Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist? I

>>1640153

>Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist?

I had the reverse phenomenon. Marx's completely missing the point of Marginalism led me to realize how bunk the foundation stone of the whole thing is.

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Never read him, never will.

Marx was right about literally everything

I think he was a highly intelligent man who had an a great contribution to the world.

That being said I'm not a communist and I don't really see how it can be implemented.

It really annoys me how Conservatives sperg out whenever they see his picture and his ideas and discount EVERYTHING he says because "lol marx is dum. Ppl died!!!"

Like every writer, you don't have to agree with everything they say and I certainly don't.

Marx was mostly right about capitalism, he wasn't right about what to do about it. He also oversimplified history to suit his narrative. And Marx isn't the only critic of capitalism.
So no, I'm not a communist.

>>1640153
I think he's right about a post scarcity economy being the end of capitalism but i don't think Marxism would take it's place.

>>1640153

Yes, and I realised the man was filled with naivety and spooked beyond belief.

I'll hand it to the man, he helped me find Stirner, Rand and Nietzche.

>>1640192
average anime poster

>>1640153
I-never-was-a-capitalist-and-capitalists-don't-exist.

>>1640245
of-course-when-production-is-hightened-value-of-things-drop-just-how-water-is-free.

>>1640192
the communist manifesto takes like literally ten minutes to read

>>1640153
Dude, if anybody's actually even wread mXrx, then theyll know that mXrx never said that capitalism was evil, and its all entended as a counterpoint against a different opinnion which was prevelent at the time, which was the "laviathan" opinion of john Lock. Therefore mXrx was saying that the "laviathan" opinon was the one to beat, and it was only later that the people who disagread with capitalism, aka "Laviathans" themselves, andopted his booklet and tried to turn it to there own agenda. That's when they were trying to make classes for teaching their different items of agenda, such as the "proliteriot" class and the "bojuiosei" class, which they held for several hours per week. So now you can see why mXrx said things like "Their is a spector haunting Europe, the spector of Commuanism," which is because he knew what they were doing, but he was really oppose to "Laviathan" opinions, which is what it ended up becoming as.

i wonder if he ever had a clue of what would become of his movement?

>>1640245
If-you-have-limitless-of-a-good-trade-and-progress-and-healthy-society-ends-because-it-is-unatural-generally.

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>>1640196
>He thinks The labor theory of value was correct

>>1640378
Lenin mostly followed what Marx proposed
in fact Lenin was less extreme because he implemented NEP which had quite some success
Marx was either naive or malicious, probably latter because despite his ''people are divided by class'', he really hated Slavs for example
so did Lenin, ironically

>>1640286
>>1640287
>>1640385
Ryhzknd-pls-leave

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>>1640391
>wealth is the result of hard work
>the LTV is incorrect

chose one and only one classcucks

>>1640437
You-can-be-a-material-equaltist-without-being-a-marxist.

He actually did make a lot of solid predictions about the future of capitalism.

>>1640176

This. It wasn't Marxism per say, tho. I took a online sociology course and was shocked to discover that they teach simply Marxism as well as how retarded it was.

>>1640483
What-did-he-enlighten?
guilds-and-unions-existed-since-the-dawn-of-time.

>>1640153
I read Wage Labor and Capital. I also plan on reading The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Capital is too big and if I ever look into it I'll be listening to the audiobook.

>>1640511
I dont think anyone in this thread has ever read Capital.

>>1640489
Globalism, centralization of market power, increasing automation of the workforce, and unsustainable welfare states to appease an increasingly unemployed populace.

These have all come true.

>>1640521
The ecological problem.

>>1640153

I recently re-read my old college edition of the gommunist manifesto which has a number of very helpful supplemental items with historical context (feuerbach theses, the commodity fetishism bit form early in capital, bits of hegel etc), I've been mucking about with the "reading capital" stuff slighly on yt. Gregor Mendel, the True Believer and author of Vol. 1's introduction, claimed in one documentary to have read Capital (V1 at least) at age 18 and that it was a big deal for him. So on the one hand this is encouraging, although one is wont to miss lots of things at age 18. Not that anyone cares but that was my Dostoevsky phase, at that point.

In my scant understanding, it still seems quaint to me that Marx apparently insisted on labour, labour-product, the physical and psychological activity of work itself as a central philosophical category which defines the human experience. I instead conceive that categories like the sexual marketplace, which a place like heartiste.wordpress.com it seems to me truthfully harps upon, are foundational of same. I also now have a vague working idea of how the SJW trifecta categories (sex, race, sexual orientation) are largely absent from Marx's work, much to the frustration of later leftists. Actually I have a cynical expectation that reading Capital may be more pleasant for the fact of the absence of these categories, in favor of a more technical discussion by an old dead almost-white guy.

A major meme among my fellow undergrads in the first unserious go-through was that communism can only work on the small scale", or a notion to that effect. I wonder about the history of that idea in young people in the united states. I bet /his/ has some personal experience with same.

>>1640437
>Implying I believe neo-liberal memes

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>>1640696
Ye...yeah. Fuck communism!

>>1640222
>It really annoys me how Conservatives sperg out whenever they see his picture and his ideas and discount EVERYTHING he says because "lol marx is dum. Ppl died!!!"
Neo-Conservatism ruined everything

>>1640756
Which is funny, because Neo-Conservatives are barely reskinned Trotskyists.

>>1640378
Likely not. He envisioned the proletarians taking power once class stratification bourgeois had rendered the bourgeoisie too small to resist, not revolutionary wars in nations where only a small percentage of the poor are authentically proletarian.

>>1640489
This post suggests you haven't even read the Manifesto, Marx discusses how guilds were borne out of high medieval struggles against nobility and destroyed by the rise of capitalism.

You ought to read the Manifesto. It's only around 20 pages, and lays out the principles and motivations of communism. Even if you think communism is a bad thing, it's important to know what communism is and isn't.

