Topic: Socialism (Page 2)
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π World-systems theory
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective) is a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system (and not nation states) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis.
"World-system" refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor, which divides the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and the periphery countries. Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-intensive production, and the rest of the world focuses on low-skill, labor-intensive production and extraction of raw materials. This constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries. Nonetheless, the system has dynamic characteristics, in part as a result of revolutions in transport technology, and individual states can gain or lose their core (semi-periphery, periphery) status over time. This structure is unified by the division of labour. It is a world-economy rooted in a capitalist economy. For a time, certain countries become the world hegemon; during the last few centuries, as the world-system has extended geographically and intensified economically, this status has passed from the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom and (most recently) to the United States.
World-systems theory has been examined by many political theorists and sociologists to explain the reasons for the rise and fall of nations, income inequality, social unrest, and imperialism.
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- "World-systems theory" | 2014-07-12 | 51 Upvotes 8 Comments
π Katyn Massacre (1940)
The Katyn massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyΕska, "KatyΕ crime"; Russian: ΠΠ°ΡΡΠ½ΡΠΊΠ°Ρ ΡΠ΅Π·Π½Ρ Katynskaya reznya, "Katyn massacre", or Russian: ΠΠ°ΡΡΠ½ΡΠΊΠΈΠΉ ΡΠ°ΡΡΡΡΠ΅Π», "Katyn execution by shooting") was a series of mass executions of about 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered.
The massacre was initiated in NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria's proposal of 5 March 1940 to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, approved by the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests". The Polish Army officer class was representative of the multi-ethnic Polish state; the murdered included ethnic Poles, Polish Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Polish Jews including the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Baruch Steinberg.
The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in April 1943. Stalin severed diplomatic relations with the London-based Polish government-in-exile when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The USSR claimed the Nazis had killed the victims, and it continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.
An investigation conducted by the office of the Prosecutors General of the Soviet Union (1990β1991) and the Russian Federation (1991β2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, but refused to classify this action as a war crime or as an act of mass murder. The investigation was closed on the grounds the perpetrators were dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge, formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable.
In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for ordering the massacre.
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- "Katyn Massacre" | 2022-03-05 | 19 Upvotes 1 Comments
π North American Phalanx
The North American Phalanx was a secular utopian socialist commune located in Colts Neck Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. The community was the longest-lived of about 30 Fourierist Associations in the United States which emerged during a brief burst of popularity during the decade of the 1840s.
The North American Phalanx was established in September 1843 and included the active participation of writer Albert Brisbane and newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, two of the leading figures of the Fourierist movement. The Association was disbanded in January 1856, following a catastrophic fire which destroyed a number of the community's productive enterprises. At the time of its termination it was the last of about 30 Fourierist Associations established during the 1840s still in existence and thus was the longest-lived.
The main residential dwelling of the phalanx, a three-story wooden structure, stood vacant until it was itself destroyed by fire in November 1972.
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- "North American Phalanx" | 2019-12-08 | 20 Upvotes 21 Comments
π Considered for deletion β Mass killings under communist regimes
Mass killings under communist regimes occurred throughout the 20th century. Death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions of the deaths that are included in them. The higher estimates of mass killings account for the crimes that governments committed against civilians, including executions, the destruction of populations through man-made hunger and deaths that occurred during forced deportations and imprisonment, and deaths that resulted from forced labor.
In addition to "mass killings," terms that are used to define such killings include "democide", "politicide", "classicide", and "genocide."
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- "Considered for deletion β Mass killings under communist regimes" | 2021-11-24 | 16 Upvotes 15 Comments
π Mathematical Manuscripts of Karl Marx
The mathematical manuscripts of Karl Marx are a manuscript collection of Karl Marx's mathematical notes where he attempted to derive the foundations of infinitesimal calculus from first principles.
The notes that Marx took have been collected into four independent treatises: On the Concept of the Derived Function, On the Differential, On the History of Differential Calculus, and Taylor's Theorem, MacLaurin's Theorem, and Lagrange's Theory of Derived Functions, along with several notes, additional drafts, and supplements to these four treatises. These treatises attempt to construct a rigorous foundation for calculus and use historical materialism to analyze the history of mathematics.
Marx's contributions to mathematics did not have any impact on the historical development of calculus, and he was unaware of many more recent developments in the field at the time, such as the work of Cauchy. However, his work in some ways anticipated, but did not influence, some later developments in 20th century mathematics. These manuscripts, which are from around 1873β1883, were not published in any language until 1968 when they were published in the Soviet Union alongside a Russian translation. Since their publication, Marx's independent contributions to mathematics have been analyzed in terms of both his own historical and economic theories, and in light of their potential applications of nonstandard analysis.
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- "Mathematical Manuscripts of Karl Marx" | 2024-01-17 | 18 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing populist movement against economic inequality, corporate greed, big finance, and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, and lasted for fifty-nine daysβfrom September 17 to November 15, 2011.
The motivations for Occupy Wall Street largely resulted from public distrust in the private sector during the aftermath of the Great Recession in the United States. There were many particular points of interest leading up to the Occupy movement that angered populist and left-wing groups. For instance, the 2008 bank bailouts under the George W. Bush administration utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which purchased toxic assets from failing banks and financial institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC in January 2010 allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures without government regulation. This angered many populist and left-wing groups that viewed the ruling as a way for moneyed interests to corrupt public institutions and legislative bodies, such as the United States Congress.
The protests gave rise to the wider Occupy movement in the United States and other Western countries. The Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters initiated the call for a protest. The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on governmentβparticularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to income and wealth inequality in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities.
The protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. Protesters then turned their focus to occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, college and university campuses and social media.
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- "Occupy Wall Street" | 2024-05-05 | 25 Upvotes 4 Comments
π The Indian state of Kerala has a communist government and India's highest HDI
Communism in Kerala refers to the strong presence of communist ideas in the Indian state of Kerala. In addition to Kerala, the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura have had multiple democratically elected Marxist governments, and change takes place in the government by regular multiparty electoral processes. Communism of Kerala has provided Indian communist stalwarts such as M. N. Govindan Nair, C. Achutha Menon, K. Damodaran, T. V. Thomas, N. E. Balaram, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, A. K. Gopalan, K. R. Gouri Amma, P. K. Vasudevan Nair and C. K. Chandrappan
Today the two largest communist parties in Kerala politics are the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India. The Left Democratic Front is a coalition of left-wing political parties in the state of Kerala and is one of the two major political coalitions in Kerala, each of which have been in power alternatively for the last two decades. The coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) consists of the Communist Party of India, the Janata Dal (Secular), the Nationalist Congress Party, the Indian National League, the Kerala Congress (Anti-merger Group), and the Indian National Congress (Socialist).
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- "The Indian state of Kerala has a communist government and India's highest HDI" | 2021-12-22 | 15 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Zersetzung
Zersetzung (pronounced [tΝ‘sΙΙΜ―ΛzΙtΝ‘sΚΕ] , German for "decomposition" and "disruption") was a psychological warfare technique used by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) to repress political opponents in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. Zersetzung served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. Among the defining features of it was the widespread use of offensive counterespionage methods as a means of repression. People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventive basis, to limit or stop activities of political dissent and cultural incorrectness that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. Zersetzung methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality" in a form of "silent repression".
Erich Honecker's succession to Walter Ulbricht as First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in May 1971 saw an evolution of "operational procedures" (Operative VorgΓ€nge) conducted by Stasi away from the overt terror of the Ulbricht era towards what came to be known as Zersetzung ("Anwendung von MaΓnahmen der Zersetzung"), which was formalized by Directive No. 1/76 on the Development and Revision of Operational Procedures in January 1976. The Stasi used operational psychology and its extensive network of between 170,000 and over 500,000 informal collaborators (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter) to launch personalized psychological attacks against targets to damage their mental health and lower chances of a "hostile action" against the state. Among the collaborators were youths as young as 14 years of age.
The use of Zersetzung is well documented due to Stasi files published after the Berlin Wall fell, with several thousands or up to 10,000 individuals estimated to have become victims, 5,000 of whom sustained irreversible damage. Special pensions for restitution have been created for Zersetzung victims.
π Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ or the Zone), also known as Free Capitol Hill, is a self-declared intentional community and commune of around 200 residents, covering about six city blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The zone was established on June 8, 2020 after the East Precinct was abandoned by the Seattle Police Department.
π Bruno Pontecorvo
Bruno Pontecorvo (Italian:Β [ponteΛkΙrvo]; Russian: ΠΡΡΜΠ½ΠΎ ΠΠ°ΠΊΡΠΈΜΠΌΠΎΠ²ΠΈΡ ΠΠΎΠ½ΡΠ΅ΠΊΠΎΜΡΠ²ΠΎ, Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo; 22 August 1913 β 24 September 1993) was an Italian and Soviet nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi and the author of numerous studies in high energy physics, especially on neutrinos. A convinced communist, he defected to the Soviet Union in 1950, where he continued his research on the decay of the muon and on neutrinos. The prestigious Pontecorvo Prize was instituted in his memory in 1995.
The fourth of eight children of a wealthy Jewish-Italian family, Pontecorvo studied physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza, under Fermi, becoming the youngest of his Via Panisperna boys. In 1934 he participated in Fermi's famous experiment showing the properties of slow neutrons that led the way to the discovery of nuclear fission. He moved to Paris in 1934, where he conducted research under Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Influenced by his cousin, Emilio Sereni, he joined the French Communist Party, as did his sisters Giuliana and Laura and brother Gillo. The Italian Fascist regime's 1938 racial laws against Jews caused his family members to leave Italy for Britain, France and the United States.
When the German Army closed in on Paris during the Second World War, Pontecorvo, his brother Gillo, cousin Emilio Sereni and Salvador Luria fled the city on bicycles. He eventually made his way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he applied his knowledge of nuclear physics to prospecting for oil and minerals. In 1943, he joined the British Tube Alloys team at the Montreal Laboratory in Canada. This became part of the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs. At Chalk River Laboratories, he worked on the design of the nuclear reactor ZEEP, the first reactor outside of the United States that went critical in 1945, followed by the NRX reactor in 1947. He also looked into cosmic rays, the decay of muons, and what would become his obsession, neutrinos. He moved to Britain in 1949, where he worked for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell.
After his defection to the Soviet Union in 1950, he worked at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. He had proposed using chlorine to detect neutrinos. In a 1959 paper, he argued that the electron neutrino (
Ξ½
e) and the muon neutrino (
Ξ½
ΞΌ) were different particles. Solar neutrinos were detected by the Homestake Experiment, but only between one third and one half of the predicted number were found. In response to this solar neutrino problem, he proposed a phenomenon known as neutrino oscillation, whereby electron neutrinos became muon neutrinos. The existence of the oscillations was finally established by the Super-Kamiokande experiment in 1998. He also predicted in 1958 that supernovae would produce intense bursts of neutrinos, which was confirmed in 1987 when Supernova SN1987A was detected by neutrino detectors.
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- "Bruno Pontecorvo" | 2021-10-27 | 13 Upvotes 4 Comments