Was Karl Marx right?

No, it's a ridiculous, outdated economic theory akin to humorism. It may have made sense at the time, but today it's risible.

what a beautiful description of capitalism!

Capitalism is not a theory or an ideology lol, it's the absence of restrictions on the exchange of good and services.

slight kek

*goods.

LOL

Observe, readers, the response of the illiterates when they discover that they have no reasonable counter-arguments.

Capitalism is not the market. You can have state capitalism (USSR) with planning instead of a market. You can have a market without capitalism (all of human history pre-renaissance+ mutualism).

Haven't read Das Kapital, did read Communist Party Manifesto, the idea is repeated a few times there and I assume elaborated on Das Kapital, then again, I might be wrong.

You're confounding the market and capitalism as such. Absolute capitalism is what you have when the market is left unregulated. Capitalism is not meaningful as a concept except in the context of a market. A market is a system for exchanging goods and services. The late USSR had a market, but it was not free. One may say that they had a slight degree of capitalism, because some free enterprise was possible. We had markets way before the renaissance, but they weren't really left to their own devices in the same way until that time.

Nein.

no
/next question

Everyone please look at this guy, do not be this guy.

Can't tell if he is a gommie playing jewish tricks

...

He will be when you fucks actually get off your arse and seize the means of production.

t. classcuck

Marx never really flirted with the notion of the modern form of mixed economy or could of imagined that the welfare-warfare state apparatus that has emerged would be as functional as it has been.
Marx never developed a full theory of the state or government to complement his theory of how a pure market develops and this is the biggest hole in his understanding of the actual development of capitalism since his death. Liberalism as a serious political force DID collapse but socialism didn't emerge instead various sorts of state capitalism have developed along with totalitarian state apparatuses and ideologies to control populations.

Commercial capitalism dates back to antiquity; global trade networks existed but the production process itself hadn't been taken direct control of by a class of merchants from the craftsmen themselves. In fact Portugal's Atlantic expansion began as an assault on Islamic commercial supremacy, both its domination of the Sahara gold trade and its monopoly of the Indian Ocean. The emergences and dynamics of European capitalism are incomprehensible without some attempt to understand this.
"Exchange" itself doesn't explain why or how you got the emergence of industrial capitalism as it actually occurred in Europe or why the form of piece-wage labour became the preliminary form of surplus-value extraction. You need to understand primitive accumulation to understand capitalism. What we call capitalism today emerged with the growth of the centralized state.

How many times do we have to try it before you see it doesn't fucking work?

>Oh but that wasn't real blah whine cry...

No, fuck off. They all ended up shit because it's a fucking inevitability when you set up a system incompatible with humanity.

Das Kapital gives an excelent description of the inner workings of capitalism. It lets go of the shortsighted view of the economy in terms of money and instead focuses on the process of production of comodities and the cost it has on society in terms of labour power (though Marx uses prices as a unit of measurement, it isn't the main point in das Kapital).
Should be read together with ''The protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism'' by Max Weber to get a good understanding of the rise and workings of capitalism

Das Kapital doesn't preach any ideology, and is only a dry analisis of capitalism. Its a dense book and should only be read if you are really interested in the subject and are willing to put in some effort.

Human evolution forming our physiology and psychology occurred in pre-agrarian societies. Whatever "system" humans are "compatible with" has long ago been destroyed by us and left behind in the stone age. Since then the grand majority of the worlds population have been slaves to various social arrangements by which we have had a surplus product extracted from us and distributed to others in various ways.
The question is if the rapid development of the productive forces since the industrial revolution will trigger a qualitatively different form of social arrangement to have to emerge. Will humanity as we know it today even exist in 100 years with the development of our knowledge of biogenetic manipulation?

That Capitalism is shit? Yes. That Socialism is any different and not shit? No.

Both rely on mass employment and the worship of money. The Socialist "utopia" of eventually renouncing money is as implausible as the Capitalist "utopia" of the market working itself out to the benefit of all.

Absolute Monarchy was the only sustainable system.

