I'm reading the Communist Manifesto

Marx was wrong about a lot of things. The best socialist thinkers were Georges Sorel, Mosley and arguably Mussolini (in terms of ideology)

Since all 3rd world countries are the same I guess that settles the matter.
>their lives will only get better and better
Phew. Before I read this I thought climate change might actually turn out disastrously.

I would suggest to you "The Culture of Critice" by Prof. Kevin Macdonald. I believe this to be a good explanation, of many varieties of communism.

You're failing to read the work in its historical context.

In Marx's time, factory workers could labor for 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, and still not have the means to adequately feed their family. And they could hardly afford to live in their shitty, crowded, disease ridden tenement houses. When Marx says the proletariat is always regressing, he's referring to these urban living conditions which were much worse than the agricultural conditions from the decades before.

Clearly not all of his claims apply to the world today, because his writings are over a century old. The key takeaways from Marx and Engels isn't in the details, it's in the way of thinking about the world in terms of who owns the means of production, and who labors with those means of production, and how the profit should properly be distributed. It's a propaganda piece, like any political manifesto. But if you can withhold your knee-jerk "durrhurr Marx is bad because I'm smart and lots of people say so" reaction and actually think critically, you can at least understand how groundbreaking and influential the work truly is

Climate change is a spook

this is a depressing thought.

t.Trump supporter

it complete shit

It's not, actually.

there is disagreement!

>ywn go back in time and brutally murder Karl Marx

>Communist Manifesto
It's shit.

t. Marxist

Read some actual books, not pamphlets

Keep dreaming

I'd settle for killing a few modern day communists tbqh

Keep dreaming edgelord : >

t. porky faggot ot retard defending the masters who don't see him as anything more than money

>reading for the plot

>A masterful piece of propaganda

>shit

Wew lad

t.marxist

>Communism aims to free the people from opressing Capitalism, but as soon as some bullshit dictator starts to exploit and opress the people, it's all worthless.
THISSSS. In the CCCP for example, Lenin was a "man of the people" - he made a point of wearing a worker's cap rather than the expected bowler or top hat, drove a shitty car, didn't live in a palace, and hoped to eventually step down from power so it could be equally distributed. Then Stalin comes along and (partly, it must be said, because of WWII and the need for a strong military leader) sets himself up as a total autocrat. Same shit with Mao ousting Chen and Deng Xiaoping.

>Lenin was a "man of the people''
Bourgeoisie were people too, that didn't stop him hanging thousands of them

Communism is a murderous, pathological ideology.

>Bourgeoisie were people too

>pigs
>people

Both of you are bourgeois

People directly responsible for the poverty, suffering and deaths of millions of other people. Basically the Martin Shkrelis of 1917.

This plus anything by Arthur Kemp, Vox Day or Jared Taylor

>implying that wouldn't ecamplify my point

You're right, those dreadful shopkeepers and dentists killed millions. How could I forget?

>Implying the only people suffering thanks to Martin Shkreli's """"dick move"""" aren't the greedy insurance companies

>there was no wealth to be redistributed in 1917
>That's why Russia just couldn't industrialize, right?

Complacency is guilt user.

This is based on a false premise, that marxist = wealthy hipster. I personally am poor as shit.

>Vox Day
>A faggot whose claim to fame is failing to rig a sci-fi award

well cheer up you'll be the one vandalizing and murdering people richer than you in the revolution then

>This is based on a false premise

The premise is mostly true, actually. You're an exception.

Marxism is the opium of the pseuds.

Caleño here.

eat shit son of a bitch.
we hate comunism here and I wish you painful death.

capitalism is awesome faggot.

>capitalism is awesome
>implies that the economic system that destroyed culture is good
>uses the word 'awesome'
You're on the wrong board.

There's actually fewer, richer people than ever before (the whole 1% idea the Americans were rioting about a few years back), you could redistribute a solid majority of the wealth by taking maybe 250 of them into custody. It would be virtually bloodless.

Well, maybe so, I know "campus radicals" are a thing. Still, it seems like a system that directly threatens hipster-type lifestyles.

come mierda zurdo hijueputa.
eat shit leftists son of a bitch.

Oh yeah, you know better and won't fuck up everything and cause a famine. They'll just sit there and let you take their wealth too. Not like they're storing their wealth in other countries.They'll just flee at the first sight of trouble leaving you penniless and with a bunch of hungry niggers. Then everybody will want things to be like they were before and you'll need secret police to silence enemies of the revolution and so on.

Communists are resentful, unintelligent people.

