Is there any criticism of Marx that doesn't amount to hysterical slander and outrage by right-wing ideologues no less ideological than Marx himself?
Any and all attacks I've ever read border on nonsense by make statements far too bold (I.E. I believe Marx is wrong about one detail, ergo EVERYTHING HE DID WAS FALSE), or are so utterly ignorant of his stances that they don't even bear consideration.
Is there any systematic, coherent and calm criticism of Marx by people without an ideological slant?
>The Marxist account of history too, Popper held, is not scientific, although it differs in certain crucial respects from psychoanalysis. For Marxism, Popper believed, had been initially scientific, in that Marx had postulated a theory which was genuinely predictive. However, when these predictions were not in fact borne out, the theory was saved from falsification by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses which made it compatible with the facts. By this means, Popper asserted, a theory which was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudo-scientific dogma.
This criticism rings very true to me. Engels was all about the whole Scientific Socialism thing.
Jacob Thomas
I've never posted a thread about Marx on Veeky Forums
Lucas Gomez
Except, Popper's entire falsification theory of science has been since completely dismantled and nobody actually follows it. Quine did plenty of work on this. If Popper's methodology to judge science is faulty, I can't trust his judgment of the scientific nature of Marxism.
Henry Johnson
>is there any criticism of an ideology that isn't ideological
You're not a very smart man, are you user.
Carter Wood
>Is there any criticism of Marx that doesn't amount to hysterical slander and outrage by right-wing ideologues no less ideological than Marx himself?Is there any criticism of Marx that doesn't amount to hysterical slander and outrage by right-wing ideologues no less ideological than Marx himself?
KoĊakowski, Main Currents, 3 vol. >Is there any systematic, coherent and calm criticism of Marx by people without an ideological slant? This third question's answer is no: all human cultural efforts are ideological.
Luis Long
The Knowledge Problem of Central Planning.
As a society grows more complex it's reliance on the knowledge masses becomes ever the more obvious. In order to make a decision about the usage of resources in a technically sophisticated society one must have access to knowledge held by literally millions of people in roles that are highly specialized, and grow more specialized by the day. This is ultimately why a centrally planned economy will lag behind an economy of free capital and work for profit. To put it simply: a modern economy is far too intricate and complicated to be administered by a group of central planners at any level of governance.
You just misrepresented Marx and linked an extremely ideological thinker (Hayek) in response to my thread. You did 100% exactly what I wanted you not to.
Jaxon Adams
Disregard that Vimeo link, this is the Curtis doc I was thinking of:
I would like to hear a refutation of that point without you shouting "Ideology!" at me. Ultimately the theory was Mises' anyway.
Eli Cox
>scientific nature of Marxism LOL
Also, >I believe Popper is wrong about one detail, ergo EVERYTHING HE DID WAS FALSE
Tbh Popper's ideas are a lot more rigorous than Marx's, and classical Marxism isn't even taken seriously by the academy. His methods are just recycled because they're good at community organizing aka tricking whatever minority into following you as pawns.
Adrian Hughes
Ideology in Marxist doublespeak means pretty much anything that might possibly contradict Marxism. Since Marxism is scientific and all.
Justin Gray
>marx isn't politically biased but his critics are all extremest right-wing maniacs
Jaxon Wright
Well, for starters, Marx never proposed central planning of the economy.
Michael Morris
There's a good amount of Marxist critiques that are based in an academic rather than emotional (i.e. /pol/) argument. You just won't find it on this chinese pedpohilia board.
David Baker
""""""""""""Public""""""""""""""" planning
Matthew Powell
>extremely ideological thinker (Hayek) >Marx is not extremely ideological
Liam Anderson
Are you saying the only way to have socialism is for a centrally planned government?
Oh cool, conspiracy theories about evil intellectuals trying to manipulate "pawns".
Read the criticisms of Popper. There's a million and no, he's not more respected in "the academy". Plenty of schools read Marx in philosophy departments
Elijah Lopez
The only credible arguments against Marx are in his overly optimistic views, especially concerning the ability of the proletariat to perceive and pursue their best collective interest.
David Young
I'm not saying Marx isn't, but replacing "socialism is the best good" with "free markets are the best good" doesn't improve any.
