cobmojo

What do you guys think of Marxism?

collegeboss

doesnt work

cobmojo

No, Marxism, not Socialism

BuddyMcAwesome

Marxism is pure evil. It is the destruction of the individual.

SkepSkap1

So is capitalism. So is every "ism".

BuddyMcAwesome

no, capitalism is pure freedom of the individual.

SkepSkap1

No it isn't.

cobmojo

No capitalism is not. Are you kidding me?

126230

Capitalism, IN THEORY, allows one to reap what they sow. Marxism does not. In Capitalism there is an incentive to work hard, to take risks (start a business), and to maximize efficiency. In Marxism, there is none.

math+sci=asian

Capitalism, as in "buy buy buy" follow the system, colloquial terminology does not free the individual.

On the other hand, capitalism as an economic system does.

Marxism does not work. Too much human error essentially destroys all its proposals.

Jakor

Which interpretation of Marxism?

cobmojo

I think Lenin has done the biggest damage to Marxism. That's why you get responses like, "it's evil"
Anybody that really knows anything about the Marxism or the Marxist tradition knows it's not about limiting freedoms or controlling people via the state.

AeroEngineer3141

Marxism wouldn't work in America, simply because the working class isn't being exploited to the degree where Marxism would become appealing.

Communism in general is a nice enough theory. Its execution needs work.

BuddyMcAwesome

what happens in your communist theory if the rich and smart people who invent new things and become doctors and cure diseases decide that they want to be compensated for their hard work. Will you allow a brain drain and let them all leave, or will you force them to remain and work as slaves to the people? Either your communist society becomes a society of only the lazy and unsuccessful, or you have people being controlled by the state.

cobmojo

That is a the big question when it comes Marxism. Marx and Engles had a very limited picture of how it was all going to go down. They mostly concerned themselves with capitalism and the eventuality of 'communism'.
But for the most part they thought the workers would rise up and overtake the state after the economy had reached a certain point and then boom a communal system. He had no real theory of transition.
So after Marx there came a whole bunch of Marxists most said capitalism needs to develop tons more before any chance of the next stage in society and then others (namely Lenin) said workers need to take up the cause now. He developed a two stage theory where there would be a dictatorship of the proletariat but only to transition to the stateless communism. Well, that didn't turn out so hot and all Marxism got branded with that label. Essentially their problem was that they wanted something before it was ready. In Russia Before the revolution the Mensheviks opposed the Bolsheviks because they thought capitalism need to grow up before any idea of a revolution and unfortunately the Bolsheviks won-out.

The majority of Marxist today still hold that capitalism still has a way to unfold.
Just imagine in the future where all jobs are routinized and taken over by machines/robots/computers (I know this sounds scifi but stick with me) where will the workers go? Eventually you will no longer need human labor to build or make anything. And even the service sector will change and where will the workers go? They will be unemployed and everything will on autopilot. In the future we have such great things to show from capitalism drive toward market efficiency and there will be a point where this efficiency can support the society that created it. So, from capitalism we get a society that built the infrastructure to sustain people. Labor and capitalist change forever. There is no need for someone to be selfish because scarcity has changed.
This is a very complex thing and I'm no theorist so I don't expect to really sum up the thousands and thousands of books written on this. But this is just a brief idea.