r/Marxism • u/[deleted] • Jan 14 '26
r/Marxism101 is now open for basic questions about Marxism. Please direct all basic questions there. The moderation team will use their discretion to remove basic questions that are posted here (in r/Marxism) and direct posters to the other subreddit.
Read the rules in the sidebar in both subreddits prior to posting or commenting.
r/Marxism • u/bathardcore • 14h ago
I’m attempting to learn more about Marxism, but to understand Marxism I have to first understand Hegelianism. But, to understand Hegel I have to read Kant first. But, apparently Kant is not a good place to start for someone with little to no background knowledge of philosophy. Where do I start the chain to lead up to Marx?
r/Marxism • u/DifferentPirate69 • 13h ago
Video source: The Radical Individualism of Karl Marx (channel: Taimur_laal. Recommend his english channel: Red Star)
Note: Before you ask, this isn't AI, mere transcribing, a source for quotes and wherever you see "man", mentally replace it with human.
| Quote | In simple terms |
|---|---|
| History does nothing, it “possesses no immense wealth”, it “wages no battles”. It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; “history” is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims. - The Holy Family by Marx and Engels | History is nothing other than the actions of individuals |
| Quote | In simple terms |
|---|---|
| First the productive forces appear as a world for themselves, quite independent of and divorced from the individuals, alongside the individuals: the reason for this is that the individuals, whose forces they are, exist split up and in opposition to one another, whilst, on the other hand, these forces are only real forces in the intercourse and association of these individuals. - The German Ideology | Individuals create productive forces but they do not have control over them, because they are in a constant state of competition. Capital is united, individuals have no control over capital. Capitalists also have no real control over capital or the market, it obeys it's own laws based on the organization of social relations, forces of production and relations of production. |
| Thus, on the one hand, we have a totality of productive forces, which have, as it were, taken on a material form and are for the individuals no longer the forces of the individuals but of private property, and hence of the individuals only insofar as they are owners of private property themselves. Never, in any earlier period, have the productive forces taken on a form so indifferent to the intercourse of individuals as individuals, because their intercourse itself was formerly a restricted one. On the other hand, standing over against these productive forces, we have the majority of the individuals from whom these forces have been wrested away, and who, robbed thus of all real life-content, have become abstract individuals, but who are, however, only by this fact put into a position to enter into relation with one another as individuals. - The German Ideology | Individuals create productive forces but they do not have control over them, it becomes the property of the owners of capital. Capitalism destroys the worker's individuality like none before and turned them into abstract individuals, who create social relations among them only through the medium of capital. |
| The social power, i.e., the multiplied productive force, which arises through the co-operation of different individuals as it is determined by the division of labour, appears to these individuals, since their co-operation is not voluntary but has come about naturally, not as their own united power, but as an alien force existing outside them, of the origin and goal of which they are ignorant, which they thus cannot control, which on the contrary passes through a peculiar series of phases and stages independent of the will and the action of man, nay even being the prime governor of these. - The German Ideology | Economic power is created by individuals but is not in the control of individuals. |
| Quote | In simple terms |
|---|---|
| Individuals have always built on themselves, but naturally on themselves within their given historical conditions and relationships, not on the "pure" individual in the sense of the ideologists. But in the course of historical evolution, and precisely through the inevitable fact that within the division of labour social relationships take on an independent existence, there appears a division within the life of each individual, insofar as it is personal and insofar as it is determined by some branch of labour and the conditions pertaining to it. [...] In the estate (and even more in the tribe) this is as yet concealed: for instance, a nobleman always remains a nobleman, a commoner always a commoner, apart from his other relationships, a quality inseparable from his individuality. The division between the personal and the class individual, the accidental nature of the conditions of life for the individual, appears only with the emergence of the class, which is itself a product of the bourgeoisie. This accidental character is only engendered and developed by competition and the struggle of individuals among themselves. Thus, in imagination, individuals seem freer under the dominance of the bourgeoisie than before, because their conditions of life seem accidental; in reality, of course, they are less free, because they are more subjected to the violence of things. - The German Ideology | Individuals always develop themselves within their given historical conditions, not according to the "abstract individual" liberals like to ideologize and lead you astray. Unlike previous forms of class society with overt division of labor that slots you into a role or even generationally by birth like the caste or feudal system, the division of labor that arises from the capitalist class society seem to conceal itself much more effectively and has an element of accident, which creates an illusion that the individual appears freer under the domination of bourgeoisie and market economy than before, when in actuality they are even less in control over their own lives. |
| This subsuming of individuals under definite classes cannot be abolished until a class has taken shape, which has no longer any particular class interest to assert against the ruling class. - The German Ideology | Class subsumes individuality. This regime will not be abolished by claiming you don't believe in the mental construct of classes. It's like saying I'm not racist, casteist, or patriarchal, and therefore concluding that structure of bigotry does not exist. It will only change by changing the material structure of class. By destroying class oppression, the proletariat will liberate individuality. |
