Sign in with Facebook
“Those who claim to be Marxists cannot confine themselves to condemning or deploring political acts; they have also to explain them. Regrets and wishes may help the people to endure their woes, but they do not help them either to perceive their causes or to struggle to get rid of them or to prevent their reemergence. By explaining the reasons for something that does indeed deserve condemnation from the standpoint of the interests of the working people, we can contribute, however, to causing political forces to evolve in such a way that the "regrettable" events do not recur.”
― Class Struggles in the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923
― Class Struggles in the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923
“The very principle of democracy is founded on the possibility of making alternative choices. There is no longer a need for democracy, since ideology made the idea that "there is no alternative" acceptable. Adherence to a meta-social principle of superior rationality allows for the elimination of the necessity and possibility of choosing. The so-called principle of the rationality of "markets" exactly fills this function in the ideology of obsolescent capitalism. Democratic practice is thus emptied of all content in the way is open to what I have called "low-intensity democracy" - that is, to electoral buffooneries where parades of majorettes take the place of programs, to the society of the spectacle. Delegitimized by these practices, politics is undone, begins to drift and loses its potential power to give meaning and coherence to alternative societal projects.”
―
―
“The pigs are the capitalist state, and as such define the limits of all political struggles; to the extent that a revolutionary struggle shows signs of success, they come in and mark the point it can't go beyond.the point it can't go beyond.”
― You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows
― You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows
“At another level of analysis, economism is characterized by the fact that it tends to identify productive forces with the material means of production, thus denying that the principal productive force consists of the producers themselves: consequently, economism ascribes the major role in the building of socialism not to the initiative of the working people but to the accumulation of new means of production and technical knowledge.”
― Class Struggles in the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923
― Class Struggles in the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923
“What, then, is the solution to this moral schizophrenia we have about animals? According to Francione, we only have two choices: we either continue to treat animals as we are now, by inflicting suffering even for unnecessary ends and recognizing our commitment to humane treatment as a farce, or we can recognize that animals have a morally significant interest in not being subjected to unnecessary suffering, and change how we approach conflicts of animal and human interests. To do the latter, however, requires that we apply the principle of equal consideration to animals. This, Francione argues, is stunningly simple: in its most basic terms, we need to treat like cases alike. Though animals and humans are clearly different, they are alike in the sense that they both suffer and are both sentient. For this reason, we should extend the principle of equal consideration to animals.”
― Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights
― Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights
Klaas’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Klaas’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,318 books
|
128 friends
1 book
|
17 friends
1,086 books
|
47 friends
1,146 books
|
226 friends
345 books
|
380 friends
267 books
|
51 friends
1,086 books
|
119 friends
3 books
|
50 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Klaas
Lists liked by Klaas
