Re:I Am a Marxist
by ruined on Monday October 02, 2023 @03:33PM
(#37743271)
A lot of Americans in particular and many people from the post-Soviet regions are inclined to disregard Marxism for ideological reasons, and often in response to the incredible oppression and mismanagement conducted in its name. But I think people who at least understand Marxism specifically and materialism in general gain some effective tools for reasoning about the world.
Think of the way that China has essentially de-industrialized America. To anyone with the thinnest understanding of Marxism, this is obviously the success of a decades-long, deliberate strategy to build power and a material advantage, by exploiting an innate weakness of finance-oriented management. But it's been conceptually and ideologically invisible to people who aren't thinking that way. Many people observing the "economic" effects end up searching for some kind of singular or complex "economic" cause, not understanding the whole process as a higher-order materialist project.
Re:I Am a Marxist
by hobotime on Monday October 02, 2023 @03:41PM
(#37743390)
Marx gave us a great vocabulary to talk about issues. They're good to know.
The trouble is that his solutions sound meaningful and profound. Alas he failed to account the fact that humans are not perfectly good. And we're living now with millions of people who died when his solutions were forced on them at gunpoint.
Re:I Am a Marxist
by ruined on Monday October 02, 2023 @04:30PM
(#37744011)
i hope in the same breath you are blaming Einstein for Hiroshima, as he failed to account that humans are not perfectly good.
i will spare you my criticism of modern governance and capitalism, i'm sure neither of us are interested.
Marx never governed. i'm sure he would have liked to, and i'm sure it would have been disastrous, as all projects like that seem bound to disaster. it is worth considering his analysis as distinct from Communism, and Communism as distinct from Bolshevism and Maosim and so on. and you should believe those leaders acted in the spirit of Communism as much as you believe the President of the United States acts in the spirit of Capitalism, which is to say: don't be a fool
of course we are at the tip of a deep history of unbounded carnage. you can step forward with all the knowledge bleeding from that grinding mill, or you can black it out, roll the dice, and get back in the hopper
Re:I Am a Marxist
by pvg on Monday October 02, 2023 @04:04PM
(#37743706)
Think of the way that China has essentially de-industrialized America. To anyone with the thinnest understanding of Marxism, this is obviously the success of a decades-long, deliberate strategy to build power and a material advantage
This happened through thoroughly un-Marxist means so it's not clear what a Marxist interpretation offers that's better or more interesting than most other interpretations.
Re:I Am a Marxist
by tech_ken on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @01:29PM
(#37768633)
Marxism != Maoism. There's "Marxism" in the popular meaning of "the family of political ideologies/regimes kicked off by the Russian Revolution" (so like Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.) and then theres "Marxism" in the sense of "historical materialism", a framework for investigating history and culture through the lens of a society's political economy and methods of production (the way that people make and use tools, food, commodities, etc). These two are very different, and one can (and many do) subscribe to the second meaning without subscribing to the first. You could be an arch-monarchist right-wing nutjob and still find Marxist analysis useful to understand history or economy.
That China liberalized and then gained dominance in several global industries was not "Marxist" in the first sense, indeed it was much the opposite as you note. However as OP was saying it can be analyzed, and I think somewhat effectively explained, through Marxist-style historiography, which prioritizes (A) the inter-class dynamics of different socioeconomic groups and (B) the relationships these groups have to the methods of production. OP is asserting that China used its Marxist historical framework (thinking about who owns factories, and what they get out of that ownership) to recognize weaknesses in the US political economy, which it then acted on to its own benefit. Not that this strategy was per-se "Marxist" in the sense of "communist"
Re:I Am a Marxist
by thiagoharry on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @02:31PM
(#37769567)
Capitalism also developed murdering millions of their own citizens in bourgeois revolutions. Any drastic change in a society involves fight for power. Moralism is a bad tool to understand such dynamics in society.
All developed countries that became rich can be separated in four categories:
1) They had colonies in the past (or even have colonies in the present).
2) They have very little population and lots of natural resources.
3) They underwent a Marxist(-Leninist) revolution.
4) They were benefited by cold-war policies. Being neighbor of communist countries, these countries got external incentive to industrialize and become models for propaganda.
Cases 3 and 4 are linked to Marxist revolutions. Cases 2 are very special ones and cannot be generalized. Case 1 involves much more atrocities than a mere revolution in your own country, it involves invading and stealing other countries.
Re:I Am a Marxist
by thiagoharry on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:40PM
(#37781545)
What is historically wrong?
