietors on the capital they laid out, meaning the workers were still not profiting as they should from their labor.

He drew up plans for more widespread reform in Ireland, but always based in the practical costs.

But as his ideas developed to a more general communism; including private property, religion, and marriage, he knew that he would be socially excommunicated. His attempts at founding such a colony in America ruined him. Engels claims it was bourgeois ostracization that caused the failure. But New Harmony, Indiana, the colony he was using to implement his ideas, failed after only two years due to failed expectations, in-fighting, and commercial failure. They had lofty ideals, but couldn't clearly address how to make the community function.

Engels says Socialist thought has largely been patterned after these utopian. To these, socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason, and justice, and only has to be discovered in order to conquer the world. But, says Engels, to make a science of socialism, it had to first be placed upon a real basis.

2 Dialectics

Engels says Hegel had the highest form of reasoning: dialectics. Aristotle had long ago analyzed the essential forms of dialectic thought1. The more modern philosophers used it, but in metaphysical mode.

The essence of dialectic thought is to consider nature, the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity. We see an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations- basically everything in its natural state of flux. Things are not static, but ever changing. We see the whole, and then the individual parts in the background. Heraclitus describe it as: everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.

Engels writes that while true, this isn't sufficient. For a long time, we needed more knowledge of the natural and historical material with which to do analysis. As we've enlarged our scope of knowledge, there is more to work with, but the habits we gained over time was to study things in isolation, not in connection with the whole. This habit was transferred to the metaphysical realm. Ideas were isolated, to be considered apart from each other- and they become rigid, fixed.

This seems to be common sense, but it forgets that things are constantly in motion. Even cause and effect, which is useful applied to individual cases, begins to blur in the big picture of processes. But these processes don't enter into metaphysical reasoning.

Dialectics on the other hand comprehends the totality.

Nature is the proof of dialectics. It doesn't move in a perpetually recurring cycle, but in a historical evolution. Darwin showed this.

An exact replication of the universe, its evolution, and its consequences for man can only be obtained through dialectics and its regard of fluidity.

The importance of Hegel is that the world and history is seen as process. Now we need to follow the march of this process and find the inner law running through it. Hegel didn't solve the problem, but he propounded the problem. No single individual will ever be able to solve it.

The old materialism saw the world as essentially irrational and disconnected. The new materialism sees the process of evolution and seeks to discover the laws at work.

Engels goes on to assert that the facts laid out in the dialectic examination of history reveal that ALL past history was the history of class struggles. These warring classes are always the products of modes of production and exchange- or, economic conditions.

I don't know if Marx gave evidence of this assertion in Capital, but Engels doesn't here, he just asserts it. In fact, this most crucial fact, underpinning nearly all Marxist thought, seems, on the face of it, to be not only not true, but not even possible.

If I were to guess at why Marx thought this, I'd guess he is only considering history from a much later date- say the middle ages on. But even now, smaller tribal groups have councils- leadership that settles disputes. Disputes arise, I would believe, because of human nature and our innate self-interest, not because of class conflict. Class conflict could never grow until society grew large enough. Marx seems to recognize that his assertion doesn't count for prehistoric times, but even today there are conditions where tribes and individuals within them have conflicts that don't have anything to do with class antagonisms. So this fundamental assertion of Marx seems to me on the face of it- wrong.

Engels says: Now that history is understood dialectically, and a materialistic understanding of history is granted; it was understood that man knows by being, rather than being by his knowing.

From here, socialism is the necessary outcome of the struggle between the two historically developed classes.

Again, Marx and Engels assert that these things are true. They claim they are rigidly scientific in their analysis, and therefore, they can't be wrong about the hypothesis. But oddly enough, while their dialectical approach should lead to more nuanced understanding, they seem exceptionally narrow and rigid in their conclusions. They took Darwin's early work and accepted that a materialistic understanding of history was granted. But the scientific method itself should have taught them they can never attain absolute certainty. One must always be open to later facts that would shed further light on the subject.

And even accepting this, it's laughable now to read that socialism was thought to be the necessary outcome of the class antagonisms they saw. Clearly, 170 years later, it hasn't come close to materializing. Yet they were religiously certain in their conclusions.

Engels finishes the section by noting the old utopian socialism condemned capitalism as bad, but couldn't explain it. The new socialism understands capitalism and its exploitation, and by the discovery of surplus value, shows us exactly where that exploitation occurs, and how to end it. With these discoveries, socialism became a science. The next thing was to work out all its details and relations.

3 Historical Materialism

Engels says the materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that production and exchange are the basis of all social structure. The final causes of all social changes are due to changes in modes of production, not in better insights into truth and justice. The perception that social institutions are unreasonable and unjust are due to changes in production and exchange.

Again, no evidence is given for these assertions, but I'm inclined to accept some of them, since they seem at face value to be true. I'm not sure if all social changes are due to changes in modes of production. It seems to me that war and conquest were probably a bigger factor in this than modes of production. Though I suppose since war was an acceptable way of increasing wealth, its consequences could be termed a change in the mode of production....

In the middle ages, the instruments of labor were the instruments of individual workmen. So the labor and output belonged to the producer himself.

One of capitalism's mechanisms was to transform this individual labor of an entire product, into a series of tasks, each done by different workers. This increased production, but it meant the end product no longer belonged to any one workman. Engels says, instead, the capitalist appropriates the end product.

And his appropriated product is always exclusively derived from the labor of others.

This new mode of production is where the entirety of social antagonism lies. The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation manifests itself in the antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie.

Certainly, this could lead to antagonisms. But is it necessarily so, as the Marxists assert? I don't think so.

Yes the capitalist sells the commodity produced by labor. But while Marxists term this appropriation, the capitalist pays the workers for their labor. It isn't just taken from them. Marx seems to make a huge deal out of the fact that workers now work on a specialized part of a shoe, rather than one individual making them entirely from scratch. But so what? I've been a freelance worker, and it can be very hard to survive all on your own. Whereas if you work in a larger entity, the entity carries all the responsibility and pays you for your work whether the product sells or not. Again, these are basic assumptions of Marxism that seem wildly misplaced.

Engels writes: In medieval society, production was directed towards satisfying the needs of the individual. Only when a family began to produce more than it needed, would the produce become a commodity. But production of commodities on this scale was restricted, narrow, stable and local.

As production of commodities increased, the producers became wage laborers. Whenever the capitalist organization of labor took place in an industry, it displaced all others. Modern capitalism, at a global scale, has made the antagonism between bourgeois and proletariat a universal struggle.

