WHY MARX WAS WRONG

As I'm sure everyone who posts on Veeky Forums knows. Karl Marx was an enormously influential thinker; he created a system of analysis which highlighted perceived issues and instabilities of the economic/political system of his day, and both advocated and predicted its imminent collapse, and the ushering in of a new, more vibrant and stable form of society.

However, despite quite a bit of time passing, and the pace of political life increasing exponentially, widespread capitalist collapse has not happened and does not seem as if it is likely to happen anytime soon, and seems to require fundamental re-alterations of things even beyond what Marx predicted in order to unseat capitalism, such as the acquisition of post scarcity.

This then brings the question of why. You have entire reams of academic papers about why it hasn't happened, why Marx was either dead wrong, or why he was right but the appropriate conditions for capitalistic collapse and replacement have not happened.

Most of these analyses focus on Marx's economics. They have focused on the economics and generally spun in circles, not getting anywhere.They instead, should be focused on the politics: While it's true that economics and politics are interrelated, they are not the same thing, and it is possible to some degree mix and match political systems and economic systems. Back in feudal eras, you had republics, and monarchies of many different stripes, ranging from elected to absolute, and this did not suddenly change with the replacement of feudal manor economies to more urbanized trade economies.

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Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/
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Marx's political analysis is relatively simple. Following the economic patterns of whatever society we're talking about, you have a dominant economic class, and a subservient exploited economic class: Currently, the dominant economic class are the owners of capital, and the exploited is pretty much everyone else. The dominant economic class sets up a system of governance that primarily speaks to their interests, tossing just enough of a scrap to the marginal class to keep it from destroying the system and potentially instituting something else. Obviously, these systems are not perfect; you do on occasion have violent overthrows, but so far, not enough of a lasting one to lead to the collapse of the current system.

Implicit in this is an assumption that turns out to be wrong. Marx assumes that once a given class assumes control over the economic destiny of a polity, they seize power, and use that power to further their own economic advantage. Nobody ever seizes power. It is impossible to do so. Power, at its most basic, is the ability to get someone else to do something because of your will rather than their own, and with this understanding, the idea of "seizing" power is ludicrous, one either has it and can enforce one's will, or one does not have it.

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People are GIVEN power, by the people at the bottom rung of the society. There are a number of reasons why anyone would consent to this, but the subordination of will happens from weak to strong, not the other way around, and as enough of the weak give power away, then the people in whom it is given have the means to acquire more. The upper class is politically dominant not because they've clawed their way to the top, but because they're pushed their by the lower classes.

Marx envisions class struggle as that between a whip cracking slave owner and a slave. He is wrong. The true analogy is that of a cuck and his bull. The lower classes fetishize their own impotence and enable others to oppress them, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE OPPRESSED, even if they can't admit it to themselves. They don't revolt and form a freer society where they will not be oppressed, they merely wish to exchange one set of oppressors for a different set of oppressors, depending on the exact level of oppression they desire.

We will never, ever have Communism, because deep down, the mass of the proletariat want to remain as such, and won't tolerate an egalitarian society. If you try to build one in spite of them, they'll tear it down the first chance they get.

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I will admit, OP. Your post really made me think. I love /pol/ now.

Listen man I hate Marx and communism but I feel like this was just one big shitpost to call Marxists and Communists cucks. Also new copypasta

>However, despite quite a bit of time passing, and the pace of political life increasing exponentially, widespread capitalist collapse has not happened and does not seem as if it is likely to happen anytime soon, and seems to require fundamental re-alterations of things even beyond what Marx predicted
You do realize the historical phases Marx mentioned hundreds to thousands of years (primitive society, slave society, feudal society). The fact that capitalism has only been around for a few hundred years doesn't suddenly prove Marx wrong. No shit Marx couldn't see into the future with perfect clarity, just like every other human being that ever existed.

>This then brings the question of why. You have entire reams of academic papers about why it hasn't happened, why Marx was either dead wrong, or why he was right but the appropriate conditions for capitalistic collapse and replacement have not happened.
You don't though. Not that I'm calling the USSR socialist, but did you forget the USSR did exist? The USSR collapsed in 1991, and the USSR considered itself socialist and not capitalist, and so did most people outside of the USSR. Lots of people considered it actual communist revolution on both sides. Due to the Cold War, there's a huge anti-communist sentiment, and due to the collapse, there's a distancing between the current Russian regime and the socialism. This is just you making shit up.

>They instead, should be focused on the politics: While it's true that economics and politics are interrelated, they are not the same thing, and it is possible to some degree mix and match political systems and economic systems. Back in feudal eras, you had republics, and monarchies of many different stripes, ranging from elected to absolute, and this did not suddenly change with the replacement of feudal manor economies to more urbanized trade economies.
Maybe you should familiarize yourself with history.

or

>Implicit in this is an assumption that turns out to be wrong. Marx assumes that once a given class assumes control over the economic destiny of a polity, they seize power, and use that power to further their own economic advantage. Nobody ever seizes power. It is impossible to do so. Power, at its most basic, is the ability to get someone else to do something because of your will rather than their own, and with this understanding, the idea of "seizing" power is ludicrous, one either has it and can enforce one's will, or one does not have it.
No, he says there's gradual shifts in actual power, and the shifts in actual power lead to revolution and restructuring of society because of dialectics. Seizing the means of production is using the power you have to restructure society. Not to mention that yes, there is such an actual thing called seizing power in history. It refers to being able to consolidate power.

>People are GIVEN power, by the people at the bottom rung of the society. There are a number of reasons why anyone would consent to this, but the subordination of will happens from weak to strong, not the other way around, and as enough of the weak give power away, then the people in whom it is given have the means to acquire more. The upper class is politically dominant not because they've clawed their way to the top, but because they're pushed their by the lower classes.
It's like you understand Marx, but then refuse to admit Marx said it.

>Marx envisions class struggle as that between a whip cracking slave owner and a slave. He is wrong.
No he didn't.

>The true analogy is that of a cuck and his bull. The lower classes fetishize their own impotence and enable others to oppress them, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE OPPRESSED, even if they can't admit it to themselves.
This is exactly the same as the Marxist class consciousness argument. This is why Marx said shit like religion is the opiate of the masses. It's like you 100% actually agree with Marx.

>This is exactly the same as the Marxist class consciousness argument. This is why Marx said shit like religion is the opiate of the masses. It's like you 100% actually agree with Marx.

No, because Marx's argument is that the dominant social caste foists said methods of disgusing their control onto the lower classes, they're not freely chosen by the lower classes.

That's what the whole class consciousness thing is all about, a hope that if they illustrate these mechanisms of social control, the lower classes will realize they've been duped and tear down the system.

Marx wasn't wrong about anything, you reactionary stooge.

Kill yourself.