>>1640696
t. cuck

>>1640153
It actually made me more capitalistic.

Marxism raises some decent points, but it's proposed solutions are fucking bonkers. Also, the rise of social democracy kind of puts a giant hole in his key arguments. There was never going to be a revolution, just a general improvement of conditions until jobs are exported overseas. Sure, hindsight might be 20/20, but Marx just isn't relevant anymore, except as a historical document (in which case, it's invaluable towards understanding the 19th and 20th centuries).

>>1640153
The problems he lays are very real and his vision of history is interesting at the very least, that is undeniable unless you're a braindead /pol/cuck. His solutions, on the other hand, are terrible and rely on nigh magical altruism and goodwill.

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Capitalism probably looks a lot better from the top.

>>1640196
Marx was self-contradictory in his assertions of the human mind being both observably dynamic while somehow having a static, singular core of thought that was supposedly to be discovered through social experimentation in one economically sensible but silly way. The reason he isn't right about everything is because that's literally his entire basis for his assertions.

If Karl Marx was correct about "human nature", whatever the fuck that is, humans would act the way he wanted them to. Sure, animistic human cultures will depict essentialist attitudes, but thinking that is somehow inherently the "core" way for a human to live is contradicted by observable reality. Obviously humans are interested in increasing their sphere of influence for selfish desires, or else they wouldn't fucking do it. Why contradict observable reality as a basis for your argument? Saying "but no that's a social mechanism blinding us from our true nature" is like wtf dude we invented this social mechanism ourselves and you're trying to invent another one, it's a simple hypocritical argument that he weaves into a MASSIVE amount of complicated language. Gonna stop ranting about this.

tl;dr Marx invents his own bases like 99% of other philosophers

>>1641276
>Marxism raises some decent points, but it's proposed solutions are fucking bonkers.
Marx doesn't really do much in the way of proposing solutions.

>>1641334
>If Karl Marx was correct about "human nature", whatever the fuck that is, humans would act the way he wanted them to.
Why? Karl Marx's argument was that humans act in accordance with their Material Conditions, I.E. what any philosopher 'wants' is irrelevant.

>>1641348
Him arguing that humans act in accordance with their material conditions, which is obviously true, becomes baseless fallacy the moment he decides that humans are behaving incorrectly in accordance with their material conditions in observable reality. How could he come to this conclusion? Through observing reality? Reality is giving him a different answer than what he is putting on the table, which automatically makes him wrong as fuck. Regardless of any oughts being pulled out of an is's ass, humans are not interested in collective essentialism, and they demonstrate it in their behavior. Even North Korea, the best example we have of this today on a national scale, has a weighted benefit system for those that reinforce the socio-political system, and is also a fucking capitalistic, asymmetrically wealthy oligarchy at it's head. Humans demonstrate very clearly what they want in reality, and reality contradicts Marx's "oughts".

I have. Marx uses logical fallacies, pushes cognitive biases, don't offer reasons (only unreasoned expectations and demands), and his moral "reasoning" was centered on a quasi-religious entitlement to resources ("but he was an atheist!"... doesn't matter, entitlement without reason is cult bullshit).

Here is what "glimpsing followers" BELIEVE:
- Elimination of Classism
- Workers own the Means of Production

Here is what Marx had written:
- "The State is not necessary. It is necessary for a State to exist in order for Justice and Order to exist. Power imbalances are required to ensure the freedom of weak, which can only be taken from the strong."
~ Communist Manifesto
- "The Means are metaphorical. The Workers, as a class, would spiritually be in control of the Means of Production, not legally in control. For Production cannot exist without Order, and Order cannot exist without the threat of Force."
~ Communist Manifesto

He was a either for a rich aristocracy or anarchy.
He saw both as ways for himself and his supporters to gain wealth via imposing themselves into leadership roles.
He used propaganda to do this.
People believed the propaganda without reading the Manifesto.

Capitalism is when free people exchange goods, time, skill, labor, transport, space and talent for intermediary transactions.

Marxism is double edged sword of either corrupt anarchy or corrupt oligarchies preaching that they are the opposite in taglines while underlining text explains it's all wordplay and that his buddies basically get to tell others what to do and steal from any free thinkers.

>>1640153
>How many people here thought Marx was against capitalism? Marx was against capitalism? Almost nobody? Max wasn't against capitalism? How many think he wasn't against capitalism? One? Why do you think he wasn't against capitalism? Just get to a mic.

>Student: He wasn't against capitalism because Marx thought capitalism was a necessary step in getting to socialism.

>Professor: You're exactly right. So what Marx thought about capitalism was, and we're going to understand the reasons for this in detail in the next couple of lectures, that for a certain phase of history it was essential. He thought capitalism was the most innovative, dynamic, productive mode of production that had ever been dreamed up, and there was no way you could even think abut a socialist or a communist society developing unless you had capitalism first. And Marx would have had absolutely no sympathy for the Russian Revolution which was done in a peasant society, or the Chinese communist system either. He would have said they were completely premature because in the end it's going to be capitalism which is necessary to generate the wherewithal to make socialism possible. So he wouldn't have had any sympathy with the Leninist or Stalinist projects, which we'll talk about later.
http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/808/plsc-118

I can't, for the life of me, understand why would any "marxist" describe himself as an anti-capitalist.

It's the best possible system at the moment, a historical inevitability, and Marx knew this.

Marx never criticized the social democracy we experience today.

"I believe it's total freedom"

THERE IS NO PRIVATE PROPERTY UNDER MARXISM.

-

"I believe it's just"

STEALING BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK ISN'T JUSTICE

-

"workers deserve to own the means of productions"

WE HAVE THAT IT'S CALLED A SELF-OWNED BUSINESS. YOU DON'T GET TO SIGN TO WORK FOR SOMEONE ELSE AND THEN RANDOMLY DEMAND TO BE THE CEO AND A SHAREHOLDER.

