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I don't think anyone would have predicted that Karl Marx would ever end up being as vindicated as he turned out to be.

by ImHereToVote 2mo ago

yonaguska 2mo ago
huh?
- AndrewAndrewsen 2mo ago
  Read Marx, he predicted so many things that would happen during the late stage capitalism phase.
  - cassepipe 2mo ago
    And yet he gave us nothing in terms of what alternative economic would look like apart from a "a free association of workers" or something. Turns out it's a hard problem.
    - ImHereToVote 2mo ago
      Marx couldn't probably come up with a solution in the 19th century. That was far too early. Luckily Deng appeared with the solution.
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      From my read of the Manifesto… while I may not have been impressed by the writing, that is from my perspective over 150 years later. We got a lot of the things Marx was calling for. Of the 10 point plan near the end of section 2, we got: - "2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax." today's rates look "heavy" by the standards of the 1848, even if we've also seen it decline somewhat from the peak. - "3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance." not fully of course, but inheritance tax is absolutely a thing in a way it wasn't in 1848, and was one of the contributors to the decline of country estates in the UK. - "5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.", again, clearly not as described, but the central banks do now direct how much credit costs for all the other banks, and financial regulation has changed hugely since then (even if some of this has also been falling away as quickly as the rich think they can get away with it). - "6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State." has been on-and-off in the intervening time depending on where and which technology: the Royal Mail/USPS; I'm not quite old enough to remember the end of British Telecoms' monopoly on UK phones. For transport, likewise, depends on the specifics, does the British Highways Agency or American Federal Highway Administration count? Motor vehicles (let alone aircraft) came quite some time after the Manifesto was written, the tech of that era was shipping and canals, railways existed but the big boom hadn't happened yet. British Rail was a nationalised thing when I was young. Deutsche Bahn is still state-owned, but on the other hand British busses are private and I don't know how to think correctly about how British bus routes are run/bid for/regulated. - "7. …; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan." (trimmed a bit I'm not sure about), Superfund site cleanup? - "9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; …" (trimmed the absolutely-not part), this seems correct, given how industrialised farming is? - "10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c." - done so hard we don't even want to trade with places that don't do it Remember, the form of capitalism that Marx et al were fighting against was laissez-faire, which basically died with the Great Depression. It's not the form of mixed economics we have today which we still call "capitalism".
      - cassepipe 2mo ago
        Yes yes I agree but none of those are a blueprint for communism per se. They are more transition measures in the hope that a new society will come out of it. Also is it only the work of Marx or collective authorship? There's no blueprint for what Communism will be like. There is just this vague idea of some administrative entity that would replace distribution by the market IIRC
  - free652 2mo ago
    >late stage capitalism That period is defined as starting about 100 years ago, after WW1. 100 years later the "late stage" capitalism outlived communism in USSR and China.
    - ImHereToVote 2mo ago
      If China is capitalist. Let's implement their form of capitalism in the West. Finally home ownership for 90% of the population. The English would be so happy.
  - guywithahat 2mo ago
    Too bad he couldn't predict what would happen in late-stage socialism (mass starvation and inequality)
stochastic-parr 2mo ago
Except most marxists.
Levitz 2mo ago
The degree to which his works have been dragged through the mud by a bunch of people who insist on calling everything they don't like "capitalism" can't be overstated. The majority of people complaining about capitalism don't even have a coherent definition of it, it's a disgrace.
- pjc50 2mo ago
  Balanced out by a group of people who call everything they don't like "socialism". It's a very poor discourse environment.
groundzeros2015 2mo ago
Can you break down the participants in this story in Marxist terms?
- ImHereToVote 2mo ago
  Sure. The bourgeoisie in search of more and more profit have nowhere left to go but ransack the heartland. Outward expansion has stalled at a wall called Iran.
  - cassepipe 2mo ago
    That sentence is extremely unspecific to anything capitalistic. Were it not for the word "bourgeoisie", it could apply to the Mongols for all I know.
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    [deleted]
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
cassepipe 2mo ago
Reducing everything to a few sets of variables that you can keep in your mind is quite reassuring. Ask me how I know. Do take the time to assimilate this sentence though: "But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies" Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital

I don't think anyone would have predicted that Karl Marx would ever end up being as vindicated as he turned out to be.

yonaguska 2mo ago

huh?

