Noam Chomsky on Marxism

Source: • Roda Viva | Noam Choms...

[@alexmg3648]

Marxism should not be treated as an ideology, particularly not by those of us on the left. Marx's most valuable and perdurable legacy were the methods of analysis that he developed for understanding social phenomena: Dialectical materialism and historical materialism. These are not to be treated as precious dogma sent from heaven, but as tools for societal change that must always be subjected to self-criticism in the face of our changing reality, in order to remain useful to the interest of the world's oppressed. Treating Marx's thought as a dogma led only to its discredit, to its being perceived oas outdated or useless for our modern world. As leftists we must reject and oppose dogmatic marxism and replace it with a critical, open and revitalized understanding of Marx's thought.

[@Solaire_of_Astora13]

100% agree. Any great intelectuals you could recommend that study Marxism from a critical standpoint? I haven't started Zizek, but might he be the case?

[@Echani3007]

I think it's also important to emphasis while we shouldn't be dogmatic we shouldn't also use it as an excuse to undermine our principles, because this has only led to either revisionism (Khrushchev) or slowly becoming capitalist again (China) neither which could reach communism. It's no wonder why leaders like Mao to remind people of the Marxist-Leninist figures via propaganda, but that's where I as Marxist differentiate from Mao, we can't be forming symbols out of personalities, as much as I would like to remind people of the troubles that the status quo will face.

[@alexmg3648]

@@Echani3007 Opportunism and dogmatism are like two heads of the same snake. They have a dialectic relationship and both need to be opposed. It's very true that anti-dogmatist trends in the communist movement have usually followed the need for the soviet, chinese, or cuban bureaucracies to justify their capitulation to imperialism. But my point still stands that marxism is not a recipe book, but a scientific method.

[@ObscureLogo-Phallic]

Marx’s most valuable thoughts were his critiques on capitalism.

[@froggycroaked1603]

Even with all your intelligence, you morons just keep farting in each other's faces and praising the smell of hot gases. Open a history book, you tools!

[@sherlockholmes882]

Marx gave a different way of looking at politics. He managed to provide genuine criticism of capitalism. That is his greatest contribution. His solution to the problem are problematic itself, and as Chomsky said, we must disregard it. But there is a lot to learn from Marx.

[@froggycroaked1603]

Most people would not live a year under communism, but blind sheep just wish for it.... Open a history book, tool!!

[@fordprefect1925]

@@froggycroaked1603 don't think you read what he said properly

[@pvpmartins]

a lot to learn from marx... like what not to think

[@epicphailure88]

@@pvpmartins Most of his predictions on capitalism where correct.

[@mikep1556]

Noam said there are things to be learnt from reading Marx. But by adding that any sensible intelligent person should do that, means you don't have to bother. @@fordprefect1925

[@overthetoppranks]

You can always rely on a fair take from Chomsky. Marx was a visionary, and properly addressed the ails of capitalism well before his time, but he didn’t have a clear solution, although he presented brilliant ideas that have contributed massively to modern leftist ideology.

[@EleazarDuprees]

To the extent there is anything true in Marxism it agrees with biblical Christianity. Oddly, Marxists who oppose the power politics by big corporations don't oppose a central banking system which facilitates the very things they hate. Regarding Marx he had no answer to David Hume regarding causation or the problem of induction and so, there could be nothing scientific about his socialism. Not to mention the deterministic nature of Marxism would render it unknowable on its own terms. Not to mention the is/ought fallacy ridden prescriptions of anyone espousing Marxism. Marx thought contradiction was built into reality when actually it is just built into his thinking. As a worldview Marxism it is a total failure.

[@kennethmarshall306]

Great common sense analysis by Chomsky

[@MrProng999]

This clip is two minutes long, I am sure there is more context to this.

[@franklikespolitics]

It could reflect his limited knowledge of the subject.

[@malzcuatro3379]

@@franklikespolitics What? Are you aware of what you are saying?

[@Mylifestoriesmaybe]

The source is literally in the description

[@froggycroaked1603]

Everyone enjoying socialism, under Biden? As of 10/21 it's working like a charm!!!

[@88dancel]

Lenin eats ass

[@NickBigsmoke]

I would replace "disregard" with 'learn'. You dont disregard all the things Marx got wrong, but instead learn why

[@meowwwww6350]

Yes you are right

[@HeiAims]

yeah this

[@thegingershow9676]

I’m so glad I found Noam Chomsky lol. I’ve been watching his recent stuff, and it’s like asmr with a 95 year old man 😂

[@derek123wil0]

darwinism is something from science with a dudes name. chomsky been smoking cia weed

[@meowwwww6350]

Savage

[@hhhahahhhahha]

which proves his point, what if we applied the same logic people apply to marxism meaning no evolution of thought and treating everything he said as gospel to darwinism.

[@AdolfoRufatt]

Brillante!!! Marx was closer to Darwin than to the Soviet Union or China.

[@Lupercal6319]

This is contentless. I know not every clip talking about something is going to turn into an essay, but at no point does he address a single belief Marx had or idea in any of Marx's writings and say why they're wrong. Then what he said wasn't even accurate. Marx talked about socialism constantly. Most of the reason he was writing about capitalism was to lay a theoretical groundwork for how it might transition to socialism, how it will form a proletariat with interests contrary to it, who then have the potential to resist more successfully than exploited classes in the past, because they are physically close together and more centralized due to the needs of industry, making it easier to organize so as to take advantage of their leverage in the system. You can't just dismiss an idea on the allegation that others believe it dogmatically. You're meant to address the actual arguements as they would be made by someone with a sincere, reasoned belief in it.

[@jaandugu]

Marx’s theory is a great tool... his activism which led to the split of the first International for the wing of Social Democrats and Communists... That’s trash. Better the take of Bakunin, appreciating and learning from his Theory without worshiping him... and actually bringing his work to its natural conclusion.

[@johnrossini3594]

marxists and anarchists both wanted a stateless society so in that way they were the same

[@franklikespolitics]

It seems if one rejects Marx, one also rejects Engles and Lenin. But more importantly one rejects the materialist conception of history, and adopts the Idealist conception of history. Which all religions also adopt. In other words, the invention of the plow did more to change history, than all kings and queens combined. Today we could say the same of the vacuum tube, transistor and then the integrated circuit. Marxism draws on every branch of science. Marx works are challenging because he is trying to prepare the working class to run society, at the same time protecting it from its intellectual enemies or opponents. I was bored with the idealist conception of history but am thrilled and excited by the materialist conception. It seems, Chomsky adheres to the Idealist conception of history. For an interesting book on philosophy read Emperio-Criticism by Lenin. Also Anti Durhing by Engles.

[@MOPCLinguistica]

No, Marx has no monopoly over materialist conceptions of history, its just that all serious scientific theories of history are "materialistic" but they don't have to boast it all the time like Marxism does, precisely because Marxism has to hide its irrational cult-like nature.

[@roggenoel]

@@MOPCLinguistica You qualify nature like this because you do not understand hegelian dialectic conceptualisation and instead use rhetorical conceptualisation of nature. You blame Marx(ism?) his boasted use of materialist conceptions of history because you do not understand the concept of historical determinism. For Marx and Hegel, History is Nature making the process of becoming aware of itself. Excuse my english, i am not a native speaker.

[@ObscureLogo-Phallic]

False. Non-adherence to materialism isn’t an admission to idealism. Look at Spinoza who even preceded Marx that argued that the physical and mental are really one substance being talked about in different ways, which drew inspiration on Hegel (which Marx studied from). This is a false dichotomy. It’s like saying if you’re not an atheist, you must be a theist. This is demonstrably proving Chomsky’s point on how dogmatic ideologies can be.

[@matthewkopp2391]

At the foundations of Marxist philosophy is idealism. He still believed that a human being has an a priori nature of instincts, abilities and essential powers and he believed that man was conditioned by historical materialist conditions. And he called that dissociative condition alienation. Lenin in one of his essays completely contradicts this idea. Marx does not reject basic idealism, he believes idealism in and of itself has poor explanatory power. He for example certainly believed in an egalitarian ideal as an instinct coming out of human nature, but then criticizes the idealistic notion in materialist terms. And dispels the obscurantism in the ways equality or egalitarian is used in liberal politics. For example replacing equality with “each according to his abilities each according to his needs”. It’s precisely this translation of the ideal to the materialistically real which can create a revolutionary politics in our era of obscurantist jingoism where politicians still insist on shouting hollow phrases like liberty, freedom, equality, etc. if these ideals are not translated they just serve as a form of manipulative propaganda.

[@eruno_]

respectfully disagree with this one

[@generalfishcake]

Marx was worshiped for the exact same reasons Jesus was worshiped - standing on the side of the poor versus their exploiters. In both cases, the goal was so noble that the hero worship got out of hand.

