What Is Marxism?

[@realryanchapman]

I thought I'd return with some follow-up thoughts. One thing that needs to be said is that Marx & Engels wrote a lot. Their writing was consistent, but not perfectly consistent. Stances on violence, war, and the preconditions for revolution fluctuated. Marx also wasn't the clearest writer, favoring emotional language over technical precision. On top of that, there were holes in their theory, or at least spotty parts, sometimes on important points (ex. what exactly does the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' mean? How can the dictatorship of the proletariat rule 'democratically?' What did Engels mean when he said the State would 'wither away?'). As a result, there is no universally agreed upon understanding of what classical Marxism actually is. Circles tend to form around different interpretations of it, each circle believing they hold the correct understanding of Marxism. That has led to a long history of disagreement on Marx and fighting among Marxists. Within that, I tried to stick with the closest we have to a standard understanding, using both primary and secondary sources. I tried to put as little of my own opinion into it as possible and to flag where I did, like my interpretation of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his means'. I think the part that rubbed the most people the wrong way was the claim that Marx's communism is essentially totalitarian. In my experience that's the standard explanation, and I did flag that some disagree with it. But I think it squares quite fully with his writing. There's no one sentence you can point to where he says 'this is a totalitarian society' (the word didn't exist yet), so you have to analyze what he said to get there. The communist society he described was one where communism was forced on the whole population. Just reading the Manifesto makes that clear, and the passages I cite in this video flesh that out more. They describe a society entirely permeated by communism, with no opposition, with communist politics heavily encroaching into the lives of all. Communists and Marx called that a 'free' society. That conception of a free society seems to have come from Rousseau's idea that society should be ruled by the 'general will,' which he laid out in his Social Contract. Once the general will of the people is determined (Rousseau did not say how that process should work, something he shares with Marx), then that general will needs to be forced upon the rest of the public. The general will is a monolithic guiding power that rules all, and that allows nothing to conflict with it. Everyone is 'forced to be free' as Rousseau put it. It's a peculiar conception of freedom. Rousseau acknowledged that, and quickly gave up trying to articulate what actually makes it a form of freedom. But that's the 'free' 'democratic' society Marx was describing that the dictatorship of the proletariat would create. Marx named the ruling idea that would guide the general will: communism. I'm describing totalitarianism. A society where communism shapes everything political. Communism is forced upon everyone to the extent deemed necessary by those in power (again, communists), in order to create a society free of class conflict/oppression. You could think about it this way: in a liberal/capitalist society, if you want to live your life as a communist, you're relatively free to do it. If you want to form a business with communist/socialist principles, go for it. If you want to form a commune, have at it. If you want to participate in politics as a communist, feel free to try it. You can really do pretty much whatever you want with your life, and participate in politics however you want (as long as you don't threaten violence). If you don't want to be political, that's fine too. Liberal societies do not have a vision, an end goal, that they try to push everyone toward. There's no utopia at the end of the tunnel. It's more or less a sandbox design for a society, and the people within them get to decide how they want to live their lives. In a communist society, everyone needs to be communist. That includes Marx's communism, which again forces itself onto the public with the goal of entirely shaping politics in order to eliminate class conflict. People are not cattle, so repression would be needed in order to accomplish that. It's possible that if a communist society existed for a long time, and communism was widely accepted by the public, communists would feel secure enough in their position to give political freedom and control over affairs back to the whole people, but as Bertrand Russell put it: 'this is a distant ideal, like the Second Coming; in the meantime, there is war and dictatorship, and insistence upon ideological orthodoxy.' (History of West. Phil. 790) If I'm wrong about what I just said, I've never seen anyone successfully articulate why - in the comments or anywhere in anything I've read. I think it's the closest we have to a standard explanation for good reason. Marx did endorse democratic practices by the Paris Commune, but that was when democracy brought about a result that he liked (voting was restricted to Paris and held at an especially radical time). I'm not aware of any examples of him endorsing democracy that brought about a result that went against his views. If you only endorse democracy that moves society towards socialism, and you condemn all other examples as 'bourgeois democracy,' it's hard to conclude you're in favor of democracy. I've never seen anyone deal with these things and still claim that he was democratic and not totalitarian. Also when socialists in Marx's time said they should spend their time pushing for gradual reforms, like expanding voting rights to the working class, Marx condemned it. He didn't want workers to have more of a say in a pluralistic, democratic society. He wanted class tensions to build until they exploded, ending with communists taking control of everything. I covered that in my in-depth socialism vid. Last point: I offended some by skipping Marx's economics. Some even say his claims entirely depend on his economics. I think that's an oversimplification. Some of his beliefs aren't verifiable or falsifiable by economics, like the claim that capitalism is the last form of society featuring class conflict, and that the next society will be communist. Also his core beliefs existed before his economics developed. He believed that capitalism was exploitative/alienating, that communism will be the next, preferable society, and he believed in historical materialism early in life (his 20s). He then spent the rest of his life developing his economic theory predicting the end of capitalism that we see in Capital. So his own beliefs did not depend on his economics in order to form. His economic theory came second, appearing to affirm beliefs he already had. That said, if you're interested in his economics, you can find explanations all over the internet. He's less politicized there. I may as well quickly lay out his theory and explain what I mean about it having mistakes. First, he thought that the amount of labor put into a product determines its value. Now imagine someone works for 10 hours. The worker creates product worth 10 hours of labor. But the worker isn't paid that amount. Let's say the worker created $100 worth of products in that 10 hours, but is only paid $50 in wages. The other $50 then is 'surplus value' i.e. profit for whoever owns the business. Crucially, the worker is only paid subsistence wages (from Ricardo's 'iron law of wages'), so the worker struggles and has no path to better their position in society through work. Others will take their job, so the worker can't bargain for more. The business owner then uses the $50 profit 'appropriated' (basically stolen) from the worker to expand their business. If that keeps up, the power dynamics in society will become more exaggerated. Workers stay poor, business owners get richer. They compete with each other, buying more machines, which means they need less human labor. Since labor (according to Marx) creates profit, profit rates fall. Businesses push down wages and lengthen hours to stay competitive. People can't buy what's being produced. A series of increasingly severe economic crises occur. Misery increases, a vast underclass forms, revolts, takes power. The two biggest places it goes wrong, afaik, are 1) Labor doesn't determine the value of a product. More goes into it, like supply, demand, marginal utility, factors relating to competition (or lack of) between firms. 2) He underestimates (really vilifies) the role of leaders (like CEOs) and managers. He doesn't appreciate how much work it takes to start and maintain a successful business, and in his theory the workers get credited with doing almost all the valuable work. There were also political assumptions in Marx's thinking, like the belief that 'capitalists' have a monopoly on political power (impeding reforms) which seems to be wrong. It also didn't make much sense at the time (& makes even less sense now) to define class by your relationship to the means of production, something Schumpeter pointed out ~80 years ago. Marx's theory was built on classical models and was to some extent out-of-date even in his lifetime, which is partially why it was slow to get attention (his writing style didn't help). In Marx's defense, he made many think about capitalism in a new way. Most academics that I've seen point out mistakes simultaneously acknowledge it as a work of genius. And some of his mistakes were also made by the best economists until then, like labor determining value. If you wonder why I didn't say this in the video, it's because to do it right I'd have to introduce Marx's terms (like labor theory of value) and thought it would be burdensome on the video, especially since I wasn't sure if the audience really cared about this stuff. - Ryan @realryanchapman

[@kerrysyn2384]

“It is natural for a liberal to speak of ‘democracy’ in general; but a Marxist will never forget to ask: ‘for what class?’” You may have already seen it but CCK Philosophy has a video that deals with your misconceptions. Watch it if you haven't. Marx and Marxist theorists would consider what you're calling "democracy" a bourgeois farce. Take the United States as example. Every four years the US gets to choose between two factions of the ruling class. The capitalist class has more power and influence than anyone else, wielding the state and media machinery for their purposes in a way the non-capitalist masses do not and cannot. Look at the way the British mass media has reacted to the rail strikes, the way working class activism is treated with utmost scorn. I can't tell if you realize the way you operate entirely within bourgeois, liberal ideology; fish don't know they're in water. To invoke Sovietological notions of "totalitarianism" in a discussion of Marx is embarrassing. You seem to have a problem with socialist forces having a hegemonic role in a hypothetical dictatorship of the proletariat. Do you have the same issue with capitalists having a hegemonic role (Citizens United, etc.) in capitalist socities? You should do more reading into Marx and Marxist theory. Read Marxist historians like Hobsbawm. You got A LOT wrong here and in the video. It could've been much worse so I have to commend you for that.

[@lousys1613]

A dictatorship of the proletariat is simply decisions being dictated by the proletariat regardless of the word dictatorships totalitarian indications. also communisms end goal is no state, its a stateless classless moneyless society so the state withering away in this context means achieving communism over time, through socalism. Also Marx did advocate for democracy by advocating for communism. His idea of Marxism (as previously stated class less stateless etc) was democracy not by some formal governmental voting body but by collective decision making in said stateless society. As for you talking about other ideologies existing in a Marxist society, so what if its totalitarian no one and I mean no one should respect the opinions of those whos policies advocate for anything that harms people. Facist and Capitalists' should not be able to re make the society that oppressed far more people than forcing a better society on people. Even if it's totalitarian the choice to be oppressed is not one anyone should make for a poor soul might make it. This bit is personal but I was dumbfounded by how you barely touched on his economics as he was an economist first and foremost as communism is an economic ideology. That's why (and I understand that political compass's are an ineffective way of mapping politics but I'm using it for analogy) political compass's go communism capitalisms and libertarianism and authoritarianism. Because communism is an economic ideology that's why communes are communist and libertarian but you can also have an authoritarian state with a communist organization of the economy. Now Marxism does entail both economic and political aspects but I feel you ignored a very significant part of Marxism.

[@yuxiangcheng597]

@@lousys1613 Yes, and I have to add, the terminologies in this video are packed with liberal ideologies, including the binary of democracy and totalitarianism. Ryan clearly have no knowledge on Marx's critique of capital (I'm not even talking about Marxist economics) and the Hegelian dialectics, which are crucial to have a basic understanding of Marx. Things Ryan mentioned in the third paragraph, like a system in which "politics can (not) encroach too far into people's lives", do not have a metaphysical connection to any society that names itself a "democracy", in fact, we can always see the opposite in real life.

[@NuanceOverDogma]

Marx was a huge hypocrite. We should be forward thinkers instead of putting trust in people who lived lies

[@NuanceOverDogma]

Marx exploited Engels & his family's money

[@AbuDurum]

You made a mistake. Marx did not say that the working class will become poorer if capital grows (in terms of their material position). He said that it will actually grow but at the cost of their social position. Meaning that the minority at the top will control greater wealth and thus global inequality will increase. You can read it in Wage-Labour and Capital.

[@Death2Capital]

He made several mistakes

[@bionic_woman77]

You must be a Karl Marx primary source

[@telomettotittettori8218]

Uhh yes yes so Marxism finally works all clear now I can finally become a communist zealot

[@AbuDurum]

@@telomettotittettori8218, that's not what I said. Grow up.

[@telomettotittettori8218]

@@AbuDurum learn basic economics.

[@VivekHaldar]

I love what you're doing by going back to primary sources, rather than repeat copies of copies of interpretations. We need more of this!

[@jpoeng]

Yes, he’s doing a good job, IMO, of covering a lot of ground in a short time while drawing on the original source material to make the key points.

[@normalizedinsanity4873]

@@jpoeng And leaving out what doesn't suit

[@JonahNelson7]

​@@normalizedinsanity4873 is that a dig or a compliment

[@seanleith5312]

Marxism is evil, period.

[@normalizedinsanity4873]

@@seanleith5312 Thanks for stating the obvious....that you have never read a word of Marx yourself and rely on interpretations that meet you preconceived need

[@alessandromarchiori38]

Probably the first American channel who explain Marxism without starting with “he caused millions of deaths, communists are like evil etc” or starting to enforce it with low quality communist propaganda. Thanks from Italy, great content

[@emilianosintarias7337]

Honestly it was sort of worse than that

[@emilianosintarias7337]

@Danger Disgusto but what about the inherent oppressed vs. oppressor story inherent in marxism? and in the bible? and in disney movies, and greek poetry, and classic rock music, and japanese anime, and star wars, the american revolution? the smurfs... Look, my concern with marxism is that is may be star warsism smuggled in through post modernism. Tell me one place star wars-ism has worked

[@cyberneticbutterfly8506]

@@emilianosintarias7337 Anywhere outside Disney.

[@FrozenRat161]

@@emilianosintarias7337 marxism is very modernist

[@emilianosintarias7337]

@@FrozenRat161 yes, true... and why are you telling me that? Just a friendly reminder or something?

[@elifarnsworth8762]

Many people don't realize how amazing these videos are. I have read a few of these primary sources, but really condensing it all down, and decoding it into laymens terms. So much work here.

[@bb-wb8sb]

lol

[@ryebread3417]

I would hope that if you have genuinely read these works that you would be able to recognize that this creator's understanding is incorrect

[@elifarnsworth8762]

@@ryebread3417 Id be interested to hear your arguments on why his understandings are incorrect? I can't say that I have dived extremely deeply into any of these philosophies, but it seems to me that you can choose myriad of definitions for marxism depending on who you read.

[@haiscore2614]

@@elifarnsworth8762 They don't plan on giving you an answer. They are replying to everyone who has a positive take on the video with "DYOR" so as to imply the guy is wildly off base and that if only you had read Marx yourself or watched socialist pundits like they do then you would understand that the century's old understanding of economics still somehow applies today and that we should be pushing towards a revolution.

[@elifarnsworth8762]

@@haiscore2614 I have read Marx, and I have also read Thomas Sowells, as well as Ludwig Von Mises analysis of Marx. I feel like I have the ideas down quite well, as well as the complete lack of understanding Marx had. However, it is interesting to hear people who have delved so deep into the intricacy. I think it gets a little superfluous when they start discussion of minor variations as if they are altering the meanings of words altogether (when many authors - including Marx himself- )change the meanings so frequently. The main complaint I have with this KZbin is he has a VERY defined set of definitions - but using Marx own words I could debunk his declared definition.

[@georgesdelatour]

Here is Michael Bakunin, the revolutionary anarchist and contemporary of Marx in the International Workingmen’s Association, explaining in 1869 how Marx’s ten-point program in the Communist Manifesto has a built-in tendency to create a totalitarian state. His descriptions feel eerily prescient of the USSR in the 1930s. Marx was fully aware of Bakunin’s criticisms and wilfully chose to ignore them. Instead he had Bakunin expelled: “The reasoning of Marx ends in absolute contradiction…. To appropriate all the landed property and capital, and to carry out its extensive economic and political programs, the revolutionary State will have to be very powerful and highly centralised. The State will administer and direct the cultivation of the land, by means of its salaried officials commanding armies of rural workers organised and disciplined for this purpose. At the same time, on the ruins of the existing banks, it will establish a single state bank which will finance all labour and national commerce.” “It is readily apparent how such a seemingly simple plan of organisation can excite the imagination of the workers, who are as eager for justice as they are for freedom; and who foolishly imagine that the one can exist without the other; as if, in order to conquer and consolidate justice and equality, one could depend on the efforts of others, particularly on governments, regardless of how they may be elected or controlled, to speak and act for the people! For the proletariat this will, in reality, be nothing but a barracks: a regime, where regimented working men and women will sleep, wake, work, and live to the beat of a drum; where the shrewd and educated will be granted government privileges; and where the mercenary-minded, attracted by the immensity of the international speculations of the state bank, will find a vast field for lucrative, underhanded dealings.”

[@usarmyveteran177]

Bingo. Marx was a fascist and all totalitarian, socialist progressives, communist, soon turn fascist. The state cannot control free enterprise.

[@asielnorton345]

bakunin was right on this issue, however he was also deeply antisemitic. this videos focus, and most people's knowledge of Marx in the USA and western Europe are completely centered on the manifesto, which is indeed a piece of propaganda. Marx's real philosophical work is das kapital. his main intellectual focus wasn't predicting how future civilizations would look.

