Kevin Thomas
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kevinkthomas.bsky.social
Kevin Thomas
@kevinkthomas.bsky.social
Socialist. Independent scholar. M.A. in Humanities.
Author of http://marxandfriends.substack.com
For those interested in how psychoanalysis can intersect with historical materialism, this essay shows how Deleuze and Guattari follow Marx on the topic of “lack.”
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/lack-the-a...
January 18, 2025 at 2:42 AM
On Engels’ concept of social murder.

Here, I briefly introduce Engels’ concept and then show how Marx’s analysis in Capital informs our understanding of the way in which capitalist society continues to commit what Engels calls social murder.

marxandfriends.substack.com/p/engels-mar...
December 20, 2024 at 7:34 AM
How do we account for the widespread popularity of a book like Harari’s "Sapiens"?

What about it resonates with people? Or rather, how does Harari’s telling of history resonate with our own historical moment?
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/the-histor...
December 20, 2024 at 6:59 AM
Reposted by Kevin Thomas
Amazing writers like @kevinkthomas.bsky.social & his Marx & Friends newsletter gets like 2 or likes (1 being from me) while randos with handles like @wokekillerwulf1488 get hundreds of likes & paid subscribers. So yeah, that's what we're up against... (P.S. Go subscribe to Marx & friends!)
The very same people who lambasted DEI efforts as a subversion of the meritocracy are happily taking money and jobs in the name of “viewpoint diversity”
This is a deeply researched article showing the web of conservative foundations and think tanks supporting efforts like UNC’s “civic life” school. Basically, if you study U.S. history through a conservative lens, there’s money out there for you.
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
December 11, 2024 at 2:41 PM
Piece on the history of madness and the relation between capitalism and mental illness.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/foucault-a...
October 27, 2024 at 10:28 PM
Is Marx still relevant in the post-“Fordist” era? Does Deleuze break from or operate beyond the general categories of Marx in his 1990 “Postscript on Societies of Control”?
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/marxism-af...
October 15, 2024 at 2:09 AM
Just because capitalism can't realize liberty, equality and fraternity doesn't mean we can't.

Here's the latest in my series critiquing Harari's "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind."
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/for-indivi...
September 29, 2024 at 9:28 PM
Accelerationists often point to the book "Anti-Oedipus" as a key source for their political theory.

However, Deleuze and Guattari say almost nothing about the idea in the text. And what they do say should give anyone advocating that idea pause. marxandfriends.substack.com/p/were-deleu...
September 21, 2024 at 9:02 PM
My latest essay, on Marx’s theory of history.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/a-history-...
September 2, 2024 at 11:58 PM
Here, I briefly summarize and elaborate on Jacques Bidet’s essay “New Interpretations of Capital,” introducing some of the merits and limitations he describes regarding three different general interpretations of Marx's Capital.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/in-the-spi...
August 28, 2024 at 2:23 AM
Latest in my series critiquing Harari's "Sapiens."

In this one, I analyze how Harari highlights, as an example of an "ideal of social order," a legal code that presupposes the existence not only of class society but class society involving slavery.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/an-ideal-o...
August 12, 2024 at 9:59 PM
Here, I touch on the importance of the role of affect which Deleuze finds in the writing of all great philosophers and then take brief look at how that works in Marx’s “Capital.”
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/a-bird-of-...
July 28, 2024 at 9:05 PM
Rhetoric, ideology, propaganda—are these enough to explain the rise of fascism?

This essay introduces a psychoanalytic theory of fascism based in an analysis of capitalism.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/fascism-at...
July 18, 2024 at 2:43 PM
The latest in my series critiquing Harari’s “Sapiens.”

In this one, I break down Harari’s take that, “What made Europeans exceptional was their unparalleled and insatiable ambition to explore and conquer.”
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/an-insatia...
June 30, 2024 at 10:34 PM
It’s important to recognize that the types of laws Marx formulates are not laws of nature but laws of economics—capitalist economics in particular.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/laying-dow...
June 16, 2024 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Kevin Thomas
many defenders of capitalism argue that the capitalist/bourgeoisie takes on the risk

in a sense, they are correct

the bourgeoisie profits from the theft of surplus value from their workers, but this profit risks a loss

meanwhile, the worker's exploitation is a total certainty
June 9, 2024 at 2:57 AM
In this essay, I explain how Harari confuses the history of early capitalism and how recent research on early capitalism in the Netherlands supports Marx's theory.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/doing-busi...
June 8, 2024 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Kevin Thomas
ALWAYS note the language

Israelis: butchered
Palestinians: shattered

Living beings are butchered
Objects are shattered

Dehumanization is more subtle than you think
May 31, 2024 at 11:11 PM
My latest essay:

"Resisting the urge to look away from Palestine."

"What helps me continue to engage with the news out of Gaza, despite its emotional toll, is knowing that so many others in the world—growing numbers of people—are seeing the same things."
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/resisting-...
June 1, 2024 at 8:24 PM
Here, I compare Harari and Marx on the Industrial Revolution and the destruction of traditional families and communities.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/capital-vs...
May 25, 2024 at 8:08 PM
Lesser of two fascists
May 23, 2024 at 11:58 PM
Shit and piss doth trickle downhill
Money surely doth not
May 23, 2024 at 11:52 PM
“[A]ll rulers are the heirs of those who conquered before them. Hence, empathy with the victor invariably benefits the rulers. Historical materialists know what that means.”

—Walter Benjamin
May 21, 2024 at 4:36 PM
I think Berlin is correct to identify proto-fascist characteristics in the ideas of Maistre; where I disagree is the notion that Maistre is effectively the progenitor of fascism.
marxandfriends.substack.com/p/pitfalls-o...
May 19, 2024 at 2:21 PM