Where did you get the idea that I believe Marx is actually scientific or not ideological? I don't necessarily believe that, stop treating me that way, I want actual scholarly work that would actually attempt to show that from people who aren't serving up their own quarter pounder of bullshit to replace it.
Owen Reed
As a mechanism to achieve socialism he absolutely did.
Taking of capital from capitalists and distributing through the government was seen by Marx as an indispensable step towards Socialism. Here we go with the no true socialism arguments.
>only way to have socialism is for a centrally planned government
Please propose another system for distributing resources without a capital intermediary. All you can do is propose smaller and more local planning committees which solves nothing when a modern economy relies on resources from all over the planet.
Joshua Perry
Can you show me? That's exactly what I want.
Can you go into more detail?
David Hill
>Please propose another system for distributing resources without a capital intermediary. Democratically planned?
Owen King
>As a mechanism to achieve socialism he absolutely did. Which isn't the same as a perpetually managed state run economy.
> Taking of capital from capitalists and distributing through the government was seen by Marx as an indispensable step towards Socialism. Here we go with the no true socialism arguments. Well then stop making a no true socialism argument, and stick to the fucking text of Marx.
Easton Rivera
>sweeping, mocking, arigorous dismissal >thinking you'll be taken seriously
John Stewart
If you don't think the intelligentsia are responsible for the terrible state academia is in then i don't know what to tell you.
Popper is criticized a lot because he shat on the marxist continental circle-jerk.
Marx is read in undergrad phil but beyond that he isn't taken seriously. Historical materialism and critical theory still plagues academia though, it's overly-simplistic models and classes are attractive to academics.
Grayson Cooper
>Democratically planned
What does that mean exactly? How does a government distribute resources in a 'democratic' fashion? How do you consult the MILLIONS of people in large scale society on how they would like the myriad of resources required to run said society distributed? Ultimately it will have to be administered by a select group of people, like in every democracy since Athens. I fail to see how electing bureaucrats to run your life is any better than appointing them. Ultimately a small group of people is running the economy on their own.
Why do you even think they would be better suited to this task than the people who make it their business to know the ins and outs of the various industries we need to keep the economy rolling?
Zachary Wilson
Marxism is essentially a sectarian religion, with good vs evil and a promised land that awaits those who fight against evil.
Pretty much every Marxist thinker (actual Marxism is dead but his ideas live on, hybridized with other disciplines) is a self-righteous bourgeois faggot. The academics are motivated by the same sense of righteousness as the conquistadors.
The humanities are a quagmire of leftist bias, and Marx's influence is a clear indication.
Jordan Young
...
Kayden Ortiz
> I fail to see how electing bureaucrats to run your life is any better than appointing them. Maybe you've got more in common with the Soviets than you thought!
Jayden Carter
Not an argument.
Xavier Brown
There are lots of criticisms for Marx.
The worst is that his follows are rabid, and they hate revisionists and anyone that isn't a full Marxist is a capitalist pig, thus making themselves easy targets.
I like talking about market socialism because centrally-planned economies aren't so great, and it's one of the easiest targets of a socialist state. But the Marxists always get mad that I'm just trying to push for a bigger capitalism that reduces the inherent contradictions.
Noah Adams
>bigger better capitalism*
Jonathan Roberts
>market socialism The Nordic model failed m8
Hudson Flores
FUCK OFF COMMIE
Adrian Morgan
The Nordic model isn't socialism. It is capitalism with social programs.
People keep confusing privately owned capital with markets. They're not the same thing.
Also, I'd demand a "buy-in" of sorts for every immigrant, or child beyond the 2nd.
Gabriel Scott
>Mises Even worse.
Literally >Fuck all this math and facts shit in economics. It'd be better if we just treat the entire field like a philosophy.
Thomas Reyes
Sure there is purely materialist conception of history is absurd Dialecticism is unscientific although Marx took that from Hegel
Lucas Flores
Well I'd say his historiography is fucked up, though not bad for a 19th century fellow, relying as it seems to on the primacy of 'class' and 'class war' above much else as a motor of history. Marvin Harris was a better materialist than Marx, not the least because Harris had a 100 years of anthropology to add depth and nuance to his understanding of cultural evolution, and I prefer him.
I have no interest whatever in Marx's proscriptive or predictive ideas. Nor would I ask da Vinci how to fly to the moon.