Engels believed this antagonism was innate in capitalism and it was unable to do anything else. Capitalists would be forced by the demands of the market to continually use better machinery until finally the workers themselves would be displaced. Machinery is the ultimate tool that would tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the working class. The machine then is the tool of subjugation.

This ultimately will lead to the consumption of the masses and the destruction of the home market.

The working class rises up in the demand that they be treated as a social production force.

This assertion that capitalism would inevitably end up in disaster clearly proved to be wrong. The arguments would seem to be sound, especially in Marx's day, but complex systems rarely prove to be so easily read. In fact, some law of mitigating factors meant that continual adjustments were made until capitalism avoided the dire predictions Marx made. Did the Marxists then use Hegelian dialectic to readjust their models with continually more nuanced understandings? Nope. They have religiously held on to these pronouncements long after they've proven false. They continue to read Marx as if his writings were holy writ, incapable of being wrong.

Engels says these active social forces, once understood, can be harnessed for the good. Recognizing the real nature of productive forces, it can be turned to the good of the community when the proletariat seizes power and turns the means of production into state property. The proletariat then also abolishes class distinctions and ultimately even the state itself, since the state is only an institution to protect the bourgeois. When the state becomes the real representative of all of society, not just the bourgeois, then it is no longer necessary. When economic antagonisms are removed, there is no longer anything to repress. Government gives way to administration.

Engels believed that the time was now (1877) that the capitalist system was finally breaking. It couldn’t happen before capitalism reached the necessary state of development, but once that happened, its demise was imminent.

As socialism took root, the means of production would be used for the betterment of the community, not just the wealthy, and even waste and devastation of productive forces would be eliminated. As production is turned towards the systematic good through definite organization, the struggle for existence disappears. Finally man emerges from subsistence into truly human existence. All of the conditions of life that ruled over man, are now subject to man.

Footnotes:

1. Socrates Dialectic method was to show argument by a conversation between Socrates and others. Positions would be defined, countered, and refined. Hegel thought the older dialectical method resulted in either a position being null, or skeptical, which can only approximate truths, but falls short of genuine science. But Hegel thought reason necessarily generated contradictions. In his epistemology, opposing sides are different definitions of consciousness and of the object that consciousness is aware of or claims to know. The dialectic process should lead from simpler understandings to more sophisticated.

#Marxism #Engels #Socialism #Socialism Utopian and Scientific

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yorgunherakles · 3 years

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kölelik olmasaydı yunan devleti, yunan sanat ve bilimi olmazdı. kölelik olmasaydı roma imparatorluğu olmazdı. helenizm ve roma imparatorluğu temeli olmaksızın da modern avrupa olmazdı. bizim bütün ekonomik, politik ve entelektüel evrimimizin zorunlu kölelik aşamasından geçtiğini hiçbir zaman unutmamalıyız. bu anlamda pekala şöyle de diyebiliriz: çağ dışı kölelik olmasaydı, çağdaş sosyalizm de olamazdı.

karl marks - devlet ve hukuk

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al-marxiyya · 4 years

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« تأخذ البروليتاريا سلطة الدولة وتحول وسائل الانتاج قبل كل شيء إلى ملك الدولة. ولكنها تقضي على نفسها بوصفها بروليتاريا، تقضي بذلك على كل الفوارق الطبقية وجميع المتضادات الطبقية وعلى لدولة في الوقت نفسه بوصفها دولة. إن المجتمع الذي وجد ولا يزال والذي يتحرك ضمن المتضادات الطبقية كان بحاجة إلى الدولة، أي إلى منظمة للطبقة المستثمِرة قسرا في ظروف القمع الناجمة عن أسلوب الانتاج القائم (العبودية، القنانة، العمل المأجور). لقد كانت الدولة الممثل الرسمي للمجتمع بأكمله، تركزه في جسم منظور، ولكنها لم تكن كذلك إلاّ بمقدار ما كانت دولة تلك الطبقة التي كانت وحدها تمثل في عصرها المجتمع بأكله: في العصور القديمة كانت دولة ملاكي العبيد – مواطني الدولة، وفي القرون الوسطى كانت دولة الأعيان الإقطاعيين، أخيرا، ممثل المجتمع بأكمله حقا، أية طبقة اجتماعية ينبغي قمعها؛ وعندما تزول مع السيطرة الطبقية ومع الفوضى الراهنة في الإنتاج، تلك الاصطدامات وأعمال الشطط (التطرف) الناتجة عن هذا الصراع، لا يبقى هناك ما ينبغي قمعه، ولا تبقى أيضا ضرورة لقوة خاصة للقمع، للدولة. وأول عمل تبرز فيه الدولة حقا بوصفها ممثل المجتمع بأكمله – تملك وسائل الانتاج باسم المجتمع – هو في الوقت نفسه آخر عمل تقوم به بوصفها دولة، وعندئد يصبح تدخل الدولة في العلاقات الإجتماعية أمرا لا لزوم له في ميدان بعد آخر ويخبو من نفسه. وبدلا من حكم الناس « تلغى » إنها تضمحل. وعلى هذا الأساس ينبغي تقييم عبارة « الدولة الشعبية الحرة »، هذه العبارة التي كان لها حق البقاء بعض الوقت للتحريض ولكنها باطلة في آخر التحليل من وجهة النظر العملية. وعلى هذا الأساس ينبغي كذلك تقييم مطلب من يسمون بالفوضويين القائل بإلغاء الدولة بين عشية وضحاها »

« ضد دوهرينغ ». « السيد أوجين دوهرينغ يقلب العلم »، ص 301-303، الطبعة الألمانية الثانية

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apas-95 · 4 months

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I'm still reading and searching, but there's a term I am hoping exists, likely used inside some Marxist frameworks, yet I cannot find it with my rather long-winded and non-specific search terms. I'm hoping you might know the term and be willing to help me.

I'm looking for a term to describe a shift to a communist mode of production through the means of a state. This state then dissolving as society is increasingly supporting itself outside the framework of a state.

Generally this is referred to as the "Withering away of the state", in those words. If you search for that, you should be able to find it. It was originally used by Engels in 'Anti-Duhring', and later used by successive theorists, like Lenin in 'State and Revolution'.

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tankism · 3 years

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Hi, anarcho-communist here, I want to get an understanding of what a Marxist Leninist, I think I have a good grasp on Marx, it's just the theory of Lenin that I don't quite get What should I read?