[@georgesdelatour]

@@asielnorton345 1) Marx also held antisemitic, slavophobic, and racist views. Nathaniel Weyl’s book, “Karl Marx, Racist”, gives numerous examples. 2) Marx supervised three editions of the Communist Manifesto (and Engels several more after Marx’s death). It’s clearly not a marginal text in Marxism.

[@asielnorton345]

@@georgesdelatour marx was jewish. marxist philosophy (as in the writing of karl marx) has absolutely nothing to do with race. it is international and class based completely. i have never read the book you mentioned but i've read marx. one could make the case that it is anti religious. but not anti any specific religion. he was materialist, not a romanticist nor an idealist. ideas about the differences of different kinds of people were of no interest to his philosophy. later people added ideas like intersectionality but marx himself really didnt have any interest in this line of thinking. i never said marx had nothing to do with the manifesto, or that it ran contrary to his beliefs. what i said was it wasn't his central work. anyone who's spent any time at all looking at marx realizes that his work primarily revolves around looking at how history and society moves, offering a theory that it moves materially, looking at various modes of production, and offering a critique of capitalism. he also said capitalism was actually better than any system before it. but in hegelian fashion he believed that history progresses: there are faults with capitalism. and the vast majority of his writings are dedicated to historical materialism and showing the faults with capitalism. he often says himself he doesnt know what the future will exactly be, or what the revolution will exactly look like. he did write the manifesto, he did believe what he wrote in the manifesto, but it isnt his central philosophical work. his central work is das kapital.

[@asielnorton345]

it should be added that i believe bakunin was right in his critique. never said or wrote he wasn't.

[@VladVexler]

Vlad here, philosopher. Just want to congratulate Ryan on the video as a step into the subject. Marx of course said that ''philosophy stands to the study of the real world in the same relationship as masturbation stands to real sexual love', and it's not clear what positive role he saw for philosophy. For him it was secondary to empirical inquiry into the logic of capitalism & the sociology of supersession. I highly recommend a tiny taste here on KZbin of Raymond Geuss's lectures on Marx. Raymond is more sympathetic to Marx than I, but his passion for avoiding bullshit & placing us in history is infectious. Congratulations again!

[@jonahkhalley]

Fancy seeing you here! :D

[@soulcapitalist6204]

Marx was a butcher of philosophy in his body of work. It's funny to hear his aims described as exploring logic when he most brutally butchered socratic standards of rational philosophy. He also butchered hegelian dialectic with his idea (dialectic materialism) that dialectic was somehow social phenomenon versus a contrived intellectual process. As an overarching example, Marx submits several ad lapidems by reviving debunked theory and ignoring the emiricism which deprecated them. It makes me laugh reading Marx described as having pursued empiricism when he cowered so desperately away from the empirical methods of his orthodox economic colleagues of the time. I more customarily understand Marx to be a case in point as to the superiority of empirical methods over the heterodox normative approaches used throughout marxian theory.

[@BornTrespasser]

Did you really just call yourself a philosopher? 🤭😆

[@AANasseh]

When Ryan drops a video, I stop everything for the following half hour. His breakdowns can’t wait!

[@coryb8796]

Same

[@adamnoble1689]

So fucking good. Each sentence is trustable. A deductive construction that I can trust. I love this man.

[@fffgeraldy]

My first Ryan video here, And I have to say from this point forward I will concur 🤟🏽

[@Machobravo]

You’re doing a great job. Don’t discount your skills and intuitions.

[@milostone6498]

✊

[@stonesofvenice]

I absolutely love this channel. The detailed footnotes, the painstaking references, yet the brevity and lucidity. It gives me hope in humanity!

[@t00bgazer]

If you read marx youd lose so much faith in humanity and this content creator. Either he is painfully stupid or he is profoundly dishonest with his assesent of marxism.

[@hannesknofel8408]

I would absolutely love to see a video on feudalism. It seems like an important topic for understanding the new emerging market forms of the 19 hundrets

[@praxlandy]

it’s really not important to understand the market since they’re incompatible

[@dragonvliss2426]

Feudalosm in Marxism is only distantly related to what historians define as Feudalism. As a medieval historian, I think it is important to see that.

[@greegerm1073]

@@praxlandy It's generally important to understand history and historical systems to see the bad and good in them, evolve in them, or realize if we need to revert to or move away from them.

[@mikealexander1935]

But Marx's economics is a key part of his ideology because that is where the empirical facts and analysis that underlie his scientific, materialist conceptualizations, Marx's argument lives or dies on the strength of his economics. This is why the man spent so much time on it. His early philosophical writings in 1844 provide the motivation for his life's work and his political stance and theoretical paradigm, but they have little to say on the validity of his arguments that supposed to be *scientific* not philosophical.

[@sullainvictus]

Yes, that's right, and it's why Marxism is garbage. It's all built on the lie of exploitation.

[@scottpadgett4711]

@Danger Disgusto I looked for your videos to explain but alas nothing

[@bookworm8415]

@Danger Disgusto so... what would you add or change with this summary. You claim its dishonest... even though its a literal and careful analysis of his methodology and thinking without diving into the technical aspects underlying the theory. To do that would require an additional video... which he mentions. This seemed a near perfect summary and factually accurate to a degree that is frankly astounding. What specifically do you have issues with and what sources would resolve your points?

[@TheCablebill]

@@scottpadgett4711 perhaps you should have looked for someone else's videos, but alas, unmotivated.

[@TheCablebill]

One way to make an effective polemic is (to try) to be subtle.

[@donny_doyle]

I am a recent Ryan convert/ fan/ homie... such well presented info, and so calm... no yelling and raging and name calling. So refreshing, y'all agree?

[@malcolm-danielfreeman5940]

accept the only accurate video ive seen is his fascist one socialism and this marxism one is wrong

[@danvitale1825]

I was a carpenter. Craftsmen don't keep their products, they sell them. Wages are the price of labor and mutually agreed upon. How does eliminating private property help a worker?

[@THELAW360]

My thoughts exactly

[@OmarDelawar]

Eliminating private property doesn't necessarily help the self-employed person. It helps the person who gets exploited "working for the man" so to speak. According to communists, when you are employed by a company or corporation, "the capitalists" are robbing you of what you are owed because you produce much more value for the company/corporation than what they pay you--that's considered theft according to Marx. If you're self-employed, no one exploits you as you are your own boss.

[@ernestoantonio1416]

You forgot to talk about the "withering away of the state" in Marxism. "The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong - into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax." - Friedrich Engels, in "The Origins of The Family, Private Property, and The State."

[@fenzelian]

And of course Engels had not yet heard the Danish proverb - “Det er vanskeligt at spaa, især naar det gælder Fremtiden.”

[@Lars6138]

@@fenzelian And yet Engels correctly predicted the causes, the trigger, the time and the various outcomes of WW1, even suggesting the possibility of a communist revolution in Russia.

[@pureblood3823]

​@@Lars6138 shhhh commie

[@marw9541]

@@Lars6138 Predicting WW1 wasn't exactly hard to do, Bismarck did it a decade earlier than Engels. In addition Engels's number for the number of soldiers was an underestimate of at the very least 800%, and you had a single communist uprising that was in the least developed power in Europe, which also wasn't even clearly going to work except for the stupid decisions of the Provisional Government and more specifically Kerensky

[@Lars6138]

@@marw9541 the details of his prediction is remarkable. He missed on the numbers estimate, but that doesn't make it much less impressive.

[@donnytv00]

Ryan, you are a champion of credibility because of your humble and honest approach. I appreciate these videos a ton! Please keep up the good work :)

[@seanleith5312]

What Is Marxism? It's the most evil thing in the history of mankind.

[@ryebread3417]

This creator's understanding of Marx is not correct, and I would even go as far as to suspect that he is being intentionally dishonest.

[@elifarnsworth8762]

Clearly you have no comprehension of what humble means?...

[@ditkovichpaysmyrent]

@@ryebread3417 what if you gave some specific criticisms rather than baseless claims?

[@ryebread3417]

@@ditkovichpaysmyrent i did already, here they are again: There were a few issues here and there in the beginning, but it was mainly towards the end where things fell apart. For one thing, this idea that Marxism includes some vision of a communist society is largely untrue. Marxism centers around historical materialism, through which we can make some general speculation as to how the force of history will continue, but Marx did not see communism as some set society that we must work towards. To quote Marx: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence". By this, he means that there is no set communist "state of affairs" that we must shape society to fit. Instead, we are merely following the flow of history, and this flow will eventually lead us out of capitalism. Instead of actually investigating or critiquing historical materialism, Ryan dismissed Marx as a "fortune teller". He made it seem as though Marx believed that communism is X, when in reality, he left it much more open ended. This brings me to the next point: Ryan made a massive error in conflating communism with the dictatorship of the proleteriat(dotp). Making this conflation turns communism into something entirely contradictory and non-sensical. Making an error of this magnitude makes me seriously question his intellectual honesty. He also seriously misunderstood the dotp itself, as well as the Marxist conception of the "state". I'll go point by point: First, communism is not the dotp. This image of the flipped pyramid Ryan kept showing is the dotp. But this cannot be communism. As he discussed, communism is the abolition of private property, and class is how we relate to private property. Therefore, communism is inherently classless. Following from this, if communism is classless, how can there be a class of proletariat on top? There cannot be, that would be contradictory. In order to transition from capitalism into communism, there must be a transitionary period. In this period, the proletariat seize state power and begin working towards communism. Ryan characterizes communism as a society where the state owns everything and forces you to work, paying everyone equally. This is a result of him cherry picking quotes, some describing communism, others describing the dotp. This resulting description of communism makes no sense. In reality, communism would necessarily lack class, money, and a state, making Ryan's claims entirely incorrect. This ties into the Marxist conception of the state: Marx understood the state simply as a manifestation of class power. The government is simply one example of how class power manifests. Thus, when class ceases to exist, so must the state. When Marx discusses the dotp seizing state power, it is simply having the proletariat expressing their class power, rather than the bourgeoise, as it is in our capitalist society. The dotp would see the proleteriat controlling government, in the same exact way as the bourgeoise control our current government. The dotp is therefore no more "totalitarian" or "undemocratic" than any modern day bourgeois country. Additionally, Ryan uses quotes from the manifesto and the principles of communism frequently, but these pamphlets were not written as theoretical proposals. They were calls to action meant be distributed and read by workers, they were effectively pieces of propoganda. Here, Marx and Engels do propose some ideas for a dotp, mainly the 10 point program in the manifesto. But again this should not be seen as part of Marx's theories. He said as much himself in a later preface to the Manifesto: "The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today". In fact, after the Paris commune, Marx criticized centralized state power as something originating from the struggle against feudalism. He claimed that in a dotp, "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes". Clearly Marx envisioned the dotp as having a state much different from the state that we know currently. To write off even just the dotp as "totalitarian" is a gross misrepresentation of Marx. In short, Ryan attempted to present Marxism objectively, but in reality he fully intended on leveling criticisms against it. His criticisms, however, stem entirely from a poor understanding or a willful misrepresentation of Marx. He is a conservative idealogue who hides behind this guise of objectivity. It is generally a bad idea to learn about a political concept from someone who opposes that concept.

[@ohar94]

This is a fantastic channel. Keep at it!

[@turnipslop3822]

I've learned so much from this channel in the short time since I discovered it. Truly incredible videos filled with a calm unbiased professional explanation on complex subjects. Looking forward to more!

[@ryebread3417]

This is far from unbiased! Please check other sources or even read these works yourself!

[@haiscore2614]

@@ryebread3417 Breadtube is full of hyper-partisan brain rot. This channel acts as a breath of fresh air from listening to pundits go on and on about "leftism" while a lot of them haven't even read a thing.

[@ryebread3417]

@@haiscore2614 wow its crazy how youtube channels centered around leftism would go on and on about leftism. Any breadtuber's understanding of Marx is significantly more correct than this channel. Believe or not, Marxists tend to have an intimate understanding of Marxism. U can criticize leftists for being partisan or whatever, but that's the whole fucking point lmfao. Their entire channels are dedicated to a specific cause. At least they are transparent about that and don't try to appear objective or unbiased when they arent. But ofc its only "partisan" when it's something you disagree with.

[@hybridh9702]

yeah i thought this stuff was good at first. but he makes a lot of logical jumps and conveniently leaves out a lot of things.

[@seneynah]

He definitely comes across biased, but if you’re any kind of critical thinker, you would know the rational conclusion to Marxism is totalitarian. Why? Because the masses can’t control society, therefore somebody’s going to have to represent the masses interest which would be a totalitarian regime as we’ve seen attempted mid last century. You get a cult of personality that represents the masses and then they seize control and go evil dictator. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And yes, today we have democracy bought and paid for by those in power which represents the capitalist “dictators” the quietly maintaining the status quo in their benefit. The system we have is far from ideal but so far the capitalist dictators haven’t been inspiring mass murder so there’s that. The good news is we don’t have only factories anymore for the working class, we’re in the next epoch of digital era. We are no longer in the industrial age so the digital era brings back the artisans you no longer have to work in the factories if you don’t want, you can create income as an artisan online or in a skilled trade, many options for people besides being a proletariat. It seems though there seems to be a marriage of capitalism with the social justice warrior Marxist to grab more property from your average Citizen through loss of property rights for landlords which became evident during and after Covid restrictions. The capitalist are simply using the Marxists to grab more property. Please don’t be a useful idiot! It’s nothing but a power grab by the already uber powerful. I’m a small landlord, it’s killing us and making Blackrock even richer.

[@eorobinson3]

Hell yea Ryan! Been waiting for a new one to drop!

[@inovakovsky]

The best characterization of private property is that is property used for capital, in contrast to personal property that has no capital value, such as toothbrushes. Marx was ambiguous of the form of governance, aside from needing to be pro-revolutionary working class.

[@Zhicano]

This dude is sus. I just literally watched him make shit up while posting highlighted quotes that don’t corroborate with what he says.

[@inovakovsky]

@@Zhicano Who? Ryan Chapman?

[@Zhicano]

@@inovakovsky yes

[@inovakovsky]

@@Zhicano I have been considering to make a comment post to this video. Since have expressed a big cliam on the guy, maybe could make a lengthy comment to crotique video.

[@Zhicano]

@@inovakovsky I was think about going over what he said and making a video in response and I’ve never made one against something that someone had said. This is pure nonsense being peddled and people are gobbling it up because he has “citations”. All I see is cherry picking, straw manning and heavy biases based off popular and false conceptions of Marx and Engels works.

[@Gigachild]

When I want to learn a topic, I start by taking notes on one of your videos. Very well done content!

[@ramonzeiro]

It's funny that at 20:40 Ryan chooses to dismiss the very thing that is the most important in Marxist theory, which is political economy, just by saying "oh btw, economists says Marx is wrong so get off" and then follows the rest of the video throwing a bunch of neoliberal words at us and never explaining properly what Marxism really is.

[@mikeb5372]

He is presenting a subject that could be studied for months reading countless books into a 35 minute video. I think he expects that if people want a more thorough understanding they can continue researching each aspect for themselves

[@ramonzeiro]

@@mikeb5372 You didn't get it, huh? He's just making liberal propaganda, he doesn't want to explain nothing.

[@ramonzeiro]

@@mikeb5372 If he really wanted people o research he wouldn't conclude the topic saying "economists says Marx is wrong" and then throwing another subject which conveniently frames Marxism as "bad"

[@mikeb5372]

@@ramonzeiro That maybe true. I would say(my own opinion) that there is no accurate way to interpret Marxism other than bad. It along with a plethora of other bad ideas are worth studying. Just my opinion. You however may promote Marxism til your hearts content and it doesn't matter to me

[@ramonzeiro]

@@mikeb5372 You just proved why this video is so lame and bad lol you didn't read The Capital and just goes by what a KZbin video is saying.

[@somenerdguy]

by far the best bottom-up explanation of marxism i have ever listened to. came across your channel a few weeks ago and have been learning a lot

[@ryebread3417]

Pleas reference other sources, or better yet, read the work yourself! This creator does not have an accurate understanding of the discussed topics

[@somenerdguy]

@@ryebread3417 i have been doing a bit of reading and watching all over the place regarding political philosophy and can't really understand what ryan got wrong in this video. care to elaborate?

