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judgesabo.bsky.social
JudgeSabo 🏴
@judgesabo.bsky.social
610 followers 750 following 740 posts
(He/They) ⛧ Anarchism 🏴 Syndicalism+ 🐈‍⬛ Philosophy φ Wildbow Fan 🕷️
Liberty, equality, and solidarity. ACAB 🍉Ⓥ
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judgesabo.bsky.social
Been a bit since I highlighted any errors in my Capital reading but noticed this... Not an error, but a difference between the Penguin edition and the Marxists.org version. Is it £80 million or £180 million? Is this hypothetical or historical?
7. One part of the accumulated money capital for loan is an actual fact simply the expression of industrial capital. If england invested, say, £80 million in American railways and other undertakings in 1857, this investment was affected almost entirely through the supply of English goods for which the Americans did not have to make any return payment. The English exporter Drew bills on America against the goods, and these bills were purchased by English subscribers who sent them to America in payment for their shares. 7. A portion of the accumulated loanable money-capital is indeed merely an expression of industrial capital. For instance, when England, in 1857, had invested 180 million in American railways and other enterprises, this investment was transacted almost completely by the export of English commodities for which the Americans did not have to make payment in return. The English exporter drew bills of exchange for these commodities on America, which the English stock subscribers bought up and which were sent to America for purchasing the stock subscriptions.
November 20, 2025 at 8:21 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Carl Menger, the founder of "Austrian" econ, argued property comes from scarcity, with whatever goods we have to meet our needs which we economize are being our property. But this is a far way removed from any Lockean idea and fits closer to Proudhon's idea of possessions, not property.
From Carl Menger's Principles of Economics The entire sum of goods at an economizing individual’s com- mand for the satisfaction of his needs, we call his property. His property is not, however, an arbitrarily combined quantity of goods, but a direct reflection of his needs, an integrated whole, no essential part of which can be diminished or increased without affecting realization of the end it serves.
November 14, 2025 at 4:00 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
A central trick of "Austrian" economics sneaking in and naturalizing propertarian assumptions. Through stories of isolated "Robinson Crusoe" types, property is seen as existing pre-society. This then becomes fundamental from distinguishing "voluntary" contractual relations vs. "hegemonic" ones.
From Ludwig von Mises' Human Action 2. Contractual Bonds and Hegcmonic Bonds There are two different kinds of social cooperation: cooperation by virtue of contract and coordination, and cooperation by virtue of command and subordination or hegemony. Where and as far as cooperation is based on contract, the logical relation between the cooperating individuals is symmetrical. They are all parties to interpersonal exchange contracts. John has the same relation to Tom as Tom has to John. Where and as far as cooperation is based on command and subordination, there is the man who com- mands and there are those who obey his orders. The logical relation between these two classes of men is asymmetrical. There is a director and there are people under his care. The director alone chooses and directs; the others-the wards-are mere pawns in his actions. From Murray Rothbard's Man Economy and State 1. Types of Interpersonal Action: Violence THE ANALYSIS IN CHAPTER 1 WAS based on the logical implica- tions of the assumption of action, and its results hold true for all human action. The application of these principles was confined, however, to “Crusoe economics,” where the actions of isolated individuals are considered by themselves. In these situations, there are no interactions between persons. Thus, the analysis could easily and directly be applied to n number of isolated Cru- soes on n islands or other isolated areas. The next task is to apply and extend the analysis to consider interactions between individual human beings. Let us suppose that Crusoe eventually finds that another individual, say Jackson, has also been living an isolated existence at the other end of the island. What types of interaction may now take place between them? One type of action is violence. Thus, Crusoe may entertain a vigorous hatred toward Jackson and decide to murder or otherwise injure him. In that case, Cru- soe would gain his end—murder of Jackson—by committing violence. Or Crusoe may decide that he would like to expropri- ate Jackson’s house and collection of furs and murder Jackson as a means to that end. In either case, the result is that Crusoe gains in satisfaction at the expense of Jackson, who, to say the least, suffers great psychic loss. Fundamentally similar is action
November 13, 2025 at 2:14 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
"Communists" when they are asked if the workers should be in charge.
