[RD] What does Marxism offer?

[AdrienIer]

I don't think I've ever read about them ever actually doing anything.

You need to read more. Unless you don't count the various communist parties in the west as Marxist.

 

[red_elk]

and yeah...
that the communist party, especially the one in Russia, needed some icon for her political power, to legitimate a kind of "divine right" without a God/Religion......
That's just practical politics.

Their icon was (is) Lenin. Marx, Engels, Hegel and others were considered more like founding fathers.
Of course, classical marxism was transformed and developed by Lenin and others.

 

[Hrothbern]

Their icon was (is) Lenin. Marx, Engels, Hegel and others were considered more like founding fathers.
Of course, classical marxism was transformed and developed by Lenin and others.

Lenin
I agree
Pondered on adding him in the post as pope of Marx, to stay in the metaphor of divine right

 

[Lexicus]

That would be the pigs in Animal Farm.

Well, thanks for this J, I had no idea the pigs in Animal Farm were supposed to be the Bolsheviks. I mean, I don't think anyone knew before you figured it out

@Mouthwash
The parallel is in the idea that our social arrangements are isometric with some greater reality. The pigs in Animal Farm (and the real-life Bolshies too for that matter) tried to justify their social arrangements by claiming they were just assigning roles based on who was good at what. Misogynists are doing the same thing when they say there is some 'biological' or 'natural' reason for women's subordinate role.

Of course, classical marxism was transformed and developed by Lenin and others.

Lenin was (and is) right-wing deviation from Marxism.

 

[Berzerker]

The settlement of North America was an act of genocide and just as bad as the Holocaust.

It was an act of genocide and it was a holocaust, no need to make victims compete

the world is just as much better for the staggering wealth and opportunity that American settlers gave us.

the world is just as much better for the staggering wealth and opportunity that American slaves gave us

I want Marxists to answer: what are you giving people?

They're giving people the shirt off your back

 

[onejayhawk]

Well, thanks for this J, I had no idea the pigs in Animal Farm were supposed to be the Bolsheviks. I mean, I don't think anyone knew before you figured it out

Glad to educate you, but that was addressed to someone that had not read the book.

Lenin was (and is) right-wing deviation from Marxism.

Please explain. Militarist and totalitarian I could understand, but those can be either right or left. In traditional conservative, that would make Stalin pro-csarist. He was emphatically not. Modern conservative, ie reduced regulation, pro-capitalism, fits even less. Your argument seems to be right-wing is all things bad, therefore Stalin is right-wing. Sommerswerd's son could point out the logic flaws in that position.

J

 

[Lexicus]

Please explain. Militarist and totalitarian I could understand, but those can be either right or left.

Militarism and authoritarianism are in fact inherently right-wing.

 

[red_elk]

I also didn't get what's right-wing about Marxism-Leninism. Dictatorship of proletariat? Idea about socialism in one country?
Not to mention right-wing ideas are in most cases inherently anti-communist.

 

[Lexicus]

Not to mention right-wing ideas are in most cases inherently anti-communist.

Just like Marxism-Leninism, which actually responded to genuine worker control of the means of production (ie, communism) with massacre.

 

[Lexicus]

Chomsky on this question.

 

[red_elk]

What you mean? About massacre.

 

[Lexicus]

What you mean? About massacre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_uprisings_against_the_Bolsheviks

The most famous such episode being the Kronstadt rebellion.

 

[Ryika]

Militarism and authoritarianism are in fact inherently right-wing.

Nonsense.

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[Ryika]

Nonsense.

Authoritarianism and militarism can both be uttered by people on the left and by people on the right, and by everyone in between.

While the USA was indeed dominated by right-wing authoritarianism, and while I do agree that the right is more prone to aligning with these values, there's nothing inherently right-wing about those concepts.

 

[civver_764]

Lately it has been the left who are acting like totalitarians, especially on university campuses.

I mean stuff like this is just disgraceful:

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that old-fashioned Marxists had assurance of 'historical inevitability' in place of any actual ideas, which is probably one of the reasons that any regime calling itself Marxist has turned into a horror show.

What? That isn't what I said. And the Bolsheviks were pretty emphatic in rejecting the "inevitability" propounded by the Orthodox Marxists, else they wouldn't have felt the need for the Terror and the subsequent, as you say, horror shows.

FYI, I get to call these people Marxists for the same reason that you can label as fascist those who think that society should be organized martially and that low-IQ populations should expelled, no matter how vehemently they reject the term.

I'm not saying that most Marxists aren't socialists of some stripe. Evidently they are. I'm saying that "Marxist" refers to a theoretical position, rather than a political one, and its proponents represent every shade of leftist opinion from social democracy to insurrectionary anarchism.

There's not much to communism or Marxism that hasn't been associated with Jews at some point, so this is hard to avoid.

It's not just an association, though, it was an actual euphemism. "Cultural Marxism" is just a way of framing the New Left in terms of traditional anti-Semitic narratives.

 

[Lexicus]

there's nothing inherently right-wing about those concepts.

On the contrary, they are right-wing by definition.

Lately it has been the left who are acting like totalitarians, especially on university campuses.

This "the real authoritarians are college students" stuff is only more laughable now that we have such a terrifying President.

 

[Honor]

They're giving people the shirt off your back

Actually, in an ideal scenario (which will never happen), the total wealth of the United States, which was $84.9 Trillion as of 2015, would be divided equally among its citizens (all 321.4 million of you). This nets a one-time payment of $264k per capita. If the United States can continue generating such wealth as a communist regime, everyone would be getting $56k (PPP) per annum.

There are a lot of assumptions that go into such a scenario, but the point is communism does not have to be a grand sharing of poverty.

The real problem with a communist ideal is one that of dynamism. It is a static proposition that just does not work with how humans are. Not without sacrificing much of people's freedom to be themselves.

 

[Ryika]

On the contrary, they are right-wing by definition.

No they are not.

I think you should explain why you think they're right-wing be definition.

 

[Traitorfish]

Maybe the lesson is that "right-wing" and "left-wing" are only really useful terms when we're talking about electoral politics.