In this second of two essays, I discuss the immorality of property, even deeper than the first post yesterday.

https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/before-the-fence-the-self

#philosophy #language #ontology #criticaltheory #blog #podcast #property #rights #privateproperty #propertyrights #justification #metaphysics #consciousness #phenomenology #ethics #philosophyofmind #identity #personalidentity #apples #essay #substack

I've argued that property rights are immoral. Now, I've shared a pair of posts that argue at a deeper level. This is the first:

https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-fence-before-the-field

#Philosophy #substack #blog #podcast #language #ontology #criticaltheory #anarchism #politicalphilosophy #politicaleconomy #economics #locke #rousseau #propertyrights #property #privateproperty

RE: https://friendica.vrije-mens.org/display/6c36e370-1069-e7a4-e002-baa113634972

Much of #BRICS rhetoric appears to come out as ultra-naive liberal theology. This type of article is wishful thinking in a fantasy world like Alice in wonderland.

The assumption that a modern capitalist state can remain stable without this "subculture" of crime and contraband has proven itself wrong time and again. It is why banking conglomerates insist in maintaining cash and cash-flow/rotation in a digitally organized world. 30% of all healthy economic activity is trade in flesh, guns, drugs, conterfeit products and media, .. and best of all gambling.

One does not need to be a sociologist to comprehend how violently things will fall apart without this significant tool. On top of that, it will be 30% of the economy wiped out and irreplaceable! This most certainly will develop a sub-economy autonomous from mainstream.

Without crime there is no need for violently repressive mechanisms, such as police. The crime apparatus is part of an ingenious repression mechanism, they can't profit without defending capitalism. It is a self regulated army against any significant social, political, economic change.

In the specific case the US needs this "fabricated crisis" to provide itself an excuse for central/south american interventionism. How convenient. Are substance abuse rates suddenly changed over decades, centuries even? NO! Quality changed. It is deadlier recently, why? #Fentanyl ? Is it an industrial accident it leaked to the underground?

It is military/medical industrial complex and its warfare against lower classes and social minorities. It keeps WASPs in safe layers of society to maintain control, exploitation and oppression.

Moralizing about how better managers would make a better capitalist world and society ..is how populism and gaining power works. Whether #liberals fanatic defendants of capitalism represent the 1st 2nd or 3rd worlds (the trendy terms are the economic North and South) matters very little. POPULISM is POPULISM and charlatans will remain charlatans.

#marxism #criticaltheory #anarchism #antifa

Great article about one of my philosophical heroes, Michel Foucault — still incredibly relevant in a world saturated with social media.

Something I’ve only just realised: one of the core ideas I’ve carried for years is really a paraphrasing of his work on power and knowledge (via Hilary Lawson):

“Science is not powerful because it is true — it is true because it is powerful.”

https://theconversation.com/40-years-after-his-death-michel-foucaults-philosophy-still-speaks-to-a-world-saturated-with-social-media-232589?utm_medium=article_clipboard_share&utm_source=theconversation.com

#philosophy #Foucault #criticaltheory #socialmedia #powerandknowledge #digitalculture #criticalthinking

Basically, the favorite hobby of pseudo-intellectuals and Pop authors is to caricaturize Marx's writings up to a point where there's nothing left besides a simplistic scarecrow designed to scare people with poor critical thinking skills. And everybody knows lazy thinking has always been very popular among lazy people :-D

It's extremely funny because people often end up accusing Marx of defending exactly the opposite of what he wrote. Why? Because they don't have time to read/are lazy / lack the literacy skills to understand Marx's writing. The fact is that Marx didn't care much about inequality per se and other topics usually associated with burgueois morality. He thought that all the traditional socialist tropes around injustice were just idealist bullshit - as a matter of fact they are.

"If anything, a common critique made by better-informed critics of Marxism is precisely that Marx was too much a product of the Enlightenment. In particular, via his very Pinkereseque optimism that human history was going to continue to advance: the technological forces of production would continue to develop under capitalism, this would last until capitalist relations of production became a fetter on their further development, and then capitalism would be transcended by a higher form of society which would be more free, equal and democratic. Technological progress would continue under socialism until we’re all living in post-scarcity idyll where everyone can pursue their own projects without income needing to be tied to labor contributions, and there will be so much to go around, everyone can simply take what they want. (This is the famous “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” formulation from his Critique of the Gotha Program.) At this point, as Marx puts it in Capital Vol. 3, the “development of human powers” would become an end in itself for the first time."
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/steven-pinker-doesnt-know-anything-about-marxism
#Marx #Marxism #CriticalTheory #PopWriting #PoliticalEconomy

My monograph Digital Modernity: Why We Need to Think Historically About the Digital Age (Routledge, 2026) is out now, and available open access.

Core argument: digital systems are continuations of modernity, not breaks from it.

Covers Silicon Valley ideology, digital colonialism, AI, infrastructure, and the public sphere.

Open Access: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003684398/digital-modernity-james-smithies

Physical: https://www.routledge.com/Digital-Modernity-Why-We-Need-to-Think-Historically-About-the-Digital-Age/Smithies/p/book/9781041164012

#DigitalHumanities #DigitalSocialScience #CriticalTheory #OpenAccess #Modernity #AI

JUST PUBLISHED 👀

Heine Andersen on the recent passing of Jürgen Habermas and his legacy in critical theory and sociology more widely.

Habermas, Andersen writes, succeeded in what earlier members of the Frankfurt School and critical theory failed to achieve: to formulate an explicitly normatively oriented social critical theory, and from there to build a bridge to a larger enlightened public audience.

🌐 https://doi.org/10.1177/00016993261440724

@sociology @academicchatter #Habermas #sociology #criticaltheory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zldrIB2v48w

#Art #Media #Philosopjy #CriticalTheory #ArtHistory