Me: Gonna ask you for a third time. Especially if you're against secret conspiracies, you can condemn Engels falsifying election results and lying to the proletariat, betraying his position as secretary of the general council to Italy, right? ameri-commie: No. I condemn the Bakuninist slander you're repeating. Engels fought to defend the International's revolutionary program from your faction's secret dangerous conspiracy. Me: Lmao, so the man falsifying election results, lying to the workers, literally betraying the workers, is the man you think standing up against a secret dangerous conspiracy. You need to read more history and theory, my dude. Or are you denying that Engels did that? ameri-commie: Preserving the International from Bakunin, who was committed to wrecking it with conspiracies, was saving it for the working class. I stand with the tradition that builds revolutionary parties. You stand with the one that wrecks them. The workers need a party that can win, not a debating society that collapses at the first sign of a disagreement.
November 8, 2025 at 9:57 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Today is Nestor Makhno's birthday! See my notes on his essays here
judgesabo.substack.com/p/notes-on-m...
Black and white photo of Nestor Makhno
November 7, 2025 at 7:59 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Rudolf Rocker is one of the few Anarchists I've seen who want to present Anarchism as a synthesis of liberalism and socialism. The more common (and I believe more accurate) view is that it is purely socialist and considers liberalism to be a false or mistaken attempt to achieve Enlightenment ideals.
Anarchism has in common with Liberalism the idea that the happiness and prosperity of the individual must be the standard of all social matters. And, in common with the great representatives of Liberal thought, it has also the idea of limiting the functions of government to a minimum. Its supporters have followed this thought to its ultimate logical consequences, and wish to eliminate every institution of political power from the life of society. When Jefferson clothes the basic concept of Liberalism in the words: “that government is best which governs least,” then Anarchists say with Thoreau: “That government is best which governs not at all.” In common with the founders of socialism, Anarchists demand the abolition of all economic monopolies and the common ownership of the soil and all other means of production, the use of which must be available for all without distinction; for personal and social freedom is conceivable only on the basis of equal economic advantages for everybody. Within the socialist movement itself the Anarchists represent the viewpoint that the war against capitalism must be at the same time a war against all institutions of political power, for in history economic exploitation has always gone hand in hand with political and social oppression. The exploitation of man by man and the dominion of man over man are inseparable, and each is the condition of the other. From Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rudolf-rocker-anarchosyndicalism
November 5, 2025 at 8:18 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
John Rawls remains my favorite liberal, and I think one day I'm going to need to write a larger analysis on how his Theory of Justice might be adopted to an Anarchist framework.

Doing that justice (pun intended) would probably require I learn more about the Marxist critique of ethics though.
A black and white photo of John Rawls
October 29, 2025 at 9:59 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Sometimes I think early Anarchist texts exaggerate Marxist class reductionism, as if people only acted in crude materialist interests. Marx himself certainly wasn't naive. Then I remember Trotsky thought Hitler's army would turn on him because they'd care more about prosperity than race hatred.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/08/hitsarmies.htm Hitler’s soldiers are German workers and peasants. After the betrayal of the social democracy and of the Comintern, these workers and peasants in large numbers succumbed to the fumes of chauvinism, thanks to the unprecedented military victories. But the reality of class relations is stronger than chauvinist intoxication. The armies of occupation must live side by side with the conquered peoples; they must observe the impoverishment and despair of the toiling masses; they must observe the latter’s attempts at resistance and protest, at first muffled and then more and more open and bold. On the other hand, the German military and bureaucratic caste, after a series of victories and robberies of Europe, will rise still higher above the people, will flaunt more and more its powers, its privileges, and become demoralized like every caste of upstarts. The German soldiers, that is, the workers and peasants, will in the majority of cases have far more sympathy for the vanquished peoples than for their own ruling caste. The necessity to act at every step in the capacity of “pacifiers” and oppressors will swiftly disintegrate the armies of occupation, infecting them with a revolutionary spirit.