[@ryebread3417]

@@somenerdguy There were a few things here and there in the beginning, but it was mainly towards the end where things fell apart. This is a really long response lol, sorry. It is pretty informative tho imo. For one thing, this idea that Marxism includes some vision of a communist society is largely untrue. Marxism centers around historical materialism, through which we can make some general speculation as to how the force of history will continue, but Marx did not see communism as some set society that we must work towards. To quote Marx: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence". By this, he means that there is no set communist "state of affairs" that we must shape society to fit. Instead, we are merely following the flow of history, and this flow will eventually lead us out of capitalism. Instead of actually investigating or critiquing historical materialism, Ryan dismissed Marx as a "fortune teller". He made it seem as though Marx believed that communism is X, when in reality, he left it much more open ended. This brings me to the next point: Ryan made a massive error in conflating communism with the dictatorship of the proleteriat(dotp). Making this conflation turns communism into something entirely contradictory and non-sensical. Making an error of this magnitude makes me seriously question his intellectual honesty. He also seriously misunderstood the dotp itself, as well as the Marxist conception of the "state". I'll go point by point: First, communism is not the dotp. This image of the flipped pyramid Ryan kept showing is the dotp. But this cannot be communism. As he discussed, communism is the abolition of private property, and class is how we relate to private property. Therefore, communism is inherently classless. Following from this, if communism is classless, how can there be a class of proletariat on top? There cannot be, that would be contradictory. In order to transition from capitalism into communism, there must be a transitionary period. In this period, the proletariat seize state power and begin working towards communism. Ryan characterizes communism as a society where the state owns everything and forces you to work, paying everyone equally. This is a result of him cherry picking quotes, some describing communism, others describing the dotp. In reality, communism would necessarily lack class, money, and a state, making Ryan's claims entirely incorrect. This ties into the Marxist conception of the state: Marx understood the state simply as a manifestation of class power. The government is simply one example of how class power manifests. Thus, when class ceases to exist, so must the state. When Marx discusses the dotp seizing state power, it is simply having the proletariat expressing their class power, rather than the bourgeoise, as it is in our capitalist society. The dotp would see the proleteriat controlling government, in the same exact way as the bourgeoise control our current government. The dotp is therefore no more "totalitarian" or "undemocratic" than any modern day bourgeois country. Additionally, Ryan uses quotes from the manifesto and the principles of communism frequently, but these pamphlets were not written as theoretical proposals. They were calls to action meant be distributed and read by workers, they were effectively pieces of propoganda. Here, Marx and Engels do propose some ideas for a dotp, mainly the 10 point program in the manifesto. But again this should not be seen as part of Marx's theories. He said as much himself in a later preface to the Manifesto: "The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today". In fact, after the Paris commune, Marx criticized centralized state power as something originating from the struggle against feudalism. He claimed that in a dotp, "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes". Clearly Marx envisioned the dotp as having a state much different from the state that we know currently. To write off even just the dotp as "totalitarian" is a gross misrepresentation of Marx. In short, Ryan attempted to present Marxism objectively, but in reality he fully intended on leveling criticisms against it. His criticisms, however, stem entirely from a poor understanding or a willful misrepresentation of Marx. He is a conservative idealogue who hides behind this guise of objectivity. It is generally a bad idea to learn about a political concept from someone who opposes that concept.

[@somenerdguy]

@@ryebread3417 thanks for the thought out reply. i do think your concerns are valid and i'm not informed enough to be able to add anything more to the conversation. i also think that the simplification of The Communist Manifesto and how much time spent emphasizing it wasn't very helpful to the conversation, but i don't think it is something to completely brush to the side either. we can't just listen to the parts we like and ignore the parts we don't like, in fact, that's one of my biggest criticisms of religions. as for calling Ryan a conservative ideologue, i'm not sure that is correct. the enlightening nature of his content is that it tries to poke holes in the beliefs he appears to have (left-leaning anti-capitalist) and discovers issues along the way. in this video he is specifically trying to poke holes in Marxism and in doing so uncovered some uncomfortable wording with Marx's agitprop. for what it is worth, Ryan does bring up some of your criticisms in the pinned comment of this video. it might be worth while to bring up your issues with him directly.

[@joejones9520]

@@ryebread3417 marx's whole theory has been proven to be a fallacy; mathematically it simply cant work. He couldnt even control his own finances which were achieved by capitalist labor via Engel's so of course he was incapable of creating a coherent economic system; his whole life was a paradox.

[@mattscrivens4361]

Thanks!

[@fredwelf8650]

My main objection was when you characterized Marx and Marxism as totalitarian. Karl Marx did not discuss death camps, concentration camps or the Gulag? Isn't is doubtful whether Marx anticipated events like Lenin's vanguard party and Stalin's purges or the gulag? Marxism was characterized as totalitarian by the Cold War liberals who failed to glean the similarities between Soviet marxism and National Socialism. It was Stalin, Hitler and Mao who were totalitarian and none of them used Marx’ economic theory. The issue is that Marxism, and you take time to clarify the distinction between Marx, Marxists and Marxism, is composed of Marx's works, his sources, and many different historical events and persons. There is Soviet Marxism, there is Eastern Marxism, there is Western Marxism, there is Cuban Marxism, there is American Marxism, and all of these Marxisms can be compared and contrasted to different versions of a "Communist Party." The actual political history cannot be explained simply by Marx's theory! The use of the term 'Marxism' does not refer to totalitarianism because it also refers to the only resistance to totalitarianism. Lastly, Marx did not simply characterize Marxism as composed of either socialists or communists. Did he not at least recognize anarchists? Did he not also include Democrats and the process of democratization? There is a mystified relation between Marxism and totalitarianism. It is disingenuous to claim that the heart of Marx's ideas is the Communist Manifesto - which has been cherry-picked to death - and ignore his major works on economic theory, namely surplus value, while failing to characterize this work holistically. It is also wildly inaccurate to discuss Marxism without addressing Western Marxism.

[@jefflanahan8812]

I am trying to understand your comment honestly with regard to the relationship between Marx's ideas and totalitarianism. Are you saying basically that Marx's ideas aren't themselves totalitarian, but that iterations of political regimes that became totalitarian (stalin, mao, lenin, cuba, et. al.) failed in some way or another to properly implement the ideas? Or, co-opted the ideas for their own totalitarian project? Something else?

[@fredwelf8650]

@@jefflanahan8812 I think it is very obvious - Marxism should be sharply distinguished from communism. Nowhere does Marx mention a vanguard party, instead he talks about a well-organized proletarian leadership which took the form of unions in the 1800's. The communist ideal as discussed by the early Marx is not the same as Lenin's (from Kautsky) notion of the vanguard party. Chapman did was to present a version of Marxism by picking out certain phrases from the Communist Manifesto, a document from the young Marx. Chapman specifically stated that he was not going to address the mature Marx?! Anyway, the point is that Marx's works considered in his historical period, and events related to his works which occurred in the 20th century were hardly based on his ideas. The best example is the issue of the primacy of class struggle which most every Marxist from Lenin to Althusser acknowledges is the central issue in history, the wheel of Historical Materialism: Marx's key insight. Class struggle takes particular forms/appearances at different times in history. The class struggle in Russia circa 1905-1917 is different from the class struggle in the 1920's between the Communist Party and the two worker groups: farmers and industrial workers. The Cuban Revolution does not only involve the US puppet Batista but the international mafias as well which Castro kicked out. The Chinese Revolution pitted the Nationalists led by Chiang Kia-Shek - intermission fight against the Japs - continue the Revolution and the long change of the culture through Mao's reforms from agrarian to industrialization, and then from poverty to middle class diffusion and a capitalist-communist nation-state. The class struggle took the form of different social and economic classes conflicting within the leadership and within the population in each historical situation. But, the scientific socialist "law" of historical change via class struggle is different in each concrete particular moment and place. Marx could not possibly anticipate these particulars and although these "Marxist" leaders used Marx as a springboard, it is a leap (no pun) to infer that their policies were based on Marx's ideas. In sum, the communist parties of the 20th century hardly resemble Marx's ideas of dictatorship of the proletariat which implied Democracy: government by the people. Ironically, the only real instance of a proletarian dictator was Hitler. What is overlooked is that Marxism was cohered to refer to the USSR and Red China. However, Marxism took many different forms in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Southern Asia, and America. In these latter instances, Marxism was used against the totalitarian forms in Russia and China, and especially against the Nazi's. The only real resistance to patriarchy, capitalism and liberal political leadership has been Marxism in its emancipatory form. One of the best cases of this difference was between Trotsky and Stalin. Like Marx, Trotsky spelled out in detail the important moral issues in persuing liberation. Trotsky's was the only real voice against Stalinism in the 20's and 30's. The rest of the Marxists had their hands full with Nazism! US conservative extremist turned the word 'Marxism' to mean unions, even Democrats, and communists and socialists, after WWII because before and during WWII, they were allies! My main point is that Marxism must be understood as a complex of variants, some good and some bad, and not as a monolith, and certainly not as Marx's original theory of history, economics, or politics. Where Alvin Gouldner talks about two Marxisms, read. Lastly, what is obscured with all of these historical happenings and theoretical asides, is the everyday changes in the lives of the peoples concerning their occupations, their families, their marriages and their social relations. When Marx talks about the topsy-turvy world of capitalism with its fetishism, commodification, social domination, mystification, expropriation, and alienation, he is not only referring to the social relations between workers under capitalism, but to the supposedly more rational and decent institutional arrangements under communism. Such a peaceful state of affairs never occurred. While the USSR mocked the US over its racism, it applied severe anti-semitic punishments and should be understood as having an equivalent genocidal effect as Nazi Germany. But, the maelstrom in social relations, e.g. sexual behavior, that occurred after these various revolutions is repulsive: Soviet families disintegrated, Cuba persecuted homosexuals with a vengeance, China underwent an abortion epidemic. All of the maladies that Marx specified as horrific under capitalism were doubly worse under these new regimes. It was only where the themes of emancipation and liberation were implemented by the left that a resistance to capitalist and communist institutional confusion restored a sense of order and fairness. The impetus for this orderliness were the unions, the social movements that threatened the political sphere, the educational system which improved literacy and above all publications in higher ed, and the civil sphere of journalism, TV and radio, that spread the news of corruption and brutality which embarrassed the political class and led to legal and financial changes.The communist ideal as discussed by the early Marx is not the same as Lenin's (from Kautsky) notion of the vanguard party.

[@jefflanahan8812]

@@fredwelf8650 I grant you all of that: Marx's ideas were extraordinarily complex, and to boil it down to, "well basically what happened is 'x'" is a partial understanding at best. But it seems to me, if a dictatorship of the proletariat is what Marx in part sought, and you are going to make the claim that Adolf Hitler was an example of a real proletarian dictator, you are going to have a real hard time convincing anyone that Marx's ideas should be taken seriously at all, no matter what era of Marx's writings you wish to elevate. Regarding Marx's idea that the dictatorship of the proletariat implied democracy: democracy can certainly be tyrannical and dictatorial. Any majority can vote to burn those they despise and call it democracy. To imply Marx could not foresee the horrors of Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism, is to ignore that fact that he argued for things like "the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions", or to achieve his ends through "revolutionary terror", or that in countries which lacked strong democratic institutions (which would certainly describe Russia and China) "the lever of revolution must be force". Of course, revolutions are often violent, no matter the political persuasion of those involved. The idea that individuals have the right to revolt if they are denied political expression is hard to argue with. Obviously, how else can african slaves free themselves from the chains of 18th century landowners than by use of force? But the crux of the issue, for me, isn't just that revolutions inspired by Marxist leaders lead to blood and terror: it's the decades and decades that follow that are filled with it as well in the form of famine, collapsed institutions, inefficient production, and lack of basic needs being met. It is the ideas themselves that simply do not work to bring about anything that resembles the kind of prosperity unleased in a regulated capitalist economy. In my view, capitalism is the most just and fair form of wealth distribution ever conceived. What you have in regulated capitalism is individual people redistributing the fruits of their own labor all the time, with the freedom to choose to whom and for what purpose they redistribute them. Communism abolishes private property and leaves the state as the arbiter of who gets what. Capitalism takes into account the needs of all individuals as best as possible by enforcing and directing changes in prices, wages, and other commodities without the direction of any one person or group. Communism attempts to direct recourses toward specific needs of individuals, which when done without the information disseminated through markets, is impossible, and always fails. Capitalism is what you get when individuals are free to to engage with their society according to their own needs and desires. Communism claims only by it's definition to attend to the needs and desires of individuals, but has no clue how to provide them. Capitalist societies incentivize progress and innovation through the promise of profit, income, and freedom. Communism provides no incentive for anyone to produce anything in a quantity sufficient to distribute among it's citizens in a just manner. Capitalist societies allow for businesses to fail, so that poor quality or inefficiently produced goods and services can be eliminated from circulation, so better businesses can thrive through competition. Communist societies leave people with few choices and bread lines. Capitalism takes into account at it's fundamental level of operation natural human instincts such as greed and desire to satisfy ones own needs before the needs of others. Communism construes these human instincts as products of capitalism, argues for the elimination of these human instincts through the elimination of capitalism, which leaves members of a communist society with a system that has abolished the very thing that provides the constraints on instincts such as greed. To argue Marxism should be distinguished from Communism is a fair point. But distinguished is not the same thing as being inextricably linked, which Marxism and communism most certainly are.

[@fredwelf8650]

@@jefflanahan8812 Your argument about the superiority of capitalism is weak. For example, the USSR in about 20 years industrialized and produced a military organization, with all of the requisite logistics for its population, to defeat the Nazi's while taking a hit of over 20M deaths, then it challenged US hegemony. Communist China, the largest nation on Earth, has in about 70 years developed economically and socially to challenge the US and the West. If it is/was superior, why the Cold War? Why the panic today over China's predominance? Why irks me about your take is not just that you, like Chapman, reiterate cherry picked claims from the 1844 Communist Manifesto and ignore his mature works - this indicates your fixation of belief, and also ignore what he actually said. He does not claim to abolish private property, just the private property of the large land holders and the capitalists. The average person may still own their home! He says this in the Communist Manifesto just below Chapman's highlighted extraction. State regulated capitalism is the norm, not some wild free market. In this sense, Marx was correct - democracy slowly works for the benefit of the people against the capitalist class, obviously. I don't think you read holistically and interpret based on everything he says. Also, my main point was that there is scant relation between Marx and the Communists. If you are trying to posit a connection between Marx and Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc., then you have to focus on the common area - on the primacy of the class struggle. You do not address this as if history goes happily along wherever the capitalists rule. But, this is not true. Poverty is widespread under capitalism. Under European socialism, there is hardly any poverty. We will see if China produces the middle class it is seeking; it is likely as it is wiping out all vestiges of poverty. This is not to valorize communism but to recognize that the critique of capitalism produces welcome reforms, similar to welfare in the US. The perversion is that corporate welfare dwarfs the safety net. Lastly, Marx's statements must be taken in context and applied skeptically to the future. The links between Marx and Marxism are mediated by a complex of decisions and events which include liberal values and pragmatic consequences. The left has intervened effectively into rampant monopoly capitalism and counters it at every step, but the situation of the class struggle between capitalists, and between capitalists and workers, especially in terms of International Relations, can be observed daily in crises, wars, and crime rates. If you are going to pronounce on Marxism, at least get the history and the everyday lived experience of people right. I recommend Volume 1 of Capital where the critique of poverty is stark.