I'm not sure I hear there is a lot to read for Marx in Das Capital.

I feel like spending that amount of time reading something I will feel like my investment in time has to be worth reading it, and therefore feel like I have to agree with it.

That's probably how most Uni kids get into it, its the first long form thing they read and feel like just cos it took a lot of time it's worth something.

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>>1640153

>>1641401
Capitalist pig!

Workers of the world unite!

((Haha, just kidding. I agree with you.))

>>1641402
>I feel like spending that amount of time reading something I will feel like my investment in time has to be worth reading it, and therefore feel like I have to agree with it.
This is the worst way to approach reading books.If you agree with it already, you're getting nothing out of a book.

Read Marx because he's an essential part of the western canon at this point. Even if you disagree with him, you have to understand his positions and understand why you disagree with him to follow intellectual developments in the 20th century.

He's probably the single most influential Philosopher of History, period. You cannot into historiagraphy without understanding Marx. You will always, always be pleb tier. You literally will not be able to read between the lines and engage in meta-history. Also, hilariously, I think, there's a good chance you'll start spouting Marxian interpretations without even realizing it.

Pretty much all 20th century political philosophy riffs off of Marx in some degree, and people have made their claims to fame off of trying to rebut part of Marx's works.

If you don't want to read Das Kapital, find a good (Academic) introductory text. But whatever you do, don't avoid Marx because you don't think you'll agree with him. Understand Marx because you're not going to get anywhere without that.

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>>1641392
The assumption being that capitalism is a voluntary exchange of goods and services doesn't exactly hold up when the members of society who don't own capital or property are forced to work in fear of starvation, and when companies deliberately lie about their products to make people purchase them.

No one will argue these intrinsic flaws off the capitalist systems, the question becomes if there is an economic model that more adequately provides an environment that allows the greatest number of people to successfully raise their personal standard of living according to their own determination of that standard? As of now, probably not.

>>1641485
meant for
>>1641444

>>1641444
>members of society who don't own capital or property are forced to work in fear of starvation
People being forced to work to survive? The horror!

>companies deliberately lie about their products to make people purchase them.

If you live in a time where the sum of human knowledge is always at your fingertips and you still get tricked maybe you deserve it

>>1640153
it made me self aware that as a bougeouis, i need to to oppress and shit on the plebs

>>1641438
Everything-Marxist-must-be-burned.
If-you-want-equal-materials-we-can-attempt-to-equalize-it-we-could-just-legalize-theft-and-we-have-communism.

Marxism-isn't-academia-it-is-Marxism.

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>>1641499
Yes, as a store owner and boss of 200 employees, I can safely say that I oppress and shit on them when I give them hourly wages to work at my shop.

It makes perfect sense, I should kill myself because I "exploit" these poor workers!

>>1641438
There-is-0-truths-to-marxism-and-zero-purposes-to-its-existance-it-is-a-cult-created-to-harm-and-destroy-a-group.

>>1641508
The-workers-have-power-and-rights-this-is-not-marxism-this-is-nonslavery-mercantalism.

>>1641507
>>1641510
>>1641513
Why do you write like this? Are you trying to be eccentric and weird like rei?

>>1641508
>>1641499
Well you guys are actually furthering the Marxist cause, because the Marxists believe capitalism need to get as shitty as possible so it reaches a tipping point of revolution.

No wonder that commies and lolbertarians tend to be both Jews, they're the same fucking people.

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>>1641507
Well-turns-out-people-and-society-works-with-people-owning-their-production-well-time-to-burn-all-this-non-sense-that-caused-millions-of-deaths-for-materials.

Delenda-Est-Marxismus!

>>1641522
This,-the-base-for-my-state-of-being-is-tribal-and-socialist-in-nature-I-care-more-about-the-life-of-my-people-than-materials.

>>1641526
Intellectualized-theft-barbarity-warmongering-slaving-and-lowering-the-peoples-standard-of-living-for-abstract-invented-goals-and-commandments-interpreted-by-the-interests-of-the-Marxists.

>>1641518
Who's rei?

Kill-these-people-for-extra-gold-they-are-said-arbituary-group-(X)-get-mercenary-work-done-for-free-and-power-concentrated-in-yourselves-collecting-more-power-over-the-masses-than-anything-that-has-existed-in-history.
Communism-is-a-masterpiece-in-its-design-to-enslave-the-entire-world.

>>1641542
>why-am-I-not-a-Communist?
Probably-because-I-value-my-own-thoughts-indepence-and-sovreignty-over-some-nonsense-spewed-by-a-rationalist.

>>1641438
This dash writing shit in every reply is some sort of cancer i tell ya

Ill try read more into Marx but I can't say I'll read the whole lot. I read books with skepticism not optimism, thats why I come to the conclusion that if a book isn't work my time I will not read it.

That said you sound like the typical soapbox, elitist if you do not read this you are some sort of lesser person type. Which, as far as I know, doesn't align with anti-class marxism.

>>1640562
Marx is about labor exploitation because capital. The rest is either to support this idea or a tangent. His next step is socialism, which is socially owned capital, and all his comments show even though he is in favor of utopia, things like inequality and wage-labor are acceptable in socialism. Socialism eventually will give way to gommie paradise. He pins the primary problem as being the private ownership of capital. He wasn't a fan of markets as he felt markets were the method by which capitalists exploited people, but people confuse this for thinking socialism means centrally planned marketless economy, when the focus is really about the social ownership of capital. Marketless, moneyless post-scarcity utopia is a later step, and people get too obsessed with this idea, and many Marxists are anti-capitalists, so they don't want capitalism-lite market-socialism, they want to jump straight to commie utopia with 5 year plans.

Marx thought equality was a silly goal, not possible in the short run, and only possible in a theoretical gommie utipia. What was important was to end exploitation.

>>1641392
Why can't I find either of those quotes using google? Did you make them up?

>>1641485
Free trade of commodities, which is a good thing, takes advantage of trading blocs and competitive advantage.

But prevent multinationals. Once a multinational can threaten to move assets out of your country, they control your country's economic policy through economic blackmail. Your country must be nice to job creators, or they'll create jobs somewhere else. Wealth concentration to the current level is likely harmful to the economy. It would arguably be better for the economy if the top 10% owned 50% of the wealth instead of the top 1%.

Mild forms of socialism can arguably provide more capital to entrepreneurs and start ups which are what drive economic growth. You can cut out the parasitic capitalist middle man that demands a cut for capital, and channel capital more directly to entrepreneurs, and use profits for infrastructure, educating new generations of entrepreneurs, and opening doors for potential entrepreneurs. But this is only if a nation and the citizen majority has control of the capital.

This is why China is building up state owned corporations. The nation controls them, so they can't betray the nation. China doesn't give a shit about equality. Unfortunately they seem not to give a shit about human rights or democratic government either.

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>People who think they have "read" Marx because they spent 10 minutes reading the Manifesto

Unless you have read Capital your opinion is rubbish

>>1641392
VERY strange post. Those quotes are not in the CM

>>1641620

Granted that eventuality, couldn't even corporatism on that scale be offset in a country with less barriers to entry into markets? Lower corporate taxes and regulations for new industry to replace the lost employment. I'm just not sure the multinationals hold all the bargaining chips given a properly incentivized public.

>>1641631
Unless you haven't read all of von Mises' works you can't say anything about Austrian school. This is how you sound.

>>1641676
>Granted that eventuality, couldn't even corporatism on that scale be offset in a country with less barriers to entry into markets? Lower corporate taxes and regulations for new industry to replace the lost employment.
You'd have to develop capital, which is what China is doing. But this really only works if you're already undeveloped.

>I'm just not sure the multinationals hold all the bargaining chips given a properly incentivized public.
But multinationals have the ability to improperly incentivize the public

>>1641401
Private property refers to individual ownership of the means of production -- factories, mines, movie studios

>>1640153
>lot of good points I had never thought of before

Such as?

>>1642781
Wage degradation, concentration of wealth in fewer hands, and the necessary widening of the wealth gap

>>1641681
What axioms about individual human behavior does Marx assume in capital?

>>1642709
a mom and pop shop, a mechanic's garage, a private farm, a small diner, a grocer's shop, a taxi driver's multiple cars, etc.

>>1643091

>Middle term history for a few super-industrialized countries over a period of 30 or so years means more than literally everywhere else in the world at the same time as well as the 70 years before that.

You aren't too bright, are you? Wealth has never been more decentralized, and there is no "necessary widening of the wealth gap", the aggregate wealth gap of the richest 1% and the poorest 1% is narrowing, not widening.

What you are seeing is a squeeze of the middle/ upper-middle classes either into pure upper class or lower class in a few industrialized countries, which is in no way what Marx was talking about.

>>1640153
>Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist?
Yes, here I am.
No one has read Hayek and remained a Marxist.
Also Marx was philosophy, not economy.
If you think Marx was an economist over a philosopher then you're dangerously stupid.

>>1643098
Is this:
>>1641334
>>1641390
what you're looking for, perhaps?

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>>1641681
Well, Kapital was a ground breaking critique of political economy

The Manifesto was a pamphlet mostly written by Engels

So yes, you should read Kapital to understand what Marx was talking about.

>>1643394
Marx did not adopt any axioms, and did not need to adopt any axioms given that his study was based on observation.

The Austrian School assumes that people act in their rational self-interest and works off of that, when in reality there is no reason to believe that humans are rational actors. Marxism looks at history and creates a framework that would seem to describe human behavior quite well.

>>1640153
Nope.

I disliked his positivist view on history. Anyone claiming to predict the direction of history doesnt have the right to speak about history.

>>1643218
I read Hayek and am still a Marxist*. I like pre-Marxist socialist theories too like Ricardan Socialism.

I agree a centrally planned economy is stupid, but I don't really see how that contradicts Marx. It contradicts Stalinism, which I don't like.

>>1643960
But Marx didn't think that the future was predictable but rather there were certain trends and patterns that were likely to repeat.

I read the Communist Manifesto, before I studies mainstream economics. Honestly, you can only support communism if you are literally clueless about how Capitalism works, and why it works.

>>1644460
You have to have a good understanding of capitalism to be communist desu

>>1640240
>>1640222
Marx never had a "plan" for the communist future. According to his own theory it will only come about when the capitalist mode of production makes itself redundant and the proles then take action. He did believe that there would be some revolutionary change or else he wouldn't have been involved in radical politics like he was

>>1640350
Marx did believe capitalism was "progressive" to the extent it accelerated the productive forces (i.e. technology to make things) of society to unprecedented heights. However, he wouldn't have critiqued capitalism if he didn't think that there was something severely dysfunctional about it, that there was some evil in it, especially with regards to the way capitalism led to the deepening exploitation of workers.

>>1640153
Because imperfection>>>>>complete failure

>>1640245
>he fell for the post-scarcity meme
Jesus christ do you wear Pepe shirts in real life too?

>>1644532
Most people think Marx invented Marxism-Leninism even though Lenin was 13 when Marx died.

>>1644460
Did the big nice capitalism man teach you that socialism means no markets?

>>1641276
>There was never going to be a revolution, just a general improvement of conditions until jobs are exported overseas.
You might be right ultimately, but can't you think about the implications of this? What happens when the whole world becomes industrialized? China is already being priced out of the labor market and producers are moving to Vietnam and Bangladesh. Maybe China can shift to a service economy somehow, but down the road that is a deadend; if everyone in the world lives on nonstop consumption the possiblity of supporting human life on the scale we are now will not be possible within a century or two.

