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Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable ou

Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? We have dozens of examples, dude. And the invariable outcome is invariably followed by some apologist like you who claims "that wasn't real Marxism". After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. Sorry, guy. We're not going to let you murder another hundred million people.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.