Is surplus value, - theft or not?

[Immanuel Can]

Marxist society would make it very significantly better...

This has never happened. Not in even one case. The statistics against that assumption are overwhelming.

[promethean75]

And stop with this nauseating little house on the prairie every man a king and his home his kingdom wife in the kitchen pseudo-anarcho-capitalism hands-off government get off my property rightwing constitutionalist fantasy already. We are not islands in the goddamn stream, mate. You 'n fuckin Henry. .

When you're broke, we're all broke. When you can't pay your bills or you've fallen and you can't get up... we all take that fall and break that hip together.

[Immanuel Can]

You 'n fuckin Henry.

Henry's great. The guy's a rock star.

What you don't like is that you can't beat the truth. You've been exploiting yourself. And then you feel bitter, and start to hate people who have created more value than you have pushed yourself to create. And you call them oppressors, for choices you made and freely continue to make.

This is Communism. It's pure ressentiment, to borrow a word from Nietzsche. Here's a good summary of his concept.

In philosophy, Ressentiment is a psychological state of deep-seated bitterness, envy, and frustration directed at those perceived as stronger or more successful, which leads the resentful person to invert moral values to justify their own weakness.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously developed the concept in his 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morals.

Core Meaning and Psychology

• Powerlessness and Envy: Ressentiment arises when an individual or group feels weak, inferior, or unable to directly retaliate against the source of their frustration or suffering.

• The "Sour Grapes" Mechanism: Unable to change their reality or achieve power, the individual copes by psychologically transforming their weakness into a virtue. Like the fox in Aesop's fable who decides the unattainable grapes are "sour" anyway, the resentful person claims that what they cannot have is actually corrupt or evil.

• Spiritual Revenge: It functions as a defense mechanism and a form of "spiritual revenge," allowing the powerless to feel morally superior to the strong without ever confronting their own inadequacies.

Connection to Slave Morality

• Inverting Values: Nietzsche argued that ressentiment is the root cause of "slave morality".

• Redefining Good and Evil: While master morality evaluates life based on strength, nobility, and power ("good vs. bad"), slave morality labels the strong and powerful as "evil" and brands weakness, humility, and suffering as "good".

• Targeting Strength: The ultimate goal of ressentiment is not just to acquire what others have, but to invalidate the achievements and vitality of the strong, turning victimhood into a moral high ground.

[promethean75]

And worse! When i finally am able and do start workin' fer muhself, finally breaking free from the capitalist, the State sabotages my newfound opportunity to experience the Ermerican Dream. And i wasn't even tryna start a business and become an evil capitalist. I didn't want employees to get rich off of... just some work for myself for christ sakes... and i can't even get that!

Note: I'm suspicious of all text in red at a philosophy forum.

[promethean75]

"Henry's great. The guy's a rock star."

Mebbe. Mebbe not.

[Immanuel Can]

And worse! When i finally am able and do start workin' fer muhself, finally breaking free from the capitalist, the State sabotages my newfound opportunity to experience the Ermerican Dream.

How did the State "sabotage" you? Serious question. If they did it, I want to hear exactly how they did it.

Did they overtax you? Did they over-regulate you? Did they come in and take from you what you had achieved...like Communism? Because Communism demands more of all those things...more taxes, total regulation, and no property at all.

And did you not realize that Communism wants the State to control everything? Boy, if you think you're exploited now...just wait until you try having the State being all-powerful. You haven't even begun to be exploited.

[Immanuel Can]

"Henry's great. The guy's a rock star."

Mebbe. Mebbe not.

Definitely. The guy had a great sense of humour, and a sharp mind. People underestimated him...precisely because he wanted them to.

P.S. -- Too bad about your hatred of red letters. Here's the same in something much easier to read.


In philosophy, Ressentiment is a psychological state of deep-seated bitterness, envy, and frustration directed at those perceived as stronger or more successful, which leads the resentful person to invert moral values to justify their own weakness.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously developed the concept in his 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morals.

Core Meaning and Psychology

Powerlessness and Envy: Ressentiment arises when an individual or group feels weak, inferior, or unable to directly retaliate against the source of their frustration or suffering.

The "Sour Grapes" Mechanism: Unable to change their reality or achieve power, the individual copes by psychologically transforming their weakness into a virtue. Like the fox in Aesop's fable who decides the unattainable grapes are "sour" anyway, the resentful person claims that what they cannot have is actually corrupt or evil.

Spiritual Revenge: It functions as a defense mechanism and a form of "spiritual revenge," allowing the powerless to feel morally superior to the strong without ever confronting their own inadequacies.


Connection to Slave Morality

Inverting Values: Nietzsche argued that ressentiment is the root cause of "slave morality".

Redefining Good and Evil: While master morality evaluates life based on strength, nobility, and power ("good vs. bad"), slave morality labels the strong and powerful as "evil" and brands weakness, humility, and suffering as "good".

Targeting Strength: The ultimate goal of ressentiment is not just to acquire what others have, but to invalidate the achievements and vitality of the strong, turning victimhood into a moral high ground.