Liam Peterson
His convictions are utilitarian, which lie in morally realist bases, which are not sound logically, as there is no observable, tangible basis for a morally truth-apt statement. This is an argument that utterly destroys him, and he wrote a fucking angry book after a certain someone pointed this out to him.
More about socialism than Marxism, but the problem of capital markets has a lot of Marxist scholarship.
Jordan Carter
>Marx >utilitarian
Nathan Ramirez
What are you even talking about?
Easton Carter
I don't believe people should specialize so much as to not be capable of making educated decisions on such things.
Ayden Young
>muh academia conspiracy >muh intellectuals So it devolves into right wing conspiracies yet again. And yes plenty of graduate work is done on Marx.
Logan Baker
>Marx >Utilitarian
Marx was anti-utilitarian if anything.
Jeremiah Ross
...
Sebastian Wright
A quick search shows 452 results for Marx on Jstor in the economics/philosophy sections while only 62 for Popper.
Objective, scientific proof there that Marx is still more relevant than popper in philosophy and economics :-)
Brody Bell
Not him, but..
>Objective proof that there are more papers on Marx than Popper*
Marx is just a divisive figure.
Aiden Ward
>repeats a talking point of right wing conspiracy theorists >gets blasted when called out
I know Sargon of Akkad is your only source of intellectual work but come on.
Elijah Davis
Oh. Those results were for only the year 2015. Total Marx absolutely creams popper unequivocally
Robert Mitchell
Exactly, Popper got blown out a long time ago, so most people just moved on and stopped caring. Marx is still divisive and plenty relevant. He's a more timeless and important intellectual.
Matthew Wilson
He's not relevant though.
Liam Ortiz
...
Levi Reyes
Except the only way to even quantify that says he actually is.
Just because that doesn't jive with your ideology doesn't mean it's wrong.
Alexander Cook
Marxist ideas are not followed and have never been followed. He is irrelevant.
>Just because that doesn't jive with your ideology doesn't mean it's wrong.
Relevancy =/= accuracy
Brayden Gonzalez
Kek alright, stay in your ideological bubble where objective facts can't penetrate your safe space any longer, you're of no use to me in this thread
David Flores
There is, it's mainly the criticism of the teleology of Marxism, where, according to it, history is supposed to have a direction, with the historical dialectic inevitably producing a socialist society. This teleology has never been established as anything more than an ideological fiction.
Luckily, right wing fanatics and religious zealots believe in this same fiction of teleology (in fact, its roots are in religion), so I guess this critique would be pretty free of ideological bias
Adam Phillips
Yeah I agree that teleology is almost completely worthless when describing anything. Marx took the part of Hegel I agree with least and kept it
Christopher Carter
First try to prove that Marx was right about anything and we'll go from there.
Brody Carter
He was right that capitalism necessarily estranges labor from the value it produces
Jeremiah Anderson
>LTV When will this meme finally die?
Jonathan Hill
Even if you don't accept the LTV it makes sense.
Bentley Foster
The more I see people like you denying the obvious because right-wing news outlets point it out, the more obvious it becomes that the Left is out of touch with reality.
Christian Diaz
Making sense doesn't count for much. Transubstantiation makes sense. I'm not going to go trying to build cars that run on Communion wafers, though.
Easton Sullivan
Most Marxist humanism is anti teleological. See EP Thompson poverty of theory
Ian Bell
Marx's models and ideas just really pander to the academy. Popper's doesnt.
Bentley Anderson
>phil departments fucking love marx Wow who would have thought.
Dylan Evans
Nope. There is literally no proof that value alienation is a thing. It's an asspull that can be neither verified nor disproven.
Connor Carter
I never even said i disagree with Marx.
But he isn't relevant
Christopher Johnson
Have you lost your chains yet?
Jace Gomez
>my ideology isn't an ideology!
Mason James
You're objectively wrong. This isn't really a debate, it's you just denying empirical fact.
David Sanders
But you just acted like it was disproved, now you're saying it can't be?
My oh my, you're just a mess of contradictions, just like capital.
Leo Cruz
Marx didn't pander to any academy and popper did. Like quite literally. Based on how actual people actually use pander, not in the sense you're using it which is opposite.
Isaiah Russell
That's an irrelevant point.
Henry Hill
Which of Marx's principles/ideas are widely employed globally?
