The dogma that “wages determine the price of commodities,” expressed in its most abstract terms, comes to this, that “value is determined by value,” and this tautology means that, in fact, we know nothing at all about value. Accepting this premise, all reasoning about the general laws of political economy turns into mere twaddle. It was, therefore, the great merit of Ricardo that in his work On the Principles of Political Economy, published in 1817, he fundamentally destroyed the old popular, and worn-out fallacy that “wages determine prices,” a fallacy which Adam Smith and his French predecessors had spurned in the really scientific parts of their researches, but which they reproduced in their more exoterical and vulgarizing chapters.

I feel that this is particularly important to note, as the claim that higher wages increase inflation continues to remain popular among capitalist apologists. Thanks for sharing this.

In my experience, the other pedestrians that I’ve encountered haven’t been particularly friendly.

according to the governor of the Bank of England

You mean the same Bank of England that gave a loan to Fascists enabling them to settle an absurd quantity of unpaid trade credits, but apparently can’t pay workers a living wage without provoking the Apocalypse? That Bank of England?

Now see, I certainly agree with statements like this one, but after using Reddit for so long it’s hard for me to avoid imagining somebody replying to it with ‘OH YEAH? WELL UNDER COMMULISM THEY WOULD JUST KILL YOU FATALLY TO DEATH UNTIL YOU DIE SO STFU STOOPID IGNORANT TANKY READ HISTORY BOOK!!!!!!’

I know that it’s far less likely in this community, but if somebody is taking screenshots of these posts for the amusement of his dipshit anticommie friends then I am sure that somebody would say that.

I have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Standing still for as little as one or two minutes is a challenge for me and people have told me before that my feet ‘looked red’ or that I suddenly looked uncomfortable when all that I was doing was standing in place. My blood pools in my feet and sometimes I can even feel them throbbing. My condition is not so severe that I need a wheelchair, but I need to sit down or I’m very uncomfortable and at serious risk of fainting.

I’m just glad that I have no plans to fly anywhere because the best that these seats might do is delay my symptoms for a short while. The absence of proper seating would be a little more serious than an ‘inconvenience’ for me.

Yeah, sure, I guess that a celebrity is doing far worse maybe…

…but still, can you just immediately forget about her and focus on fixing your lifestyle more? Can you? Come on! Pretty please, with sugar and a cherry on top? Do your part!

G‐d, I hate that mentality. It implies that we’re all just as culpable as the upper classes for the earth’s decay, which is classist and demonstrably untrue.

Yesterweek I returned to Fallout 2 for the first time in several years, patched it, and it almost became an addiction for me. I started another playthrough recently, but I’m slower to attend to it because I’m getting a little burnt out.

I tried Ultima IV yesternight for several minutes, but couldn’t get into it. The interface and controls were too clunky for me, and I wasn’t interested enough in the world or the story to commit to them.

I’m unsure what I’ll play next. Unlikely to be anything current‐gen, though, given my office‐grade computer.

Somewhat off‐topic, but I’ve noticed that lately crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly popular method for studios and individuals alike, coinciding with tipping becoming an almost mandatory practice on behalf of service workers. This correlation is probably far more significant than anybody realizes; it’s as if the upper classes are slowly and subtly outsourcing the task of payment to us.

Yes! While admittedly I don’t know for sure if she ever identified herself as socialist (it seems more likely than not), I have a great deal of respect for Dorothy W. Douglas, an economic anthropologist who closely studied life in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Polish People’s Republic. This is one of my favorite books and it helped me develop a more mature understanding of the people’s republics. (It seems that she also studied child labor in Imperial America, but I haven’t read that one yet.)

There are various other women that I could mention, but I can’t say with absolute certainty if they were socialists either. Others that I could mention are people that I can’t identify.

I am not typically in the mood for classical music, but I do enjoy it from time to time. It can be something ominous, like Passacaglia and Prince Igor, Act I, Scene I: Chorus, or something triumphant, like Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo (excuse the violence in that video). It really depends on my mood.

Occasionally when I’m feeling cynical, I’ll even listen to ultranationalist crap like Köremovedätzer Marsch or Giovinezza, if only to indulge in my morbid fascination with anticommunism.

In terms of fiction, I recently started on Pictures of the Socialistic Future. It isn’t horribly long, but I can already tell that it’s going to be a chore to read.

The author considered personal property synonymous with private property (‘such as furniture, old clothes, bank-notes, and the like’), but most amusingly, the citizenry in this commulist dystopia—where decommodification of goods and services is clearly on the rise—are pissed off that the State is seizing their savings bank funds, which makes about as much sense as two gangs fighting over a used toilette brush.

I have a feeling that this story is just to be the unabridged version of this post, but I’ll be nice and reserve my judgement until I finish it.

ETA: I should mention that, in terms of nonfiction, I recently started on The Gestapo, but I’ve been rather negligent with reading my nonfiction lately.

I’m sorry, but I don’t know yet.

Imperial America is also (gently) toning down its sanctions on its enemies, notably the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Cuba. These are by no means major victories, but they support our prediction that the Empire is slowly dying: it was only a few years ago that it was trying to sanction everybody and their dog in the BRV. Such concessions would have been almost inconceivable then.

Needless to say, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not going to spend that extra money on civilian infrastructure.

This is a quick and dirty response on my part, but these resources may be of some help. Alternatively, this (Trotskyist) woman’s video or the reports from Westerners like Bullitt, Pettit, and Steffens may answer some of your fraining

In fairness, the author of the video could be right‐wing (judging by the other content that he’s published), but if you can look past that then it should still be useful; I’m sure that the information is easy to verify. Broken clocks and whatnot.

This is late to the party, but since I realized it today I want to mention somewhere that George Washington would have qualified as ‘dictatorial’ or ‘illegitimate’ by neoliberal standards. Not only because of his régime’s suppression, but also because he ran for election unopposed and got 100% of the vote twice… I am sure that neoliberals can concoct some clever ad hoc excuse to exempt all this, though.

I know that this image is supposed to be funny, but it’s hard for me to take any amusement out of this subject.

This makes me want to read The Illegal War on Libya so that I can understand the NATO better. Pity that Libgen doesn’t have this book.