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There's a lot of interesting points that, but you've totally bungled most of the things relating to Marxism, confusing the subject of alienation work it's main

There's a lot of interesting points that, but you've totally bungled most of the things relating to Marxism, confusing the subject of alienation work it's main mechanism, and confusing Leninism/Maoism—a line of revisions of Marxist theory to attempt to provide a roadmap that bypasses private capitalist development—with “orthodox Marxism”. Also, orthodox Marxism sees material relation to the capitalist economy as something of a continuum—the three main classes consist of variations of degree of relative importance of two (labor and capital) means of interacting with the economy—the capital-dominant group is the haut bourgeoisie, the labor-dominant group is the proletariat, and the middle class, the petit bourgeoisie, has significant dependence on both labor and capital (the textbook case being someone who applies their own labor, rather than rented labor, to their own capital to produce goods or services, though there are other mixes possible that are also petit bourgeois.) It is purely material, not mystical.

kragen 2y ago
I appreciate the correction! Could you be more specific? I'm not sure what I've gotten wrong exactly, and I'd like to stop getting it wrong. Of course I understand you can't pack Kapital into an HN comment.
- analog31 2y ago
  I admit that I'm reading Kapital right now, because one of my kids gave it to me for my birthday. It's a slog, but maybe I'm just not great at reading this kind of stuff. What I wonder is if Marx missed the boat on "intellectual capital," or if I'm the one missing the boat. I wonder how much of my own productive capital is contained within my skull. Not just details of my present job, but the ability to do the same kind of job for anybody, including for myself. Or, am I just gratifying myself with such thoughts?
  - kragen 2y ago
    It's definitely hard going, which is why I haven't read much of it myself. Part of that is that old Karl wanted to make his argument as convincing as he could, and that trades off against making it easy to read. They say the Grundrisse https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ is more readable, but I haven't tried it myself. I guess I'd better, since I'm being told I'm getting some of Marx's points wrong!
    - kragen 2y ago
      (I am finding the Grundrisse to be easier to read.)
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  The main one I alluded to but didn’t describe in the first message: Marx doesn't talk about workers experiencing alienation from the means of production, he talks about control of the means of production being a means by which the capitalist class establishes working relations which cause the alienation of workers, generally, from the product of their work. Within a broadly capitalist society, though, a worker who does personally own some of the tools of their own trade but continues to work in a wage labor environment is still alienated from the product of their work, though they may have the option to opt out of wage labor, applying their labor to their own capital, avoiding alienation (this is a common pattern of the petit bourgeois, the middle class under capitalism in Marx’s description.) The other is just that Leninism and its descendants (including Maoism) whose results you point to are not “orthodox Marxism”, they are line of variants starting, as the first point of departure, with what was intended as an adaptation to bypass the need for capitalist development as a prerequisite for socialism.
  - kragen 2y ago
    I see, thanks! I didn't intend to say that workers were experiencing alienation from the means of production or that Marx thought so. Rather, what you say in that paragraph is exactly what I thought Marx thought. And I agree with him on those points. So probably my comment was poorly expressed.

kragen 2y ago

I appreciate the correction! Could you be more specific? I'm not sure what I've gotten wrong exactly, and I'd like to stop getting it wrong. Of course I understand you can't pack Kapital into an HN comment.

analog31 2y ago
I admit that I'm reading Kapital right now, because one of my kids gave it to me for my birthday. It's a slog, but maybe I'm just not great at reading this kind of stuff. What I wonder is if Marx missed the boat on "intellectual capital," or if I'm the one missing the boat. I wonder how much of my own productive capital is contained within my skull. Not just details of my present job, but the ability to do the same kind of job for anybody, including for myself. Or, am I just gratifying myself with such thoughts?
- kragen 2y ago
  It's definitely hard going, which is why I haven't read much of it myself. Part of that is that old Karl wanted to make his argument as convincing as he could, and that trades off against making it easy to read. They say the Grundrisse https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ is more readable, but I haven't tried it myself. I guess I'd better, since I'm being told I'm getting some of Marx's points wrong!
  - kragen 2y ago
    (I am finding the Grundrisse to be easier to read.)
dragonwriter 2y ago
The main one I alluded to but didn’t describe in the first message: Marx doesn't talk about workers experiencing alienation from the means of production, he talks about control of the means of production being a means by which the capitalist class establishes working relations which cause the alienation of workers, generally, from the product of their work. Within a broadly capitalist society, though, a worker who does personally own some of the tools of their own trade but continues to work in a wage labor environment is still alienated from the product of their work, though they may have the option to opt out of wage labor, applying their labor to their own capital, avoiding alienation (this is a common pattern of the petit bourgeois, the middle class under capitalism in Marx’s description.) The other is just that Leninism and its descendants (including Maoism) whose results you point to are not “orthodox Marxism”, they are line of variants starting, as the first point of departure, with what was intended as an adaptation to bypass the need for capitalist development as a prerequisite for socialism.
- kragen 2y ago
  I see, thanks! I didn't intend to say that workers were experiencing alienation from the means of production or that Marx thought so. Rather, what you say in that paragraph is exactly what I thought Marx thought. And I agree with him on those points. So probably my comment was poorly expressed.