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A dialogue between Marxist and Magic Theory

  
  

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jbsay
00:13 / 20.06.05
On a slight tangent, I would like to suggest that the Tao te Ching was the first magical capitalistic text, and to open the discussion to a compare/contrast with Marxian writings.
 
 
jbsay
00:45 / 20.06.05
The only way the Marxist theory makes any sense to me is as a magical meme, couched in Orwellian doublespeak to hide the true objective, whose purpose is the formation of the Omnipotent State and the enslavement of mankind (presumeably at the hands of bankers). As empirical evidence I’d point you towards what happened in every single communist/socialist utopia (Stalin/Hitler/Mao/Pol Pot/Castro/Mugabe/etc) and the enormous rise of killings post-Marx (two world wars, and new records for hundreds of millions of citizens killed at the hands of their governments). I’m only half-joking about the killer Marx meme, but the only economic thing that Marx got right in all his writing was that, to paraphrase, “it’s all about the money”.

In particular, I’m referring to the Communist Manifesto. I’d like to call attention to Plank 5, innocuously perched right in the middle of the manifesto. It is arguably the single most important plank of the entire manifesto, and the rest of the manifesto is just a Trojan Horse for centralizing money and credit. Once money and credit are centralized, whoever controls the monopoly on money controls the entire economy and everyone within it. You can buy off votes and politicians simply by printing money out of thin air.

Given that context, let’s review the 10 planks (all of which have been implemented in America)

First Plank: Abolition of property in land and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
-slave labor.

Second Plank: A heavy progressive or graduated incometax
-slave labor

Third Plank: Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
-All property reverts back to the government on death. Slave labor, and total government control over all resources.

Fourth Plank: confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
-The confiscation of property and persecution of those critical - "rebels" - of government policies and actions. A little tyrannical if you ask me.

Fifth Plank: Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
-enough said. The most evil sentence written in the history of mankind.

Sixth Plank: Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
-centralized propaganda and indoctrination, to convince citizens they are free and mold public opinion
-limit transportation so that the citizens cant find out the truth or be exposed to new ideas.

Seventh Plank: Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
-slave labor

Eighth Plank: Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture.
-slave labor

Ninth Plank: Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country
-slave labor and social engineering

Tenth Plank: Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
--mandatory public schooling, which allows the Omnipotent government to indoctrinate children from an early age
“Give me a child for the first seven years, and you can do what you like with him afterwards”
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:55 / 20.06.05
Yay!
 
 
All Acting Regiment
09:44 / 20.06.05
Interesting post but there's some things that need adressing. Hitler was never a socialist. It was admitted that the "Socialist" part of National Socialist (Nazi) was inserted as a trick to get the maximum number of votes. He had no socialist policies. Mugabe is not a socialist, he's a nationalist.

enormous rise of killings post-Marx (two world wars)

That enormous rise in killings was extant primarily because of new weapons technology developed in the heavily capitalistic Industrial Revolution, which was about as far from an emancipation of people as you can get.

The first world war was started by and fought primarily between the Old European Empires, not Communists. Communism only gained ground as a reaction to this mass aristocracy-and-bourgoise-endorced killing.

The second world war was fought between the remaining old powers, Nazism, and Communism. I will accept that much of the combat death from WW2 was caused by communist forces, and yes, Stalin allied with Hitler at the start. However, Hitler's Nazi Germany was by far the primary beligerent in this conflict.

I would also remind you of the 10 million West Africans killed, very much pre-marx, by purely capitalistic European powers in the 19th century. And that number is a very conservative estimate.

and new records for hundreds of millions of citizens killed at the hands of their governments.

Yes, mostly by Hitler and Stalin. Hitler, who you seem to beleive was a Marxist, was a Nazi. Hitler killed Marxists. Stalin was a communist, I give you that, but again, 50% of this violence was caused by the Right, not the Left. The Atomic Bomb was dropped by America, also not a communist country.

I totally agree with you in terms of communism as a tool abused by dictators to take immoral levels of state control over their people. I don't beleive- I'm unsure as to whether or not you do- that this was Marx's original intention.

I also see your point that Communism/Marxism has been involved in much of the extreme violence of the 20th century. I just don't accept that this violence is the goal of communism, or that communism is/is only a tool for evil.
 
 
jbsay
10:57 / 20.06.05
Not to get into threadrot re: National Socialism v. Marxism, but i'll say that both advocate State (public) control over the means of production, so economically they are identical and have the same effect.

Without a central bank printing money, wars have to be financed out of taxes, and would thus end much sooner. The international bankers were financing all sides of the war. How else could Hitler finance a war, when his economy was in ruins and currency decimated?

But those are threadrot--I'd like to know a) if people agree the communist manifesto is a meme, magical or otherwise and b) if they think the meme program (let's use the 10 planks) is positive/negative.
 
 
Bruno
16:41 / 20.06.05

In Capitalism each Individual is sacred .

It could have fooled me.

Look I am not going to continue this discussion with you, but to make something clear, Marxism as such is much more than the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, both of which I agree have very little to offer. Check other thinkers and texts mentioned above, if you are interested.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
07:57 / 21.06.05
Let's move this thread back in the direction of Magic.
 
 
jbsay
00:01 / 01.07.05
Back to the magick thread--if you use Marx as part of your magickal workings are you un(sub?)consciously helping to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat? That's kind of the whole point right? And if so, how do you guarantee that the dictatorship will then wither away on the vine? Why will the dictator surrender power once he has a taste of it? What if his/her Will is stronger than yours at that point, since he has the full backing of the populace?

(ignore this if its threadrot).
 
 
madhatter
08:07 / 01.07.05
jbsay: national socialism and marxism i find BY NO MEANS comparable. you argue they both advocate the control of the state over the productipon process, BUT that is to short.

national socialism works on the ideology of the exceptional work of the national capitalists, that export as much as possible and import as few as possible, while the workers are kept in their slave-like condition by th emeans of racial ideology. the "state" in national socialism is a cartell of the high-burgeois class with some influence by the military as the biggest possible buyer of the things industry has to offer.

on the other hand, marxist theory states thet the state is to be overcome in future. the "state" of soviet russia was intended to overconme trhe idea of state, to transcend into a loose network of self-controling and solidarily cooperating units, be them factorys, "farms" (kolchoses and sowchoses) or cities. the whole thing went terribly wrong, yes, but the word "state" here means something different: it does not mean "a territory over which a few rich held power and that is there for their interests" as in natioonal socialism, but "the little central administration we need until we are ready to dispense even that". which makes a big difference.

only that both things are called states, does not make them the same. language is ideology too, and thus, open to exactly that kind of manipulation.

to your question: out of said reason (keep an ideology/language about things in the minds, and it'll influence the ways people act), my answer to the meme-thing is yes.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:00 / 01.07.05
there is another distinction you could draw, communists and nazis both have very different ways of approaching hermeticism as prescribed by the masons, masons were involved for example in the russian revolution, where as both hitler and musolini were fervently anti masonic, hitlers associates and there mysticism reflect a form of enslavement, the russian revolution ideas were influenced by bakunin, whos aspirations were towards human liberation, the ideas of fraternity and equality and brotherhood, were ment to play a large part in the russian revolution.
 
 
Bruno
13:19 / 30.07.05
(Bruno says:
In Marxism (or any branch of Socialism that advocates public ownership of the means of production) the State is sacred--the individual Will is subsumed by the Will of the State (i.e. a small group of individual Wills).

Public ownership of the means of production is not the same as the State. While there have been many interpretations of Marx which favor a centralized State, there are many others who follow anarchist and syndicalist models (also more recently involving direct decision-making via electronic networks). Madhatter's post is onpoint.

Value is consumer valuations, and the relative prices of goods and services are determined by the extent and intensity of consumer valuations and desires for these products.

There are basic needs (nutrition, housing etc) and then, once these have been attained (for everyone) then there are extra goods and services. Any advertiser will tell you that, right now, most consumer desires are not made on a rational basis. Advertising is a form of black magick, if you like. Desires tend to be a confused conditioning of the ego-complex rather than movement of Will.

I would like to suggest that the Tao te Ching was the first magical capitalistic text

There are monarchist and anarchist interpretations of it too.

The only way the Marxist theory makes any sense to me is as a magical meme

How about the 'meme' that "communism=Leninist-Stalinist oligarchy" that both sides of the Cold War have spread into so many heads?

I take back the bit in my post (here http://www.barbelith.com/topic/21110/from/35#post460967) about Das Kapital. It is definitely an important text but it does contain errors. I have not read all of it.