[@deathvalleydruids892]

@@fredwelf8650 I see where you're coming from, but I have to defend Ryan here. I think that both his interpretation of the texts and his arguments for the totalitarian implications of Marxism are sound. Totalitarianism follows as a matter of course whenever any attempt is made to put some version of Marxist communism into practice as a political program. The reason for this is that Marx, for all his undeniable brilliance in many other respects, had a piss poor understanding of human nature. Marx may not explicitly promote totalitarianism as part of his utopian fantasy involving "the withering away of the state," but in actuality any "well-organized proletarian leadership" will invariably confront a situation that the Marxian analysis gets terribly wrong: Following the supposed emancipation from the chains of bourgeois capitalism, huge groups of the population tend have a _very_ different and totally unanticipated variety of ideas regarding their own needs and abilities. It is at these moments that the theoretical defects of Marxism become manifest within most of the historical attempts to realize its political ideals. This predicament leaves the leaders of the new regime with two alternatives: A) lawless anarchy or B) the institution of totalitarian rule until the masses fall in line. There can be no third alternative featuring some romantic idealization of a "democratic" regime harmonized by "labor unions," "worker co-ops," or some other special organization since this repeats the initial doctrinal defect: there's no guarantee that enough people will choose to participate in these institutions to sustain the communist society. This is why Marxism tends towards totalitarianism in spite of itself. You'd need to either provide or point me towards a convincing defense of Marx's anthropology to change my mind, until then I'd say Chapman has a tighter grasp on this point.

[@notrealboris]

most underrated channel on youtube

[@montylowerison3243]

Thanks!

[@dusty_artichoke]

Also in Marx's times physical punishments were practised by employers. And not just in his times, my grandpa was telling me long time ago that his father working in Škoda factory in Czechoslovakia was once - for "working too slowly" - hung by his hands from ceiling for three hours in the entrance hall of the building so everyone saw him as an example. Similar things were happening before second world war all over the Europe. I hope we will never get back to it, but in this world you really never know. God bless.

[@darillus1]

'Hung by his hands from ceiling for three hours in the entrance hall,' talk about workplace bullying!

[@tonywalton1052]

Skoda was never a great car.

[@BrianRenardDavis]

We At The Point Where Folk Would Fight Back.

[@lifecloud2]

Good point, eterista. I think a lot of people forget the times Marx lived through.

[@namyx_71]

@@tonywalton1052 the Škoda he's talking about is škoda plzeň, train, tram, ship cannon building...

[@gregorykavivya1105]

Great work, I love that you actually present quotations from original texts

[@meatrackgames]

Ryan seems like someone who is genuinely interested in presenting material in as much of an unbiased view as possible. Some mistakes were made on this topic. It's hard, if not impossible to cover a topic as dense as Marxism in 32 mins. Go to the source if you want to learn more!

[@SwedishDrunkard5963]

"some mistakes" he compleatly mischaractizes marxism saying its when really big state, communism is a stateless, moneyless and classless society where the people own the means of production. he ignores massive parts of what marx said to make his little idea of what he wants it to be

[@qalette]

During the first half you made a rather decent job, but your representation of "Communism" is very wrong. Why? You even cite from Marx' "Critique of the Gotha Programme", but somehow you manage to present the position of the German socialist party (which Marx criticizes, hence the title of that letter!) as Marx' own position... Nothing you say from that chapter onwards has anything to do with Marxism, but is a gross misrepresentation.

[@sirherbert6953]

In general this video is a bit lazy. It uses some quotes to create a narrative which the author clearly intended before researching, rather than actually looking at the sources themselves and trying to understand what Marx actually meant. Furthermore, there is a fatal tendency of the video to loose the big picture of what Marx was trying to say by concentrating on a few select passages. In general there is also a lack of understanding of the actual passages used and what they meant. An example of the selective usage of passages, would be claiming that Marx advocated for public school system run by the state by citing the principles of communism, notably not written by Marx and 2 minutes later citing the Gotha Programm on another matter, where Marx explicitly states he does not want a state run school system, because he fears it being used as a machine of propaganda. In general the Gotha Programm was really badly interpreted. What is even more potblamatic is using selected passages out of the manifesto and the Gotha Programm to explain a communist program. The problem being, these texts where written 30 years apart and in totally different contexts. The Video also does not mention that Marx explicitly distances himself from the 10 points of the manifesto in a later introduction. While the video is probably the best right wing summary of marxism I have seen on KZbin (which says more about the quality other right wing videos) it is very sloppy and poorly researched.

[@qalette]

@@sirherbert6953 Thank you for your detailed reply. I completely agree, Ryan just wanted to create an anti-Marxian narrative. And it even seems to me that the purpose of the rather decent first part of the video is just to give that narrative more credibility.

[@damianbylightning6823]

@@qalette You two got a circle jerk going on there? The main problem with this video is that it takes Marxian mumbo-jumbo seriously. Marxism is a cancer of the soul - it has a purity wing and 'not so pure' wings. They are now combining as one attacking group and producing bespoke weapons against reality. That's what needs to be made clear. I have no idea why anyone thinks you can take it seriously or debate with people who believe in Marx's theory of value. Such people are beyond all hope.

[@ianmatthews4238]

Yeah, the totalitarian bit near the end was pretty off. To imply that proletarian dictatorship is more "totalitarian" than bourgeois dictatorship is false and has been proven so by history. And though proletarians may have been the minority group at the time, Marx and Engels understood that they would not be for long. The proletarianization of greater portions of the population continues to this day. The ending also shows a failure to understand what class even means in a Marxist sense. It isn't a descriptor of rich/poor, it specifically has to do with the relationship to the means of production. The people who own the means of production are the capitalists, and those that don't are the working class.

[@damianbylightning6823]

@@ianmatthews4238 Spoken like a true cultist.

[@blairsimpkins3505]

I have binge watched each of your videos. Your detailed analysis without getting into the politics and slick editing really gave me excellent education into poly-sci. Thank you and keep up the good work.

[@ryebread3417]

Please do not just accept the understanding of some random youtuber! His understanding of Marxism is wildly incorrect!

[@bookworm8415]

@@ryebread3417 ok... um. So what specifically do you have an issue with... since this is an exact distilled summary of communism and traditional marxism. This video, combined with historical summaries and statistical analysis of each communist experiment as applied through a variety of cultures and time periods and methods and adaptations paints a clear picture of how each of these ideas are applied and interpreted within modern and semi modern contexts. So again... what specifically do you have issues with? I found literally zero errors... which is an insane level of detail and careful summary.

[@ryebread3417]

@@bookworm8415 well if YOU found zero errors, surely it is a completely accurate and fair representation of Marxism.

[@noobzie8963]

@@ryebread3417 what are the eroors that you found?

[@notarealAlbanian]

@BookWorm84 it's mostly what he left out of the video that makes it flawed. not once did he mention that communism is a statless society. also, he never gave examples of how marx's ideas inspired revolutions or new theory, instead he gave one example of some america college students, which was disappointing.

[@lagoon3939]

Beginning to support it more and more every time I get an ad.

[@ZedXrdx]

Ryan, you and James Lindsay have been insanely helpful in my goal to understand more theory. IM so glad there is someone to break down these concepts for the layman.

[@muslimmetalman]

theyre kind of oppositional to start and are basing that opposition on understanding the current world more than the historical context of this stuff

[@wellthissucks112]

never heard of this youtuber but I know a lot about James Lindsay. I just started this video. So they are on the same page?

[@Poopmannn]

James Lindsay lmfao

[@bionic_woman77]

@@Poopmannn you are such a troll.

[@Poopmannn]

@@bionic_woman77 interesting, go on

[@vacuumcleaner5208]

This is probably one of the top most underrated Chanels for political commentary out there,

[@barbaravoss7014]

Wow! So clear, concise but also precise. Thank you!

[@cdiers26]

This was really great and seemingly unbiased. I'm kinda disappointed in how simple, ideologically driven, and illogical Marx was. I'm not really sure how young educated people might become so entranced with Marx and Marxism. There are massive leaks in logic for someone who claimed to be devoted to logic and science in his work. He totally neglected to account for people's desire to work in the first place once they are removed from artisan style work. Even though he talks about those effects directly, he somehow forgets by the time he gets to "according to their ability and need". Why would anyone want to continue working to their ability if their needs are met. The surplus of labor/property is still going to be created and if you only get what you need out of it you'd still feel ripped off or demotivated. People need reasons to work to create more than they need to. Family, status, luxuries, etc. Those needs are not unique to capitalism. As for historicism; he couldn't see the future, but communism always fails and hierarchies never cease to exist.

[@tomio8072]

I think the argument for why people would work even if they had all of their needs met - if this is the question - is that fundamentally humans seek struggle to fulfil themselves in life. If you have all of your needs met it may be pretty boring to sit and do nothing, thus you'd probably want to do things with your time. As with hierarchies, I do personally believe hierarchies are a key component of societies, but hierarchies have been organised in many different ways all throughout different societies. One model leftists have developed is the flow democracy, the idea that a fluid mix of both representative democracy and direct democracy may be used, perhaps akin to the structure the Paris commune took on. Of course though the past is there to be learnt from, so we will inevitably find we want to do things differently in different areas

[@soulcapitalist6204]

I suggest these young marxists are not pursuing education concerning the topics which Marx's ideas covered. For example, you either study sociology, economics or political science, industrial psychology, human resource management or business administration or you take the ignorant pseudointellectual approach of running with the bigotry some innumerate sophist in Marx had put out 2+ bygone eras ago.

[@dino9921]

Wow. This is the problem with the modern world. People like you watch one KZbin video and think that their critiques of one of the worlds most widely lauded and cited philosophers and economists is valid in any way shape or form. If you actually read Marx, all of your “concerns” are addressed. All of your baseless “critiques” have arisen because you’ve never read Marx. Marx acknowledges everyone has different needs based on their personal circumstances. He also acknowledged the need for luxuries and leisure time. One of the whole points of Marxist Communism is that society will see to it that your basic needs will be met and that our other human needs for intellectual activity and recreation are also met. If you’d actually read Marx, he writes that, under communism, “I could fish in the morning, hunt in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening and do critical theory at night, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.” He is saying that, because a communist society will be full of abundance, technological automation, and because it will be post-scarcity, people will be allowed to pursue their hobbies to their hearts content. I am one of the young people who is “entranced” with Marx’s because I’ve actually made an effort to read him and intellectually digest him unlike you.

[@soulcapitalist6204]

@@dino9921 Marx is considered unethical heterodox economics and is not lauded by anyone outside of pseudointellectual sycophants of his nonsense claims.

[@cdiers26]

@@dino9921 Someone being widely cited or lauded doesn't equate to their ideas being good particularly if the people praising him are equally deluded (if you want to dip your toes into philosophy that's some basic logic). I've read and cited Marx as well! His ideas fall flat and his principles don't hold up on paper or in practice. Capitalism continues to pull more people out of destitution in proportion to the relative liberty of their marketplace while the opposite is true for Marxist economic philosophy. Modern Africa has all the examples one could need. It's honestly silly to even try to argue to the contrary. Communism's only successes occur when the unit of loyalty is smaller than a nation-state and even then they still have to be willing to kill or exile those who don't produce more than they consume over a lifetime. Whatever technological advancement you think will come about to create an existence with no scarcity won't be innovated by communists. Communists trade lives and lunches to innovate where capitalists can't create anything people aren't willing to pay for to begin with.

[@randomdude2540]

Please make more content. I can't get enough!

[@jayedonmanswell2215]

Absolutely fantastic video. The explanation & commentary was informative and you explained Marxism in a way i have not heard before that was enlightening. Thanks

[@WisdomFromAshes]

Terrific treatment of a big subject. Love it.

[@TrampMachine]

I mean as it is now we don't have a multi-party democracy. On top of that we have oligarchy, a system where politicians are openly bought by the rich and where political action corresponds almost not at all with public opinion.

[@jacobroloff3504]

Do you mean to imply that totalitarianism is inevitable, so we might as well have “good” totalitarianism?

[@dominicgunderson]

@@jacobroloff3504 Marx wasn't for or against totalitarianism, so I'm not sure what you're on about. Ideally, he'd like for the revolution to be non-violent.

[@jacobroloff3504]

@@dominicgunderson I didn’t even mention Marx, I’m talking about you. Wether the violence is explicit in a revolution or implicit in the enforcement of the policies of the new regime is immaterial, and in any case I never mentioned violence, nor do I deny it’s necessity as an order-keeping mechanism in every human society. Your comment seems to imply that we don’t have a choice about the totality of our affairs now, so we might as well have an an order that is “social” or “serves the people” instead of the owner class, in some way. Which of course is the stated rationale of any modern regime anyway

[@dominicgunderson]

@@jacobroloff3504 I'm not OP but that wouldn't be totalitarianism.

[@jacobroloff3504]

@@dominicgunderson OP is talking about how the current order is totalitarian, and bad for serving an elite minority rather than the majority of people, and not taking umbrage with the totalitarian methods, but rather the end to those means. The implication being that totalitarianism in and of itself is neutral, and it’s to what ends wether it’s good or bad

[@rileyschroeder8560]

Just found your channel and I'm loving binging these videos! I appreciate how much work goes into them

[@defeatedskeptic311]

For the graph that is used at @30:30, I recommend people what the video "Steven Pinker and the Failure of New Optimism ft. We're in Hell" by Unlearning Economics since it does a deeper dive in to poverty measures and some of the possible concerns about them. The key part of the video starts at around 19:20, but I recommend the whole thing or at least the run-up for context. I really do appreciate the videos Ryan and I think you do your best to make them as unbiased as possible, particularly in the explanation of the theories.

[@whatsinaname691]

Yeah, but their analysis is quite pathetic on it. The idea that we wouldn’t have way more total (less) impoverished people after the population quadrupled is stupid

[@defeatedskeptic311]

@@whatsinaname691 It is fine to have your own opinion, but he brings that up merely to bring up the question of whether quantity or proportion of people suffering from poverty is more important. I think this is a good philosophical question.

[@emilianosintarias7337]

It doesn't really matter though because capitalism made the classes marx was talking about relatively poorer, and today has made people relatively poorer. Absolute poverty is basically a biological measure, it isn't the social question, a worker today is poorer in society than a medieval king, unless he can get in a time machine and bring all his knowledge, vaccinations and fancy toys back to medieval times.

[@leehayes4019]

I also caught that part and wondered who is the "we" he specified.

[@masscreationbroadcasts]

1:03 The distinction between Private and Personal Property is deceptively solid. For example, is a KZbin channel REALLY personal property? Will it be seized by the revolution?

[@olivermcelwee374]

just look at what china is doing, even Australia lol

[@ZedXrdx]

It also conflicts with the idea of providing a service to someone. Marx also demonstrated this lack of comprehensive understanding throughout the labour theory of value.

[@milohoffman274]

@@ZedXrdx Yep. The personal/private property breaks down with totally simple examples such as: If I have a car and use it to get to work, it is person. But if I give someone a ride to the same workplace and charge them for the ride its is private and could be sized.

[@sumsarsiranen]

​@@milohoffman274 If you have a car and charge someone for the ride you own the means of production and are the worker. There is nothing to be seized. However if you were to own two taxi drivers who you had do taxi work in taxis owned by you. The taxis would be seized for the taxi drivers to do their job without you, the capitalist.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@@ZedXrdx That's not his, that was basically Riccardo, but Marx added to it. It explains a lot more than so called 'modern' (subjective) value theories

[@alanrobinson2087]

This was the best explanation of Marxism I’ve found in over 4 years of trying to get a better understanding of it. Thank you for putting in the effort to learn and teach!

[@MRCAB]

Man, your videos are so good.

[@griffenssfantasy2787]

I have just recently heard of Marxism and was extremely curious to what it was. I am not a 'political, statistical, religious..ect' person. In all honesty it's so complicated I can't understand most things in the slightest to even try to learn about it more. I have comprehension issues, learning disabilities, But you have managed to explain this in the simplest way possible that I understood everything that you said because not only did you read the words would you elaborated more on the words. Even examples at the end. Thank you❤️

[@th232r6]

Marxism is the road to poverty, slavery, famine and death. It is an ideology that builds walls to keep people in. Historically people risk all to escape Marxism, the lucky few are the most feared by leftist ideologue's.

[@richardjones9007]

With all due respect, you just heard of Marxism? Are you a teenager?