Some basic stuff :))

Basic principles of Marxism Leninism: a primer (Jose Maria Sison)

https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/S20-Basic-Principles-of-ML-A-Primer.pdf

The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism(Vladimir Lenin)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm

Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (Vladimir Lenin)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

The Proletarian revolution and the revolution Kautsky (Vladimir Lenin)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/index.htm

What is to be done? (Vladimir Lenin)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

State and revolution (Vladimir Lenin)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

Lenin’s texts against revisionism and opportunism:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/01.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/dec/x01.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1910/dec/23.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/apr/03.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/sep/12b.htm

The foundations of Leninism (Joseph Stalin)

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/FL24.html

Anti-Dühring part I (Friedrich Engels)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch01.htm

Anti Dühring part II (Friedrich Engels)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch13.htm

Anti Dühring part III (Friedrich Engels)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch23.htm

The German Ideology, chapter 1 (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

Socialism: utopian and scientific( Friedrich Engels)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

On contradiction (Mao)

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm

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myth-lord · 3 years

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D&D Madness

My newest list of D&D monsters in my own worldbuilding project (for fun)

There are no more devils and yugoloths in my D&D realms, they are all demons/fiends now.

Aarakocra - Kenku - Nagpa - Vrock (Corrupted Aarakocra) Abeil (Worker / Soldier / Queen) Aboleth - Chuul (Aboleth Creation) - Cloaker (Aboleth Creation) - Kuo-Toa (Skum) (Aboleth Creation) Ahuizotl Air Elemental - Breathdrinker - Invisible Stalker - Lightning Elemental - Ragewind - Tempest Almiraj ANEMONE - Giant Anemone ANGEL (Most have bizarre otherworldly real-forms, but can shapeshift into winged humanoid to hide it.) - Aasimar (Half-Angel) - Angel of Decay (Undead Angel) - Archon (Hound) - Cherub (Erote) - Deva (Guardian Angel) - Erinyes (Fallen Angel) - Justicator (Extreme Law Angel) - Lillend (Muse) - Planetar (Trumpet Archon) - Solar (Healing Angel) - Valkyrie (Battle Angel) ANIMATED OBJECT - Carrionette (Animated Puppet/Doll) - Helmed Horror (Animated Armor) - Rug of Smothering (Animated Carpet) - Scarecrow - Tome Guardian (Animated Book) - Xaver (Animated Weapon) Ankheg - Craud (Sea Ankheg) - Kruthik (Corrupted Abyssal Ankheg) ANT - Abyss Ant - Giant Ant APE - Barlgura - Dire Ape (King Kong Size) - Girallon Araton (Desert Sand Devil) Arrowhawk - Steelwing Assassin Bug (Like the real-world insect) Assassin Vine - Bloodsipper - Choke Creeper Astral Stalker Aurumvorax Axe Beak (Terror Bird) - Achaierai (Corrupted Abyssal Axe Beak)

Babau (Blood Demon) Baku Balor Basilisk - Behir (Dracolisk) - Frost Salamander (Frost Basilisk) - Id Fiend (Fear Basilisk / Gila Monster) BAT - Eyewing (Small) - Fire Bat - Mobat (Really Big) Bebilith - Retriever BEETLE - Agony Beetle - Bombardier Beetle - Fire Beetle - Hoard Scarab - Siege Beetle - Slicer Beetle (most aggressive) - Water Beetle (mixed with Giant Water Bug) BEHEMOTH (all unique really-big, really-powerful monsters) - Astral Dreadnought - Kraken - Tarrasque Beholder - Eye of the Deep (Aboleth Creation) - Gazer (Very small) - Gorbel (Primitive Beholder) - Nothic (Beholder Creation) - -- Shardsoul Slayer (Phthisic)(Greater Nothic) Belker Black Dragon - Shadow Dragon (Undead Black Dragon) Bladeling (Weapon animates automatically when Bladeling dies) Blink Dog - Cooshee (more nature abilities) - Moon Dog Blue Dragon (Storm Dragon) BOAR - Dire Boar - Fhorge (Corrupted Abyssal Boar) - Tusk Terror (Fey Boar) Bonesnapper (Intelligent smaller T.Rex) Boobrie (Giant Hesperornis) Brown Dragon (Wingless) Bulette Bullywug - Banderhobb (Aberration Bullywug) - Grung (Smaller than Bullywug, but much more powerful, poison) - Hezrou (Pod Demon) (Abyssal Corrupted Bullywug)

Carbuncle CARNIVOROUS PLANT - Giant Sundew - Greenvise - Mantrap Carrion Crawler - Gravecrawler (Undead Crawler) - Rot Grubs (The crawlers young) - Ulgurstasta (Very big intelligent Crawler) CAT - Elven Cat (Cat Sith) - Grimalkin (like the Matagot in Fantastic Beasts) - Luck Eater (Golden cat with golden gem in forehead like Pokemon Persian / Can hover in air like Cheshire Cat) CATTLE - Catoblepas - Gorgon - Rothe Cave Fisher - Avalancher Centaur - Armanite (Corrupted Abyssal Centaur) CENTIPEDE - Adaru (Abyssal Centipede) - Giant Centipede - Megapede - Remorhaz Chasme - Cifal (Can be created with one of the Chasme abilities) Chathrang Chimera (Different look) Choker - Skulk (Choker that can change color of skin, better assassin) Cockatrice - Pyrolisk (Touch burns, not gaze) Copper Dragon (keep behavior and gain behavior from Brass Dragons / neutral alignment) CRUSTACEAN - Giant Crab - Hammerclaw - Sea Hermit Crystal Dragon (There are good, neutral and evil variants)

