/r/Marxism

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Marxism is a growing/changing economic/sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry based upon a materialist interpretation of historical development, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis of class-relations within society and their application in the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism encompasses an economic theory, a sociological theory, a philosophical method and a revolutionary view of social change.

Marxism is a growing/changing economic/sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry based upon a materialist interpretation of historical development, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis of class-relations within society and their application in the analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism encompasses an economic theory, a sociological theory, a philosophical method and a revolutionary view of social change.

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15

The state of Cuba

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading about the reported state of Cuba as it is today. It seems like they are facing a lot of problems due to their unique situation in the geopolitical sphere. I think this also an opportunity to study and learn ways to better implement Marxist philosophy in different societies.

Some things that affect Cuba, off the top of my head:

  • The US embargo restricts trade with Cuba, although the magnitude of this impact is debatable.
  • The dissolution of the USSR in 1989-1990 had a negative impact on the Cuban economy, who relied on Soviet support and tourism, etc.
  • Cuba is very much reliant on imports and carries a huge trade deficit. I would think a nation would have to be able to produce things to sustain an economy.
  • Cuba has very much been historically reliant on tourism dollars to pump money in the planned economy, and things like COVID have deeply affected tourism. Cuba’s lack of diversity in their commodities/production, AKA, putting all of their eggs into one basket, has been very problematic.
  • Reflecting the fourth point, the reported food shortages that occur in Cuba point to a need for agricultural self-sufficiency to a degree. This would be challenging to establish, considering things like climate change increases the frequency of severe storms, which presents real threats to agriculture and infrastructure on the island. This climate change is perpetuated mainly by large, capitalist, industrialized nations.

What’s some of your opinions on all of this? How would one approach these issues from a Marxist perspective without compromising revolutionary values?

3 Comments
2024/03/14
19:59 UTC

2

On the Presumption of a Need for Commensurability between Commodities

Just as the title says, this seems to me to be a weaker part in Marx: ie that there must be a commensurability between commodities (called the quantity of socially necessary labor time, or exchange value). I understand why he makes that assumption, the idea being: I can't measure/compare two different things unless I create a common measure. Like, I can have a tape measure, and use it to examine the height of two different things, but I can't compare the height unless I have some common measure, like a tape measure. Starting to feel tautological: in can't measure things unless I invent something to measure things with.

So is there a way we can dispense with this idea that for two qualitatively different things to be exchanged, or made equivalent to one another, we need a common measure?

Could we just say that in the act of exchange there is no mediation that makes two commodities equivalent, it's just a short circuit? Maybe say it's just straight up theft, a play of powers, and exchange value/price is just the ideological rationale that tries to cover up this everyday theft.

I know it doesn't sound satisfying, and doesn't explain anything about capitalism as a system, but just renders it into some play of powers, but I'm just trying to test Marx's notion that to render qualitative difference into a common quantity there must be a mediator.

Seems like a silly thing to test and prod as it seems so self evidently true, but ruthless criticism of everything existing, right 🤪.

PS. Yes I know some theorists level this criticism too but they always replace it with some new or different common measure.

16 Comments
2024/03/14
01:22 UTC

10

Looking for easily accessible books explaining Gramsci and later critical theory like Kimberlé Crenshaw

I want to be able to recommend books to younger people, maybe 18 yo, something that explains how cultural wars and discourse works make sense of the modern world that they'll be able to finish without their brains turning into mush. Are there any newbie-friendly positions worth checking out?

4 Comments
2024/03/13
14:11 UTC

3

The history of the USSR imposes on us the duty to rethink the very nature of Marxist dialectics

Please correct me if any portions of this post are mistaken.

Marx’s Capital famously begins with a chapter on the commodity, the cell of the Capitalist mode of production. And from this cell, Marx derives the entirety of the the Capitalist mode of production, showing that it is both a logical and a historical necessity.

Does the existence of the USSR not impose on us the duty to once again derive, from the basis of this elementary cell, a new logic?

To be more specific: at the point where the Bolsheviks seize power in October 1917, there is now a government in power that explicitly endorses a Marxist analysis. The commodity fetish therefore loses its affective power (at least in principle). Material relationships between people are no longer able to masquerade as social relationships between things. Therefore, the basic dialectics of use-value and exchange-value can no longer necessarily lead to the derivation of the capitalist mode of production.

It has been more than 100 years, but has this new logic been derived? At least from my own narrow perspective, it does not look like it has.