>mutualism
anarko-liberals get out

>Should be read together with ''The protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism'' by Max Weber to get a good understanding of the rise and workings of capitalism
Weber's, even on his own idealistic terrain, thesis is just wrong and was ripped to shreds by Sombart. Catholicism in the phase of its maximum expansion really favoured capitalistic development, the emergence of protestantism if anything slowed this down probably. Thomism promoted a return on capital and never the degenerate form of interest on loans. But the Jews played perhaps the real central role in destroying the old fashioned guild system and traditional society and replaced it with the more progressive capitalist system. The Jews developed and deployed the knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping across Europe which was absoultly technically necessary for the development of a rational system of accountancy. No double-entry bookkeeping, no capitalist enterprises of a modern sort.
Sombart's work The Jews and Modern Capitalism goes more into this:
jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/The Jews and Modern Capitalism.htm

>le tried and failed meme
>took hundreds of years for societies under feudalism to successfully transfer to capitalism

Outdated how? There are still undeniably harmful class antagonisms that are responsible for most of the world's crime, war, and suffering. Everyday capitalism allows for world hunger, capitalism has failed.

You haven't actually read Das Kapital, let alone something as straightforward as The Communist Manifesto. "Utopia" is the thing Marx is renouncing. Marx and Engels advocate scientific socialism.

>absolute monarchy e.e

Prince Harry pls go

You first user

No.

I take a nuanced approach, however. I accept that the USSR/PRC/etc were not Communist. What I say, however, is that all of them BEGAN as genuine attempts to achieve it - whether via Socialism/etc. What I then say is that because every attempt has ended so terribly that it cannot, by any metric, possibly be worth trying.

Then you get idiots (basically Trotskyists) who claim the only reason these attempts failed were due to non-Communist/Western economic measures that were taken in opposition. In essence, "If Communism had taken place worldwide, it would have worked!"

As if it is reasonable to demand or expect this of the world, much of which has undeniably benefited from Capitalism (as Marx even admitted) - but that's Marxists for you.

Foucault said it best: Marxism outside of the 19th century is like a fish out of water.

The poor you will always have with you.

And they say Marxists aren't utopian...

>If it weren't for those darned Capitalists, we'd have eliminated poverty/inequality/etc! (i.e. Everything that stops there being a utopia)

Why is marxism always considered an option but fascism isn't? I understand that they aren't exactly parallels but still. Class collaboration done right will always be better than class warfare. Fascism also protects the continuity of the cultural and philosophical themes unique to each ethnonational group.

Marxism only leads to degeneracy and ultimately decay. FULL STOP. No argument.

No, we're not aiming for a utopia. There will always be problems unrelated to economics and politics. There will always be loneliness, unrequited love, incurable disease, misunderstandings, death, etc.

We're not trying to create a perfect world. We're trying to fix a serious problem. The bare minimum. Let's have everyone have the opportunity to work and learn without being subject to anyone else through rent, business, or political positions.

It isn't impossible. It's been done before.

>FULL STOP. No argument
You wonder why nobody takes arguments for fascism seriously, then you post this

So I guess you're opposed to meritocratic ideals?

>Capitalism
>Meritocratic
Not quite, fella.

>"why don't people want to be subjugated and oppressed under the false pretenses of some super nationalistic fervor"

Maybe Marxism just presents them with better options. "Class collaboration" is just the bourgeois way to still have control while pretending to care. It's a way to stay in power while still having the masses at your disposal. Fuck that.

Understandable response. Could you offer me some counter points then? What mechanism would a marxist system use to prevent the inevitable devolution of the human race?

I have many criticisms of capitalism. I actually learned a lot about critiquing these structures by studying leftist concepts. So please answer my question.

I see class collaboration as the only solution for the human society
What will you do once the upper class has been killed off? There will always be a new upper class, even though they are worse off than the previous one. And you kill the new and new upper class, who are progressively worse and worse off than the previous ones until we arrive at you. What will you do then? Suicide?

>8748688
Not the same person m8.

Shoulda noticed by the prose.

Under an ideal fascist leadership the bourgeois would be forced to care. Honor, generosity, cooperation, and virtue is meant to be fostered by fascist ideals. Everyone is taught to be the absolute best they can be because no other option is acceptable. All of this is solidified by ethnic and cultural ties. I'd like to see my people create the best lives for themselves. It's not really all that different from socialism. Different means pursuing the same end result.

I'm not the same or you aren't? I'm confused now.

If everyone starts at generally the same point, they can work hard and achieve some higher position through merit. But you can't really have merit under capitalism because everyone's starting point is different. For someone in the lower class to "make it" under capitalism, they either need to be extreme geniuses or have an insane amount of luck. For someone in the upperclass, they could live their lives on autopilot and still just have to manage a few things here and there without much effort or merit throughout their entire lives.

Communism and socialism aren't systems of "handouts", they're systems in which people take back what is theirs and where EVERYONE has to work hard, not just the lower and middle class.

What is had is not what is given, it's what is worked for.

