:up:

A Scanner Darkly is next on my list. Or maybe I should go back to his earlier period first. I haven’t read Dr. Bloodmoney...

I think A Scanner Darkly was his best, or at least, tied with Ubik, certainly not worth watching the animated film of Scanner, it was garbage. The novel is fantastic, and his best prose by far.

Dr. Bloodmoney I remember liking quite a bit but remember very little of it. I went on a binge and read 14 of his books in 3 weeks, so, that might be the reason.

I think he has good stuff in all his periods, though I personally did not think too much of his VALIS work. But ymmv.

Cool, Scanner has been on the docket for too long for me. I liked VALIS, but it is bizarre. I don't think I understood it (not sure if it can be). But I want to re-read it. I actually felt that The Divine Invasion was excellent; I think it's overlooked. The atmosphere he creates in the last act reminds me of UBIK. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer I couldn't get through.

Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism by Peter Hudis

I'm curious how you find Hudis' read of Marx's corpus. Have you read After Capitalism by David Schweickart? If not, I can't recommend it more highly, comrade.

Reconstruction in Philosophy
by John Dewey

I have read it, you actually recommended it to me a long time ago (I think like 2012)! It's been about a decade since I've read it though, so might need to re-read and compare with Hudis' view.

:cool:

December readings ...

• The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III, Peter Byrne
• The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy
• Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy

Lord Foul's Bane
by Stephen R. Donaldson

Lord Foul's Bane
by Stephen R. Donaldson — Pantagruel

Nice to see this show up here. I have the whole set of Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. One of my favourite antiheroes :smile:

My favourite fantasy series, alongside the Deathgate Cycle.

I'm curious how you find Hudis' read of Marx's corpus. Have you read After Capitalism by David Schweickart? If not, I can't recommend it more highly, comrade. — 180 Proof

I finished Peter Hudis' book and found it to be a well-grounded, well-reasoned, at at times an eye-opening reading of Marx's work and perspective. Per the title of the book, Marx does not delineate concrete mechanisms or detailed institutional forms that would comprise a post-capitalist, socialist society. Rather, Marx provides some conceptual lodestars. The most concise summary I can offer is that Marx's concept of the alternative to capitalism centers on the production process and humanity's social relationship to it. Marx wishes to flip the script so-to-speak, or inverse the subject-predicate logic that infests our current socio-economic horror show. Rather than value-production dominating and alienating the wage-labor that creates it, as we see in capitalism, the "total aggregate product" of a free and democratic association of labor "is a social product", which "remains social to renew or reproduce the means of production" or is consumed by individuals as subsistence as determined by "labor-time" (crucially distinct from socially necessary labor time, which is unique to the capitalist mode of production). The distribution and application of the social component to the social product requires conscious and democratic discussion and debate, the form of which Marx does not articulate or detail (aside from being "democratic) as the organization is up to the free association of producers.

Alternatives which fundamentally center on distribution, the abolition or alternatives to the market or private property, will continue to rely on a core constituent of capitalism, value-production, and its autonomous force that eclipses the autonomous power of free and democratic association of labor which is why (among other things) Marx wouldn't have called the USSR "socialist", "communist" etc. ("Capital without Capitalists").

Turning to David Schweickart's work, which as I said before I haven't read in about a decade and have recently just skimmed the section on the basic model of Economic Democracy. I think there are some elements that Marx would agree with and much that he would not. Focusing on the latter, most significantly, I think Marx would criticize Schweickart's "Social Control of Investment" as driven by the anarchic and autonomous force of value-production and therefore not centered of the free association of producers. As Schweickart himself states, "I use the term socialist to refer to any attempt to transcend capitalism by abolishing most private ownership of means of production". Marx would disagree on this appellative change as the abolition of private property does not entail the abolition of capital, and therefore its autonomous force of value-production remains intact. "Private property," writes Marx, "is the result, the necessary consequence of alienated labor". The "conceptual pivot" of Marx, writes Hudis, "the heart of the problem is abolishing capital itself, by ending the estrangement in the very activity of laboring."

Marx's conceptualization of the alternative to capitalism remains quite abstract, which I'm sure some might find unsatisfying. However, perhaps this is the price we pay now, for a future which will hopefully be deliberated, debated and exercised among and centered on a free and democratic association of social producers. I'll have to reread Schweickart's After Capitalism again this winter and chew on this more.

The Civil War in the Unites States, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels edited by Andrew Zimmerman

Thanks for the precis. From my studies of Marx decades ago there doesn't seem much new or applicable to the real world in Peter Hudis' account. Schweickhart, being both a philosopher and economist, makes much more sense to me with his very concrete, historically-situated, post-capitalist conjecture.

This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, Charles E. Cobb Jr.

Old Gods, New Engimas: Marx's Lost Theory by Mike Davis

Oneself as Another
by Paul Ricœur

Keen to read this as it is relates to my own 'core hypothesis': as individual thinkers we are critically limited by our (in)ability to project absolute freedom on others, the ultimate cognitive bias, thus are prevented from realizing that power ourselves, through the inexorable logic of reciprocity.

My favorite books, books that influenced me the most, and books that blew my mind:

• "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.
• "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People" by John LeCarre.
• "The Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu.
• "The Panda's Thumb" and other books of collected essays on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould.
• "Freedom, not License" by A.S. Neil.
• "Subtle is the Lord" a scientific biography of Einstein by Abraham Pais.
• "The Collected Poetry of Robert Frost".
• "Life's Ratchet" by Peter Hoffman.
• "Self-reliance" by R.W. Emerson.
• "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood.
• "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov.
• "The Autobiography of a Slimy Weasel" by Donald Trump Jr.
• "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.
• "The Culture of Narcissism" by Christopher Lasch.
• "Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake.

Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake — T Clark

Yep there is nothing quite like this trilogy.

Old Gods, New Engimas: Marx's Lost Theory by Mike Davis — Maw

Looks interesting. :up:

I've heard a lot about Mike Davis and he passed away last month so figured I should finally check him out.

December readings:

• The Age of Blue, Yukio Mishima.
• The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide.
• Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Kenzaburo Oe.

Re-reading: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Yukio Mishima.

Re-reading: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Yukio Mishima. — javi2541997

:up:

Lady Joker (Volume 2) by Kaoru Takamura

Still re-reading Locke's Essay, been having lots of trouble concentrating this second time around - fantastic book though, worth re-evaluation imo.

Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 by Mark Greengrass

Just read Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. To begin with I found it a bit annoying, and even once I got into it I thought it was kind of forgettable and ephemeral. Then in the second half it became more involving, and now I've finished it I miss it. In any case it's a lot of fun and paints a picture of a world I knew little about (early seventies Los Angeles, the tail end of the hippie dream). So I'll give it the much-coveted :up: :sparkle:

Before I take on the monster that is his Against the Day, I'm currently reading Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov.

I'd suggest V or GR before Against the Day. It can be a real possibility that this latter book will erode your endurance. It's not a bad book by any means, but it far inferior to V and GR. V is probably his most fun book.

But good luck with whatever you choose. Inherent Vice was quite fun.

I'd suggest V or GR before Against the Day. It can be a real possibility that this latter book will erode your endurance. It's not a bad book by any means, but it far inferior to V and GR. V is probably his most fun book. — Manuel

Thank you for this excellent advice, which I have decided to ignore. :grin: