• MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      yeah…23 pages from 1848 surely have all the right answers for the problems of a globalized economy and a society which is so fed up that it is creating its own problems.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        23 pages? What are you referring to? Either way, what Marx analyzed is still relevant, even in his day overproduction led to crisis. Lenin took his analysis further once Monopoly Capitalism became the standard, but the same principles apply.

        • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Marx manifest is 23 pages long. And i wouldn’t take Lenin as someone to refer to…his “red terror” says enough. Of course one could say that doesn’t mean he was wrong about other things, yeah but where does that leave us?

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            The Communist Manifesto isn’t what I’m talking about. The CM is a worker pamphlet, not an explanation of Marxism. The Principles of Communism is a much better introductory work, and for Marx himself, Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit are excellent texts describing Capitalism. I would also add Socialism: Utopian and Scientific for an introduction to Historical Materialism, and the failures of Utopian Socialists like the Owenites.

            Lenin is absolutely worth reading, he was the leader of the first genuine Marxist state, and his contributions to Marxist theory are critical. Specifically, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism furthers Marx’s analysis into the modern era of Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism, which Marx was only alive to see the very beginnings of before he passed away.

            • seapat@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              Do you mind explaining to me how monopoly capitalism is aka imperialism?

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                The best way is reading the text I linked over it, which includes proof, analysis, and far more information than I can put in a single comment.

                However, the extreme shorthand, is that competition results in monopoly, and monopoly seeks new international sources of raw materials and labor that is cheaper, using predatory loans and exporting industrial Capital directly.

                The US, for example, has huge influence over the IMF, and makes the bulk of its value by producing in the Global South and lobbying to keep wages low.

            • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              That sure is a lot of stuff to read and i bet its dry lecture. To be honest, i won’t start looking into them, so thus far you have me. Maybe it’s ignorant but Lenin, for me, goes in the same pot as Stalin and Mao and the baddest of them all from Austria. I don’t know if there are good ideas in their writings/ methods/ ideologies…what i know is that these are people who abused their power. They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them…so i don’t know if their works and deeds are a thing to build upon.

              I not very educated on the matter but i’d think that “Post-growth” in capitalism maybe is a solution or at least a way to a solution?

              Capitalism sucks, yeah. They steal from you, yeah. Thing is that this happens in every system as long as humans are involved. So maybe we as a hole have to go through somekind of capitalistic-cataclysm, which i don’t want for me or my kids, but has to happen none the less to come up with something neither Marx & Co. or capitalists envisioned as of yet.

              • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Honestly, if you’ve got the time and the capability I would recommend reading at least Capital 1, it’s incredibly well written.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                That sure is a lot of stuff to read and i bet its dry lecture.

                It isn’t, haha. Pretty easy to read!

                To be honest, i won’t start looking into them, so thus far you have me. Maybe it’s ignorant but Lenin, for me, goes in the same pot as Stalin and Mao and the baddest of them all from Austria.

                Bold claims for someone who refuses to even look at the text, let alone read it. Additionally, equating the Communists to the Nazis is in fact Nazi Apologia.

                I don’t know if there are good ideas in their writings/ methods/ ideologies…what i know is that these are people who abused their power. They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them…so i don’t know if their works and deeds are a thing to build upon.

                Do you know that? You evidently don’t read, so where do your ideas come from? Imagination?

                I not very educated on the matter but i’d think that “Post-growth” in capitalism maybe is a solution or at least a way to a solution?

                What on Earth is “post-growth Capitalism?” Where did you pull that from, and why do you already think it capable of being a solution?

                Capitalism sucks, yeah. They steal from you, yeah. Thing is that this happens in every system as long as humans are involved. So maybe we as a hole have to go through somekind of capitalistic-cataclysm, which i don’t want for me or my kids, but has to happen none the less to come up with something neither Marx & Co. or capitalists envisioned as of yet.

                How, exactly, are people “stolen from” in Socialism? You don’t know what you’re talking about, but you sure do have strong opinions about it.

                • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Well I compare the extreme left with the extreme right since it is basically the same imho. Different reasoning for the mindset of “what’s not with us is against us”.

                  Communists committed the same crimes as the Nazis so of into the same cell and the key is best disposed of.

                  And the other big problem with pure socialism:

                  Why hasn’t it worked yet? No Utopia as of yet, only repression, human rights violation and death.

                  It’s as if the human factor is the point where there is change needed, not the system itself.

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                    2 months ago

                    Well I compare the extreme left with the extreme right since it is basically the same imho. Different reasoning for the mindset of “what’s not with us is against us”.

                    No offense, but this is a childish view of politics. The extreme left is categorized by trying to care for the entire population, the extreme right is categorized by intense nationalism, xenphobia, and brutal class stratification.

                    Communists committed the same crimes as the Nazis so of into the same cell and the key is best disposed of.

                    No, they did not. Read Blackshirts and Reds. The Communists and the Nazis represented entirely different groups, and the Communists dramatically improved the lives of their citizenry while the Nazis brutally crushed them.

                    And the other big problem with pure socialism:

                    Why hasn’t it worked yet? No Utopia as of yet, only repression, human rights violation and death.

                    It has worked and continues to work. Read more than US state propaganda. Utopianism is anti-Marxist, Marxists advocate for Scientific Socialism.

                    It’s as if the human factor is the point where there is change needed, not the system itself.

                    This is Idealism. What’s considered Human Nature is expressed and reinforced by the system itself, the Mode of Production.

                    Read a book sometime.

              • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                They ordered people killed or at least restrained who wouldn’t comply to them

                This is what states do, they are tools of repression. You’ve basically limited yourself to reading from a subset of anarchists and no one else with this statement alone.

                • MalumCaedo@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t see many central European states killing people for the reason of having different ideologies these days. And if they did their leaders wouldn’t be celebrated for the books they wrote.

                  Without any kind of repressive system you’ll have anarchy.

                  • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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                    2 months ago

                    I don’t see many central European states killing people for the reason of having different ideologies these days.

                    Of course not, they are nestled comfortably within the imperial core, they can better-afford to export their killing (see Germany’s devotion to Israel). Most imperial core states are not like America, where protest leaders get lynched and then it gets called a suicide, because they rely on vassal states to be attack dogs.

                    As their position in the core becomes less and less firm, you will find that their liberalism decays into something much harsher. This has already begun with growing fascist movements in Germany, France, Italy, and so on.

                    Without any kind of repressive system you’ll have anarchy.

                    Agreed, though this is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the particular structure of the society. However, in the meantime, it is also the socialist position that the state is repressive and, in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in, repression is necessary, it’s just a matter of who is doing the repressing and who is being repressed.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        😂 The three volumes of Capital alone are about 2,000 pages, then there are Marx’s other works, and Engel’s works, and Lenin’s works, and onward. Hundreds of thousands of pages.

        Das Kapital is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950

      • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        He’s not talking about the communist manifesto, he’s talking about Das Kapital. If you don’t care to read it there are YouTube summaries such as this one . If you want to get straight into the meat of the subject you can start from chapter 4 and if you think it’s all stupid take the 5-6 minutes to listen to chapter 7 so you’d at least know where socialists are coming from when they say capitalists are stealing your money.

    • The_Terrible_Humbaba@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      I would like to add David Graeber to that, and Kropotkin even. I don’t mean to start a snowball effect that turns this into a huge list, but I feel like not enough people (especially the average person) know about them; especially Graeber who is a lot more modern.