Imo, a problem with Marx, is that tha the languaje he used lend itself to very broad interpretations, thus making it easy to absorb him into whatever ideology/plan/scheme.
People who like Stalin or Mao and in a lesser degree Trotsky and Lennin -which to whom we nowadays call commnunists- used his languaje to reaffirm their ideas. Even tho imo their ideoligical brand was quite a ways out of Marx.
Yeah, it’s annoying to talk to some self described communists. There was one guy who said consumer cooperatives were capitalist despite the fact that they are communally owned, don’t allow for capital accumulation, and are literally a form of organization Marx endorsed, but the guy I was arguing told me I needed to do more reading. Consumer cooperatives are a little more on the Anarchist side close to worker cooperatives, but they are most definitely socialist.
I saw a guy here in Lemmy arguing once that the nordics are socialists contries… The dude also told the comenters trying to explain why is not true to go read… I get they were confused and I belive is a easy mistake to make, but he had so many good comments explaining in a calm and easy way why he wasn’t right and he keept just deying it.
There is just sadly too much (miss)information out there and most people dont have the interest, energy or (and in a lesser degree) the capacity to exercise critical thinking and reading.
He’s a product of the structuralism which dominated the industrial era philosophy. It’s incredibly obvious if you study political science even a little bit, and it’s the easiest angle of criticism towards any orthodox theory of the era. Stalin and Mao are very much in that same modernist camp. That’s why I just roll my eyes at internet communists who consider themselves well read because they have Marxist.org bookmarked. These are people who think the biggest problem with Jacobin is not enough fan service.
All this stuff is just laughably outdated. The most annoying part is that it has been updated to reflect more modern philosophy, but they never want to hear it. They see contemporary leftist thought as Marxist revisionism and just compromising with liberals, which is the worst sin imaginable.
People forget that Marx advocated for ruthless criticisim. As a rule whenever I read something and it peeks my interest, before I keep digging further I ask myself: Where’s the catch here? Are they trying to sell me something? Who can actually benefit from this.
This simple scruttiny maybe won’t reveal the holes in the idea, but it will lead you to things you can research, read contra-arguments and get a fuller and rounder idea of whatever you are reading. But sadly this is a skill that is getting loss, not because people can’t intellectually do it, they just do not care or want to put the effort.
Imo, a problem with Marx, is that tha the languaje he used lend itself to very broad interpretations, thus making it easy to absorb him into whatever ideology/plan/scheme.
People who like Stalin or Mao and in a lesser degree Trotsky and Lennin -which to whom we nowadays call commnunists- used his languaje to reaffirm their ideas. Even tho imo their ideoligical brand was quite a ways out of Marx.
Yeah, it’s annoying to talk to some self described communists. There was one guy who said consumer cooperatives were capitalist despite the fact that they are communally owned, don’t allow for capital accumulation, and are literally a form of organization Marx endorsed, but the guy I was arguing told me I needed to do more reading. Consumer cooperatives are a little more on the Anarchist side close to worker cooperatives, but they are most definitely socialist.
I saw a guy here in Lemmy arguing once that the nordics are socialists contries… The dude also told the comenters trying to explain why is not true to go read… I get they were confused and I belive is a easy mistake to make, but he had so many good comments explaining in a calm and easy way why he wasn’t right and he keept just deying it.
There is just sadly too much (miss)information out there and most people dont have the interest, energy or (and in a lesser degree) the capacity to exercise critical thinking and reading.
He’s a product of the structuralism which dominated the industrial era philosophy. It’s incredibly obvious if you study political science even a little bit, and it’s the easiest angle of criticism towards any orthodox theory of the era. Stalin and Mao are very much in that same modernist camp. That’s why I just roll my eyes at internet communists who consider themselves well read because they have Marxist.org bookmarked. These are people who think the biggest problem with Jacobin is not enough fan service.
All this stuff is just laughably outdated. The most annoying part is that it has been updated to reflect more modern philosophy, but they never want to hear it. They see contemporary leftist thought as Marxist revisionism and just compromising with liberals, which is the worst sin imaginable.
People forget that Marx advocated for ruthless criticisim. As a rule whenever I read something and it peeks my interest, before I keep digging further I ask myself: Where’s the catch here? Are they trying to sell me something? Who can actually benefit from this.
This simple scruttiny maybe won’t reveal the holes in the idea, but it will lead you to things you can research, read contra-arguments and get a fuller and rounder idea of whatever you are reading. But sadly this is a skill that is getting loss, not because people can’t intellectually do it, they just do not care or want to put the effort.