A series of questions..

[Soviet Aggression]

I have a series of questions:

1) Maoism - This might seem like a beat up topic, but I'm wondering.. for Maoists who live in contemporary America, is it possible to properly implement the mechanics of Maoism, or a variation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism en masse? I ask this because I've seen a couple of cadre organizations describe themselves as such. Are they delusional, or is it possible with the proper social setting to implement such a belief, or do these people simply need to pick up a book and read up some more?

2) The Palestinian Struggle - Do most in the left stand in solidarity with the Palestinians?

3) Black Panthers & Earlier Belief Structures - I understand that the BP collective took various tenets from a series of belief systems and applied them to the organization. Lessons from Maoism were taken to structure the vanguard element of the collective, the Marxist teachings were to create a proper thought climate on the economic system, so on and so forth. When did the Black Panthers introduce Jucheism, and what role did it play in the organization? Was it a failure, or a misused/unapplied teaching?

4) Classification of unproductive labor - In Marxist theory, how do we classify unproductive labor?

5) Can we get there? - When we think about utopian visions on an idealistic social framework, is it possible? Will the transformation be realistic? Can we get to the point in which we can properly transform the state of our environment to better cater to the proletariat without the ills of the past creeping in? Or, are we, for the moment, lost in theory?

[John Nada]

I have a series of questions:

1) Maoism - This might seem like a beat up topic, but I'm wondering.. for Maoists who live in contemporary America, is it possible to properly implement the mechanics of Maoism, or a variation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism en masse? I ask this because I've seen a couple of cadre organizations describe themselves as such. Are they delusional, or is it possible with the proper social setting to implement such a belief, or do these people simply need to pick up a book and read up some more?Disclaimer, I don't consider myself a Maoist, but I do find some of it interesting. There really isn't many Maoist that post here anymore anyway.

I don't see anything that is incompatible with a theoretical revolution in the modern US, anymore than other strands of Marxism-Leninism. There's no peasantry like in China, but there's also no peasantry like there was in Russia either. The proletariat leads the revolution in Maoism, but in alliance with the peasantry in nations where it still exists, just like any other Marxism-Leninism tendency(hence the hammer and sickle:hammersickle: ).

There isn't a need for national-democratic revolution(ie. the new democratic revolution) like Lenin said was needed in semi-feudal, semi/neo-colonial countries before moving on uninterrupted to the proletarian socialist revolution. That's specific to semi-feudal, (semi-)colonial nations, not universal.The US already had one and destroyed the remnants of feudalism in the form of slavery after the American Civil War.The task of the proletariat in an advance imperialist-capitalist country will be proletarian socialist revolutions.Maybe some Maoist argue that Indigenous peoples, Black-Americans, [email protected], Puerto Rico, ect are oppressed in colonies and need a national-democratic revolution. But I'm not certain about that.

And IMO protracted people's war is possible in advanced, urbanized, imperialist-capitalist countries with a proletarian majority and no peasantry. Whether it can be done in advance capitalist countries is debated in Maoism though. However, I think it's possible and possibly even more likely to succeed than insurrectionism and especially focoism or electoralism. Overall logic is still applicable, even if the specific forms in other nations is not.
2) The Palestinian Struggle - Do most in the left stand in solidarity with the Palestinians?From what I gather, almost a resounding yes. A few small tendencies don't("divides the working class", crypto-antisemitic, "bourgeois nationalism or some silly shit), but most major ones do.
3) Black Panthers & Earlier Belief Structures - I understand that the BP collective took various tenets from a series of belief systems and applied them to the organization. Lessons from Maoism were taken to structure the vanguard element of the collective, the Marxist teachings were to create a proper thought climate on the economic system, so on and so forth. When did the Black Panthers introduce Jucheism, and what role did it play in the organization? Was it a failure, or a misused/unapplied teaching?I don't think Jucheism was really big in the Black Panthers. Seems more like some solidarity with them viewed as an anti-imperialist force, since before the end of Vietnam's War of Liberation the DPRK and the PRC were among the few to stand up to US imperialism and live. Even Che at the time spoke positively about the DPRK. Remember this was back when the Korean War was fresh on people's minds, a renewal of the Korea War seemed likely, south Korea was ruled by a fascist autocrat and the quality of life was actually higher in north Korea than south Korea. The perception was different back then.
4) Classification of unproductive labor - In Marxist theory, how do we classify unproductive labor?Unproductive labor is that which doesn't produce commodities(servants, performers, cashiers, ect.). Unproductive does not mean useless, and in fact can be very essential, it's just not directly producing value. Depending on productive relations(managers, cops, prison guards, career soldiers, CEOs, ect are not proletarians, period), workers engaged in unproductive labor are sill proletarians. It's about selling her/his labor-power to survive.
5) Can we get there? - When we think about utopian visions on an idealistic social framework, is it possible? Will the transformation be realistic? Can we get to the point in which we can properly transform the state of our environment to better cater to the proletariat without the ills of the past creeping in? Or, are we, for the moment, lost in theory?I think a better world is possible. Capitalism can't last forever. There's nothing stopping a better world except the system which is a construct of humans own making. It is not "human nature", just a phase.

And communism is not just for the proletariat, even though the proletariat is the leading force and most revolutionary class. The entire human race will be liberated. I'd say in the long run even the ex-bourgeoisie will benefit. There won't even be a proletariat under communism because there's no bourgeoisie. Like there can't be slaves without masters. It's a fight for humanity and arguably the earth itself.

[Rudolf]

.Unproductive labor is that which doesn't produce commodities(servants, performers, cashiers, ect.). Unproductive does not mean useless, and in fact can be very essential, it's just not directly producing value. Depending on productive relations(managers, cops, prison guards, career soldiers, CEOs, ect are not proletarians, period), workers engaged in unproductive labor are sill proletarians. It's about selling her/his labor-power to survive.I think a better world is possible. Capitalism can't last forever. There's nothing stopping a better world except the system which is a construct of humans own making. It is not "human nature", just a phase.

Performers, artists etc do produce commodities though. Your standard summer blockbuster is a commodity and the staff involved, whether actors, composers, special effects people etc etc are all producing value. A small production at a local theatre likewise is a commodity and the performers producing value.

Hell even local musicians not getting paid for their gigs are producing value for the venues where they perform.

[Comrade Jacob]

I don't live in America but in the UK. Maoism is more than just "muh peasants" it's an advancement on Marxism-Leninism and it's philosophy can be implemented anywhere.

[Comrade Jacob]

On Palestine, yes I've never met a leftist of any credibility that doesn't support the Palestinian struggle. (Unless you think Bernie is a Leftist)

I don't think the Black Panthers used Juche, I'm not sure they (the originals) where around when Juche was theorised.

[#FF0000]

Gonna address the questions I can actually answer:



2) The Palestinian Struggle - Do most in the left stand in solidarity with the Palestinians?

Depends on what you mean. Aside from very few, communists an anarchists pretty much uniformly oppose the Israel's brutality. I'd say many also support Palestinian nationalism, but a significant minority oppose this (myself included) as a dead end.


4) Classification of unproductive labor - In Marxist theory, how do we classify unproductive labor?

Can you explain what you mean by "unproductive labor", here?


5) Can we get there? - When we think about utopian visions on an idealistic social framework, is it possible? Will the transformation be realistic? Can we get to the point in which we can properly transform the state of our environment to better cater to the proletariat without the ills of the past creeping in? Or, are we, for the moment, lost in theory

I think we can get there, or else I wouldn't waste my time with this. I don't know if we're "lost in theory" as much as we're lost in a lot of ritualistic practices like marching, trying to gain members and hold meetings, without having any overall goal or strategy beyond "socialism, eventually".

[Spectre of Spartacism]

I have a series of questions:

1) Maoism - This might seem like a beat up topic, but I'm wondering.. for Maoists who live in contemporary America, is it possible to properly implement the mechanics of Maoism, or a variation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism en masse? I ask this because I've seen a couple of cadre organizations describe themselves as such. Are they delusional, or is it possible with the proper social setting to implement such a belief, or do these people simply need to pick up a book and read up some more?

This is a question that can have a variety of answers depending on what your understanding of Maoism is. What do you think it is, and how does it differ from Marxism or Marxism-Leninism more broadly?


2) The Palestinian Struggle - Do most in the left stand in solidarity with the Palestinians?On the left generally, yes.