[@Thingsilikeabout]

Love your work brother . Keep growing

[@elpapichulo4046]

The extreme poverty rate is interesting. I mean what is extreme poverty? To me, it seems a big portion of the global south live in extreme poverty way more than 9% so my guess is on how these papers classify extreme poverty. Relatively speaking compared to 1800 it seems conditions have improved but I don't think that's a good enough for our modern society

[@brown9671]

Poverty is a wierd thing to measure. I don’t know if it’s measure of poverty in the whole world or poverty rates of the people in each country.

[@A_Box]

Ironically enough, most of it is thanks to the CPC (Communist Party of China).

[@Spudeaux]

Extreme poverty is measure of how well basic needs are met, e.g. food, water, shelter, etc, as opposed to what is usually measured, which would be wealth & income.

[@emilianosintarias7337]

poverty is relative, it doesn't make sense to compare it to the past. Instead we can use terms like economic development or deprivation to talk about things like hunger. Capitalism did what marx said it would, ruin many people, drive others into poverty, and make others rich. It also caused economic development. What we have seen since the mid twentieth century is that capitalism itself no longer causes economic development. It can, but so can any other system, as basically technology and education are what causes development.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

There is absolute and relative poverty. In absolute terms, yes ofcourse, people are better off than in 1850. But that's not really interesting. It's necessary for Capitalism to work that there is a market. So, you give people a bit extra wages every year, so they can buy products on the market. Without that, Capitalism stops in its tracks. The more interesting question is the relative one. That talks about the difference what the capitalists get and what the workers get. That gap actually keeps increasing and has for the last 40 years. Ofc I'm not talking about individual companies, but the class on the whole. We have seen enormous technical advancements, but the workers have not benefitted at all

[@Wowowowowowowo]

I hear Ryan's theme song in the beginning and my day get's a little better.

[@DF-dd5nf]

Thanks for your video. It is very useful and educating, I really enjoyed it. ❤🙏🍀

[@A_Box]

Hi. It is really a bummer that you left out the Economics of Marx. This is one of the fundamental reasons why Marx is worth paying attention to because you can actually make scientific models that not only model but predict reality. You really cannot get more scientific than that. Case in point: the declining rate of profit. Dr. Paul Cockshott, a former professor of computer science, has an excellent video about it: Look for "Why labour theory of value is right" and "The falling rate of profit" under the channel "Paul Cockshott". PS. I'm not posting links because KZbin may hide the comment.

[@lightfeather9953]

It's been 200 years of falling profit? Capitalism is going to end any day now then you must believe? I'm sure a computer scientist knows something that thousands of economists have failed to realize. Stop being so delusional.

[@A_Box]

@@lightfeather9953 Cockshott is just a voice. A lot of that he points out is out published out there. Yes, the rate of profit falling means that desperation grows in society. Have you taken a look around? Either Capitalism falls or it evolves into Fascism.

[@jonson856]

I dont know man, I think he theory of surplus value is wrong.

[@soulcapitalist6204]

100% of Marx's conjectures were debunked before he debuted them. For example, marxian TRPF crisis was debunked by ricardian business cycle before Marx graduated. 100%

[@Roboto129]

@@jonson856 Shut, I was raised anti-communist yet still believe surplus value to be correct. I am just a pragmatist that understands the World work with real humans with natural tendency to look out for themselves. Bill Gates is not about to make all his employees millionaires at his expense. That is just the way humans operate. My father was an even worst anti-communist and still believed the economic points Marx made were correct. He just understood 'that is how it is and can only be changed through abuse and violence', so no thanks.

[@sanghoonlee5171]

I love this guy for actually giving references for almost everything he explains.

[@hybridh9702]

yeah he is still cherry picking what he explains though to manipulate the narrative. be careful. watch longer videos.

[@__D10S__]

@@hybridh9702 or just read the source material lmao

[@soulcapitalist6204]

@@__D10S__ If marxists actually read what Marx proposed, there wouldn't be so many.

[@fsanges]

Advocating for the elimination of ideas based on religious, sexist, or racist biases differs from supporting totalitarianism. Similarly, establishing a classless society does not equate to endorsing totalitarian rule. It appears your viewpoint neglects the moral concerns associated with class structures. A diverse array of ideas can flourish without slavery or feudalism, just as they can in a society, not ruled by the bourgeoisie.

[@jonathanchavez2723]

25:55 So I appreciate the effort that you put into making this video and reading these texts, but I feel that you are really giving odd interpretations of what Marx is saying in these texts, especially with regard to this section on "Communism" and "Totalitarianism". I think It would be wise to maybe hear out some contemporary Marxists about what Marx is meaning by some of this stuff. I will also say you give odd framing when making a lot of your claims about Marxism. "Society that was meant to constrain freedom in any way that they believe would cause class oppression". If you mean to constrain the freedom of the Capitalist Class, then yes he is advocating for that, but that is a good thing in my opinion. They are a small minority that causes incredible suffering to the rest of the world and move against any form of real, genuine democracy. They shouldn't have freedom do exploit people, corrupt governments, or to pollute the planet. "forcing everyone to work equal amounts" "Forcing everyone to be paid equal amounts" These are really some contrived conclusions from the readings you have presented. No where in your evidence does he say "Force" people to do these things, and honestly your conclusions from these texts feel more as pre-determined conclusions that you are simply cherry picking evidence for to support your already decided view of Marxism. Your claim "Constraints on political freedom" interestingly doesn't have any text shown to support it, and I wonder why... Also, another claim "It's not the obvious conclusion that Marxism is inherently democratic" Marx & Engles both believed in democracy inherently and Socialism as well as communism are viewed to be ruled by the working people. This would be a democracy, and the society would be run, including industries, by the working people and in their service. Hence why nationalization of industries. Marx and Engles didn't describe parliamentary politics or different parties, not because they couldn't fit into the socialist society they were advocating for, but due to the fact that, how these societies would be governed would likely be predicated on their specific conditions, and that he's not a prophet that could know the best possibly way of organizing political activity and these governments in every country or scenario. C wright mills is not an influential Marxist. He's a very famous sociologist who is influenced by Marxism (Like most Sociologist), but not himself, a self-identified marxists. I'm deeply disappointed in your frankly, pretty out-there interpretations of marx's writings. I would highly recommend again, speaking with a marxists themselves about the subject.

[@jonathanchavez2723]

@Connor no, actually I usually trust people's that when they read Marx or fredrick Engles, that they will come to reasonable conclusions about the things they are saying. I have an issue with the completely out there conclusions and interpretations of Marx's words. Mind you, conclusions other marxists don't come to. It's down right weird some of the things he's claiming Marx means.

[@jacobroloff3504]

This comment really sums up why I don’t believe in democracy as anything more than a buzzword. You claim that suppressing the interests of the bourgeoisie and the ability for them to exploit people would be a “good” thing, but of course this has nothing to do with whether it’s the “democratic” thing. If you somehow believe that freedom stops being freedom the moment freedom is used to do “bad” things, then I don’t know what to tell you. All modern regimes will make pretenses to freedom and liberty, that’s the ideological meta, but of course there’s always some abridgment for the “common good”. No one just bans things because they flip a coin whether or not to ban them, they ban them because they believe they will result in bad things, including the collapse of the democracy itself. This makes your reasoning fundamentally not in a different category from any other liberal capitalist regime around the world that you so obviously believe that you are different from. Maybe you believe that you’re fundamentally different, because you’re objectively right about private property and that it necessarily determines exploitation. That doesn’t change the methods you would have to employ to preserve the material conditions you see as necessary for democracy. And now we’re back at square one, where all the socialist and communist regimes in the real world have to start. Of course the owners are a very small group, but what about their allies? Who’s in charge of identifying the allies of the bourgeoisie and the counterrevolutionaries and the dissidents?Could you just re-educate all of them? How would you force them to be re-educated, what will you do when people object to your solutions, how will you deal with these lesser traitors to the revolution? How will you deal with the anti-social elements of society, and the slackers and the people who mumble their dissatisfaction? What about all the things people say and do that don’t directly prop up capitalism, but support it ideologically, the libertarians, conservatives, liberals? How do you stamp out the wrongthink? Probably the same way every statist society that has ever existed had to deal with it. So now at the end of this experiment you’re either a dictatorship that holds onto a socialist title, transitioned into a liberal state, or just collapsed

[@dominicgunderson]

@@jacobroloff3504 Proletarian Democracy works perfectly well within the context of bourgeoisie suppression. They're the majority of people and would thus would get rid of private property and would diminish class through the equalization of society. "Who’s in charge of identifying the allies of the bourgeoisie and the counterrevolutionaries and the dissidents?Could you just re-educate all of them? How would you force them to be re-educated, what will you do when people object to your solutions, how will you deal with these lesser traitors to the revolution?" -- Well that's why I don't believe violent revolution will work. The majority have to be conscious and must rule as un-coercively as possible. "How will you deal with the anti-social elements of society, and the slackers and the people who mumble their dissatisfaction?" --You don't. If people don't want to work, they won't have to work. " What about all the things people say and do that don’t directly prop up capitalism, but support it ideologically, the libertarians, conservatives, liberals? How do you stamp out the wrongthink?" -- through education, not propaganda. The reality of a better, bourgeoning society being built around them will empirically destroy the main critiques of opposing ideologies. The truth will be self-evident.

[@jacobroloff3504]

@@dominicgunderson “You don’t. If people don’t want to work, they won’t have to work” I used to think horseshoe theory was dumb but now I feel like I’m arguing against an AnCap. Sort of reminds me of the free rider problem of the private production of defense, which Hoppe spent an entire book blithering about but not answering. If you don’t understand that all human societies of a certain size and level of sophistication are based fundamentally on coercion and force, institutionalized in a state to solve free rider problems, the prisoners dilemma, problems of cooperation related to game theory, then you’re just obviously starting from a place of ignorance. The idea that people will just be convinced by the evidence of your obviously superior system is proven false by the experiment we’ve been living in called the Information Age. For decades, people have had free and open access to the entirety of human knowledge via the internet, and they don’t use it to read Plato or Aristotle, they use it to post pictures of cats. At any point any curious ten year old could read a pdf of Das Kapital, or the history of the Paris commune, or the 1973 Chilean coup, or any other radicalizing information, and there’s a fringe minority who did and became communists, but nowhere near the majority or even a large minority. Some are even aware of all of that but aren’t communists. The reality is simply that unless you have some institutional curriculum that imprint in people early in their brain’s development to be socialists, like our modern propaganda education system convinces them to believe in an abstract notion of American civic duty, you’re not going to get this. And even then, it could only work with ideologies that are in some way compatible with peoples self interest. The Catholic Church had enormous, totalitarian control over Western Europe for centuries, and couldn’t convince people to follow Christian teachings and be non-violent. These people literally believed that they would go to hell for the sin of murder, and the murder rate was still, well, medieval. Under the principles of Christian self sacrifice and altruism, Europe was a primitive backwater until the creation of private property and subsequent industrial revolution. Because it was a system that was inherently based on selfishness

[@Onikame]

God dude, covering a topic like Marxism without showing bias is difficult for the best of us. I sincerely applaud you. You are a gift. Please keep it up!

[@Ocinneade345]

He was pretty biased toward neoliberalism

[@JordanX767]

@@Ocinneade345 Everything is biased towards something undesirable, unless it’s Orthodox Marxism. Got it.

[@Ocinneade345]

@@JordanX767 that’s absolutely not what I said.

[@JordanX767]

@@Ocinneade345 Where are the quotation marks in my comment? I never quoted you. Chill out.

[@DemigodoftheSea]

There's definitely some bias, he even admits there are other interpretations of Marx, but takes a firm stance against them based on very little.

[@KikomochiMendoza]

17:25 Im a bit confused on this part. Isnt the definition of the Bourgeoisie the Capital Owners and the Proletariat as Non-Capital Owners and the relationship between the two is that Proletariat exchange their labor to Bourgeoisie. So what is the Middle Class? Why are they distinct group when they either own capital or not. Perhaps they are the Petite Beourgeoisie? Small scale capital owners or self employed persons who neither sell their labor nor exploit laborers in accumulating capital?

[@leehayes4019]

Didnt those increases in workplace regulations come from the people fighting for them...

[@Dave_L]

@5:20 You bring it up with Locke but somewhat skirt around the issue when it comes to Marx. Just as Locke believed there was something of a person in the product of his labour, Marx intuitively felt that a worker who was not involved in all stages of production (such as the assembly line worker who only does one little part) was alienated from his labour... Thus alienation is not simply a material question of "who profits" from the labour or "who controls the working conditions" but rather a spiritual divorce from the act of creation. Marx read Locke but he also was also coming out of Romantic and especially German Idealism traditions and famously considered his writing to be the material inversion of the Hegelian dialectic of Spirit. Pax Hegel, the workers under capitalism essentially represented the Concrete and the bourgeoisie were the Abstract, as they owned the Capital but did none of the work and did not truly have their stamp on the creative act (in the Lockean sense), and so Marx's belief that capitalism was only a moment on the historical stage mirrored Hegel's idea that the wants of the concrete and the abstract would resolve into each other and transcend and synthesize into a new historical moment. Marx's self conception of somehow standing outside of this material history as a prognosticator similarly draws from Hegel's concept of the "great man of history" (which, for Hegel, was Napoleon... a force that stands outside of history and imposes himself upon it). These idealist (in the sense of philosophical idealism) positions became much more muted and subject to critique in Marx's writings post-1848... the Marx that emerged in his late writings was much more nuanced, circumspect and qualified and was thus much richer. Unfortunately, Marx's legacy on the the world is not his superior contribution (Grundrisse, Eighteenth Brumaire, Das Kapital etc) to social scientific thought, but his earlier and much less interesting revolutionary thinking (due in large part to the history of the Soviet Union and the Cold War).

[@hurtingmurphy]

This video was phenomenal.

[@cj4108]

Only just seeing this now. Your understanding, and presentation of, the topics you discuss, tends to be a breath of fresh air. Keep going.

[@a_lot-of_pp]

me when my idea of fresh air is the 19th century backalleys of london

[@rodmena3404]

Marx and Lenin or my two greatest heroes Groucho Marx and John Lennon

[@rasun7765]

Best KZbin channel

[@SuperGhettoBob]

I wish I could have had watched this when I was in college.

[@googlekonto2851]

To fail a basic course in political philosophy? My god

[@SuperGhettoBob]

@@googlekonto2851 You're talking to a jackass who studied for his exam on Napoleon by watching the movie Waterloo. So, yes, this would have been an improvement over the CliffsNotes version of Marx I read in college.

[@googlekonto2851]

@@SuperGhettoBob American University?

[@SuperGhettoBob]

@@googlekonto2851 Yes

[@Poopmannn]

@@SuperGhettoBob no you still would have failed after watching this

[@jackdolphy8965]

Thank you Ryan. As always your ultra clear spot on explanation for this topic is a must listen. As it’s been for each topic that you’ve taken on.

[@skaz1504]

I love your work so far, Ryan. Please keep it up.

