Has anyone here unironically read Marx? I need to know if I should be bothered reading him. Even better...

Two words: /pol/ boogeymen.

I unironically studied him in Economics, and I also had to study him for an elective sociology class. And for about a couple months I agreed with his critique of capitalism (capitalism is shitty) and I expected him to give a plausible alternative, but slowly realized his alternative is actually even worse or basically the same.
sad.
I remember telling my dad "communism works in theory, its just hard to put into practice" and he Bert stared me for a minute and told me to do more research and I did and I was wrong. Dad is from an ex-commie country, who knows first hand what "the experiment into communism" is all about.

wsj.com/amp/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810

>All attempted implementations of communism failed, therefore Marx is a le evil conspirator.

>Wall Street Journal

start with this, OP

docs.google.com/file/d/0B5ZZjbLXsoLKNHptWHozQm9GWms/edit

disregard /pol/ shitters still inhibited by anti thought propaganda. it's no coincidence every revolutionary movement since industrialization has its roots in marx philosophy. educate yourself

>educate yourself
iwonderwhoisbehindthispost.jpg

I know who it was, it was an anonymous poster on an internet imageboard

No it was a Jew.

>How do we find the resources to give 1 bln indians and 1,5 bln chinese the western lifestyle?
you don't
that's the sleight of hand
the capitalists are banking on a future genocide of those people by climate change

>Dad is from an ex-commie country, who knows first hand what "the experiment into communism" is all about.
this is like saying that you know what sex is like cause you got raped once

nah, many western countries are already largely shitholes. there are many small and medium sized cities in China/India that are very high quality, in everything. This will continue to happen.

>If you are one, can you explain why?

what other political ideologies advocate against the concentration of wealth into a select few hands? marx was way ahead of his time and continues to be a threat to the powers that be. just the mention of his name triggers a militant, dogmatic hate as seen ITT

some notable quotes from the communist manifesto:

>1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
>2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
>3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
>5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
>10. Free education for all children in public schools.
>marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

before you troll, remember the USA has largely implemented many of these concepts already and are only moving further left as marx predicted. the only thing holding back this progression is a white supremacist movement willing to burn the country down before the powers are shared with minorities to disperse the concentration of wealth and power

How many times does communism have to result in millions of deaths before people will stop with their "real communism" meme?

three

>he hasn't even read the manga

>markets have to provide a living for everyone because otherwise my feelings will be hurt

revolutionary movements are cancer, so whats your point?

the point of an economic system should be to provide for everyone, otherwise it's shit

thats just like your opinion man.jpg

people starve, thats life.

Yes. I majored in English literature in college. I had to read lots of Marxist literature so I decided to read the man himself. My conclusion is that Marx himself is an idiot, his ideas are idiotic, but the people who followed after him were brilliant, their insight into human society staggering. If more people read Althusser, Adorno, Balibar etc they'd probably understand postmodernist thinking and Marxism a lot better, and if they then read Foucault they'd utterly despise the entire socialist project.

>>the point of an economic system should be to provide for everyone
What naive thinking.

youtube.com/watch?v=HmlX3fLQrEc&t=9m18s

OP watch Jamie Johnson's, heir to the Johnson and Johnson company, great 1% documentaries. They will enlighten you how intellectually and genetically superior our job creators are to lowly proletarians such as yourself.

Pay particular attention to this time stamp of a millionaire wealth manager admitting to fighting tooth and nail to prevent the socialization of public goods and services so the capitalists can leech from the actual people performing the work and risk.

I don't see how
or is any goal other than "survival of the fittest" childish and simple, whereas those who say "we have to make hard choices" while always putting the cost of those hard choices onto the backs of the weak and vulnerable are mature thinkers

You and your father are retards. Not marxist, socialist or communist (I kind of hate them actually, though I hate pretty much all """""""political theory""""""""") but I can't even begin to say how flawed and empty this thinking is. Some main points though:
Your father knows nothing, he's some random person with no knowledge or experience of how the country he was born in was run or its formal ideology. Shit, he probably only spent his childhood there. "commie" means nothing. A huge swath of related ideologies and theories are not objectively dismissed because of some bad experiences in a shithole country, wherein said ideologies/theories weren't even employed. It was simply a shithole, under the label of capitalist, socialist or communist- it doesn't make a difference. That country is likely still a shithole today, probably has lower quality of life too (high wealth inequality, lack of investment into infrastructure- common for shitholes). All due to corruption, stupidity, and being exploited by other nations.