3) Black Panthers & Earlier Belief Structures - I understand that the BP collective took various tenets from a series of belief systems and applied them to the organization. Lessons from Maoism were taken to structure the vanguard element of the collective, the Marxist teachings were to create a proper thought climate on the economic system, so on and so forth. When did the Black Panthers introduce Jucheism, and what role did it play in the organization? Was it a failure, or a misused/unapplied teaching?This is a strange question to me, since I've never read of the BPP being interested in jucheism at all. Maoism, certainly. But even then, a number of the BPP leaders were turned off by a visit they had to North Korea. They thought the society was racist, in fact. The reality is that the BPP were not steeled maoist cadre. They were politically radical, mostly lumpen elements who slid into a sympathy with Maoism out of a perceived fit that, in the end, didn't turn out to be as compatible as they had thought.


4) Classification of unproductive labor - In Marxist theory, how do we classify unproductive labor?In Marxist theory, unproductive labor is work that does not participate directly in a process that augments surplus value. An earlier poster claimed that this referred to labor that doesn't produce commodities. This is incorrect. Commodities are indeed produced and exchanged through the market. The distinguishing quality of unproductive labor is that the commodities produced do not contribute to the creation of new surplus value and what Marx called "total social capital." They tend to be in the sector of the economy that is geared toward the realization of value. Marx focused on unproductive labor in volume two of Capital.


5) Can we get there? - When we think about utopian visions on an idealistic social framework, is it possible? Will the transformation be realistic? Can we get to the point in which we can properly transform the state of our environment to better cater to the proletariat without the ills of the past creeping in? Or, are we, for the moment, lost in theory?What transformation? The transformation to socialism? It depends on how you define it.

[Counterculturalist]

This article from The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/black-panthers-north-korea-us-imperialism

claims that the Panthers, or at least Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, were actually quite impressed by their trip to North Korea, and that the Panthers' newspaper had articles influenced by Juche stressing "self-reliance" around that time.

I recall reading somewhere else (wish I could remember where... maybe in Elbaum's Revolution in the Air) that the CPUSA, of all things, was trying to steer black militants away from Maoism by selling North Korea as a black-friendly purveyor of socialism.

Hey, those were strange times...

[Soviet Aggression]

Depends on what you mean. Aside from very few, communists an anarchists pretty much uniformly oppose the Israel's brutality. I'd say many also support Palestinian nationalism, but a significant minority oppose this (myself included) as a dead end.Why do you see it as a dead end?


Can you explain what you mean by "unproductive labor", here?I was talking about the Marxist distinction between what is considered productive or unproductive labor within the theory of value.

[Soviet Aggression]

This article from The Guardian:

claims that the Panthers, or at least Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, were actually quite impressed by their trip to North Korea, and that the Panthers' newspaper had articles influenced by Juche stressing "self-reliance" around that time.

I recall reading somewhere else (wish I could remember where... maybe in Elbaum's Revolution in the Air) that the CPUSA, of all things, was trying to steer black militants away from Maoism by selling North Korea as a black-friendly purveyor of socialism.

Hey, those were strange times...

Ah! So that's why on the front cover of a copy of "The Black Panther" there was a photo of Eldrige Cleaver and Kim il Sung with respective quotes from both distributed out. Interesting.

[John Nada]

Performers, artists etc do produce commodities though. Your standard summer blockbuster is a commodity and the staff involved, whether actors, composers, special effects people etc etc are all producing value. A small production at a local theatre likewise is a commodity and the performers producing value.

Hell even local musicians not getting paid for their gigs are producing value for the venues where they perform.
Labour with the same content can therefore be both productive and unproductive.

Milton, for example, who did Paradise Lost, was an unproductive worker. In contrast to this, the writer who delivers hackwork for his publisher is a productive worker. Milton produced Paradise Lost in the way that a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of his own nature. Later on he sold the product for £5 and to that extent became a dealer in a commodity. But the Leipzig literary proletarian who produces books, e.g. compendia on political economy, at the instructions of his publisher is roughly speaking a productive worker, in so far as his production is subsumed under capital and only takes place for the purpose of the latter’s valorisation. A singer who sings like a bird is an unproductive worker. If she sells her singing for money, she is to that extent a wage labourer or a commodity dealer. But the same singer, when engaged by an entrepreneur who has her sing in order to make money, is a productive worker, for she directly produces capital. A schoolmaster who educates others is not a productive worker. But a schoolmaster who is engaged as a wage labourer in an institution along with others, in order through his labour to valorise the money of the entrepreneur of the knowledge-mongering institution, is a productive worker. Yet most of these kinds of work, from the formal point of view, are hardly subsumed formally under capital. They belong rather among the transitional forms.Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm

I'm not viewing this from a moral angle. Hell, according to Marx doctors are "unproductive", yet they're obviously necessary. TBH I'm struggling to think of a non-managerial form of labor under modern capitalism that isn't productive. Even with the cashier, I'm not sure they could be called "unproductive", since depending on the total relations they could be like a mucker in a mine or a longshoreperson on a dock, like part of an assembly line.

Performers like actors/actresses and musicians can and usually do produce commodities, with use-value of entertainment and an exchange-value by sales to the shows, as well as surplus-value taken from the artistic workers by the production company, even if it's not a physical object like iron, beer or cars. Actually under capitalism their labor power itself is a commodity. But they can also work directly for use-value which is immediately consumed, then it's unproductive.
n Marxist theory, unproductive labor is work that does not participate directly in a process that augments surplus value. An earlier poster claimed that this referred to labor that doesn't produce commodities. This is incorrect. Commodities are indeed produced and exchanged through the market. The distinguishing quality of unproductive labor is that the commodities produced do not contribute to the creation of new surplus value and what Marx called "total social capital." They tend to be in the sector of the economy that is geared toward the realization of value. Marx focused on unproductive labor in volume two of Capital.
||306| The labour-power of the productive labourer is a commodity for the labourer himself. So is that of the unproductive labourer. But the productive labourer produces commodities for the buyer of his labour-power. The unproductive labourer produces for him a mere use-value, not a commodity; an imaginary or a real use-value. It is characteristic of the unproductive labourer that he produces no commodities for his buyer, but indeed receives commodities from him. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm#s3 Unproductive under capitalism is only use-value, so it's not in that instance a commodity. Maybe he said something different in Capital, Vol.II? I believe repairing and maintaining fixed capital is considered productive labor though.
This is a strange question to me, since I've never read of the BPP being interested in jucheism at all. Maoism, certainly. But even then, a number of the BPP leaders were turned off by a visit they had to North Korea. They thought the society was racist, in fact. The reality is that the BPP were not steeled maoist cadre. They were politically radical, mostly lumpen elements who slid into a sympathy with Maoism out of a perceived fit that, in the end, didn't turn out to be as compatible as they had thought.I would dispute the label "lumpen" as it's used. Might as well call the Bolsheviks "mostly peasant elements who liked Marx and Kautsky", and that would probably be more accurate. Majority of the Black Panthers were proletarian, only "lumpen" in the eyes of bourgeois legality, like all oppressed peoples, or fuck, the proletariat. The "lumpenproletariat" in the sense they used, would be the actual proletariat, as opposed to the labor aristocracy that some think are the "real proletariat", which Lenin warned against confusing the two. Parallels were drawn between the lumpenproletariat described by Mao and Fanon, which was dispossessed peasants and workers joining a proletarian insurrection, and strata of the working-class in the Black-American internal colonies, the ex-sharecroppers and workers with precarious employment. As opposed to the traditional stereotype of the proletariat as the manly blue-collar white man, hammer in one hand, metal lunchbox on the other, hardhat on head and union card in pocket, with the same boss to get pissed at for years.
Apart from all these, there is the fairly large lumpen-proletariat, made up of peasants who have lost their land and handicraftsmen who cannot get work. They lead the most precarious existence of all. In every part of the country they have their secret societies, which were originally their mutual-aid organizations for political and economic struggle, for instance, the Triad Society in Fukien and Kwangtung, the Society of Brothers in Hunan, Hupeh, Kweichow and Szechuan, the Big Sword Society in Anhwei, Honan and Shantung, the Rational Life Society in Chihli [17] and the three northeastern provinces, and the Green Band in Shanghai and elsewhere [18] One of China's difficult problems is how to handle these people. Brave fighters but apt to be destructive, they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.Source: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_1.htm The alliance between the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat would've been like worker-peasant alliance or the anti-imperialist united front of the oppressed classes Lenin described for oppressed nations, and Mao applied in the form of the United Front(more like the people's front). Since there's obviously no peasantry like Russia or China among African-Americans, the black proletariat would ally with the other oppressed classes to fight US imperialism, including the lumpenproletariat arising due to racist oppression, for revolution in the Black internal colonies.

