this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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I'm not that well read up on his stuff. What was he so wrong about?
In his book, he charts the course of human history and tries to predict where it will end up. He comes to the conclusion that a violent revolution will soon come to pass as the workers overthrow their bosses and start sharing resources.
"Soon come to pass" was 150 years ago, the Revolution hasn't happened. Marxist scholars since then have been recreating the letters between early Christians asking why He hadn't returned yet as promised and pushing the date of the Second Coming back.
In my opinion, Marx wrote his conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion.
Maybe read a history book?
I seems to recall the US losing a war to communists in the 1970s for instance.
I don't think their point was that no revolution has happened but the revolution to change it all didn't happen like he assumed
plenty of successful revolutions did occur though, just not in places under the control of the 'west'
very chauvinistic view to hold IMO
I mean the world revolution was already sorta stopped before nukes came into play. Maybe next time though, never say never
The US lost a war to Vietnamese nationalists that adopted the trappings of Communism in order to get materiel support from China. They rejected it, and China, as soon as possible
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam
Wer're Sorry Try Again
That doesn't sound very communist to me, and I've heard plenty of times that a mixed economy isn't a socialist one at all.
Or is that only when it's a European country?
you hear those self-aware wolves howling?
I can't fathom the arrogance of people who say "Marx just didn't think of x, y or z". He invariably did, and a quote is easily found to prove them wrong. Yet they continue to say this bollocks. "Marx didn't consider human nature, Marx didn't know about x obscure economic theory," on and on until the cows come home. Capital has 3 volumes, and each is thick and heavy enough to make a decent murder weapon. They are so long precisely because he did do the thinking you accuse him of not doing.
The one single thing we can legitimately say he didn't anticipate was the computer revolution, and it in fact only strengthens his theories, as digital technology has gone on to strengthen the hold of capital, and laid bare its incestuous relationship with the State.
Nothing you said rebutted the section of my comment you quoted, you just started fighting strawmen
Don't try and lie so blatantly. I directly responded to your implication that Marx just wasn't thinking about things clearly.
Nothing in that implies what you're accusing me of
Oh, get fucked if you're gonna try the pedantic game. Go ahead and tell me how I got it wrong and what you really meant if you're gonna try this sleazy tactic. Otherwise, stfu with your bollocks.
Oh ok, what I really meant was:
You're gonna have to try a little harder than just repeating yourself.
Why shouldn't I? I stand by my original point and you've done nothing to rebut it
You can claim I haven't, but anyone with a brain can see my original response and see that I in fact have.
Me:
You:
Please, enlighten me how I said that
Is this a fucking joke? Your own quote there shows you claiming he just wrote down whatever he thought would prove his already decided conclusion, and didn't bother to think about it properly.
I can't deal with your trash.
Marx made mistakes though. For example, he assumed that the right of appropriating the whole product of a firm and control rights to direct the workers in the firm were attached to the ownership of capital. In reality, capital can be rented out just as labor can be hired. It is really the employer-employee contract that is at the core of capitalist appropriation. Ownership of capital just increases bargaining power to get favorable contract terms such as the employer contractual role
You just described Marx's theories, while claiming to correct them.
Wild.
Marx thought that control rights over the firm were attached to ownership of capital rather than being logically separately acquired in the employer-employee relationship.
"It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property." -- Marx
Marx couldn't have predicted the computer revolution, but absolutley predicted how Capital might react to suppress revolution. The US is well past the point at which revolution would have naturally occurred, but because of factionalism, Imperialism, and other methods by which the interests of the Proletariat have been veiled from them have caused Capitalism's natural death to take on a form of hospice care. Computers managed to bring about revitalization in Capital, only now is it increasingly becoming worse as Capital gains more fuel to entrench itself.
If you seriously think Marx wrote his conclusions before writing, you haven't read Marx, full-stop.
See, that's what I mean. You treat The Revolution as an inevitability, then twist yourself into knots to justify why it hasn't happened yet.
Is it twisting into knots to acknowledge that Marx was a human, and not a wizard? Marx wasn't a prophet, but he was a damn good analyst and predicted tons of things correctly, such as his analysis of Capitalism. You would have a point if issues like rising disparity, rampant consumerism infecting every inch of people's lives, stagnating wages with respect to productivity, and more happen to prove him exactly correct.
Again, you haven't read Marx. You just take the intellectual high road and dodge when confronted.