Why not just call it council democracy or council republic? Why necessarily be so specific to refer to its communal structure when that’s obvious anyways

Fyi phil is a rapist who dodged his accountability process

Hello my friends have you made a video about pannekoek's worker's councils?

This documentary is such an eye-opener! McNamara’s technocratic approach is fascinating but also shows the dangers of relying too heavily on metrics in war. As the article I read puts it: 'McNamara’s reliance on data-driven analysis often divorced policy from the complex cultural, historical, and political realities on the ground in Vietnam.' Source: TheRamparts Substack

this is a fantastic book ... kudos SF!

Excellent video!

I liked this two part series, despite your proclaimed lack of understanding I feel like I understand a bit better what communization theory means. I am interested in which episodes y’all engage with some anarchist leaning texts if any? You seem mildly dismissive of the term but also embrace some of the ideas such as unity of means and ends when presented in different language and I’m interested in how y’all square that circle/if you ever do explorations of that corner of theory? Also: what are ya gonna do? 😂

I found some of the analysis interesting. As Burkean Conservative not sure we have the same end vision in mind. Keep it interesting and I may listen again

Dont make fun of Anarchism you twats

m a socialist. I dont get the obsession with planning. Why would a socialist society need planning? Do you mean rationing? Planning of production? The US is a developed economy. Do you mean for a GND? Who wants to go to a planning meeting every week/month?

I'd say that quantum randomness doesn't necessarily = free will. If my actions are predetermined or randomly generated, either option is no freer than the other. Both lack agency.

Awesome!

Loren 💪❤️

Ellen Meiksins Wood, then Ellen Wood, was George Comninel's PhD dissertation Supervisor, as he clearly states in the 5th and second last paragraph of his Acknowledgements on page viii of this book. I was a student in the PhD course Ellen and her partner Neal Wood co-taught on the state in 1982. (After Neal Wood's death, Ellen formally adder Meiksins family name.) George Comninel was a friend, especially in his support for the strike of graduate students and part time faculty for which I was mobilizing committee chair, and I still have a book of his that I should have returned to him. Please note that Ellen Wood in turn the first person to be acknowledged for his help in her monumental A Social History of Western Political Thought, and also - alongside Robert Brenner - as a "safety checker" of the manuscript of her brilliant The Origin of Capitalism.

Declining population is the only way your communist utopia can ever work. Better able to grow your own programmable worker robots to spread Marxist propaganda that way. Declining populations is not a political problem. It is a human problem. Stop commodifying people's misery.

Returning to this in 2024 after seeing footage of huge piles of dead cattle dumped en masse by the road side all *_absolutely_* infected with H5N1 avian flu in Northern California and just thinking "yeesh"

***SPOILER *** Are you thinking Asmodeus was trying to get Michael to kill Marlas rapist? Doesn’t seem like he’d want to support that guys death, and the talk of crushing someone’s chest in, which is seen nowhere else other than the car wreck, seems to be an important detail. thoughts?