[@lynpotter6471]

I think this video was made in good faith, so kudos for that. That said, it misses the mark in many key places despite getting much of the mundane stuff right. I appreciate the focus on the things Marx actually wrote, at least, but it is clear that there is some third party source provided some baseline. For example, around the 11:00 mark, Chapman says that it was popular in those times for intellectuals to criticize capitalism and put forth their own theory of communism or socialism. This isn't an outright lie, but the framing gives a very different impression as to what was actually going on; the problems inherent to capitalism were obvious and various people with enough money to avoid wage slavery spoke up about them. They didn't all give prescriptions for what to do instead, but capitalism was new and exciting and hadn't established the level of propaganda we have today. At 14:00, Chapman reads directly from Marx about windmills leading to feudalism and steam-mills leading to capitalism. However, he claims that Marx is saying that the invention of these modes of production inevitably leads to certain economic organization that makes the most sense. Marx is, instead, looking at what actually happened in history and simplifying it to begin making a larger point. Windmills enabled feudalism because, without them, processing that much excess food was not possible. Feudalism wasn't the only possible option, nor was it the one that made the most sense--rather, it could not have existed without some method of doing more labor in less time than in a simple agricultural society. The relation between the steam-mill and capitalism is the same. Capitalism wasn't the only possible option or, necessarily, the one that made the most sense. However, it was only made possible by the ability to multiply labor power using some advanced means of production. This misunderstanding seems to compound later in the video (`21:00) where Chapman says Marx veers into fortune telling. Perhaps this was in jest? Marx is simply stating what he thinks will happen based on the current situation in his time and the forces he sees at work. His method of analyzing this is based on what he has seen happen in the past. When Chapman reaches the quote "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs," he explains it as no one being able to keep the fruits of their own labor but instead submitting it to a communal pool where everyone then takes what they need. I suspect there was some unstated source that led to this jump. First, we must understand that Marx is only talking about publicly organized labor. If someone has a personal garden, for instance, they would not have to submit that food to a communal pool. However, if they worked at a publicly owned garden, the food produced from that publicly organized labor would itself become a public good. This differs from capitalism in that the food produced at a privately owned garden is then privately owned and must be sold to the worker even if they were the one whose labor produced it. At 26:45, the hidden source is made clear. Chapman says that Marx and Engels wanted to create a society that constrained freedom if that freedom would in any way lead to class inequality. If this sounds innocuous to you, consider this: We live in a society that constrains freedom if that freedom would in any way lead to murdering your grandmother. It sounds scary in the first half, but kind of like a good thing in the second, no? What Marx is on about isn't some B-tier movie where everyone conforms and has no personality. Marx is clear that some people may want to live more lavishly than others and that's fine. The only issue is when someone claims they are entitled to the labor of someone else. That is what it means to be unequal in class. An upper-class person lays claim to the labor of lower-class people and, under capitalism, partially compensates them for that labor. Thus, if someone is free to claim the labor of others, their freedom necessarily infringes on the freedom of those others. So such freedom must be curtailed if anyone is to be free at all. You can still own things and do stuff and be your whole weird self with an entire personality. At 28:00, I am lost. Chapman says that the society does not respect your opinions unless you're a socialist or communist and thus it is a totalitarian society. He seems to be saying that there is only one acceptable political affiliation. If you can't be some other political party, then it's totalitarian. For starters, this is in response to Marx outlining what a socialist society would look like. So, obviously, it is going to be shaped by socialist opinions. It seems like nonsense to then accuse that hypothetical society of being totalitarian for not kowtowing to the hypothetical bourgeoisie. Very quickly, Chapman goes on to say that Marx was against democracy and that he was encouraging a minority of people to overthrow the majority through non-democratic means. In truth, the proletariat can never be the minority. The bourgeoisie need to siphon many humans worth of labor to support their lifestyles, so there must be multiple proletarians to support each of them. The ratio will always be in favor of the proletariat, but they tend to lack the organization to avail themselves of that power. Instead, they're told to vote for this or that person from either class who will look out for the class interests of the bourgeoisie. Sometimes, democracy looks less like voting and more like the French Revolution. It isn't necessary for the proletariat to all be members of a communist or socialist party. As long as they look out for their own class interests, they will constitute a majority. Engel's acknowledges this in saying that the communists may not themselves be a majority, but the communists understand that they must look out for the entire proletariat--even the non-communist folks. At 30:00, we see why Marx insisted that communism must be international. Chapman says that Marx's predictions were wrong because we have workplace regulations now and the middle-class is not impoverished. In reality, we have workplace regulations because things got so bad that workers demanded them. They were a concession to appease the proletariat to stave off a more substantial revolution. You can only maim so many kids before people start getting antsy. Also, the poverty of the middle and lower classes is largely concentrated outside of the imperialist core. It's starting to reach the core now (see: rent in the U.S.), but everyone in that core got to live on the backs of laborers elsewhere in the world--even if they were relatively worse off than their neighbors within their home country. Chapman claims that we've experienced prosperity and that poverty is dropping and uses a graph showing that people are living on more than $2 a day and I'm pretty sure this isn't a joke that he's making and...I think I've made my point. I thought this was something it was not. Guess I'm the fool. Anyway, if you're trying to get an unbiased view on Marxism, this is not it. I don't know if such a thing exists on KZbin. Chapman's biases line up nicely with the U.S. status quo so he likely comes off as being unbiased to people in that area and probably some of Europe. However, he's clearly got some influence beyond the actual listed sources. I won't pretend I'm unbiased either, but I do seem to have a better handle on the material in question.

[@January-pt6ci]

I think there are some problems in your understanding of Marx. You derive private property from the state instead of deriving the form of the capitalist state from the relations of production. For Marx, dictatorship and democracy are not mutually exclusive but democracy is always grounded in class relations of production. So the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a totalitarian state, it is rather the beginning of the end of the state. Class struggle continues (Mao) in socialism and the bourgeoisie reappears in the party itself. All of what you call adapted Marxism make class struggle secondary, which amounts to a complete break with Marxism. And if you read the class struggle in France and the 18th Brumaire you can see sections where Marx talked about democracy both in its bourgeois form and it’s proletarian form depending on what class exercises dictatorship.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@Andrew Flint Yes, actually so called "modern economists" (so basically neo-classical? but there are still others too, so what does that word mean?) use marginal and subjective theories of value, which makes zero sense

[@SaceedAbul]

The state can’t be ended. Someone has to rule at the end of the day. Your basically asking people to become bots.

[@Bunny01879]

@@SaceedAbul human hierarchy is not natural. Same as money. And many other human constructs. Our society has always been built on divisions of labor. From the farm hands to the hunters to the builders. This does not mean people have to be controlled through a top down structure with huge power divides between the ruling classes and working classes. To put it simply, the world needs planners and people to execute those plans. Why are the planners held to God status while the workers starve all over the world? Both groups are needed. Karl shows how the planners slowly planned power away from workers. This power divide has allowed people to take advantage of the uneducated, poor, and disfranchised with little push back. He points out that a unified planner class and working class would increase productivity, relieve suffering, and give a unified purpose. What capitalism has helped bring about is the subjugation of people who wanted progress with promises of the scraps from the wealthy ruling class. It's why companies could make trillions during a pandemic while many workers were laid off. Marxism is an attempt to have both the planning classes and executing class to move together for the same 'progress' we were currently promised since currently we are actively fighting one another.

[@SaceedAbul]

@@Bunny01879 let’s stop there. Human are naturally hierarchical. Since all biology is. Every Lion pride has a king. Every monkey troop has an alpha. Every insect has a queen or a king. The fact that human have always had rulers and leaders. Shows we are hierarchical. The fact that you have twice as many female ancestors as male shows that the men fought and the winner took all the spoils. Every organization has a hierarchy. And it should. Should the scholar be treated with the level of legitimacy as the student? Should the engineer be consulted on medical issues the same as doctor ? No. Hierarchy is important because people are not equal. Some are smarter. Some are dumber. Some are weaker and some are stronger. In one organization a man may be at the top but in another maybe at the bottom due to his skill. This is the natural order of things. The fact that we even eat the animals and dominate the planet shows a hierarchy. And the fact that there are rulers shows inside the species there’s a hierarchy. In the cave man era it was no different then the animals fighting for the top positions. Now we do that with words. But that doesn’t mean the hierarchy is gone. Kings still exist. They just wear suits and call themselves CEOs sometimes these days.

[@tav5771]

@@SaceedAbul that's why Marxism-Leninism is the superior ideology

[@SnortsOfHappiness]

I love that you show the passages in the book itself... AESTHETIC.

[@alanfike]

I appreciate your neutrality with this explanation, and feel that I have a clearer understanding now.

[@Independent97]

Ryan Chapman should have a discussion with Dr. Richard Wolff

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

well, the problem is that Wolff is not Orthodox Marxist. He takes from Marxism what is relevant today. That's why he emphasising workers self-management, which is more Libertarian-socialist, and not 'state power' to run the economy. So this whole talk of state control over everything is really a product of the times in which Marx lived, where there was still slavery, serfdom, and only a small elite could even vote and work in politics

[@soulcapitalist6204]

​@@raymondhartmeijer9300 Wolff can't escape state autocracy. He just avoids commentary on it, being more passive with his aggression than Marx. For example, he is no innovator as to worker cooperative modes, he aims for the state to force businesses to operate in a unilateral worker coop mode of production which is based on idealism of Marx - that is Marx's suggested approach - versus the materialism of citizens - ie the liberal democracy which capitalist modes are universally based on.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@@soulcapitalist6204 I don’t see why that same liberal democracy couldn’t choose to make changes to the economic system, the aim is to increase democracy, by introducing it to the workplace, not first abolish democracy. For example, West- Germany introduced in 1976 a law that said half the board of directors of a company of 1000+ employees should be voted in by the workers. This can be seen as a step towards a more democratic economic system. Nowhere is it carved in stone that Socialism should be “ exactly like the USSR was” Socialist parties make their analysis on the basis of what is relevant today and see what policies can improve society

[@soulcapitalist6204]

@@raymondhartmeijer9300 We're not talking about referendum governments. We are discussing political ideologues who aim to force heterodox applications of democracy which are authoritarian. Democracy is not virtuous. Liberal democracy - democracy with the freedom of self determination through limits on state determination - is a virtue. Democracy without these limits as proposed by socialists is authoritarian. It is majority mandate. In rep democracies like Germany, it is 1 or 2 people making such a law, not public mandate at all. When I say Wolff can't escape the authoritarianism, but simply does not discuss it, you and these modern socialists are in the same spot. You propose an unethical role of state and Germany's legislation is no exception to that. It's a shade of gleichschaltung by the gleichschalters. Should I be impressed?

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@@soulcapitalist6204 it is mandated, as it has to pass a majority in parliament, which is directly voted in by the people as highest political body. I’m not suggesting abolishing that, no. You may call certain policies that go through parliament ‘authoritarian’ , I simply call it the organisation of society. And I don’t think Germany is such a bad country to live in. A society has to be organised, or it will fall into chaos and randomness, which wouldn’t serve people’s basic rights or opportunities in life

[@artbuck7709]

Wow. How very well done. How enlightening.

[@Gurci28]

“ In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity … society regulates production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. ” (Marx/Engels - The German Ideology) Source: grin publizieren

[@Garhunt05]

I doubt we'd like doctors like that.

[@quedtion_marks_kirby_modding]

Sounds like hell tbh.

[@TwoBs]

@@Garhunt05 Or any position/job for that matter. If anything, that type of society where nothing is exclusive would just cause people to only want to do the “good” things regardless if they have the skill for it or not - jobs that “pay good” or are “fun” to do, in their minds. The shitty jobs - the ones that pay less or aren’t as fun - would be skipped over. lol I mean, could you imagine … you’re calling to set up a meeting with an accountant to manage your finances, and they tell you “Oh, you’re in luck, we _just_ got this new guy on today that could use a new client.” - a guy that decided a couple hours earlier he wanted to be one because even though he was a great burger flipper at the local fast food joint, he was shit at managing his own money, so he wants to try to see if he can manage someone else’s. Or you’re going for an appointment at the doctor to have a biopsy done. You never see the same doctor, so it’s hard to have any bond with them to know if they even know anything about you or your medical history. You see a woman that worked as a doctor once or twice before in between all her other jobs she’s had, but today she decided she wanted to be a doctor again after messing up at the morgue down the street. However, she’s never done a biopsy before. Ah hell with it, she’s gonna’ wing it. Since this society doesn’t exclude anyone from any sphere of activity no matter what, the guy that just got done picking up his dog’s feces decided he is gonna’ help, too, because today he feels like it. Stuff like that is only good in theory, a nightmare in reality.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@@TwoBs obviously if a doctor performs an operation and is too clumsy that a patient dies unnecessary, that would still be considered a crime by neglegence. Marx didn't say our legal system would be abolished. Or what about certain permits you must own? Yes, I may be a taxi-driver and a psychologist depending on the day of the week, and perhaps cook dinners after work for others, but I still have to own a drivers license, a degree, and people must like what I cook, or they won't come back. The point Marx was making is that there should be more freedom, and not be restricted by a single job as in his time

[@TheSeeking2know]

Very important video as always, giving the floor to a useful expression of Marx's ideas to many who may not have ever read his works, but keep hearing him or variations of his ideas invoked. The explanation of "Property" at the beginning was so useful as a foundation for how Marx engaged with that concept. Just reading through the text you highlighted (and the text around that), it was eye-opening to see the terms that are used in so many ways in the modern context.

[@t00bgazer]

Now go read marx and realize this guy made a video deceiving people about marxism.

[@TheSeeking2know]

@@t00bgazer Please explain with specifics.

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

@@TheSeeking2know He did make an error though. In the video he defined Private proparty as capital, not personal belongings, which is correct. But at the end of the video he makes it look like Marx was advocating for no property at all, everything you make is for 'the society'. But that was not Marx' definition.

[@TheSeeking2know]

@@raymondhartmeijer9300 🤔

[@josephcoon5809]

There is a certain level of irony being a “materialist” while discussing something immaterial like “concepts.”

[@Tsskyx]

Poverty was reduced only because of gradual concessions. There was nothing compelling the capitalist class from sharing the fruits of their labor with the rest of the populace, other than the threat of revolution. So Marx was partially right, the conflict did evolve, though instead of becoming fully resolved, it became more diluted. The class oppression still exists, it's just been outsourced to the third world, as noted by Lenin. Modern corporations make buck exploiting people abroad, though attempts are being tried through ideology to bring this back to the first world too. This is why C. Wright Mills was so confused, he saw that economical class no longer plays the same role it used to, so obviously, the New Left must now focus on other things, such as culture. And this is how the left became alienated from economical struggles, and why the working class across the first world now turns to right-wing demagogues. In short, identity politics is completely, and I mean completely in every sense of the word, divorced form Marxism, and "cultural Marxism" is an outright oxymoron, since modern cultural philosophy is grounded in postmodernism, which explicitly rejects the modernist Marxist dialectic.

[@lightfeather9953]

That's why bill gates and warren buffet donate so much of their wealth? To avoid the threat of a communist revolution?

[@stevenbrassey3540]

I have 3 large issues with this. 1. no private property, means by businesses rather than individuals. 2. Skirting over Marx as an economist is nuts. He was THE economist and there is nothing in recent economics that dispels his economic prowess. 3. Therefore You’ve misunderstood this as totalitarianism as you have a liberal bias

[@charlesriley2717]

Honestly, these are somewhat minor points of contention in comparison to the amount of utter nonsense about marx that exists on the internet. While there is a clear bias, it's better than most videos explaining marxism from a large channel.

[@stevenbrassey3540]

@@charlesriley2717 no they’re not minor. They’re fundamental. Marx Das Capital is 1300 pages and is a detailed economic critique of capitalism which is referenced a few times in this paltry video.

[@xornxenophon3652]

Marxism is a brilliant analysis of capitalism and its mechanisms followed by absolutely bogus claims on how to do it better.

[@JordanX767]

It was a great analysis of Capitalism, more at the time of when Marx wrote his works.

[@jonson856]

Well, I think he (Marx) was wrong on the surplus value thing.

[@rmmmizan6817]

I have watched this video of yours twice with attention, and I especially thank you for your efforts as a Political Economist, poet and writer. I want to communicate with you about our joint effort to make the World a better place.

[@aaronburgess4442]

This is an excellent summary & analysis! I appreciate your work.

[@DaveMelton]

Absolutely love it! At last I can get raw facts about a subject without getting someone who's trying to convert me with a one sided argument or conversation.

[@SkwisgaarScampini]

@@devilslogic609marxism is evil

[@SkwisgaarScampini]

@@devilslogic609 I change my mind, you’re right

[@SkwisgaarScampini]

@@devilslogic609 I can already tell it is, thank you for convincing me brother

[@SkwisgaarScampini]

@@devilslogic609 🍻

[@soulcapitalist6204]

Especially refreshing that he's not droning on and on about greed like tankie videos.

[@frmm123]

This is excellent work, bravo.

