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Homeopathy and Marxism: Why bad ideas don't die
- mbubb 13y agoCritiques which say things like this: "Karl Marx developed his theory of Marxism also in 1800s, finally culminating in the communist manifesto in 1848. " instantly lose credibility. I studied political science a few decades back and even though I have forgotten more than the average student remembers today... Marxism in no way culminated in the 1848 Communist Manifesto. Das Kapital, The Paris Commune and other works showed development of his theories almost 4 decades after the Manifesto. The CM was a broadsheet, meant to be plastered on poles and the sides of buildings, like Luther's theses or the Declaration of Independence. I would never hold up Marx's ideas as a prescription for today's world. The global economy has gone through 2 or 3 revolutions since Marx's time. One thing I would argue is that he had a better analysis of his current economic situation than anyone else at the time. His lasting contribution was the understanding of the capitalism of his time and the critique of modes of production. Not the application of Socialism. He always critiqued from the standpoint of the whole, the totality. Something that we have largely lost the ability to do today - in part because our world is much more complex than the world he was looking at.