Laissez faire broke down all over the world in the 20th century, this is an empirical fact, and never fully reemerged. The USSR was, one of the various forms, of state capitalism that feel victim to the exact overaccumulation tendencies Marx outlines himself which had to break down. The state capitalist system that exists today in America which depends upon the federal reserve constantly injecting liquidity and pentagon/state spending to prop itself up will also break down. Marx is still the best framework to understand all this, even though flawed in some minor ways. Once you understand the basic categories of capitalism you will understand why a break down crises is unavoidable.

Fascism is just ethno-capitalism with a lot more government control of all aspects of life.

Fascism cannot prevent the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Fascism is based around the private profit motive and is subordinated to it. The government cannot fix capitalism by regulating it.

>Marx is still the best framework to understand all this, even though flawed in some minor ways. Once you understand the basic categories of capitalism you will understand why a break down crises is unavoidable.

What you need to understand is that Capitalism relies upon these booms and busts.

It's nothing new. There's no such thing as infinite growth. If you want total stability, you want economic stagnation.

If I said that a 19th century understanding of Human anatomy was applicable today, I would probably be laughed at.

If I said that a 19th century understanding of economics was applicable today, I'd be taken seriously.

One of these things obviously shouldn't be the case.

>Absolute capitalism is what you have when the market is left unregulated
Unregulated capital means who owns capital owns everything else. We must remember that, otherwise we would believe that the lack of state would equal a free market and not a new oligarchy. Capitalism is a movement, a way in which things flow, and there is no absolute capitalism in the sense that a slow curvy river is as much as a river as a waterfall, that is to say, even if we have the State, regulating agencies and of course a lot of fluctuations and ideologies involved, the capital still flow and still runs things, as you can buy the State, buy influence, manufacture consent and so on. In other words, the bigger you are, that easier it is for you to grow, that's capitalism.

Well obviously fucking not lol.

>ITT English majors discuss macroeconomics 101
LMAOing at you all

>ideal fascist leadership

Putting so much trust on a powerful military elite is bound to be unsustainable eventually. Your solution is very short-term if it ever were to work. What happens when the ideal leader or ideal government dies off? What happens when the inherent contradictions of capitalism resurface? Racial and nationalistic ties can't save capitalism from itself. Ultimately, people care more about their own survival (their economic well-being) than some superficial alliance with members of their "race", religion, or nationality. I have more in common with a middle class Russian than I do with an upperclass American.

>Putting so much trust on a powerful military elite is bound to be unsustainable eventually

As opposed to a 'benevolent' Socialist government that will just dissolve itself when the time is right for Communism.

Lol.

Karl Marx was a smart man, but his theories will always be just that. The only left wing ideology that actually has statistical proof of working in the long-term is democratic socialism, and even that is essentially a left-wing way to piggyback onto the success of rightwing policies.

Government is a necessary evil.

So you're saying that welfare states are better than liberal/socialistic economies by combining the best of both worlds?
Wow!

If everyone has more or less the same economic position, what great power does one leader have over their citizens?

I'm not saying the Leninist model is perfect but it's not as if Gorbachev was some tyrannical ruler like Franco or Pinochet or Mubarak. When even a significant small minority decided they didn't want socialism anymore, socialism was gone. If we had fascism could we ever truly opt out of it? What if people suddenly decide they don't want a fascist government anymore? You're telling me they could actually put themselves in front of a military elite and disobey without having a firing squad put on them?

The wealth of Europe is not separate from the poverty in the rest of the world. Congo and Bangladesh are as capitalist as the US.

>If everyone has more or less the same economic position

Won't happen.

>it's not as if Gorbachev was some tyrannical ruler like Franco or Pinochet or Mubarak

You people always conveniently forget Chavez/etc.

>misunderstands what a theory is
>hasn't read Das Kapital so doesn't know about actual statistical proof in favor of socialism and communism

The only actual democratic socialist country was Chile and that ended in disaster after being overthrown by CIA-backed fascist counterrevolutionaries.

>another delusional commie thread

>Ultimately, people care more about their own survival (their economic well-being) than some superficial alliance with members of their "race", religion, or nationality.

Or class.

> I have more in common with a middle class Russian than I do with an upperclass American.

Wrong.

...but it already did happen. Not just in Russia but all over the world. It isn't as if their incomes were perfectly the same or anything stupid like that, but it wasn't as if anyone had a ridiculous advantage over anyone else. People worked as they were able to and received based on what they needed.

Chavez, a democratically elected leader was a tyrant? Under socialism, even the most supposedly "authoritative" figures are all just really popular politicians that were democratically elected or otherwise supported by mass movements, not hierarchies. Capitalist nations see these as dictatorships because it's unfathomable to them that politicians could ever be trusted or liked. It's only rare ones like Sanders or Trump that actually appeal to the general attitudes of a nation.

