No.1827715
Why are Communism and Marxism as "ideologies" borderline synonymous? Why is it that Marx's economic analysis of 1800s capitalism is treated as an essential building block for how we overthrow capitalism in the 21st century, as though to dispense with his analysis is to dispense with the end-goal of communism as such?
I feel like I often see a trend of reasoning that runs, simplified, that only Marx's analysis renders the collapse of capitalism from internal contradictions and the arrival of communism historically inevitable. But that seems like pretty weak reasoning: If he's wrong and it's not historically inevitable, why give up on it!? Why not try to work towards it instead of waiting for history to do all the work?
Maybe it's just because I've been a frustrated social engineer all my life, but it doesn't seem in any way intuitive to me that one should abandon the notion of a classless, stateless, and moneyless society just because one also accepts Keynes' view that fiscal policy can mitigate capialist downturns, or rejects the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, or indeed, even if one accepts neoliberal doctorines, any more than one should abandon the notion of flying on the grounds that the theory of gravity says earth will try to pull you down again. Theory only tells you how the world works, it's then on you to deploy it to make the world work the way you want it to. Why is there no major branch of leftist ideology which operates around this seemingly obvious principle?
You might say it's because Marx's analysis is so obvious that everyone who reads it agrees - and maybe that's true - but most self-identified communists don't actually read him beyond the manifesto, so that cannot be the explanation.
You might say "oh you mean Ancoms?" but a lot of Ancoms seem to run with Marx's analysis of capitalism - just not with Marxism-Leninism as an overall ideology.
I'm not saying Marx is wrong, don't waste time arguing he's not wrong. His rightness and wrongness -indeed the rightnes and wrongness of any theory - is irrelevant to this thread.
This thread is about the relative absence of a certain kind of person and analysis. If you want the dilemma clearly: "Why does the marketplace of ideology not have any non-Marxist communists in stock?" If you want the dilemma in pretentious economic terms: Why is "Normative" Marxism ("what we should do") so dependent on "Empirical" ("how the economy works") Marxism? If you want my theories about why, you're not getting them. Nobody cares when I start talking about human social group dynamics.
No.1827716
Because people see Marxism as foundationally correct in describing how human society develops in tandem with economics. Wanting communism without Marxism is basically like wanting physics without the standard model. Maybe the standard model is wrong and a better fundational theory exists, but in that case you will have to provide one. Until then people are going to be very sceptical of communists who aren't Marxists, as they are assumed to just be utopian.
No.1827717
Because Communism is a science.
No.1827721
>Theory only tells you how the world works, it's then on you to deploy it to make the world work the way you want it to.
American or underage?
No.1827727
>>1827721>>1827724"You" in that sentence doesn't refer to an individual, it refers to any organisation deploying any theory in any context. The proximity to the statement about the theory of gravity was supposed to illustrate this: obviously gravity pulls you back to earth, and obviously that hasn't stopped aircraft from existing. Stretching the example further: the same aerodynamic theories deployed to build the wings that lift a plane up are deployed to build the spoilers that keep a racing car
down.
If you want to imagine the same thing with Marx, you'd wind up with the (not unheard of) notion of captalists reading Marx so they can get some idea of how
not to be overthrown by the workers, the flip side to people who read theory because they'd very much like to overthrow their boss.
No.1827729
>>1827727Even on an organizational level you don't change the elements of society you don't like and keep the ones you do like. If you don't like i.e. the rise and fall of prices, you abolish prices. How? By doing away with exchange value. But this problem arises: exchange corresponds to the bourgeois organization of society.
No.1827734
>>1827727THEORY OF GRAVITY: EMPLOYED
GODMODE: UNLOCKED
BENDING OF GRAVITY: UNLOCKED
No.1827735
Where are all the non-Einsteinian physicists?
Where are all the non-Weberian sociologists?
No.1827736
Non-Darwinian biologists
No.1827740
>>1827735>>1827736>Where are all the non-Einsteinian physicists?Pretty much every high-school physics class is Newtonian.
>Non-Darwinian biologistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism If you're going to shitpost, the least you could do is not do it in a way that accidentally demonstrates the reason the thread exists.
No.1827741
>>1827715Because communism is, by definition, a Marxist concept.
Socialism is not, and they are practically everywhere. Ever met a guy who is a leftist but says "communism bad, because Stlain, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, etc."?
