- cross-posted to:
- leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
On May 5th, 1818, Karl Marx, hero of the international proletatiat, was born. His revolution of Socialist theory reverberates throughout the world carries on to this day, in increasing magnitude. Every passing day, he is vindicated. His analysis of Capitalism, development of the theory of Scientific Socialism, and advancements on dialectics to become Dialectical Materialism, have all played a key role in the past century, and have remained ever-more relevant throughout.
He didn’t always rock his famous beard, when he was younger he was clean shaven!
Some significant works:
Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Critique of the Gotha Programme
Manifesto of the Communist Party (along with Engels)
And, of course, Capital Vol I-III
Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!
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I think you’ll also find that the upvote to downvote ratio is very positive, few people are commenting expressly to agree with me, while those who disagree feel compelled to respond. Further, there is a strain of liberal economics that believes Capitalism is the natural end result, the Thatcherite “there is no alternative.”
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My point is that the response you pointed at with people pushing back is a minority of those who chose to engage with the post, though a majority of those commenting. Using the presense of the comments in the context of them being the minority of responses I think doesn’t actually point to people not understanding the difference between Capitalism and commerce, IMO.
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If they’re mis-using terms why should they not be corrected? Capitalism isn’t “trade” by any acceptable definition. Ppl should be educated and enlightened, not dumbed down to.
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I don’t see anyone here discouraging communication, and we’ve provided links that should help ppl get past the misdefinitions.
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I have no way of knowing the average, but without doubt there is a large school of economic thought that believes we have arrived at the “most optimal” form of society. It’s the whole notion behind “there is no alternative.” These people fully acknowledge Capitalism as it truly exists, not as commerce, but believe it to be all there can be.
Some do confuse Capitalism for Commerce, but that’s a much weaker argument and thus less interesting to debunk, pretty much no academic uses those terms as such. Yet, these very same academics will claim Capitalism is itself Human Nature as it in their eyes epitomizes the ability to trade, which earlier societies did not in the same capacity.
This is a very interesting thread. Thanks.
When I think of the statement “capitalism is human nature”, my interpretation is more along the lines of:
If you create human society and let it evolve in an un-constrained manner, there is a large probability that you will at some point pass through a period of capitalism.
This is not about it being “optimal for society” but is rather a meta-stable state that is easy to arrive at given a simple set of rules and initial conditions. “Human nature” refers to those rules and initial conditions. It doesn’t mean that it is a good thing, it is not unavoidable, and it is not likely to represent a global optimum or the final point in human society’s evolution.
I’m not saying that I think that this is the general interpretation. It is just how I interpret it.
You’re 90% of the way to the Marxist concept of Historical Materialism, actually. Have you studied it prior to writing this?
Edit: also, good work on Mander! I don’t participate in it much, but it’s a very cool concept. I love specialized instances, and think that that’s the true benefit of Lemmy as a platform, not endlessly making large general instances in a race to best replicate Reddit.
I have read some books that maybe cover some of these topics tangentially, but I have not studied the source material. I do want to, so thank you providing a list of resources to check out!
When I go through Lemmy and see discussions on theory, my views tend to align quite strongly with those of socialism. I do see there are a lot of controversial takes when it comes to historical figures, but if I am being honest those discussions are well outside my depth. I wish I knew more about history so that I could get more value out of that. So, if you know of any interesting history books, I am interested.
And thanks for the feedback! I figured that aligning an instance with my own personal interests would make more sense as I can make more valuable contributions and I find the content interesting.
My brain instinctively thought the hand being stopped was Thatcher’s.
Didn’t put that together, that would be really funny!
The solution to ignorance is education, not humouring the ignorant. People need to have a basic understanding of the world around them if they are to improve it in any manner. Unfortunately, that involves learning some technical terms. Yes, some people will be confused, but realising that you are confused is the first step in learning something new.
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One plus one is two, not three or twenty six. If a bunch of people go around thinking that one plus one is three, that has no effect on reality. Such people must be educated as necessary, yes, but we should not avoid speaking the truth out of fear of confusing them.
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Oh no, I understood what you meant. But I feel that OP’s approach is correct. They used the words correctly, so that those who already know the meanings can understand what they are saying. Some people did not know what ‘capitalism’ meant, so they critiqued the meme based on their own understandings. Then OP was able to explain to them the correct meaning.
Returning to my analogy, let us say someone is teaching that 2 + 2 = 4. They can say, ‘you already know that 1 + 1 = 2, now multiply both sides by 2’. If a student does not know that 1 + 1 = 2, they can then explain it.
A meme can have only so much text. If they had to derive everything from first principles each time, we would get nowhere.
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