Marx

Lecture 2, Marx, of UGS 303, Ideas of the Twentieth Century, at the University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2013

[@qwerpasdf]

I love in these lectures the random guy who always says “yesss” at such unexpected moments. That guy is the true mvp

[@seanhealey5931]

Thanks for posting these videos. They give those who may not have access to higher education a chance to learn.

[@rlredifer410]

Excellent lectures. Please keep them coming. Your teaching style is very engaging. Thank you sir.

[@adrianfoltea]

I wish I had a professor like this 20 years ago!

[@Kswanwick2]

Presenting the Manifesto as the most important work by Marx is utterly ahistorical and undermines the value of the lecture. Marx’s most important and lasting contribution was Capital. The Manifesto, a longish pamphlet, was written when Marx was a young man, before his thought was fully developed and as Professor Bonevac points out, while there were in fact, revolutions taking place in France and Germany. Its not that it was not influential - it was - but focusing on this short and early work and the ideas of Communism arising from it is wholly inadequate for a meaningful understanding of Marx. Marx didn’t have a lot to say about the State, but he had a lot to say about social relations. Also, for philosophy students, it might be important to understand Marxian dialectics, its use, its critical departure from Hegel and its influence and development over the last century. Marx spent thirty years developing Capital and thought very deeply about it. This presentation is cartoonish, perhaps intentionally (the cute Soviet era propaganda posters) and through image without explanation, conflates Soviet and authoritarian systems with Marx without mentioning why he would have found them abhorrent as Rosa Luxemburg and other of his followers did at the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution. The lecture misses the most important contribution made by Marx: Capital and its deconstruction and critique of the capitalist mode of production. This is the most lasting and influential work and has been developed further by numerous scholars, even those in the anarchist tradition who might agree with some of the underlying assumptions about freedom and liberty inherent in the professor’s opinions. Professor Bonevac is an effective and lively lecturer and should be applauded for his engaging style and organization, but on this topic, he is doing students a disservice by analyzing Marx through the Manifesto and not Capital, Marx’s magnum opus. Since one of the slides used - Marx image-from-coins - without acknowledgment of origin, it might be useful to point out where it came from: the cover of Professor David Harvey’s companion to Marx’s Capital, Vol. 1, Verso Books. Professor Harvey’s lectures are also available on line and for those interested in a fuller and non ideological treatment of Marx through Capital, they can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXPEq4VrbriNjs0 on KZbin. A final note: the treatment of the industrial revolution in England through the narrow lens of spirited innovation and improvements in transportation and automated production without even a look at the human predations attendant with it, delivers a distorted and rosy picture. Clearly Professor Bonevac is a fan of literature and the inclusion of Charles Dickens writings on this subject might be helpful as would reference to historian Karl Polanyi’s treatment of it in The Great Transformation.

[@dazpatreg]

Wow, Steve Martin sure knows a lot about political and economic philosophy

[@poltergeistfm]

Thank you for these lectures, wish I'd have had a professor like this. Best from Berlin!

[@hereticmorte666]

Thank you for sharing this lecture with us Daniel. You are a great lecturer.

[@millerelad]

Enjoying watching you while in quarentine in Israel :-) thank you Sir

[@KeerthiKamath0128]

Love your lectures! Thank you so much!

[@svperuzer]

Really loving these lectures

[@BiGAAAAAAAAAALLLLL]

Thank you professor! A huge gift.

[@Jojothegodofrandom]

Comparing these ideologies to modern gnosticism is honestly a really amazing approach. I remember my history teacher talking about how these ideologies functioned like that so it resonates. An ideology that says ideology doesnt exist is pretty paradoxical but, people beleived in it firmly

[@diegoalva3023]

thank you so much for uploading these lectures, sir. They've been incredibly helpful

[@dylanjulve5374]

Love how he opens with “Comrades!”

[@dionysianapollomarx]

Good lecture, was just hoping it had the other half.

[@rgaleny]

I want to bring about a utopia, what can I do with the electrons? Build a matter replicator that creates universal surplus'.

[@overtexpression2299]

This professor makes me want to go back to college for a while

[@alialrahahleh676]

I want take a month off and attend your class in person :)

[@judet7340]

i have a question, it might have been already answered during this lecture and i couldn't understand it, so talking about Utopia and the paradox of Anointed, can't we all agree on certain things to exist in a Utopia for example for all people to live together in peace with no war to worry about nor hunger and thirst?

[@CjqNslXUcM]

The anointed could, but they would be forsaking the basis of their anointment. Peace and nourishment are positives in the Manifest Image, but the Scientific Image makes no value judgment. If we were to change the material realities that actually dictate the Manifest Image from underneath (so to speak), these mere reflections of the Scientific Image in the Manifest Image might change. Listen from 13:05 again. Of course peace and nourishment are positives in almost every Manifest Image, that's why you see almost all governments (including socialist) claim to implement them. The problem arises much more with other utopian desires like certain freedoms or rights of co-determination. Are they really in our interest or are they derivative of the current Scientific Image? How do we know we actually want them even in a utopian underlying Scientific Image? There's nothing in our biology that says we do.

