This is exactly the kind of economy I would expect out of billionaires who are trying to destroy the middle class and bring back Company Towns. This is what 19th century robber-baron capitalism looks like, not the kind you were taught by Elmer Fudd.
More people should read Marx. Even if you don’t take everything he says, much of what he writes can be directly applied to today and can help people make sense of their current situations.
Id love to see people apply dialectical materialism to their life and society and still think “yeah but there are still good things about capitalists siphoning value out of worker’s labor!”
I mean if you dont disagree with Marx on some stuff you’re not a marxist, but yeah I agree with your reply to the implications
Can you recommend a book to start?
Capital is Marxism, plainly, but I’m obviously not going to recommend that to start. Instead, if you want to be more well-read than 90% of people, read Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price, and Profit. You can find these on the Marxist Internet Archive for free: http://marxists.org/
Thanks, I’ll have a look at that.
No problem! There are a ton of useful works, the Manifesto of the Communist Party is fun and Principles of Communism is a good FAQ too, but VPP and WLaC make up the best 1-2 punch of Marxism you can get.
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Kinda agree, as Marx’s critique of Liberalism/Capitalism is top-notch. However, the texts are so hard to read and it feels like you need an university degree to even be able to finish or grasp some of them.
He helped build it, he shouldn’t be that surprised.
there’s certainly no reason to ever give a whit of credit (no pun intended) to anything any financier ever says. The other day there was a muppet on the radio rambling about how if the Canadian government limits interest rates to 35% as they’re discussing doing, banks won’t be able to make enough money to be able to loan it out. Usury is anything above 3%, just in case you didn’t know. Now the entire culture is usurious; usury is the standard, ergo we don’t use the word any more.
I used that word against BoA for a $35 overdraft on half a dunks coffee. It felt apt at the time but I’m pretty sure nobody knew what it meant.
With all due respect it was not so apt as usury is specifically charging interest, not fees.
Interest is just fees with more steps.
Most of the evil in this world comes from stupidity and simplistic thinking. They believe in these simple rules that seem fair and right in some ideal scenario but don’t consider the emergent effects of the laws and rules that capitalist institutions will exploit and erode. They want to believe in some kind of religion.
Late Stage Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, pretty much textbook.
It’s not late stage capitalism or crony capitalism or über capitalsm: it’s capitalism.
That’s what “late stage capitalism” means though. Not some distinct subset of capitalism, just the inevitable result of capitalism + time. The later you get, the more extreme the inherent problems become. Late stage capitalism is a declaration of degree, not type.
Needs a good bottom text: am I a joke to you
Funny cause Henry George keeps hitting the nail on the head from over a century ago.
Textbooks don’t do stuff other than be expensive for no damn reason.
Textbooks are pretty nice to learn things on your own or as a supplement to classes. If you can find free ones online or at a library, definitely worth it. Full price, not so much.
Edit: I know this post is about economics textbooks though, so I can’t speak on those. However, I do think textbooks in general are a great resource that tends to get underappreciated.
You think economics picture books would be a better idea?
What exactly did Marx predict that is true today? Was it something like the rise of subscription services or more like general increasing inequality under capitalism?
We are truly on the cusp of socialist revolution just like Marx said. If we extrapolate the lemmygrad instance to the rest of the world, that means it’s only a couple years max until we behead those pesky billionaires starting with wrren bffet. It’s simple math if you read this philosophers textbook " Das Kapital."
Not really sure what the point of your comment is, it comes off as anti-Marx but doesn’t really address any of the observations Marx made. It’s like a soyjack in comment form.
OK I’ll be serious for a second. The comment was ant-Marx. I think that the idea that capitalism would inevitably lead to a socialist revolution is not a real thing. I’m looking at all the capitalist western countries and see that there is no real need or even desire for people to overhaul the whole financial and governmental systems. Although socialists are becoming more prominent over the years especially on the internet, I believe that this is only relegated to the internet. The only thing close to socialism that we have is Bernie Sanders and he’s not really a powerful politician so others would probably not emulate him in the future.
You can think that this is a cope or a soyjack-like post all you want, but at least I live in the real world where we’re not waiting for a fantasy revolution that would make us work in socialist utopias where everyone is a farmer in a small garden or a hair stylist or whatever the fuck people thing it’s gonna be like. I know the issues that would plague something like socialism or communism and know that capitalism solves all the problems there. Just look at the USSR in their last years and how much the US was outpacing them in terms of technology and production. The quality of life in capitalist countries was and still is leagues above any socialist or communist countries.
I can understand when people criticize the current system we have since it’s 100% not perfect. But to just call for a socialist revolution instead of better methods of regulation and closing loops as we discover them is just stupid.
And lastly, the post is pretty stupid on another level since the “woes of capitalism” are there because of events that mess up global trade like the pandemic or the current Houthi attacks on the red sea, when you know for a fact that any country that’s not extremely closed off and protectionist would be just as impacted.
Yea, I was right, you genuinely don’t understand Marx nor what Marxists are talking about. If you did, you’d be making coherent points and not randomly attacking strawmen you’ve created.
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The collapse of Capitalism doesn’t necessitate Socialist revolution. It’s up to Socialists to try to push for that, but Capitalism collapsing doesn’t necessitate Socialism’s rise.
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There remains to be an increasing need for Socialism as exploitation rises, both in developed countries and the global south. Competition drives increased exploitation of Workers, and we observe this in increased disparity.
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Socialism is rising in popularity not just online, but in real life, if polls are to be believed.
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Nobody thinks Socialism would look like what you’re describing, it’s not going to be a bunch of dissonant communes. Worker councils running things and democratically deciding production without a Capitalist doesn’t mean things take the form of hippie Communes.
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What problems come from Socialism and how does Capitalism solve them? You made this point without actually elaborating on it.
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The USSR, during its time, was a developing country. That’s like comparing America to Brazil and saying quality of life is better in America. No shit, America is a developed country. I don’t even think the USSR is a good example of what Socialists want, this point is just terrible.
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Correct, developed countries have better quality of life than developing countries. Can you tie this to mode of production, or is this just a non-sequitor?
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What makes regulations and closing loopholes better than restructuring society to be more democratic and remove rent-seeking?
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The woes of Capitalism include inherent structural flaws like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, rising disparity, and exploitation of Workers at the hands of Capitalists. Additionally, Capitalism is fundamentally anti-democratic.
That’s what I mean, this is just a soyjack. You don’t have any actual points, just a field of strawmen and no understanding of Marx or Marxism. You’d do well to read Marx like the meme suggests.
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Yea and mr marx did a REAL great job of predicting how his system would turn out…
Well he died in 1883. A little bit before modern economics. But he did do a decent job predicting and observing how private wealth and capital accumulation drives inequality.
Unironically yes
Sending assassins after someone is generally a good indicator that you’re not following their ideas anymore
