Library:Marx: ...so, revolution

A twitter thread by Nia Frome.

marx: ...so, revolution

batman: sounds criminal

foucault: sounds normie

marx: no it's not normie, it's the way one class overthrows another, and thus its regime of exploitation

gandalf: is this not to become just as bad as the enemy?

marx: god dammit gandalf

machiavelli: it is always in the prince's interest to depict all challengers to his rule as just as vicious as he, if not more so

frodo: well i'm sure there's some way we can sort out the good from the bad, decide whether the challenger really is better

socrates: sure, are you?

marx: the proletariat is the first class in history to be dominated by objectified labor itself, not any lord or master in particular. by overthrowing this domination, it wins—not just for itself but for the whole of humanity—emancipation from the realm of necessity.

dr. manhattan: the realm of necessity is all there is

ayn rand: capitalism is all there is, or was, or ever will be

fred flintstone: yep, i can vouch for that

george jetson: same tbh

death: ᴀʜᴇᴍ. ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴅɪᴇs.

yoda: spirit are we, not this crude matter

marx: are you suggesting, master yoda, that capitalism may be eternal just like the soul is considered eternal?

yoda: ...not say that did i

marx: but it's what you believe

yoda: uncomfortable defending that thesis i am

marx: capitalism comes into the world covered in blood and dirt. conditions for it must be *established*, they aren't just given naturally. people have to be dispossessed, separated from the means of subsistence, so that they can be put to work as "free labor"

jean-luc picard: i can confirm that in the future we have no use for capitalism, as the conditions for it have disappeared

ayn rand: weren't you with the borg for a while?

jean-luc picard: well, yes, but-

ayn rand: he's a collectivist, you guys! get him!

the avengers: we're a collective the

a-team: we're a collective the

x-men: we're a collective

the fellowship of the ring: we're a collective

leonardo, donatello, raphael and michelangelo: we're a collective

popper: that's different, you're open societies, we're talking about totalitarianism, where the individual is subordinated to the collective

marx: i'm sure someone who spends nine hours a day doing whatever their boss tells them to do never feels subordinated to the collective

elon musk: they should be grateful for the opportunity to participate in realizing one heroic individual's grand vision!

marx: wasn't your "grand vision" basically to make existing technology cheaper?

marx: that's the thing, that's all capitalism lets anybody envision. the imperative to accumulate *is* the evil homogenizing force you're all so afraid of

heidegger: no, it's technology

nietzsche: no, it's slave morality

postmodernists: no, it's modernity

morpheus: we can hack technology

aesop: slave morality just *is* morality. normative ideas can't be inherently evil because they're the only basis we have for calling anything good or evil

socrates: i'm sorry, what the hell is "modernity"?

holden caulfield: it's when everyone is a phony and stuff

t. s. eliot: it's when everything just seems to be getting shittier

virginia woolf: it's when women start publishing under their own names

marx: exactly! "modernity" is an idealist and vaguely reactionary account of processes that can be much more concretely specified and analyzed. once you do that, it becomes clear that current trends are necessarily self-undermining, containing the seeds of their own destruction

the dude: why you gotta be all about destruction, man? can't we just coexist?

van helsing: not with the undead

marx: thank you!

hannibal lecter: this compulsive othering of capitalism makes it seem like you're compensating for something

marx: the same could be said of any commitment whatsoever. if we read all commitment as pathological, then the only winner is whatever we do without thinking about it. but these are commitments too! i opt for consciousness over unconsciousness

morpheus: ditto

dream: 𝔴𝔥𝔶 𝔭𝔯𝔦𝔳𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔤𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔲𝔫𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰?

marx: because consciousness can be directly contested. it's public, and therefore democratic. it is the space that i have best access to, and where i direct my appeals to you

nietzsche: but notice you've made the assumption that democracy, communication, contestability etc. are values, which i would deny. all that has dignity is the absolutely independent act

marx: aristocrats depend on workers, you ass

arendt: but those workers, once ensconced in positions of power, tend to act like new aristocrats

killmonger: why did all the forces of reaction ally against me, if i was going to do things just the same as the old boss?

marx: exactly! the old boss depends on a certain configuration of exploitative relations, and will fight to the death to defend that configuration. the new boss, if they are to win, must set up a new and broader base, capable of greater coordination and cooperation within itself

postmodernists: sounds very providential, everything always working out for the best. are all coups progressive then?

harry potter: sometimes coups are done by death eaters

marx: right, representatives of a previously ousted class seeking to roll back the clock. these are not revolutions but pseudo-revolutions, which is obvious enough to anyone paying attention to where their money comes from

john mcclane: it's always about money

marx: it is and it isn't

death: ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴅɪᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴅᴀʏ

marx: and the different non-commodified arrangements that will replace it have already begun to sprout

rick deckard: buddy, money's never gonna go out of style

sherlock holmes: that's funny, money's never been an issue for me

james bond: me neither

marx: right, it fades into irrelevance when you *have* it. communism cannot be built on generalized want, but on generalized abundance

milton friedman: such a utopia can only ever be the preserve of a small elite, scarcity is the natural state of the universe

marx: well then our defining trait as human beings seems to be thumbing our noses at the natural state of the universe

icarus: careful there buddy

marx: why? will the heat of communism melt our wings? isn't it more likely that as more people's needs are met, the old way of doing things will decay all the more rapidly? it's capitalism that requires constant injections of state violence to stay up

gandhi: you yourself are not a paragon of nonviolence

spartacus: why should he be? what matters is whether you are upholding or demolishing social structures that, by their very nature, entail endless war and degradation

sarah connor: ...or even extinction

burke: this revolutionary attitude seems to fit the bill, since it entails endless war of the have-nots vs. the haves

hobbes: we'd all be much better off if no one were able to revolt

marx: capitalism seems to produce a great many revolutionaries, why have you no quarrel w/ it?

marx: as long as there are haves and have-nots, that is, as long as private property is the governing norm, you will not see the peace you claim to desire. to think otherwise is to indulge in the deepest fantasy. of course it may be that your true desires are something else...

marquis de sade: and so what if they are? there is no god, why should we fear to be evil, to indulge, to wreak violence upon the innocent, if it amuses us?

marx: you are free to be a symptom, to be wholly determined by your unfortunate class position, to be as cruel as property

marx: but you will command no respect, you will earn no love, and you will be crushed, in time, without pity or remorse. no one will mourn your passing. no one will cherish your memory. the species will move on from you, and you will have been as tiny and insignificant as a flea

rustin cohle: that was going to happen anyway

marx: i dunno about you, but it certainly hasn't happened to me

hannibal lecter: so it is, ultimately, nothing more than an ego trip

robin hood: if i rob from the rich to give to the poor, and enjoy the love they give me in return, does that make me prince john's equal, because we're both motivated by ego?

dr. house: all that matters are results

kant: so the ends justify the means, do they?

jack bauer: uh, yes

james bond: duh

the avengers: absolutely they do

marx: if ends don't justify means, what does? where is the list of right stuff and wrong stuff laid out simply and unambiguously so that we can follow the rules which never contradict each other and all our ethical conundrums are solved?

*everyone starts talking at once*

marx: ...so, that said, let's pay attention to the world, to causes and effects. humanity can thereby extend its grasp and reach greater levels of freedom, consciousness, and responsibility.

thanos: no, too much people

marx: oh for fuck's sake not this again

marx: if more than half the world's wealth is in the hands of 1% of its population and as a member of that 1% i claim that it's poor people's fault for daring to exist, i'm obviously just trying to shield my hoard from richly-deserved blame

john locke (not the one from LOST): what's wrong with wealth i've earned through my own sweat?

gordon gekko: if you're sweating, you're doing it wrong

machiavelli: it is important that the prince always give the appearance of thrift, hard work, etc. but only so that he may cultivate this attitude in his subjects and gain access to their useful labor

robert california: quite so

marx: the capitalist creation myth about thrifty farmers saving up beaver pelts isn't actually how any major fortunes ever came into being; all great accumulations of wealth are born out of naked theft, pillage, murder, and slavery. locke is a writer of children's stories

hayek: is your "revolution" any exception? it would rob and pillage and make everyone slaves of the state

leslie knope: i don't *think* i'm a slave...

harriet tubman: yeah you definitely fucking are not

marx: slaves don't get to vote, they don't have recallable representatives deciding who sits on the central committee, they don't have rights or any way to get justice when they are wronged

dr. strangelove: ze soviets have none of zis, zey know nussink of rights, zey are like animals who must be put down for zeir own velfare

everyone: ...

