Marxist ideas to help create a more conscious society?

[Apparition of Jack]

So, I've been exposing myself to Marxist and other left-wing ideas lately, and I feel like they've helped me grapple with a lot of my confusion about the state of the world. For instance, the idea of class consciousness (i.e. the awareness of the power dynamics between classes) and the lack thereof of it, has helped me to make sense of just how injustices against citizens of a society can happen every day without much backlash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_consciousness

 

Now, I'm not saying we need to go out and become ideological communists and try to tear down capitalism, but I think Marx and other left-wing thinkers offer a lot of valuable insights into the functioning of society that would otherwise be overlooked within the mainstream capitalist paradigm.

What do the people on actualized.org think? What value can be derived from these ideas? Where do they fall short?

[Leo Gura]

There's a lot of value there, although also some dangers if turned into an ideology. The thing is, capitalism and neo-liberalism have also been turned into dangerous ideologies. So ideology is a danger all around and is not somehow limited to communists or radical Islamists as American conventional wisdom would have us believe (itself an ideology).

Professor Richard Wolff is a good role-model of a modern Marxist:

He's not always right, but he's more right than many neo-liberals.

The biggest problem with Marxism was that it was far too advanced and idealistic for its time. It showed up 200 years too early. It could not be implemented because the people implementing it were basically at the level of consciousness and development of totalitarians. So we got totalitarian versions of Marxism which were obviously disastrous. For Marxist ideals to prosper a robust democracy is necessary. Even the US democracy is not yet strong enough to carry it. The US is still not democratic enough.