>>1640437
I choose the second option, as it is quite obvious that wealth isnt simply the result of hard work

>>1641438
>You literally will not be able to read between the lines and engage in meta-history
Bullshit

>>1643952
>Marx did not adopt any axioms

>>1644176
>but rather there were certain trends and patterns that were likely to repeat
thats the fucking problem

>>1644639
>Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. the above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.

>>1640153
The problem is "capitalism" is a term defined by Marx! There is no capitalist system or capitalist mode of production that can be clearly defined in the real world. Marx's conception of "feudalism" was wrong (find me a medievalist who believes there was a "feudal system") but just as feudalism never really existed as he conceived it, "capitalism" does not actually exist.

There is no reason why worker-owned enterprises cannot co-exist with publicly traded corporations and compete in a free market. Look at Publix, it's doing just fine and is in fact expanding.

Even if he wrote the most inspirational, solid political theories, I still probably wouldn't accept it.

Things can look great on paper but absolutely fall when put into action. Capitalism just werks and so i accept it

>>1644714
what does that piece of cheap rhetoric by Marx have to do with what I posted?

>>1644754
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Etymology
Idiot

>There is no reason why worker-owned enterprises cannot co-exist with publicly traded corporations and compete in a free market. Look at Publix, it's doing just fine and is in fact expanding.
No where in the socialism handbook does it say you can't have markets. It might say markets are icky and not utopian, but it doesn't say you can't have them.

>>1644762
He wrote a criticism of capitalism. No capitalism does not "just werk", markets "sort of werk" capitalism's problems just get masked by technological advancement and globalism resulting in rising real wages.

>>1644767
I'm guessing that Marx agrees with you.

>Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist?

I wonder. The more I read and think about Marx's ideas the more right he seems. Even the really hokey stuff like "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" seems to have some important grains of truth as I think on the idea more and the years go on. Then again, I haven't read Kapital like most people so maybe I don't really understand Marx.

I've never heard a criticism of Marx yet that struck me as coming from a person that truly understands his work. I wonder though a lot about "formers". What did they see and then not see that I don't? Every time I've heard of a former Marxist, Trotskyist, Communisty, etc. it turns out they got burned on something other than the raw academic Marx.

I was actually listening to Christopher Hitchens, famed former Trotskyist turned neo-Conservative, on youtube a while ago trying to figure out what makes him a former. But when he rarely talks about it it seems like he's still a Marxist in ideology and just stopped believing in 60s revolutionary soviet vanguardism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTLQpFECEE

I know they're out there. Where are the intelligent criticisms of Marx that have actually read him? Did Orwell stop believing in Marx in the end years? What was Karl Popper's criticism of the theory of exploitation? I want to know.

>>1644852
this article looks like there are writers who discuss critiques of marx
http://pastebin.com/whsJ10F7

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>>1640153
Karl Marx's real identity in deities' world is Io I who can be called as Cheon-gwan-pa-gun II. Io is wrongly known as a goddess but he is not a goddess because there is law of Yeum(음 ,陰, -) and Yang(양, 陽, +) generally knwon as Yin and Yang.

He is an evil deity and is a professional for history distortion and fabrication in world history revealed by Maitreya Buddha. His samsara is provided on the webpage http://brahmanedu.org/english/materials/summary/53_9.html.

You will know who he is in deities' world.

>>1640437

>an apprentice machinist makes a fitting in two hours
>later a qualified machinist makes another one in an hour and a half
>the apprentice job is worth more bc he took longer, even though the surface finish isnt as perfect and the edges are not chamfered

>>1644900
Socially necessary labour time m8

>>1644892
Can there be Yin without Yang? Good without evil?

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>>1641235
blah blah blah

i'm sorry guys understanding marx is not about reading his whole bibliography, but being able to recognize his words in the process of modern philosophy. I'm not saying if you don't know who hegel is you cannot understand much of marx's dialectics, or the master-servant struggle, because marx tries -very well- to make everyone concious of what history really looks like, but you cannot criticize properly.

>>1641568
Who said I'm a marxist? I'm openly, and proudly elitist when it comes to history, and I'm an anti-marxist. But trying to do modern historiagraphy without reading Marx is like "I really want to learn about Greek Philosophy without ever familiarizing myself with the works of Plato."

>>1640350
Thomas Hobbes wrote laviathon btw

>>1640176
You haven't read Marx

>>1644907
good vid

>>1645771

I have, actually. This might come as a shock to you, but people actually do read Marx and come to the conclusion he has no idea what he's talking about.

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>not reading superior anti-capitalist Kropotkin

>>1640754
>Sad picture
>My opinion is correct therfore

>>1640287
Except water (especially water suitable for drinking) is still a scarce resource, especially if you live in arid parts of the world.

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>>1646931
This guy is a monumental retard.

>we shouldn't side with the bourgeoise no matter what, they're all corrupt!
>couple years later: WE NEED TO SUPPORT THE ENTENTE IN WW1 BECAUSE THEY ARE THE GOOD GUYS
>mfw

>>1640437
Neither is true.

Fuck crapitalism.

I read a lot about systems science, also known as the study of complex systems, and conclude that communism can't simply work.
On the other hand, I think capitalism as it is now, has its flaws. But I rather look at it from a systems perspective than a philosophical one.

>he thinks "market socialism" is better than capitalism

oh boy social democrats are so STUPID

>>1645781
If an average ten year old runs his eyes over the words of a college textbook, he didn't "read it", take this to heart when you say you "read Marx".

What is it about Marx that forces retards to sperg out and have seizures? I've never seen anyone so irrationally and emotionally vilified.

Read Stirner next OP

>if someone says Marx was wrong he obviously didn't read Marx
>if he says he read Marx and still maintains Marx was wrong he's either lying or stupid

This is cultist level delusion

>>1647200
Clearly you just didn't read Marx properly

>>1645781
Please elaborate.
What exactly was Marx's mistake?