Back to the magick thread--if you use Marx as part of your magickal workings are you un(sub?)consciously helping to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat? That's kind of the whole point right? And if so, how do you guarantee that the dictatorship will then wither away on the vine? Why will the dictator surrender power once he has a taste of it? What if his/her Will is stronger than yours at that point, since he has the full backing of the populace?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is bad phrasing. Ultimately what it means is that, in a communist world, everyone will be a proletarian, a worker (i.e. there will be no exploiters/exploited). Decisions will be made colectively, by everyone, rather than by the interests of a single class or oligarchy.
(In more magickal terms this is quite similar to N'Aton, the united consciousness of humanity. Marx in his earlier writings describes communism as the resolution of the conflict between the personal and the social. Also as the realization of humanity's species-being.)

I accept that there is an authoritarian tendency within some of both Marx's and Engel's writings. Nobody is perfect.

The best text describing anarcho-communism I have read by far is the novel "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Leguin.)
 
 
macrophage
02:51 / 31.07.05
Love it!! I'll never ever forget the days I discovered Larry Law and the Spectacular Times - GB Situationism far precedes the Pseudo_Intellectualism of the European Enclaves, you know all Words and Art but at least the Euros (decendants of the Provos, get yer Situationists History books out) did get active to Grassroots Level!! It gave a kick up my arse to my green anarcho cum class war theories it did!! "On the poverty of everyday life" a passionate and priceless tome of a critique labelled at a disparate consumner led society! I don't truck fuck with Marxists though I have done so fair's fair!! I'm still an anarchist inverted snob - I don't like vanguardists they are elitist and hey they like to send their stewards in to beat up the anarchist rentamob heheheh ;-) I wouldn't like to truck with people who can't grok stuff like situationism and anarchist idioms - to me magick means libertianism, NOT obeisiance to a Union Jack or anything like that!!! Commodity Fetishism lies all around look at the Logos Cultures and Beat Up the Jone's cultures! The Situationists carried alot to modern agit prop culture that hangs around the edges trying to change the ideosphere slowly and surely. Look at King Mob fucking great shoplift and loot til you drop and look at Decadent Action and the Neoists and Stewart Home, even the Great PooBah Iian Sinclair extols Situationism to the 33rd degrees! To me Marxism sucks the fire has burnt out and so has Maoism, belief tools that became sad reflections of fascist dicatorships and of Donkey Jacketed Students who are memebots til they become Post Grads and get a posh job!!! Never more so seems the urgency for an iconoclasm and all right heresy - politics is fucking up its back passage!!! I have a friend who can spout quotes from Raoul and all of them - I can't even remember alot of their names. Good on them!!! I respect the Left but they sell out us all out in the end - look at what happened to the Kropotkin Uprising!! I've lived on anarchist run squatted estates that have no police involvement that have been relatively safe bar the old mugger from another estate! I've lived for years on temporary autonomous zones called traveller sites we've held the biggest parties and supplied the cheapest of carpet rugs, lived in Europe stayed with Autonomes in West Germay (fucking hard causers), etc. To bring a system to its arthiritic knees Tony ahem we must organise ourselves into packs and tribes and become autonomous. I'd sign off again if I knew where I could get some decent agri-work to hell with their NI contribs!!! Just like the old days - invisible and working in cells impenetratable to the goons of Capital Coercion and Control the Electric One Eyed God Servitor Elite.
 
 
macrophage
03:05 / 31.07.05
Communism and its may traits = State Sponsored Capitalism!!
Capitalism = Corporate sponsoreed Capitalism!!! Look how integrated China and esp Russia have become. Give me the CNT or the Zapatista'a anyday!!! I saw someone's poppet that they brung back from Mexico made by the Zapatista's - fucking profound, better than a One World or Oxfam or CHRISTIAN Freetrade bullshit anyday!!! Freezones are what we want for a liminal state of social collectivism and no fucking terror from the terrorists and global elite corporate puppets that most centralised governments have become!!! Rite when do we get onto a regionalism so we can the fuck out of them London based bastards. Fuck devolution we want mass revolutions and people who know a few things or two like the original freemasons and occultists before they became slaves of horrid royalist bloodlines with their poryphiliac dementia so much that they have to play who's got the shotest straw for Euro In Breeding!!! I still respect the Angry Brigades though - read Stuart Christie - this is what we wanted a full on anarchist stuffing of the binds of the Cop Cultures!!!
 
 
macrophage
02:02 / 02.08.05
There's a site just off John Eden's website at www.uncarved.org which has scanned all the Spectacular Times if anone's interested called cournersouls-texts.com I think.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
05:10 / 02.08.05
(*Mod hat* macrophage, is that posting style really the best way to communicate your ideas and opinions?)
 
 
illmatic
06:22 / 02.08.05
I don't think Marrophage is interested in communicating as such though, is he?
 
