Hi friends! I’m thinking about doing a comparative read between the Fowkes translation and the Reitter translation (making no promises, though!).
I probably won’t get around to reporting anything until the 7th or later. In terms of format, will the 8th-14th be focused on chapter 2, so it would be best for me to not distract with chapter 1 content in the next thread? And I should ideally prepare any notes the week prior?
Thank you! I enjoy going back to Capital somewhat frequently. It is DENSE and I always find new things or ways in which my understanding can be corrected.
Hi Comrade! Can I participate and get added to the list for pings as a gradder?
Thanks! I’ll check it out. I’ve heard of it but was told it was somewhat liberal.
Speaking of Marxist transphobes that people still recommend, does anyone have a suggestion for people to read and cite that cover similar ground as Cockshott? I don’t recommend him but it would be nice to have a locked and loaded, “read X instead”.
Hope they eventually join up with Corbyn’s new thing
Bruh, it’s just eating livestock, not that complicated or deep, people eat both plants and meat as we’re omnivores, that’s the point.
If the only point is that people do consume animal products and have in the past, then nobody argues with that. I assumed this was connected to what is “natural” and why you think it is right to do, which is also not something I have asked or suggested. I haven’t told you what you should or shouldn’t do in this thread, but I am pointing out that “we are omnivores” is not a coherent argument re: the appeal to what is “natural”. You don’t actually need to justify yourself, as again, I am suggesting a material analysis, but since you brought this up without reompting I figured you would be interested in discussing it.
Tree log, chicken, axe and cooking isn’t advanced technology.
Axes are pretty advanced and are not the historical traditional tool for killing animals for food. Those would be the spear and traps. The domestication of chickens is fairly advanced, as they have been selectively bred for domestication from an ancestor in Southeast Asia.
Ughh, I’m pretty sure that not using the time for something better and instead bothering other people about what they or should eat because you dislike the fact that humans are omnivores is the annoying part.
Like I said, I haven’t told you what to eat. So I am not doing the thing you find annoying, I guess.
I think that a villager keeping chicken and other livestock, eating eggs and drinking milk doesn’t constitute as imperialism unless I missed that part in Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Of course not. Who said it did?
They don’t feed chickens with that, most are against it.
That’s good.
I do, we just don’t have to hunt for a long time now that we have livestock, I’m eating as 99% of humans in a sense that I’m a omnivore, which is natural for human beings and other apes.
But you’re also not eating like 99% of human history in the sense that your diet is very different. It took humanity thousands of years across myriad cultures to generate the foods we take for granted. This is something that often goes unappreciated about past and current cultures, as some of the most amazing technologies are plants like corn, potatoes, wheat, soybean, lentils, etc, not just electricity or guns. There are also many such technologies that are not widely known or have even vanished, which is cultivation without planned plots or inputs, just taking care of the environment threw stewardship of existing plants and lands, like the ubiquitous technology of controlled burns. This made food that would not go to market, but sustained societies.
So, why would eating like 99% of history be the thing to do in one way but not the other?
Natural as in I don’t eat junk from McDonalds and other capitalistic companies, I eat stuff brought straight from the villages.
Like whole foods, that kind of thing. That’s good! But don’t forget that villages are highly advanced and use agricultural technology developed over thousands of years, right down to the food itself.
You literally are(you are currently doing it) by going and moralizing
I haven’t moralized once. I suggested a materialist analysis of the phenomenon of modern veganism, which is basically the opposite of that.
guilt tripping
I have not guilt tripped.
and annoying about this stuff
Can you tell me what I’ve done that’s annoying?
go and attack companies, poachers, animal traders and people who endanger near extinct species if you want to do something truly noble and leave normal people alone.
I suggested a material analysis of modern veganism as tied to capitalism and imperialism. We are currently discussing things that you have brought up, not me.
Guess what, it isn’t, they don’t provide it with it. Most are explicitly against it.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Can you explain? Thank you!
I don’t have any stance in the first place, that’s what I meant, I’m just eating like 99% humans at any point at history.
You’re actually not, though! Historically, humans were hunter gatherers with a diet fairly different from yours, I would bet. Think about what you would be eating if you needed to forage between the Euphrates and Tigris some handful of thousands of years ago before widespread agriculture. And then consider that humans were out there doing human things for hundreds of thousands of years before that. They weren’t eating storebought nitrogenated steaks from generations-bred, cornfed cows! Domesticated cattle did not even exist. There were Aurochs.
Bruh I don’t eat diets ‘‘under capitalistic companies’’, don’t eat fast food and the like, I eat food brought fresh straight from the village.
That is not a quote of anything I said. I’m saying that we live in capitalist societies with industrialized agriculture and our foods have been highly modified by humans. How do you define a natural diet? Does it include twinkies? Sweet corn? Winter Wheat? What does it really mean to call a diet natural or not?
You’re acting like you accomplished some huge goal worth of every praise like getting sober or stopping using drugs or lost a lot of weight
Actually, I said it was easy for me. That is the opposite of what you are saying I said.
when all you did is literally just change diet and try to force other people into it.
How am I trying to force other people into it?
A chicken raised by grandparents on yard in village is more environmentally friendly food source than a plants imported from across the country or from abroad.
That depends on how it is fed. If you ever provide it with feed, this statement is probably false. And the vast, vast majority of chickens are given feed.
Is every chicken you eat a backyard chicken not prpvided with feed?
I’m glad!
Of course!
Guess what I don’t, because I’m an omnivore and I don’t want to change natural food chain just because 1% tells me to do so.
You don’t what? I don’t understand what you are saying.
