I always recommend Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy followed by Mao’s On Contradiction. Politzer/the students who put this together was wrong in a couple places with internal contradictions (like autodynamism you can ignore that part tbh) but it’s still a very solid entry overall.
We also have reworked pages on diamat on ProleWiki + the blue links but tbh I’m still not 100% happy with these pages.
The potential is the negation. A thing must contain the conditions for its negation (or opposite), and this is what forms a contradiction and why we talk about internal contradictions.
The bourgeoisie for example creates a proletariat by necessity of their existence. They need people that work in their factories and businesses to appropriate surplus value from. So as the bourgeoisie expands, so does the proletariat. As a business expands it will employ more people therefore require workers therefore requires a proletariat to employ from.
Proudhon’s idea was exactly ‘vulgar’ dialectics. He said, well, seems like it’s desirable to be bourgeois and not desirable to be proletariat. So let’s make everyone into a bourgeois - give everyone land, and let them work on it. then everyone will be rich and unalienated like the bourgeoisie!
But this isn’t solving the contradiction because (the potential for) the negation still exists: if you have a bourgeoisie, it will necessarily create a proletariat because it needs a negation somewhere. We can’t just pluck the negation out with tweezers.
So we have to find the actual contradiction taking these laws in mind, it may not be readily obvious and may not just be the ‘common sense’ answer, i.e. “oh dark is the contradiction to light obviously, because 1. they are diametrically opposed and 2. you can’t have a concept of ‘light’ if you don’t have concept for ‘dark’” – I believe this is a shortcut and also vulgar dialectics (but don’t really have a better answer myself for the contradiction to light). Which is why I like that balloon example, because it shows a process and negation of the negation (uninflated balloon contains the potential to become inflated and that inflated balloon contains the potential to pop).
And this is the hard part lol, going from examples and explanations we read in books and into our own practice of dialectics and finding contradictions for ourselves instead of being told. Very difficult.
A very important part of a contradiction Mao touches on in that selected quote is
You have to think of dialectics as like the engine of change. Change happens, we see it everywhere, but how does that change happen? How do we move from snapshot of instant A to snapshot of instant B? And why is change even possible in the first place? We take this for granted but a universe that is static and constant could just as well exist, we just wouldn’t live in it because life would be impossible. But it could still objectively exist without anyone to witness it (and this is the essence of the materialism vs idealism debate).
Part of this how and why is that a contradiction must contain a ‘little’ of its opposite (I prefer to say it as the potential for its opposite), otherwise change would logically not be able to happen. How can a flower turn into fruit, if it does not somehow contain what makes fruit? This is how we realize we live in an ‘interconnected’ universe, as the video said, which is basically the material world. Everything around us, including concepts such as the universe or outer space, exist as part of this material world and obey its same rules.
So in this way the flower and fruit form a contradiction, and from here we can think of the negation of the negation. This sounds like a difficult or paradoxical topic but it’s very simple. Before the fruit was a flower, the flower was a burgeoning bud on a branch. And yet this bud while not directly becoming fruit, becomes first a flower that then becomes fruit. The flower is the negation to the bud, and the fruit is the negation to the flower. This is the negation of the negation.
In the same way before the feudal nobility could create a proletariat there had to be created a bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie creates its own negation in the form of the proletariat.
Conversely we have to be careful of ‘common sense’ contradictions. We might easily say “well death is the contradiction to life since they are diametrically opposed (can’t be both at the same time) and one can’t exist without the other - otherwise we’d all be immortal!” but it is closer to say that while death is the negation of life, it doesn’t solve the contradiction. What solves the contradiction is:
To live, an organism must constantly negate the external world (consume it) and constantly negate its own current state (metabolize, grow, age). This process of self-negation is the presence of death within life. Death is not the end of the process; it is the negative force in the process.
Hegel also said something about the genus or reproduction apparently but mind you this part is me stepping out of my comfort zone - I’m not versed at all in Hegel (edit: but basically the idea is apparently that you negate death not through life because death is already the negation of life, you negate death through reproduction for Hegel).
However by placing dialectics back right side up as Marx said (by analyzing dialectics materially instead of idealistically) we can look at the social. For Marx the contradiction to life is the social.
The Real Internal Contradiction: Under capitalism, human life-activity (labor) immediately contradicts itself. The worker’s activity creates a product that becomes private property (capital), which then stands against the worker as an alien, hostile power. Life creates its own negation.
Thesis: Living Labor (creative power).
Negation/Contradiction: Dead Labor (capital, the frozen product of past labor) that dominates and exploits the living. This is the “living death” or alienation. The worker feels alive only in animal functions (eating, sleeping) and feels “dead” in their distinctly human function (creative work).