Although I don't think the Black Panthers had a clear line on whether African-Americans were part of an colonized oppressed nation("the Black-Belt thesis") which should pursue the right to self-determination, like Ireland, Ukraine or China, or a national minority or caste in the US part of a larger proletarian revolution due to not having a separate language and no longer a separate territory after the Great Migration north, as laid out in Marxism and the national Question" (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm). IIRC Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky thought the predominately Black areas in the US were an oppressed nation, like Ireland was to Britain in spite of both having a common language. But with segregation and a history of definately not oppressed white planters demanding secession, that's kind of a questionable line to take, particularly during the civil rights movement which was against racist assholes claiming state rights.:unsure:.

[DOOM]

On unproductive labor: It's labour which doesn't add any surplus value to a commodity, in other words it's not centered around the valorization of an individual capital. The labour performed isn't involved in the M-C-M' cycle.
The main difference between Adam Smith and Karl Marx on this subject is that Adam Smith considered only work creating "touchable" things, actual things to be productive labor, while Marx said that even services could be the product of productive labor if they are ment to extend an individual capital. State employees aren't productive workers because the state doesn't sell any commodities to increase its capital, the workers' labor power is bought through taxes. The janitor working in a supermarket isn't a productive laborer for the same reasons, merely the variables change, as he's paid by the profit the supermarket generates. That same janitor could be a productive worker if he'd be employed by an outside-company which sells his service to a supermarket.
All unproductive labor has one thing in common. Capital needs it to keep the framework conditions for its own survival. While capital depends on productive labor to grow (and thus keeping the requirement for being capital), unproductive labor ensures that accumulation is going smoothly.

[Counterculturalist]

Does any organization or broader tendency still subscribe to the black-belt thesis? Not so much the idea that blacks constitute an oppressed internal colony, which I think still has some currency, but that they should have their own geographical area within the US and the right to secession? It seems unlikely that this line would still be advanced, but you never know (I think some New Communist Movement/Anti-Revisionist type of groups were still talking about it as late as the early '80s.)

[Sar]

Using the word "utopian" I don't think is productive or accurate. Making everything perfect is likely impossible, eliminating capitalism will just make things exceptionally better.

When conversing about post-revolution visions with people who are cynical of the idea, they tend to look for any flaw in it as a reason to dismiss socialist/anarchist ideas entirely. However, I always tend to emphasize that there will always be flaws, but we can only work to make improvements and lessen flaws.

[swims with the fishes]

in terms of unproductive/productive labour this is what marx had to say. from theories of surplus value

'The determinate material form of the labour, and therefore of its product, in itself has nothing to do with this distinction between productive and unproductive labour. For example, the cooks and waiters in a public hotel are productive labourers, in so far as their labour is transformed into capital for the proprietor of the hotel. These same persons are unproductive labourers as menial servants, inasmuch as I do not make capital out of their services, but spend revenue on them. In fact, however, these same persons are also for me, the consumer, unproductive labourers in the hotel.'

'The cook in the hotel produces a commodity for the person who as a capitalist has bought her labour—the hotel proprietor; the consumer of the mutton chops has to pay for her labour, and this labour replaces for the hotel proprietor (apart from profit) the fund out of which he continues to pay the cook. On the other hand if I buy the labour of a cook for her to cook meat, etc., for me, not to make use of it as labour in general but to enjoy it, to use it as that particular concrete kind of labour, then her labour is unproductive, in spite of the fact that this labour fixes itself in a material product and could just as well (in its result) be a vendible commodity, as it in fact is for the hotel proprietor. The great difference (the conceptual difference) however remains: the cook does not replace for me (the private person) the fund from which I pay her, because I buy her labour not as a value-creating'

'It follows from what has been said that the designation of labour as productive labour has absolutely nothing to do with the determinate content of the labour, its special utility, or the particular use-value in which it manifests itself.It is the same with enterprises such as theatres, places of entertainment, etc. In such cases the actor’s relation to the public is that of an artist, but in relation to his employer he is a productive labourer.'

