On May 5th, 1818, Karl Marx, hero of the international proletatiat, was born. His revolution of Socialist theory reverberates throughout the world carries on to this day, in increasing magnitude. Every passing day, he is vindicated. His analysis of Capitalism, development of the theory of Scientific Socialism, and advancements on dialectics to become Dialectical Materialism, have all played a key role in the past century, and have remained ever-more relevant throughout.

He didn’t always rock his famous beard, when he was younger he was clean shaven!

Some significant works:

Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The Civil War in France

Wage Labor & Capital

Wages, Price, and Profit

Critique of the Gotha Programme

Manifesto of the Communist Party (along with Engels)

The Poverty of Philosophy

And, of course, Capital Vol I-III

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!

  • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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    15 hours ago

    Indigenous societies had complex networks of management and labour specialisation. Robust power grids and machinery don’t change whether something is communism or not.

    and more are entirely different from small communes

    You’re saying they’re different because they’re different. This argument is going around in circles just like your logic.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
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      14 hours ago

      Having a robust and extensive power grid isn’t the only requirement for Communism, but as Communism is based on large production and social planning, it is still a requirement.

      You are saying a fish and a tree are the same thing because both are alive.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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        14 hours ago

        as Communism is based on large production and social planning

        It’s not. It’s based on worker ownership of the means of production.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
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          14 hours ago

          Public ownership is certainly another key aspect, yes. The form that public ownership exists in necessitates large scale industry in order to achieve production of the global economy along a common plan, as it emerges from the foundations laid by Socialism, as Socialism emerges from Capitalism, Capitalism from Feudalism, and more, all the way back to tribal production.

          • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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            11 hours ago

            No, you don’t need capitalism first in order to have communism. Turtle Island did communism without having capitalism first. Aren’t you paying attention? Don’t use assertions drag has already disputed as the basis for your arguments. You won’t convince drag that way, you’ll just wear drag out from repeating the same things over and over.

            Try attempting to understand the entirety of drag’s argument, instead of bouncing between pieces of it and addressing them one at a time with the same old rhetoric.

            You can’t address a unique and coherent argument by reading the counter to each part off your script.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
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              5 hours ago

              I’ve already explained how tribal hunter/gatherer societies aren’t the Marxist conception of Communism as a post-Socialist and highly industrialized society. Turtle Island did tribal hunter/gathering, not post-Socialist highly industrialized Communism. Your argument is neither unique or coherent and tries to say both the society of Turtle Island and Star Trek are the same thing.

              • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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                4 hours ago

                Drag likes The Culture better than Star Trek, and in drag’s opinion the economic ideology is the same: people do what needs to be done and look after each other.

                Marx didn’t conceive of communism only as post socialist, nor as only industrialised. He was willing to admit Haudenosaunee were communists. You’re the one claiming he was restrictive about these things when you’ve already admitted he called it “primitive communism”. If Marx said primitive communism isn’t communism, show a quote, because that conclusion is the opposite of self evident. It’s extraordinary and requires extraordinary evidence.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlOP
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                  3 hours ago

                  You can’t get to the highly developed technological foundations of The Culture without developing into Star Trek first. A single and small society cannot develop the technology for it, a vast society is necessary to even make a helicopter.

                  Marx never “admitted” that the Haudenosaunee had a Primitive Communist system, it was accepted outright. That doesn’t mean it had the same society as what Marx advocated for, nor had a society that Marx saw as the historic destiny. The society of the Haudenosaunee did not have a society as Marx describes in Critique of the Gotha Programme:

                  But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

                  In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but itself life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

                  Marx spoke of Primitive Communism as it needed to exist, and then gave birth to class society thereafter.

                  • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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                    3 hours ago

                    Indigenous tribes skipped Marx’s first phase and went straight to his higher phase. Exactly what Marx described happened, when early humans began organising themselves into communes instead of acting as troupes of apes. The productive forces increased alongside the development of the individual into modern homo sapiens, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flowed more abundantly. With the advanced social structures of communism, they were able to perform more technologically advanced forms of work with greater rewards, like hunting mammoths or building longhouses.