And what exactly is the argument? Have Palestinians left off teaching their children that Jews murder Arab babies and drink their blood? Or have Palestinians left off their desire to drive the Israelis into the sea? Has Hezbollah or whatever the terror organization of the moment is left off their violence? Have Israel's neighbors decided they can welcome and live with them, instead of trying to annihilate them?

If I'm Israel and they insist on rocketing me and murdering mine - can you say Yassar Arafat, or Munich? I evict them all and give them sixty days to be gone! Maybe ninety, but gone. But maybe I'm behind the times. Have the Palestinians made any substantive efforts to live peacefully with the Israelis?

I do not question that Palestinians have a tough go at the hands of Israelis, but have they not earned it many times over? Or even can the Israelis afford to be less vigilant? It seems to me that the Palestinians have worked hard to ruin a generation of their own, and more, and it is hard to see it becoming truly peaceful until they and there Arab allies change their ways - and when will that happen! — tim wood

This is outright insane

Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Freud

The Ego and The Id by Freud (rereading)

Just reading some more Hegel right now

RIP Ronnie

Time, Capitalism and Alienation. A Socio-Historical Inquiry into the Making of Modern Time by Jonathan Martineau

This is how you know January 6 could not be considered a seriously attempted coup

Very interesting, thanks for the concise review, I'll have to add them both to my list!

That said since Covid I've started a tradition of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai on NYE

I do love 2001 A Space Odyssey, but Barry Lyndon is Kubrick's best imo

Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality, and Advertising in Capitalist Society by W.F Haug

Seriously? — praxis

It's certainly imperfect, I had some mostly minor issues with it, but I thought Lana generally nailed the message she was going for, and it was a very touching movie, rare for most action/sci-fi films.

Just saw Licorice Pizza, loved it

Watched the new Matrix movie on HBO last night. Reeeeallly bad. — praxis

Wrong

By the way I was curious to rediscover older reading list of mine from years back (obviously this thread only goes back to 2015) and was able to dig up the original Currently Read thread from 2014, for those interested.

Anything's beach reading if you have some shade! — StreetlightX

Waves look good hope you got some body surfing in

How would a business legitimately form in your opinion? — schopenhauer1

That's irrelevant to the topic of the OP where there is no mention of socialism or any other economic alternatives to capitalism. We are discussing the conditions and relationship between the capitalist class and wage laborers, i.e. the "arrangement" between capitalists and workers. Considering that you continue to bypass what I'm saying and are pivoting the argument towards theoretical socialist arrangements, seems like you tacitly accept my premise that the social arrangement of Capitalism is unjust.

I'm very excited

but are more likely to be.. Looks like something like 44% of US economy and represent 2/3 of net new jobs. But again, why is the wage laborers precarity something that is the capitalist's fault for starting something of their own? — schopenhauer1

2/3rds of "net new jobs" means nothing outside of an absolute number of new jobs relative to total jobs and time period, neither of which you offered. According to WSJ, as of 2014, majority of US wage laborers work for a business of more than 100 employees, i.e. "small business". Likewise, if small business represents 44% of the US economy, that means large 56%, a majority, is generated by larger businesses. And according to the paper which I assume you hastily got these numbers from, the proportion is being generated by small businesses is being outpaced by larger businesses. So to rephrase your second sentence, why are conditions for the wage laborer being determined by, according to your own argument, petite bourgeoisie? Why are the systemic conditions of domination and precarity conditional on a contingent of small capitalists whose relationship to obtaining capital remains, in your abstract argument, unknown?

But the capitalist side will just say that the reason the capitalist is the capitalist (barring CEOs that are just figurehead types.. we are talking were in the muck hawking wares from the company's inception as a sole proprietor/worker) because they were able to pull of investing and growing the company from its beginning. The other workers are welcome to try their hand at this.. — schopenhauer1

Right, so this is where my "a number of issues by premising your argument on this arrangement" comes into play. What you are describing is not veridical to the current conditions of Capitalism. Most wage laborers aren't working in companies where the business owner "grew the company from the beginning" by taking a risk. It's also irrelevant to my point, because the Capitalist, regardless of risk, still finds wage laborers in a condition of precarity.

CEOs/business owners provide incomes, healthcare, and even vacations for their employees. They can move to a new CEO/business owner's domain (business) if they want. What is wrong with this arrangement? Things to consider:

1) The business owner (if a smaller business) gambled his own time, resources, and money (or debt) to generate the capital to start his/her business.

2) The workers are getting market-value salaries that sustain their survival and entertainment, rents/mortgages, food, clothes, HVAC, water, healthcare, car payments, disposable income for goods/services of all kinds.

3) The basis for technology is businesses interacting with other businesses to gather the goods/services to create products that sell and sustain their workers.

