I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.

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-3 points

Reforms are great, but ultimately a doomed bandaid over real problems. Quoth Lenin:

"Reformism is bourgeois deception of the workers, who, despite individual improvements, will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital.

The liberal bourgeoisie grant reforms with one hand, and with the other always take them back, reduce them to nought, use them to enslave the workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate wage-slavery. For that reason reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which the bourgeoisie corrupt and weaken the workers. The experience of all countries shows that the workers who put their trust in the reformists are always fooled.

And conversely, workers who have assimilated Marx’s theory, i.e., realised the inevitability of wage-slavery so long as capitalist rule remains, will not be fooled by any bourgeois reforms. Understanding that where capitalism continued to exist reforms cannot be either enduring or far-reaching, the workers fight for better conditions and use them to intensify the fight against wage-slavery. The reformists try to divide and deceive the workers, to divert them from the class struggle by petty concessions. But the workers, having seen through the falsity of reformism, utilise reforms to develop and broaden their class struggle."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/sep/12b.htm

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3 points

Nobody cares what Lenin had to say. You’re not just talking to the lemmygrad lot.

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1 point
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Lol, if I link you to an author you don’t recognize will you be able to engage with the argument? Let’s try: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch05.htm

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1 point

If you want to link me to an author I don’t recognise, you’ll have to try harder than Luxemburg!

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-10 points

Karl Marx was an idiot. Let me explain…no there’s too much. Let me sum up. Replacing a whole system just because some parts of it don’t work is stupid. How do you know the system you put in as a replacement won’t also be broken.

Some people tried to replace capitalism with a totally different system and it went real bad real fast. This wasn’t an isolated incident. They tried it in a bunch of places and in none of them did it work. Marxism has been debunked in the field.

Marxism is the idea that you can fix problems with an ism. Got poor people? Try communism or socialism or half-cocked-ism. If your solution to a problem can fit on a bumper sticker it’s wrong.

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6 points

If you think Karl Marx was an idiot (not just wrong, but an idiot), you don’t understand the conversation well enough to participate.

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1 point

Why do Marxists always assume people who disagree just aren’t smart enough to understand Marxism? It’s not difficult to understand the concept, it’s just dumb. Marx was old school I-am-very-smart.

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4 points

You’re an engineer. There are absolutely scenarios where so much of a system is broken that you have to redesign the whole system. You can’t turn a steam engine into an electric motor piece by piece.

40% of the population is one missed paycheck away from poverty while a handful of people have rocket ships and megayachts and buy-a-few-politicians money. That is not a bug, that is the central operating principle, the Carnot cycle of capitalism. If you’re one of the millions who are in the “wage labor” part of the cycle instead of the “extract profit” part of the cycle, capitalism has already gotten real bad.

You’re an engineer. Don’t be so reductionist. You sound like a kid who invented a perpetual motion machine with an overbalanced wheel and magnets. You should know better.

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1 point

I can absolutely draw you a line from the development of the steam engine to the electric motor to NASA. Every little thing that was wrong with steam engines led to better and better technology. Marxism is like saying, “the steam engine has problems, obviously mechanical engineering is doomed, lets breed better horses.”

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3 points

Some people tried to replace capitalism with a totally different system and it went real bad real fast. This wasn’t an isolated incident. They tried it in a bunch of places and in none of them did it work.

What examples are you thinking of?

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1 point

China, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba. Every single time, the state becomes authoritarian and repressive, ignoring human rights, starving and imprisoning huge populations. Eventually it either fails, or the state keeps the authoritarianism, but gets rid of the communism. Look at China and Vietnam. They’ve transitioned to a mostly market based economy, but kept the authoritarianism.

These are examples of everyone starving because centrally planned economies are a bad idea.

Russia

China

North Korea

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2 points
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You’re being downvoted because you straw manned, not sure if intentionally or not.

If your solution to a problem can fit on a bumper sticker it’s wrong.

Like…really? Do you think that this community, or anyone worth talking to, thinks that it’s that easy?

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1 point

Was it straw man, or ad hominem? Are you thinking that I shouldn’t have called Marx stupid, or that I misrepresented his concept?

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1 point

The communist manifesto doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker, and even that’s just an introduction to his theories

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