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Happy Birthday, Karl Marx! (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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

The Civil War in France

Wage Labor & Capital

Wages, Price, and Profit

Critique of the Gotha Programme

Manifesto of the Communist Party (along with Engels)

The Poverty of Philosophy

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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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Communism is actually human nature. Think about before the human era when everyone was hunter gatherers working together and sharing was what kept everyone alive. There was no currency or concept of ownership.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I recommend this thread, though maybe don't bother going down the chain that far as it becomes a stalemate.

Essentially, you're correct in that tribal societies were very communistic, but not Communist. Marxists call this "primitive communism," as a distinguishing factor from Communism, a highly industrialized and global society emerging from Socialism.

The truth is, all modes of production are "human nature." Human nature, after all, is malleable, and is largely determined by which mode of production humanity finds itself in. Each mode of production turns into another due to human nature, Capitalism is merely also human nature, just like feudalism, tribal societies, as is Socialism and eventually Communism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

Interesting take, thank you for your opinion.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But is human nature not more acutely observed within the view of coercion, control and oppression? Marx says himself that the human history is defined by class wars between the haves and the have nots, with or without capitalism we will have a system that expresses control and oppression.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Marx states that all hitherto existing history is the history of Class Struggles. In analyzing tribal societies, he did so as they did indeed lack class, money, and a state, but were distinctly not "Communist" as production was low, and life relatively harsh and brutal. Communism as a mode of production is the classless society of the future, the end of class struggle. There will be new contradictions and new changes, most likely, but class as a concept is abolished through a global, publicly owned and planned industrial economy, in Marx's analysis.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Peter Kropotkin comes flying down from the sky in a cape:

"Mutual aid is human nature and a factor of evolution"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'd say it depends more on the Mode of Production. Early humanity found it integral to survive, and many groups even today rely on Mutual Aid to continue. However, it isn't a hard requirement across all classes in society, yet these class formations are also "human nature," just as the conditions to eventually abolish class society are "human nature" as well.

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