[@fredo69ification]

He was never worshipped 😂

[@fredo69ification]

@P JL No, you’re totally right. I’m a Christian and can’t imagine worshipping a person, but Marx should never be compared to Jesus or Christianity

[@Jack-e5t]

@@fredo69ification Jesus was a person.

[@norcalnative5582]

@@fredo69ification Jesus was a bitch. A imaginary one at that

[@the-based-jew6872]

@@Jack-e5t the same could be said about King David. Though depending on which side you stand on both have more than human capabilities even if for a time.

[@mtnwriter4011]

Yes. What an important point to make. Marx was not a religion. But people use the name as if he/it was, then criticize "it" because there were flaws in his theories. Why not Einstein too? This is how critics love to think: They treat capitalism with kid gloves and study/respect its many parts, but treat Marxism (or socialism) in an all-or-nothing manner, label it "flawed" and just call it a failure. Same things religions do for that matter. I'm waiting for Christianity to get treated like all other (what it condescendingly labels) "-isms" and finally becomes what it is as well -- Christianism.

[@alexqalex2566]

Hey

[@Hist_da_Musica]

I'm a Marxist, and I disagree with Chomsky politically in certain important issues, as he is an Anarcho-sindicalist. But he makes good points here!

[@TheIshuCool]

Yo, I'm a Marxist as well. And there are areas where I see Chomsky's point and don't necessarily disagree with him even on things with which many other Marxists find serious disagreements with him. But here I gotta differ with Chomsky for good reason. The part about not worshipping Marx is all fine and dandy. But the reason Marx remains relevant today is not to do with some sort of cult of Marxism. Marx remains relevant today because we still live in a capitalist society. The theories and ideas he had given apply as much today, perhaps even more, as they did when Marx was writing. To say his ideas do not apply today seems just a kind of trite and unnecessary opposition to Marx. Not sure why Chomsky went with this kind of reasoning here. I have heard him talk about Marx's relevance today on other occasions, so this one seems both wrong as well as a deviation from what I've heard from Chomsky otherwise.

[@hhhahahhhahha]

@@TheIshuCool a lot of peoples theories and ideas about capitalism are still relevant today what does that have to do with anything

[@TheIshuCool]

@@hhhahahhhahha it has to do with the fact that Chomsky said (or implied) a specific person's ideas about capitalism are not relevant today, i.e., Karl Marx

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

@@TheIshuCool he said some do and some dont. you learn from the valuable things, and disregard other things. his point was that if we take what he said as perfect guideline then we have decades wasted not learning anything. not necessarily because he was wrong all along but simply because decades past and we should have learned new things too. he didnt say his ideas overall arent relevant. he also has no opposition to marx, he most likely dont even care about him. just take the valuable stuff and disregard the false things

[@ubuntuposix]

I'm definitely not a Marxist, I'm a Socialist, and I also disagree with Chomsky's Anarcho-Sindicalism. So there're more than 2 sides.

[@p.brooksmcginnis1749]

No More War

[@MAGICatBEN]

Sorry to say, but I just can’t understand the appeal of Chomsky. I know he’s an intelligent figure who’s contributed greatly to multiple fields, but I find his political analysis very silly. Marxism is rooted deeply in Western philosophy and provides an extremely useful worldview that can be used to analyse situations. It’s also been successfully applied in practice (for all its faults, the Soviet Union accomplished many great successes in building communism despite an insane amount of imperialist aggression). Instead of offering a concrete alternative to Marxism, Chomsky supports the notion of anarchism and some form of collectivism that he calls socialism. Isn’t this the exact type of ahistorical, childish Utopianism that Marx’s brand of socialism specifically tries to avoid? Or is there something I’m not getting here. I’m honestly open for suggestions if maybe I just haven’t discovered the right Chomsky material.

[@MAGICatBEN]

I do agree with him that Marx shouldn’t be worshipped, though.

[@Redsky973]

​@@MAGICatBENeveryone that worships Marx goes against everything Marx stood for. However, we should not confuse celebration with worship

[@motorprotein1797]

@@MAGICatBEN This is a fair critique of Chomsky. Chomsky's critique of Marxist states and thinkers involves ahistorical moralising which Isn't useful from the POV of praxis.

[@shoobidyboop8634]

Economics was chomsky's grift.

[@88dancel]

Wow. Chomsky just kinda nails everything. To be in line with his statements in this video however I don’t believe Chomsky is perfect either. He seems as close to a sort of North Star of logic in politics as somebody could be though.

