Society of the Spectacle #8

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  • Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
  • @Exploring the Situationists is an ongoing series of Zoom sessions where I (Ken Knabb) comment on various situationist texts, followed by Q&A and discussion. The sessions are being recorded and posted on RUclips. From September 2023 to January 2024 we went through the "Situationist International Anthology: Revised and Expanded Edition" (10 sessions). Following a short break, we have resumed with Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle." We are are doing a close reading of my annotated translation of the book, and it will probably take us around 12-15 sessions to get through it (after which we will view and discuss Debord's film of the same title).
    Participation is free. If you're interested in joining the live sessions (which take place every other Sunday, 5:00-7:00pm Pacific Time) please contact me at knabb AT bopsecrets DOT org
    During this session #8 (June 30, 2024) we read and discussed ##104-113 in Chapter 4.
    The text of the book can also be found online at www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/...

Комментарии • 2

  • @ZOGGYDOGGY
    @ZOGGYDOGGY Месяц назад

    The official view of the Soviet wage system and commodity production can be found here:
    Reference is made to Engels' Anti-Duhring, to his formula which says that, with the abolition of capitalism and the socialization of the means of production, man will obtain control of his means of production, that he will be set free from the yoke of social and economic relations and become the "master" of his social life. Engels calls this freedom "appreciation of necessity." And what can this "appreciation of necessity"(1) mean? It means that, having come to know objective laws ("necessity"), man will apply them with full consciousness in the interests of society. That is why Engels says in the same book:
    "The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him."(2)
    As we see, Engels' formula does not speak at all in favour of those who think that under socialism existing economic laws can be abolished and new ones created. On the contrary, it demands, not the abolition, but the understanding of economic laws and their intelligent application.
    It is said that economic laws are elemental in character, that their action is inavertible and that society is powerless against them. That is not true. It is making a fetish of laws, and oneself the slave of laws. It has been demonstrated that society is not powerless against laws, that, having come to know economic laws and relying upon them, society can restrict their sphere of action, utilize them in the interests of society and "harness" them, just as in the case of the forces of nature and their laws, just as in the case of the overflow of big rivers cited in the illustration above.
    Reference is made to the specific role of Soviet government in building socialism, which allegedly enables it to abolish existing laws of economic development and to "form" new ones. That also is untrue.
    The specific role of Soviet government was due to two circumstances: first, that what Soviet government had to do was not to replace one form of exploitation by another, as was the case in earlier revolutions, but to abolish exploitation altogether; second, that in view of the absence in the country of any ready-made rudiments of a socialist economy, it had to create new, socialist forms of economy, "starting from scratch," so to speak.
    That was undoubtedly a difficult, complex and unprecedented task. Nevertheless, the Soviet government accomplished this task with credit. But it accomplished it not because it supposedly destroyed the existing economic laws and "formed" new ones, but only because it relied on the economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces. The productive forces of our country, especially in industry, were social in character, the form of ownership, on the other hand, was private, capitalistic. Relying on the economic law that the relations of production must necessarily conform with the character of the productive forces, the Soviet government socialized the means of production, made them the property of the whole people, and thereby abolished the exploiting system and created socialist forms of economy. Had it not been for this law, and had the Soviet government not relied upon it, it could not have accomplished its mission.
    full:
    www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch02.htm

  • @tipsandknowledge-wz7rd
    @tipsandknowledge-wz7rd Месяц назад

    Hi, your videos are great, you work so hard to make videos, and your videos are supposed to get thousands of views, why so few? It's sad to see if you want to do something good here or take this channel to a better place in the future, then I will help you as your partner.