Synthesis: The revolutionary negation of this negation—overthrowing the system where dead labor rules living labor—to achieve true, free life-activity (communism).
Of course materialist dialectics don’t contradict hegelian dialectics, they put it back “right side up on its feet” as Marx said. We can and should absolutely still apply dialectics outside of social production to fully understand them and avoid falling into the pitfall of “diamat only works in politics and nowhere else”. So in that regard I’m not fully behind the above quote that starts from the position that for Marx there is only labor and social (re)production, but I felt it was a good explanation nonetheless into how dialectics apply to labor and the economy.
Years ago I remember seeing this website that teaches dialectics to kids in classrooms, with simple examples such as blowing air into a balloon. Then he pops the balloon, and shows quantitative transformation to qualitative change (and vice versa btw, I’m not sure they mentioned that in the video - qualitative transformation turns to quantitative change as well bc dialectics, and progress happens in leaps and bounds: things look to be at a standstill for a long time and suddenly everything topples and changes at once, like how your cat might inch the glass closer to the edge of the table until it falls to the floor). The balloon has always contained within it the negation of the negation, i.e. the potential to be popped, otherwise it literally could not be popped. It’s just that you can’t pop a deflated balloon. You can pierce it, but you can’t really forcefully evacuate the overpressure within it before that overpressure has been realized, but the balloon still contains the potential to become a pressurized chamber.
Unfortunately don’t remember the website but if you dive deep on google and find it feel free to share the link.
They are basically using Agile methods, which are typical in software companies. It has its advantages in the digital field especially but it does not change the underlying relation of production, that Gabe is the sole owner (I did a quick check on that but not too deep).
Stock options for employees are also not unheard of, though I think it’s more common in the US than outside of it. Basically employees get company stock as bonuses or reward, which makes them part owner but mostly means that they have a vested interested in the company’s success. It’s still majority owned by Newell.
Both agile and stock options are ultimately capitalist leverage on employees. Agile like I said does have its advantages in digital companies and it’s not so far removed from what we would like a workplace to be in socialism, but it’s also a way for companies to retain talent and employee motivation by giving them the option to work on what they feel like. Stock options also help with motivation and retaining employee (you might not want to sell your stock if you believe it will grow, but you have to sell when you leave, so you stay). Though in Valve’s case since they’re not publicly traded I don’t really get what good this stock does them, but I didn’t search too far either.
What Newell does well is actually implementing agile and not obstructing it with manager bullshit that feels scared they are losing control over the process. This is how agile is meant to work, but it’s also kind of a response to the old-school (1950s and up) rigid top-down pyramid structure, so ultimately it’s just another way to organize the labor of dozens of people, without speaking to what that labor is used for (in capitalism, to make profits).
For a company that makes so much so much money and has a monopoly they don’t particularly pay employees what you’d expect, it’s pretty much the average for the country and sector, between 60 and ~160k$ per year depending. All the nice bonuses that companies like Google offer like free catering, a gym on campus etc is so that employees will stay late at the office and not take their vacation days. Same with these companies that started offering “unlimited vacation days”, what people found was that when you were technically allowed to take a day off any time, they didn’t take any because they thought “eh, I can always take it later”
like Huawei, for example, although it’s not 100% the same
Companies like Huawei are a contradiction of China’s socialist market economy, or rather it’s their way of reconciliating the contradiction long enough to make it out and into the stage of socialism where they won’t need such companies anymore. Huawei is a wholly employee-owned company (workers coop) but not every employee is an owner, and they still compete against the global capitalist economy (ask a Huawei employee how many hours they work in a week haha).
So in terms of steps up, yes and no. It depends if you like that structure but ultimately in capitalism this structure is wholly capitalist. In China this structure is socialist market, and in the ussr it wouldve been state-owned socialist. I don’t think there’s any revolutionary potential there either by showing this type of structure works because the retort will be “well but if it exists in capitalism why do we need socialism”, but I could be wrong of course.
It’s also that the most ‘capable’ person for a job has more often than not had privileges that made them capable. College costs money and not just in tuition but also in travel fees (if you have to go to another campus for a course), textbooks, and the “cost of opportunity” of not integrating the workforce yet too, which means your parents need to be able to support you for the years you’ll be in college.
It’s no surprise that social mobility doesn’t exist in capitalism and children of wealthy/ier parents will themselves find high-paying jobs. This comic is old but illustrates it, https://digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/, this is basic sociology that even liberals recognize. One thing it doesn’t touch on that artisanal intelligence did is that the promise of meritocracy makes one feel like they have to grind to make it out of the race while not realizing that they were never going to cross the finish line. And ‘the grind’ often means working for unlivable wages and accepting undignified work.