No.1827742
>>1827724>Marx did not 'want' anythingAs a proletarian and communist himself he certainly did desire the overthrow of capitalism to bring about socialism. Saying he didn't desire that would contradict his own theories. It also shows that his "scientific" theory had clear interests and therefore bias.
No.1827744
>>1827740You aren't getting it.
There may be "non-Darwinian biology" but all biology is oriented either towards/by Darwinism or "Anti-Darwinism" (what I mean is it is the foundation, insofar as one exists). Same with Marx and economy/politics.
I don't know biology but I did some philosophy/sociology of science as a hobby.
No.1827747
>>1827742>it will rain because I must farm and it is my right to eat and it is morally just.<no, it will rain because of meteorological conditions, your subjective desire to farm is irrelevant.>oh so you want me to starve to death without any food, huh?This is how 95% of political conversations on this fuckass website go.
No.1827748
>>1827745
To call yourself scientific does not mean you are without interests and bias, that's all. If you hate it so much here then leave.
No.1827749
>>1827715Most peasants will never be liberals or read Adam Smith or advocate free trade, it's over Robespierre just pack it up.
>>1827744>Same with Marx and economy/politics.Marx's aim was specifically critique of political economy, which he did via a scientific analysis of the capitalist mode, unlike Smith, Ricardo and Marshall whose function was - knowingly or unknowingly - apologetics for the bourgeois system from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie.
No.1827752
>>1827749I am talking post-Marx, you seem to be talking about Marx. I am talking about his impact you are talking about his influences. And yeah, you got it right. Also I want to mention Marx trained as a philosopher not an "economist" or "sociologist".
No.1827753
>>1827744economics isn't traditionally divided into "Marxist" vs "anti-Marxist" by anyone except Marxists. Traditionally economics is divided between "mainstream"/"orthodox"/neoclassical and "hetrodox" schools of thought, with Marxism sitting at the geek table beside everything from the Austrian School libertarians to the post-Autists to the MMT socdems.
No.1827754
>>1827753I don't care what it's "traditionally divided" as. Look at people like Hayek or whatever. Hayek wrote "The Road to Serfdom". Likening socialism to serfdom. What do you think it is a reaction to?
No.1827757
>>1827753So you're saying the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class? Holy crap.
No.1827759
btw just scouring wikipedia, beat this into your head, would you kindly? Weber also was a "philospher / sociologist cross", in my most humble opinion.
There is no absolutely "objective" scientific analysis of culture. … All knowledge of cultural reality … is always knowledge from particular points of view. … An "objective" analysis of cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesis that the ideal of science is the reduction of empirical reality to "laws", is meaningless [because] the knowledge of social laws is not knowledge of social reality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end.
—Max Weber in Sociological Writings, 1904
No.1827761
Wouldn't technocracy inc. be an example?
No.1827765
>>1827754If you haven't skimread the wiki on the road to serfdom, please don't reference it. As a screed it has far more to say about Keynes and the postwar vogue for economic planning under capitalism than it does about Marx. (Frankly, I can't think of
anything it has to say about Marx. It's a big whine about
central planning.)
In short, it argues that economic interventionism leads to totalitarianism, which is a meaningless statement when dealing with the Soviet Union (where the "totalitarianism" clearly predated the "planning", since y'know, revolution.), but an obvious fearmongering message against deploying state intervention in the economy to develop the UK/US after the war by going "But you'll wind up like Russia and Nazi Germany!" (As the historical record shows, they did go down the route of interventionism and they did not - in the way Hayek describes at least - end up like Russia or Nazi Germany.)
No.1827766
>>1827715>Why is there no major branch of leftist ideology which operates around this seemingly obvious principle?because scientific investigation cannot be dismembered and thrown about to fit your own preconceptions
No.1827767
>>1827752are you saying marxism is a philosophy or nah?
No.1827768
>>1827765>skimread the wiki on the road to serfdomThat's literally what I did before making the post.
Yes because the Soviet Union was explicitly Marxist. I'd say Keynesianism is a reaction to Marx(ism) itself, but obv that's "speculative".
>>1827767It's a philosophy, it's an ideology.
No.1827770
>>1827766The existence of a thousand strands of "Marxism" which often stridently hate one another would suggest that this isn't quite the barrier you make it out to be.