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Originally Posted by Karl Marx
||306| The labour-power of the productive labourer is a commodity for the labourer himself. So is that of the unproductive labourer. But the productive labourer produces commodities for the buyer of his labour-power. The unproductive labourer produces for him a mere use-value, not a commodity; an imaginary or a real use-value. It is characteristic of the unproductive labourer that he produces no commodities for his buyer, but indeed receives commodities from him.

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm

You have this question all wrong. Go to the full discussion on this in Theories of Surplus Value (chapter four), where your quote is actually drawn from, and see for yourself that you are quoting Marx's description of Adam Smith's distinction between productive and unproductive labor. If you read through the entire section preceding and following it, you'd see that the specific description is referring to a definition of Smith that Marx critiques as attempting to make physical a distinction that is in fact about a difference in social relationships.

To get back to the specific quote you invoke, Marx clearly says that unproductive laborers produce commodities "for the laborer themselves." What they don't do is produce a commodity for capital, that capital can then sell on a market for a profit. As I said, they don't contribute to capital, they are deductions from its revenue as costs that have to be borne for value to be realized in the circuit of capital. This doesn't mean that unproductive labor doesn't produce commodities at all. As Marx clarifies: "Smith’s second view of 'productive' and 'unproductive labour'—or rather the view that is interwoven with his other view—therefore amounts to this: that the former is labour which produces commodities, and the latter is labour which does not produce 'any commodity'. He does not deny that the one kind of labour, equally with the other, is a commodity."

As generalized commodity production has encompassed virtually the entire globe, unproductive labor is generally speaking labor undertaken in the circulation sphere of the capitalist cycle.


I would dispute the label "lumpen" as it's used. Might as well call the Bolsheviks "mostly peasant elements who liked Marx and Kautsky", and that would probably be more accurate. Majority of the Black Panthers were proletarian, only "lumpen" in the eyes of bourgeois legality, like all oppressed peoples, or fuck, the proletariat. The "lumpenproletariat" in the sense they used, would be the actual proletariat, as opposed to the labor aristocracy that some think are the "real proletariat", which Lenin warned against confusing the two. Parallels were drawn between the lumpenproletariat described by Mao and Fanon, which was dispossessed peasants and workers joining a proletarian insurrection, and strata of the working-class in the Black-American internal colonies, the ex-sharecroppers and workers with precarious employment. As opposed to the traditional stereotype of the proletariat as the manly blue-collar white man, hammer in one hand, metal lunchbox on the other, hardhat on head and union card in pocket, with the same boss to get pissed at for years.The founders of the Black Panther Party were lumpen. This is just stating a fact, and does not imply that everybody in it organization, a national organization with branches in many cities, was lumpen. It is also a fact to say that Trotsky and Lenin were petty bourgeois. Good politics is based off recognizing facts as facts, not denying facts to suit a moral sensibility or preconception.

[Soviet Aggression]

Does any organization or broader tendency still subscribe to the black-belt thesis? Not so much the idea that blacks constitute an oppressed internal colony, which I think still has some currency, but that they should have their own geographical area within the US and the right to secession? It seems unlikely that this line would still be advanced, but you never know (I think some New Communist Movement/Anti-Revisionist type of groups were still talking about it as late as the early '80s.)

Thank you for bringing this up, as I had no idea what it was until I looked it up. I found some information on it in some written work archives by Harry Haywood.

As for CURRENT contemporary adaptations, I really could not find any solidified material regarding it being addressed by any organization recently. Although, interestingly, it seems that Chicano Liberation movements such as the August 29th Movement addressed it and fully supported the thesis.

[John Nada]

You have this question all wrong. Go to the full discussion on this in Theories of Surplus Value (chapter four), where your quote is actually drawn from, and see for yourself that you are quoting Marx's description of Adam Smith's distinction between productive and unproductive labor. If you read through the entire section preceding and following it, you'd see that the specific description is referring to a definition of Smith that Marx critiques as attempting to make physical a distinction that is in fact about a difference in social relationships.