I try to make a public face of taking Marxism seriously because I know a lot of 'intellectuals' are into it, and I don't want to seem like one of those frothing right-wingers who freaks out about 'cultural marxism' and just looks anti-intellectual.

But frankly, from what I've read about it, Marxism strikes me as one of the silliest, least sober, most divisive, pseudo-religious ideologies ever. Almost every single idea in it completely lacks nuance, starting from the labor theory of value proceeding all the way to the recommendations of the manifesto.

For one thing, the labor theory of value completely ignores the role of organizational labor in the production of goods. Capital allocation isn't some purely passive profit sucking preying upon some pre-existing labor apparatus that's already making society's goods and services. The capitalists get where they are by organizing the means of production so as to make production possible, and the profit ("surplus value") they extract is a reward for their mission-critical efforts. The idea that conceiving of a business, product or industry and raising the money to see it come to fruition isn't "labor" is the most fucking autistic shit I can imagine. It's like Marx thinks it's not really work unless it's some kind of mindless manual labor, which incidentally means that anyone publishing Marx's books (and Marx himself if he ever profited off them) is a capitalist themselves!

The dialectical materialist prophecy is even worse. I'll concede that the labor theory of value has SOME limited application; to the extent that a mature businesses is being traded around on the stock market by people not involved in running it, Marx's analysis does make sense (though even here he ignores the possibility of redirecting shares toward social ends through pension funds). The Hegelian dialectical shit on the other hand is just pretty much un-scientific mystical mumbo-jumbo from top to bottom. I just see no reason to believe in a linear progression of history according to evolving modes of production. If the slave state comes before the feudal state, what do we make about places where slavery existed AFTER the destruction of feudalism, such as the United States? Or places where capitalism came AFTER socialism, like Russia or China? To salvage his empirically-challenged theory, Marx needs to re-cast it not as a linear historical progression but as some other type of 'development,' under which conditions it might become more viable, but at any rate he never gives us this so his prophecy as such is just bunk.

As for the manifesto that's all just polemics and not really meant to be an 'intellectual' work in any way. But obviously the idea that the poor keep getting poorer until they revolt is bullshit. A combination of capitalism and welfare-state intervention has raised life expectancies around the world, to the point where Sub-Saharan Africans now live longer than people in advanced Western democracies 100 years ago.

Destruction of culture is something Leftists don't touch on enough; it's super easy to find examples of it (endless film remakes, every song on the radio sounding the same, fine art and theater as the exclusive preserves of wealthy patrons). Capitalism gives us shit like The Emoji Movie.

>disliking capitalism means you're leftist

>They'll just sit there and let you take their wealth too. Not like they're storing their wealth in other countries.
In this case "you" would be a broad section of the working class - including the limo drivers, the security guards, the bank clerks, etc - and it would be a global October, internet-driven like the Arab Spring or Anonymous movements. There'd be no capitalist-friendly zone to flee to.

>hey this guy didn't predict exactly how the 20th century would turn out and the fact that idioits take his word as gospel is somehow his fault

capitalism is the only system where you gain what you reap.

hard work is rewarded in capitalism, lazyness is rewarded in anything else.

capitalism is the only moral system where a poor nigglet can work in NASA.

poor people rather steal money from rich than work hard.

Work on your understanding first. If this isn't jusy bait, then you have low reading comprehension.

Yeah, wake me up when that makes sense. Nobody gives a fuck about your dumbass ideology bro.

>hard work is rewarded in capitalism
No, being born wealthy and playing irl Monopoly is rewarded. Hard work just gets you enough to keep you in food and shelter so you can keep working, and if the bosses fuck up and cause a market collapse you won't even get that.

>le I was born in wealth meme
majority of fortunes are first generation.

70% of fortunes are wasted in one generation, 90% in two.

nice try commie.

Yeah all those low paid nurse's aids shouldn't be so lazy and instead go into hardworking professions like advertizing.

I'd love for you to find a source on those numbers you got straight from your poopoo hole.

>hard work is rewarded in capitalism
Sure thing, bucko.

This

How the fuck you could understand the opposite of what the manifesto says.

Hard work rewards you in capitalism only if you work for yourself, but how many people do that?

Is funny when i see liberal intelectuals praising hard work here in spain when they never had a manual work in their lives.

>destroyed culture
Communism wants to destroy culture, you fuck. Marx said it many times. He said that it was the bourgeoise that developed culture, and that it was "just a way to turn the proletariat into machines"

...