08:30 - clouds unfold is surreal every time i read it. first time the "the book is speaking to you" hits me. In my minds eye, this chapter plays out like a museum guide pointing out the pieces of a painting. Its also our own miniature exploded education and like Earnest, we get our minds blown. 14:46 - like Burt says later, you can delegate upward. 16:17 - I thought it would be god too, and in a sense its a close as we get after the prelude to interacting with the character. On subsequent readings, it makes Mikael's gaze heavier in the earlier chapters. 17:02 18:25 - basking in simple in being calls back to Asmodeus's rant, what it was like before being unfolded. 19:00 - the pantomimes 25:58 - the bits of community we get to see in chapters like Henry George's 27:20 - got it from Mik's vision 28:25 - they're the pond life that the lifestyle eventually gets rid of 29:32 - her moment with the silk worms in the tree was pretty great too 31:38 - wether its the boroughs or Baltimore, we're all saints, we're all sinners. everywhere is Jerusalem. 34:00 - coughed up my coffee there, thank you lol. This chapter is definitely the hardest. Even after reading it, the annotated version(obiwanspicoli Thanks) and listening to the audio, you can still glean new things on repeats. I credit DanikaXIX (comicbookgirl19 on youtube) with getting me through it the first time. Her video breakdown of Jerusalem is right on the money, also did a read-a-long of Dune which was awesome. 37:10 - the most beautiful baby theyd ever seen kinda familiar 38:45 - 2023 saw one book club finally finish Finnegan's wake.. after 28years. NPR had an article. I read, rather tried to read the first few pages and put it down. 46:45 - i see that aspect as moore styling even harder on any remaining doubters. In some other world, the entirety of Jerusalem is encrypted like wake and it takes a generation for anyone to gasp at what the work has progressed to. 49:00 i enjoyed her sparring with jk stephens 50:12 - for every one of us. It takes a villiage 51:39 - the enjoyable portion of psychosis. I agree that its a pleasant state to be in when you believe you're connected to the beyond, not so much when you get wrenched back to reality 56:54 - i think its moore giving love, i haven't read any of Whitney's stuff, i'm looking for a few issues featuring herby specifically, maybe that'll shed some light. 59:22 - reminded me of alma's planned book "we wiz poor, but we wiz cannibals" 1:00:07 - she hears it on the air like a radio out of tune. Id even say you could listen to the song instead of reading the chapter and be almost as confused 1:08:44 - he snags the pool cue and the keys when he leaves the pub. His violence assault is potting balls in pockets. of course he gets away with it, he's the gingerbread boy. The 10/01/24 episode of [The Blindboy Podcast] has an exceptional conversation about the history of money. 1:17:40 - Charles Taylor's campaign slogan stayed with me. I would have liked to see Henry's experience of going upstairs for the first time and seeing that the brand he's been ashamed of his entire life is the very sigil of god. 1:33:10 - its quite the revelation. Both of Henry's chapters are golden. The bit about the zebra was fantastic. 1:35:21 - and for everyone whose life ended up more sour than sweet, you can do like the dead dead gang: Stay out late past a bedtime that will never come. 1:38:09 - I love this chapter too! somewhere theres a world where Jerusalem gets adapted as a stage play and this chapter is a television drama instead. 1:41:23 - one of the great things about this story is the revisiting of scenes from other character's perspective ex- Tommy seeing Celia and Johnny, Benedict and alma being seen by Studs Goodman, Mick and Den running into each other 1:50:08 - i was hoping the first few times that the order of the chapters lined up with a blake poem or something like that, that there would be another message in the words 1:59:20 - great callback to An Asmodeus Flight [“Well, since you ask, no. No, I haven’t always been a devil. When the luminescent halo that is space-time rippled out from non-existence, all at once, then I saw the entirety of my immortal being, which included this benighted period that I must spend in service as a lowly fiend. But how I am now is not how I was back at the start of things, nor is it how I shall be when I’m further down my road. Back at my outset, I was but a glorious part, one of a myriad comprising a far greater entity that basked in simple being, there before the advent of both world and time. I was a builder back then, if you can believe that. Had the white frock and the billiard cue and everything.] 2:03:03 - well said 2:04:03 - reminds me of the swan realization. see 2:09:47 2:15:02 - youtuber @EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse introduced this chapter as a look into the mind of a rough sleeper and I completely agree. His stepping down and the repeated "cause tony blair.." is the start of his impending self torment in the ghost seam. 2:20:40 - him describing the classic ghost story without accepting that he's in one is funny too 2:27:15 - i found his sleuthing very easy to visualize, maybe im a sucker for noire. the car changing every time to match his mood made it feel surreal. I like the idea of moore deciding "yeah, i can do a noire" 2:32:58 - maybe ended up with the rest of the town in the destructor's maw 2:39:46 - And suddenly, poetry. I liked the bit where seeing what poets look like (hello Benedict) he immediately nopes out of it 2:47:30 - benedict has the revelation after alma criticized his work. 2:52:35 - fair criticism though ill admit i cant picture it working any other way. Sexual violence is deplorable, no one will deny that. the density of the descriptions in each character helps you inhabit a very specific space of the mind during reading. to then contextualize each episode with "even this eventually balances out to good" is a real test of eternalism as you hold it. The visceral discomfort intensified the experience. I dont think its as gratuitous as, for example, Tender is the Flesh though thats not the point. It would have been gratuitous to have this level of detail with regards to the violent acts in [Forbidden Worlds] would have been gratuitous . Also agree that after 1200 pages the "wow look at moore doing something different" feels more like "wow you didn't have to do that, man". 2:56:15 - the rapist getting raped. Technically we've seen that happen twice already in the novel, most recently in Den's chapter. Given how time works in the ghost seam, what makes you think that Derek James Warner,42's punishment ends there? or soonafter? We also get to see the carcrash again (we saw it in [Atlantis] beachtoys and all). 2:57:49 - Marla is reborn with that new awareness as Kaphoozelum. 2:59:08 - The Audrey reveal was fantastic! in retrospect, who else would it have been?? Care in the community. The name just waiting for the right person to put it on. 3:05:10 - ends with Freddy going upstairs for the first time. now he feels he's worthy, made up for what he did in life. at peace with who he is. Reggie had the others dragging him up, at the end of his chapter he still tears up, still cant believe he's worthy. 3:07:21 - It winds up being Phyllis Painter, his mom. The paper mashie model of the boroughs with buildings from different time periods i think is the map shown prior to the novels opening. 3:09:44 - The great fire of Northampton gets her to ignite the model's destructor. The two old ladies disappear, the fire has finally run its course. 3:14:44 - The picaso punchline was great! after reading clouds unfold i looked it up its a wild painting! The book two shout to picaso was good, but not like this. 3:21:07 - "I thank the deaf, mute stones of what is left of the Boroughs for all of the work that they have done across the centuries, and all that they have borne. When they at last slump, exhausted, into the dusty sleep of rubble, I hope that this may serve them as an entertaining, vindicating dream. And lastly I thank both the Meaningful Concept of Death and the English Novel for having been such thoroughly good sports about all this. You guys are the greatest." 3:23:35 - psychopathy confirmed