[@DemigodoftheSea]

"To constrain freedom, in any way..." comes across as what I suspect to be poor word choice; to constrain freedom in this context would be like to say you are constraining the freedom of a nudist by enforcing public decency laws, or in modern context, it would be like saying you are constraining the freedom of businesses to do what they want by regulating them. To frame it like you did seems to imply that what they are doing is inherently bad, in the broader cultural context of "Freedom=Good" being the default. And to a lesser point, your statement of modern economists feels out of place, as there are still modern economists who support Marxism, or even just parts of it; Richard Wolff is one. Besides, it's a bit unfair to say capitalist economists disagree with Marxism when they, by definition, support thing Marx is criticizing. They aren't an authority nor have they totally debunked it and it comes across as though you're saying they have. And then you go to the totalitarianism description of Marxism which just isn't true. You even bring up yourself that the Communist Manifesto is propaganda, meant to inspire others, Marx explicitly says the worker is necessarily socialist, and you even bring up Marx's support of democracy. Your conclusion of authoritarianism is based solely on the fact that capitalism won't be allowed in the society, but how is that any different from making it unconstitutional to strip people of their rights? We don't give the beliefs of say, eugenics a platform in America politically, that is not oppression, that is protecting the rights they have as humans. Or hell, how is that different from a nation like Germany banning fascism or Fascist parties? More importantly, your argument seems to dismiss the idea that democracy can exist under such a system, and treat the system as binary authoritarian or democratic, which is a fallacious stance to take. The system intended is very clearly meant to be democratic, a rule of the people or proletariat. They don't go too deep into how those democratic processes would be handled, no, but that's not the point of the work written and you are instead making assumptions about it. As for news and education being controlled by a one-party system, this is where you have to understand that even within a party, there can be divisions of thought, and there lays room for multiple, simultaneous Communist parties. There can be cultural progressives and conservatives, and we saw this in the USSR, not to mention modern Marxists who openly advocate for the opposite policies. We can even point to modern examples of public broadcasting like the BBC, which is known to be fairly neutral. Not to mention Capitalist TV is just as bad, and just as biased when you enter the modern age of globalism, so it becomes a moot point that you can then handle democratically. And the moment you talk about modern politics, you go far off the rails. Not only do modern Marxists (speaking), very much hone in on class, but we advocate that workplace regulations don't go far enough, and by and large we are backsliding. What you described are stopgate measures that make it not inherently dangerous, but still do not give workers dignity. Your comments on poverty are also misleading, a we are seeing a distinct division of wealth, especially in America. The few with all the wealth control our political system and our lives, ordinary people have very little impact, whereas lobbyists hold all of it. No, people are not in extreme hunger-stricken poverty anymore, but modern poverty is not invalid. The rise of identity politics instead of class politics has been a disaster for the left, it has divided working people and turned us against one another, and made the left completely toothless in achieving anything, with liberals working as a ratchet for conservatives dragging America further to the right, and the same happening on a smaller scale worldwide. Your video started out great and I was going to praise you for your neutrality, with only a few mistakes of language, but then your video turns into you taking a firm stance on whether or not Marxism is democratic of authoritarian, and then essentially advocates for what modern Marxists should strive for. "One more disappointment" is right.

[@emilianosintarias7337]

I doubt a section on totalitarianism would be devoted to what is Jeffersonianism, despite the american revolution not waiting for a majority referendum. This video is a hack job.

[@DemigodoftheSea]

@@emilianosintarias7337 I didn't even catch that part, there was so much to criticize it went over my head that there's been a number of revolutions in history that don't wait for a goddamn democratic vote. Neoliberals are so convinced they are the ultimate good in the universe that they refuse to even entertain other points of view, or anything that isn't preceded by a vote... even when your voting system is run by the rich.

[@lvbest18]

On point

[@SurmaSampo]

If you can't vote against the interests of the state nor outside of the confines of a singular ideology then it isn't a democracy. Just like being able to elect some of the officials in a theocracy does not make for democracy.

[@lvbest18]

@@SurmaSampo in America you can’t Vote outside the two party system, a marxists party is even banned So by your definition America isn’t a democracy

[@GhostOnTheHalfShell]

The essence of Marxism is class conflict. Societies have classes with divergent and in some cases of antithetical interests. The concept of progress in historical itself was a product of his time. A system may collapse but what replaces it has no necessary “progress”. The nature of what replaced the collapse of early capitalism in so many nations tumbled through many short lived replacements, more often than not authoritarians took or wealth regained control. As Richard Wolff pointed out, all these societies lived in variations of authoritarianism; society lacked any cultural knowledge of an alternative

[@raymondhartmeijer9300]

True. Also, Capitalism itself for the longest time, was no global event. From the middle ages onwards, there were 'pockets' of capitalism that emerged for a while and then died out, and then tried again later somewhere else. At one point, only the imperial powers (that had colonies) could be considered capitalist, while the rest were not. So a revolution to a future economy can take centuries. We don't have to be dogmatic on 'theories', we can make little changes to the system ourselves in the here and now

[@vishnups6829]

This channel is gold.

[@mira_shindento]

When you said that eventually, Capitalism survived much longer and people lived much better than Marx predicted, it should be added that this is mostly because capitalists, pressured by their Marxists counterpart in their respective countries + the anxiety of a revolution, and the post-WWII USSR at the doorstep accepted to compromise leading to things such as social security, healthcare, in most European countries for instance.

[@malcolmfreeman1330]

not to mention the reformists and unions changing legislation that benefitted workers - or do you think they accepted those due to the fear/pressure of marxist revolution- like professor Richard Wolf eplains why Roosevelt raised taxes and did new deal to end depression in usa

[@Kedut]

I have a view issues with your statement at the end that poverty is shrinking and middle class is flourishing. The data u showed about poverty Shrinking is heavily misleading since it's arbitrary based on a 2$day basis wich if u don't take inflation into account will always show a shrinking result. also the wealth difference between the rich and poor is ever increasing and wages of working people have been very stagnant for the last 20 years so saying that the middle class is flourishing is really not true if u look at the data.

[@black.sasuke.uchiha]

Haven’t seen the channel before but I like that you are someone who reads a lot. I’ve never actually seen someone define specifically what Marxism is. I just know it’s part of that bubble with socialism, communism, Maoist Stalinist Leninist stuff. I subscribed.

[@Dominikmj]

I find it very unfortunate that this video starts quite well - with a reasonable depiction of Marx - but then takes a hard turn in focusing on Communism and puts Marx and Engels as autocratic activists. This is (sorry to say that so straight) pretty nonsense. The whole projection of socialism and communism has been theoretical and Marx (as the video is telling in a different context) using a crystal ball. Marx was for equal rights. For freedom. There is an aspect what the video doesn’t tell at all: the several books of Marx has been not all published as such. Instead these are a collection of published books, but also collection of articles and unpublished notes, which has been published after his death. That means, that not all text of Marx has been intended to be spread - and probably not even his final thoughts. We have to understand here: Marx has been an outspoken critic of capitalism. Yes. Even though (the video also misses to mention this) Marx has been giving capitalism the credit of economical growth (etc.). Also: Marx was not a politician- not an economist but first and foremost a philosopher. This is also a huge difference.

[@soulcapitalist6204]

Marx was a revolutionary. No position of Marx's reached the socratic standard of philosophy. He was a sophist fallacy artist and not any philosopher. As a revolutionary he indeed sought totalitarian and authoritarianian role of state and envisaged himself atop it: "At the soonest possible moment after the overthrow of the present governments, the Central Committee will come to Germany and will immediately convene a Congress, submitting to it the necessary proposals for the centralization of the workers’ clubs under a directorate established at the movement’s center of operations."

[@TrampMachine]

Also it might be usefull to seek out credible people on the subjects you talk about as they could provide more clarification. Marxists would say right now we live under a totalitarian dictatorship of capital, so what's the problem replacing it with a totalitarian dictatorship of labor? As it stands there's no democratic way out of capitalism. Also Marxists still do focus on class, just because a measure of poverty defined by an extremely powerful capitalist institution is falling isn't the whole picture. The wealthy of our time control so much more wealth than ever before with the exception of a few Emperors, and they use that wealth to systemically oppress and disadvantage working class people.

[@bionic_woman77]

Is that why China switched to a free market economy from Marxist-Lenininist and is now our competing superpower? No thanks! All Marxist economies fail.

[@TrampMachine]

@@bionic_woman77 They don't and that's a rather stupid statement. It shows you don't really understand what Marxism is, or the complicated nature of ideologies and markets. Capitalist economies fail all the time, I don't know if you know this but Western Europe, and the United States are not the whole world. Sometimes capitalist markets economies work and sometimes they don't. There's a few cases where socialist economies have been tremendously successful. The USSR went from a semi feudal peasant economy to a global superpower in astonishing time, all while providing the greatest expansion in human standard of living in modern history. But people compare it to the US and say it failed because they have no historical context or understanding that the US had a couple hundred years head start, as well as a great deal of expropriated wealth from slave labor. You can't compare the two. The economy of the USSR was far more impressive in terms of growth.

[@lightfeather9953]

@@TrampMachine Russia was rapidly growing and industrializing before the revolution. Communists repeat this backwards tsarist Russia myth to make the USSR sound like a savior. You can easily compare eastern bloc countries situation and growth to its neighbors. Estonia or Russian Karelia vs Finland. East vs West Germany, or vs Austria or Italy. Or for other socialist states, compare it to Taiwan or Hong Kong or Macau or south Korea or Singapore or Japan. The amount of cognitive dissonance needed to not see these obvious huge differences in outcome is obscene.

[@willumbermarchant5510]

Thank you. That was extremely useful and informative

[@thevoiceofthelost]

I'm a Communist who has been delving into, and researching assorted anti-capitalist theory for about a decade now, and some of your takes are quite a bit off the mark. I'm going to try to keep this concise, but I've got major ADHD brain worms, and i'm tired as all hell so it might veer off course. The first, and biggest mistake is the misrepresentation of an actual Communist society, which is classless, moneyless, and *stateless.* The point is to abolish class entirely, not to continue class dictatorship. And you misrepresent property as well, it was less about products and more about economic property that produces and distributes them, IE factories, warehouses, and the like. These would be held in common. People also get scared away by the whole "obligated to work" thing until you realize two things, the first thing that we all feel an obligation to work already. Even if you meet everyone's needs, people still feel the desire to do something productive, and to feel like they're not wasting their time, (Working under modern day capitalism certainly feels like a waste of time, and we'll get more to your take on modern Capitalism in a sec.) some of this will have to be directed towards socially necessary labor yes, but the rest after that would be what ever labor the person feels like doing including none at all. The second thing is the realization that unemployment and the like is a uniquely Capitalist problem, as is scarcity, and if we all pitched in, we would each only have to work a maximum of 16 hours a week. That calculation was made by Kropotkin, an Anarcho-Communist back in the early days of the russian revolution, so with the current rate of development, and with the advent of Automation (which may also serve as a catalyst for Communism anyways) we would all likely only have to work 8 hours a week. Compare that to our current 40-50-60+ hour work week and imagine what might best allow people a chance at self actualization.. Quite frankly, I see socially obligated work as taking the form of what we already do now, just less tiring, tedious, and you only have to do it an hour or two a day as opposed to eight. Even Anarchists organize themselves in this manner, and this does not have to be totalitarian in the slightest. One has to remember, that Marx and Engels were not static figures, and their views changed quite radically over the course of their careers, and while certain types of Communism emphasize some aspects, other types will emphasize different, often conflicting aspects. For instance, young Marx was often seen as more democratic and libertarian, and these are the aspects I most identify with myself personally, while later aspects are more authoritarian and state oriented. But even in the most state oriented aspects of Marxism, proletarian democracy, namely workplace democracy, still plays a major role. They were pessimistic about multi-party democracy specifically because there was a class character to elections, but the reality is that there still is, it has not disappeared, it simply became more subtle and manipulative. For instance, we have two parties in the US, and both fundamentally serve the interests of the ruling class. Both bend to similar corporate lobbies, both cater to big business in the economic realm, and both fundamentally support Capitalism, oppose unions, oppose Socialist inspired policies like universal healthcare, housing as a right, and higher wages despite all of these being extremely popular. The only difference is both parties invest in major marketing campaigns to try to convince us they are the lesser evil, and that they are the least corrupt compared to the other guy. Communists, including myself, do not see this as democracy, we continuously elect candidates that go back on their promises time and time again, Biden was elected because of what he wasn't, not because of what he could do. And even as he promised to adopt the demands of the progressives, he continues the policies of the Trump administration still, all the while he ignores the promised policies and adopts neo-liberal pro market "alternatives" in their place. Marx and Engels believed that the government would generally reflect it's economic structure, and while the liberals introduced freedoms and liberty to some extent, these were often subordinated to the main goal of a "free" market. So in other words, if you have a Capitalist structure, your political parties will be predominantly Capitalist in their ideologies, and they will all generally agree that Capitalism is good, impose their ideology on you, and then simply compete over how best to maintain it. So with that massive paragraph in mind, a Socialist society keeps all this in mind, that the politics reflect the economics. As such Communists usually believe that in order to have true democracy, we must first introduce common ownership of the means of production, *as well as* work place democracy of some kind. The state can nationalize industry, sure, but industry could also simply be owned by trade unions and confederations of worker owned cooperatives as well. But regardless of how common ownership is realized, the workers of this common industry *must* be able to exercise democracy in their workplaces, and from there they could then democratically influence the economy as a whole. This democratic control over the means of production would ultimately allow for true political democracy since one reflects the other.

[@thevoiceofthelost]

But all of the problems you see with Communism are already happening within Capitalist societies, we have a small selection of different flavors of the same party, we have twenty different news outlets ran by 6 major conglomerates, who all often say the exact same things and push the exact same ideologies and very often spin narratives to serve liberal A, or liberal B, (you should look up a clip that compares all the different news agencies, overlapping them and showing how all of them share roughly the same scripts and air the same stories) we are all subject to roughly the same ideologically guided education that often times serves to reinforce our believe or at least compliance in the system, in some places now, teaching a more nuanced view of Communism is literally banned even. And running on a platform that questions the liberal assertion is political suicide. (or in some cases literal suicide. Assassination, coup, invasion, blockade, and imprisonment are all legitimate concerns, and if you don't believe that, look at our lengthy list of interventions in Latin America as well as other places.) Almost all workplaces are run in this top down, centralized, autocratic and often totalitarian manner, so our "freedom" to choose where we work is often akin to "choosing" which type of poison you would like to drink. Capitalists have the freedom to influence our politics, set our wages, profit off of our labor, and bust our unions. We theoretically have the same freedoms, but we do not have the money, power, property, or influence to exercise them. The Bourgeoisie, in other words, have the freedom to oppress, exploit, manipulate, bribe, lie, cheat, steal, and fire us on a whim. Their freedoms directly restrict our freedoms as well as our options. Our agency is kept in tact, sure, but the options we can choose with said agency are extremely limited. Some types of freedom are incompatible with others, and some types of freedom directly oppose others. Now last but not least, your take on modern Capitalism. Sure, we have regulations now, that many big name companies either don't follow anyways, or outsource overseas to avoid. Working is still anything but a pleasant experience for the vast majority of people I even vaguely know, that includes online, in my town, in the places I've visited, as well as friends and family. I only know two people who can honestly say they enjoy their work. There's quite a few statistics that show the majority of Americans are unhappy with their work. Capitalism only regulates itself enough to survive. Without regulation, it falls apart because Capitalism requires the scaffold of the state to keep it upright. I would argue that we are experiencing the increased poverty, and I argue this through relational wealth. To avoid word salad I'm simply going to explain it with a quote that I quite liked. "Before, our grandparents were lucky to have one TV in their house, and the rich were satisfied with a private plane. Today I can comfortably own three plasma screen TVs, but the rich have fucking rocket ships." So while our overall wealth has been steadily increasing, the wealth of the ruling class has been increasing exponentially higher than the baseline. We are now at the point where a few thousand people own half of the entire world's wealth. That is quite frankly insane to think about, isn't it? The middle class has been gradually shrinking for a while now, and crises like 2008, and now the latest pandemic, have served as the largest upward transfers of wealth in our history. The government bailed out big business and left the workers behind for the most part, and the effects of even the 2008 crash are still being felt to this day all over the world. And furthermore, we've alleviated absolute poverty, or at least the world bank's definition of it, but that's no great achievement considering that as a Capitalist institution, the World Bank's definition of poverty is of course skewed to serve an ideological and propaganda purpose. I would consider a sweatshop worker in Bangladesh who makes the equivalent buying power of 3-5 dollars a day absolutely poor as well, or at least bordering on it. When a very large portion of the global south still has food insecurity, spotty access to clean water, and are still living in shacks, it doesn't matter if they make enough to not technically be considered "absolutely poor," because that is still extreme poverty, and it still kills people every single day. Modern Marxists very much have not abandoned class as a subject, it is very much still relevant. Especially in the wake of the pandemic, and how workers were treated during that. So many big name companies that employ millions of workers still treat their workers like expendable garbage, some unemployment is maintained in order to preserve the reserve army of labor and keep the value of individual workers low, and regulations are often skirted, or ignored altogether with limited consequence. Critical Theory is a much more faithful evolution of Marxism, as I would personally argue that the New Left movement is an evolutionary dead end that leads to nothing but electoralism and woke and/or symbolic spectacles over any tangible changes to the system. And one last thing, the vast majority of Communists today do not advocate for equality of outcome, in fact many influential Marxists believe more in equality of opportunity and freedom, and less so equality of outcome. I believe that people should truly be free to build their lives how they see fit, we should be free to exercise democratic control over where we work. And most importantly, freedom isn't freedom if it's not applied universally. Freedom of movement or speech, or association doesn't apply to you if you're stuck in a crime ridden, drug addicted, poverty striken ghetto where your only opportunities are retail, fast food, or crime. Everyone should be given the same tools and resources so that they can build their lives how they see fit, and we absolutely can build full satisfying lives without having to step on the backs of others. There are negative freedoms and positive freedoms. We should all be free from disease, homelessness, hunger, and coercion. So if we must limit the freedoms of exploitation, bribery, austerity, and curtail the totalitarian control over the economy by the ruling class in order to allow the freedoms of the every day men and women to be actualized, than so be it. Now, I've long since gotten over my arguing online phase i like to think, and I usually don't engage with trying to argue online, but you seem like you aren't closed minded. I dunno why I took all this time to compose such a scatterbrained comment, but I simply wish to try to iron out what I see as misconceptions. Either way, that's just my two cents which admittedly looks more like two dollars worth. Yeah, I'm well aware nobody's gonna read all that, but I'm content 👌