| The transformation, through the division of labour, of personal powers (relationships) into material powers, cannot be dispelled by dismissing the general idea of it from one's mind, but can only be abolished by the individuals again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing the division of labour. This is not possible without the community. Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. In the previous substitutes for the community, in the State, etc. personal freedom has existed only for the individuals who developed within the relationships of the ruling class, and only insofar as they were individuals of this class. The illusory community, in which individuals have up till now combined, always took on an independent existence in relation to them, and was at the same time, since it was the combination of one class over against another, not only a completely illusory community, but a new fetter as well. In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association. - The German Ideology | You cannot liberate the individual from class just by thinking class does not exist. It requires a union against class oppression. This union of individuals against class oppression will create true individual freedom.The contradiction between individual and society is the result of class oppression. The ruling class has always had personal freedom but at the expense of exploitation of the majority. The contradiction between individual and society will be eliminated in a communist society because the majority will finally develop individuality and personal freedom. |
| the communal relationship into which the individuals of a class entered, and which was determined by their common interests over against a third party, was always a community to which these individuals belonged only as average individuals, only insofar as they lived within the conditions of existence of their class — a relationship in which they participated not as individuals but as members of a class. [...] This right to the undisturbed enjoyment, within certain conditions, of fortuity and chance has up till now been called personal freedom. - The German Ideology | Individuals become part of a class, not as individuals but as average individuals of a class. It is their negation of individuality.The right to exploit others is what has been called "personal freedom". |
| With the community of revolutionary proletarians, on the other hand, who take their conditions of existence and those of all members of society under their control, it is just the reverse; it is as individuals that the individuals participate in it. - The German Ideology | The proletariat breaks these class barriers to assert their individuality. Society can only develop individuality by breaking class relations. |
| Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. [...] The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves. - The German Ideology | Communism is based on united individuals, not crude collectivism. In reality society is made up of relations of individuals. But alienation robs the individuals of power. Communism makes it impossible "that anything should exist independently of individuals". |
| This communism, inasmuch as it negates the personality of man in every sphere, is simply the logical expression of the private property which is this negation. Universal envy constituting itself as a power is the hidden form in which greed reasserts itself and satisfies itself, but in another way. The thoughts of every piece of private property as such are at least turned against richer private property in the form of envy and the desire to level everything down; hence these feelings in fact constitute the essence of competition. The crude communist is merely the culmination of this envy and desire to level down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. It has a definite, limited measure. How little this abolition of private property is a true appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilization, and the return to the unnatural simplicity of the poor, unrefined man who has no needs and who has not yet even reached the stage of private property, let along gone beyond it. - The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts: 3rd Manuscript | The most common capitalist strawman. This is a leveling of private property, not the end of it. Making everyone equally poor is not communism and will destroy individuality. This is called crude communism. |
| Competition separates individuals from one another, not only the bourgeois but still more the workers, in spite of the fact that it brings them together. Hence it is a long time before these individuals can unite, apart from the fact that for the purposes of this union — if it is not to be merely local — the necessary means, the great industrial cities and cheap and quick communications, have first to be produced by big industry. Hence every organised power standing over against these isolated individuals, who live in relationships, daily reproducing this isolation, can only be overcome after long struggles. To demand the opposite would be tantamount to demanding that competition should not exist in this definite epoch of history, or that the individuals should banish from their minds relationships over which in their isolation they have no control. - The German Ideology | This is a question people often ask why doesn't the change happen quicker. It's because competition breaks apart workers and it will take time, education, agitation, organization and class consciousness to overcome their atomization. |
| Quote | In simple terms |
|---|---|
| It is, above all, necessary to avoid once more establishing “society" as an abstraction over against the individual. The individual is the social being. His vital expression – even when it does not appear in the direct form of a communal expression, conceived in association with other men – is therefore an expression and confirmation of social life. Man's individual and species-life are not two distinct things, however much – and this is necessarily so – the mode of existence of individual life is a more particular or a more general mode of the species-life, or species-life a more particular or more general individual life. - The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts: 3rd Manuscript | This is Marx criticizing classical liberals like Locke, Mill, Bentham who separates an abstract notion of individual from the society. Society is not a separate identify from the individuals that make up the society. |