AndrewAndrewsen 2mo ago
Read Marx, he predicted so many things that would happen during the late stage capitalism phase.
- cassepipe 2mo ago
  And yet he gave us nothing in terms of what alternative economic would look like apart from a "a free association of workers" or something. Turns out it's a hard problem.
  - ImHereToVote 2mo ago
    Marx couldn't probably come up with a solution in the 19th century. That was far too early. Luckily Deng appeared with the solution.
  - ben_w 2mo ago
    From my read of the Manifesto… while I may not have been impressed by the writing, that is from my perspective over 150 years later. We got a lot of the things Marx was calling for. Of the 10 point plan near the end of section 2, we got: - "2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax." today's rates look "heavy" by the standards of the 1848, even if we've also seen it decline somewhat from the peak. - "3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance." not fully of course, but inheritance tax is absolutely a thing in a way it wasn't in 1848, and was one of the contributors to the decline of country estates in the UK. - "5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.", again, clearly not as described, but the central banks do now direct how much credit costs for all the other banks, and financial regulation has changed hugely since then (even if some of this has also been falling away as quickly as the rich think they can get away with it). - "6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State." has been on-and-off in the intervening time depending on where and which technology: the Royal Mail/USPS; I'm not quite old enough to remember the end of British Telecoms' monopoly on UK phones. For transport, likewise, depends on the specifics, does the British Highways Agency or American Federal Highway Administration count? Motor vehicles (let alone aircraft) came quite some time after the Manifesto was written, the tech of that era was shipping and canals, railways existed but the big boom hadn't happened yet. British Rail was a nationalised thing when I was young. Deutsche Bahn is still state-owned, but on the other hand British busses are private and I don't know how to think correctly about how British bus routes are run/bid for/regulated. - "7. …; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan." (trimmed a bit I'm not sure about), Superfund site cleanup? - "9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; …" (trimmed the absolutely-not part), this seems correct, given how industrialised farming is? - "10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c." - done so hard we don't even want to trade with places that don't do it Remember, the form of capitalism that Marx et al were fighting against was laissez-faire, which basically died with the Great Depression. It's not the form of mixed economics we have today which we still call "capitalism".
    - cassepipe 2mo ago
      Yes yes I agree but none of those are a blueprint for communism per se. They are more transition measures in the hope that a new society will come out of it. Also is it only the work of Marx or collective authorship? There's no blueprint for what Communism will be like. There is just this vague idea of some administrative entity that would replace distribution by the market IIRC
- free652 2mo ago
  >late stage capitalism That period is defined as starting about 100 years ago, after WW1. 100 years later the "late stage" capitalism outlived communism in USSR and China.
  - ImHereToVote 2mo ago
    If China is capitalist. Let's implement their form of capitalism in the West. Finally home ownership for 90% of the population. The English would be so happy.
- guywithahat 2mo ago
  Too bad he couldn't predict what would happen in late-stage socialism (mass starvation and inequality)

stochastic-parr 2mo ago

Except most marxists.

Levitz 2mo ago

The degree to which his works have been dragged through the mud by a bunch of people who insist on calling everything they don't like "capitalism" can't be overstated. The majority of people complaining about capitalism don't even have a coherent definition of it, it's a disgrace.

pjc50 2mo ago
Balanced out by a group of people who call everything they don't like "socialism". It's a very poor discourse environment.

groundzeros2015 2mo ago

Can you break down the participants in this story in Marxist terms?

ImHereToVote 2mo ago
Sure. The bourgeoisie in search of more and more profit have nowhere left to go but ransack the heartland. Outward expansion has stalled at a wall called Iran.
- cassepipe 2mo ago
  That sentence is extremely unspecific to anything capitalistic. Were it not for the word "bourgeoisie", it could apply to the Mongols for all I know.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]

cassepipe 2mo ago

Reducing everything to a few sets of variables that you can keep in your mind is quite reassuring. Ask me how I know. Do take the time to assimilate this sentence though: "But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies" Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital