It’s more insidious than teaching us to “hate” Marxism. They teach us “oh, it’s lovely in theory but because of that darn human nature that makes all of us so greedy it can never work in practice.”
They also use bad faith arguments, misleading information, disinformation, and intimidation to enforce their anti-worker agenda.
Marx’s critique of capitalism is spot on. It’s his proposed solution that is problematic
I’m not well read in Marxism so I’m probably not qualified to answer this, but the recurring issue with Communism seems to be the same as capitalism, in that it requires people to not be assholes in order to properly function.
What part of Communism “requires people to not be assholes to function?”
Why do you think Capitalism would function if people were not assholes?
The recurring issue with communism is that capitalist powers keep on trying to corrupt, infiltrate and sabotage popular governments.
While there’s incentive from outsider agents to control the resources in a piece of land, and the population in that area, there’s risk that some people within that population will betray their people for individual gain.
There’s no passive corruption without active corruption. Active corruption happens for individual gain in detriment of other people. Active corruption is the role of money players, the capitalists.
I’m not well read in Marxism so I’m probably not qualified to answer this
You expect serious analysis from someone posting that comment in a communism community?
No, I expect deeply unserious analysis, I just like trying to lead these people to theory. Doesn’t work all the time, obviously, but it does work sometimes.
People should be able to enumerate the benefits of their preferred form of governance. They should also be able to be honest about its weaknesses and have a discussion about past failures.
I think Socialists should be like really good sales people, not just trying to get a quick sale, but trying to convert you to a lifelong happy customer. Provide the talking points and let people decide for themselves.
All transitions to a new system are temporarily vulnerable to becoming one party, or one person dictatorships.
(there’s a video on YouTube called “rules for rulers” that explains this more).
It is not game theoretically aligned. It’s not his fault, Game Theory didn’t really get going until after his death
Yes, Matpat will save Marxism.
No, seriously, what problems does Marxism have, and how does Game Theory “solve” them or point them out?
This is the correct answer. Anyone that disagrees should go read the communist manifesto and come back to see if they still disagree.
The issues are with his solutions. He correctly calls out all the issues with capitalism. Just nails them.
But his ideas about how to solve it by abolishing land rights and the entire inheritance system is problematic, as the OP says.
Not that it couldn’t work in a vacuum, but it’s not a realistic solution to our problem.
A much more well considered approach of proposed solutions can be found in the book: Utopia for realists.
The Communist Manifesto was a pamphlet written within the context of Marx’s time, and the Material Conditions that came with them. They were not meant to be the solution, but a solution, and for his time period.
Reading the Communist Manifesto as a means to say Marx’s ideas are problematic by stripping them from their context and slapping them onto modern times is a disservice to Marxism.
Marxism is a frame of analysis, a philosophical method via Dialectical Materialism, and a tool for looking at how to improve whatever situation you are in. As such, further reading of Marx beyond the Manifesto is a requirement to understand what Marxists of today advocate for.
I’d say capital it exploited for surplus value, and the laborer and capitalist split that surplus.
Capital is made up of dead labor and raw materials, it isn’t something shared by the Capitalist and Worker. Instead, it’s vampiric in the sense that ownership by the Capitalist allows said Capitalist to exploit living labor.
Commodities trend towards being sold at their values, not below or above, over time, yet profit is still taken. This is due to the laborer working for more hours than they are paid. Ie, if they create 50 dollars of Value in 4 hours, yet recieve 50 dollars for 8 hours labor, then they are working 4 hours for themselves and 4 hours for the Capitalist.
Reading Wage Labor and Capital followed by Value, Price and Profit can help explain this further, in much more detail.
They agree to trade the surplus value they create in order to have a job, and receive a ratio of that surplus value instead. This is because they know they haven’t the capital, nor the preparation to do otherwise.
If they owned the means of production, they probably wouldn’t work so hard as they’d have a relatively larger slice of the pie.
This means the “efficiency of Capitalism” comes from the exploitation of workers. It it only because the full surplus value is kept from them, and they have a knowledge that they can be fired, or have their lives made difficult by “superiors” that they can be worked so hard (aka “efficiently”).
Finding a better balance or third way structure, would require finding a way to motivate people, whilst also rewarding them AND not exploiting them.
Perhaps workers could be arranged to keep each other in check. Perhaps there’s some other structures that facilitate freedom, a lack of alienation or exploration, whilst retaining motivation… That’s what’s needed… Comfortable, unalienated labor, that is desirable, and efficiently structured.
The workers in Mondragon corporations would like to have a word.
IDK why you got downvoted. Is it coz you are not actively promoting communism as silver bullet? But rather pointing out fact that all known approaches have issues
If they owned the means of production, they probably wouldn’t work so hard
Pretty strong classist vibes. Those fucking poor are too damn lazy, am I right?
It’s not a question of class, it’s a question of labour vs motivation/reward.
This still has a behaviouralist slant though, and perhaps that’s because I find the concept of unalienated labour hard to envision the practicalities/pragmatics of. Perhaps due to having never seen such a thing (having always lived under Capitalism).
Ideology does that to people. I don’t think Marx liked ideology, and I believe he said that he’s not a Marxist.
He also played the stock market.
Marx didn’t like it when people followed a set of rules with no Materialist bearings but imagined it to be logically consistent. Marx was definitely a fan of believing things and advocating for better.
When Marx said he wasn’t a “Marxist,” he was referring to people who took his words as dogma, not people who generally used the Marxian method of analysis. He wasn’t dunking on people who agreed with him, he was telling people to also touch grass.
I don’t know what playing the stock market has to do with anything, Communism isn’t a vow of poverty and nothing about society would change if he refused to do so.
This is because they haven’t the capital or preparation to do so.
I would argue this isn’t the whole picture which is a significant flaw in the argument. There’s a lot of people who if they had the capital or the preparation would destroy the value they were given.
