5 ms·

The foremost claim of Karl Marx was that capitalism would eventually secede to socialism. Most HN readers were indoctrinated to simplisticly demonize Marx desp

• narag 9y ago
  Marx had a good bullshit detector. But as a prophet... let's say that I've seen better.
  • Tchakra 9y ago
    Please do elaborate.
    • sewercake 9y ago
      He's probably referring to Marx's Historical determinism. Marx claimed that there were stages of the development of labour and capital that would inevitably happen based on the forces that govern both. For most people, I would say, even those who study Marx, these ideas have been dismissed, or proven wrong by the failure of the 'working class' to seize the means of production in most countries where such attempts took place. However, his predictions are only a part of a very rich body of work that still provides productive economic analysis.
      • crankylinuxuser 9y ago
        Precisely. This whole recent STEM discussion comes back to the demonization of the Liberal Arts. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics all makes money as a multiplier for the capitalist class. So all of them are highly praised. However, those pesky things like philosophy and art are "worthless" - as in they don't make the owners money. Marx's works also talk about turning universities into training centers too. Eventually, the cost of education would be the point that either the rich (capitalists) would attend, or regular people would attend to learn how to work in the above (STEM) categories.
      • erikb 9y ago
        One might also argue that the real thing didn't happen yet though. Just because a lot of people attach a label to themselves and then other people come and use that label to do PR against them doesn't mean it was correct in the first place. That said, I also don't believe in it. From what I'm seeing around me, people usually grab small short term advantages over other people even if they suffer long term consequences together after the "success". Also people really love to give power over themselves to other people. Until these two misconceptions are overcome there can't be any real attempt at communism.
        • aninhumer 9y ago
          >From what I'm seeing around me, people usually grab small short term advantages over other people even if they suffer long term consequences together I would argue this is a symptom of capitalism, not an inherent property of human nature. We live in a system that requires us to compete to sell our labour in order to survive. This leads us to think of everything in terms of competition. This is why so many people in creative jobs (including software development) end up feeling like they can't do their work efficiently because their manager won't let them. Because the employer-employee relationship is based on exchange, it is fundamentally antagonistic.
    • narag 9y ago
      Please do elaborate. This one is well known and profusely commented, I'm sure you can google it: Marx considered industrial workers the ones with more class awareness and predicted that Socialism will ignite in the UK first. On the contrary, it succeeded in big old agrarian countries like Russia and China. Also predicted that worker class solidarity will make for an idilic proletary dictatorship, no need for democratic checks and balances that only decadent burgeois countries need. Then came Lenin, Stalin, Mao...
• java_script 9y ago
  Psssh what’s an entire field of study worth when we have an VC techie who invested in MongoDB to teach us.