Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Didn't soft power not only translate into diplomatic solutions, political pressure etc. but also into cultural power? I think that Marx recognized capitalism's use of hard power through the legal institutions present and upheld by the capitalist states in question - for example, through the control of national military, police, etc. who ensured the interests of the capitalist system.All the same, Marx recognized the mix of what was the 'lies' of the capitalists, shrouding the pure, egalitarian features of the people in what would be propaganda of individual greed. That is, the culture as present shrouded the people in believing that they were egoistic. Like how religion shrouded the true, sane minds of the people. He recognized soft power as a fundamental part of how his idea of capitalism worked. But at the same time, he didn't think of soft power as the tipping factor in introducing communism. I don't believe in weapons as a primary means to potentially make a functioning communist society. Marx does (Although he also believe society must economically - not culturally - develop to a point where capitalism is unstable in order to have the workers revolt)
I might get the terms mixed up. Please explain to me if I am wrong.
... Oh god, I bet I'll get a dogpile of corrections.
Your chief problem is understanding Marx as having held the development from capitalism to socialism as being a moral undertaking. Marxism makes no claim to morality. Marxists do, but the ideology does not. Marx did not say that socialism must come about when capitalism is so unstable as to make it possible for the workers to revolt, he said it would necessarily be forced to transition because the laws of social dynamics would cause significant numbers of workers to realize their collective power and react against their circumstances. He presents it not as a moral statement, but as an observation of inevitable events as dictated through the Dialectic. Whether the evolution to socialism was morally right or not was independent from the fact that it was going to happen, and this was how and why it would happen.
This is what Marx meant when he said he was not a Marxist. Marx the man clearly thought that associative production was morally right, but Marxism is very clearly amoral on the issue.