I recorded the audio file, transcribed below, after writing this to myself: "Need to remind myself to write an essay about two topics. I think I should write one critiquing Huey P. Newton and the other Socialist Workers' Party on their analysis of Malcolm X, particularly when it comes to the petty bourgeoisie. And then another critiquing Marxism from the Leninist perspective and tying it into Dugin, how Marx centered European industrialism and how it's connected to racism, and thoroughly flesh that out. I need to advocate for the petty bourgeoisie, especially for the progressive elements of the petty bourgeoisie, given that different elements of them have different relationships to the forces of production"
also: what's the tie-in with Iran's Islamic Republic?
BEGINNING OF AUDIO RECORDING:
I need to record my thoughts on this because I'm worried I'm going to forget.
I looked up the Marxist analysis, at least from what exists, of Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam,
in terms of the class analysis, and people who tried to identify whether it could be a revolutionary movement.
And Huey P. Newton was of course one person, but then there was someone else. Let me see if I can find the name.
Hold on.
I hope I can find it.
A guy named Cleaver.
No, not Eldridge Cleaver, someone else.
I guess there was George Brightman and Harold Cruz, although I don't know the difference between them.
They were trying to analyze how Malcolm X was able to become a progressive force because Marx and Engels always viewed organizing the lumpen proletariat, which the Nation of Islam did.
They always viewed it as an impossible task. They didn't view the lumpen proletariat as something that could be progressive.
These other guys critiqued them on that.
And their critique was mostly correct. What people have come to realize is that especially because of racism in America, black people were isolated to the ghettos.
And there were a lot of lumpenized elements of them who were not purely antisocial. They were just lumpenized because of racism.
So those who were not antisocial, those who had socialist tendencies organized into the Nation of Islam, and this analysis is correct.
But what they seem to have gotten incorrect is how they viewed the petty bourgeoisie.
They viewed the Nation of Islam as a failure because of its petty bourgeois elements and their sort of communal capitalism.
I think he used the term communal capitalism.
I think this is where the Black Panthers got things wrong.
And maybe they have missed this in Marxism-Leninism. I have to double check.
But even people like Mao, for example, said that the petty bourgeoisie could be a progressive force in history depending on their relationship to the forces of production.
I mean, his analysis is a little crude because he gets into people in a deficit and things of that nature.
Of course, they lack the discipline and solidarity of the proletariat, but they can be recruited as progressive elements of the movement.
And Marxist parties were always dominated in some respect by the petty bourgeoisie. Lenin himself comes from a petty bourgeois background.
A lot of communist leaders do. It's normal. So that's where they got things wrong.
And I guess another footnote to that is Dugin's sort of attack on Marxism as a sort of racist European industrialist ideology, which it is in some ways, right?
But that was its flaw. That's why Marx and Engels couldn't see the progressive elements of the lumpen proletariat.
It's why they couldn't see the progressive elements of the petty bourgeoisie.
And the Black Panthers and their sort of co-ideologists, they identified the progressive elements of the lumpen proletariat.
They could not see the progressive elements of the petty bourgeoisie.
And then on the other hand, you have Marxists who can't see the progressive elements of the lumpen proletariat, obviously, due to their fetishism for industrialism.
And this creates the kind of stuffed European Orthodox Marxism and things of that nature.
So this is why the ACP is significant. This is why it's different, because it views these things a little differently.
I guess the next step is fully articulating beyond Mao Zedong what elements of the petty bourgeoisie are progressive, because I think they are, especially in the age of imperialism, and especially in the age of imperialism where the core is so de-industrialized.
It creates unique circumstances where certain elements of the petty bourgeoisie take different positions on economic development, depending on their relationship to the forces of production.
For example, fishermen are opposed to offshore windmills on the one hand, but they support fish oil refineries being built on long island on the other.
And one may not necessarily be more progressive than the other. Maybe the fishermen are just simply correct on both of those issues, but it needs to be explored. It hasn't been thoroughly fleshed out.
Moreover, Malcolm X also comes from a petty bourgeois background. His parents were Garviites. They were not lumpens.
END OF AUDIO RECORDING
William Z Foster writes about how Leninism later proved that the petty-bourgeoisie can be progressive due to Imperialism
also: tie-in with commoditization, industrialism, and post-industrial commoditization
Mao’s analysis of PB (petty bourgeoisie) is too crude: whether a shopkeeper is in a deficit or not is too capitalistic of a way to determine progressiveness. Since abstract profits are increasingly alienated from surplus value
PB Progressiveness now dilineates over more qualitative terms like their contribution to robustness & efficiency
We need to learn how to "cope" so-to-speak with a world where industrialization is no longer the bottom line
Communists AND capitalists have BOTH failed to "cope" with the reality of deindustrialization: Wall Street is still commoditizing contracts as "derivatives", Marxists still can only think in terms of "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat"
Is this why China has a weaker derivatives market?
The industrialist dogma of America itself has become a metaphysical absurdity on par with the most corrupt dynasties and corrupt kingdoms
Which ties back into Heidegger (the "metaphyics" part), and therefore Dugin
The Silk Road was the primary material source of progress before modernity; the "nomads"/"barbarians" continually re-emerged and overthrew these metaphysical dynasties dominated by cartels, clerics and priests. The Hanseatic league that came later was just a continuation of this in its aquatic form, the European merchants were the same "nomads" that then became the proletariat and bourgeoisie, and overthrew medievalism.
Is there another period where commoditization collapsed, you had a "lumpen" class which eventually took part in a progressive movement, and the productive forces were dominated by a "cartel"/clergy class?
Medieval Europe has all of these, but it’s in the wrong order:
Medievalism from the clergy & aristocracy dominates until the start of colonialism, after which commoditization of spices / earths kicks off, and the merchants overthrow the clergy and aristocracy. We live in the opposite where an aristocracy/clergy class has re-emerged and zombified commoditization
In the Chinese Bronze Age, the cartel/clergy class also dominated eastern China, until the superior, more advanced "wax-mold"-casting forgers in Western Zhou acquired chariotry technology from the west / Silk Road and overthrew the East
How did the quality and quantity of Chinese forgery artifacts compare before and after the Bronze Age? Is the Zhou dynasty more or less commoditized than the Shang ?
Also worth looking into the story of Moses; what occurred in Egypt before the exodus, and what was commerce like before, during, and after?