said: the west has never viewed the east as fully human, nor any of its institutions as fully civilized sacha

baron cohen: *audibly gulps*

marx: the crimes of colonialism, which europe commits abroad, are rarely counted among the defects of the liberal system. but those states that pursue development without enslaving other peoples are criticized for doing violence to "their own people!" in tones of outrage

frank underwood: i'll tell you a little secret about patriotism: it's always bullshit, but it sure comes in handy sometimes

fanon: always?

marx: there's obviously a big difference between "patriotism" in the imperialist countries, which is just chauvinism, and patriotism in countries that are struggling to throw off the yoke of imperialism

the crystal gems: indubitably

petyr baelish: every power on earth is a would-be empire

marx: even though it sounds scary and cynical there's no contradiction between that and saying that a more equal, multipolar distribution of power would allow for greater freedom and flourishing

eduard bernstein: how very modest and incrementalist of you

marx: both continuity and rupture are laws of nature. i don't rule out either one a priori like *some* people

mycroft holmes: it's becoming rather difficult to discern what it is you *do* rule out, herr doktor. are we to understand that no criticism of you or your "communism" is possible, since you both contain so many multitudes?

ricky lafleur: maybe you should worry aboot your own damn self and quit hasslin my buddy carl. whys it so important for you to cristicize him when all hes cristicizing is the real shit real people are going through, you ever think aboot that? go eat a fuck you fuckin dick

tywin lannister: i suppose this is the level of discourse one ought to expect when one opens the door to the rabble

lucius malfoy: precious few people still know how to keep a civil tongue

pippin (whispering to merry): did he just threaten to cut that guy's tongue off?

merry (whispering to pippin): i think so, pippin

pippin (whispering to merry): that's pretty fucked

marx: classes whose rule is coming to an end cling desperately to the signifiers they mistakenly credit with preserving or justifying that rule. tone policing is a magical, and so ultimately futile, attempt to reverse a tectonic shift in the balance of class forces

superman: if the only reality is these tectonic class forces, seems like there isn't much room in your theory for ordinary human decency, the small acts of kindness that express our basic moral instincts

marx: decency's great! but our freedom to be decent is under siege

captain america: there's always a choice

gollum: i suppose i just made some bad choices then, did i?

captain america: that's different, that's an addiction

marx: who isn't addicted to commodities?

jonathan kent: you work hard, you don't spend more than you earn, you buy some land, and you try to be good to people, help 'em out. plenty of freedom to be decent there. there's a world o' difference between buying groceries on main street and being addicted to hard drugs

sitting bull: i suppose we'll be glossing over how you lot came by that land?

pat robertson: now remember christ's message, you just have to turn the other cheek there buddy, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

marx: maybe human decency is ordinary, and maybe human cruelty is ordinary. i know choosing not to see or think about the past causes or future effects of our economic activity, the way this stuff ripples outwards, means choosing insensitivity, which is fertile ground for cruelty

george costanza: sounds exhausting

the dude: yeah i liked what that other guy was saying about just going with the flow, following your instincts etc.

jerry seinfeld: you got instincts, george?

george costanza: do i *look* like a man who has instincts? i'd kill for an instinct

marx: capitalism makes it prohibitively complicated to figure this stuff out at the same time it's robbing you of any other standard or compass to go by. communism means production run on the basis of human need, and one of those needs is to avoid getting overwhelmed and fried

jed bartlet: well i've heard it described elsewhere in not quite so flattering terms, maybe you've heard them: "dictatorship of the proletariat"

marx: you got here late, didn't you

marx: here's a question for my friend montgomery. if you ran the economy, would you prioritize a) the environment, b) standard of living, or c) profits?

mr. burns: oh definitely c

marx: you see my point? the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is like an insane clown with a bazooka

mad pierrot: rude

marx: the dictatorship of the proletariat means just that the working class jealously defends its own hegemony, its own monopoly on legitimate force, because sharing that shit with capitalists is *always* a bad idea

merlin: shouldn't we oppose monopoly in general? like you said, a more equal distribution of power is better

v: *all* governments should be afraid of their people

gandalf: you run the risk of becoming precisely that which you sought to destroy

dumbledore: ehhhhhhh

snape: sometimes you *must* become that which you seek to destroy

marx: any class that doesn't constitute itself as power doesn't stand a chance of usurping another's hold on power. the more equal distribution comes from the fact that the proletariat is bigger and poorer

marx: since their livelihood doesn't depend on capitalist exploitation, the proletariat as ruling class can begin to coolly and rationally reorder society in such a way that capitalist exploitation becomes impossible, meaning the flows of power to concentrated wealth dry up

velma dinkley: in my experience capitalists will pull out all the stops to make sure those flows keep flowing

marx: no doubt. the status quo is a war of all against all

dana scully: so you're saying what we need's a leviathan?

