A little off topic, but I remember when Arecibo collapsed and my astro friends didn't seem that worried as "they'll just build it back". I wasn't even fully China-pilled back then, but I knew that from where the largest (full dish) radio telescope was and from where all the astro academic papers we were citing were from that the US was cooked.

I have recently finished Radhika Desai's chapters in her book Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War: A Geopolitical Economy where she mentions a brief history of the fall of the Sterling. I'm sure you've already read it being the news-guy, so I'd definitely be excited to read a follow up on those chapters or the sources she has cited - especially since finance goes over my head and I'd like for it to make sense.

I've been reading parts of the Gundrisse, and there's a section part from Notebook VII, Capital as Fructiferous, that struck me as relevant to the inevitability of underdevelopment for capitalism. The theory nerds here could probably point to some more succinct passage that I've yet to come across, though, or if I'm misinterpreting

The growing incompatibility between the productive development of society and its hitherto existing relations of production expresses itself in bitter contradictions, crises, spasms. The violent destruction of capital not by relations external to it, but rather as a condition of its self-preservation...

... Hence the highest development of productive power together with the greatest expansion of existing wealth will coincide with depreciation of capital, degradation of the labourer, and a most straitened exhaustion of his vital powers. These contradictions lead to explosions, cataclysms, crises, in which by momentaneous suspension of labour and annihilation of a great portion of capital the latter is violently reduced to the point where it can go on. These contradictions, of course, lead to explosions, crises, in which momentary suspension of all labour and annihilation of a great part of the capital violently lead it back to the point where it is enabled [to go on] fully employing its productive powers without committing suicide. Yet, these regularly recurring catastrophes lead to their repetition on a higher scale, and finally to its violent overthrow.

I've seen this argument used before to explain how the destruction of the World Wars benefitted capital, but I haven't come across a discussion w.r.t. general undevelopment (aside from stagnation due to the fuckeries of financialization)

Gorbachev would like a word with you

What is meant by the "fifth stage"? I'm not as up to date as I'd like to be

I see Kudzu here were I am everywhere so I often think about what needs to be done about it. I appreciate your thoughts on this. I agree with state intervention and a forest ministry. It's amazing what a state can do when if actually has the political will :O

To "save face" I'll still relate it to capitalism through our bourgeoisie class having no ability or desire to do anything useful or good for the world except make line go up something something

I'll take a look at R ulmifolius. I love plants and this sounds like a good rabbit hole for the next hour or so!

There are many different interpretations and solutions to the transformation problem (how are values "transformed" into prices). They range from ignoring it, making it more qualitative, reworking the math or definitions of value, etc. I'm not versed enough in all different interpretations, but one that I feel that I "get" and could explain is that offered by Ian Wright. Though his politics are too Trot for me, his correction of the transformation problem makes sense to me and I've wondered about doing a write up on it. It is under the framework of Input Output analysis with natural prices (equilibrium prices that act as an "gravitational attractor" for long term prices, this is also in the sphere of work done by economists such as Sraffa and Pasinetti), and he effectively takes Anwar Shaikh's critique of Sraffa's students (the Neo Ricardians) and applies this critique to their own model to show how the labor values of a good gives you natural prices but it requires care to ensure one is using the appropriate commensurate measure of labor in a commodity.

Effectively his response, and that of Shaikh from what I can tell, is that the profit of capitalists appears as if it comes out of nowhere and can't be explained by the standard definition of labor value in Sraffa's economic model. But the profit that capitalists make (after spending on means of production) get spent back into the economy (in the sphere of circulation) on real use values (say for their class consumption) which have a labor content due to being products of labor. If you "complete that path" of capitalist consumption goods back to their source (labor) and add that labor back into the labor content of a commodity, then boom - labor values march natural prices in Sraffa's own model.

In other other terms: the standard view of a labor value is the amount of labor needed to create one unit of net output (the quantity of goods available for consumption after reinvesting some portion of them as materials for production). So this is labor that's directly required for the production of the unit net good plus labor for the materials required for the unit net good. But, capitalists consume part of this net product and laborers only consume part of it. If the prices of the unit net good matched this measure of labor then prices would be low enough that workers could theoretically buy back with their money-wage their entire net product - leaving none for the capitalists. Some "markup" appears to exist and classical Sraffian model couldn't explain this markup in terms of labor.

But if you measure a "non-standard" labor value (a la Wright) as the amount of labor needed to produce the commodities that only the working class consumes then you get a labor value that also explains this mysterious "markup".

A non-standard labor value counts the amount of labor that is directly and indirectly required to produce a good due to technical conditions, but also the amount of (surplus) labor that is socially/institutionally required by workers to create their real wage (i.e. their consumed product)

I don't claim to understand all of it, or be the best at explaining it. So my apologies for the difficulties. But it is an explanation that meshes with me, and my math-brain seems to get it (the original papers require knowledge of Linear Algebra). It also "cleans up Sraffa's and Pasinetti's economic work and brings that back into alignment with Marx.

Wright also has a dynamic version of this description which better gets at what is usually meant when people say a labor theory of value (the feedback loop between prices, values, and social division of labor)

Dehydration gang stays winning

Yeah I was unpleasantly surprised by their comments. When you value human life that little to the point that you give Hitler a pass because he shares your love of dogs... Shit fascists say

I feel your pain and frustration at having people get sucked into this demonic thinking that the egregore of capital requests. It does feel like people lose or even willingly give up their humanity. I'm thinking of my family who will find any reason to justify cop killings, homeless deaths, imperialism. Maybe it helps with cognitive dissonance in their twisted way as they can't face the challenges of what it would take to change their world and themselves. They were recently mocking the protests too when they were blocking the golden gate bridge? Why? I guess how dare people inconvenience other (white) people, while they're blind to every other injustice in this world. There may as well be an antichrist, as they are following them.

Yeah I just found out about the animation feature. Thanks all for the info. Got a chuckle whenever it refers to Russia as "the enemy"