4 ms·

Haven't had a refresher on it since high school, so I might be totally out of the loop, but isn't equality of outcome the point of marxism?

jhgb 5y ago
No, the point of Marxism is transitioning the society through socialism into communism.
bjl 5y ago
Not even a little bit...
joshuamorton 5y ago
No, not really in any sense. You might say that marxism is for more equal outcomes than we have under today's system, but that's true of lots of things that aren't marxist (any form of progressive taxation to fund social programs, for example). But even that's sort of an oversimplification and doesn't do either marxism or "equality of outcomes" justice.
Pfhreak 5y ago
No, it's not. Marx was critical of the capitalist mode of production. Marxism is a lens of looking at economics and sociology. Communism and socialism, which are considered different in modern writing but were the same in Marx's time, are something Marx believes are an inevitable outcome of capitalism. Marxism suggests that when the workers own the companies, then benefits are distributed to the workers who own/operate the company. Profit doesn't get centered in individuals, it gets spread across the workers of a company. Folks like Lenin/Stalin took this idea further and created an authoritarian regime out of the ideas, and create what we commonly think of as 'communism' in the states. Edit: Parent comment asked a question about Marxism, I'm getting downvoted for explaining some high level concepts of Marxism? Do folks want me to dive deeper into the dialectical models Marx discussed? Lol
- rjbwork 5y ago
  You're correct, of course. I was also downvoted for an even slightly more simplified version of this post. Not too surprising given the general demographics of HN being quite biased towards startup founders, VC's, and the like.
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    I'd understand if I was out here being like, "SV SHOULD BE MARXIST" but I'm literally just answering a question that's a common misconception.
rjbwork 5y ago
Not at all. Marxism is a method of analyzing history and the present through the lens of class conflict. Generally "Marxism" is thrown around as a boogie man term by people with little understanding for something approximating extreme authoritarianism in which the state owns all the means of production and allocates everyone the same resources.
- jhgb 5y ago
  It's not "a boogie [sic] man". Marxist governments were definitely not "analyzing history", they were enacting government policies. That's what governments do, unsurprisingly. (Source: I grew up in a Marxist country and was taught Marxism by a Marxist teacher.)
  - rjbwork 5y ago
    You're probably thinking of Marxism-Leninism, though it's hard to know without knowing what country you're talking about. I'm not even sure what a "Marxist" country could possibly entail. They'd dedicate all resources to analyzing society through the lens of historical materialism?
    - jhgb 5y ago
      You surely won't be surprised if I tell you that Marxism-Leninism embeds the ideas of Marx about stages of societal development. Also, no; most prominently, we largely dedicated our resources to pointless heavy industry at the expense of light industry and services.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Marxism-Leninism is a strict subset of Marxism. The Marxian ideas about stages of societal development for example have no bearing about whether you should focus on light or heavy industries. If you're talking about the USSR, there was actually some dissension after the death of Lenin on whether light industry or heavy industry should be focused on. Lenin wanted to focus especially on neither, with his NEP that would create a temporary market economy to figure that out on it's own. Eventually, the decision was taken to focus on heavy industry. The decisive arguments for a focus on heavy industry had nothing to do with Marxian economics - those arguments went either way. The main determinant of the Soviet focus on heavy industry was the failure of Stalin to obtain security assurances from Western Europe, leading to a focus on heavy industry for military purposes. At least in the 20s this was a solid move, because Soviet heavy industry saved tens of millions of lives by stalling the Nazi offensive, whose plan was to kill 50% of the Soviet population (something very bad). After the end of WW2 however, it was pointless in retrospect to continue the focus on heavy industry. But the Soviet Union did not really calculate the geopolitcal impact of nuclear weapons and built a military that could rival NATO, and this required a lot of heavy industry. Pretty much, Marxism had nothing to do with Soviet investment in heavy industry. The main reason was to feed the Soviet war machine, from the very beginning.
toyg 5y ago
That's a common misconception about marxism. "To each according to his needs" does not mean "To each the same amount". Societies that reportedly strived to be marxist, still had different people doing different things and being granted different resources - and that's inevitable. It was even a typical complaint of soviet societies, the fact that "connected" people would get more than others. It just so happens that, given the pre-existent distribution of wealth will have followed other rules, the first step of marxist enaction inevitably ends up being "the big reset" where inequality of outcome gets temporarily removed for everyone.
sudosysgen 5y ago
No. Marxism is for the abolish ment of social classes, with classes defined as contradictory groups related to relationships of production. So a Marxist would want, for example, the employer/employee distinction to be abolished. But there would be no issue with inequality in the employee class, an employee may very well produce 3-4 times more value than another. This is something that Marx explicitly wrote about - he thought that different people had different needs and abilities and thus should receive sometimes very different amounts of resources. The examples he gave would be someone that works much faster and better that someone else, or someone that has children to raise.
InitialLastName 5y ago
The goal and concept of Marxism is to remove economic capital as an input to the circumstantial function that defines a person's outcome. What inputs' weights should increase to replace it is open to interpretation.

jhgb 5y ago

No, the point of Marxism is transitioning the society through socialism into communism.

bjl 5y ago

Not even a little bit...

joshuamorton 5y ago

No, not really in any sense. You might say that marxism is for more equal outcomes than we have under today's system, but that's true of lots of things that aren't marxist (any form of progressive taxation to fund social programs, for example). But even that's sort of an oversimplification and doesn't do either marxism or "equality of outcomes" justice.

