Aesthetic Materialism

    Lenin studied law at Kazan University.  He was expelled for his political activity, but nonetheless managed to pass the law exam - indeed, he was top-ranked - and was awarded a law degree in 1891.  Of course, his career took a different turn.  But he would have made a great lawyer.  He had a very lawyerly mind. What is a lawyer?  To use some contemporary (or perhaps slightly outdated) vocabulary, a lawyer is a member of the " professional managerial class ," or more accurately, the professionalized, that is to say, highly educated and salaried, sector of the proletariat - a highly specialized form of labor.  Indeed, Lenin's primary historical importance is his role in the historical development of the complex blending together of the movement of proletarian socialism with the general tendency of capitalism towards specialization and professionalization.  Lenin made important contributions to the theory of the "professional revolutionary,"...

 Recently, on facebook, someone commented that "You can't have markets without private property."  This was my response: You definitely can have markets without private property. Remember, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx distinguishes between "private property" and "personal property." He doesn't have any quarrel with personal property (individual property, like your toothbrush and your lawnmower). His quarrel is with private property - that is, bourgeois ownership of the means of production. (Notice that this is usually NOT individual property: rarely does 1 person own a factory. Usually a factory is owned by a corporation, a "fictive person," a made-up person that is recognized by the law, which is in turn owned collectively by its stockholders, which may number in the millions, all over the world.)   Private property is an innovation of capitalism. Early examples include the British East India Company and the V.O.C.,...