>>1647207
>thinking ideological and social superstructure just follows the material base (outright debunked by shit like Saudi Arabia and Brunei)
>thinking communist revolutions would naturally occur only in industrialized rich countries while in reality they only ever occur in illiterate peasant agricultural shitholes and industrial nations don't give a fuck
>thinking alienation is a real observable thing and not just some unfalsifiable muh feels Hegelian nonsense
>not creating a single original thought in his life, just copypasting a bunch of stolen obsolete ideas (LTV, alienation, dialectics, Rousseau's egalitarianism) and mashing them together into a retarded incomprehensible mess
>every songle fucking thing that people hold dear is somehow just a bourgeois plot to divide the proles
>except class, class is real because reasons

>>1647200
Because saying Marx is "right" or "wrong" is itself a categorically stupid thing to say. If your fundamental process when judging thinkers is that their entire corpus of thought is either correct or incorrect, then you have the mental capacity of a five year old.

Adults grasp that there is nuance, and that thinkers are multifaceted and varied.

In other words, stop being such a fucking baby. Marx is considered useful, valuable and respectable for lots of what he wrote. Your autistic anger, refusal to allow even the slightest degree of nuance and general manchildry will not affect his critiques of capitalism.

>>1647236
I didn't even read your list, but the fact you think a list of something like 150 words is enough to completely dismiss everything he wrote is ludicrous and hilarious. For everything Marx got wrong, he got two things right.

>>1647236
Thanks for the laugh anon, please stop posting though, we want to have a real discussion now

>>1647253
>What did Marx get wrong? Tell me
>list what he got wrong
>"I didn't even read lol"

Marxists, everyone

>>1647200
>hysterical, uneducated anti-Marxist accuses another of cult-like behavior

The irony

>>1647236
Marxists on suicide watch

>>1647263
>what did marx get wrong?
>he was UNORIGINAL

You're fishing for critiques and literally making shit up 2 lines in

Everything you ever say is one big [Citation needed]

>>1647258
>>1647258
Not an argument, as expected

>>1647266
Yuh, just like how liberals were on suicide watch after Trump supporters proved polling was biased and Trump was winning

>>1647274
No argument in exchange for no argument

>>1647271
Threw that in for all the 80 IQ morons who consider Marx a """thinker"""

>>1647281
Do you think disguising your inability to make anything happen intellectually as "I'm just secretly trolling Marxists" actually works? It's obvious you think you're really getting under our skin, I don't think you get how inept it is.

>>1647236
>thinking ideological and social superstructure just follows the material base (outright debunked by shit like Saudi Arabia and Brunei)
I don't see a contradiction there. Please elaborate further.

>>thinking communist revolutions would naturally occur only in industrialized rich countries while in reality they only ever occur in illiterate peasant agricultural shitholes and industrial nations don't give a fuck
Good to know that the spartacist uprising and Paris commune never happened. But you are right, material conditions in rich western don't produce revolutionary potential. But we are lucky that other marxists, like Kautzky and Lenin, further developed Marx's theory and explained this circumstance through imperialism.

>thinking alienation is a real observable thing and not just some unfalsifiable muh feels Hegelian nonsense
Alienation isn't directly observable, but it's material causes and effects are.

>not creating a single original thought in his life, just copypasting a bunch of stolen obsolete ideas
That's bs. Marx's hole analysis of capitalism is for the most part original. The labor - wage theory, class interests and relations, his layout of capitalisms contradiction were all never seen before.

>every songle fucking thing that people hold dear is somehow just a bourgeois plot to divide the proles
Strawmaning is no argument.

>except class, class is real because reasons
Well yeah, because economic relations are real and have real consequences on people and how they experience the world.

>>1647292
>think disguising your inability to make anything happen intellectually
Much like Marx in that regard then

>>1647297
:^)

>>1647292
>still no argument
>literally cannot counter anything I listed

B-b-buh I'll just call you names instead!

I wonder what makes a man a devout follower of something that has failed time and time again and has killed millions of people

>>1647297
10/10

>>1647305
At least Christians can deflect this criticism by invoking the metaphysical realm but Marxists are just eternally BTFO by reality

>>1647319
>>1647307
>>1647305
>>1647300
>a turn of the crank on the spam algorithm

ITT: 'no u'

>post about Marx a month ago
>post about Marx today
>the classcucks still spamming, flooding and flaming the same debunked criticisms
>mfw illicitly controlling the discourse is the only way anti-Marxists can win

BTFO

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>>1647334
m8 you've been BTFO by reality can't get worse than that

>>1647296
>original

Yeah tight shit bredren

>Smith: This is how capitalism functions and that's good
>Marx: This is how capitalism functions and it's BAD and let me tell you how it's bad by using this pseudo-Hegeloid newspeak

Original af

>>1647345
Fuck yeah, god save the god-emperor, am I right fellow centipede? Laughing my ass off at these Marxist KEKS with you ;^)

>>1647364
Lol good bait, he's gonna fall for this one!

>>1640299
where are the subtitles?

>>1647364
>Smith thought capitalism was good
Did you miss the last third of The Wealth of Nations?
Anyways, saying that Marx coppied Smith because both tlak about capitalism is pretty retarded since their theories are very different.
Stop being stupid.

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>>1647375
Really made my neurons fire faster than usual...

>>1647207

Chapter 1, Section 1

>A commodity is, in the first place, and object outside us, a thing by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

Skipping a bit.

>Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative rleation, as the proportion in which values in us of one sort are exhcanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place. Hence, exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value i.e, an exchange value that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter a little more closely.

>A given commodity, e.g. a quarter of wheat exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y, silk, or z gold, each represents the exchange value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal, secondly, exchange value, generally, is the only mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.