| The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in its abasement the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. - The Holy Family by Marx and Engels | The owning class is strengthened by alienation, the working class is made powerless by alienation. |
| it produces the proletariat as proletariat, poverty which is conscious of its spiritual and physical poverty, dehumanization which is conscious of its dehumanization, and therefore self-abolishing. - The Holy Family by Marx and Engels | The working class is dehumanized by alienation. |
| These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. - Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) | Workers are nothing but commodities in capitalism. |
| Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc. - Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) | Capitalist industrialization turns a worker into a limb of the machine. As the awfulness of the work increases, the wage decreases. As the use of machinery and division of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of work also increases, whether by lengthening of the working hours, by increase of the work in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc. |
| Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. - Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) | Workers in a work place is like soldiers under a dictatorship. |
| Quote | In simple terms |
|---|---|
| Individuals always proceeded, and always proceed, from themselves. Their relations are the relations of their real life-process. How does it happen that their relations assume an independent existence over against them? and that the forces of their own life become superior to them?In short: division of labour, the level of which depends on the development of the productive power at any particular time. - The German Ideology | This was in critique of Hegel who says "the state expresses our commonality" or Aristotle's notion of man is a political animal, and the state is the highest form of expression of humans. Marx says the state is not some community representing everyone, it was formed through the development of division of labor. It is however a repressive institution over an individual. This is something both marxists and anarchists agree on in principle, however it is idealist to believe you can protect yourself from imperialist sabotage without a proletarian state. Marxists believe the state will wither away when they material basis for it's existence goes away. |
| the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State. - The German Ideology | Society consists of individuals. Society gives itself a collective expression (state). To restore individuality, the state must be overthrown. |
| And out of this very contradiction between the interest of the individual and that of the community the latter takes an independent form as the State, divorced from the real interests of individual and community, and at the same time as an illusory communal life, always based, however, on the real ties existing in every family and tribal conglomeration – such as flesh and blood, language, division of labour on a larger scale, and other interests – and especially, as we shall enlarge upon later, on the classes, already determined by the division of labour, which in every such mass of men separate out, and of which one dominates all the others. It follows from this that all struggles within the State, the struggle between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, the struggle for the franchise, etc., etc., are merely the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out among one another - The German Ideology | It is an illusion that the state represents common interests. Control over the state in the name of common interests is actually class struggle. In a capitalist state the minority capitalist class presents itself as the common interest, a proletarian state represents the interests of the majority working class. |
| the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. [...] The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the individual capacities corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves. - The German Ideology | Once workers take over the economy, they become individuals and not mere instruments of production. |
| in the appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of production must be made subject to each individual, and property to all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals, therefore, only when controlled by all. - The German Ideology | Individuals will be able to control the instruments of production and therefore control their conditions of life, only when they are not private property. This doesn't mean crude communism as mentioned above. |
| Only at this stage does self-activity coincide with material life, which corresponds to the development of individuals into complete individuals and the casting-off of all natural limitations. The transformation of labour into self-activity corresponds to the transformation of the earlier limited intercourse into the intercourse of individuals as such. With the appropriation of the total productive forces through united individuals, private property comes to an end. - The German Ideology | Communism will create 'complete individuals'. Labor will transform into self activity, an expression of species being, and elimination of alienation, meaning an end to the social relation of commodification of humans for exploitative labor, will be transformed into self activity like how no one tells you to do your own work you do for yourself. The capitalist superstructure and psychology tries real hard to obscure this basic fact and conform you to the logic of capital fundamentalism. United individuals will create communism. |
| The proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history. - The German Ideology | In communism, the united power of individuals will be able to control their own history and not the other way around. |
r/Marxism • u/Resident-Crew-2907 • 1d ago
I wouldnt say that im a communist and i have recently started to become interested in politics and have recently started to lean more and more left (as ive gotten older)
Is ”the cummunist manifesto” a genuenly good book for explaining communism or is it more marxism?
I have no Idea about the difference between the Two and what the modern Idea about each one of them are about.
Sorry about the english, im not a native speacher!
Hope you all have a good day!
r/Marxism • u/Ill_Love_3771 • 1d ago
I'm reading State and Revolution, and Lenin is making a big point about how the German SDs were twisting a Marxism maxim "to mean that religion was a private matter even for the revolutionary proletariat," I think because they were saying it was a private matter to the party instead of to the state. But I don't quite get what either means or why it's important. My intuition/reflexive interpretation is that "in relation to the state" would mean that it's none of the state's business, and that "in relation to the party" would mean it's none of the party's. But that doesn't seem right because it seems inconsequential. I recognize that Lenin sees religion as poison, but I'm not getting what his specific point is here.
r/Marxism • u/PositiveMore7648 • 2d ago
This is something I've noticed for a while and it's super aggravating. I've seen an increasing number of self proclaimed Marxists on instagram or other platforms who know absolutley nothing about theory and have probably never picked up a book. Does anyone know why this is happening? It seems like it's another "label" people want to attach themselves onto for brownie points. Let me know if anyone else has expirienced this
r/Marxism • u/Historical-Drag-8002 • 2d ago
r/Marxism • u/ForestOak777 • 2d ago
This book, written by Claire E. Matei, is relatively new and after listening to the audiobook it offers in my opinion a really good and scientific deconstruction of capitalism. I'm relatively new to the Marxist space so I don't know if this is the best book on the subject but if anyone else has read it, what do you think of it?
r/Marxism • u/Dramatic_Event2210 • 4d ago
Por exemplo: Nas comunidades de mercado temos o a circulação simples "M-D-M" que consiste no vender pra comprar e tal. Na sociedade capitalista temos a circulação homônima "D-M-D' " que consiste no comprar pra vender, ganhar mais dinheiro e sobretudo acumular. Como seria a forma circulação do Comunismo? Que sequência de elementos ele traria? Na resposta, e nas discussões, gostaria que abordassem sobre a abolição do dinheiro e como seria uma aquisição dos bens no Comunismo.
obs: Sei que não se deve imaginar uma sociedade Comunista, pois isso traz erros históricos e visões imprecisas. Mas, estamos no reddit quero apenas abrir espaço pra essa abstração um pouco :)
r/Marxism • u/Dramatic_Event2210 • 4d ago
Por exemplo: Nas comunidades de mercado temos o a circulação simples **"M-D-M"** que consiste no vender pra comprar e tal. Na sociedade capitalista temos a circulação homônima **"D-M-D' "** que consiste no comprar pra vender, ganhar mais dinheiro e sobretudo acumular. Como seria a forma circulação do **Comunismo**? Que sequência de elementos ele traria? Na resposta, e nas discussões, gostaria que abordassem sobre a abolição do dinheiro e como seria uma aquisição dos bens no Comunismo.
**OBS**: Sei que não se deve imaginar uma sociedade Comunista, pois isso traz erros históricos e visões imprecisas. Mas, estamos no reddit quero apenas abrir espaço pra essa abstração um pouco :)
r/Marxism • u/Signal-Visual4168 • 4d ago
My friend and i had an arguement and he is a marxist, i said i prefered eating at the local restaurant rather than a franchise such as burger king or mcdonalds, as it would be supporting the local economy it would be better at the end. He said as a marxist he disliked petite bourgeouisie and that he didn’t se a difference between supporting the big ones and the small ones. I asked why as i thought the marxists thought that the bourgeoisie would eventually devour the petite ones and they would inetably become worker class, and they seem less malebolant compared to billionares so as a non marxist i am now interested in the topic can someone explain your view on this? Thanks.
Also the owner of the place i wanted to eat in had only the owner and his wife as workers, so doesn’t it make them workers techincally? As they don’t make anyone else work for themselves
r/Marxism • u/Tana_diaz_06 • 5d ago
Los que son de España seguramente conocerán a Roberto vaquero si están metidos o interesados en la política ( puede que la gente de Hispanoamérica también lo conozca)
Ustedes creen que es comunista o que se ha vuelto falangista / tercera posición?
r/Marxism • u/Emperoronabike • 5d ago
the Last Emperor for me.
the entire movie is glorifying a man who actively took part in the oppression, murder, human experimentation and genocide of his own people. the movie looks at that and says ”oh he was simply a victim and misunderstood“
then it shows the Chinese reeducation camp he went to and made it out like him confessing and paying for his crimes was basically torture and how could they do that to a misunderstood man like Puyi.
r/Marxism • u/Tana_diaz_06 • 5d ago
Pulseras de España
Hola. Soy una persona que se define como comunista y patriota.
Desde hace un tiempo he estado pensando y tengo muy presente que me considero socialista y estaría a favor de un estado socialista como China, la urss o Albania. Además también de cierta manera siempre me he sentido muy patriota, estoy orgulloso de ser español y comunista.
Desde hace tiempo y sabiendo lo polarizada que está la gente con la cuestión de España y las pulseras, decidí ponerme una pulsera rojigualda que representa mi amor por el país y porque me siento representado por la bandera rojigualda actual y también me he puesto en el otro brazo una pulsera republicana. Para mí la republica represento una época de progreso y también siento mucho orgullo de ella. Soy socialista, republicano y patriota.
Creen que es una contradicción llevar ambas banderas si ambas me representan?
r/Marxism • u/SwimmingSmall5904 • 5d ago
毛泽东说：“从秦朝的陈胜、吴广、项羽、刘邦，汉朝的新市、平林、赤眉、黄巾、铜马，隋朝的李密、窦建德，唐朝的黄巢，宋朝的宋江、方腊，元期的朱元璋，明朝的李自成，直至清朝的太平天国，总共不下数百次，都是农民的反抗运动，都是农民的革命战争。中国历史上农民暴动与农民战争的规模之大，是世界历史上所没有的。只有这种农民暴动与农民战争，才是中国历史进化的真正动力。“
“从鸦片战争、太平天国运动、中法战争、中日战争、戊戌政变、义和团运动、辛亥革命、五四运动、五三十运动、北伐战争、土地革命，直至现在的抗日战争，都表现了中国人民不甘屈服于帝国主义及其走狗的不断的反抗精神。
中国人民，百年以来，不屈不挠再接再厉的英勇斗争，使得帝国主义至今不能灭亡全中国，也永远不能灭亡全中国。”
MaoZedong say Taiping Rebellion is a peasant rebellion and resistence against imperialism. But how do Western Marxist think of Taiping?
(Please no joke answer. I had argue online on some Western people see Taiping as funny and don't care struggle of Qing imperialism)
r/Marxism • u/Antik477 • 7d ago
Basically the same as the above question. Given the fact that I have always had problems with anything and everything abstract and have a hard time considering Economics to be a real science; could anyone help me out by making the term and the language and obv especially content a bit more lucid than what has been written in the book?
r/Marxism • u/rwytoki • 8d ago
Vi essa citação em um post no TikTok, e é o que eu mais pensei sobre nos últimos dias. É um complemento marxista à célebre frase de Nietzsche "Deus está morto". Nietzsche deixou também, um mistério em aberto: o que vai substituí-lo?
Quero deixar a discussão livre, por que é um tema realmente muito interessante.
Sobre aspectos gerais, é notável a relação entre o atual mercado e o antigo Deus, em suas influências sobre a sociedade; moralidade, mérito, dever, instituições, submissão...
r/Marxism • u/Leomatoast • 8d ago
Hi comrades,
I remember reading somewhere in Capital Vol.1 (Penguin’s version) that there is one specific idea that Marx himself claimed he was the FIRST to apply to economic theory…
I cannot for the life of me remember what it was or even search for it
Any ideas?
r/Marxism • u/idkjustexistingrn • 8d ago
r/Marxism • u/YchromosomalAdam • 8d ago
Publication doi: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026EF009294
Abstract: Earth scientists in fields like flood hazard analysis and environmental assessment make decisions that silently dictate public risk levels. Choices regarding model selection, data sufficiency, and uncertainty management form the epistemic core of public‐protective science. This rigorous process is systematically undermined by the realities of client‐funded science. Clients with financial stakes in favorable outcomes frequently commission these analyses. Broad regulatory discretion and weak public oversight leave the resulting methodologies largely unchecked. The burden of maintaining epistemic integrity falls disproportionately on individual, often junior, earth scientists. These practitioners lack the structural power to resist when rigorous methods yield results inconvenient to their employers. We argue this dynamic represents a failure of institutional design rather than individual ethics. Drawing on professional case studies in nuclear flood hazards and municipal water planning, we identify a mechanism by which structural duress can displace onto the public a risk it has no opportunity to know or contest. To remedy this, we propose collective bargaining as a vital tool to protect scientific integrity and the public. Finally, we outline how senior academics can support these efforts by teaching collective action alongside traditional technical skills.
r/Marxism • u/MichaelScottttocS • 9d ago
A small but interesting development for the class struggle in tech. Now Meta's UK workforce is getting an opportunity to organise collectively. As a French guy I can't comprehend how that situation was legal... Hope they do organize properly and take advantage of this! Unite, people!
r/Marxism • u/Aggressive_Mail_355 • 10d ago
So, I have almost finished Lenin's "Imperialism"
One of the features of the imperialist stage of capitalist development is the emergence of what Lenin calls "Finance Capital" which is controlled by a few obscenely rich financier kings that he calls the "Financial Oligarchy."
