Young Master Smeet
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I think Hegelian essence is slightly more complex than that, and is bound up with actuality: IIRC the example of a knight on the chess board is the example: as a piece of wood on a board it is just that, and merely abstractly potential, it is only when it moves that it comes into contact with the essences of knightness, but even that essence is subject to negation and change (ultimately destruction).
Hence Marx’ value never actually exists but is an essence that interacts with commodities in the actual flow of human behaviour.
Hegel saw the world as unfurling through the struggle between being and nothingness and the unfurling of the Idea (my grasp is loose, I’ve avoided spending too much time on these things).
A lot of post modernism is a dialogue with Hegel in any case (and in terms of the debate against monolithic Modernity of the Soviet type, I think it was a reaction similar to Marx’ above, in terms of the declaration that the USSR was the end of history).
In it’s own time, Hegelianism arose out of combined/uneven development: Britain and France had had their bourgeois revolutions, and had their philosophies to accompany that, German liberals operating under conditions of absolutism found a philosophy ready to hand. Hegel celebrated the Prussian state, trying to marry liberal individualism and monarchy.
This took the form of idealism, because the ideas came ready formed, and (I think) elsewhere in the above passage Marx makes his declaration of having turned Hegel on his head by putting the material first.
The Exit polls are interesting:
https://electoral-vote.com/#item-3
There is actually very little between the two candidates: Biden got more of the poorer voters (but not by an appreciable margin, compared to say, support among evangelicals [and Biden, a Catholic, was never going to score highly there]). Obviously, among minority ethnicities, Biden massively outscored Trump, but, really, the only gap (and I think this probably overlaps with ethnicity a little) is between big cities and rural population (which, again, may correlate with the evangelical thing).
But, the chief thing is that Trumps support was solid, and widespread across the whole of America, that cannot be denied. .
LT,
I gave you the example, Argentina:
https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/276/
One fifth of voters cast an invalid vote.
And the elections came before the riots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Argentine_legislative_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2001_riots_in_Argentina
Whilst not progressive, the 2017 boycott of the Presidential re-run eventually did allow Odinga to leverage some sort of truce with the incumbent:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41757612
(Incidentally, the Kenyan Presidential election is worth reading up about in terms of being a very similar story to what is happening in the states)
We are in favour of democracy as a means to bring about socialism.
We have had members living under conditions of dictatorship, and the priority was their safety, and continuing to put the ideas of socialism.
Trump has millions of very active supporters, and he’ll not succeed in overthrowing democracy without that continued support and the capitulation of his opponents (as when Bush II took power). Our priority remains the education of the working class.
I’m sure our members would be active in their unions to make it clear that dictatorship is bad for the profits of the capitalist class.
LT,
Are you calling me a fascist? I’d like you to publicly clarify or retract that, please.
Anyway: yes, there were movements on the streets, there were also mass spoiled ballots, about 20% of the vote: the movement on the streets was backed up by action at the ballot box. I’d be happy with that as a road to establishing socialism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1598855.stm
“The public’s anger at economic policy was demonstrated by the number of voters casting the so-called “voto bronca”, the vote of anger – with almost 30% doing so in the capital alone.
“Some voided ballots by leaving them blank, others by angrily writing in the names of cartoon characters like Bart Simpson and Mickey Mouse.
“While others wrote angry messages aimed at the politicians across their ballot slips, such as, “stop stealing” and “you’re all thieves!””
LT,
Google Argentina 2001: mass spoiled ballots and abstention helped bring down the government.
Also, election boycotts are not unheard of, such as in Kenya (this is not to necessarily endorse the movements in Argentina nor Kenya, but to show how not casting a ballot can be a legitimate and effective political manoeuvre).
Withdrawal of consent and co-operation with the state is an effective tool.
LT,
“Btw, you still haven’t presented any case or example of where forfeiting your vote has changed something, b/c you can’t, trumper.”
I did: Argentina. You ignored it. But it did happen.
Next point.
This seems to be the terms of the peace deal:
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1325922863149445123
Russian peacekeepers: seems like someone is expanding back into their old sphere of influence (Russian troops in Azerbaijan and Syria gives them good boots on the ground in ME.
Seems it’s all over. For now:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54882564
It looks like it was mostly for domestic Azerbaijani consumption, since it just involves taking back some towns lost in ’94.
Protestors have stormed the Armenian parliament.
The problem is, without massive ethnic cleansing, those Armenians are not going away, and will not be governed as second class citizens of Azerbaijan.
Well, the key thing is how central to the existence of that society wages were. For example, a Saxon peasant getting paid to work over summer, but who still had access to his own land and the commons/waste is very different from a nineteenth century agricultural labourer (and even there, some very strange and convoluted customs and practices limited the labour markets).
ISTR somewhere Marx mentions mercenaries as the first proletarians, but obviously, they would be part and parcel of the chattel slave antique societies or feudalisms they sold their labour power in.
They were marginal to the reproduction of the social system.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54862180
The BBC seems very even handed over who started this war: it does seem to me to be very much Azerbaijan who have started the latest round of the war. They seem to be doing quite well, obviously going to plan…
Argentina, 2001, spoilt ballots brought down the government. So, no, you don’t have to vote for them, and open expression of non-voting, when done by enough people, can have political effects.
