How to approach Marx's ideas - Politics & Religion

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Boltzmann wrote:

Let's make one thing clear: His books certainly can't be used to learn anything about Marxism.

This is false.

Learn about Marxist literary theory and the multitude of applications, regardless of the literature.

Animal Farm talks about class. Marxism is all about class struggle.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Boltzmann wrote:

The first time I realized "socialist" was basically a slur in the US I was equally confused.

I think the cold war and the citizens' judgment of communism are symptoms of the same mistake the US government has made: to equate the USSR with nazi-Germany just because they were both totalitarian, and to equate every socialist nation to the USSR. Which resulted into fear mongering, anti-communist propaganda, which would ease the population's nerves when they invaded these countries for profit, because they were actually "liberating" them.

Regarding education on the topic, I'd say there was none. It was simply a taboo subject in the US.

This is correct.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Boltzmann wrote:

Errm... have you read Hegel perhaps?

Jokes aside, I really don't think Marx is exceptionally difficult to read. He was a philosopher though, and of course the writing will not be too easy either. On the other hand, his texts were just as much works of economy as works of philosophy. From this economics perspective his theory can be explained in the simplest way - I think - as follows. He solved Adam Smith's proposed mystery of profit always seeming to go down. He showed with an incredibly simple maths problem that the reduction of profit was simply a result of capital investment going up as a result of technological (or other types of) advancements. He then extrapolated this result to predict that if this would go on, capitalists (which then just meant "capital owners") will have to resort to a couple of tactics to keep profit up; one of which was exploiting workers more. As might be familiar to a lot of people, inequality has gone up in all capitalist countries and keeps going up (as well as homelessness), and profit indeed seems to keep going down. Therefore it seems that he was right, which is not strange, from the fact that the mathematics he used was very simple, and the trend had already been established centuries before him (let's not idolize him as a genius prophet or so).

As you're a bit of an exact studies guy (like me) I thought this approach would probably be more suitable for you. In Das Kapital volume 3, chapters 13 and 14 you can read all about this, and see for yourself how easy it really is.

Of course there is much more to it, but I hope this can help you to get more into the theory.

I take your Hegel and give you Kant... hehe.

Anyway, yes, I agree that for a religious person in the US, philosophy readings are difficult for Americans to understand. Often that Puritan culture, etc. isn't trusting of "wisdom" outside of Jesus.

I think the key thing with Marx is just get a dictionary or google certain concepts like:
proletariat
bourgeoise
means of production (which seems obvious but can also see someone not connecting dots)

Some of this hindrance also is America's aversion to learning other languages. Somehow instead of saying, wow this is great, we have every language of the world here in America, we should learn them all! - we said 'Mericuh=English speaking. I can't believe I have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. Like there are people trying to make laws prohibiting anything but English. I'm saying all of this because it ties to our education system and ability to know words like proletariat or bourgeoise.

Sadly even our Universities are turning into trade schools because there's a logical fallacy that education=money and people are only motivated by money and Jesus in America. Not knowledge. We are ok with alternative facts and limiting our ability to think down to the absolute lowest level - just remembering facts. Hegel's dialectic isn't even part of a majority of discourse in America. We can't even get a coherent Thesis - how could we move on to Antithesis and Synthesis?

Also sadly, American education is still focusing on making "factory" or "office" workers. We don't actually want the majority of people to be "thinkers". Can you pass this test. Can you turn in an assignment. Not can you write a thoughtful essay on the differences between socialism and communism or totalitarianism vs democracy vs representational republics, etc.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

How to approach Marx's ideas:

1) Go work in a factory or other grueling labor 12 hours a day for 10 years. You can only have Sunday to go to church (must satisfy Jesus or in the next life you'll go to hell- don't use this time to take care of yourself or it'd be a sin), have time with family, and take care of your personal needs.
2) Have a family member be sent off to war and die by owners of capital
3) Be told you can't own anything
4) Have your wages regularly cut with no control while you see owners of capital have lavish meals
5) You miss out on meals
6) Have rats in your apartment
7) Have half your children die because of lack of medical care or not enough fuel to warm your home in the winter

Then read about how Marx identified ways most of these issues would end if we took ownership of capital away from capitalists and instead shared that wealth with workers.

LedZep

RoundTheBend wrote:

How to approach Marx's ideas:

1) Go work in a factory or other grueling labor 12 hours a day for 10 years. You can only have Sunday to go to church (must satisfy Jesus or in the next life you'll go to hell- don't use this time to take care of yourself or it'd be a sin), have time with family, and take care of your personal needs.
2) Have a family member be sent off to war and die by owners of capital
3) Be told you can't own anything
4) Have your wages regularly cut with no control while you see owners of capital have lavish meals
5) You miss out on meals
6) Have rats in your apartment
7) Have half your children die because of lack of medical care or not enough fuel to warm your home in the winter

Then read about how Marx identified ways most of these issues would end if we took ownership of capital away from capitalists and instead shared that wealth with workers.

It's funny how most of these points can be applied to both the US (the leading "capitalism good" country) and the USSR (the leading "socialism good" country) at various points in history. Really goes to show how the economic system itself is not the biggest problem - it's the people in charge (and consequently the laws) who need to be better. Marx identifies all of these issues, but doesn't provide an applicable solution. Or at the very least, no one has been able to come anywhere close to implementing a system that, according to Marx, would benefit all of humanity.
_________________
Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

LedZep wrote:

RoundTheBend wrote:

How to approach Marx's ideas:

1) Go work in a factory or other grueling labor 12 hours a day for 10 years. You can only have Sunday to go to church (must satisfy Jesus or in the next life you'll go to hell- don't use this time to take care of yourself or it'd be a sin), have time with family, and take care of your personal needs.
2) Have a family member be sent off to war and die by owners of capital
3) Be told you can't own anything
4) Have your wages regularly cut with no control while you see owners of capital have lavish meals
5) You miss out on meals
6) Have rats in your apartment
7) Have half your children die because of lack of medical care or not enough fuel to warm your home in the winter

Then read about how Marx identified ways most of these issues would end if we took ownership of capital away from capitalists and instead shared that wealth with workers.

It's funny how most of these points can be applied to both the US (the leading "capitalism good" country) and the USSR (the leading "socialism good" country) at various points in history. Really goes to show how the economic system itself is not the biggest problem - it's the people in charge (and consequently the laws) who need to be better. Marx identifies all of these issues, but doesn't provide an applicable solution. Or at the very least, no one has been able to come anywhere close to implementing a system that, according to Marx, would benefit all of humanity.

100%.

Read a really interesting book about how actually all the systems of government/economic systems all had the same goals in mind and all had flaws. The methods were different of course.

But yeah, Fascists and Communists openly called it propaganda, Americans call it PR... hehe. Partially due to language differences and partially because Americans are tricky bastards.

The only sadly true thing is rich white men almost never had the above happen in either country.