/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2860156]

Marx was a bad man. The reactionaries say he is bad because his ideas inspired people like the Soviets that caused a great deal of suffering. The counter to this would be to say that even if his ideas have had a bad influence or are "impractical", they still give us important insight into our lives or the "human condition" . . . but this is wrong. His ideas are fundamentally bad.

Marx's hero was Spartacus, a man who bravely lead a slave rebellion against Rome. He greatly admired Shelley, a romantic poet with inclinations for left-wing politics. I think Marx's ideas are romantic in their core, despite his scientific aspirations and his attempt to establish a coherent system of thought.

Marx (and all subsequent Marxist "intellectuals") are members of the bourgeoisie who make it their life purpose to remind the working class how miserable they are. Marxism is a system of thought that divides society into "classes" and favors the lower class as the oppressed and exploited underdogs.

Marx makes a Prometheus (a favorite hero of Shelley's) of the Working Man. The Working Man experiences his entire existence as being chained up by Capital, by the institution of private property, by wage slavery, etc., he is continually having his liver torn out by "Alienation". But here's the catch -- there's a hope of being freed, of being unchained. Right when your existence seems absolutely unbearable, there's a glimmer of hope in "The Revolution", the thought that you might be unchained!
This is insidious thought. It is as if Marx opened a Pandora's Box unleashing his "alienation" and "exploitation" on all of us, and in the bottom of the box is the worse torture of all - Hope.

[Anonymous No.2860158]

So we're taught to lie on the side of the cliff chained, and weight for the "Materialist Conception of History" to takes its due course and free us from our bondage. Did anyone stop to think that if you teach a man to suffer passively like and this and experience himself as a slave that it would only lead him to self-loathing and despair, and that that in turn would hinder any attempt at acquiring his freedom? How is the Working Class supposed to free itself if it's taught to think of itself in awful terms? It doesn't have enough self-esteem . . . I honestly think that Marxism represents the hidden thoughts of the Bourgeoisie -- it's the Bourgeoisie that feels themselves as "alienated", it's the Bourgeoisie that think of the Workers as exploited wage slaves. The vast majority of Working Man seem to be busy worrying about regular things like taxes and buying shit for their kids to be bothered about "alienation" -- but, ah, this is where Marx pipes in with his "Class Consciousness", these kinds of Working Men are manipulated by the Bourgeoisie into forgetting their alienation, and so in order to free himself of Bourgeois delusions the working man must become "Class Conscious", he must experience alienation. What this really means is that - the working man must develop these Bourgeois pretensions that Marx had and others like the Frankfurt school, these Bourgeois notions that the workers are exploited. To free himself the Worker must first come to loath himself.

[Anonymous No.2860160]

Fuck this shit. There's no wonder why Leftists only resources are critique and they have no conception of what the new Post-Revolution society might be like --- they are too fucking depressed to posit new ideas! They just want to tear shit down because they loathe it and they loathe themselves! No, no, no, fuck this cruel shit. The worker needs to taught how to enjoy his existence, even if he is just a cog in a machine he should be given reasons why this machine has a right to exist and why his contribution to it is worthwhile. That's by far the most human thing to do.

[Anonymous No.2860166]

whoa man that's deep

[Anonymous No.2860178]

tldr; "Class" and "exploitation" are invented by Marxists and the working class doesn't actually suffer unless they are told that they should be marxists.

wat

[Anonymous No.2860181]

>>2860178
by marxists*

[Anteater !!VyIROBcMkwf No.2860186]

You aren't using the word exploitation in the same context as Marx, though, so your argument veers off an accurate path. Marx referred to exploitation simply as the worker not receiving the full product of his labor. It's not about being physically or emotionally exploited in the common sense of the term. My father works for a patent office and makes a good sum of money. He isn't being "exploited" in the common sense by the partners of the firm - he actually does quite well, but he is being "exploited" in the Marxian sense in that he only makes a portion of his billable rate.

[Anonymous No.2860217]

The thing about Marx is that his works are outdated for the majority of people. His message makes sense when all workers were actually forced to work ridiculous hours for small pay. But now everyone in Western Europe and North America can be considered the Bourgeoisie. Sorry, but when your biggest gripe with the world is that your iPhone drops calls a lot you clearly aren't that miserable.

[Anonymous No.2860221]

>>2860217
Exactly. Africa is just a place. India definitely doesn't exist. South America? Never heard of it. China? It's a country, but they're our enemies, so fuck them.

[Anonymous No.2860222]

>>2860217
Nope. May I recommend Havey's The Enigma of Capital?

Same process still in place, just the mechanisms have changed (and I mean that in the most non-self-contradictory way possible).

[Anteater !!VyIROBcMkwf No.2860223]

>>2860217

> His message makes sense when all workers were actually forced to work ridiculous hours for small pay. But now everyone in Western Europe and North America can be considered the Bourgeoisie.

He referred to the middle class as the "petit bourgeoisie." Ultimately, it's not a matter of if you have shitty or good working conditions in Marx's view. It's a matter of whether or not you're receiving the full product of your labor.

[Anonymous No.2860226]

>>2860221
True communism would only work on a global scale. When the most powerful nations refuse to go communist you just end up with "communist" dictatorships.

Communism can't be achieved, it's over.

[Anteater !!VyIROBcMkwf No.2860231]

>>2860226

>True communism would only work on a global scale.

I'd have to disagree. In fact, the only Communist societies that actually achieved Communism and didn't get stuck in the State Socialist phase, if you could even call it that, were the ones that went directly to Communism and weren't preoccupied with trying to incite a global revolution.

[Anonymous No.2860237]

>>2860217
the reason working conditions are better now than they were in the 19th century is precisely because of socialists, anarchists, marxists, etc. and other people in the labour movement who fought to improve those conditions, but people in the third world continue to work in conditions like that for some of the world's most powerful corporations so Marx and others like him still do have some relrevance today, if they didn't people like Chomsky wouldn't be so popular despite the complete lack of media attention

[Anonymous No.2860239]

>>2860226
(Labor laws, state welfare, a "living wage") would only work on a global scale. When the most powerful nations refuse to go institute (labor laws, state welfare, a "living wage") you just end up with "capitalist" dictatorships.

Socialism can be achieved, and capitalism soon will be over.

[Anonymous No.2860250]

>>2860231
Are you talking about China?

[Anonymous No.2860253]

>>2860160
Do you read D.H. Lawrence? Those last few sentences reminded me of his work.

I think you're taking a legitimate position, and I wish the conservative sections of society were honest enough with themselves to address it. However, I don't think Marxism 'invented' working-class oppression. Just look at the history of the Gilded Age of America. Read 'The Shame of the Cities', 'How the Other Half Lives', and even 'The Jungle'. After The Jungle became popular, Theodore Roosevelt read it and was like "Bullshit!" and put together an investigation of the Chicago meat factories, fertilizer mills, etc. The investigation came back substantiating several of Sinclair's claims (though not nearly all).

If they saw how much they helped the upper and middle classes pay 10% less for SPAM at the corner grocery, who knows, they might have said "You know, this is worth being deprived of an education, being physically maimed at work without compensation (they were usually fired instead, and of course, unable to be hired by other industries), and watching my family die of typhoid, tuberculosis, and the common flu along with myself. I really see how much I contribute to society." If he felt that way, then all for it.

[Anonymous No.2860254]

>>2860231
No state, ever, has achieved a true communist society. Unless of course, you'd like to tell me one I haven't heard of.

[Anonymous No.2860270]

>>2860160
Also, there are numerous "post-revolution" ideologies. It just isn't so popular now when corporatism and its subsidiary processes are so ingrained into daily interactions (reliance upon corporations for food, clothing, shelter, news, media, knowledge). There's Libertarian-socialists, syndicalists, collectivists, primitivists, post-civ movements, eco-communes, gift-societies, and of course all the little utopian experiments that dot the world.

[Anonymous No.2860283]

lol @ Op writing a phil 101 assignment and using moralizing to support his cause

[Anonymous No.2860467]

Marx mostly supported himself by mooching off wealthy capitalist relations and playing the stock market.

Not that that has anything to do with the truth or falsity of his philosophy, but it amuses me.

[Anonymous No.2860481]

>>2860156
>>2860156
>>2860156

>Spartacus brave hero

The world's first warning that Marx was a faggot

[Anonymous No.2860489]

>>2860156
>>2860158
>>2860160
Thank you for existing, excellent anon.

[Anonymous No.2860502]

>>2860467
well come on, it doesn't even have anything to do with his character. Which revolutionary writer is going to be more successful, the one that works outside the system or the one that works within it?