8 Comments
2024/03/13
02:00 UTC

0

Why have all socialist nations throughout history banned free speech despite it being a core value of socialism?

Free speech is one of the most important values that humanity has, our ability to speak freely and criticize our governments is the most important right we have, so why have socialist governments, who claim to be “for the people” banned free speech and criticism of the government?

21 Comments
2024/03/12
23:34 UTC

11

Urbanisation and alienation

I was just thinking about urbanisation and the alienation brought about by selling labour to survive yet not feeling no connection with the product of your labour.
And I wondered …. What made people leave the rural towns in the first place to go seek their fortunes in the urban cities? Could they no longer survive working the land? Why did the rural areas not have a robust enough economy that the country folk could strive and survive there? They had survived there for centuries beforehand.
Something must have changed in the rural areas in the 19th century to make it unliveable. Was there a population explosion? Did industrialisation involve a withdrawal of investment from agriculture?

10 Comments
2024/03/12
13:29 UTC

20

I bought all of these socialist books. Which should I read first?

I bought all of these socialist/communist books:

  • Which should I read first?
  • What is your favorite one?

  1. A Contribution To The Critique Of Political Economy (Marx)
  2. Social Reform or Revolution? (Rosa Luxemburg)
  3. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (Michael Parenti)
  4. Das Kapital (Marx)
  5. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of (Antonio Gramsci)
  6. The State & Revolution (Vladimir Lenin)
  7. Lenin: "What Is to Be Done? (Lenin)
  8. The German Ideology (Marx, Engels)
  9. Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno)
  10. The Communist Manifesto (Marx Engels)
  11. Their Morals and Ours, Revolution Betrayed (Leo Trotzki)

For context: 25 M, German university student (philosophy), very basic understanding of capitalism, socialism/communism/marxism, BA in economic translation.

I will be reading all of the books in the original German.

21 Comments
2024/03/11
01:20 UTC

8

Need help with this Marx quote

Marx says this in Critique of the Gotha Program and it's a little confusing. Would appreciate it if someone explained it in a way that is easier to understand:

"The capitalist mode of production […] rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of property in capital and land,

while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results in a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism […] has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution."

2 Comments
2024/03/10
07:11 UTC

19

Which one of Marx's writings should I read first?

So as the title says, I'm not sure in which order I should read Marx's stuff. Is starting with "Wage Labour and Capital" + "Value, Price and Profit" and then moving on to The Communist Manifesto and Capital vol 1 a good idea? I've also heard that reading The Principles of Communism by Engels before the manifesto might be a good idea but idk.

21 Comments
2024/03/10
05:54 UTC

6

Question about perfect markets

Under perfect market conditions would all intensification in the extraction of surplus value not put downward pressure on commodity prices and ultimately erase the grounds for realizing that surplus value?

In other words: Does the realization of surplus value require imperfect markets?

In other other words: Must surplus value be realized in the time between the creation of an individual relative advantage and the social correction as reflected in natural price?

In other other other words: Is there not a fundamental contradiction between capitalism's need for surplus value and its imperative of competition?

Moreover, what is Marx's concept of markets? Does his analysis assume perfect markets? Does it even assume markets that slowly tend toward natural price? Marx articulates fundamental contradictions in the sphere of production, but for some time now I have been trying to wrap my head around what I sense are fundamental contradictions in the sphere of circulation.

Thanks for any help!

8 Comments
2024/03/10
04:36 UTC

2

STOP CITING PAUL COCKSHOTT DEAR LORDDDD

  1. his papers attempting to prove the LTV have laughable statistical metrics, and inherently devalue marxists’ claims to empiricism when talking about economics. he tried to do it by aggregating the amount of labor across entire industries and finding its relationship to the profit of said industry. i feel like i shouldn’t have to explain how this is dumb. if an industry has high labor, it’s most likely a big industry. if it’s a big industry, it most likely has high profits. if prices were entirely random, this relationship would still exist simply due to the scale of industry. thus, this says literally nothing about the relation between price and embodied labor. if he is our standard of empirics, we deserve neither the title of empiricists nor scientific socialists.

  2. his attempt to solve the economic calculation problem with prices determined by LTV fundamentally misunderstands the LTV and ECP. the LTV is descriptive of the economy and only describes prices in a perfect theoretical equilibrium economy (infinite potential supply). it has no way of analyzing conditions of scarcity. truthfully, it didn’t need to for what marx was arguing with it. however, cockshott attempts to say that a planned economy can create price quantities by calculating the embodied labor. in essence, he believes that the LTV can be used as a way of how prices “should” be, rather than how marx used it to describe them as “what they are” in a market economy. this makes no sense when addressing the ECP because the ECP is specifically about conditions of scarcity, which we still experience today.