[@cyberneticbutterfly8506]

The objections to American democracy doesn't seem to require any socialist or communist alternative though. I live in Norway, where we have vibrant capitalism with some socialist parties having a lot of influence but the government itself isn't communist or socialist. Here our democracy doesn't seem to have the American problems because we have +- 7 parties in parliament and we don't have the same winner-takes-all situation as America has. The real problem with the American democracy is the two-party system, and that is what makes Presidents run on what they aren't rather than what they are. The way I see it we should have a major American campaign by the people demanding a constitutional amendment that forces a +- 7 party system as people can't remember what 14 or 55 parties even stand for but +-7 is about what people can be expected to know the differences between. This way people can get a conservative party without compromising their principles in terms of income inequality, if you have some conservative parties that are better at that than others. Over time extreme positions get pushed out to the wing parties and the society in general becomes incremental and moderate. Assuming the constitutional amendment is worded well.

[@thevoiceofthelost]

@@cyberneticbutterfly8506 Social democracies wont last, they never do. We were once a social democracy, and now look at us. And if i'm not mistaken, you nordic countries have your own issues to deal with. Pretty sure I heard of a wave of austerity measures not too long ago. I dunno, maybe I'm mistaken, since I don't typically pay too much attention to the nordic countries. I do definitely recall hearing of mile long food lines in Finland, however. Either way, Democracy is at odds with Capitalism, and without a powerful Communist state to compete with, the international Bourgeoise has no reason to tolerate Social Democracies anymore. Just be glad you're not in the global south, because if you were it wouldn't matter if you were Communist or Social Democrats, you'd still get blockaded or even couped by America. Be glad you're in Europe. I concede that I'd rather live where you are than where I am, but I am skeptical about your "vibrant" Capitalism. You can not properly democratize something that is inherently totalitarian, and you can not humanize something that is meant for class domination. No matter how much you'd like to. But I would argue that it is the Socialist elements within your government that are doing the most good, and you would do a lot better were there more Socialist elements. If I recall, it's required for some big companies to have up to 49% worker ownership, that's great. Good job, better than here by a long shot. But why not increase it to 100? I see no reason to cling onto a fundamentally domineering system that places artificial barriers in place and blocks humanity's true potential. Social Democracy is less about reforming Capitalism into something better (like it used to be) and more about saving Capitalism from itself and clinging onto it like a overgrown child who's too scared to leave the nest. More parties are great and all, but until there's more economic democracy, any political democracy you may have disproportionately serves the ruling class, I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Politics reflects the economics, and that sure as hell is seen here where I am. Hell we wont even elect a milktoast Social Democrat here, even THAT is too radical for this disgusting neo-liberal Capitalist system. So even if YOUR Social Democracy is working just fine, the only way out for us IS Socialism with a capital S. Not your Social Democrat parties.

[@DFWNites]

Your objections clarify the Marxist meditative mindset that lets people see all material goods as secretly-made-of-stolen-blood, which lets them feel perceptive, and very, very brave for defying the evil monsters masquerading as shopkeepers and bankers.

[@cyberneticbutterfly8506]

@@thevoiceofthelost I've seen no signs of austerity nor heard of any. Maybe it was some technical budget crisis thing in the parliament I missed, that was talked about in the serious tone that you'd think society is falling apart? -- To say that Social democracies don't last I can't simply take your word for. No societies last forever hence all societies are essentially *treading water* as long as they can. The question is of our Social democracy here is: 1) A *better society* while it lasts than the competing societies. 2) Can tread water for a long time. -- I seen no signs that the social democratic traits of the society is pulling it back. -- Whether by capitalism or communism it is in human nature to have a ruling elite. Even trying to not have one would presume human beings physically preventing the ambitious who want to rule from doing so. Hence whether in communism or capitalism you would have to solve the problem of having a ruling elite in some way. -- I see the way we do it now, by trying to fine tune a rules and regulation border the right way to do it. Although some countries like America fail horribly at this balancing act *we don't* so it seems the right way. -- We'll keep treading water trying to keep our social democratic society going as long as it can. Your alternative societies will *ALL* be in the same situation of being a temporary society. Will those be as good societies as mine? Will they be as long lasting? I have doubts.

[@natas12rm]

We didn't experience the increased poverty of the middle class? Wtf? The CEOs of companies make 351 times the wage of a worker. The financial crisis of 1970, 2006, 2022. It may not of all came at once but they have drained the middle class. We have 2,667 billionaires. The middle class went from 61% to 50% from 1970 until now. And that is being generous.

[@lightfeather9953]

Median wages have gone up and up. Pointing at blips on the overall long term trend of steady strong economic growth and calling it a failure is missing the forest by looking at a few dead trees. It's not even an apples to apples comparison to look at Americans of decades ago. Tens of millions of immigrants have moved to the USA and increased their wages a lot by doing so even if many of them are working class. That growing working class size doesn't mean the Americans who were middle class have moved down. You clearly haven't actually taken an honest look at income mobility statistics. There's nothing to suggest that Americans from decades ago are poorer. Household sizes have decreased significantly which affects household income.

[@stenbom]

@@lightfeather9953 Conflating median wages and the purchasing power of the working class is indigenous at best. The purchasing power of the working class has not moved an inch since the early 60s.

[@soulcapitalist6204]

Middle class is less due to poor immigrants being welcomed in different proportions than before. Measuring middle class is not economic/scientific, but rather just leftist populist demagogy of the fact there's a median performance in economies.

[@ColGesso]

You think the middle class today is less materially prosperous than the middle class in the 1800’s? Lol

[@ColGesso]

@@stenbom completely indigenous, I agree.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Marx mentioned depreciation 35 times in Das Kapital. He wrote about the depreciation of Machinery, Money and Morality. He did not distinguish between Capital Goods and Consumer Goods. Of course before 1884 consumers did not buy automobiles and air conditioners and televisions. But today our brilliant economists do not talk about the depreciation of durable consumer goods or planned obsolescence. The term e-waste did not exist when I went to college for Electrical Engineering. Economists hardly mention the Net Domestic Product equation. These nitwits subtract the depreciation of durable capital goods like industrial robots and 18-wheel trucks but ignore air conditioners and washing machines. We have been running the planet on defective algebra since WWII. The concept of GNP/GDP was developed shortly before the war. The Great Acceleration that followed the war caused GDP to skyrocket but the consumer depreciation due to all of the junk manufactured has never been subtracted. So we have global warming and a wrecked planet. Marx is just a bit obsolete.

[@itsmemouha2811]

Saying marxist communism is totalitarian in this context is the same as saying that the abolition of slavery is totalitarian. Using your logic, we could say that western countries are totalitarian because they don't allow us to buy and sell slaves. it's just absurd.

[@jaakkopitkanen7734]

Thank you for the interesting video. It does have one giant problem/inaccuracy/misunderstanding in it, so let me point it out: you misunderstand what Marx means by private property and abolishment of private property. Arguments: 1. Private property, what does it mean for Marx. At least not what Locke means, unlike you claim,. Lockes Labour mixing argument is interesting, but this is not what Marx means by private property or his wish to abolish private property. Proof: For example Marx states that “in capitalism private property has already been abolished for nine-tenths of the population." I’m very sure he didn’t mean the picked apples or sown shirts of the working class didn't exist. No, it should be clear that what Marx means by private property is private capital: means of production like factories and ownership in them like stocks. So rest assured Marx isn’t going to come and steal the shirt off your back and then declare that that is the just thing to do. It should be also clear from the fact that he wants to abolish private property. If private property is capital, it is the main way a capitalist can steal the workers wealth. Im the case of ownership of apples (at least apples picked by one's-self) there is no similar case or argument to be found. I seriously wonder as you have read a lot of Marx for this video, how you came away with such a wrong conception of the meaning of “private property” for Marx. 2. One could very well ask, if Marx didn’t mean ownership of your shirt of your apples, why did he also want to abolish trade? (I take it must be obvious to everyone why agriculture (especially ownership of land) and transport are forms of capital. The answer is quite simple: trading in surplus goods turns to capital. So if you sow a shirt and sell it, no problem. But if you hire 100 people to pick apples, sell them and make a profit off of their work, the apples also become a part of capital. This is what Marx thought a problem. 3. Defining Marxism just through the dynamic of oppressed and oppressors is far too vague. This dynamic goes for liberalism as well: The nobility are the oppressors in feudalism and the merchants the oppressed, so we need a revolution (f.ex. the French Revolution) to liberate itself. Yet is seems quite clear liberalism is not a form of Marxism. Perhaps add workers exploitation through private ownership of the means of production to your definition. Would make it a more valid definition.

[@nautivic5679]

Video was marred by error, but I have a criticism of the end specifically. All modes of production are predicated on the violent overthrow of those systems which came before; the bourgeoisie grew into an antagonistic relationship with the nobility & aristocracy, resulting in violent revolution. The resulting relations that emerged therefrom were not mediated by a democratically constituted plurality, but from a minority who seized the apparatuses of state power and perfecting them as a means of repression through processes of centralization. Moreover, the modern bourgeoisie grew from the theft of land and productive forces in what is called "primitive accumulation". Therefore, the capitalist mode of production too, according to your own understanding, is totalitarian. It is also important to understand political power as a superstructural phenomenon which is necessarily contingent upon the base. Can people dissatisfied with capitalism peacefully vote in feudal relations? No, not only because of the violent nature of the bourgeois dictatorship, but also because of the development of productive forces, how those forces have been centralized by capital, the importance of the world market, the dissolution of the conditions of artisanal production, etc. In short, we are constrained by the given conditions of economic life, and the institutions arising therefrom - while necessary for the maintenance of those relations and the preservation of bourgeois hegemony - cannot alone force a break with the base.

[@BozheTsaryaKhrani]

so he said the owners are oppressing the workers and to solve that let the government actually do the same thats some logic

[@christopherbettridge]

That would make absolutely no sense. You don't keep the same bodies and institutions which comprise the current government, which exists for the benefit of allowing the market to function. You alter the systems governing the relationships between the means of market needs for the maintenance and wellbeing of a population who are the themselves the governing body and which then allows for decisions to be made for human life to flourish which are no longer merely market oriented, their only function the generation of profits, but for the generation of commodities for consumption and utility, in whatever fashion is required but without an overriding motivation of greed. Marx implies an extreme set of strictures to ensure that the state governs in a doctrinaire manner which is inalterable, and if that's true, it's an untenable means of coercive control which is where I am feeling some of these logical inconsistencies are being seen; but I don't think he ever meant to ultimately have a communal system result in merely creating a differing mechanism and ideology for the reiteration of oppression by other modes and means! No one could set out with the objective of recreating injustice because they were appalled by injustice without being malignantly or messianically grandiose, no; it would have been such a glaring inconsistency that none but madmen would have thought it anything but ludicrous pomposity and since he follows quite clear and empirically understandable methods of inquiry that one can rebuke for erring in foresight or such, or repudiate by such methods also the economic ideas he propounded, but not simply ignore as impossible of inquiry altogether. I'm certain another has said much the same already. I hope some small fragment of this illuminates something for you, anyways. Thank you for your time

[@kamarovcliffordsky3458]

There seems to be a lot of bias in favour of the Capitalist definition of 'democracy' in a lot of your views of Marx. You claim Communism is inherently totalitarian because of this view, that democracy can only exist in a society that takes on Liberal ideas of multi party, Capitalist organised systems. Socialism and by extension Communism is inherently democratic because it's about mutual co-operation of the organisation of labour and society as a whole. Yes the Capitalist class and those that support them are discriminated against in the aftermath of a revolution, but this discrimination takes on the form of judicial punishment for the morally abhorrent act of exploiting someone for material gain, if you think these people shouldn't be punished for such acts then I'd love to know what your view is of common law in general and why you think such a crime should go unpunished. The fact of the matter is the working class will always be subservient to the Capitalist class so long as that Capitalist class exists, history has shown that no matter how much you regulate Capitalism they will always control the majority power, because as soon as that regulation goes past the point that they view as 'acceptable' to their profit margin, they use violence and misinformation to revert that regulation, which is exactly why 'Democratic Socialism' doesn't work in the long term.

[@communistspectre1984]

The first half of the video is good, but starting at 27:49 he is extremely biased.

[@dominicgunderson]

Right? That's when the video loses any "objectivity" it might have had and becomes straight up disinformation.

[@ramonzeiro]

His description of private property at the beginning of the video is also a little distorted and simplistic. "Accumulating private property" does not make any sense

[@EKNYR]

@@ramonzeiro this is probably the least biased view of Marx I have seen on KZbin. The only ones I see angry in the comments are Marxists, which generally means it’s spot on. No one is claiming he’s wrong, they’re just nitpicking for the most part.

[@Who-vt9oh]

I think your assertion that Marx advocated for totalitarianism is largely baseless. Marx held up the Paris commune, which you didn't even mention, as the model for post-capitalist possibilities, and I don't think anyone would describe the Paris commune as totalitarian.

[@Euthyphro]

Yeah, this video strikes me like anti Marxist propaganda… being against Marx is fine, but why would you go around telling your audience he was pro totalitarian? Pretty suss

[@ColorMatching]

After the Paris Commune, The Communist Manifesto was edited. Marx changed his mind on the proletariat capturing the state to transition to Lower Phase Communism, or Socialism. Ryan glossed over that important bit for some reason...

[@JordanX767]

@@Euthyphro LOL. If it isn’t orthodox Marxism, then it must be propaganda. Sure buddy.

[@JordanX767]

In a perfect world with no corruption, maybe it wouldn’t be Totalitarian, but up until now there’s never been an instance in history where corruption hasn’t popped up in Communist and post-Communist societies. Let alone any society.

[@ColorMatching]

@@JordanX767 you're off the mark, my guy.

[@Kriegerdammerung]

I will have many segments of this video written on notebooks!!! This is the best!!! I predict I will watch this video many times more!!!