What is wrong with this arrangement? — schopenhauer1

There are a number of issues by premising your argument on this arrangement, but I'll cut to the chase. The socialist issue contra Capitalism isn't uniquely derived from problems of distribution, e.g. wages, private healthcare, PTO etc. that the business provides to the wage laborer. The primary issue, as your title implicitly states, is the domineering and exploitative conditions in which the wage laborer finds themselves are systemic. They have no choice but to sell their labor power to the capitalist in order to "sustain their survival...rents/mortgages, food, clothes, healthcare"...in a nutshell, to reproduce themselves daily. Thus, the ability for the wage laborer to reproduce themselves remain conditional and determined by the capitalist class, beyond the (democratic) control by the wage laborers themselves. It is an economic system predicated on vulnerability via the inherent asymmetric relationship of power between the capitalist and individual (key word, individual) worker.

Nice list, never ceases to impress and perplex me on how you manage to read over 40 books a year, each year.

Loved Family Values; the chapter on Inflation was particularly enlightening.

About 1/3 through Theories of Ideology by Jan Rehmann (excellent btw), which will likely be the last book I start in this year, so time for another annual roundup.

• Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages by Ellen Meiksins Wood
• Liberty and Property: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Renaissance to Enlightenment by Ellen Meiksins Wood
• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
• The Origin of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood (reread)
• Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo
• The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature by Franco Moretti
• Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property: Capitalism and Class Conflict in American History by Steve Fraser
• How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism by Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu
• Portraits: John Berger on Artists by John Berger
• The Pristine Culture of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
• Democracy Against Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
• Studies On Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production edited by Andrea Zingarelli and Laura da Graca
• What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 by historian Daniel Walker Howe
• Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic: A Reexamination edited by Fred Moseley and Tony Smith
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? by Neil Davidson
• The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins
• Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai
• Bela Tarr, the Time After by Jacques Rancière
• Monsters of the Market Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism by David McNally
• Faust by Goethe
• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
• Chasing Homer by László Krasznahorkai
• Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper
• Comments on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
• Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
• None So Fit to Break the Chains: Marx’s Ethics of Self-Emancipation by Dan Swain
• Theories of Ideology by Jan Rehmann

But of course, if you print so much money, you will get inflation. And finally that has happened. Inflation. — ssu

Holy fuck batten down the hatches inflation has hit everyone. Inflation. The dreaded "I-word". I'm crying and screaming. Inflation. I'm in fetal position and shitting my pants. Inflation. I'm calling my mom and telling her I love her. Inflation. The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides. Inflation. And a dark wind blows. Inflation. The government is corrupt. Inflation. And we're on so many drugs. Inflation. With the radio on and the curtains drawn. Inflation. We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine and the machine is bleeding to death. Inflation. The sun has fallen down and the billboards are all leering and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles. Inflation. It went like this: Inflation. The buildings tumbled in on themselves. Inflation. Mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble and pulled out their hair. Inflation. The skyline was beautiful on fire. Inflation. All twisted metal stretching upwards. Inflation. Everything washed in a thin orange haze. Inflation. I said: "kiss me, you're beautiful - These are truly the last days of not inflation" You grabbed my hand and we fell into it like a daydream or a fever. Inflation. We woke up one morning and fell a little further down - For sure it's the valley of death I open up my wallet and it's full of blood because of inflation.

Why would anyone listen to a US military general who has served in the last 30 years

Lol

None So Fit to Break the Chains: Marx’s Ethics of Self-Emancipation by Dan Swain

:up:

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson

these sound interesting

Comments on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

It was good to hear the verdict because the American justice system is usually a woke joke. — NOS4A2

Dog brain

Michael Roberts - The Long Depression: How it Happened, Why it Happened, and What Happens Next. A defense of Marx's thesis on the 'tendency of the rate of profit to fall', in light of the post-2008 world economy. — StreetlightX

:gasp:

The approach of coddling state — OscarTheGrouch

lol just going to throw my hands up at this one

Objectivism is attractive to me given the current state of the world. It is empowering to internalize some of her concepts like: "money being a manifestation of ones best efforts", "action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical", "celebration is for those who have earned it", etc.. Objectivism has empowered my individuality. It has helped me organize my thoughts and default to reason whenever I feel overwhelmed or exhausted.

This is me explaining a bit of what I have gained from objectivism not as a defense of it but as a statement about why I have appreciated my first foray into philosophy. I understand many of you may think of objectivism as blasphemy so please give me the next logical step in my philosophical journey. I would greatly appreciate thoughtful recommendations on texts to begin reading. — OscarTheGrouch

Objectivism is useless, especially as a starting point for a "philosophically journey", as Ayn Rand had an exceptionally naïve grasp on philosophical questions and concerns, and the shallow understanding of socio-economic conditions of Capitalism that she voraciously advocated. This is in part stemming from the fact that she wasn't well read. She likely didn't venture far from Aristotle and Nietzsche and had a poor grasp of both.

Statements like "money being a manifestation of ones best efforts", "action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical", "celebration is for those who have earned it" etc. read like platitudes from a self-help book, rather than serious philosophical concepts.

I do suppose that Objectivism can sound attractive because in some ways it is reflective of the state of the world, and I mean that in a very dire sense.

Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
Chasing Homer by László Krasznahorkai

Thanks for reminding me this was coming out in English, just picked it up. Interesting concept.

He's upcoming for me later this year. I hear he's excellent. — Manuel

I admittedly don't read a lot of novels but I do love me some Krasnahorkai.