To get back to the specific quote you invoke, Marx clearly says that unproductive laborers produce commodities "for the laborer themselves." What they don't do is produce a commodity for capital, that capital can then sell on a market for a profit. As I said, they don't contribute to capital, they are deductions from its revenue as costs that have to be borne for value to be realized in the circuit of capital. This doesn't mean that unproductive labor doesn't produce commodities at all. As Marx clarifies: "Smith’s second view of 'productive' and 'unproductive labour'—or rather the view that is interwoven with his other view—therefore amounts to this: that the former is labour which produces commodities, and the latter is labour which does not produce 'any commodity'. He does not deny that the one kind of labour, equally with the other, is a commodity."

As generalized commodity production has encompassed virtually the entire globe, unproductive labor is generally speaking labor undertaken in the circulation sphere of the capitalist cycle.You and DOOM are correct. Thanks for pointing out the error.
The founders of the Black Panther Party were lumpen. This is just stating a fact, and does not imply that everybody in it organization, a national organization with branches in many cities, was lumpen. It is also a fact to say that Trotsky and Lenin were petty bourgeois. Good politics is based off recognizing facts as facts, not denying facts to suit a moral sensibility or preconception.Good politics should be based on facts. This is not a fact, but a common misconception, that the US gov and rightists actively promotes. To be far, it's common even on the left. The leaders were mostly students of proletarian backgrounds. A lot of its members were teenagers with working-class parents. They were mostly not career criminals or in organized crime, nor were most hired muscle or agents of the states or bourgeoisie, except the snitches. Nor does some of the alleged "left" adventurism make someone a lumpen. Though they did seem to have underestimated the contradictions between the proletariat and the actual lumpenproletariat.

And committing crimes, homelessness, poverty or being unemployed does not make one a lumpenproletarian, otherwise there would barely be a proletariat, if at all. As Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working-class in England (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm)
Frederich Engels]Then come strife, blows, wounds, or, if these bedfellows agree, so much the worse; thefts are arranged and things done which our language, grown more humane than our deeds, refuses to record. And those who cannot pay for such a refuge? They sleep where they find a place, in passages, arcades, in corners where the police and the owners leave them undisturbed. A few individuals find their way to the refuges which are managed, here and there, by private charity, others sleep on the benches in the parks close under the windows of Queen Victoria.
On Monday, Jan. 15th, 1844, two boys were brought before the police magistrate because, being in a starving condition, they had stolen and immediately devoured a half-cooked calf's foot from a shop. The magistrate felt called upon to investigate the case further, and received the following details from the policeman: The mother of the two boys was the widow of an ex-soldier, afterwards policeman, and had had a very hard time since the death of her husband, to provide for her nine children. She lived at No. 2 Pool's Place, Quaker Court, Spitalfields, in the utmost poverty.
But all this presupposes that the workman has work. When he has none, he is wholly at the mercy of accident, and eats what is given him, what he can beg or steal. And, if he gets nothing, he simply starves, as we have seen.
When they enter upon the more active branches of work, their former employers draw in somewhat, in order to feel the loss less, work longer hours, employ women and younger workers, and when the wanderers discharged at the beginning of the crisis return, they find their places filled and themselves superfluous – at least in the majority of cases. This reserve army, which embraces an immense multitude during the crisis and a large number during the period which may be regarded as the average between the highest prosperity and the crisis, is the "surplus population" of England, which keeps body and soul together by begging, stealing, street-sweeping, collecting manure, pushing hand-carts, driving donkeys, peddling, or performing occasional small jobs. In every great town a multitude of such people may be found.

[Heilmann]

Why do you see it as a dead end?

Not to answer for #FF0000 (except that's exactly what I'm doing), but as it stands today at least, it seems we have to choose between the PA, an administration without a state proper, that e.g. cooperates with Israeli intelligence to qualm the current riots etc. going on; and a reactionary regime in Gaza that bombs random Israeli civilians (needless to say, Israel does that too).

The alternative is a tactic of defeatism and fraternisation between the Palestinian and Israeli working classes. The point is not that Israel and the two Palestinian governments are equally as bad - the main difference being Israel's obvious position as an occupational, racist power. The point is rather that there's no realistic solution in sight to end the occupation and sectarian violence. Arguably, the only force that could realistically end this (at least on terms preferable to us as communists and to the Isrealis, let alone the Palestinians) is a united working class movement against it - therefore the occupation and sectarian violence is a defeat in itself for the respective working classes, mainly the palestinian.

Such a movement might seem improbable at the present, but so is any other long term solution - one-state, two-state or otherwise.