Pinochet wasn't fascist. He was a run-of-the-mill military dictator.

The nomenklatura had ridiculous advantages over anyone else.

While race, religion, and nationality are superficial aspects about our nature, economics determines whether we live or die, what kind of health we obtain, what education is available to us, whether or not we will have adequate shelter, or fulfilling careers. Race/Nationality is something you didn't work for. There is not capitalist notion of "merit" in that, if "merit" is what you're going for.

I've spoken to middle class Russians and Mexicans. We absolutely have more in common than what any of us has with the upper class of our countries. A Mexican may be Catholic, a Russian may be Orthodox, I may come from a Protestant household, but it's not as if our conversation is solely bound by ideological and theological chatter. We speak about popular media, and our daily lives, which is highly tied to our class.

And that's why it failed. I'm not arguing for Leninism, which has its flaws. The point of Marxism is as a revolutionary science. If Leninism doesn't work, we should learn what it's failures are and correct our theory based on the evidence.

But it's not as if the nomenklatura, in spite of their advantages, had the same position as many of the American elites have. There were no billionaires in Russia before 1991.

Indeed, but the life of working class Americans was still better than the life of Russian workers even though they were farther removed from their elites' wealth than Russians were from theirs. Relative inequality matters but absolute wealth matters even more.

>Under socialism, even the most supposedly "authoritative" figures are all just really popular politicians that were democratically elected or otherwise supported by mass movements, not hierarchies.

You've just described most Fascists, who are typically loved by those beneath them.

>correct our theory

And if the theory itself is the problem, what then?

But that never enters the equation, does it?

No they are not superficial although economics are indeed very important. Even the wealthiest, most educated Indian families will still use selective abortion to get boys rather than girls (in fact more because they can more easily afford it). Even stranded in Groenland vikings would rather let themselves starve to death rather eat what natives eat. The Marxist idea that the cultural superstructure is determined by material conditions is at best simplistic and frankly obsolete even if it was a leap forward during Marx's time.

And yes, you have gotten acquainted -superficially- with middle class people from other countries. You're still closer to your countrymen in many minute aspects of the way you think and behave that you're not conscious of yourself.

>What you need to understand is that Capitalism relies upon these booms and busts.

Mainstream classical and neoclassical theory has no formal room for slumps in a pure market economy. The concept of the business cycle was introduced into economic analysis by radicals against Say's law. Only the Austrian school even formally recognized this first amongst the "mainstream" (if you want to include them). Keynes recognized it but he thought [erroneously] governments could control it.
Marx provides a [uncompleted] explanation of the business cycle in volume 2 of capital which actually gets at the core of the issue and Rosa Luxemburg expands on in The Accumulation of Capital.

>The Marxist idea that the cultural superstructure is determined by material conditions is at best simplistic and frankly obsolete even if it was a leap forward during Marx's time.
If you want a reductio ad absurdum the concept doesn't hold but Marx nowhere resorts to that level of extreme reductionism and doesn't abandon the role of ideology in society. Economic structures can and will distort the cultural superstructure.

Then don't follow the theory? This isn't a dogma. But so far capitalism and other supposed Third Position movements have ultimately failed for a large majority of the population. Why should the lower and middle class be enthusiastic about capitalism? At best, they are servile, complacent, giving up hopes for change, and opting for either the reformist platitudes of one side or the populist anger of the other. The politics of capitalism fails to address the real problem inherent in the system.

From the evidence, we see that oppressed groups and the extremely poor do better under socialism than under capitalism. Except that, while socialism can be analyzed and criticized based on how much it achieves for the working class and for the peasantry, capitalism doesn't hold itself to these standards, and therefore is free from the being criticized on this basis.

If there's a famine in a socialist country and people suffer from scarcity, everyone blames socialism, but if the same happens in a capitalist country, this is merely a natural disaster. Why? Because capitalism has no real care for solving the problem of poverty or of exploitation. Any "failure" socialism has will ultimately be many times better than the best capitalist success.

>those beneath them

See, that's the difference. Even someone like Stalin and Che (who were extremely popular), repeatedly said how they were "merely a man." Marxism emphasizes the collective, not the individual. There is no simplistic "great man of history" to follow here. A popular politician is just that: a popular politician. He's a worker, like everyone else is a worker. A musician is not better than a teacher and a teacher is not better than a soldier. A soldier is not better than a miner and a miner is not better than a construction worker.

