• ImplyingImplications
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    3 months ago

    Reading Marx is like reading Adam Smith. Both wrote about economic systems before economics was even a thing. All ideas start somewhere but our ideas, and our society, have advanced dramatically in the 140+ years they’ve been dead. They’re more interesting for historical purposes than economic ones.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      All of Marx’s main concepts, surplus value, classes and class struggle, alienation, are just as relevant today as when they were written. Much like Newton, Marx built the solid foundation that scientific socialists stand on today.

      • ImplyingImplications
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        3 months ago

        Right, but nobody tells anyone interested in physics to read Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. If you’re interested in history, sure. If you’re interested in physics, read a modern physics textbook.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Das Kapital described crypto before digital computers were even an idea. His work is still relevant.

      • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        I thought to look this up cause I think it’s neat and it’s often the case that some technology is described long before you’d think. The first description of using electrical switches to do logic operations came in 1886 in a letter from Charles Sanders Peirce. That’s between Capital volume 2 and 3, and most importantly, AFTER he described the law of value.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Both wrote about economic systems before economics was even a thing.

      Lol. Lmao, even.

      and our society, have advanced dramatically in the 140+ years they’ve been dead.

      In what manner has this proven Marx wrong?

      • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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        3 months ago

        You’re very good at saying you’re right and very bad at providing evidence. The best thing about lemmy’s size is I can recognize which usernames to disregard immediately after enough encounters.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          The books Marx wrote are the evidence. If you read them then you’d see why they are obviously relevant today. Of course, reading and understanding serious literature takes more effort than trolling on public forums.

          • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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            3 months ago

            Are there any modern books which talk about the same/similar contents which are easier/smaller for a beginner to start?

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              These books are fairly accessible and touch on a lot of the same ideas you’d find in seminal works like Das Kapital

              • Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies by Michael Parenti
              • Understanding Marxism, Economics: Marxian Versus Neoclassical, and Understanding Socialism by Richard D. Wolff
              • Super Imperialism and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents by Michael Hudson
              • Capitalism, Coronavirus and War by Radhika Desai