Marx gave little to no alternative, yes, yet you use that as an excuse to accept the metaphorical rotten dick of capitalism in your mouth. To discount the possibility of any alternative. Pathetic.

Adhering to your father's "feels" instead of your own thoughts is unbelievably stupid. Be your own person, and as objective as possible when discussing matters such as these. You weren't "wrong", you convinced yourself that you were because you're a cuck to other's fragility and hierarchy.

You're right about a lot, but I think a moment like the one user had with his dad should give a humane person pause, though. It is a useful starting point or frame through which to reconsider the moral seriousness of your beliefs.

you have to be 18 to post here

Life does not provide for everyone, each person must provide for himself. Nobody will get you out of bed in the morning and make you perform the necessary functions to preserve your life, eating, shitting, and so on. So from where comes this expectation that economic equality should be provided to everyone? This is not a single evidenced or ideological foundation on which to rest this notion of economic systems providing for everyone. It is simply wishful thinking, a desire for things to be better without having even the slightest idea of how to accomplish it.

>yet you use that as an excuse to accept the metaphorical rotten dick of capitalism in your mouth. To discount the possibility of any alternative. Pathetic.
Unless you have an alternative you're not helping anyone. Something you learn very early on working in a professional environment is that criticism is generally always welcome, but only if you also provide suggestions and solutions to the problems you point out. If all you do is point out problems but never give solutions then people stop listening to you, or even remove you from their group. Because all you do is create negativity, even if what you say is true it doesn't actually improve the situation, it actually makes it worse by lowering morale and creating resentment.

If your goal is piss a bunch of people off and foment discontent, then yes, Marxism is great.

>Life does not provide for everyone, each person must provide for himself.
life doesn't provide a skyscraper or a plane either, so we made those and use them
life doesn't provide legal protection from rape and murder, but we invented the insittution of law and have those protections
and there are many many other things life doesn't "provide" that we have nevertheless taken ourselves
your assertion is without any basis in reality
it sounds good, I'll give you that, all deep and philosophical, but it's bullshit

>Nobody will get you out of bed in the morning and make you perform the necessary functions to preserve your life, eating, shitting, and so on.
that's not what I'm asking so...OK

>So from where comes this expectation that economic equality should be provided to everyone?
ethics, morals, a desire for a better world, call it whatever you want.

>This is not a single evidenced or ideological foundation on which to rest this notion of economic systems providing for everyone.
this is ridiculous, there have always been people struggling for fair treatment

>It is simply wishful thinking, a desire for things to be better without having even the slightest idea of how to accomplish it.
the fact that someone doesn't know how to get from point A to point B does not refute his need to get to point B or make point A a better place to be
this seems self-evident

>Because all you do is create negativity, even if what you say is true it doesn't actually improve the situation, it actually makes it worse by lowering morale and creating resentment.
god forbid someone lowers the morale by pointing out problems and requesting solutions, shameful behavior

His writing is insanely influential and can totally change how you view the world. Things you take for granted such as sports, can be taken and viewed in a Marxist lense. Though I would consider myself not for the revolution, he has definitely changed my perspective for the better and I agree with him on many points.

>boohoo your critiques does nothing but make everyone sad
You know that other people can listen to your critique and come up with solutions too, or at the very least stop digging in the hole they found themselves in

>remember the USA has largely implemented many of these (socialist) concepts already and are only moving further left as marx predicted.
This is why every poor emigrant in the world would prefer to live in that "socialist" country over their failed capitalist one, which had succeed only for the elite that lives in a way that Americans could only dream of. The third world capitalism works great for them.

muh ebubububublooshun
Top ideology

I read "The Communist Manifesto" when I was about 16. I expected it to be some sort of high-quality, intellectual, rational, stimulating document. But even my immature teenage mind could see clearly that it was pure rubbish. That was the end of my interest in anything Marx had to say.

>posting this unironically

good post

What would you recommend for Marx's criticisms of Capitalism? Just Kapital? Other author's examinations of Marx?

In the past many people read Marx and created these things called summaries. A person can use these summaries to formulate a general idea about the author's main points... that is how it is possible to be opposed to something one has not read.