 
Bruno
11:44 / 01.04.06
Some links with some quotes

Post-Structuralism & Modern Magic by Ed Richardson, Parts I and II. Contains a brief overview of Marxism, among other movements. Maybe good for newbies to Marxist ideas. He notes that "Marxism, like New Age magic, sees social change occurring in a series of epochs."

The Tarot by Rafel T. Prinke. An article from the Black Moon Archives. "I tried to interpret the Major Arcana from the most unsuspected and surprising point of view, i.e. as representing marxist-revolutionary doctrines." "On the whole the Major Arcana of the Tarot show the development of the working man from his original state of class-unconsciousness to the final victory of communism and achievement of universal class-consciousness."

The Occult Roots of the Russian Revolution, a strange essay claiming there were occult (mainly Gnostic) influences on the Bolshevik revolution. A strange site too.

Chaos vs Thelema by Alistair Livingstone. "The whole point of the "iron curtain", was to allow East to develop its alternative economic system, as spelt out by Marx. What is happening now is the incorporation of that economic system into a global economy, which implies the failure of Marxism. This failure leaves a power vacuum. The majority of critiques of the Western power structure have come from Marxism. But if it is now seen to have failed, the possibility exists for a more powerful critique to arise. Where will we find this critique - in magick."
His blog also contains a huge amount of information, some of which is relevent.

Anyone got any more?

-bruno
 
 
Daemon est Deus Inversus
19:59 / 02.04.06
The dialectic fits in very well with the volitization of the fixed and the fixation of the volatile. As efficiencies progress in the means of production, the workers are volitized, releasing the Mercury and the Sulphur, represented by political commisars and the Red Guard, respectively. Obviously, as the volitized substance is now fixed, "As above, so below," there is a recombination which results in a shift in ownership of the means of production.
 
 
Bruno
09:58 / 18.04.06
Some linky links for linkers.

Sheeple and scum and humatons, oh my thread on barbelith with some discussion of false consciousness and historical consciousness; I just wrote a long post on page 5 on historical consciousness.

The Irrational in Politics & The Russian Revolution by Maurice Brinton. Fucking excellent. First part is a criticism of the tendency to overemphasize economic factors in history and presents (via Wilhelm Reich and Engels) an explanation of reactionary opinions and behaviour (the irrational) being caused by sexual repression and family conditioning. Second part is a critique of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in terms of sexual liberty etc.

The Reproduction of Everyday Life by Fredy Perlman; a fairly complete overview of marxist categories (labour power, commodity, alienated labour, etc) with a bit of anthropological and debordian influence.

Marx and the Occult discussion on Occultforums. Very low calibre.
Unpopular Books has been promising a section on Magico-Marxism which has been 'yet to come' for years. Some other good texts though.

A ridiculously large amount of texts by Marxist Writers (including writings by Marx) from marxists.org
Not Bored a good situationist-type zine.
Situationist stuff

Blog by Alistair Livingstone. Most of it is very well written and thought provoking. Here are some I found the most relevent:
April 2nd 2005 (spectacular paganism, Stonehenge, alienation, pseudo-time, false consciousness, long cut-up)
April 10th 2005 (counterculture, change and evolution)
May 3rd 2005 (time without historical consciousness, counterculture and change)
May 7th 2005 (Poll tax riots and revolutionary mysticism)
May 9th 2005 (punk, fetishism, alienation)
May 25th 2005 (dazed by star wars part – historical consciousness and the irrational)
May 27th 2005 (So if you want to see the Spectacle in action, go to http://www.barbelith.com/ !)
June 5th 2005 (Barbelith and the spectacle, spectacle as groundhog day, cut-up, chaos as the spectacular magic of false consciousness)
June 26th 2005 (Debord commentaries on society of the spectacle)
June 28th 2005 (Said’s culture and imperialism, Overlap between imperialism and spectacle)
July 6th 2005 (make poverty history, power and poverty and history)
August 5th 2005 (no future, for globalization)
August 10th 2005 (on being conscious)
October 29th 2005 (crass, historical consciousness)
October 30th 2005 (Crass, Greenham, punk, historical consciousness, replication/reproduction, exploitation of the energy of desire)

[links modified June 24th 2006]
 
 
Bruno
10:03 / 17.01.07
CHAOS MARXISM.
 
  

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