[John Nada]

Does any organization or broader tendency still subscribe to the black-belt thesis? Not so much the idea that blacks constitute an oppressed internal colony, which I think still has some currency, but that they should have their own geographical area within the US and the right to secession? It seems unlikely that this line would still be advanced, but you never know (I think some New Communist Movement/Anti-Revisionist type of groups were still talking about it as late as the early '80s.)A lot still do(usually some variant of Marxist-Leninists, not sure if any Trotskyists still do), though many differ on its relevance, whether it's still true today, what that entails and how loudly it's advertised. Some think African-Americans are no long a traditional kind of nationality but one scattered all over the US. Others think it's a line capitulating to petty-bourgeois nationalism, it's racists or something slopped together to line up with the Comintern colonial policy, and the focus should be on equal democratic rights. Some even claim that it's one of many nations(Aztlan, Indigenous peoples, and territories like Puerto Rico) and the US is a multinational state like India, the UK, Spain or Switzerland, or even that English-speaking Canadians and Americans are one nation with two states.

It's not that they should have there own geographical area, but that, due to slavery and continued racism, they already do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg and this lines up with Stalin's definition:
A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03a.htm#s1 That's probably the shortest and clearest definition I've ever read, and actually accepted beyond just "Stalinists" or even Marxists. It's not based on "bloodline" or race, but communities that exist. Though many dispute that most minorities in the US fit this.

According to the Black-Belt thesis those predominately Black areas from Maryland to Texas are a colonized nation by the above definition, superexploited by not just racism but imperialism. The right to self-determination does not mean the duty to cede, like how Switzerland or Britain is still together.It's not to segregate off peoples from the different nations, ethnicities or races, because there's national minorities withing a nation, which would be what minorities like Anglo-Americans(ha!) in the Black Belt and and African-Americans and other minorities like Latinos/as or Asian-Americans outside.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

This is not a fact, but a common misconception, that the US gov and rightists actively promotes. To be far, it's common even on the left. The leaders were mostly students of proletarian backgrounds.

No, you have this question as wrong as you had the unproductive labor question. The BPP was founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, along with a handful of others who are lesser known to the general public. Newton & Seale had gone to college, so that was part of their background. When they founded the organization, they were not in college. Since they were inspired by Fanon's writings on the anti-colonial revolutions and how central roles could be played in those by oppressed lumpen elements, the organization did orient themselves to that category of person.

This doesn't necessarily refer to "criminals" though it is true that Seal and Newton did break the law, as if that is necessarily a bad thing anyway. It refers to people are marginally employed, taking temp jobs or having no job at all over an extended time in a person's life so that it begins to define the logic of their self-reproduction. At the the time the BPP was founded, most of what became the leadership were in activism full-time (often not on a paid basis), though Seale had just found work in an anti-poverty program, a formative experience for how his politics were developing. A lot of this is discussed in the recent (and excellent) book Black Against Empire, and it shouldn't be surprising as one of the targets the BPP had set its sights on was incredibly high unemployment afflicted urban youths.


A lot of its members were teenagers with working-class parents. They were mostly not career criminals or in organized crime, nor were most hired muscle or agents of the states or bourgeoisie, except the snitches. Nor does some of the alleged "left" adventurism make someone a lumpen. Though they did seem to have underestimated the contradictions between the proletariat and the actual lumpenproletariat.I never said that they were involved in organized crime, nor did I suggest that lumpen as a term was restricted to criminals.


And committing crimes, homelessness, poverty or being unemployed does not make one a lumpenproletarian, otherwise there would barely be a proletariat, if at all. As Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working-class in England (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm)No, committing crimes doesn't make a person lumpen. Otherwise Wall Street executives would fit into that category. Being unemployed for prolong stretches, so that you begin to eek out a life trajectory outside of the formal economy, does make you lumpen. I'm not sure where you see a definition in Engels' early work there would contradict this fact, but I'd love to see a direct quote that spells this out (none of the quotes you provided do this), hopefully this one a little more accurate than your earlier "quoting" of Marx. Right now your rationale seems to be: "BPP = Good" + "Lumpen = Bad" therefore "BPP != Lumpen." This is what I meant in my previous post when I was talking about cramming and facts to fit moral categories, rather than basing morality off facts.