  3. he’s transphobic and stupid. he thinks “gender ideology” is an anti-materialist ideology, saying that it reinforces sex stereotypes that are used to subjugate women as a class of reproductive laborers. this is 1, a huge stretch, and 2, a misunderstanding of marxist feminism. marxist feminism believes the origin of the gendered divide were, yes, a division of labor (manual/reproductive). however, a modern society with modern technology renders these things utterly irrelevant to the natal sex. you don’t need to have an AMAB’s strength to be a high-value laborer today, you need to know how to program in C. you don’t need breast milk to take care of kids today, you can buy formula. thus, marxist feminism must see transgender expression as simply a consequence of this abstraction of material sex from social roles; a liberation. additionally, one could see the emergence of transexual medical care (hormones, SRS, etc.) as a change in the material conditions. this is quite the opposite of cockshott’s claim that it “reinforces sex stereotypes”.

in conclusion, he’s a pathetic researcher and an even more pathetic leftist.

6 Comments
2024/03/10
04:32 UTC

10

Does Marx say that the nature of economic relationships is inherently political?

Pretty much the title. I'm working on political economy and since political economy has largely always been economic centric, i came across this in a research paper (Ryan, C. C. (1981). The Fiends of Commerce: Romantic and Marxist criticisms of classical political economy. History of Political Economy, 13(1), 80–94. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-13-1-80, Page 93) and was wondering if anyone can help me out. Thanks!

12 Comments
2024/03/09
13:24 UTC

16

The remnants of feudalism

I was doing some research on Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the American House of Representatives, during Biden’s State of the Union Address. And I was aghast to find out that he is a Young Earth Creationist.

He has reached the highest echelons of power in the country’s government, and he believes the Earth is 6,000 years old.

It just goes to show that remnants of feudal culture are alive and well within the bourgeois state. What Lenin said about anti-semitism applies equally to all forms of feudal backwardness that still persist within bourgeois democracy: “this is a survival of ancient feudal times, when priests burned heretics at the stake . . .” Really, just unacceptable. The religious right is a complete blight, and socialist power must take an uncompromising stance against the enemy’s insipid, ideological poison in every form it takes.

3 Comments
2024/03/08
04:07 UTC

34

Thoughts on the new RCP?

The IMT (International Marxist Tendency) have established a new political party: The Revolutionary Communist Party. It has come alongside their new paper, The Communist and their recent on-the-offense, "aggressive" recruiting campaign. My knowledge is limited to the UK, so I don't know if this party exists elsewhere.

They are spearheading Lenin as a clear influence and guide for the party, even setting up a new website dedicated to spreading and discussing his ideas: lenin.red

The parties demands and policies (as printed in their paper), are:

Rejection of both Tories and Labour. £20 per hour minimum wage (and rising with prices). Rejection of job cuts and redundancies. Nationalisation of energy, rail and water. Build a million council homes per year. Repeal anti-trade union laws. Real emancipation of women. Abolition of monarchy and House of Lords. Abolition of tuition fees and student rents. Expropriation of bankers and billionaires. Nationalisation of 100 biggest banks and monopolies.

What are people's immediate (or mediated) thoughts? Will you be joining the party? Any critiques? I personally admire their organisation, their dedication to learning and recruiting and their clear desire for a better world. My critiques aren't too big, and revolve mainly around contingent theoretical matters (I think their skepticism toward a lot of "academic" theory, from Hegel to psychoanalysis is unfortunate; and some members I've met can be a bit dogmatic on particular readings of Marx, Lenin and dialectics more generally). But when it comes to political organisation, I see a wealth of potential in the RCP. What do Marxists here think?

Disclaimer: I'm not a Trotskyist nor a party member, in case that begins to taint the content of the discussion!

41 Comments
2024/03/07
15:25 UTC

3

Where are the footnotes in german ideology

I am reading "the German ideology" great books in philosophy edition

https://kalamkopi.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/karl-marx-friedrich-engels-the-german-ideology.pdf

And I can't find the numbered footnotes. The lettered footnotes are still the bottom of the page. But where tf are the numbered footnotes. ?

2 Comments
2024/03/07
03:17 UTC

2

what is the best way to say how much a commodity is worth in terms of labour and exchange value

I know it would be wrong to say “The exchange value of this commodity is equal to X hours of labour” or “The commodity is worth X hours of labour”, that’s not how Marx uses that term, but saying “The exchange value of the commodity has X hours of labour objectified in it” is very long. Also “The exchange value is determined by X hours of labour”

4 Comments
2024/03/06
20:37 UTC

0

Globalization is not the enemy

I’m tired of people claiming that globalization leads to exploitation of workers without acknowledging the jobs it gives to people. Sure standards for labor are much worse and the rich will exploit that as much as possible, but it takes the average man in China from unemployed to at least somewhat self-sustaining because of the multitude of jobs globalization opens up.

13 Comments
2024/03/06
04:09 UTC

9

How trotskists do imagine their world and economy

How do you view

  1. Cooperatives - manufacturing, health, banking,
  2. Money - do you accept them,
  3. Land property
  4. Private personal property,
  5. Things which can be both means of production and personal - laptops classical thing

If trotskists were against central organisation - how would they plan to implement justice institutions

I would be grateful for responses, not just plain read x, y, z (even though I wouldn't mind taking a look at them).

How do you view NEP idea like Bukharin's (and allegedly now popular in China party) and why?

8 Comments
2024/03/04
10:24 UTC

5

Who pays for constant capital and surplus value?

In Capital vol. 2 chp. 17, Marx makes the observation that the working class as a collective consumer "can never buy more than a part of the value of the social product equal to that part of the value which represents the value of the advanced variable capital." In other words, the cost of constant capital cannot be passed on to worker-consumers, and surplus value cannot be realized with their money.

So to whom is the cost of constant capital passed and with whose money is surplus value realized? I have been asking this question for a while now, and I tend to get one of two answers:

  1. Workers are not the only consumers. Capitalists are also consumers, and they purchase each others' goods. So any one capitalist can recoup advanced variable capital from worker-consumers, can pass the cost of constant capital to another capitalist-consumer and can realize surplus value with the money of another capitalist-consumer.
  2. Since the purchasing power of worker-consumers is limited by wages, some capitalists end up with products they cannot sell. Those leftover products are the compensation for the cost of constant capital and they are the realized surplus value, just in the form of goods rather than money.

I have responded to these answers in the following way:

  1. (To the first answer) Fine, but from where do the capitalists get their money to become a consumer force?
  2. (To the second answer) Ok, but a commodity that is not saleable is worthless to the capitalist.

Can anybody speak to this or recommend resources? Thank you!

9 Comments
2024/03/04
03:11 UTC

9

Understanding Marxism Book

I recently started listening to Democracy at Work with Professor Wolff.

Have any of you read his book called “Understanding Marxism”? It seems like a good way for beginners to begin to understand Marxism. Let me know what you think.

Also, any other YouTube channels you all like that are similar to Democracy at Work?

I can speak German so Gegenstandpunkt has been good too but I’d like to find others.

Thanks!

7 Comments
2024/03/03
15:19 UTC

8

Lenin, Fanon, and Imperialism

I remember reading something that summarized Fanon as inverting Lenin's thesis—that the economic basis of imperialism stems from monopoly capitalism. In contrast, Fanon argues that capitalism is the highest stage of imperialism. Unfortunately, I have read next to no Fanon. I'm not sure where I'd find this in his work. Is it somewhere in The Wretched of the Earth? Is this "inversion" I half-recall reading of even accurate?

0 Comments
2024/03/01
01:30 UTC

3

Reading recommendations for topics about/adjacent to shareholders, big tech, virtual products, Amazon, etc.

Hi comrades. I'm looking for any and all reading recommendations, academic or not, that may provide a lens to help me understand the modern situation, through a critical but hopefully Marxist perspective, we're in with bullshit jobs, Twitch streaming, shareholders' immense power, etc. This line of thought was inspired by reading Varoufakis's book about Technofeudalism, which then lead me to read "Capital is Dead" by McKenzie Wark.

I work in tech and I'm enraged and irritated at the massive wave of lay-offs within the video game industry, and while these studios laying off their workers for poor decisions made management is nothing new, I'm becoming more concerned about those who own the means of production being so beholden to shareholders, and that's leading me to curiosity about these newer aspects of capitalism and information, the general monetization of every second of our lives, etc.

Open to any and all recommendations. Doesn't have to be Marxist but that would be great.

3 Comments
2024/02/29
15:07 UTC

42

How i got into communism and how i see it now

So, i (21M, Brazilian) got into communism for about a year now, and i wish to share it with you for debate purposes, since i don't know anyone else willing to discuss about this topic in specific and i don't really know how to start a discussion about it with the people i know.

My name is João, as i said i am 21 yo and i'm from Brazil. My very first contact with communism was about 4-5 years ago, when the (now former) President Jair Messias Bolsonaro started his rising in brazilian politics.

His speechs was nothing more than hitting Scarecrows, meaning that he was always talking about the same topics, using the same points over and over, even if he was asked about a total different topic from before. This was a concern for most left wing people, but to the right wingers, it was heaven.

I gotta say that for quite a few time, i fell for his speechs. I will not dig much into that, just do a small research and you'll know what i'm talking about. I really thought that communism was a monster, a huge threat and a real danger to people in my country and all over the world.

Took me a few years to really get into politics, to actually grab some articles and start reading them to understand what was going on. I felt like i had to do it cause i was becoming an adult and really had to understand what i would believe, what would be better for me as a person and for the society i was about to properly entering as one.

After reading a lot about liberalism i came to the conclusion it wouldn't make sense to me. I was always a big fan of punk rock, which i think it had a huge influence on my thought process throughout this whole "getting into politics" thing. I had huge conflicts between the reading i was doing and the ideas from the bands i listened to, not only on punk rock but also death metal, metalcore, etc.

One day i found a video from a Brazilian "influencer" (don't really like this word). He was in the communist niche and as i was thinking within myself about watching a video of him explaining communism ironically, for i thought i did not agree with any of his ideas, i clicked it and that was it.

Took a few points of him to get me to read some of the recommendations he made, but i started to think as a working class person. At the time, i was working at a public pharmacy and was not happy at all with the way they treated interns like me. We were poorly paid (R$547,65 if i'm not mistaken, something like US$110,01) and the conditions of work for pharmacies standarts were really sad to see. Don't get me started with the exploit we suffered from actually employees.

Anyway, took me a few readings to understand what communism was all about, it showed me a whole new world of ideas, opening a possibility for me to develop my own. Towards organize myself, i think i did pretty well theoretically, although i lack of local movements for the ACTUAL organization i need as part of this community due to my location in Brazil.

Communism opened my eyes to understand not only about politics in general by reading both Capitalism and communism pieces, but also to understand myself as a human being. I learned from it that you can't do absolutely anything without getting into politics, for politics surround you everywhere you look.

Nowadays i am very proud to say i am a communist and i am proud that people in the past fought for my right to be a communist.

Idk if this will be approved, idk if anyone cares, but i felt the need to share.

PS: Feel free to start a discussion in this topic, i'll be glad to answer questions or just have a conversation with you guys.

PPS: I know it's not my place to apologize for my english, it not being my first language, but yeah, sorry if i made some spelling mistakes or whatever.

Stay safe.

14 Comments
2024/02/29
12:46 UTC

41

First 10 Books to get my feet Wet in Marxism

I’ve always been very liberal but within the last 4-6 months I can feel myself becoming more radicalized due to many current and past events.

I don’t want to jump into anything near the complexity of Das Kapital for a very long time/until I’ve read many more digestible books on Marxism prior.

Thanks for your recommendations!

P.S. I can speak, read, and write in German at the level of a native speaker, so if there are other books in German to read that you could suggest, that’d be helpful too.

51 Comments
2024/02/29
04:38 UTC

10

Why did Geogri Plekhanov prefer the method of "industrial socialism" over the Leninist approach?

Hello!
I am currently reading a book about the Russian Revolution, and I am having a little bit of trouble understanding the motive of Plekhanov and his desire to elevate the peasant class by inaugurating an industrial state PRIOR to having a revolution. I understand that his plan is a twofold one, with a two-stage revolution. Firstly, he wanted to have a kind of before revolution and get the peasants working in the industrial sector in the cities as opposed to staying on the farmland, and from there, the newly created working class could come about in the European manner, and from there they could revolt. He is quoted as saying "In Russia, political freedom will be gained by the working class, or it will not exist at all. The Russian revolution can only conquer as a working man's revolution-- there is no other possibility nor can there be."
Maybe I am splitting hairs here or looking for nuance which isn't really present, but I can't seem to find any detailed explanations of why he felt this was a superior method over, say, the Leninist approach, notwithstanding his desire to be less violent and more democratic. Can someone help me understand the nuances of why he felt his path toward the implementation of Marxism into Russian society was the superior one? Thanks!