Has anyone read anything similar to Jerusalem? I’m looking for similar recommendations, especially in regards to this idea of eternalism and mind bending things like that.

Yes!!!! It is here!

Sorry this took six months to make lmao

Yes! 3.5hrs… YESSS!!!!!!

Its mainly because you can never reach the utopic period of "workers owning the means of productions" so all they can do after killing wealthy and taking their land and factories, is making them belong to the state, and operated by the state. Which usually ends up getting controlled by one dictator anyway. So in practice, economic and political system of Soviet Union, end up no different than ancient Egypt, where the God/King owned all the land, and gave orders to all population about where they will work, and how much will they get.

According to David Laibman- Chapter 8 of Western Marxism and the Soviet Union, "In Lieu of a Conclusion," The notion that the Soviet Union was capitalist, in van der Linden's view, rests on superficial understandings of Marx's theory, in which capitalism "constituted a unity of several 'moments" (311). So one can, if one likes, single out the form "wage labor," make the "observation" that that form obtained in the Soviet Union, and conclude, from this superficial correlation, that the USSR was "capitalist," ignoring the equally important moment of commodity and competition. van der Linden pointedly - quotes Marx's view of commodity production as "general prerequisite of the capitalist mode of production" and "the generalization of commodity production ... by capitals". Capitalism, in Marx's theory, has rich specificity, multiple determinations. Some capitalism theorists (e.g., Resnick and Wolff) remove that richness from the theory and go in the opposite direction. They treat "capital" as a disembodied force that floats above its arbitrary historical guises of private vs. state property, the commodity form of wage labor or its absence, and market vs. planning. This view also ignores the capitalist character of the technology, and political and legal institutions that guarantee the reproduction of the entire ensemble of capitalist social relations. It amounts to an essentialism that separates capital's essence from its concrete determinations, and in effect capitulates to the bourgeois view in which the categories of capital are de-historicized, rendered eternal. The alternative, best represented among van der Linden's corps of capitalism theorists by Tony Cliff and Charles Bettleheim, is to try to hold onto comprehensive Marxist categories of capital and class, and read those categories into Soviet reality. So if there is to be a Soviet bourgeoisie, it must be shown to be engaged in elemental (unregulated) competition. Where is this competition to be found? In the arms race (Cliff); this is almost too far-fetched to warrant serious consideration. In an interpretation of the Soviet enterprise as an individual unit of capital (Bettleheim); but this, as van der Linden notes, flies in the face of reality, since enterprises in the USSR were clearly part of a hierarchical planning process in which crucial decision elements (over prices, wage rates, assortment of output) were not under their individual control. van der Linden concludes: ". . . not a single theory of state capitalism succeeded in being both orthodox Marxist as well as consistent with the facts" (313). The ‘State Capitalist’ and ‘Bureaucratic-Exploitative’ Interpretations of the Soviet Social Formation: A Critique By David Laibman The Structure of Soviet Socialism: Recent Western Theoretical Approaches David Lane 1984 The Western Left, the Soviet Union, and Marxism review essay By David Laibman Science & Society 2009

Bougie stuff man

Baizuo garbage.

Where can I get the source text?

Oh more LL Men, Hell yeah.

