Williams and Srnicek – #Accelerate

Williams and Srnicek have put out a proverbial call to arms against neoliberalism. Let’s discuss what neoliberalism is, talk about why it needs to be overcome, what the Left has been doing that hasn’t worked, and what Williams and Srnicek think must be done instead. Neoliberalism Capitalism keeps evolving. Neoliberalism is the most recent mutation.…

Lukacs – Leninism & the Vanguard Party

In America you probably grew up hearing and believing that Marx, Lenin and Stalin were evil. Rarely is any distinction made between the three, and they are typically described as power-hungry dictators. At best, you heard and maybe said “Communism looks good on paper, but doesn’t work in reality.” This is an idiotic thing to…

Marx – Commodity Fetishism & Surplus Value

Marx is famous for his analysis of “surplus value.” If you’re familiar with business jargon, this is just another way of translating the previously existing term that Marx used, mehrwert, which can also be translated to the more familiar term “value added.” If M is the cost of the wood, and M’ is the amount…

Marx – The German Ideology

The young Marx was an active member of a radical leftist group called the Young Hegelians. They read Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as the historical process of emancipation brought about by Western society’s philosophers and thinkers. They saw the philosophers as humanity’s only hope for a just future. Among this group Marx was one of…

Engels – Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Unless you have read Marx and/or Engels before, forget everything you think you know about Marxism. While there are many valid criticisms to make of Marx, they are probably not the criticisms with which you are familiar. Marx was an important influence in the history of the USSR and Mao’s China, but Marx and “actually…

Hegel – Democracy as its Opposite (the French Revolution)

What do we mean when we say “freedom?” Do we mean freedom to live in peace and quiet? Freedom to live under a government with checks and balances? Or do we mean free to participate in the decision-making processes of our government? Hobbes and Hume were concerned with the Utility of government. As long as…

Robespierre & the French Revolution

WARNING: I am not a historian, and barely know what I’m talking about. I’d love for someone to do some fact checking for me.  Background In the 1780s France was well out of the Middle Ages, but there were many, many aspects of society that retained the “irrational” history of feudalism. For example, laws legitimized…

Hegel – Immediate and Mediated Truth

Imagine someone has lived their entire lives in a primitive people group underground their entire lives, and they see the sun for the first time. If you pointed to the sun, and they understood basic English grammar, and you said “Now is Day,” they would understand the truth of what you were saying in one…

Schelling – Predestination and Freedom (in the Matrix)

Schelling received lots of attention for his exceptional talents as a philosopher, publishing his first essay at 20 years old. At one point he was roommates with Hegel. You could say Schelling was the hare, and Hegel was the tortoise. Schelling’s ideas evolved radically throughout his career, and his popularity wavered throughout his life. Although…

Fichte – Idealism vs. Dogmatism

Fichte became one of the most influential founders of German Idealism after one of his books was published anonymously and people attributed it to Kant. Kant said he didn’t write it, but that whoever did was one of the only people to understand him (basically). The primary difference between them: Kant rejected Idealism. Fichte was…