Drewfro66

I know there are some islands that are disputed between Japan and China, were these ships in Japan's unambiguous territorial waters or in the disputed waters?

Class should be determined at the family level because people within families often depend on each other economically. The son of a wealthy family who works retail until he gets his inheritance isn't "Working Class", and his trophy-wife mom who signed a prenup and doesn't have a job isn't Lumpenproletarian either. The fact that they live together and support each other financially means their class should be considered at the group level.

As far as the Peasantry goes, the point I was making (and the point Marx makes) is that the Proletariat is unique in its revolutionary potential. There is a reason why we saw the rise of Socialism in the 1800s and not the 1200s, it's the development of the Proletariat as a class. Peasants certainly played a part in both the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, but neither of those revolutions would have happened without a strong, literate urban proletariat.

The Lumpenproletariat largely lacks the political literacy necessary to lead a true revolution. The only point where it may be possible is among people marginalized for their race, religion etc., like with the Black Panthers. The same factors that lead to drug addicts, criminals, and the mentally ill becoming lumpenized are the same ones that hamper their political literacy. But being Black doesn't inherently make it harder for a person to become politically educated, while it does make you more likely to be unemployed or seek out criminal or odd jobs due to systemic racism.

This is a bit of a misconception.

Nietzche opposed a specific political group in Germany at the time called "The Anti-Semites". So he has a lot of quotes where he complains about The Anti-Semites, but he isn't really critiquing what we would consider antisemitism, but just this specific group and their ideology.

And this was probably not because he opposed them, but because they were problematic allies. His sister would marry an Anti-Semite, become one herself, and his books would be published by The Anti-Semites after his death.

I don't have any of them handy at the moment, but Nietzche had many things to say about the Jews that would get him branded an antisemite by modern standards.

The Lumpenproletariat refers to families who do not regularly perform proper work.

Something to keep in mind is that Marx lived in a time before employment contracts were standard for Proletarians. Back then "Employee" often referred to a certain type of professional class person who sympathized with Scholars and Small Burghers. These are the days where a dozen people would just gather around workplaces - factories, ports, etc. - in the morning hoping to be given work.

Being temporarily unemployed, especially if you're getting unemployment checks, doesn't make you Lumpenproletarian. Being a NEET living in your mom's basement doesn't make you one, because class is largely determined at the family unit level. And this may be controversial, but IMO it also doesn't include alienated individuals who subsist on government subsidies, such as American Indians or the disabled - they would probably be considered a new sort of class that did not really exist in large numbers in Marx's time and he did not really articulate beyond their classes of origin.

So what is a Lumpenproletarian? The defining trait is that they merely subsist, and do so off of odd jobs, crime and begging. They might live in subsidized or group housing, or on the street or in abandoned properties. In olden times they probably washed cars and polished shoes to get by, but today they might do doordash deliveries. And of course there have always been street performers and prostitutes who would be considered Lumpenproletarian.

Today it might be a prostitute who lives in a rundown tenement trading sex for rent; a petty drug dealer getting by selling drugs on the street; a homeless begger who sleeps in the park and eats out of dumpsters.

As someone who has been in this situation before in my life, this class of people are often in this class for a reason - they're mentally ill, drug addicted, unstable, fugitive; while on an individual level some of them can contribute to the Socialist cause (as Marx says), their revolutionary potential is hampered by their difficulty in organization, much as was the case with the Peasantry.

Paying taxes isn't the metric for production or societal contribution.

In my opinion, only people who hold a full-time job where they actually make, extract, or transport things should be allowed to vote. Factory and retail workers yes, corporate chair-warmers and middle managers no. Production is the basis of the economy and votes should be based on production.

But many of those people earn so little that they don't pay taxes or pay very little taxes. A tax threshold for voting would take us back to the days of the July Monarchy where the rich and powerful (the middle class and up) controlled and drove politics.

A lot of people will speculate and exaggerate and blow little things out of proportion. I don't like Lemmy.world because they are Anticommunist as a policy. That's about it.

They're (albeit Liberal) Zionists, they prosecute stuff like "Uyghur genocide denial" that is like 5-year-old propaganda that should be able to be dismissed with the benefit of hindsight.

Leftist instances have the forthrightness to just say "If you're a reactionary we'll ban you", but Liberals - like the Lemmy.world admins and moderators - have to hide behind a smokescreen of Socialists breaking technical rules - when, say, a Zionist denying the Palestinian genocide wouldn't get the same reaction.

"Spokesperson of organization whose sole purpose is saying 'China Bad' says 'China Bad'."

These so-called "journalists" could save themselves some time if they just wrote one article and reposted it every time someone who only has a job because of anti-Chinese government carveouts said something silly in front of a committee somewhere.

The colors here made it look like a greentext at first

Reminder that Globe and Mail is just the Canadian flavor of the Telegraph or the Hill. Right-wing slop that is one step better than the tabloids

And when it comes to actual material productive industries, I always say we have two: killing people and burning oil.

Automobiles? Burning oil

Aviation? Mostly military planes, so both

Polymers and petrochemicals? Burning oil

Weapons manufacturing? Killing people

Construction? Ultimately, since the roads and bridges are all car-focused, burning oil.

Steel? Seems good at first, but it's ultimately going to be turned into a car (burning oil) or a weapon (killing people).

The cherry on top is that, because of climate change, all of the "burning oil" bits are also secretly killing people.

One of these things is not like the others

I always leave all my doors open. I have a cat and she likes to walk around. Also if I leave the blinds open on the front windows there's technically a direct line of sight from the front walkway to my bathroom toilet through like two open doors so if someone really wanted to they could watch me poop