DARK TREE - Hangman Tree - Orcwort - Quickwood Deadly Dancer Deepspawn Destrachan Dharculus Digester (Feeds on oozes) DINOSAUR - Ankylosaurus - -- Sauropelta (More aggressive variant) - Brontosaurus - -- Amargasaurus (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Compsognathus - Deinonychus - Dimetrodon - Elasmosaurus - -- Plesiosaurus (Smaller and more friendly) - Ichthyosaurus - -- Eurhinosaurus (Larger and more dangerous) - Mosasaurus - Pachycephalosaurus - -- Stygimoloch (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Pteranodon - -- Quetzalcoatlus - Stegosaurus - -- Kentrosaurus (Smaller and much more aggressive) - Tanystropheus (Bigger and much more aggressive than the real creature) - Therizinosaurus (new) - Triceratops - -- Styracosaurus (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Tyrannosaurus Rex Disenchanter (not a joke monster) Displacer Beast Domovoi (Good, Neutral and Evil variants) Doppelganger - Maurezhi (Abyssal, Corrupted Doppelganger) Dragon Eel (Dunkleosteus appearance) Dragon Turtle (There are also Swamp variants with Snapping Turtle features) DRAGONFLY - Giant Dragonfly DRAKE - Air Drake (Like the Pathfinder Mist Drake) - Ambush Drake - Earth Drake (Much like the Rock Reptile, but Chameleon) - Fire Drake (Much like the Zezir) - Rage Drake (Negative Energy Drake) - Ravid (Positive Energy Drake) - Water Drake (Looks like a Plesiosaurus a bit, but more magical) - Wyvern - -- Abyss Drake Drow - Aranea (Meet the new handmaidens of Lolth, which make much more sense to me.) - Drider (Drow who passed the test of Lolth) - Ettercap (Drow who failed the test of Lolth) Dryad - Hamadryad (Very powerful Dryad, controls entire forest) - Myconid (Fungus underground Dryad) - Splinterwaif (Corrupted undead Dryad) - Vine Horror (Swampy Evil Dryad) - Wood Woad (Male more violent and protective Dryad) Duergar - Automaton (Duergar who replaced most of their flesh with iron) - Derro (Duergar who became insane after being send to the Far Realm) - Nightshade (Insane Duergar who love poison, venom and plants, and use their own skin to grow plants) Dustdigger - Silt Horror (Bigger and thinner Dustdiggers) - Voracia (Very big abyssal Dustdiggers)

Earth Elemental - Galeb Duhr - -- Bowler (animated stones Galebs) - Mudman - Necromental - -- Tomb Mote (Smaller parts that fall off a Necromental animate into these) - Sandman (Sleep abilities) - Skriaxit (Living Sandstorm) - Zaratan Eblis EEL - Cave Moray - Giant Moray Eladrin - Ghaele (The leaders and most powerful of the Eladrin) - Wild Hunt ENERGON - Xag-Ya - Yeg-Yi Executioner’s Hood (Ooze)

Fachan Faerie Dragon Fihyr Filcher - Temporal Filcher Fire Elemental - Immolith (Hellish fire elemental) - Magma Brute (Magma Hurler) - -- Magmin (Magma Brutes throw magmins as ranged weapons) - Phoenix (Good, Evil and Neutral phoenix exist) Firefriend (While very friendly and curious, their abilities are very dangerous and destructive when around fire) Flumph Fomorian - Eldritch Giant (The beautiful non-cursed form of the Fomorian) - Plague Spewer (Undead Fomorian who went too far with magic to become beautiful again) - Protean (Fomorians who became even more powerful by accident, master shapeshifters) Foxwoman (Kitsune / More like a Foxwere than a Werefox) FROG - Blindheim (non-humanoid, underground bioluminescence frogs) - Froghemoth (mutant frog from far realm) - Giant Frog FUNGUS - Ascomoid - Basidirond - Gas Spore - Phycomid (Very dangerous abyssal fungus / Much like pathfinders Terotricus) - Violet Fungus

GAR - Giant Gar Gargoyle (Evil, Good and Neutral variants exist) - Kapoacinth - Margoyle (Demonic Spirits entered normal Gargoyles) Gelatinous Cube GENIE - Dao - Djinni - Efreeti - Jann (light-based good-natured Genies) - Khayal (shadow-based evil-natured Genies) - Marid - -- Qorrashi (Ice-based Marid) Ghost - Allip - Banshee - Caller in Darkness - Einherjar (Warrior spirits raised by Valkyries) - Poltergeist (the psychic remains of a psionic child) - Trap Haunt (Animates and possesses traps of all kinds) - Wraith (red spirit of vengeance, allip is black) Ghoul - Berbalang (can separate it’s body-parts like Manananggal.) - Devourer (Abyssal Demonic Ghoul) - Ghast (Tyrantfog) - Wendigo (Very powerful Ghouls that inflict hunger, famine and cannibalism) GIANT - Cloud Giant - -- Fog Giant (Banished primitive Cloud Giants) - Cyclops (4e version / replaces Stone and Hill giants as the Earth-based giant.) - Death Giant - Firbolg (Animal-plant based druid-giant) - Fire Giant - Frost Giant Giant Owl (neutral and non-intelligent now) - Noctral (This is the giant intelligent owl) Gibbering Mouther (Chaos Beast) - Argos (Bigger, better and more intelligent Mouthers) - Skybleeder (Abyssal, floating mouthers) Glabrezu Gloomwing (Attracted to doom, evil places and disasters) - Gloom Crawler (Tenebrous Worm / Less aggressive) Gnoll - Flind (demonic corrupted Gnolls) - Marrashi (demonic corrupted Marru) - Marru (Jackal-headed more civilized Gnolls) - Witherling (Deadborn Vulture ability, some Gnolls raise as undead instantly after dying.) Goblin - Barghest (Demonic Goblins) - Bugbear (Bagman abilities, D&D’s true bogeyman) - Nilbog (Not unique, but very rare) - Norker (Pech abilities) - Spriggan (Fey Goblins) GOLEM - Clay Golem - -- Alchemical Golem - Flesh Golem - -- Drolem (Dragonflesh Golem) - -- Rotripper (A monstrous Flesh Golem that rips off flesh and adds it to itself) - Iron Golem - -- Adamantine Golem - -- Clockwork Horror (Clockroach) - -- Iron Cobra - -- Shield Guardian - -- Silver Golem (Anti-Evil golem, slayer of evil) - -- Steel Predator - Stone Golem - -- Coral Golem - -- Diamond Golem (Aura grants defense to allies) - -- Dwarf Ancestor (Every dwarf/duergar’s soul will go into this statue, turning this statue more powerful with every death, protectors of dwarven cities, one in each city) - -- Eidolon (stone golem with part of a soul of a god inside it, thinks it is a god itself) - -- Emerald Golem (Controls teleports around it) - -- Hellfire Engine (Juggernaut made from abyssal obsidian and fire) - -- Ruby Golem (Aura grants attack-power to allies) Gravorg Gray Dragon Gray Render - Braxat (Desert Renders) - Cadaver Collector (Renders that choose a necromancer/lich as their favorite become their slaves and collect undead for them) Green Dragon Green Slime - Arcane Ooze - Corrupture (very powerful and ancient Green Slimes, much bigger as they didn’t split like most Green Slimes do) Grimlock - Geonid (Grimlocks that use stones/rocks as cover) Gold Dragon (not all Gold Dragons are good, some are very greedy treasure hoarders that can animate the treasures they collected into golem like constructs) Gremlin - Quarrak (twin demonic Gremlins) Griffon (sorry no Hippogriff, I really dislike them)

Hadozee HAG - Annis Hag - Bheur Hag (Frostwind Virago) - Green Hag (Turns victims into frogs or insects) - Night Hag - Sea Hag (More powerful) Hamatula (Jovoc Aura / Demons of Pain) Harpy - Siren Hatori (Sand-Swimming Mosasaurus/Crocodile) Hell Hound - Canoloth - Death Dog - Howler - Yeth Hound (Always borns as triplets, if one dies the others become more powerful and bigger as they absorb their died kin.) Hippocampus Hook Horror Hydra

Imp - Gadacro (Sight and eye-obsessed Imps) - Mephit (Bigger imps that can absorb elements into their skin, and turn into the element they desire.) - Quasit (More powerful wingless Imps)

JELLYFISH - Belabra (Floater / Land based floating jellyfish) - Dybbuk (Demonic corpse-controlling jellyfish) - Giant Jellyfish

Kalothagh (Giant intelligent pufferfish) Kelpie (Still a seaweed plant creature) Kirin (Not a horse, more like a Celestial Stag) Kirre Korred Krenshar - Carcass Eater (Undead Krenshar) Kyton - Gorechain (Large giant using chains, much like Jack-in-Irons)

Larva - Lemure - Rutterkin Lava Ooze LEECH - Giant Leech - Puppeteer Leprechaun (Neutral, Good and Evil variants, Evil Leprechauns wear red and call themselves Clurichaun, but still same creature) Leucrotta Lich - Death Knight (Just a physical damage lich) - Demilich (Weaker Lich, could not fully reanimate) - Dracolich - Skull Lord (More powerful lich that killed other liches and added their skulls to its form) LIZARD - Muckdweller - Shocker Lizard Lizardfolk - Draconian - Drakkoth - Kobold - -- Urd - Salamander (Fiendish, Demonic Lizardmen) - Troglodyte (Much bigger prehistoric underground lizardmen) LYCANTHROPE - Werebear - -- Urskan (More feral Polar-Werebear) - Wereboar - Wererat - -- Uridezu (Corrupted demonic Wererat who hates beauty) - Wereshark - Werewolf

Mandragora Manticore - Jarilith (Fiendish, wingless Manticore) MANTIS - Ethereal Slayer (Fey Mantis with anti-teleport abilities) - Giant Mantis Marilith - Spell Weaver (Marilith who use spells and magic instead of physical attacks and weapons.) Masher (Much like a giant version of the Bobbit Worm) MEGAFAUNA - Glyptodon - Mammoth - Megaloceros - Megalodon - Megatherium - Smilodon Merfolk - Merrow - Triton - Wastrilith (Corrupted, Demonic Merfolk) Merregon - Arrow Demon (Other name needed) - Barbazu (More rare and more powerful Merregons) Merrenoloth Mimic - Trapper (Bigger Mimics can transform into bigger objects, entire floors or ceilings or even into huts and houses.) Mind Flayer - Brain Collector - Cerebrilith (Demonic brain-things created by Mind Flayers) - Elder Brain - Githyanki - Grell (Creations of the Mind Flayers) - Intellect Devourer - Ulitharid Minotaur - Goristro (Demonic, Corrupted Minotaurs) Mohrg (Actually the real creature is the pink-organs, which is a Aberration who feeds on murder, not an undead.) Mummy - Crawling Apocalypse - Grisgol (Magical Mummy, instead of bandage used with normal mummies, they used scrolls and magical incantations. - Skirr (Very ancient and powerful Mummy-Dragons.)

NAGA - Guardian Naga (Good) - Spirit Naga (Dark Naga) (Evil) - Water Naga (Neutral) Nerra - Fetch (Corrupted and demonic Nerra) Nightmare - Cauchemar (Nightmare Beast abilities, it’s huge aura causes nightmares in sleeping creatures. Purple flames instead of normal fire.) Nightwalker - Bodak (Created from the victims of Nightwalkers, behave and move like the Grudge) Nuckelavee (Like the Pathfinder version, not the D&D old version.) Nymph - Lampad (Shadow Nymphs of the Underdark) - Nereid (Water Nymph) - Oread (Earth Nymph) - Sylph (Air Nymphs)

Obliviax OCTOPUS - Darktentacles (Watcher in the Water) - Decapus (Tree Octopus) - Giant Octopus Ogre - Ettin - Oni (Demonic, magical Ogre) Oliphant (Much like the Oliphaunts from LOTR) Orc - Orog (Replaced the Hobgoblins / Smart war-veterans) - Tanarukk (Demonic Orcs) - Tulgar (Very powerful spiritual shaman-like antlered Orcs who got a demon-lords favor) Osyluth (Uses its own bones in battle. / Bones grow back instantly) OTTER - Giant Otter (Dobhar-Chu, playful but in a bad way) Otyugh - Abyssal Maw (Corrupted and demonical Otyugh) Owlbear - Winterclaw (Snow Owl + Polar Bear / Winged)

Paeliryon (The smell, perfume demon, sucks in air and turns it corruptive, corrupts air around it.) Pegasus Peryton Phane PUDDING - Black Pudding (Negative energy, underground Pudding, bones animate as Skeletons.) - Gray Pudding (Looks like rocks and stone until it is too late.) - White Pudding (Absorbs heat, not flesh) Purple Dragon - Brainstealer Dragon (Creation of the Mind Flayers) Purple Worm - Ashworm (Younger Purple Worms who gather in Deserts until they mature) - Fiendwurm (Demonic, corrupted Purple Worms) - Neothelid (Creation of the Mind Flayers)

Quickling Quipper (Bigger, more dangerous, more aggressive magical Piranha fish.)

