this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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chapotraphouse

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Very sleek stuff, but reading the analysis gives bad vibes - what is their deal? Trot stuff? Can someone give me a good workup (I'm lazy)?

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They let all kinds of leftists write stuff, but the overall vibe is IMO more academic-brained bad rather than Trotskyist, trot vibes are a little bit funnier.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

That's a good point, like they allowed some nerd-brained dudes read the cliffnotes of Marxism and then locked them in a room with a high grade printer and the 1968 Encyclopedia Britanniaca

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Bhaskar Sunkara created Jacobin specifically with the intent of making Marxism more academic and aimed at the intelligentsia.

If you think that sounds like an attempt to sequester Marxism away from the proletariat by concealing it with obscurantist language and focusing on topics that are divorced from the concerns of the working class in order to strip all revolutionary potential from Marxism, well have you ever considered that maybe Kautsky was right all along?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

is that true? it's really not a very highbrow publication, and it's not like marxists need help being obscurantist

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

There was a quote from him about Jacobin wanting to be highbrow from a long time ago. I have probably read two Jacobin articles since the early days of the publication so I'm not sure where it's at today tbh.

Sunkara is a curious figure because he either changes his position a lot, he says what his interviewer wants to hear, or he is intentionally concealing what his goals are. He vacillates from being a loyal opposition Democrat supporter to a revolutionary communist to a person who extols the virtues of social democracy and European welfare capitalism. It could be that he's just flattering whoever hosts him or that he's trying to sugarcoat his words so that his message is well-received by the audience of the publication in question idk. I haven't bothered to look closely enough to try getting a decent read on the guy.

Maybe obscurantist was a poor choice of words on my part but in that old quote he was saying that he wanted to make a socialist publication that was slick and intellectual. So if I gave the impression that he said he wanted to rival French philosophers or the Frankfurt School for their obscuranism then that's my bad.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How is anyone still a Kautskyite in the year of our Lord 2024?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I know one IRL, he's in local DSA leadership

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Of course the DSA of all orgs would harbor modern Kautskyites.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Actually, Kautsky wasn't that bad fedposting

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

They still exist?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

it's literally called Jacobin, they're liberals don't overthink this

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

I prefer Teen Vogue.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

They come out on the side of the US state dept too often.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Jacobin, don't you mean Yakubian?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

They have good takes and bad takes, when it comes to socialist advocacy I don't think Jacobin is really something worth getting upset over

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

they have everyone from liberals to soc-dems to actual communists

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

More like jack off in a bin

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

More like Jack-deez-nutz-abin

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Ye Jacobin by name, give an ear, give an ear,
Ye Jacobin by name, give an ear,
Ye Jacobin by name,
Your fautes I will proclaim,
Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear, you shall hear Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

To liberals you do bow, lend an ear lend an ear
To liberals you do bow, lend an ear

To liberals you bow, with avaricious caw
Your unbecoming trows bring your traitors heart to shew

Your base revision open and clear, yes it's clear. Your base revision open and clear

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The poor you do betray, lend an ear, lend an ear The poor you do betray lend an ear.

The poor you do betray, with everything you say
Your articles to bray your contempt throughout the day.

Your editors are craven with fear, yes with fear Your editors are craven with fear.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Jacobin is by and large good. As another commenter pointed out, they give space to all kinds of lefties. That leads to some pretty lib takes now and then, especially in the online edition. If tendencial purity or hard-line anti-electoralism is your chief desire then sure, not for you. But I think generally it's good for promoting left unity, discussing historical and current events, propagating trade union news &c. It's probably the closest we've got to a mass left publication in the US.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

It’s a magazine for ppl who don’t read, but think they’re smart.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it's pretty broad, has different kinds of leftist. Haven't read it much either (I'm lazy)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

The glossy cover and infographics are cool, but reading the articles makes you go "huh?"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Ime they're often profoundly ignorant on anything outside the US, but I hear there's now a Lat Am franchise that is much better

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

BTW anyone can send articles there so while i like to dunk on their shitty takes i think it would be more constructive if ppl just started sending in articles debunking the shitty takes (theres a good chance they wont publish them tho but then again there are other places you can send them).

What i want to say is, ive been in this space for about seven years and id love it if the relentless critiques people can muster up here would leak from the commentariat to the surface.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

CIA. Look at what they say about Uyghur genocide. Same as democracy now which is the same as MSNBC which is the same as fox news which is the same as OAN.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Where else then Sir Lanka and maybe Ireland have Trotskyists had anything close to minor success?