Joshua Perez
>But you just acted like it was disproved, now you're saying it can't be? You were asked to prove that Marx was right about something. You brought up alienation, but didn't even attempt to prove anything. That speaks for itself.
Carter Martinez
>But you just acted like it was disproved
I did? Where? Are you basing your argument on a strawman again?
Saying value alienation is a thing is like saying God exists. There's no evidence for it whatsoever but it's such an unfalsifiable claim it can't be disproven.
Come to think of it, this thread is awfully similar to a Christian saying "Prove that Bible was wrong!"
Owen Johnson
Which of Kant's are? Which of Nietzsche's are? Which of Adam Smith's are? Which of Hobbes' are?
We don't judge the relevancy of a philosopher by whether states are crafted exactly on their ideas.
In any historical sense, Marx is an exception and he has been supremely relevant.
Also, your charge that Marx is irrelevant today, even in state apparatuses is dubious at best. You're really going to say not one aspect of any state was influenced at all by his ideas?
Lol.
Hunter Murphy
I think you meant to link to
David Gomez
None, this thread is a wank.
Adam Torres
Of course value alienation exists, it's a fundamental tenet of capitalism, it's even a core idea of Friedman. You pay your workers as little as possible to turn a larger profit. That's what value alienation means. Workers building iPhones are as far removed from the value of the iPhone as possible, and Apple produces tons of profits that go to shareholders who are mostly the same people who run the businesses.
It's so obvious it hardly needs "proof".
Also I'm actually genuinely not here to have debates with retarded right wingers, I was legitimately hoping for scholarly work against Marx. I don't know if you realize that.
Cooper Howard
>buttblasted classcuck trying hardest to meme
Cameron Cruz
Again, it's so core to capitalism people can't even see it. Nobody hires workers to come out even. They hire workers to turn a profit. That means that, whatever value is produced by the labor can't be turned to them, I have to keep a bit of it. The more I can keep, the better off I am.
Even Milton Friedman recognizes it because it's so obvious it doesn't need argumentation. Capitalism requires a good pool of cheap ass labor that produces more value than it gets in return.
Matthew Scott
>fundamental tenet of capitalism
And capitalist mantras are equally unprovable. I think Marxists use capitalism as a crutch way too much for my liking (while simultenously hating capitalism).
Furthermore, you first need to objectively prove value. Marx didn't do that, LTV offers no evidence, it's an axiom built on thin air.
Kayden Cox
>it's not the mantra of corporations to turn a profit >value doesn't exist
anti-Marxists, everybody. "Nothing is provable"
Btw, no, not all value to Marx is socially necessary labor time. And no Marxists I know treat Marx like he even offers "proofs" about the way capitalism works. In fact none of the stereotypes people offer of Marxists have ever come true for me
Austin Howard
So Marx basically offers nothing. Thus there's really nothing much to disprove and this thread is worthless.
Chase Jackson
What? What constellation of words caused that thought to enter your mind?
It's almost confusing me figuring out how your mind works, jumping from place to place with these absurd attacks and claims, without ever an ounce of substantive attacks to the words of the text.
Refer to my OP.
Daniel Allen
>Except, Popper's entire falsification theory of science has been since completely dismantled and nobody actually follows it.
Wrong.
Joshua Cruz
Who follows it?
Ryder Brown
...
Mason Bailey
>. And no Marxists I know treat Marx like he even offers "proofs" about the way capitalism works
You said it yourself, Marx offers zero proof about anything he ever said.
Dominic Gomez
...
Kayden Baker
I scare quoted "proof" because if I provide any, you'll instantly change what you mean, because your assertion that Marx never said anything useful is unfalsifiable.
Henry Campbell
I see you're getting preemptively defensive, knowing that Marx offers no proof.
Nathan King
Of course Marx offers proof.
>Popper pointed out that it is always possible to change the universal statement or the existential statement so that falsification does not occur. On hearing that a black swan has been observed in Australia, one might introduce the ad hoc hypothesis, 'all swans are white except those found in Australia'; or one might adopt another, more cynical view about some observers, 'Australian bird watchers are incompetent'.
This is what every anti-Marxist does, doesn't matter what evidence we provide, you continually alter your original universal claim to prevent your statements about Marx from being falsified.
I'm looking for people to give decent arguments against Marx. I've replied to the few decent posters fairly, I'm being hard with you because you're just spouting unfalsifiable nonsense.