Flipping a coin to decide on a hiring decision is also “fair” and “meritocratic”. It was the essay artisanal intelligence iirc which argued (a bit) against meritocracy and tbh I can see it. It’s kind of a capitalist delusion, it means only the most deserving, well, deserve anything.
It’s an indictment of openAI. They’re a fossil at this point, they need to monetize but their bubble is so big they can barely put a dent in it. How are you going to raise literally the 1 billion dollar a month they spend? China is rolling out models at a fraction of the cost that reach the same level, and notably their companies survive on things other than their LLMs - and they make their models open source too. Like they’re really not concerned about any of these questions over there, they’re just making their models.
The problem is if openAI lets go, their bubble will fly away without them. It’s very cutthroat right now in western tech, with the big 3 companies all trying to outcompete each other but failing to find ways to. And openAI doesn’t do anything but AI, they’re using the startup philosophy (just build product with investment money and we’ll eventually figure out a way to monetize that sticks) but at their size it just doesn’t work anymore. Remember when they rolled out miniGPTs that you were supposed to be able to monetize?
So any little advantage they can cling onto they will push, and this is how openAI has become a joke. I can’t remember the last time I used chatGPT, maybe once or twice a year if I want it to run python code directly but that’s about it.
Oh yeah and z.ai came out of nowhere too last year and can build full stack apps for you. Well, they’re very buggy lol. But it gets a LOT of the job done and I can only expect it will become better down the line. Oh yeah and Chinese models are all free, even in the cloud version.
A lot of this tech also relies on open-source contributions. For example the ubiquitous chatgpt UI style (message panel in the middle of the screen, chat history on the left) has been made into OpenWebUI and this is what most other providers use, possibly with their own tweaks to it but they start from that github repo.
I don’t think language is a social construct, but under the dictionary definition of a social construct, it would be considered invented reality as it would be “existing not in objective reality but as a result of human interaction,” “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society” and “a category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement; Socially constructed realities are contrasted with natural kinds, which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs.” (Verywellmind, merriam-webster, wikipedia).
Actually all of them were very steeped in radical feminist literature!
I don’t mean to put words in anyone’s mouth but my understanding through experience is that gender abolitionists promote the withering away view - I take this from the various vetting tickets I handle on marxist spaces such as this one or discords. They’re not quite out there actively trying to abolish gender, but see it as something that will cease to exist eventually, in one way or another.
So in that way (again not saying every gender abolitionist/withering away is transphobic!) I have come to understand that gender abolitionism and the view that gender will wither away (whether it actually will is another question) are one and the same. Some people might put more urgency on it than others. Like I said in possibly another comment a lot of it seems to come from seeming like a common sense conclusion.
I don’t remember meeting strict ‘withering away’ theorists so I can’t speak as to what they think if they exist!
In that same line of thinking, dialectial materialists would consider gender as a coercive hierarchial social relation that reproduces capitalist exploitation and it is this what is sought to be abolished
But I think that’s the point of contention for the author, and I’ve come to agree with them on that. This view would mean that trans men are oppressors, with all the baggage that comes with it - that they not only choose to be oppressors, but that they become oppressors even though trans men are also discriminated against.
Additionally, where do non-conforming people fit? If gender exists only as an oppressive social relation, then they should not exist, but they do.
That’s why I don’t think it necessarily follows that gender itself is a product of oppression, which also puts into question whether it should be or will be abolished/wither away (not exactly the same thing for some abolitionists, but not all). The premise of the essay is that gender can exist without an oppressive structure. It also means it doesn’t automatically follow that abolishing gender (in any way) will also destroy the oppressive structure built around it and the answer must be found somewhere else for proper praxis.
But thank you for writing out and sharing your thoughts. I don’t mean to come off as combative in my reply, I think the essay (and the overall point it makes) introduces a lot of things to rethink and reexamine and not take gender abolitionism as the “default” marxist conclusion. I think a lot of people come to gender abolitionism because of “classless, stateless, moneyless” - at least I used to before I started struggling with the subject. Feinberg had a lot of interesting things to say in Transgender Warriors:
“No wonder you’ve passed as a man! This is such an anti-woman society,” a lesbian friend told me. To her, females passing as males are simply trying to escape women’s oppression—period. She believes that once true equality is achieved in society, humankind will be genderless. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t predict human behavior in a distant future. But I know what she’s thinking—if we can build a more just society, people like me will cease to exist. She assumes that I am simply a product of oppression. Gee, thanks so much.
I have lived as a man because I could not survive openly as a transgendered person. Yes, I am oppressed in this society, but I am not merely a product of oppression. That is a phrase that renders all our trans identities meaningless. Passing means having to hide your identity in fear, in order to live. Being forced to pass is a recent historical development.