No.1827772
>>1827770so the existence of flat earthers makes earth flat?
are you an idiot?
No.1827776
>>1827768the ussrs program wasnt remotely marxist after 1930 lol
>explicitly Marxistso theyre marxist because they call themselves marxist?
also marxism is a philosophy? how can it explain reality then?
>>1827770quit being hyperbolic. marxism isnt hard nor complex, and people who say otherwise are either trying to justify their profession (usually economics or philosophy) or are bullshitting
again, anyone who calls themselves marxist is one?
No.1827778
>>1827772The existence of flat earthers makes flat earthers
exist. If OP asked "Where are all the people who don't believe the world is round?" you could say "Over there, they call themselves flat earthers." You can even get an answer for: "Where are all the flat earthers who think the earth
is round" - "They're over there, they call it the great ice ball."
Round flat earthers, repeat that to yourself over and over again, then read the big red bolded part of the OP, then ask yourself why the hell you're thinking about the correctness or incorrectness of any ideology to explain why a different ideology doesn't exist.
No.1827782
>>1827778well then like others have already said non-marxist communists exist and are plenty: look at mls, maoists, dengists, etc. :)
No.1827783
>>1827776It wasn't remotely "your specific dogma". Physician, heal thyself.
>how can [philosophy] explain reality thenThe whole point of philosophy is to explain reality.
No.1827784
>>1827783>muh dogmanothing says marxism like trying to build socialism in a single country with no attempts to expand socialism to the rest of the world or unite the global proletariat. we can see how well that went for the soviets
No.1827785
>>1827784Yeah, yeah, I don't care.
Theory meet praxis, eggs meet omelette
No.1827788
>>1827785of course you dont lol, you just post empty rhetoric
No.1827791
>>1827788You can talk SU history with someone else. This thread is more theoretical, abstract.
No.1827793
>>1827791People here do not grasp the concept of abstraction.
No.1827796
>>1827783Philosophy is a separate pursuit from communism, and one which the communist has no need of. It is clearly for morons who can't do real science.
No.1827797
Boy meets Girl, egg meet omelette, Jimmy eat world, I forgot the punchline
We didn't start the fire
No.1827860
>>1827796For one, this puts you in complete opposition to Lenin and Stalin who saw mechanical materialists like Nikolai Bukharin as a problem, who shared your sentiment that philosophy is irrelevant and only science is. Secondly, no, philosophy is very much important for science and is also the fundament for why Marxist materialism is disting from prevailing bourgois materialism.
No.1827861
The CPC are huge science nerds, and they think Marx is still correct more or less, so I'm rolling with it.
No.1827862
>>1827778>picI feel my brain expanding
No.1827867
>>1827776>the ussrs program wasnt remotely marxist after 1930 lolDo you think Marxism is prescriptive, like a set of policies one should carry out after a revolution? Tell me what wasn't "Marxist" in the USSR. That they had Pepsi?
No.1827871
>>1827715What are you even trying to say here?
The majority of 'socialists' I've interacted with IRL were either unfamiliar with, or deliberately downplayed Marx's arguments. They were in practice social democrats, arguing for MMT-fueled Keynesianism while alleging to still believe in revolution - that would happen somehow, at some date in the future, and do something…
I'd say most people are "non-Marxist communists" at this point, why are you pretending that they aren't?
No.1827885
>>1827871>They were in practice social democrats, arguing for MMT-fueled Keynesianism while alleging to still believe in revolution You mean like Marx? Don't confuse a concrete program with certain demands with socialism.
No.1827888
>>1827871Why are you talking about socialists who're not really socialists when asked why a certain kind of communist doesn't exist?
Anyway, the answer to your queston is: because it's not something that people identify themselves as. There are people who've never read a word of Marx will call themselves communists and gesture vaguely in Marx's direction when asked. The implication of your scare-quoting socialists is that the people you talk to call themselves socialists, not communists.
Why someone would be a non-communist marxist is less interesting than the question of why nobody really calls themselves that. Maybe the non-Marxist communist is starting again from first principles. Maybe they just can't accept the TPRF exists, or they worship at the altar of Keynes regarding the functioning of a capitalist economy while also believing the rules can be changed by workers flipping the table, Maybe they're trying to come across as moderate in a failed attempt to gain broader appeal, maybe they're a serial contrarian - it doesn't matter what the reason they'd do it is, what's interesting is why nobody's doing them. A million stupid little ideologies on the ideologyball wiki (Capitalist Communism!!), and no "non-communist Marxism".
Why?I'd be much stricter than you in terms of who is and isn't actually a communist - if you measure political efficacy instead of "belief" or "ideology" than most people are nothing. No.1827889
>>1827888>no "non-communist Marxism". "non-Marxist Communism", obviously. p.s. proofreading is bourgeois.
No.1827892
>only Marx's analysis renders the collapse of capitalism from internal contradictions and the arrival of communism historically inevitable
Marx doesn't say communism is inevitable. the only thing that is inevitable is the end of capitalism
>Theory only tells you how the world works, it's then on you to deploy it to make the world work the way you want it to. Why is there no major branch of leftist ideology which operates around this seemingly obvious principle?
have you heard about this guy Lenin?
>Why does the marketplace of ideology not have any non-Marxist communists in stock?
it does though. they're called utopians
of and of course OP is a Keynescuck
No.1827898
>>18278921. Let's say the end of capitalism isn't inevitable, but is one possibility among many - why throw communism out with the theoretical bathwater?
2. I cannot imagine what posessed you to suggest "Lenin" in response to that question, situated as it was within an opening post that made clear it wanted a
non-Marxist answer.
3. Utopian usually refers to a type of socialist and would only apply if the people involved were actually utopian. In the case of the imaginary first-principles communist, for example, they would wind up a lot more
pragmatic than the average communist because they couldn't just assume history would re-run the past and would have to re-invent methods of organising the working class with the full awareness of what obviously doesn't work.
4. replying like this is ugly.
No.1827902
>>1827898>1. Let's say the end of capitalism isn't inevitablethe universe will end one day anon
>2. I cannot imagine what posessed you to suggest "Lenin" in response to that question, situated as it was within an opening post that made clear it wanted a non-Marxist answer.ah I thought you meant Marxists don't propose to change things
>In the case of the imaginary first-principles communistbut that's what utopianism
is>they would wind up a lot more pragmatic than the average communist because they couldn't just assume history would re-run the past and would have to re-invent methods of organising the working class with the full awareness of what obviously doesn't work.this describes AES
No.1828003
>>1828002
explain what point you thought you were making when you made this post. that is, post 1828002.
No.1828087
>>1827898"pragmatism" is a fucking meme
No.1828148
>>1827761Technocracy isn't inherently stateless, classless or moneyless.
No.1828160
>>1827715It really pisses me off how often people complain about how marx "only described 19th century capitalism", like we're somehow living under a different mode of production. we are still living under a capitalist mode of production and what marx said still applies because he was not describing specifically what capitalism was like 200 years ago but the general structure of class society, and capitalism in particular.
No.1828202
I agree with a lot of median critiques of capitalism but at the same time I think the solutions won't work besides nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy. Needs should be provided by the government, while IMO wants should be provided by a mixture of government and markets
No.1828204
>>1828202I intended to say Marxist. I am using my phone right now.
No.1828234
>>1827741>Ever met a guy who is a leftist but says "communism bad, because Stlain, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, etc."?No, because they are not leftists but revisionists and useful idiots for reaction.
No.1828236
>>1828202Why don't you think the government can also make pencils, Gameboys, etc.
No.1828243
>>1828202The State is always redistributing wealth. That's all that it has ever done. The "capitalism-socialism" dialectic is nonsensical.
>>1828236The State is the ultimate bourgeois and the perfect agent to defend capitalism.
>>1828234"Communism good, because Stlain, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, etc" is also a retarded position.
No.1828249
>>1828243Objection. Your honor he's dodging the question about Gameboy.
No.1828250
>>1828249There's no reason the government can't do those things. I was tacitly agreeing with you because the State also assumes the role of the bourgeoisie.
No.1828253
>>1828087I disagree. You need to respond to the situation that actually exists in front of you before you can pursue larger goals.
No.1828254
>>1828250call it 'the workers collective' if you prefer
No.1828258
>>1828253If your program sucks then don't expect to do anything to push the communist movement forward.
No.1828261
>>1828254There's no reason a free association of producers under a classless stateless society can't do those things either.
No.1828265
>>1827715This is Zigger entryism
No.1828266
>>1828261a free association of producers is still government
No.1828268
>>1828266Communism is a government? That's news to me.