Every “socialist” country maintained wage labor, commodity production, and capital as a social relation

I can't stop hearing "ass pay day", bruh

This was really, really good. Loved it! I can't wait for the next part!!!! For other occult Moore readings there is an essay he wrote called Fossil Angels floating around on the internet about magick and the occult. There is a comic by him as well called Promethea, which is really cool and is all about Western occultism within Moore's framework. Neither go into his eternalism perspective, but IMHO you can see a somewhat evolution about that idea. I'm waiting for his new book on magic to see if this idea has evolved even more. Thanks for the video. Again, great work! Looking up for part 3!

Tony Pancakes time!

hell yeah

From user @fr3nkly who was unable to post these - really useful comments! This whole thing taking place in the 10 minutes of Michael being rushed to the hospital is a thing i hope gets the inception Picture-in-picture treatment. re: moore and eternalism. this was good www.reddit.com/r/AlanMoore/comments/f3f9nv/hermeticism_and_eternalism_two_of_moores_central/? re: The Jewelry during the flight when sam and michael are on their way out of the attics, they see the 'tanks' below play out like film reel. continuous like the cascading cards when you win solitaire, or when your computer crashes and you can drag the window. ill change it when i find the link for the original, for the moment extrapolate from these: www.threads.net/@fritzh8u/post/C0ngiTTun9v instagram.com/reel/C0OwzB4OQeV/ www.reddit.com/r/AlanMoore/comments/194d5vi/perhaps_jerusalem_readers_will_appreciate_this/?share_id=8mPKs4if50XpGs2uOBS9J& 15:32 - Just wait till you get to Round the Bend :) 17:20 - Phyliss losing patience with Michael over the course of that segment. 19:20 - all of mixed up sam o'day's segments in the book are great. when he describes the devils state of being is wonderfully capped off in the first chapter of book 3. 21:30 - protection from "knowing the true name of a thing gives you power over it" while simultaneously being technically honest. 22:18 - literally and figuratively being taken for a ride lol 24:00 - during [ATLANTIS] when Benedict's asks for whom the bell tolls lol 24:51 - During an acid trip iirc. The painting ends up being kind of like the floor tiles in the works, where the pattern is repeated over and over. 26:12 - [ASBOS OF DESIRE] "I’ll tell you, hell for me would just be being stuck in Bath Street here forever, and he’d said, Precisely, and that really fucking freaked her out." Marla's scrapbooking ends up being prophetic. 27:12 - the numerology of digital roots. Tori are dangerous. 28:48 - Like a library or a liminal space. I like to think that you could pop in and out of your life from time to time across the linger. After doing that a bajillion times perhaps the only thing left is [Te wysh folm updint]. As to the demographics of Mansoul, [THE TREES DON’T NEED TO KNOW] has some insight into that. 31:02 - Its us. 33:33 - their arrangement and humors are elaborated during [CLOUDS UNFOLD] 36:39 - Im inclined to agree. I wish the map on the inside cover was more flushed out as to street names, would make it easier to follow the characters around. Linton's Annotation had street maps on some of the chapters. 40:46 - the rest of us, vernals, death mongers, saints (like doderidge), builders, master builders, frit burr. As to saints though, the ending of [THE STEPS OF ALL SAINTS] suggests that all of us are in that category. I think its another level of acceptance. They think saints are above them because they cant accept that they are saints themselves. 42:09 - the two-dimensional reality of Sam's appearance was really cool. *"Perhaps because it had a bull’s head and a ram’s, she found herself reminded of the toy farm animals she’d played with as a little girl. These had been lovely painted illustrations of fat roosters, pigs and cows, printed on shiny paper and then glued to sheets of wood cut to the right shape with a jigsaw. Standing on their slotted wooden bases, they’d been absolutely realistic if you only looked at them side-on. You barely had to change the angle of your view, though, and they’d start to flatten out and look all wrong. " 45:00 - pretty sweet, huh? The idealized version of yourself. Cuts both ways. 46:29 - Much more apparent on the second time round. 47:12 - Tracers while tripping that stick around a little bit longer. Very cool imagery { kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3vIqqZ5ZpyDr6s } is more like a trip, while #1 in that video is how i pictured the tracers in the book. Especially after the description in [ROUGH SLEEPERS] when freddy sees the trilliards game, the Pidgeon comparison. 57:33 - given his meandering, i initially thought that the vernal at the corner was going to the product of one of Snowy's extramarital affairs. Was very pleased with the surprise. 1:00:08 - I really enjoyed [Flatland] the humour in the horror is very well done. The 'faeries' in the corners of Doddridge church was eerie. The end puts me in tears every time I've read it. 1:06:00 - The earwig bit is a fun callback to the end of [UPSTAIRS]. munch, munch, munch... creep, creep, creep. 1:09:29 - And just like that From Hell hops on the TBR. 1:12:30 - Pattsy too i think. 1:17:13 - Mighty's response to Uriel's shot (“Uoricyelnt.”) precipitates Uriel's challenge. The gang burrows up to see this after watching the fight between the Master Builders at the Mayorhold. The chronology of Jerusalem is tangled up. 1:18:43 - And then, suddenly, Cromwell. 1:19:30 - His holy burning glory. 1:21:18 - The walking fireball. John's musing on that in the following chapter I believe point us in the right direction. Its all determined. Everything good or bad all has its place in the tapestry. The same rules get the good kids upstairs. The moral unease we have regarding suicide bombers or any other perceived evil is a consequence of our attachment to this world, a need for Justice. But justice isn't here; Justice is above the street. 1:25:20 - I like the idea that Phyllis digging straight up to John's hobby is her way of soothing him but who knows. 1:25:20 - "Now Snowy noticed that a later branch, the next to last, was also cut short some few decades sooner than his girl-child’s own demise, and wondered if these losses might account for the deep melancholic colouration he could make out at the human tunnel’s furthest end." I think this is the earliest clue about John. 1:32:45 - them calling it 'The twenty-fives' was confusing. Echoed from earlier with Michael not recognizing a digital clock, this time seeing the sardine can thing that Kaph is talking into. 1:33:50 - I read it as climate change. Hints later the J.G.Ballard reference in [CLOUDS UNFOLD] and weather references later in [EATING FLOWERS]. 1:37:48 - I like to think that the picture in [CHOKING ON A TUNE] is Jack. "There was a third picture also, of another man, but Mick had never bothered asking who it was and nobody had ever bothered telling him. Instead, he called to mind the face of the anonymous chap in the picture as a stand-in if somebody mentioned a dead relative he hadn’t known. One week the man might be Gran’s brother, Uncle Cecil, and the next he could be Cousin Bernard, drowned during the war whilst trying to rescue others from a sinking battleship."