[@ubuntuposix]

There's a good reason why Marx is on every Right-Winger's lips, media, schools, etc. If reading Marx would've led to Communism, you wouldn't have heard about him.

[@danbee6103]

Sick and tired of the “ism” crowd. Always claiming its a free country then tell you how to live your life. “Oh im this(insert divesting belief) and feel so special about my own(based out of inexperienced and anecdotes) values that I will boast the into policy and other people lives even though its a fact-less belief.

[@tommy2nes]

But science is Newtonian????

[@clockwork914]

🇺🇸 BERNIE 2020 🇺🇸

[@meowwwww6350]

All the social democrats are petty bourgeoisie

[@villiestephanov984]

We have had 10 shares in the king (.)

[@blakej6416]

Marx's legacy isn't economics, it's political activism and the development of rationalizations to fuel that activism.

[@123456789987o]

What a childish way of looking at Marxism. First of all there is a thing as Einsteinism in natural sciences. In Biology there is for example Darwinism, but that's besides the point. Marx was a thinker, that was fully aware, that one cannot observe nature the same way, that we can observe society. In this regard he was more right than the Sociology, that developed after him. Organized religion? Marxism, even if we grant that name to Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Regimes, this is totally wrong. If Marxism was a organized religion, they would have cared a lot more about the opinions and actions of other churches/religions. In reality after the Roman-Catholic church excommunicated communists, no counter-measurements followed. No Catholics were banned from any party. Faith is simply no matter for Marxism.

[@ScottKoningisor-gs8kr]

What race was the welfare baby you had to #diacize?

[@smashwombel]

What? Marxism isn't anti religious? Do you also think the Nazis weren't actually antisemitic?

[@danijelstarcevic007]

It's not a childish way of looking at Marxism. The culture around Marx is cultish. Now less so than before, but still.

[@123456789987o]

@@smashwombel Exactly Marist were anti religion. They wanted to create a world that was free of religion, where religion was not possible. One cannot be an organized religion and anti religion at the same time.

[@123456789987o]

@@danijelstarcevic007 I would encourage you to read "Ideology and Terror" and "Religion and Politics" by Hannah Arendt. She articulates better than I could ever do the differences between Marxist logic and religious faith. The KZbin comment section sadly isn't an appropriate platform to discuss political theory in detail.

[@Alfredocap]

When Chomsky says “socialism” here, “Marx didn’t say much about socialism” he must mean socialism as in anarchism (terms he uses synonymously) rather than socialism as in Marx’s post capitalist phase?

[@maxw.midgett4975]

I think what he means is that Marx didn’t more than vaguely attempt to spell out a plan for what a socialist economic and political order would look like. His primary work was to analyze capitalism as it developed according to historically contingent laws.

[@vickdisco]

This is rich coming from a guy who supported the Khmer Rouge and Hugo Chavez...

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

Yes, he's absolutely correct. Marxism is a kind of messianic religion, a kind of christianism.

[@imhoisntworthmuch5441]

should have learned portuguese. '96 clip that slipped through the cracks. thks people.

[@camorinbatchelder6514]

Marxism is the negation of capitalism. So is Socialism.

[@camorinbatchelder6514]

Xi Jingping yes, Commie bitch.

[@MKSense1]

So how you will call Marx's theories and capitalism criticism, improved capitalism? It is quite hard to wash out his contribution that brought the socialist Bolshevism and all that followed in all Easter Europe and around the world.

[@equisde8026]

probably the only point where I can agree with Chomsky

[@ricksanchez4045]

Who are you ?

[@doclime4792]

How do you agree with him on this? What exactly do you take from Marx?

[@equisde8026]

@@doclime4792 fuck all, who cares about commies, I care about Ronnie O’Sullivan

[@georgekostaras]

I feel like Chomsky doesn’t get Marx at all. It feels like he’s never read Lenin, Gramsci, Sankara, Debbs or many others

[@al2642]

He's a master but all wrongnhere

[@Bolognabeef]

Another wrong analogy, economics isn't an hard science unlike physics. But I agree with him for the rest, Marx isn't worth reading anymore, and most of his stuff gas been debunked

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

why is it a wrong analogy. being a "hard science" or not doesnt change the fact that you should care about the content and not worship persons

[@JacktheRah]

Marx did a great analysis on the status quo. And that's what I think even anarchists should read Marx. He did a good job on that. His ways on how to proceed... yeah fuck that. Marx himself was highly racist and sexist which is seen in his works. And his theory of the Lumpenproletariat is really dumb "We have the working class and the exploiting class. I have a great idea let's split the working class even further!"