Yes.

You shouldn't.

> the point of an economic system should be to provide for everyone
> should
scarcity is scarcity retard

Sperg-tastic post.

>this is like saying that you know what niggers is like cause you got raped by niggers once
I'm sure they was good kids, on their way to church.

>scarcity is scarcity retard
lol scarcity, the ultimate cop-out

I could just as easily say that a hammer "should" hit all the nails in at the same time and I'd make exactly as much sense.

I just imagine someone in college or something giving you the "communist countries are all shit" argument, then you toiling internally for years... eventually coming up with this meaningless, nihilist shit as a coping mechanism for your retarded world view. His dad is not a retard and it is perfectly reasonable that after 50+ years on earth, he could observe individuals around him and understand their actions. For instance, every guy like you his dad ever knew became an angry childless ideologue pussy and probably got divorced. Wisdom > "knowledge"

You may fool some people with this shit, but not me. Kill yourself my man

Most of my books in my masters in teaching program are using him and his theories of social reproduction in regards to education being the factory to produce culture. The entirety of schools are racist and favor white culture and niggers and spics can’t move up because of the system itself, genetics don’t matter because biology is formed through cultural history.

But some how individual work still exists but if you fail you can blame the system if you failed, if you succeed it’s because of the hard work. Retarded.

It’s so fucking dumb. I got 2 years of this gay anti-white shit.

It’s like the took white privilege and turn it into the fucking boogeyman for all plights America.

except that a hammer isn't an economic system
so yes, that comparison would make sense if you're an idiot

I can tell that you're not big on abstract thought, so I'll clarify. The point is that the limitations of a tool aren't evidence of the failure of that tool. Economic systems are resource distribution systems. An economic system "should" allocate resources as efficiently as possible, not necessarily as efficiently or plentifully as you'd like. The inability of a system to meet any arbitrary standard isn't a failure of the system anymore than it's the failure of hammers that they can only hit one nail at a time, or the failure of the sun that it doesn't shine everywhere in the world at once,

too bad all of that is bullshit since you're defending a system that doesn't allocate those resources efficiently
otherwise 5 people wouldn't have as much as the bottom 50% of the world

You speak of resource distribution as if said resources are the "group's" property/responsibility to distribute. You have already missed the point.

>and his writing on what communism is supposed to look like is nearly nonexistent

This is simply wrong, Marx writes about communism and communist society in all his works and he does so extensively.

From Capital, Vol 1, Ch.1, Section 4:
>Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own
personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our
community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its
apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to
distribution.

The point is that there is two sides in this argument. One is telling OP to read and the other is telling him "trust me, don't read"

How many times is it necessary to repeat things to you people in order to actually consider what someone else is saying?

Do you have any actual reading comprehension or do you just lurk threads like a hawk and need to shit out irreverent garbage at a moments notice?

We do that by showing them the way, that free markets and free trade benefits both parties and have them engage the world in trade so that they can attain the prosperity we have.

Just as capitalism has lifted the masses out of poverty wherever it's policies have been adopted, so too it will raise the third-world countries once they start liberating their economies.

Wow, what a sad sack of shit you are.

>many western countries are already largely shitholes
Yes, thanks to socialist/communist policies like the EU, which has already screwed over several countries and more are to follow.

>socialist/communist policies
Welfare and wealth redistribution aren't socialism.

>what other political ideologies advocate against the concentration of wealth into a select few hands?
Basically every single right-wing ideology, whilst left-wing ideaologies are all about the concentration of power in the hands of a selected few government officials.

And pretty much every quote you just pulled is absolutely disgusting, both morally and economically.

The point of an economic system is to provide freedom for people, you fascist twirp.

I have. Marx is good, and actually reading the source will illuminate the stupidity of most arguments around Marxism. It becomes obvious how many people are arguing for/against without actually having read it.

>eu is communist

How is possible to actually think this is true? What kind of stuff do you read?

I haven't but I pretend to have so whenever someone criticises Marxism I can say "pffft brainlet you obviously haven't read Marx".

>scarcity, the ultimate cop-out

>wealth redistribution aren't socialism
Lmao.

That doesn't mean shit.

The EU started out as a good idea, but it has developed into a whole different kind of horse over the past decades. It was becoming the new USSR, but thankfully the markets seem to have destroyed it before we got to that point.