No.1828269
>>1828268government and state are not the same thing. every mode of production has government
No.1828270
>>1828261Under many sectors of soviet democracy the control of what was decided relied in direct democracy from the workers, by universal and secret vote, without the need of State intervention.What the state demanded was, in my understanding, just quotas. How to achieve those quotes relied on the solely on the workers. The same could not be said about ALL parts of soviet government, controlled by representatives of the representatives of the people, but at least the bottom of society lived in a form of direct autonomous democracy.
No.1828273
>>1828269And how does this contradict that they can produce things too?
No.1828274
>>1828273I guess it doesn't
No.1828305
>>1827715Religious communists are the most prominent non-Marxist communists I can think of, especially Christian communists if you find any may take some inspiration from Marx/Engels but are likely going to diverge from them significantly.
No.1828564
>>1827741I cannot see why a classless, stateless, moneyless society is restricted to Marxists rather than something that people imagine they can build from another approach. Again: if you reject the TPRF, reject the LTV, and reject that capitalism must eventually collapse from its own internal contradictions, why does that mean you must reject the notion of nevertheless building a movement to
overthrow it, of building an aeroplane rather than waiting for gravity to invert itself so you can fly?
>>1828087if you can think of a better word for "stop selling newspapers, stop arguing about gorbachev, stop arguing about whether we'll have anime under communism, and actually analyse how the fuck you rebuild working class power without simply falling back on what worked in 1917" then i'd be glad to hear it. "pragmatism" has been devalued by a thousand traitors, but everything else has been destroyed by a thousand loyalists.
>>1828160that the broad strokes remain the same doesn't preclude him being wrong in the details or the details having changed. it would be deeply, deeply surprising if they
hadn't given the broader development of capitalist economies and indeed of basically every field of study.
a point of trivia: in the 1930s in Germany the SPD rejected Keynesian economic stimulus on the ground that, if it worked, it would run counter to their interpretation of Marx. If you can spend your way out of a recession, the thinking went, the whole edifice crumbles. Now, if Marx is right about everything this was the correct course of action - but if this is a misinterpretation of Marx, or if Marx was wrong, or indeed, if Marx simply hadn't detailed the precise scenario of "yeah it'll work for about 30-40 years then the political pressures of full employment will cause capital to react by destroying it, t. Michal Kalecki" then this was a utterly suicidal move in their present context.
this point of trivia should not be considered any general expression of reformism, or notion that socialists - let alone communists - should be concerned with managing the capitalist economy per-se. however, I would say that any economic analysis should have just as much explanatory power vis-a-vis government policy or individual enterprise performance as bourgeois econ attempts to have.>>1828265explain your reasoning
"get really invested in cheerleading either side of a foreign war" is exactly the kind of time-wasting behaviour that renders the left useless. (though in fairness, most justfications don't come from quote-mining Marx, but from later figures.)
No.1828842
>>1828564>"yeah it'll work for about 30-40 years then the political pressures of full employment will cause capital to react by destroying it, t. Michal Kalecki" interesting
where did he say that?
No.1828849
>>1828842"Political Aspects of Full Employment" is what i'm referencing, though he didn't put it in much like those terms. What I've done is say what happened, then clump his name on the end because it's a result you could derive from what he set out. He was fairly optimistic that either capitalism would adapt to the increase in working class power that full employment provided, or be replaced.
>In the slump, either under the pressure of the masses, or even without it, public investment financed by borrowing will be undertaken to prevent large-scale unemployment. But if attempts are made to apply this method in order to maintain the high level of employment reached in the subsequent boom, strong opposition by business leaders is likely to be encountered. As has already been argued, lasting full employment is not at all to their liking. The workers would 'get out of hand' and the 'captains of industry' would be anxious to 'teach them a lesson'. Moreover, the price increase in the upswing is to the disadvantage of small and big rentiers, and makes them 'boom-tired'. In this situation a powerful alliance is likely to be formed between big business and rentier interests, and they would probably find more than one economist to declare that the situation was manifestly unsound. The pressure of all these forces, and in particular of big business—as a rule influential in government departments—would most probably induce the government to return to the orthodox policy of cutting down the budget deficit. A slump would follow in which government spending policy would again come into its own. No.1830089
>>1827741You somehow managed to beat OP in the posting retarded shit competition. Congratulations.
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