And if you do not need Marxism, where are all other success cases in the hundreds of countries in the world outside these cases? You know that we have almost 200 countries, only a small minority manage to develop themselves. What explain the incredible coincidence that we have a so small number of developed countries, all them only divided in that 4 cases? What explain that the only countries that manage to became competitor to major capitalist powers are countries like USSR and now China?
I am physically and mentally capable of reading each of the words in this link, in sequence, and I understand every one of them having either learned them in school or from context at some point in my life.
And yet when I attempt to, an overwhelming feeling of stupidity envelopes me.
Yay, you're a marxist. Humanity will probably be dealing with your cult for centuries to come, but there is hope that someday medical science will be capable of curing you of that mental illness.
And yet, as unhelpful as it is, it's not responsible for mass murder in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions as Marxism and its apologists are responsible for.
It's a bizarre and catastrophically dangerous cult that humanity would do well to excise from its collective soul sooner rather than later.
>If you could refute anything written in the article,
Like the absurdly stupid "I think that labor has value all by itself" inanity that even grade schoolers can debunk? I could refute more, if I didn't feel the urgent need to vomit reading this garbage.
HN is so good at nuking all things political... but I guess commie stuff gets a pass?
Think of the way that China has essentially de-industrialized America. To anyone with the thinnest understanding of Marxism, this is obviously the success of a decades-long, deliberate strategy to build power and a material advantage, by exploiting an innate weakness of finance-oriented management. But it's been conceptually and ideologically invisible to people who aren't thinking that way. Many people observing the "economic" effects end up searching for some kind of singular or complex "economic" cause, not understanding the whole process as a higher-order materialist project.
The trouble is that his solutions sound meaningful and profound. Alas he failed to account the fact that humans are not perfectly good. And we're living now with millions of people who died when his solutions were forced on them at gunpoint.
i will spare you my criticism of modern governance and capitalism, i'm sure neither of us are interested.
Marx never governed. i'm sure he would have liked to, and i'm sure it would have been disastrous, as all projects like that seem bound to disaster. it is worth considering his analysis as distinct from Communism, and Communism as distinct from Bolshevism and Maosim and so on. and you should believe those leaders acted in the spirit of Communism as much as you believe the President of the United States acts in the spirit of Capitalism, which is to say: don't be a fool
of course we are at the tip of a deep history of unbounded carnage. you can step forward with all the knowledge bleeding from that grinding mill, or you can black it out, roll the dice, and get back in the hopper
This happened through thoroughly un-Marxist means so it's not clear what a Marxist interpretation offers that's better or more interesting than most other interpretations.
That China liberalized and then gained dominance in several global industries was not "Marxist" in the first sense, indeed it was much the opposite as you note. However as OP was saying it can be analyzed, and I think somewhat effectively explained, through Marxist-style historiography, which prioritizes (A) the inter-class dynamics of different socioeconomic groups and (B) the relationships these groups have to the methods of production. OP is asserting that China used its Marxist historical framework (thinking about who owns factories, and what they get out of that ownership) to recognize weaknesses in the US political economy, which it then acted on to its own benefit. Not that this strategy was per-se "Marxist" in the sense of "communist"
And no murdering millions of your own citizens along the way, yay!!
All developed countries that became rich can be separated in four categories:
1) They had colonies in the past (or even have colonies in the present).
2) They have very little population and lots of natural resources.
3) They underwent a Marxist(-Leninist) revolution.
4) They were benefited by cold-war policies. Being neighbor of communist countries, these countries got external incentive to industrialize and become models for propaganda.
Cases 3 and 4 are linked to Marxist revolutions. Cases 2 are very special ones and cannot be generalized. Case 1 involves much more atrocities than a mere revolution in your own country, it involves invading and stealing other countries.
And if you do not need Marxism, where are all other success cases in the hundreds of countries in the world outside these cases? You know that we have almost 200 countries, only a small minority manage to develop themselves. What explain the incredible coincidence that we have a so small number of developed countries, all them only divided in that 4 cases? What explain that the only countries that manage to became competitor to major capitalist powers are countries like USSR and now China?
And yet when I attempt to, an overwhelming feeling of stupidity envelopes me.
Yay, you're a marxist. Humanity will probably be dealing with your cult for centuries to come, but there is hope that someday medical science will be capable of curing you of that mental illness.
It's a bizarre and catastrophically dangerous cult that humanity would do well to excise from its collective soul sooner rather than later.
>If you could refute anything written in the article,
Like the absurdly stupid "I think that labor has value all by itself" inanity that even grade schoolers can debunk? I could refute more, if I didn't feel the urgent need to vomit reading this garbage.
HN is so good at nuking all things political... but I guess commie stuff gets a pass?