[promethean75]

My sociohistorical theory does not detract from anything Fritz said there. In fact, i posit the property owning class as the first pussies. It was from the management classes of surplus stock in the age of agriculture (after the hunter-gatherer stage) that the politicians, priests, and magistrates grew. The laborers and soldiers of the society came under their control, and laws were devised that kept this new administrative class from having to work and in control of property. Soldiers received good pay (and land) to uphold their laws, and the people/workers naturally answered to it with little but consistent resistance.

The first great resenters were those who had nothing tangible to offer their collective groups... no real talent but that of oration, of being able to persuade others. The first philosophers were, in fact, the guys whose leisure provided them time to scheme. Convincing the productive members of one's group not to oust his ass is the MO of this newly emerged class of pussies. The intellectual class.

But Fritz doesn't go back as far as me. He takes the modern property owning classes as granted and the aristocrats of that class as a master class. I think it was the portraits of Napoleon and statues of Ceasar he saw everywhere that got him all excited.

[promethean75]

Thank you. Lavender is much more pleasant.

[promethean75]

"How did the State "sabotage" you? Serious question. If they did it, I want to hear exactly how they did it"

Well, the answer is anecdotal, extremely unique, and solid as a rock. Remember you're not talking to a textbook Marxist emo. My circumstances are very rare.

I will not advertise anywhere it's possible that a potential customer will discover that I'm on the SO registry before contacting me. It's a pride and dignity thing. I will have nothing to do with anyone who has been led to believe I'm a 'violent recidivist sex offender' and possibly a child molestor from the looks of the ambiguous charges that could mean anything to the ignorant-of-the-law eyes of a possible customer viewing my SO page.

And guess what. I can totally do that. Ergo, the State is interfering with my livelihood in addition to the countless other interferences and restrictions it unjustifiably causes.

Bro, did you think those Bonnot guys and all those old school anarchists were just farting around playing philosopher? This is sirius business, mate.

[Immanuel Can]

It was from the management classes of surplus stock in the age of agriculture (after the hunter-gatherer stage) that the politicians, priests, and magistrates grew.

All of them existed long before there was any managerial class or "bourgeoisie" at all. Check your history.

The laborers and soldiers of the society came under their control,

You'll find that was the local strong-men first, and then kings, and then the aristocracy, when there was going to be no managerial class for thousands of years yet. You'll also discover that allegiance to that system was often voluntary and even reciprocal. It was just how society was, back in the early days of civilization.

The first great resenters...

You mean "mankind"? Resentment is as old as they are. Ancient literature certainly bears that out.

But Nietzsche had something more specific in mind, which is why he wrote his word as "ressentiment," rather than the way you spell it, "resentment." He saw it as a unique feature of the weak and morally stunted, as you can see. But ressentiment is also the hallmark of Communism, it's whole rallying cry: "I'm a victim. Help, help, I'm being oppressed...Come see the violence inherent in the system."

But Fritz doesn't go back as far as me.

Well, he clearly has a better sense of history. He at least knew what Marx also knew, that the "bourgeoisie" or "managerial class," if you prefer, was a phenomenon of the Industrial Age of the 18th and 19th Centuries, not of some antique class.

[promethean75]

"But Nietzsche had something more specific in mind, which is why he wrote his word as "ressentiment," rather than the way you spell it, "resentment.""

OMG, duh. I had to say 'resenters' because ressentimenters is goofy sounding.

This is proof you didn't read or don't remember my own posts about ressentiment here in the marbled... or wainscoting, rather, halls of PN.

[Immanuel Can]

"But Nietzsche had something more specific in mind, which is why he wrote his word as "ressentiment," rather than the way you spell it, "resentment.""

OMG, duh. I had to say 'resenters' because ressentimenters is goofy sounding.

Okay, well, I agree that it sounds unusual. Philosophers call it "stipulating a term," and it's what people do when there isn't a word that quite does the thing they want it to do, because the regular term is in some way imprecise or inadequate to the moment. And it's a fair thing to do: the only proviso is that the stipulator has to provide a precise definition of his term before he plunges into using it. After that, the reader is supposed to understand the distinction.

Nietzsche does define it. So we can't fault him for that.

[promethean75]

You could tell Jules was the leader just by lookin' at the whole Bonnot gang. Every one of em looks half retarded or too young to be the leader. Look at the pic. A whole mural of dirty carnival thugs with one normal shrewd and impatient lookin' white dude at the top. You know he's the one that runs everything. Gotta be. Him or the woman down at the bottom. She'd be like an Emma Goldman 2.0.

Les bandes tragiques!

[promethean75]

Ressentiment is just the psychological basis for acts of resentment, more or less. Nietzsche's only creating a theory wanting to characterize the personality traits of the resenter, that's all. The psychoanalysis of the resenter. The phenomenology of resenting. That's what he's doing. It was Freud before there was Freud. The GOM is so extensive and reductive that it's like the basis of any ethical system possible whether those ethicals know it or not.