Marx: a complete guide to capitalism

[Raze]

 

[Majed]

@Raze isn’t there a shorter like 5 to 10 min video because I ain’t sitting through two hours of this sorry

[Raze]

12 minutes ago, Majed said:

@Raze isn’t there a shorter like 5 to 10 min video because I ain’t sitting through two hours of this sorry

Watch for 20 minutes as 1.5x speed 

[Majed]

@Raze no hate watching videos at 1.5 speed feels like a grind.

[Raze]

bump 

[Bobby_2021]

This thread has a lot of room to work with.

We need to be discussing a lot on how Marx saw the world. 

 

[Leo Gura]

The real question is: What's gonna actually happen when you implement it in the real world?

How can you have any faith that it won't turn into a total clusterfuck?

Edited October 23 by Leo Gura

[Bobby_2021]

@Leo Gura Implementing utopian ambitious ideals runs the risk of turning into a cluster fuck.

Occassionally when things do not turn into a clusterfuck, you should acknowledge that it could be done at all. At least the possibility if it.

That requires an appreciation of complexity, appreciation of multiple perspectives etc. 

[Leo Gura]

@Bobby_2021 I have a deep enough understanding of human nature and business, that I know Marxism will never work. Not in our lifetime.

It has been tried many times and it failed many times. This is no mere coincidence. You have to face its failures without resorting to blaming capitalists.

My parents lived under this system. It's not a good way to live.

Edited October 23 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The real question is: What's gonna actually happen when you implement it in the real world?

How can you have any faith that it won't turn into a total clusterfuck?

This video isn’t about Marxism, it’s about Marx’s criticism of capitalism. You can learn from his diagnosis even if you reject his prescribed cure. 

Edited October 23 by Raze

[zazen]

On 10/21/2024 at 11:25 AM, zazen said:

The problem with communism is that it assumes the wealth it built off of capitalist mechanisms can then be sustained without those mechanisms. In simple terms, if capitalism is good at growing the pie, and communism divides the pie - how does it replenish the pie?  Wealth isn't static, once the pie is eaten its eaten. Communism fails at making pies and growing them due to lack of innovation and incentives, and due to inefficiencies.

Where Marx is right is that capitalism comes before communism, because Communism first needs something to re-distribute in the first place. But he shouldn't stop there - how does it then maintain there's something to be continuously re-distributed when you get rid of the mechanism that creates things to re-distribute in the first place ie capitalist principles. Once the pie runs out, another revolution will occur, capitalism will come back, and communists will say lets try again because the last time we didn't implement it properly.

Communism can work in a tribal settings but is much harder at scale where communal ties barely exist. But technological advancements could help resolve a lot of the issues. If work can be automated with AI and robots then we don't have to worry about incentives to motivate people to produce. Big data can be analyzed with AI to not mis-allocate resources and plug inefficiencies caused by central planning trying to manage such complexities. Blockchain and decentralization can help things not be authoritarian.

The question is whether “True Communism” much like “True Capitalism” can ever be implemented in their purest forms by a human nature that isn’t 100% pure.

Communism demands we not be greedy for the sake of community (the commune) and assumes others will fend for us - capitalism demands we be greedy enough to fend for ourselves and assumes doing so will have a trickle down effect on those less able to compete with us. Communism throws a suffocating net on talent (suffocating innovation and growth), capitalism has no safety net for those with little to no talent.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Raze said:

This video isn’t about Marxism, it’s about Marx’s criticism of capitalism. Even if you disagree with his prescribed cure, his diagnosis is interesting to listen to.

Yeah, Marx had some good critiques. But again, the real question is how you improve upon capitalism.

How do you know your system improves upon it rather than making it worse?

I can critique mankind for being demons all day long. But in the end, how do you stop them from being the demons we all know they are?

Edited October 23 by Leo Gura

[Bobby_2021]

@Leo Gura I am not a simpleton to be making stupid claims. 

You can learn and improve from the systems that your parents lived in.

No one denies that they were rotten systems. 

But when new systems are introduced that takes the good parts of them, you should appreciate the evolved system for what it is and not reduce it to some crappier version of it.

China is the best case real world implementation of Marxism. 

And it's not capitalism like you like to claim.

Just allow human beings to be wrong okay. Yes they fucked up in the past. 

And they came up with an improved system. But the trick is if you can recognise how the new system is evolved from the traditional capitalist socialist systems of the 20th century.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Stop relying on YouTube videos to educate yourself on this sort of thing and begin to read books. The book below is a good place to start.

But after reading that, read books from Marx himself, most importantly, read Capital.

[Leo Gura]

If you really wanna understand Marxism, don't read about Marx or even Marx, read the history of the Soviet Union. That shows you how it plays out in the real world rather than theory. Reading that history will make your jaw drop at the devilry of it all.

I will add some good books about that soon. I studied it a lot.

Edited October 23 by Leo Gura

[Bobby_2021]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you really wanna understand Marxism, don't read about Marx or even Marx, read the history of the Soviet Union. That shows you how it plays out in the real world rather than theory. Reading that history will make your jaw drop at the devilry of it all.

I will add some good books about that soon. I studied it a lot.

Nobody is even contesting you on your claims on the USSR.

How about you study China instead?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Not necessarily correct. The Soviet Union had their own spin on Marxism, called Marxism-Leninism. When or not this was a break off of, or a completion of Marxism is debatable. 

Also, the revolution was supposed to happen in an industrialized country. Russia was the last place Marx predicted the revolution to happen. 

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Nobody is even contesting you on your claims on the USSR.

How about you study China instead?

I study many countries. I've studied North Korea. I studied Cuba. I studied Lybia. I studied Mao. I'm studying Venezuela.

Mao was a monster.

8 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Not necessarily correct. The Soviet Union had their own spin on Marxism, called Marxism-Leninism.

Yeah, and whenever you implement your version of Marxism is it will be your own sick spin on it. No one is gonna let you implement a pure version of Marxism. You will be have to kill 1000 people just to have a chance to implement some half-assed sick version of it.

You're gonna have resistance. Your own Marxist friends will want to kill you in the end because they disagree with your version of it and they will want power for themselves. So either you kill all of them or they will kill you. And that's not to even the mention the capitalists who will try to kill you.

When you talk about implementing Marxism, you're talking about murdering people. That's the reality of it. Otherwise it's just pipedreams. Lenin understood this. You have to be psychopath just to get it bootstrapped.

Edited October 23 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

9 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

How about you study China instead?

Communist China had the Great Leap Forward and cultural revolution, and its economy grew rapidly when it started introducing market reforms 

Edited October 23 by Raze

[Leo Gura]

China was a disaster under Mao. After Mao was out of the picture and people opened up to capitalist markets, things started to work.