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Marx does not say this at all in the Communist Manifesto. And further, if anything he was in awe of capitalism. He didn't write those 3000+ pages investigating

Marx does not say this at all in the Communist Manifesto. And further, if anything he was in awe of capitalism. He didn't write those 3000+ pages investigating and articulating capitalism because he simply "didn't like it." He saw it as a crucial and huge moment of history that we will one day evolve out of, not some bad thing that bad guys do. Say what you will but its quite funny to describe him as "dismissing" anything; he quite literally would not not shut up about it. Marx maybe dismissed Proudhon, but not Smith! Not Ricardo! Not even Malthus really. Drawing parallels is good, but you gotta make sure you know what you are talking about!

ben_w 3y ago
> Marx does not say this at all in the Communist Manifesto. And further, if anything he was in awe of capitalism As I read it, the Communist Manifesto puts each positive aspect of capitalism in the past tense, that it was an improvement over feudalism, but already in a bad state by his time. For example: """ A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. [… I've cut out most of this paragraph, it's quite long …]. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons —the modern working class —the proletarians. """ > Say what you will but its quite funny to describe him as "dismissing" anything; he quite literally would not not shut up about it. I had to look up the word to make sure I wasn't misusing it, seems you and I are both using legit but incompatible senses of "dismiss" here. I mean "reject, deny, repudiate", you seem to think I meant "brush off, shrug off, forget" — the latter meanings would be, as you say, quite absurd. :)

ben_w 3y ago

> Marx does not say this at all in the Communist Manifesto. And further, if anything he was in awe of capitalism As I read it, the Communist Manifesto puts each positive aspect of capitalism in the past tense, that it was an improvement over feudalism, but already in a bad state by his time. For example: """ A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. [… I've cut out most of this paragraph, it's quite long …]. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons —the modern working class —the proletarians. """ > Say what you will but its quite funny to describe him as "dismissing" anything; he quite literally would not not shut up about it. I had to look up the word to make sure I wasn't misusing it, seems you and I are both using legit but incompatible senses of "dismiss" here. I mean "reject, deny, repudiate", you seem to think I meant "brush off, shrug off, forget" — the latter meanings would be, as you say, quite absurd. :)