October 28, 2025 at 11:38 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Mummy's Tomb (1942) is really bad. Not even much to comment on, it's just boring, the villain's plan is silly, and it has one of those old Hollywood tropes of mob justice, but the torch-bearing mob is really peaceful and in the right.
The mummy Kharis and the high priest Mehemet Bey from The Mummy's Tomb (1942)
October 25, 2025 at 10:14 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
I have just finished reading by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley's classic gothic work Frankenstein (1818)!
Fascinating story. I knew there were a lot of differences between this and the classic movie, but the monster was both more sympathetic and more evil than I expected! Really great story
Junji Ito's adaptation of Frankenstein
October 25, 2025 at 8:05 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Not as racist as I might have expected for the depiction of the Japanese, though I didn't even realize one of the main villains was Japanese at first. Played by a very white man. I guess you were supposed to tell because of the round glasses? He didn't do an accent at least.
Baron Ikito and a Nazi from The Invisible Agent (1942)
October 25, 2025 at 1:31 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Yesterday I saw The Invisible Agent (1942)! World War II is in full swing and the grandson of the original invisible man has joined the Allies. Mostly interesting for how it depicts the Axis Powers. Silly at first, invisibly dumping food on a Gestapo agent, but they're otherwise competent villains.
The invisible man hides behind two Nazis and Maria, the German espionage agent, on the left
October 25, 2025 at 1:28 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
No one was asking, but I can confirm that The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) is when it jumped the shark. All the creativity and interest of the last Frankenstein movies is gone and it's clear they're just including the elements already made cliche.
Frankenstein's monster getting struck by a random bolt of lightning by pure chance
October 23, 2025 at 10:34 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pier...
Thus, in a given society, the authority of man over man is inversely proportional to the stage of intellectual development which that society has reached; and the probable duration of that authority can be calculated from the more or less general desire for a true government, — that is, for a scientific government. And just as the right of force and the right of artifice retreat before the steady advance of justice, and must finally be extinguished in equality, so the sovereignty of the will yields to the sovereignty of the reason, and must at last be lost in scientific socialism. Property and royalty have been crumbling to pieces ever since the world began. As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy. Anarchy, — the absence of a master, of a sovereign,[34] — such is the form of government to which we are every day approximating, and which our accustomed habit of taking man for our rule, and his will for law, leads us to regard as the height of disorder and the expression of chaos.
October 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Late night watching Son of Frankenstein (1939). Didn't realize the one-armed inspector in Young Frankenstein was being pulled from this movie! This is also the first time the hunchback assistant has actually been named Ygor! Weird that it's Bela Lugosi!
Lionel Atwill is Inspector Krogh Monster Hunter Baron Frankenstein, the Monster, and Bela Lugosi as Ygor.
October 14, 2025 at 4:24 AM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Continuing through the old Universal Monster movies, and I'm in the period of very goofy sequels now. I'm watching The Invisible Woman (1940). The first Invisible Man movie had silly parts, but this is just a comedy. Surprise appearance from Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West!
Poster for The Invisible Woman (1940) depicting the outline of a woman kicking a man.
October 14, 2025 at 2:36 AM
judgesabo.bsky.social
I also saw Dracula's Daughter (1936) today. Countess Marya Zaleska arguably has agency too, but a big part of her plot is not having agency too, failing to resist her vampiric impulses.
Countess Marya Zaleska ritualistically burns Dracula's body
October 13, 2025 at 7:21 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Watched The Mummy's Hand (1940) today. I'm kind of surprised! It still has a lot of colonialist baggage, of course, but I think this is the first of these films I've seen that gives the female lead any real agency! This is also the film when we get the classic "zombie" mummy with a limp.