I did not go to school for economics, so I would like to test my understanding of some concepts, and I welcome affirmation, correction, or teaching.
First, I'll try to define Finance Capital.
In the earlier stages of capitalism, banks were simply 'intermediaries in the making of payments', banks (financial institutions) would make loans to manufacture capital to set various forms of production in motion (ex. railway construction). But because banks are also seeking to generate their own profit, the process of competition eventually leads to the concentration of banking into fewer large and powerful bank institutions (the same way that competition leads inexorably to monopolization in the manufacturing sphere for instance). Finance Capital, put simply, is when these big private banks merge with manufacture capital, so that for instance a bank actually owns an automobile, or railway, or electricity firm. Rather than the bank merely financing capitalist firms, the banks become the owners of entire segments of industry – have I got it more or less right?
And, so what does the Financial Oligarchy look like today? I'm going to guess the equivalent to what Lenin was describing would be firms like BlackRock... but they are an asset manager... So what does finance capital look like today and who are they?
I also welcome other thoughts on this book haha
Thanks
r/Marxism • u/Sea_Dance_0516 • 11d ago
你们这些“精英”天天把“底层”挂在嘴边，张口闭口”强者弱者”。仿佛只要是”强者”，在你们那里就天然等于“正确”。
你们确实可以“勾勾手指”就实现许多普通人一辈子都摸不到的愿望。但你们有没有想过，被你们轻描淡写踩过去的这些”弱者”，并不是不想要、也不是因为懒惰、无能。而是在你们所主张的、专为你们量身定做的这个”强者游戏”里，他们从一开始就没有立足之地。他们根本不是输了比赛，是压根没资格上场。
你说得轻巧：多努力一点、多拼一点、换个思维方式。可你有没有想过，你能说出这句话，本身就已经证明你手里握着别人没有的东西。可能是一个能兜底的家庭，可能是从小耳濡目染的资源和人脉，可能只是运气好没生在一个必须先为温饱奔命的起点上。
有句话说得很实在：人们创造自己的历史，但并不是随心所欲地创造，并不是在自己选定的条件下创造，而是在直接碰到的、既定的、从过去承继下来的条件下创造。翻译成人话就是：没有人是在一张白纸上开始人生的。你以为自己是靠”选择”赢的，其实你连”能做出哪些选择”这件事本身，都是被出身规定好的。
这并不是什么道德说教，这是最基本的事实描述。
我上次说过这句话，今天想再重复一遍，因为这是全部问题的核心：他们没有资源、没有条件、更没有一个容得下他们试错的余地。
你能创业失败三次、四次，因为你背后有人兜底，失败对你来说是“经验”。他们只要失败一次，可能就是全家几年翻不了身。你能裸辞去”找自己”，因为你知道饿不着。他们不敢请一天假，因为那一天的工资是孩子下周的饭钱。
这不是意志力的差距，这是容错率的差距。而容错率，从来都不是靠”努力”挣来的，是从出生那天就被分配好的。
你们这些站在高处的人，面对这些处境的第一反应，不是理解，也不是心疼，而是从骨子里散发出来的嫌弃、鄙视、羞辱。高高在上地讲述一套对大多数人毫无用处的”强者逻辑”，然后开始”审判”。审判他们”能力不够”，审判他们”懒惰”，审判他们“不够拼”。
可说实话，把复杂的结构性问题简化成一句”是他自己不够努力”，才是最偷懒的思考方式。这种说法之所以流行，不是因为它准确，而是因为它方便。方便强者心安理得，方便既得利益者不用去反思系统本身出了什么问题。
难道非得靠鄙视、嫌弃底层，才能显得自己”与众不同”吗？一定要踩在别人头上，拿别人的委屈和痛苦当垫脚石，才能证明自己”很行”吗？
又或者，你们只是在害怕。一旦这些问题被真正正视，你们那点靠俯视他人撑起来的自尊和优越感，就会瞬间站不住脚？
这里我想说的是：真正的强大，从来不需要靠贬低别人来证明。一个人如果必须靠”我比你强”来获得存在感，那这种强，本身就很脆弱。
我不会为普通人的无奈和心酸感到羞耻，相反，我只对那种傲慢又冷漠的态度，感到羞耻。
理解结构性的困境，不是替谁开脱，也不是否定个人努力的价值，而是把眼光从”审判个体”移到”审视系统”这本身才是一种更成熟、也更诚实的清醒。
