Realistically, there are no banned books today, outside of stuff like Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf and terrorist guides. And even those (outside of terrorist guides) are usually just semi-banned, i.e. Amazon and most reasonable booksellers and libraries won’t stock them, but you can buy them by other means and it’s probably not illegal.
So I have no idea what’s your point here. The “liberals” who promote reading “banned books” refer to stuff like small school libraries not stocking whatever the American media and Twitter decided to wreak hysteria about this season.
Libraries buy books based on community interest. That’s why they usually have many copies of the latest best-seller, and very few copies of books about, say, getting a ham radio license. When people in a community are interested in Marxist theory–and face it; very, very few people have read Das Kapital in it’s entirety, fewer have fully understood it, and all of them have degrees in philosophy–the libraries will buy books on Marxist theory. When people want to read Walter Benjamin or Mikhail Bakunin, the libraries will buy that. When people want to read Ayn Rand (who is even less entertaining than Marx, and she’s trying to be entertaining), libraries will buy that.
My library has exactly as many copies of Ulysses as they do Das Kapital, and I’m in a very small town in the deep south. No one cares of banning James Joyce. Space on library shelves and funding is limited, and libraries don’t usually see a point in filling up that precious space with, and spending money on books people ‘should’ read that are never going to get checked out.
I wonder if a supposed lack of interest in Marxism could have anything to do with over a century of rabid and relentless anti-communism from every privately owned media source and position of authority, combined with the awareness that those Americans who publicly express interest in communism will have their careers and possibly even their lives destroyed?
It’s probably more because philosophy in general isn’t something that lots of people have an interest in, economics are often boring, and Das Kapital combines both into one incredibly dense, challenging to read book.
Personally, I think that Marx and Engels do a great job of describing the problem, but I don’t think that their solution takes human nature into effect. Economics assumes that people are fully rational actors that will do the smartest thing all the time, but that’s clearly not the case; there are other forces shaping human behavior. Marx and Engels don’t seem to account for that.
“Human nature” is a concept that, in your mind, is unchanging and immortal. It possesses infinite power. It acts upon the material world, but the material world cannot act upon it. It is also only brought up when anyone mentions the possibility of actually making the world better. “We can’t have communism because of human nature”—even though the concept of private property itself did not exist before the invention of writing. Communism was the norm for 95% of the time humans have spent on Earth.
If human nature is infinite, immortal, and unstoppable, if the material world has no effect upon it, how is it different from god?
You are caught in quite the bind here. If you admit that human nature can change, that means that communism is possible, and that the entire liberal project is a sham. If you refuse to admit this, you instead admit that human nature is divine, and reduce yourself to the status of a religious lunatic. Which will it be?
@HelixDab2@duderium You are yourself in confusion and the word ‘probably’ clarifies that. God willing, you haven’t any proof that He doesn’t exist though you don’t have proof either if He exists. The problem here is: there are many things about that we might say: probably don’t exist. May God show you His path.
I’m sorry to hear that’s been your experience with the library system. I have not had the same experience at all. In fact, I’m listening to the audiobook of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire on Libby from my local city library, where they for some reason have unlimited copies of it available.
I also listened to Abolition. Feminism. Now., most of Ursula K Le Guin’s novels, Are Prisons Obsolete?, The Communist Manifesto, An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, and a whole bunch more through either my city library, or the library in my states capital, since all citizens of the state get a library card for there.
Have you checked services like Libby to see if you can connect with your library card? That could supplement whatever your library has physically, since you’re having issues getting things done through inter library loans.
Libraries are like safe havens from capital for me. One of the last truly public spaces, where I don’t feel pressured to consume or produce. I couldn’t live without them.
Keep moving those goalposts, daddy. 🥵 First you claim marxist literature is never purchased by the libraries, which could be easily disproved just by clicking the link I gave you. Then you imply they don’t stock enough, even though according to the catalogue, as I’ve already said, they “hold 168 book by or about Karl Marx”, including multiple copies of the same book (the abovementioned CotGP has 4 copies, an abridged edition of Capital has 49 copies, etc., not even getting into counting the marxist literature not written by Marx).
But it appears you expect the American public library system to lead the communist revolution, so discussing even banal data such as how many books are stocked by a library is probably pointless.
The New York Public library system has less than a hundred copies of The Communist Manifesto, one of the most popular and important books ever written, while it has thousands of copies of various books associated with JK Rowling, a notoriously transphobic writer. I wonder what the priorities of the system are?
I get your gripes. For the longest time The Devil and Karl Marx was one of only a handful of Communist related books in my local library system (and by far the most checked out). The city council and board of trustees even made successful efforts to censor Black History and Pride Month events and displays this past year.
That being said, we do have allies and even comrades working within the system as librarians and aides. The ones in my city managed to help me get Blackshirts and Reds and The Jakarta Method onto the shelves.
Libraries being one of the last remaining third spaces of public life will definitely be a zone of struggle as market interests seek to hollow out and privatize the ever diminishing Commons, but there’s solidarity to be found despite how bleak the situation seems.
“Read banned books unless they are written by Marxists!” — liberals
Realistically, there are no banned books today, outside of stuff like Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf and terrorist guides. And even those (outside of terrorist guides) are usually just semi-banned, i.e. Amazon and most reasonable booksellers and libraries won’t stock them, but you can buy them by other means and it’s probably not illegal.
So I have no idea what’s your point here. The “liberals” who promote reading “banned books” refer to stuff like small school libraries not stocking whatever the American media and Twitter decided to wreak hysteria about this season.
Either way, in reality New York Public Library holds 168 book by or about Karl Marx.
Marxist books are usually difficult to find in public libraries. They aren’t banned, they’re just mysteriously never purchased and never displayed!
Categorically false, and delusional.
Libraries buy books based on community interest. That’s why they usually have many copies of the latest best-seller, and very few copies of books about, say, getting a ham radio license. When people in a community are interested in Marxist theory–and face it; very, very few people have read Das Kapital in it’s entirety, fewer have fully understood it, and all of them have degrees in philosophy–the libraries will buy books on Marxist theory. When people want to read Walter Benjamin or Mikhail Bakunin, the libraries will buy that. When people want to read Ayn Rand (who is even less entertaining than Marx, and she’s trying to be entertaining), libraries will buy that.
My library has exactly as many copies of Ulysses as they do Das Kapital, and I’m in a very small town in the deep south. No one cares of banning James Joyce. Space on library shelves and funding is limited, and libraries don’t usually see a point in filling up that precious space with, and spending money on books people ‘should’ read that are never going to get checked out.
I wonder if a supposed lack of interest in Marxism could have anything to do with over a century of rabid and relentless anti-communism from every privately owned media source and position of authority, combined with the awareness that those Americans who publicly express interest in communism will have their careers and possibly even their lives destroyed?
It’s probably more because philosophy in general isn’t something that lots of people have an interest in, economics are often boring, and Das Kapital combines both into one incredibly dense, challenging to read book.
Personally, I think that Marx and Engels do a great job of describing the problem, but I don’t think that their solution takes human nature into effect. Economics assumes that people are fully rational actors that will do the smartest thing all the time, but that’s clearly not the case; there are other forces shaping human behavior. Marx and Engels don’t seem to account for that.
What is the difference between “human nature” and god?
God (probably) doesn’t exist. Humans do.
“Human nature” is a concept that, in your mind, is unchanging and immortal. It possesses infinite power. It acts upon the material world, but the material world cannot act upon it. It is also only brought up when anyone mentions the possibility of actually making the world better. “We can’t have communism because of human nature”—even though the concept of private property itself did not exist before the invention of writing. Communism was the norm for 95% of the time humans have spent on Earth.
If human nature is infinite, immortal, and unstoppable, if the material world has no effect upon it, how is it different from god?
You are caught in quite the bind here. If you admit that human nature can change, that means that communism is possible, and that the entire liberal project is a sham. If you refuse to admit this, you instead admit that human nature is divine, and reduce yourself to the status of a religious lunatic. Which will it be?
@HelixDab2 @duderium You are yourself in confusion and the word ‘probably’ clarifies that. God willing, you haven’t any proof that He doesn’t exist though you don’t have proof either if He exists. The problem here is: there are many things about that we might say: probably don’t exist. May God show you His path.
I’m sorry to hear that’s been your experience with the library system. I have not had the same experience at all. In fact, I’m listening to the audiobook of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire on Libby from my local city library, where they for some reason have unlimited copies of it available.
I also listened to Abolition. Feminism. Now., most of Ursula K Le Guin’s novels, Are Prisons Obsolete?, The Communist Manifesto, An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, and a whole bunch more through either my city library, or the library in my states capital, since all citizens of the state get a library card for there.
Have you checked services like Libby to see if you can connect with your library card? That could supplement whatever your library has physically, since you’re having issues getting things done through inter library loans.
Libraries are like safe havens from capital for me. One of the last truly public spaces, where I don’t feel pressured to consume or produce. I couldn’t live without them.
The catalogue I linked literally shows they have a 2023 edition of “Critique of the Gotha Program”, in the very first row of the results.
Nice, how many people live in New York state again?
Keep moving those goalposts, daddy. 🥵 First you claim marxist literature is never purchased by the libraries, which could be easily disproved just by clicking the link I gave you. Then you imply they don’t stock enough, even though according to the catalogue, as I’ve already said, they “hold 168 book by or about Karl Marx”, including multiple copies of the same book (the abovementioned CotGP has 4 copies, an abridged edition of Capital has 49 copies, etc., not even getting into counting the marxist literature not written by Marx).
But it appears you expect the American public library system to lead the communist revolution, so discussing even banal data such as how many books are stocked by a library is probably pointless.
The New York Public library system has less than a hundred copies of The Communist Manifesto, one of the most popular and important books ever written, while it has thousands of copies of various books associated with JK Rowling, a notoriously transphobic writer. I wonder what the priorities of the system are?
I get your gripes. For the longest time The Devil and Karl Marx was one of only a handful of Communist related books in my local library system (and by far the most checked out). The city council and board of trustees even made successful efforts to censor Black History and Pride Month events and displays this past year.
That being said, we do have allies and even comrades working within the system as librarians and aides. The ones in my city managed to help me get Blackshirts and Reds and The Jakarta Method onto the shelves.
Libraries being one of the last remaining third spaces of public life will definitely be a zone of struggle as market interests seek to hollow out and privatize the ever diminishing Commons, but there’s solidarity to be found despite how bleak the situation seems.