Category: Article

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Spinoza with a Beard: Spinoza’s Influence on Marxism

Author: Sam Thomas “[P]resent-day materialism is a Spinozism that has become more or less aware of itself.”[i] Introduction The purpose of this essay is to analyze the effect Spinoza’s insights have had on Marxism. Thus, it will ignore similar but unrelated questions. It will not analyze the current of thinkers who came after Marx’s death […]

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Das Video Game Kapital

Co-Authors: Clipper Arnold and Sam Thomas Introduction “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned” – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party[1] The gaming industry is a recent victim of capital’s constant need to revolutionize itself, resulting in its own ossification. The telosof gaming has changed: no longer […]

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The Folly of Horseshoe Theory

Author: Sam Thomas Introduction A plague is contaminating contemporary political discourse: the plague of horseshoe theory. Horseshoe theory is a political theory which holds that the far left and far right hold more in common with each other than with the center. The implication the promoters of this theory sneak into their statements is a […]

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What would the Frankfurt School think of social media?

Author: Kumars Salehi Adorno. As every conservative freakout over the Frankfurt School reminds us, there is an alternate timeline on the American right where these German Jewish Marxists, who fled to California from Hitler’s Germany, got everything they ever wanted and a lot they didn’t. This article is not about about that, although other articles are. The interesting question isn’t whether the Frankfurt […]

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Capitalism with a Human Face: Part 1: Neoliberalism and Its Faults

Author: Sam Thomas Introduction: Capitalism with a human face refers to the usage of supposedly ethical procedures to soften the blow of capitalism. It has become a successful tactic by stripping once radical theories of their radical elements, and appropriating the aesthetic of radicalism to promote neoliberalism. This is the first in a three-part series […]

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A Catholicism for the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with a Tradinista

(Image used with permission of the Tradinistas) Author: Sam Thomas Alex Anderson is a contributor to the Tradinista Manifesto, a document from a Christian socialist group which seeks to unify Catholic teaching with Marxist economics. I interviewed Anderson about the integration of two different groups and the state of Catholicism in the 21st century. Diginativ: So the end […]

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An Open Letter to the Democratic Party

Author: Sam Thomas In hindsight, it seemed inevitable. Last week, Republicans took control of the Presidency, the House, and Senate. Furthermore, the Republican Party gained control of numerous state trifectas: governor, state house, and state senate, leaving them dangerously close to the three-fourths majority needed to pass constitutional amendments. “Clintonism”, the idea that Democrats could win elections […]

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Leftist Twitter User @PissPigGrandDad joins YPG to Combat ISIS in Northern Syria

Author: DiginativBotnet There have been several reports and instances of ISIS recruiting Westerners for combat in Syria, though the phenomenon of Westerners joining ISIS resistance movements hasn’t been quite as widely discussed. Recently, Twitter user @PissPigGrandDad boarded a plane to Syria to join the YPG (the People’s Protection Units), a guerrilla combat force in Nothern Syria, and has been documenting the […]

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Sky Blade Cloud on ROM-Hacking: Online Video Game Fan Translation Projects

Author: Clipper Arnold Something in the digital ether has given rise to novel forms of altruism. Under rational, self-interested models of market systems, there’s not much of a “logical” reason for someone to upload every episode of Bleach (for instance) to YouTube or torrent websites. Quite the opposite, in fact. In doing so, users expose themselves to […]