Marxism -it's really that simple!

[fakename]

This conversation has gotten me thinking, what is it about marxism that had such appeal and gave it such success? I mean, their books are all as wordy as ours and express ideas that are as simple (indeed understanding capitalism is probably easier than socialism). So what gives? If hegel is so hard, if marx is so nonliterary, then why was marxism ever popular especially when it had austrian econ to compete against?

It probably has to do with power. Marxism is a better argument for unions, laws, bureaus, etc. Austrian policy recommendations are probably anathema to politicals.

[Laughing_Man]

@fakename

what is it about marxism that had such appeal and gave it such success?

I think it has something to do with the supposed inevitability of socialism. I mean socialism has been considered in Western civilization since Plato. If you had a theory which purported to show that what you desired would inevitability come about regardless of opposition, then you have a very powerful bargaining tool. I don’t think Marxism makes people socialist. The socialism is already there, Marxism just systemics it and claims it cannot be wrong to hold such beliefs.

@fakename

It probably has to do with power. Marxism is a better argument for unions, laws, bureaus, etc. Austrian policy recommendations are probably anathema to politicals.

Well not necessarily. Marxism isn’t pro-union. Laws & the state are just a reaction brought about by bourgeois interests.

[Bert_B]

@fakename

what is it about marxism that had such appeal and gave it such success?

People’s misconception of economics and history, especially capitalism. They assume all the problems (economically) are from capitalism, but not knowing what capitalism is, so they see socialism as the scapegoat to prosperity. They believe it’s the better alternative.

However, people do not ask for socialism because they know that socialism will improve their conditions, and they do not reject capitalism because they know that it is a system prejudicial to their interests. They are socialists because they believe that socialism will improve their conditions, and they hate capitalism because they believe that it harms them. They are socialists because they are blinded by envy and ignorance. They stubbornly refuse to study economics and spurn the economists’ devastating critique of the socialist plans because, in their eyes, economics, being an abstract theory, is simply nonsense. They pretend to trust only in experience. But they no less stubbornly refuse to take cognizance of the undeniable facts of experience, viz., that the common man’s standard of living is incomparably higher in capitalistic America than in the socialist paradise of the Soviets.

-The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

[Solid_Choke]

@Laughing Man

@Solid_Choke

When he was young he even noticed that the state had preferences of its own that were contradictory to the interests of the capitalist class. Somewhere along the way he developed the ability to let his theory overcome what he was seeing with his own eyes.

Where did you read that?

Here:

@Anthony de Jasay

Attempting to interpret the Marxist theory of the state carries more risk than reward. The young Marx, superbly talented political journalist that he was, said incisive and original things about the state, but he did so more under the impulsion of events than in search of a general doctrine. In his later system-building periods, on the other hand, he was not very interested in the state (Engels was a little more so), presumably deflected from the subject by the very force of his theory of class domination, which may be thought implicitly to provide an understanding of the state. In any case he made little effort to make it explicit. This was consistent with his confining the determinants of social change in the “base” and allowing the state, a phenomenon of the “superstructure,” either no autonomy or only an ambiguous one. This implicitness is the reason why, despite the much greater respect later Marxists (notably Gramsci and his intellectual descendants) paid the superstructure, one is reduced to speculation about what Marxist theory “must mean,” what view it may hold of the forces acting upon and exerted by the state, in order to preserve logical consistency with the whole of its construction.

Also,

@Anthony de Jasay

Such speculation is rendered doubly hazardous by the combination, in much Marxist writing, of the dialectic method with verbose discourse aimed at the ad hoc needs of the day. Owing to the latter, one can nearly always find, in some hallowed text, passages to support almost any stand and its contrary, so that for every “on the one hand” the adept can cite an “on the other” and a “yet we must not overlook that…” The dialectic method, in turn, enables its practitioner to nominate any one out of a pair of contradictory propositions for the role of survivor, of the third member of the triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. He can for instance decide, according to the requirements of his argument, that where an object is black but also white, it is in reality white (though black in appearance), or possibly vice versa. It is in this way that the relation of state and subject in Hegel and that of the state and the capitalist class in Marx, turn out to be perfectly pliable according to the needs of the moment and of the context. (This is also, in a general way, the reason why the average dialectician can virtually always devastate the average non-dialectical argument.)

