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A lot of Americans in particular and many people from the post-Soviet regions are inclined to disregard Marxism for ideological reasons, and often in response t
by ruined 3y ago
A lot of Americans in particular and many people from the post-Soviet regions are inclined to disregard Marxism for ideological reasons, and often in response to the incredible oppression and mismanagement conducted in its name. But I think people who at least understand Marxism specifically and materialism in general gain some effective tools for reasoning about the world.
Think of the way that China has essentially de-industrialized America. To anyone with the thinnest understanding of Marxism, this is obviously the success of a decades-long, deliberate strategy to build power and a material advantage, by exploiting an innate weakness of finance-oriented management. But it's been conceptually and ideologically invisible to people who aren't thinking that way. Many people observing the "economic" effects end up searching for some kind of singular or complex "economic" cause, not understanding the whole process as a higher-order materialist project.
- hobotime 3y agoMarx gave us a great vocabulary to talk about issues. They're good to know. The trouble is that his solutions sound meaningful and profound. Alas he failed to account the fact that humans are not perfectly good. A good quarter of the world is not without millions of people who died when his solutions were forced on them at gunpoint.
- ruined 3y ago[flagged]
- pvg 3y agoThink of the way that China has essentially de-industrialized America. To anyone with the thinnest understanding of Marxism, this is obviously the success of a decades-long, deliberate strategy to build power and a material advantage This happened through thoroughly un-Marxist means so it's not clear what a Marxist interpretation offers that's better or more interesting than most other interpretations.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- matthewfelgate 3y agoTLDR; Marxism is great if you ignore all the things Marxist countries have done.
- thiagoharry 3y agoTransform feudal countries into space powers in a few decades, eradicate illiteracy and homelessness appears good things for me.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoYou don't need Marxism to achieve any of those things. And no murdering millions of your own citizens along the way, yay!!
- thiagoharry 3y agoCapitalism also developed murdering millions of their own citizens in bourgeois revolutions. Any drastic change in a society involves fight for power. Moralism is a bad tool to understand such dynamics in society. All developed countries that became rich can be separated in four categories: 1) They had colonies in the past (or even have colonies in the present). 2) They have very little population and lots of natural resources. 3) They underwent a Marxist(-Leninist) revolution. 4) They were benefited by cold-war policies. Being neighbor of communist countries, these countries got external incentive to industrialize and become models for propaganda. Cases 3 and 4 are linked to Marxist revolutions. Cases 2 are very special ones and cannot be generalized. Case 1 involves much more atrocities than a mere revolution in your own country, it involves invading and stealing other countries.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoHistorically illiterate nonsense.
- thiagoharry 3y ago