marx: yes, and its name is the party, its main advantage is in numbers, and its principal tool is words, getting there first, smothering violence and exploitation with education and economic development

don draper: you're a natural-born ad man, karl, i'll give you that. who doesn't melt for these glittering palaces in the sky? but let's get down to brass tacks: what does this revolution of yours actually look like? isn't it more likely to just be a bunch of suffering and muck?

marx: the utopia is in thinking that capitalism can be sustained indefinitely. a revolution looks like the rest of world history: a collapse here, a rise there, an outburst at the wrong time, always combined and uneven, with protracted economic conflicts running all through it

rorschach: the suffering and the muck are the only constants

steven universe: what are you *talking* about? there's so much else!

isaiah berlin: exactly. there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in marxist philosophy, which is why we need pluralism, not revolution

marx: asked and answered, my dude

[link back to marx: that's the thing, that's all capitalism lets anybody envision line]

isaiah berlin: that's not good enough. you need everyone to be on the same page, don't you? proletarian dictatorship means *more* conformity among the population, it means an illiberal attitude towards free speech

marx: didn't you work for the CIA?

debate bro: excuse me, that's an ad hominem

marx: to show that my project is especially intolerant, you have to identify a more tolerant one. if no such project exists, then the charge can't stick—the metric of tolerance is shown to provide no way of distinguishing between us

john locke (the one from LOST): so forget tolerance. what about virtue? communism seems like it would just give you a bunch of lazy hedonistic do-nothings

shaggy rogers: not cool, man

daniel plainview: these subversives and degenerates will never know the joy of a hard day's work. they'll never know what it means to test their mettle against the elements and stake an honest claim to this great nation's bounty

marx: dude come the fuck on

holly golightly: sounds dreadfully dull to me

marx: testing your mettle against the elements might be a fun macho pastime or whatever, but what you *really* care about, the reason it *is* so fundamentally dull, is the claim. your ownership of the thing takes the highest priority

galadriel: 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝑜𝑜 𝑒𝒶𝓈𝒾𝓁𝓎... 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓈𝓊𝓂𝑒𝒹 𝒷𝓎 𝒾𝓉

marx: which is why capitalist ideas about the virtue of hard work are all crap. humans should work as hard as they like at whatever they decide to work on. but once this fixation sets in...

marx: you're not doing it for a reason any more. the work itself becomes secondary—whatever you wanted to achieve by it, whatever good you thought you were doing, or self-improvement you were pursuing, they slip away

jesse pinkman: ain't that the truth

george orwell: but working for big brother isn't any more ennobling. you would have us submit our labors to an all-powerful state, where they become just as empty and rote

marx: i didn't make it so that people became globally interdependent, capitalism did that

marx: the choice that confronts us is between a universal interdependence in which a few rule and a few benefit, or a universal interdependence in which every person shares in decision-making and enjoyment. i hate to break it to you, but we do live in a society

dr. house: and you trust the people to make decisions? have you *met* people?

marx: i've met members of the ruling class

james madison: the poor masses you would see take power tend to be short-sighted and impulsive. they couldn't possibly agree on anything or govern themselves for more than a week

marx: i can't stop you from despising humanity, but in my experience freedom is the best teacher

lex luthor: your optimism is quite charming, albeit dangerously naive

marx: isn't it more naive not to recognize the way misanthropy is so obviously a self-fulfilling prophecy told by people who are scared stiff at the possibility of seeing their privileges crumble?

cersei lannister: a few people will always be blessed with privilege. all you're doing is increasing the turnover

death: ᴀʜᴇᴍ.

marx: "privilege" is abstract enough that i can imagine many dimensions of privilege lasting well into socialism—maybe i get better service at restaurants because i'm a famous food critic. the point is to eliminate the kind that kills people