These are awesome, thank you so much! I’m excited for Part III

I really enjoyed the content. But its difficult to focus on it if you laugh all the time. I enjoy sarcasm, but the frequency is a bit disturbing and makes it hard to concentrate

Hello sir I'm a student of Political science can you help me to understand some concepts.

At 24:11 u guys are mirroring the way christians talk about the imminent apocalypse lol. Great ep btw, u guys should do even more council communism stuff

fun video you guys ! do you perhaps know any other books or essays covering similar topics (escapism under capitalism, "inherent" problems of fiction media, etc)? im writing an essay on escapism (and making art, specifically games, that have a real tangible maybe radicalizing effect on recipients) right now and just found out about michael moorcock and your video was the first that popped up. Ill def look into his 2 essays and probably read up on marx theory of alienation but other than that im kind of lost in all the pro-escapism essays on the internet, thanks! :3

Just finishing up the last 20 pages of this million+ word behemoth. Yer analysis is superlative and indispensable to bring an enduring coherence to this epic marvel of storytelling. What a ride! Looking forward to yer thoughts on book 3. Totes!

Begins at 26:02

I wonder why haven't you made any content about Palestine after nine months of genocide against Palestinians.

Thank you for saying it out loud, that how stupid McNamara was. So tired of hearing people calling him "an IBM computer with legs" for his intelligence!!!! While the only similarity between him and a computer might be lack of humane intelligence and vision.

Too bad this didn't touch on viability as a concept. A clock is also a system, but a *viable* system can respond to its environment, usually trying to maintain some kind of homeostasis. Also, many viable systems are autopoietic systems, i.e. they reproduce themselves.

I think your definition of a state as "An administrative structure that helps reproduce the social relations of a mode of production" is probably better than the traditional Marxist one, which often twists people into knots over how an advanced communist society would work.

Great podcast and a critically important topic

I found your channel through this interview (still the best Jason Moore video around so congrats), started over from episode 1, and now back up to 85...

Thanks for covering this topic, been meaning to explore it for a while

38:43 I'm totally into scientific socialism. But I also think a necessary part of scientific socialism is "free your mind, and the rest will follow"! That'll give you the tools you need so that even if you don't live in socialism, for now, you'll at least be able to build/grow pockets of socialism in your own environment! And then you can link these to other people's "pockets." hey, could be a start! 🫣

18:04 hey! I'm a member of the masses! All members of the masses can be AN expert in A field! There's room for all!