1/6? I want to keep paragraphs intact, so I'm not using the post limit most efficiently.

>>1647207
>>1647410


>Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever these proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: eg 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things, in 1 cquarter of corn and x cwt of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which is in itself neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.

As I said, he doesn't understand Marginalism, and he illustrates it right there, right at the beginning of Kapital.

The exchange rate at a given transaction of X corn for Y iron doesn't mean there's some magical value at that time (since he will admit that these exchange values fluctuate, even if he never really articulates why) at which point A wheat and B iron and C gold all converge at X dollars. It means that for one person, they would rather have Y iron than X wheat, while simultaneously, the second person would rather have X wheat than Y iron. Otherwise, no trade would take place. And it would be pretty absurd to assume, that given the values are supposedly equal, why any trade would take place under this system if not to try to access use value, which is demonstrably untrue.

Then of course, there's the following problem (still on Chap 1 section 1)

2/6?

>>1647414
>>1647207
>If then we leave out the consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor. But even the product of labor itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value, we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labor of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labor. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labor embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labor, there is nothing left but what is common to them all, all are reduced to one and the same sort of labor, human labor in the abstract.

>Let us now consider the residue of each of these products, it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homoongenous human labor, of labor power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labor power has been expended in their production, and that human labor is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are Values.

3/6?

>>1647418
>>1647207


>We see then that when commodities are exchanged, their exchange value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use value. But if we abstract from their use value, there remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our investigation will show that exchange value is the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed. For the present, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form.

(Skipping over more stuff about use value, because again, even he admits it's not what actually determines pricing)

>Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the laborer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labor, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labor, expenditure of one uniform labor power. The total labor power of society, which is emobidied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogenous mass of human labor power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labor power of society, and takes effect as such; so far as it required for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on average, no more than is socially necessary. The labor time socially necessary that is required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one half the labor required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth.

(Sorry, had to truncate a paragraph here) 4/6

>>1647420
>>1647207

>The handloom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before, but for all that, the product of one hour of their labor represented after the change only half an hour's social labor, and conseuquently fell to one-half its former value.

>We see then that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labor that is socially necessary, or the labor time socially necessary for its production. Each individual commodity, in this connection, is to be ocnsidered as an average sample of its class. Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labor are embodied, or can be produced in the same time, have the same value.


Which is, despite the attempts of some to hide it, pure LTV thinking. To which I raise a counter-example. Suppose we have one of those Levittown style construction services. They build rows and rows and rows of identical houses, with well developed process that spits them out extremely efficiently, with a minimum of labor time and materials spent. According to Marx, the exchange value of all of these houses, everywhere, should be identical. They're commodities, as they satisfy a human need for shelter (not a modern definition of commodities, but we're working from Marx's framework here) the labor put into them is not "wasted" but rather the socially necessary time, and regardless, even if it were, the labor of each individual house compared to any other house would be the same, so even if there was wastage, you'd have equivalent waste.

5/6

>>1647207

But we run into a problem: housing prices vary enormously by geography. It turns out (and in Marx's language, related to use value, despite asserting it's irrelevant to exchange value) that shelter in all locations is not equally valuable. And what's more, such value has nothing to do with the labor used to produce the house. It has to do with a huge number of other factors, such as access to transportation, low crime rates, good values for local schools, etc.

Furthermore, it ignores the sometimes complicated interactions between different economic actors. Coal prices shot up in the 19th century, despite coal production shooting up with it. It wasn't that coal was becoming progressively harder to mine; easier, in fact, under Marx's analysis, as you constantly had innovations in mining, new machines and techniques developed, that reduced the labor time necessary to extract a given quantity of coal from the bowels of the earth. But of course, we have the increasingly rapid industrialization of huge chunks of the world, and the necessity of coal as a power source for all those engines. Coal, quite simply, had far greater "use value" in the 19th century than it did in the 18th. Or, in modern language, there was greater demand. But demand has no part in the value equation in Marx's work, it just assumes that use value is irrelevant to exchange.


Tl;dr, Marx really doesn't get marginal utility, either a thing is useful or it isn't. In any case, its use isn't related to its exchange value. He never seems to grasp the notion that X quantity of a commodity is valuable to a specific individual or group, but they don't need X+1, and that furthermore, they will evaluate the use of individual goods and services differently than others, depending on their own needs. Another group might need X+1, but not them, and this differentiation in individual valuing forms the entire basis of the need to exchange goods and services.


6/6 a la fin.

>>1640775
I wasn't aware the Bush family propagated world revolution.

Maybe the true added value was the friendships we made along the way.

My friend met a lolbertarian philosophy graduate

So it can happen, either that or he managed to study philosophy without Marx

>>1647426
>I have a BSC in economics: the post

You do realize that most of the people who read Marx today don't accept his economics verbatim, right? Some abandon it outright and focus on worker oppression and other critiques of capitalism. Do you really think your shallow understanding of Marx that you-totally-didn't-paraphrase-from-your-professor-you-swear invalidates his entire corpus?

>>1647476
Of course you can study philosophy without Marx.

Yes. But I advocate some kinds of capitalism BECAUSE of my conclusions from reading Marx. It's certainly not a great system but it won't get replaced as long as there is still space in the world for it to expand into and rejuvenate itself.

>>1647476
Marx isn't commonly tought when you study philosophy and if so, only his criticism of religion and his dialectical materialism, not his critique of capitalism.

>>1647477

I'm aware of that, yes. I think it's rather perverse to note that Marxism can only be reconciled with observational reality by ignoring his economics, which is supposedly the foundation of the whole thing.

But I REALLY like how , in the very first post of the thread, I mentioned how reading Marx brought me to the conclusion that he doesn't understand actual capitalism, you (or someone else) claimed I hadn't really read or understood it, and then when I bring up examples, it's "Oh, well, the economics aren't really held to anymore". For all of those who "abandon it outright and focus on worker oppression", I guess they too ran their eyes over it and didn't really "read" it?