Pfhreak 5y ago

No, it's not. Marx was critical of the capitalist mode of production. Marxism is a lens of looking at economics and sociology. Communism and socialism, which are considered different in modern writing but were the same in Marx's time, are something Marx believes are an inevitable outcome of capitalism. Marxism suggests that when the workers own the companies, then benefits are distributed to the workers who own/operate the company. Profit doesn't get centered in individuals, it gets spread across the workers of a company. Folks like Lenin/Stalin took this idea further and created an authoritarian regime out of the ideas, and create what we commonly think of as 'communism' in the states. Edit: Parent comment asked a question about Marxism, I'm getting downvoted for explaining some high level concepts of Marxism? Do folks want me to dive deeper into the dialectical models Marx discussed? Lol

rjbwork 5y ago
You're correct, of course. I was also downvoted for an even slightly more simplified version of this post. Not too surprising given the general demographics of HN being quite biased towards startup founders, VC's, and the like.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  I'd understand if I was out here being like, "SV SHOULD BE MARXIST" but I'm literally just answering a question that's a common misconception.

rjbwork 5y ago

Not at all. Marxism is a method of analyzing history and the present through the lens of class conflict. Generally "Marxism" is thrown around as a boogie man term by people with little understanding for something approximating extreme authoritarianism in which the state owns all the means of production and allocates everyone the same resources.

jhgb 5y ago
It's not "a boogie [sic] man". Marxist governments were definitely not "analyzing history", they were enacting government policies. That's what governments do, unsurprisingly. (Source: I grew up in a Marxist country and was taught Marxism by a Marxist teacher.)
- rjbwork 5y ago
  You're probably thinking of Marxism-Leninism, though it's hard to know without knowing what country you're talking about. I'm not even sure what a "Marxist" country could possibly entail. They'd dedicate all resources to analyzing society through the lens of historical materialism?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    You surely won't be surprised if I tell you that Marxism-Leninism embeds the ideas of Marx about stages of societal development. Also, no; most prominently, we largely dedicated our resources to pointless heavy industry at the expense of light industry and services.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Marxism-Leninism is a strict subset of Marxism. The Marxian ideas about stages of societal development for example have no bearing about whether you should focus on light or heavy industries. If you're talking about the USSR, there was actually some dissension after the death of Lenin on whether light industry or heavy industry should be focused on. Lenin wanted to focus especially on neither, with his NEP that would create a temporary market economy to figure that out on it's own. Eventually, the decision was taken to focus on heavy industry. The decisive arguments for a focus on heavy industry had nothing to do with Marxian economics - those arguments went either way. The main determinant of the Soviet focus on heavy industry was the failure of Stalin to obtain security assurances from Western Europe, leading to a focus on heavy industry for military purposes. At least in the 20s this was a solid move, because Soviet heavy industry saved tens of millions of lives by stalling the Nazi offensive, whose plan was to kill 50% of the Soviet population (something very bad). After the end of WW2 however, it was pointless in retrospect to continue the focus on heavy industry. But the Soviet Union did not really calculate the geopolitcal impact of nuclear weapons and built a military that could rival NATO, and this required a lot of heavy industry. Pretty much, Marxism had nothing to do with Soviet investment in heavy industry. The main reason was to feed the Soviet war machine, from the very beginning.

toyg 5y ago

That's a common misconception about marxism. "To each according to his needs" does not mean "To each the same amount". Societies that reportedly strived to be marxist, still had different people doing different things and being granted different resources - and that's inevitable. It was even a typical complaint of soviet societies, the fact that "connected" people would get more than others. It just so happens that, given the pre-existent distribution of wealth will have followed other rules, the first step of marxist enaction inevitably ends up being "the big reset" where inequality of outcome gets temporarily removed for everyone.

sudosysgen 5y ago

No. Marxism is for the abolish ment of social classes, with classes defined as contradictory groups related to relationships of production. So a Marxist would want, for example, the employer/employee distinction to be abolished. But there would be no issue with inequality in the employee class, an employee may very well produce 3-4 times more value than another. This is something that Marx explicitly wrote about - he thought that different people had different needs and abilities and thus should receive sometimes very different amounts of resources. The examples he gave would be someone that works much faster and better that someone else, or someone that has children to raise.

InitialLastName 5y ago

The goal and concept of Marxism is to remove economic capital as an input to the circumstantial function that defines a person's outcome. What inputs' weights should increase to replace it is open to interpretation.