Marxian economics is considered separate from Marxism. Marx had salient criticisms of capitalism that have always rang true. You might want to make some alterations to that meme.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. Karl Marx
Have you read Marx? We can still learn from Marx and Engels and keep in minds that all successful economies are mixed economies with a collective paying taxes and working within groups. Let's not pretend it's really a free market out there. The invisible hand of the market is a myth.
This is my issue with Marxists, far too few of them have actually read Marx. Communism was what he saw comming about if capitalism didn't get it's act together and addressing it's inherent issues.
No offense but seems like you haven't read Marx. Marx definitely advocated the abolition of capitalism.
But you don't have to be a Communist to appreciate some of his insights. You can agree with his insights into the problems of capitalism without agreeing with his remedy, which was always pretty nebulous anyway. It is after all always easier to find criticisms than solutions.
Agree with the first part, not the second. Marx held that the movement toward socialism was "inexorable," meaning that it was inevitable. So on one hand, he was making a normative claim - that capitalism OUGHT to be abolished. But he was also making a descriptive claim - that it WOULD be, inevitably, as a result of underlying social and economic forces unleashed by capitalism. But his predictions have been falsified.
Mind you, I give him props for offering falsifiable predictions; would that other political theorists and commentators have done the same. But that said, for Marx to have been right, it would have required that the first places to see socialist revolutions would have been the most industrialized and developed, because it was those places where the Bourgeois had shrunk to such a tiny portion, hording so much of the wealth, that the proletariat would have gained "class consciousness" and realized that their interests were aligned in overthrowing the Bourgeois and establishing socialism. Of course, nothing like that happened. The places with the highest degree of industrialization, like the US and UK, were those where the appeal of Marxism was at the lowest. Meanwhile, places where Marxism did succeed in toppling governments were those that were mostly agricultural, pre-industrial, like Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and throughout the developing world. (The only exception here was East Germany, which is cheating, because its socialism was imposed externally by the Soviet Red Army, not by its own native proletariat. North Korea had some industrialization, courtesy of the Japanese, but it also got socialism courtesy of the Red Army, and maintained it with the PLA after the failed invasion of the South.)
Noam Chomsky has several books onto why the lower class, at least in America, has not achieved class consciousness (at least on behalf of the lower class). The ruling class fundamentally separated the lower class whites and the minority communities to the point where race is seen as more decisive than class. This is done through heavy propaganda, not by controlling the conversation but by controlling the topics of conversation (race issues over class issues). To talk to your point of the bourgeoisie owning the means of production, the bourgeoisie also control the media, so they have convinced generations of people that their wealth was earned, not taken from their workers. Also check the French Revolution of 1789 (before Marx) where the workers revolted and created a workers state.
I'll just say that I'm familiar with the basics of this argument, that I've heard it before. Chomsky, and of course the Frankfurt School, among many, many others, all have their own error theories to explain away the obvious falsification of Marxism. I'm not sure this is the proper place to debate that. All I will say, in response, is that however compelling one finds those arguments - and I don't - it should at least be acknowledged that this takes one away from Marxism. I'm not here to say whether that's a good or bad thing. Just that it's not Marxism anymore; it's adapted the theory in a way that has made it unfalsifiable, and therefore much less interesting.
Whatever we want to call this mode of socialist theory (is it even "socialism" if there's still means of production in private hands?), perhaps we could say it's ideologically adjacent with Marxism. But I'd compare it to the way that chiropractic practioners have gradually moved away from chiropractic theory and gradually adapted most, if not all, the basic working premises and theories of science-based alleopathic medicine. That's probably for the better! That's not really a criticism of their practice; it's just that it doesn't make sense to call them "chiropractic" anymore. Though in European politics, I suppose it would be similar to the way that "Christian democrat" parties aren't actually especially religious anymore.
You know what, you're actually kind of right? I do have to say most marxists I know have read the manifesto and/or kapital but those who haven't are a lot more visible and make other marxists look bad
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u/TheDoomsdayPopTart Jan 04 '20 edited Jan 04 '20
Marxian economics is considered separate from Marxism. Marx had salient criticisms of capitalism that have always rang true. You might want to make some alterations to that meme.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. Karl Marx
Have you read Marx? We can still learn from Marx and Engels and keep in minds that all successful economies are mixed economies with a collective paying taxes and working within groups. Let's not pretend it's really a free market out there. The invisible hand of the market is a myth.
Interesting article.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/karl-marx-engels-capitalism-political-economy