That’s the first mistake of vegans, thinking that every human WANTS to change natural diet
I actually said you did not want to twice already. Very first thing I said, I think…
Though nothing in modern diets under capitalism is particularly “natural”. All of our foods are technologically developed, including basically all of our crops over thousanda of years, mostly through artificial selection and hybridization.
and become like them oh so much but they just can’t because they’re ‘‘addicted’’ to natural food like it’s a heroin or cigarette.
Hmm, did I say that?
Because reactionary ideologies who harm and kill millions of people is the same as eating fucking chicken and drinking milk, give me a break.
Hmm, did I say that?
That doesn’t change the fact that humans are natural omnivores
I would be happy to discuss the science of trophic levels, human behavior, and diets if you are interested. Calling a modern diet under capitalism “natural” doea not really make sense, though.
that’s just your personal choice of diet and you’re acting like you got off drugs or became sober for that.
I am? How so?
And also doesn’t change the fact that that plants are also living things which you eat and further damage ecosystem.
Everyone knows plants live, this ia not news to any vegan and it is not inconsistent to eat them. Animal agriculture is far more negatively impactful on the environment.
Hi! I think I said the opposite about budget (it doesn’t make substantial changes to one), though it’s a common false trope that going vegan is expensive so I can understand why you’d be on the lookout for it.
Re: geographical variation, yes of course, which is one of the valuable parts of looking for material grounding. A bombed out place with food insecurity may both prevent a vegan from avoiding animal products to survive and will impact what people will focus on and prioritize. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the modern movement of veganism emerged and took off in the imperial core where food is subsidized without being undermined by imperialism and workers, on average, receive a greater level of purchasing power for their labor than those in imperialized countries (due to imperialism).
For warm clothes, the possibility of making that devoid of animal products preceded veganism by a long period of time. Waxed canvas clothing was popular among those with access to it (sailors, those who worked outdoors in cold and wet conditions) and thick cotton garments like flannels (which didn’t always have wool) were similarly popular. Both were only made popular through changes in production, of course, but they were fairly popular hundreds of years ago in parys of the world. But if you were in the far north and could not import cotton and oil, these were not options.
Re: food security, that looks like a nice project! My thinking on food security was that its increase promotes veganism itself, it is a material basis for veganism even if the security itself is not explicitly vegan. Most vegans are converts, they started out non-vegan with non-vegan parents and became exposed to and convinced by materials against consuming animal products. I think the propensity to be convinced would be positively impacted by the relative availability of food, and particularly vegan food, so that it can be thought of as a consumption choice among others.
Bruh where did you get idea I want to change anything in the first place?
I implied that you didn’t and that this was why you were focusing on barriers. If you had a vegan ethical stance you would be able to find a way.
This isn’t a sweets and chocolate situation you have to choose to stop when you’re getting to fat, this is natural and completely normal diet of human beings.
I’m not following your logic. But appealing to normative or historical practice is not enough on its own and is, for example, how reactionaries justify themselves.
I’m not a herbivore.
I am and it was easy.
I think a Marxist exploitation would be interesting!
I think a materialist analysis of why veganism became popular, and why it was recent, would be interesting. There are, of course, related precedents in diet with religious vegetarianism (Buddhist, veg Hindu, etc) and minimizing unnecessary harm (Jainism, Quakers, certain middle eastern philosophies, etc). But veganism as we think of it is a modern phenomenon that emerged in a highly industrialized society of the imperial core.
I think the elephants in the room are industrialized agriculture, the end of famine conditions, and the social aspect of acquiring food from markets. Eating a modern vegan diet was not practicable before B12 vitamins and cheap staples. People that tried would eventually become malnourished. Re: famine conditions, if you have not had to think about the prospect of dying from a lack of food, you may spend more time thinking about where it comes from and how you might be more picky about it. And with the social component of markets, food is a consumer choice, an abstraction away from its production (complete with Marxist alienation), and not as much of a core social activity as are hunter gatherer activities or working a farm. Not eating animal products means a substitution of items bought at a market with no need to substantially change a budget. And when it’s a consumer choice abstracted from production, when you learn about its production you will be more likely to be horrified.
So yeah things like that are interesting. They could also assist in understanding how one might understand the advancement of veganism dialectically, e.g. avoiding being chauvinist towards societies that haven’t had the necessary productive and social prerequisites to have this perspective, being too busy dealing with imperialism and their own development. And how pushing for certain kinds of economic and food security may be a better way to spend a portion of one’s advocacy budget. And why certain psychological barriers exist to adopting a vegan stance and how they might be addressed without a liberal approach.
Those are plastic things, you can change them like any habit. The discipline we must acquire to organize effectively is already more difficult than just not eating animal products. It is even a passive act! For me there was no real difficulty whatsoever, just a period where I learned new recipes and my palate adapted.
It is also something where if you don’t see value in changing the habit, you will focus on reasons to not do it. This is normal. But if you were vegan, which is an ethical orientation towards animals, you’d be more motivated to find a way to make it happen.
One advantage of reading Super Imperialism is that there’s a comrade here that can help guide others because they’ve already read and understood the work and are good at providing helpful explanations. Combine that with some one on one recruiting, a facilitator if needed, and some promos so people can block out time and follow the schedule and you’ll be better set up for success.
Are there any other tie-ins that can be made re: Super Imperialism that would motivate participation? For example, participants could produce a work that relates Super Imperialism to a modern question. For example, challenges with BRICS. Obviously that’s more work but if there is something tangible to do it can help recruit and motivate. Doesn’t have to be BRICS! Maybe the aforementioned comrade would have a suggestion?
Cool!