>Nobody gives a fuck
Well 26 people cared enough to post ITT, so that sounds like wishful thinking really

impossible, it's drivel

time.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/

>physical labour is equal to social gains made by capitalists
kys commie

you realize the more people learn a trade it's wages are low?

if they want money they should become engineers, but most women are stupid anyway.

>capitalist wealth hoarding reliably correlates to social improvement
I figured people on Veeky Forums would have heard of upton sinclair

>but most women are stupid anyway.
Ahh, okay, you're one of THOSE posters.

>you realize the more people learn a trade it's wages are low?
You realize that nothing I said implied anything else and that you're changing the subject?
>if they want money
Not the point dumbass.
>they should become engineers
Yes, everyone in healthcare should become an engineer. That would turn out great.

Don't need to dream. Most commies end up killing themselves anyway

you do realize america is the only country with good healthcare because is not a socialist healthcare system?

>america is the only country with good healthcare
Then why do all the rich people piss off to clinics in Scandinavia when they need treatment?

because is cheaper, paid by your taxes sven.

>the people who are having the most sex on college campuses are going to commit suicide

uh......lol

Anyone who reads Marx needs to then read Adam Smith or some modern economics work.

Planned economies and socialism have led to lower standards of living and millions of deaths from starvation (among other causes) over the last century. But hey, why not one more try?

>Adam Smith
Labour theory of value lmao.

Smith's work obviously isn't completely sound. It was the basis on which all other economics was built though.

You have it in reverse you idiot. You read Smith, and then Ricardo, and then Marx. Reading Smith after Marx is retarded.

>I live in a 3rd world country.
That doesn't mean what you think it means.

>Everyone here has access to food
If everyone is a subsistence farmer, that's not always true (poor crop years/famine). If it's urbanized that's not true either because urban areas are unproductive food wise for the most part.

For a lot of the world now the problem is access to water anyway.

Before Smith you should read Mill and before Mill you should read Hume. Also before Marx you need to read Hegel.

The order doesn't matter much my autismal friend. I understood what Marx was saying without reading any previous economists.

>Before Smith you should read Mill
Stupid tbqh. Was Mill a time traveler?

>I live in a 3rd world country.
>Most poor people here also have cars
Wut. Which 3rd world country is this?

>As wrong and stupid as other meme ideologies like anarchism or libertarianism
>Also responsible for massive amounts of human suffering and tens of millions of dead
Is Communism the ultimate JUST ideology?

No I'm just dumb. Disregard that abortion of a post.

>Also responsible for massive amounts of human suffering and tens of millions of dead

youtube.com/watch?v=kOnIp69r6vg

What the fuck are you talking about man

Both rural and urban areas have food and water for everyone. Except for the ones who live in northeast. Literally all of them there are capable of leaving those areas to live in a big city and have a job. They don't because they lived all their lives there.

>Both rural and urban areas have food and water for everyone. Except for the ones who live in northeast
Oh wow, classic "I'm totally right if you ignore where I'm wrong!"
>Literally all of them there are capable of leaving those areas to live in a big city and have a job.
Uh huh, not retarded thinking there.

You were right on reading Hume and Smith tho, the two were like besties or some shit.

I never found a single person in my whole country who ever disagreed with that thought. I know tons of guys who came from the northeast to work in my city, and they always say "Oh I had to leave my parents and brother there, they were too attached to the land".

They don't leave because they don't want to. And even then, they are still able to survive there, but it is way harder.

Thanks. I've never read any of these authors I posted but I know enough history that I think that would be a good rough reading order, except for Mill.

Is it true that you should read Hegel before Marx? From what I understand Hegel best developed the idea of the dialectic and understanding the dialectic allows for a better reading of Marx.

>I never found a single person in my whole country who ever disagreed with that thought.

They'll be working like slaves in a few years anyway when the reality of living in debt kicks in

>They'll be working like slaves in a few years anyway when the reality of living in debt kicks in

Why are you on the academic reading board if you never went/aren't going to college

You obviously don't read many books, so I'm just curious.

I think Marx knew Hegel's thought really well. A few years back the standard thinking seemed to be that Marx had really based his idea of Hegel on Chalybaus (who is the source of the whole Hegel as thesis antithesis synthesis meme), but a lot of his interaction with the Young Hegelians had been downplayed in a lot of academia at that point. It may be that in Marx trying to aim his writing at a more general audience took some direction in explanation from the equivalent of pop philosophers. but it's not something I've had a chance to properly look into.

So after Marx would it be prudent to read Dewey and Veblen? (For chronological purposes)

>it's a debt slave doesn't even challenge the claim episode