Marta (left) holds up Babe Jenson (right), demanding back money she believes they swindled from her father from The Mummy's Hand (1940) The titular mummy from The Mummy's Hand (1940)
October 13, 2025 at 7:16 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
The weirdest and most surprising part for me was the scene where the evil Dr. Septimus Pretorius starts showing off the tiny homunculi he created and dressed up in costumes.
Doctor Septimus Pretorius homunculi in front of seven jars containing small little homunculi, each dressed in a different costume
October 12, 2025 at 1:45 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
It's just taken for granted by everyone here that "Oh man, this guy is invisible? That power will let him rule the world!"

Bit of a surprise too, it stars Henry Travers, who plays the angel Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life!
Henry Travers (left) plays Dr. Cranley, standing next to Gloria Stuart (right) playing Flora Cranley
October 9, 2025 at 1:33 AM
judgesabo.bsky.social
I do like the makeup on Boris Karloff.

It's surprising how much of the plot for this is recycled from Dracula too. Undead monster in a special coffin from a far away land, hypnotizing people, fixated on this white girl engaged to someone else, etc.
October 7, 2025 at 2:11 AM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Marx and Engels frequently called for "unscientific" talk about equality to be replaced by "scientific" talk of abolishing class distinctions. But this is silly. To abolish a distinction is to make things equal in that respect. I think they really hated equality because it was French.
Engels' letter to August Bebel ""The elimination of all social and political inequality,” rather than “the abolition of all class distinctions,” is similarly a most dubious expression. As between one country, one province and even one place and another, living conditions will always evince a certain inequality which may be reduced to a minimum but never wholly eliminated. The living conditions of Alpine dwellers will always be different from those of the plainsmen. The concept of a socialist society as a realm of equality is a one-sided French concept deriving from the old “liberty, equality, fraternity,” a concept which was justified in that, in its own time and place, it signified a phase of development, but which, like all the one-sided ideas of earlier socialist schools, ought now to be superseded, since they produce nothing but mental confusion, and more accurate ways of presenting the matter have been discovered."
October 1, 2025 at 12:33 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Which words did you find too big?
A quote from the Anarchist Rudolf Rocker: "political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being... The people owe all their political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the goodwill of their governments, but to their own strength."
September 20, 2025 at 3:47 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Makhno believed that revolutionary discipline was essential for Anarchist organization. By this he means the responsibility of an individual in a voluntary collective to carry out tasks for this org, however they are divided, and to not work at cross-purposes.
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nest...
Chapter 15. On Revolutionary Discipline Some comrades have put the following question to me: How do I conceive revolutionary discipline? Let me answer that. I take revolutionary discipline to mean the self-discipline of the individual, set in the context of a strictly prescribed collective activity equally incumbent upon all. This should be the responsible policy line of the members of that collective, leading to strict congruence between its practice and its theory. Without discipline inside the organization, there is no way of undertaking any consequential revolutionary activity at all. In the absence of discipline, the revolutionary vanguard cannot exist, for in that case it would find itself in utter disarray in its practice and would be incapable of identifying the tasks of the moment or of living up to the initiator role that the masses expect of it.
September 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM
judgesabo.bsky.social
Banger quote from Nestor Makhno
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nest...
The fact that the modern State is the organizational form of an authority founded upon arbitrariness and violence in the social life of toilers is independent of whether it may be “bourgeois” or “proletarian.” It relies upon oppressive centralism, arising out of the direct violence of a minority deployed against the majority. In order to enforce and impose the legality of its system, the State resorts not only to the gun and money, but also to potent weapons of psychological pressure. With the aide of such weapons, a tiny group of politicians enforces psychological repression of an entire society, and, in particular, of the toiling masses, conditioning them in such a way as to divert their attention from the slavery instituted by the State.
September 15, 2025 at 1:37 PM