4 Comments
2024/02/28
12:40 UTC

6

confused on paragraph about workers increasing real wages by mandel

In the first fragment Marx insists on the fact that a trade union is a - combination of sellers of the commodity labour-power, which enables them to negotiate the price of this commodity with the capitalists under more equal conditions than if they were to negotiate on an individual basis. As is the case with all commodities, this price can never for very long radically depart from the axis of the value of labour-power around which it oscillates.

However, by preventing the capitalists from lowering the value of labour-power, trade unions can at least prevent all the results of increased productivity of labour from automatically accruing to the former: in other words they can achieve an increase in real wages, through the inclusion in the value of labour-power in its moral-historical element) of the counter-value of new mass-produced commodities satisfying newly acquired needs.

I don’t understand the second paragraph. By preventing capitalists from lowering the value of labor-power, does he mean negotiating to keep the prices up? And I have no clue what the counter-value thing means. Also I forget specifically how increases productivity of labour benefits the capitalist, but is it pretty much that: the laborer can produce more commodities per hour but is still payed the same hourly wage. meaning they earn less money per commodity produced?

2 Comments
2024/02/27
01:26 UTC

2

"undeveloped figure" of the proletariat citations

I was reading Kautsky's Social Democracy vs. Communism. In part 9 he mentioned Marx using the term "'undeveloped figure' of the proletariat', explaining that, "...perceiving frequently in the capitalist who employs it not the exploiter who lives upon its labor but the master, the philanthropist, upon whose good will the wage earner subsists. Occasionally, these proletarians begin to glean vaguely the real character of the situation, which in turn, leads them to manifestations of resistance. But they are not capable of continuous, systematic struggle."

I can't find exact citations from Marx describing this, and I'm very interested in reading more about his thoughts on this particular type of proletarian, if someone happens to know where he talks about this, off the top of their head.

0 Comments
2024/02/26
19:13 UTC

0

this is why marxism is impossible

It assumes that without oppressive social and economic structures that humans will somehow revert to a state of being good and unselfish and all be able to live together harmoniously and share everything equally and unselfishly. I can hardly imagine even a handful of people doing that for more than a week, much less the whole world. It assumes that people will all work as equally as hard as they can, they will take only what they need, and they will not take advantage of the system or put in less effort than their comrades. To me, this is its most glaring flaw. This is also a large part of what makes Marxist systems so oppressive and dangerous. Adherents to Marxism are often so enamored by it that they treat it like infallible divine truths. Marxism is the only way to heaven (on earth) and anyone or anything that isn’t for it is against it, and if you are against it, you are evil and your rights, freedoms, and opinions are negated. You lose the right to be free or even to live. If you combine this zealotry with the assumption that people will only act in a “good” way once all oppressive structures are abolished you can see how Marxists have and will always commit atrocities in the name of the “people.” According to their beliefs human nature is good and Marxism is good so if you act in a non-Marxist way or have non-Marxist ideas then you are not really human, you are evil and should be silenced or killed. In their own eyes they are not committing mass murders (millions so far) or oppressing humanity, they are purging the world of evil and acting for the good of mankind. No depravity is too extreme when the end result is the ultimate good of Marxism. This is why you cannot reason with a Marxist. They have already reasoned it out and for them there is no other way. When you say anything that isn’t in line with what they “know,” then you become like the devil spewing lies at them. It is basically a deity-less religion. There is a dogma, a (worker’s) paradise, an arch enemy (Capitalism), a chosen people (the proletariat or some oppression based equivalent), and infidels who are treated as such with malice (convert or suffer social, political, and often physical death). Its as potentially dangerous and oppressive as anything it claims to oppose.

46 Comments
2024/02/26
14:54 UTC

4

How would civil wrongs be dealt with in a communist society?

Civil meaning non criminal wrongs like negligence, intentional infliction of psychiatric harm, etc.

Things that aren't severe enough to be jailed for but for which the victim still suffered harm and deserves compensation. Currently the method is financial reparations but in a fully communist society with no money, what would the solution be?

14 Comments
2024/02/26
14:31 UTC

2

Econoboi

Theres YouTube's called econoboi he's an economist that describes himself as a social democrat but he also believes that capitalism is a voluntary system, I think he also misunderstands Marx quite shut as he thinks that Botswana developing a strong economy is somehow contradictory to bring a socialist even tho Marx literally says capitalism is a necessary step in development also the fact that inequality is huge in the country despite being so developed has anyone heard it seen any of his vids and have any thoughts on him?

6 Comments
2024/02/26
13:38 UTC

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