Rakshasa - Akchazar (White, more powerful and magical Rakshasa.) - Naztharune (Black, less powerful and less magical assassin Rakshasa.) RAT - Cranium Rats - Giant Rat - Moonrat - Osquip (Can eat its way through any material spare for Adamantine.) - Rylkar (Intelligent and dangerous Rat creatures.) Red Dragon - Hellfire Wyrm (Corrupted and Fiendish Red Dragons.) Redcap Roc Roper - Piercer (Young of the Ropers) ROSE - Firethorn (Feed on the ashes of their victims.) - Vampire Rose (Bloodthorn) Rust Monster - Annihilator (One of the most dangerous monsters around, turns everything it touches into black dust.)

Sahuagin - Morkoth (Sahuagin that entered the Far Realm) - Skulvyn (Demonic corrupted Sahuagin.) Satyr - Bulezau (Oinoloth) (Pestilence demons, corrupted Satyrs.) SCORPION - Giant Scorpion - Hellstinger Sea Cat (Mishibizhiw / Very different than the normal Sea Lion) Shadow (Can animate corpses) - Darkweaver (Shadow Spider) - Shadow Demon (Undead demons that can possess anything weaker than itself) - Shadow Mastiff (Bad luck shadow dogs) Shambling Mound - Tendriculos (Bigger Shambing Mounds mostly found in the Abyss) Shardmind - Chaos Shard (Creations of the Shardmind, magical weapons of the Shardmind) - Crysmal (Creations of the Shardmind, pets of the Shardmind) - Crystal Ooze (Creations of the Shardmind, Failed experiment) - Gulgar (Creations of the Shardmind, look more like half-diamond Rhinoceros now, not like humanoids. Used as siege weapons and mounts by the Shardmind.) SHELLFISH - Giant Clam Sibriex Silver Dragon (Only dragon that is always gentle and good) - Mercury Dragon (Corrupted/tortured/captured Silver Dragons turn into vile slithering and liquid horrors of their former selves.) Simpathetic (Half parrot and half crow, very annoying) Skeleton - Bone Golem (Not a Golem at all, a bigger Skeleton with more bizarre form, still undead not a construct.) - Boneyard (Collection of all types of bones, absorbs more bones to become even bigger.) - Flameskull (The skull of a giant to make it different from Demilich) - Giant Skeleton (Gashadokuro) - Huecuva (Skeletons who heal other undead.) - Reaper (Like the Grim Reaper it hunts for dying creatures.) SKUNK - Giant Skunk - Witherstench (Magical fiendish Skunks with powers over stench.) SLUG - Balhannoth (Slugs from the Far Realm.) - Flail Snail - Giant Slug - Metalmaster - Sea Snail (Extremely poisonous and beautiful) SNAKE - Amphisbaena - Boalisk (It’s gaze causes victims to become breathless and see snakes everywhere, these are illusions though.) - Couatl (There are neutral, good and evil narcissistic Couatl) - Jaculi (They use their sharp head as a spear-like weapon) - Sea Serpent (Extremely long.) Solamith SOLIFUGID - Giant Solifugid Sphinx (Sphinxes can be Neutral or Evil.) - Lamia (Fiendish and corrupted Sphinxes) - Lammasu (Friendly, good and Celestial Sphinxes.) SPIDER - Bristle Spider (Very large plant-like spider.) - Dreamweaver Spider (Spider feeds on dreams and souls and weaves these dreams/souls into strange temporary monster minions.) - Giant Spider - Phase Spider (White and Blue colors, doesn’t have human face.) - Snow Spider (Much like a tarantula with the fur of a polar bear.) - Tomb Spider - -- Web Golem (Also known as Adherer / Not a real golem, more of a created minion from the Tomb Spider, who uses a corpse and magical webs to create these.) Sprite - Nixie - Pixie SQUID - Giant Squid SQUIRREL - Kercpa (Behave much like Robin Hood, steal from the wealthy.) - Skiurid (Very evil Squirrels which attack in large groups.) Stirge Su-Monster - Julajimus (Giant fey variants of the Su-Monster.) Succubus - Cambion (Tiefling) - Incubus Swordwing (Collectors of stuff and skulls)

Tabaxi Thri-Kreen - Gelugon (Corrupted and demonic Thri-Kreen) TICK - Bloodsilk Spider (Not actually a spider, but a tick that uses webs as a spider, the webs drain blood.) - Giant Tick - Soul Tick (Giant tick who sucks out the soul of a victim instead of blood, when the soul is absorbed entirely, the Tick will slowly turn into a copy of the dead victim.) Titan - Hundred-Handed One Tlincalli Treant - Saguaro Sentinel (Desert treants shaped like huge cacti) Tri-Flower Frond (All types of colors exist) Troll - Rot Troll (Undead Trolls, which is a very hard thing to create, their regeneration-abilities can’t handle the undead-status and they spread this rotting curse with their aura.)

Umber Hulk Unicorn - Dusk Unicorn (Ecalypse / Shadow Unicorn) URCHIN - Land Urchin - Silver Urchin (Large coastal Urchins which shoot their beautiful quills to their victims.)

Vampire - Blood Spawn (Vampire Spawns) - Lhiannan Shee (Female Vampires who are very beautiful and which feed on Charisma, ideas and creativity.) - Nosferatu (Ancient vampire lords, born undead.) - Varrangoin (Vampires who went to long without blood can turn into these bat-like humanoids, very bestial vampires.) Vampiric Mist - Blood Amniote (These blood-ooze creatures are created by vampiric mists who drip too much blood on unholy ground. They can animate corpses by replacing the blood.) - Crimson Death (Very large mist monsters.) - Mihstu (These mist monsters can harden the blood they absorbed into spiky spear and sword-like weapons.) Vargouille

WASP - Advespa (Fiendish and corrupted Giant Wasps) - Giant Wasp - Hellwasp Swarm (The swarm has a hive-mind and can create humanoid or monstrous forms by working together.) - Quanlos (Mind-controlling poison wasps, much like giant magical Emerald Wasps.) - Spider Eater Water Elemental - Caller from the Deeps (Undead Water Elementals) - Ice Elemental - -- Chraal (Evil intelligent Ice Elementals.) - Leviathan (Some have the size of an entire animated lake.) - Water Weird (More intelligent and vile than normal Water Elementals who are non-intelligent and neutral.) White Dragon Will o Wisp - Nyth (Magic-draining Will o Wisps.) - Trilloch (Undead Will o Wisps, absorb happiness and turn their victims into negative evil shadows of their former selves.) - Visilight (Vain will o wisps who steal the beauty of their victims, turning their victims ugly.) WOLF - Winter Wolf (Very big, Amarok sized and behavior.) - Worg Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing WOLVERINE - Dire Wolverine (Gulon)

Yellow Dragon - Sunwyrm Yellow Musk Creeper - Corpse Flower - Twilight Bloom Yeti Yochlol (Not a handmaiden for Lolth anymore as those are Aranea now, these are handmaidens for Juiblex) Yrthak (Sound Dragons) Yuan-Ti (Look very human-like but snake-like eyes, some scales and a tongue, love poison and venom of all types.) - Abomination (More powerful leaders of the Yuan-Ti.) - Medusa (Female variants of Yuan-Ti, but were once vain humans, who got cursed into becoming a type of Yuan-Ti.)