> what is distribution through economic incentives
> what is free market
> what is trading
kys intellectual midget

Reading materialist garbage like Marx and Adam Smith is ignoble and harmful to the aristocratic soul.

> a pseud attempted to blame others rather than change his retarded worldview

Wealth is measured in a quantity of commodities, usually money. Socialism seeks to abolish commodity production in its entirety, not "fairly" distribute commodities. You're confusing socdems with socialists, admittedly a common mistake.

Everything you read should make you more transcendent OP, so stay away from worldbound thinkers.

wut that is retarded

this right here

You can keep saying that, but you do realize there is a reality out there that we have to adhere to?

What have socialist countries/politics actually done? Stop with the 'It's not really socialism'-meme, it's getting pretty tiring.

The Communist Manifesto is literally a pamphlet aimed to poorly educated workers, and yet you in your high intellectual chair managed to completely miss this very obvious point which is probably talked about in the introduction of most modern editions.

youtube.com/watch?v=fSQgCy_iIcc

Educate and read his works for yourself, OP. Marxist political theory does not particularly advance a white supremacist or misogynist agenda so don't expect to find any sympathy for discussion on Veeky Forums.

This is a bit above my pay-grade, but the way I see it, capitalism is the natural state, in a way. Now that doesn't mean that it is good, pleasant, or incorruptible. The Free Market, much like natural selection, is brutal, unrelenting, and can be twisted in favor of those with resources and the know-how to do so. The market can and will solve almost anything, but it will take time and do so in such a shitty, horrible way that we, as a civilized society, cannot accept it. So yeah, the free market will fix things...by killing a lot of people...so kind of like communism desu.

You're free to think so, but the fact of the matter is that, for the working class, it is preferable to have the means of production owned in common rather than owning nothing at all and staying subservient to the owning class.

"Socialist country" is an oxymoron; either the entire world is socialist or it isnt. It simply cant co-exist with capitalism due to the ever-expanding nature of capitalism. Socialism is recognized by its direct fight with Capital and that is not what the EU/Soviet Union/Cuba is/were doing.

>capitalism has lifted the masses out of poverty wherever it's policies have been adopted
Nigger what the fuck are you talking about, are we living in the same planet? The last 30 years have been all about the precarization of everyday life.
On a closer scale, I'm a brazilian (inb4 uma delicia) and we just went from a social-democratic government to a neoliberal one and I'm literally getting paid a third of what I was three or four years ago for doing the same job.

>capitalism is the natural state

Former Marxist here with a Masters degree in economics, I recommend reading Marx mostly to be able to read contemporary marxists and get a different perspective at current politics

>but the way I see it, capitalism is the natural state, in a way.

capitalism is a perversion of the natural state by way of financial instruments that abstract the concept of power. In a natural state power is held by an aristocracy that is visibly evident to it's subjects and backed by hereditary noble values, not hidden behind paper trails that remove all sense of responsibility to ones people.

...

>natural state
we need to start a "Google Hume" meme for everytime someone tries to derive an ought from an is

I haven't read him but i will vote for the communist party in the next election.

...

>On a closer scale, I'm a brazilian (inb4 uma delicia) and we just went from a social-democratic government to a neoliberal one and I'm literally getting paid a third of what I was three or four years ago for doing the same job.
he's talking about himself and his buds in the high-earning sector
the rest of us are bugs to be squashed

the natural state is killing and stealing
anything else is a perversion of human nature

Yes, and I agree with that. But ownership of property and whatnot are deeply ingrained in the human psyche, given how even prehistoric humans were buried with their stuff. I guess "modern" capitalism goes far beyond that, given how with the centralization of power and ease of communication elites can game the system with greater ease to ensure that they remain in power. But, to be perfectly honest, I'd still take this system over Communism. Given how I grew up in the socialist hellscape that follows the (inevitably failed) attempts to implement communism and the fact that a good part of my family tree is absent from pictures due to acute cases of lead poisoning and starvation. But hey, that's just my opinion. History of my country and blood of my relatives may be keeping me from taking the "zizekpill" and getting "woke" right and proper.

and no, I do not see Communism as "natural" in any way, shape, or form. Besides, despite claiming to "free" the people, in implementation, it only constricts them more. Why have the boot lifted off your neck if it's only going to come down faster and harder?