The popularity of fascist leaders is baseless because they're not actually doing anything to serve their country. Primarily, their service is to a ruling class, which in some ways trickles down, or mafia-like, offers protection. It's not "class collaboration", it's class submission. Once there is true submission and a fear-based denial of struggle, things get done...but not on the terms of the majority or based on any true consensus of the governed.

This is why it isn't just "popularity" that fascist leaders have. It's forced popularity, which really is just the love of the slave for its master.

Agreed. Claiming Karl Marx was an authority over economics is like saying George Lucas is an authority over astrophysics

>The Great Depression

While this was happening, and while the US suffered recessions every 17 years, the USSR was having its most productive years ever. Put in context, it would be as if Somalia transformed into a world superpower equal to the UK within 40 years.

Any system that could do this with such a backwards country should be considered. Russia during the early 20th century was not seen as a serious contender for "superpower." It was socialism which brought the country into the future in terms of illiteracy, healthcare, science and technology, and military capacity.

All those pages, wew lad, how many different ways are there to say "money is money"?

Marx wasn't a random voice in the wilderness. He was one of many socialist thinkers of his time who offered an alternative to capitalism which...

1. wasn't always in existence
2. won't always be in existence
3. isn't the only way to exist

I anticipate such problems to be possibilities. But again, if the fascist society fosters a culture of leadership and virtue then whatever leader comes about by way of merit will possess the necessary qualities to be a good leader. On top of this, I don't necessarily support a single autocrat having total power. Even Roman Emperors had a senate to guide them and the senate often had considerable influence over the military who would maintain a monopoly over the proper use of force. Fascism, like Marxism, is not inflexible. It can change and morph as the people see fit. It's generally in a leader's best interests to maintain popularity by courting the various social classes on to his side. This usually isn't done to the detriment over one class to another.

Fascism essentially simplifies the intersectionality of society. This means that there are less intergroup conflicts to be dealt with. A citizen of a fascist state shouldn't be tied to their leader, but rather a well defined concept of a homeland made theirs through blood and time.

I agree. Hence why I don't support the way we do things now. I'm quite radical (though I'm vehemently right wing) and strongly believe there needs to be a radical change to the way we relate to capital and each other. Each one of your points are true from my perspective, but it doesn't mean that I'm a socialist.

The best success story of this "class collaboration" of fascism would probably be India, with it's rigid and religiously justified caste system. This is probably the best case scenario for fascism: the grim reality of just accepting ones fate as being part of the cycle of reincarnation.

I'm a socialist because there's no real alternative. Capitalism? That doesn't work. If someone with an actually coherent Third Position theory comes along, I'd gladly hear them out, but until then, there's no real reason to want to keep things as they are while also accepting that the way things are is the problem. If you want change, you sound uncertain what you want to be changed. You want a more conservative society? You want segregation back? I really don't understand what the far-right wants. What more could they want? The US is already a far-right society. If the far-right truly opposes capitalism, they have yet to provide an alternative that isn't socialism. They hate socialism and capitalism, but their answer to economics seems to be just a cartoonish appeal to authority. Will this actually solve any real problems?

The main reason there aren't better examples is because the world will not allow it to exist long enough to test it's virtues.

Small correction:
>Is Karl Marx right?
Yes.

Kazakhstan has existed for a long time now. While it isn't "fascist", I think it's high on it's authoritative and anti-socialism scale. It's been a moderate success if you're into human rights violations.

Pretty much every form of government has been and can be a means to infringe upon a populace's pursuit of safety/happiness. And I don't really believe in human rights.

>2edgy5u

Hmm...but wouldn't "infringing on a populaces pursuit of safety/happiness" be kind of the same as denying them "human rights"?

At a certain point, yes. And I'm not being edgy. I don't believe in human rights for the same reason some anarchists don't believe in rights. The government does not have the power or the authority to grant "rights". For practical purposes I think people should have rights just as a means to convey to them what protections and expectations they are afforded. But I don't believe rights are some sort of inherent, immutable code of ethical law.

And who defines these human rights? Who gets to decide on them? Probably someone who holds pretty conventional neoliberal (capitalistic) views.

This is a nice discussion and has given me some things to ponder but I have to be off to class so I'll just leave you with a quote.

"Don't shrink from nature's brutal perfection. Take joy in it. Embrace it. Understand it and revel in it. Respect its strength, its wisdom, its brutality and its all-encompassing power. The highest law has always been, and shall be, nature; and the greatest wisdom forever lives in and through nature's eternal Fascism." -- Boyd Rice

My gott