And no, I don't think it invalidates every thought Marx had in his life. I actually enormously enjoyed his treatment of Hamlet, and his pushing for mandatory public education was a hell of a good idea.

But the central thought he's most associated with? A purely rational economic philosophy that not only describes problems but prescribes solution? It's mostly worthless, I'm sorry to say, because he doesn't even really grasp the system he's critiquing.

>>1647426
>But we run into a problem: housing prices vary enormously by geography. It turns out (and in Marx's language, related to use value, despite asserting it's irrelevant to exchange value) that shelter in all locations is not equally valuable

Read David Harvey on the relationship between exchange and use value, and try not to hand wave what you don't understand because the theories you don't prefer cant make sense of it. Theres good lectures about this on YouTube if you can't afford a book.

>>1647516

I thought this was a thread about Marx and his works. Marx asserts that there is no causal value between use and exchange value. Are you suggesting he's wrong?

>>1647527

Causal link*

>>1647506
Have you read any contemporary Marxist work? There's good work out there which does a lot of explaining and it will help your perception of his economics.

>>1647527
I'm no Marx scholar but I'm pretty sure that's not what Marx was saying, that the values are totally unrelated.

>>1647530

>Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist?

>Have you read modern thinkers about Marx to explain it?


Tell me, anon, what's the difference between you and a fundie Christian? After all, you read the Bible and came to the conclusion that it's full of junk. But you haven't read the later theologians who can explain all the myriad ways in which it's actually correct about everything and really, you're just misunderstanding things. It's not your fault, it's written in a bunch of languages that nobody's really familiar with anymore, and it uses a lot of abstruse, unclear imagery besides, but if you really, really work at it, it tells you everything about life.

>>1647536

Well, according to my translation of Kapital,. (by Sameul Moore and Edward Aveling) we have

>We have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their exchange value manifests itself as something totally independent form their use value.

That seems pretty damn clear.

>>1647427
Bush was not a neocon, but he was a stooge of neocons.

>>1647506
>manadatory public education

Marx has fuck all to do with that, it's something enlightened absolutist monarchs came up with

>>1647545
Yeah, if you trade an object you can't also use it. Which is what he's saying.

This thread made me realize how laughably plebeian and dumb marxism is

>>1647545
Let me ask you something: have you touched book 2 of Kapital? The most basic premise of capital is that each book is a presentation of capitalism under different constraints. Each book was meant to present a different, limited picture of capitalism who's unity is a whole. Marx died and could not finish capital.

Do you understand which artificial constraints he imposed in book 1 of capital and do you make adjustments when reading? It seems typical of anti-Marxists to not do preliminary research and instead read a single sentence of capital like it's Marx preaching a gospel universal truth of capitalism.

>>1647559

That is not what he's saying. To scroll back up a bit.


>This common "something" cannot either be a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. Such properties claim our attention only insofar as they affect the utility of those commodities, make them use values. But the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterized by a total abstraction from use value. Then one use value is just as good as another, provided only it be present in sufficient quantity. Or, as old Barbon says,

>One sort of wares are as good as another, if the values be equal. There is no difference or distinction in things of equal value ... An hundred pounds' worth of lead or iron, is as of great value as one hundred pounds' worth of silver or gold.

(Note, he's talking about British monetary unit pounds, not weight)

Marx is pretty damn clear that the exchange value is determined independently of how useful something is.

>>1647545
Read David Harvey

>>1647540
I'm not a Marxist, nor am I an economist, I more think you sound like a zealous lunatic who's out of his water.

>>1647583

Let me ask you something, have you read Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre ? Because you don't seem to be all that intent on actually defending Marx's words here, just on proving that I don't' have whatever the requisite scholarly background is to apparently be considered a "proper" reader of his works.

No, I haven't read the book that Marx died before finishing and Engels wrote from his notes. What of it?

Do YOU understand Marginalism as an economic theory? If not, how can you possibly claim to say that Marx can be reconciled with it? It seems typical of Marxists to assume that everyone's problem with Marx comes from not understanding it, and that the same cannot be applied to Marxist thinkers themselves.

>>1647591

Read William Stanley Jevon and Böhm-Bawerk

>>1647595

You're not that good at picking up sarcasm either.

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You had me going pal.

>>1647608
You understand the material better than me, I can't really comment.

What are interesting Marx letters to read? I want to read the ones where says racist stuff and talks shit about young pretentious communists.

>>1647540
I never said Marx was right, I'm defending the right to take him seriously and study him.

>>1640153
>Has anybody read Marx and still stayed a true capitalist?

No shit. How do you think capitalists can still screw people over?


If anything, Marx's rhethoric of the oppressed proletariat got hijacked by capitalists who truly believe they are doing them a favor and a good deed just for offering them work.

>>1647717

Oh, most definitely. I didn't say it, but one of the anons upthread did, and I perfectly agree. You can't be an educated person in modern philosophy or economics without at least a passing familiarity with Marx. He's colossally influential. As a total aside, I would recommend to anyone and everyone his work on Shakespeare, doesn't get nearly as much attention as his core stuff, but he's a great literary critic.

I just took extreme umbridge with the notion that not agreeing with either his methods or his conclusions is proof that you "didn't really read him".

>>1647281
>everybody, including academics, are low iq morons except me
you may like him or not but you can't deny the importance of his works, and no I'm not a communist

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>>1647569
Hahaha, yes look at all these cucks, they'll never understand what it is like to be ubermensch like us glorious Odinsons.

>>1646979
That homeless vet doesn't live under a communist system.

>>1648084
Marxist academics are only found in horseshit voodoo fields like philosophy, sociology and psychology so yeah they're a bunch of cretins for the most parts

>>1640153

Marx may raise great points but do these points work in real life? Likely not