[@erikchepkyy5912]

Marx was a Libertarian Socialist.

[@erikchepkyy5912]

Also I don't understand, how was he a racist and a sexist ?

[@AsadAli-jc5tg]

He wasn't sexist instead he told us how feminist movement is distracting the people's revolution and is actually another tool from the Capitalist Toolbox. He already predicted that gender disparity would disappear under Capitalism.

[@adriands8207]

What?? Marx didn't say anything about socialism?? He literaly developed the theory of scientific socialism based on dialectic and historical materialism empiric method. The whole argument makes no sense when comparing Marxism with religion, as if it were a kind of blind faith in a messiah, that is radically false (what happens with Darwinism?). Marxism is based, as I said before, on the method of dialectical materialism that consists of putting theory into practice, checking what worked and what did not, going back to theory to revise errors and so on. That is the opposite of religious faith.

[@30STMand3DG]

Marx wrote very little about socialism and communism. He spend most his work talking about capitalism. Das Kapital is like 3000 pages long that heavily talks about capitalism.

[@ZacharyBittner]

There are definitely communists and socialists who treat Marx and Marxists like gods in a religion. Marx had some ideas that were too underdeveloped in his time (like the stock market) or couldn't take into account new developments (like selectorate theory) or hang on to kinda bad ideas (labor vouchers?) Yet people will advocate these ideas even when they don't make sense to keep their identity as a Socialist / communist / Marxist pure.

[@manx306]

You do make a good point when you bring up Darwinism - I can think of other examples, Copernican revolution, Newtonian mechanics, etc. Even in linguistics Chomsky's contribution is often referred to as the Chomskyan revolution. So I don't quite agree with Chomsky that the history of science doesn't have examples of theoretical frameworks that take on the name of the person who made a major discovery. I think what Chomsky objects to, and what I've noticed in reading a lot of Marxist literature, is the tendency to justify an idea based on a quotation from Marx, no further evidence needed. This is theology, not radical critique, and certainly not "science." To quote Marx (in a dispute with his son in law) : "One thing is certain, I am not a Marxist."

[@adriands8207]

@@manx306 With all due respect, I think you are missing the point of my last comment. The philosophy behind Marxist ideology which uses empiric scientific method, dialectic materialism.

[@adriands8207]

@@ZacharyBittner Well, that doesn't say much about Marxism, only about people who misunderstand it.

[@daniellassander]

Marx was not a great thinker, Das Kapital is riddled with logical inconsistancies. On one hand when using the LTV value = price, next time he says that value is not equal to price. You cant have it both ways, but he used both of these mutually exclusive ideas about the LTV consistantly through his writings on it. Sometimes value was price and sometimes it was not, depending on the outcome he wanted to reach while using the LTV. That is just one example of how poorly a thinker he was. He often used value = price when he talked about the rich so he could say that the rich were of course stealing money from the workers. But in the next sentance value was not price, when he talked about people just trading things, then value was more ephemeral, so that both could be better off. Marx was not an intelligent man, he wrote a lot, and most of it is complete rubbish.

[@Kbito108]

Idiot.

[@Redsky973]

There is more than one kind of value

[@pratik9056]

You have not read Marx, you have read what silly critics like Jordan Peterson have said about what Marx wrote. Either that, or you have not understood him at all. The genius of Marx lies in his theory of capitalism which can be used to make testable predictions. No other theory of capitalism does that as well.

[@daniellassander]

@@pratik9056 I have read Marx and he was an idiot. He never understood basic economics. He adhered to the labor theory of value, which had been replaced by supply and demand as that gave predictive answers to questions. You could predict prices with it for example. Marx did make a few predictions about what would happen under capitalism, the poor would get poorer, the middle class would vanish and the number of rich people would diminish over time as they had no one else to exploit. What happened under capitalism? The middle class exploded as the most common economic class, the poor got a lot wealthier and the number of rich people grew. That is how badly he understood basic economics. What happened was the complete opposite of his predictions. You say i havent read Marx, i have i even read "On the Jewish question" i was heavily into Marx when i was younger, that is an example of how much i did read from him as most people who have read marx never ever get that far.

[@FelipeCarzo]

This video shows how even geniuses could be stupid sometimes.