I think that’s what the author wants to challenge; with gender withering away, then trans people will simply cease to exist - not as people of course, people will still be born with consciousness (sapience? I’m not sure how you call it in english), but their gender will cease to exist, and what will they be? The author’s theory is that being trans is not only important to them, but precedes patriarchy and thus gender abolition will not fix oppression - gender is not the product of oppression and can exist without it.
I do agree, personally, that it’s a very far off event, but I have also changed my mind on whether it’s “important” to talk about now. By which I mean, I used to think that because it was so far off, then it wasn’t really urgent to worry over it - it will happen long after I’m dead, there’s nothing to it now. But I have since changed my mind after I saw for myself gender abolitionists who are ultimately transphobic, and they didn’t come to this conclusion by accident. Can we say that they are only using gender abolition to confirm their transphobic views? Maybe, but it’s still important to talk about and understand gender, because trans people (and non-binary people) exist right now.
Thank you for adding your critique, but just to be clear it’s not my essay haha.
On the definition of social construct, the wikipedian definition actually makes the case that it is “fake”. Yes, social constructs are real in that they exist in the material world. The definition wikipedia provides however puts them at odds with independent reality, i.e. objective reality, implying that gender or other social constructs don’t have an objective reality to them.
In another ressource I read to see what the ‘laymen’ so to speak (non-marxists) say of social constructs, they posited that money was a social construct, but we know it as a commodity. To call money a social construct is certainly helpful to open the topic, but it’s also insufficient to only call it a social construct. Through these shortcomings a lot of diverging in thought can happen, and lead people to widely different conclusions.
Not everyone in the ‘social construct camp’ is transphobic (and I’m not accusing anyone here of being one to be clear!), but an alarming amount of people are when it comes down to it - I didn’t believe it before I saw them for myself. That is because if it’s solely a social construct, then where do trans and non-binary people fit on it? Did their gender come about as a result of social interactions or is it in the self? A lot of trans people will say they knew their gender before they even knew about gender roles, rather in their case it was gender roles that was forced upon them to conform, but not gender itself. Even when made to perform as cis, they still know they are trans.
I think this is the distinction the author is making, or as a question: did gender conform to the social construct, or did the social construct (gender roles, patriarchy, etc) conform to gender? In the first case, it means that gender is a product of oppression and exists to exploit people and labor. In the other, it means the social construct arose from objective reality. I don’t know if I’m being confusing - if we take societies that recognized more than two genders for example, the ‘common’ view is that they had different social constructs. But my scenario is rather that they recognized the real existence of more than two genders and fit the social part around that objective existence. Basically one came before the other.
I’d be happy to hear more! In butlers influential essay, they describe gender as “stylized repetition of acts through time”, but I am not sure what exactly repeated refers to here: repeated by the individual or societally reproduced over centuries or what.
This is why I said this definition leaves no room for the self. What of gender fluid people? It conflates gender roles with gender itself - or at least that’s how people usually read it.
Gender being a social construct doesn’t make it less real
On the contrary I would say, the definition of a social construct (it’s not solely a Marxist thing) means that it is literally invented reality. Yes, it’s real in that materially speaking, we can tell the social construct exists in the material world. I had another argument I wanted to add but I forgot before I could type it down lol so I’m leaving this like this and if I remember I’ll add it*
Thanks but it’s not mine!
I don’t know if there’s anybody who hasn’t come to the same conclusion lol but ultimately, after (re-)reading and retyping my thoughts over and over, I come to two conclusions:
This is a problem of capitalism but it’s also not saying much. The crux of the matter is copyright law and competition.
On the one hand copyright law is so backwards and outdated (thank Disney) that the only way they could do this was to discard the books after scanning them. Cutting books, known as destructive scanning, used to be for a long time the only viable way to digitized books. With new methods however you can certainly do it without destroying the book, but many of these methods are patented.
The other side of the coin is that these AI companies “need” to put out better, faster models all the time to stay in competition. It’s a fast-evolving industry with similarly cut-throat competition. If you fall behind, people stop using you and you don’t find funding.
In higher-stage socialism, all of this would have basically been prevented. The SOE(s) responsible for AI research would have been told to preserve books even if it takes longer, or even find more efficient ways to train their models. There also wouldn’t be such a rush to put out marginally better models just to stay at the cutting edge. deepseek showed it’s possible to get a good model based on an original “cutting edge” model. Which means you only need the cutting edge model once, then you can decline it differently.
Pretty cool. This will provide the yearly power needs for 2 million people in a country of 20 million for reference.
Without wanting to get ahead of myself, I think so yes. I heard they provide a lot of government services in the south of Lebanon.
Much of what western internet “thought leaders” peddle is rebrands of old things
Rebrands of old things they stole from the Black community even
It’s a good exercise! The tough part in anything is always moving from theory to practice.