Zombie - Atropal - Crawling Claw (There are also bigger variants of course.) - Drowned (Weaker drowned zombies, non intelligent.) - -- Skuz (Much more powerful drowned zombies, intelligent.) - Dustblight (Zombie who died in desert by drought and uses drought as a weapon.) - Entombed (Zombie died by cold who controls ice and uses it as an armor.) - Hullathoin (Zombie Dragon/Drake that controls and creates other undead.) - Revenant (More powerful zombies, reanimate from any form of damage, until they got their revenge.) - Wight (More intelligent insane zombies, died while insane.) Zorbo

Others I really like but I don’t know what to do with them.

Meenlock / Slithering Tracker / Boneclaw / Alkilith / Narzugon / Meazel / Phoelarch / Famine Spirit / Skin Kite / Formian / Thoqqua / Vaporighu / Ragewalker / Skindancer / Evistro / Draudnu / Ethereal Defiler / Ghaunadan / Sand Hunter / Ant Lion / Kamadan / Caligrosto / Gray Jester

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newsandletterscommittee · 4 years

Text

formerly theengelswithin

read these ↓

Marx/Engels:

The Communist Manifesto

Capital Volume 1

Capital Volume 2

Capital Volume 3

The German Ideology

The Poverty of Philosophy

The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The Civil War in France

The Housing Question

On Authority

Critique of the Gotha Program

Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy

Anti-Duhring

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Lenin:

What Is To Be Done?

The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

Resolutions on the Imperialist War

Socialism and War

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

The State and Revolution

The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

"Left-Wing" Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality

“Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder

The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution

ICP:

The Democratic Principle

The Lyon Theses

Party and Class

The original content of the communist program is the obliteration of the individual as an economic subject, rights-holder, and agent of human history

Force, Violence, Dictatorship in the Class Struggle

Dogs’ Legs

A Revolution Summed up

Six Articles on Disasters and the Nature of Capitalism

Dialogue With Stalin (a response to Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR)

Factors of Race and Nation in Marxist Theory

“Racial” Pressure of the Peasantry, Class Pressure of Coloured Peoples

Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today

The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism

«‘Left-wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder» - Condemnation of the Renegades to Come

Mao’s China, certified copy of the bourgeois capitalist society

Theses on the Chinese Question

The Question of Self-Determination in the Classics of Marxism – Part I

Auschwitz - the Great Alibi

Other:

Third (Communist) International,1st Congress (1919) - Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Third (Communist) International,1st Congress (1919) - The Platform of the Communist International

Nikolai Bukharin - The ABC of Communism

Nikolai Bukharin - Imperialism and the World Economy

Nikolai Bukharin - Anarchy and Scientific Communism

Leon Trotsky - Terrorism and Communism

Leon Trotsky - The History of the Russian Revolution

Leon Trotsky - The Revolution Betrayed

Raya Dunayevskaya - An Analysis of Russian Economy

Raya Dunayevskaya - The Nature of the Russian Economy

Victor Serge - Year One of the Russian Revolution

Victor Serge - From Lenin to Stalin

Internationalist Communist Tendency - Trotsky, Trotskyism, Trotskyists

Internationalist Communist Tendency - Capitalism under the Red Banner: Seventy Years of the People's Republic of China

Karl Radek - The Formation of the Red Army 1918

Ngo Van Xuyet - In the crossfire: adventures of a Vietnamese revolutionary

Ngo Van Xuyet - Revolution and counterrevolution under colonial rule: And now?

CLR James - The Black Jacobins

CLR James - Stalinism and Negro History

CLR James - Negroes and Bolshevism

Rosa Luxemburg - Order Prevails in Berlin

Rosa Luxemburg - The Russian Revolution

Rosa Luxemburg - Reform or Revolution

Rosa Luxemburg - The Junius Pamphlet

Rosa Luxemburg - What Does the Spartacus League Want?

Karl Liebknecht - The New Burgfrieden

Paul Mattick - What is Communism?

Paul Mattick - the Lenin Legend

Paul Mattick - Marx and Keynes: The Limits of The Mixed Economy

Paul Mattick - Marxism: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Paul Mattick - Reform or Revolution

Erich Wollenberg - Wages and Prices in the Soviet Union

Ross Wolfe - Demonology of the working class

Ross Wolfe - Marxism Contra Justice

The Acheron In Motion - Socialism and Classes: A Theoretical Foundation

The Acheron In Motion - How “Socialist” Can Commodity Production Really Get?

#marxism #communism #about

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marxismandphysics · 1 year

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Hegel -dialectics and mathematics

"to understand the link between mathematics and practice and its laws of development. Hegel alone gave mathematics a definition such as grasped the essence of the matter, a definition which, quite independently of Hegel's views, is actually profoundly materialist."

"According to Hegel mathematics is the science of quantity, i.e. of a determination of objects which does not describe them as such, in what makes them specifically different from other objects and from themselves at another stage in their development, but only from the side that is external and indifferent towards change."

"The fact that this material appears in an extremely abstract form can only superficially conceal its origin from the external world."-Engels a, anti-Duhring

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thesparkjournal · 5 years

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EDITORIAL COMMENT | EDITION #29

By Danny Goldstick

PM Justin Trudeau shakes hands with US President Donald Trump during the G7 leaders summit in La Malbaie, Quebec. (June 8, 2018) [The Canadian Press/Justin Tang]

***

At the time of writing, the Trudeau team are still congratulating themselves for having dodged a bullet in the NAFTA/ USMCA negotiations. By agreeing to some U.S. demands, they avoided others. But it is perfectly clear who was mainly calling the shots.

The Globe and Mail Report on Business reported on October 6:

One Canadian official confided that, policy purposes aside, there was another reason Mr. Trudeau’s advisors had marked Chapter 19 from the start as the hill to die on: They were confident Mr. Trump would not. [Chapter 19 in NAFTA provided for the adjudication of inter-country disputes by transnational panels.] Whatever happened in the negotiations, the official said, Canada was certain the U.S. would ultimately concede dispute resolution, giving Ottawa something substantial to claim as a victory.