[Laughing_Man]

@Solid_Choke

@Anthony de Jasay

Attempting to interpret the Marxist theory of the state carries more risk than reward. The young Marx, superbly talented political journalist that he was, said incisive and original things about the state, but he did so more under the impulsion of events than in search of a general doctrine. In his later system-building periods, on the other hand, he was not very interested in the state (Engels was a little more so), presumably deflected from the subject by the very force of his theory of class domination, which may be thought implicitly to provide an understanding of the state. In any case he made little effort to make it explicit. This was consistent with his confining the determinants of social change in the “base” and allowing the state, a phenomenon of the “superstructure,” either no autonomy or only an ambiguous one. This implicitness is the reason why, despite the much greater respect later Marxists (notably Gramsci and his intellectual descendants) paid the superstructure, one is reduced to speculation about what Marxist theory “must mean,” what view it may hold of the forces acting upon and exerted by the state, in order to preserve logical consistency with the whole of its construction.

Well I don’t think that is correct. Marx started writing news articles in his Young Hegelian period in which he was already criticizing orthodox Hegelians and Hegel himself for thinking that the state is the full realization of society. The Holy Family, which is actually the first work in which Marx starts to explain his ideas such as historical materialism, is actually an attack against Bruno Bauer and traditional Hegelians who think that everything the state does is rational due to Hegel’s pronouncement of ‘what is actual is rational and what is rational is actual.’ Marx himself starts with the premise that mankind must produce to live before he can start intellectual endeavors [ which is incorrect because one has to think how to work before one can work ] so therefore we are bound by economics [ modes of production ] which thus develops into the superstructure. The state is merely a manifestation of prevailing opinion and only an institution which propounds the interests of the dominate class. Right now, Marx would call our state a ‘bourgeois state’ and that is why he thinks reforms, unions and legislation won’t work. The state is only representing bourgeois interests, not societal interests.

[Dondoolee]

@ Laughing Man

a) I think part of the debate about the “Marx break” is if he ditched the concept of alienation.

b) There are most certainly quotes by both Marx and Engels in regards to a different way of thinking during the writings of “Theses on Feurbach” and “The German Ideology” era.

[Laughing_Man]

@Dondoolee

I think part of the debate about the “Marx break” is if he ditched the concept of alienation.

I don’t see any work in which he did. He never stopped thinking that communism would be brought about by historical forces. Those historical forces are the growing consciousness of the proletariat

@Dondoolee

There are most certainly quotes by both Marx and Engels in regards to a different way of thinking during the writings of “Theses on Feurbach” and “The German Ideology” era.

You would have to show them.

[Dondoolee]

@Laughing Man

What immediartly comes to my mind is From “Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels” Vol II pg 325: Engels on the Theses of Feuerbach “The 1st document in which is deposited the germ of the new world outlook”

and Marx on the German Ideology: “settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience”, completing the "break with the Young Hegelians.

I’ll try to dig up more, I am almost positive I have somewhere in my scattered notes things that suggest it.

Does he ever bring up the word alienation after The German Ideology?

[Laughing_Man]

@Dondoolee

What immediartly comes to my mind is From “Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels” Vol II pg 325: Engels on the Theses of Feuerbach “The 1st document in which is deposited the germ of the new world outlook”

Well Feurerbach’s alienation concerned the idolatry of what he considered religious practices. Alienation was not realizing that we superimpose the perfection of human values upon a mystical entity labeled ‘God.’ To Feurerbach, we need only recognize that the values that we hold for God are actually within us then alienation is over.

@Dondoolee

and Marx on the German Ideology: “settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience”, completing the "break with the Young Hegelians.

Well the German Ideology was a critique of Stirner and Feurerbach. Both Hegelians who broke off from orthodoxy.

@Dondoolee

Does he ever bring up the word alienation after The German Ideology?

Alienation is an implicit part to historical materialism. When Marx talks about private property or ‘commodity fetishism’, he is already assuming alienation because since the division of labor is in place [ which is a result of alienation ], private property is a secondary result of it