[@OsapodaParede]

Dear professor Bonevac; would it be possible, to supply a short info, about the images, namely the author, a title?! Thank you, and happy year. It would be a great help, if you could do that, at each theme. Ok, maybe too much, yet I leave this comment.

[@nietzschescode]

good teacher! congrats! :)

[@AdurianJ]

Regarding the Industrial revolution. China had all the prerequisites over a 1000 years before europe with the exception of a relativley free society that respected property rights. When Iron mills in China started consolidating to mass production the noble class of Mandarins got jealous and shut them down and took their stuff ! In Europe during the Industiral revolution the Noble class wheren't able to do that they had to addapt !

[@riadguezoul8918]

Thanks

[@kifayatkhankhan8099]

Thank u sir

[@jameslooker4791]

Watt adapted and improved the steam engine, but there were functional precursors.

[@dimitrisblane6368]

Amazing. Thank you

[@Afelah.]

Wow.. This was very sophomoric and lackluster. It seems as if you read the Manifesto and ignored the rest of Marx's body of work. while ignoring(or perhaps celebrating in) the fact that the Manifesto was meant as a agitprop piece for the communist party. The majority of Marx's ideas are laid out in Capital, which you displayed very poorly. You also displayed Marx's minimum programme as if it's his vision of how a communist society would operate when that's far from the case. The minimum programme in the Manifesto was a set of immediate demands that would fade out as the breakdown of capital was carried to its logical end(communism). Marx saw the communist epoch as stateless first of all(the state will wither away through the abolition of class antagonisms), and sought to eliminate production centered around the law of value. This meant the elimination of exchange-value, which would mean no "progressive taxes", industry, conception of "free" or conception of "cost". Production is directly socialized and owned and planned by all, it is not a society in which the state owns everything and individuality is traded in for mandated uniforms. Communism is the actualization of real autonomy and freedom of agency, it is the REAL movement. You also failed to accurately describe the fundamental issue with private property, which is not simply that property exists, but that surplus value is expropriated. Moreover, you failed to even delve into the dialectic of the commodity, in which Marx tackles the issue of abstract value and how it's reflected and reified through exchange-value(barter/trade, cost, etc). Lastly, your conclusion is rooted in one which displays your overall ignorance of Marx's argument and polemic towards wage labor(which you sadly seem to think is what drives production and is the reward for labor). Marx saw remuneration as a consequence of alienation and actively contributes to the abjection of the producer to the product of the producers labor. We receive wages because we can no longer see ourselves in our work as it's no longer OURS. The movement of socialism seeks to abolish the work and value form all-together, as creating and producing for use and need IS and always HAS BEEN the reward for labor. Do you assert that primitive man received dollar bills with old dead men for chasing down a deer or spearing a fish? It's unfortunate to me that your anachronistic view of the productive forces and structures of society are so deeply ingrained in the capitalist epoch that you seem to assert the abstraction of exchange value and wage labor are instrinsic to being, as if the ontology of rewarding work can be claimed by capital. You probably don't read or respond to comments on your KZbin, but this was simply an ideology riddled mess of a lecture and one which really portrayed Marx in bad faith. No wonder students leave college with such a terrible grasp of what Marx actually asserted in the first place.

[@jamjohnson2023]

Some of these college students do not sound like they belong to an institute of higher learning.

[@dmswanson5694]

Excellent work, Dr. Bonevac; you are informing my poetry to a greater degree than those insights provided at a time by Stevens.

[@Amaterasu_990]

Another great lecture from Daniel - I enjoy his speaking style and content.

[@davidstrickland1412]

To the marxist complaining about this lecture being lackluster or not detailed enough, they should understand the class isn’t solely about Marxism. It’s just an introduction to the ideas of these philosophers- a cursory glance. We can tell you all have studied it quite thoroughly. Most people could care less about Marxism or knowing anymore than they have to.

[@Douglas1102]

I like the point but I wouldn't agree that animals don't plan, or that they don't have morality. Or even that they don't make things, beavers for ex. profoundly change their environment.

[@lennykoss8777]

🤔🤔🤔

[@lavalamp8430]

Fuck what a noisy lecture room. What the hell are they doing back there???

[@usenlim]

Why didn't Jordan Peterson watch this lecture?

[@carljacobson7156]

I really prefer this Professor to Richard Wolff - I think that this is a simple, concise and truthful description of Marxism - and it's problems. It's very interesting that Marx wanted to abolish Inheritances since he practically lived most of his adult life off of his own Inheritances from his Wealthy Father and Mother - as well as the handouts from wealthy friends (Engels) and Relatives. One Rule for Thee - But NOT for Me?!

[@MrMiddleWick]

It's all about systemic changes

[@rdhunkins]

All animals are equal, but some are more equal.

[@fromrjwithlove9819]

One can argue a point or hold a position without their personal behavior's influence. How does the expression go? "You complain about capitalism, yet you participate in it every day."

[@rgaleny]

Can't there be a co existence of social and merit built into a system? Capitalism tends towards a kind of neo-feudalism. Corporate culture competes with civil culture.

[@AslamKhan-sp6hz]

can u translate in hindi language sir

[@hectorveiga3033]

The teacher sounds a little like Bernie Sanders. Lol.✌️😁