It was a gamble that paid off rhetorically, though some argued it came at a cost to the deal itself – and explained how the talks ended. By advertising Chapter 19 as a red line, some observers said, the Canadians gave [U.S. negotiator] Mr. Lighthizer a point with which to inflict pain. He simply held out until he felt he had won enough from Ottawa for a satisfactory deal. As soon as he conceded it, the agreement was made.

“The U.S. was just holding back Chapter 19 until the end to squeeze out every last concession,” said Mr. Ujczo, the [Ohio-based] trade lawyer. “And it worked.”

We owe to progressive economist Fred Jones the critical run-down of the new agreement’s details, starting on page 26. But, above all, what people often do not realize is that NAFTA, and now the USMCA, have never been for the most part really about trade. Canada has always traded with the USA – with and without any trade agreement. Under World Trade Organization rules, most trade is limited to tariffs of only about two percent, anyway. And the USA, on and off, acts without regard for signed trade treaties all the time – not just under Donald Trump. For example, by its actions against Canadian softwood lumber (1982-2006, and continuing), which Canadian governments have felt it necessary to make concessions to. And by the “national security” tariffs against Canadian steel and aluminum – which are still in place at the time of writing, and unlikely to be removed without some further concessions by Canada.

The truth is that our “trade agreement” with the USA is actually about investor protection mainly. It’s about restricting what elected federal and provincial governments can do – to protect the environment, for instance. It’s about curtailing democracy. In that case, why is Canada tied up in it? Canadian monopoly capital has judged that its overall interests are best served – in mining operations in South America and Africa, for example – by mostly hitching its wagon onto the geopolitical war chariot of United States imperialism. That is the underlying reality.

So it turns out that Canadian dairy farmers and egg and poultry producers – whose operations are often still intermediate-size family enterprises – will now see their market position further eroded in favour of large U.S. agribusinesses.

Westerners remember the Canadian Wheat Board – a government-organized co-op for marketing Canada’s wheat output. Most western wheat farmers wanted to be farmers, not international price speculators. So they were happy to leave selling their wheat to the specialists at the Wheat Board, while they got on with actually growing it. Against their will, Stephen Harper sold off the Canadian Wheat Board, and what is left of it is now a profit-making corporation majority-controlled by the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company.

That was a short-sharp-shock delivered against Canada’s wheat farmers. Our medium-sized dairy, poultry and egg producers are now threatened with a slower process of death-by-a-thousand-cuts. They are, that is, unless and until a broad-based fightback of Canadian working people can succeed in forcing a more general reorientation of government policies in a democratic direction.

CORRECTION: “Surplus Value”

In The Spark! #28, Liz Rowley’s contribution, “On the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Karl Marx”, carried a footnote (at my urging – D.G.) attached to her quotation of Frederick Engels’ statement that Marx’s “discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem ... which all previous investigators, both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping [for] in the dark”. But that footnote was not quite correct. It was correct in making the point that Engels wasn’t crediting Marx with the discovery that in our sort of economy the workers do the work and the capitalists cop an enriching “free lunch” out of it. Socialist critics of capitalism had called attention to that long before Marx came on the scene. The footnote quoted a letter of Marx’s to Engels in which he said that the best things about his book Capital were taking note of “the two-fold character of labour according to whether it is expressed in use- value or exchange-value” and “the treatment of surplus value regardless of its particular form as profit, interest, ground rent etc.”; but the note was wrong to say that treating all capitalist revenue together as “surplus value” was what Engels meant by “the discovery of surplus value”.

The puzzle Marx’s discovery solved was this: how does the capitalists’ enrichment come about in a free market where commodities are exchanged, equal value for equal value, without force or fraud? (Not that the capitalists don’t often enough employ force and fraud too.) Marx’s answer was that in exchange for their wages the workers sell a commodity: their ability to labour, their labour-power; and in the consumption of this commodity by the capitalists the use the capitalists get from it – the actual work done – creates new value, by turning the material inputs into more valuable commodities to sell on the market. Engels explains the point in his book Anti-Dühring, Part II, Chapter 7:

… The simple owner of commodities sells in order to buy; he sells what he does not need, and with the money thus procured he buys what he does need. The incipient capitalist starts by buying what he does not need himself; he buys in order to sell, and to sell at a higher price, in order to get back the value of the money thrown into the transaction, augmented by an increment in money; and Marx calls this increment surplus-value.

Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation. "The capitalist class, as a whole, in any country, cannot over-reach themselves." [Marx, Capital, Volume I, Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 35, page 173]

And yet we find that in each country the capitalist class as a whole is continuously enriching itself before our eyes, by selling dearer than it had bought, by appropriating to itself surplus-value. We are therefore just where we were at the start: whence comes this surplus-value? This problem must be solved, and it must be solved in a purely economic way, excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force -- the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?

The solution of this problem was the most epoch-making achievement of Marx's work. It spread the clear light of day through economic domains in which socialists no less than bourgeois economists previously groped in utter darkness. Scientific socialism dates from the discovery of this solution and has been built up around it.

This solution is as follows: The increase in the value of money that is to be converted into capital cannot take place in the money itself, nor can it originate in the purchase, as here this money does no more than realise the price of the commodity, and this price, inasmuch as we took as our premise an exchange of equivalents, is not different from its value. For the same reason, the increase in value cannot originate in the sale of the commodity. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought; not however in its value, as it is bought and sold at its value, but in its use-value as such, that is, the change of value must originate in the consumption of the commodity. "In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find ... in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power." [Marx, Capital, Volume I, Collected Works, Volume 35, page 177]

… The owner of the money has paid the value of a day’s labour-power; his, therefore, is the use of it for a day – a whole day’s labour. The circumstance that the value which the use of it during one day creates is double its own value for a day is a piece of especially good luck for the buyer, but according to the laws of exchange of commodities by no means an injustice to the seller. …

In thus showing how surplus-value arises, and how alone surplus-value can arise under the domination of the laws regulating the exchange of commodities, Marx exposed the mechanism of the existing capitalist mode of production and of the mode of appropriation based on it; he revealed the core around which the whole existing social order has crystallised.

[Engels, Anti-Dühring, Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 25, pages 188-191]

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Danny Goldstick is the Editor of The Spark!

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