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.nzBanned from community
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    12 hours ago

    Well it wouldn’t make any sense for him to advocate for a return to primitive technology, because he wasn’t a primitivist. He advocated for the kind of communism he could see in Europe’s future. He was a European historian interested in predicting and making European history.

    Your arguments are weird. You’re citing the fact that Marx talked to Europeans within a European framework as evidence he didn’t respect indigenous societies as communists. That doesn’t make any sense. Of course he did that, it doesn’t mean he thought the people he called communists weren’t communists. It just means he had an area of specialisation. Drag has specialties too; drag doesn’t know the first thing about Jewish communism, so drag doesn’t talk about Kibbutz-es. That doesn’t mean drag doesn’t respect Jewish communism. Marx is the same way. Everyone is the same way about whatever part of their field they’ve specialised in.

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

      Marx didn’t disrespect tribal societies by calling them “primitive communism,” it was a way to denote how the classless, stateless, moneyless society in tribes inevitably moves towards class society with the advent of agriculture, and it’s only through Communism as he described that class, the state, and money can be permanently ended. Marx was an internationalist, he saw Communism as a global system that would eradicate borders, not erect hard borders around Europe.

      And, for what it’s worth, you should disrespect modern Kibbutz, they all depend on settler-colonialism and the genocide of Palestinians.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzBanned from community
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        11 hours ago

        Drag didn’t accuse Marx of disrespecting indigenous communism, drag’s argument is based on the fact Marx didn’t. How many times did you read drag’s comment? Try rereading it one more time than that.

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

          drag’s point requires Marx to have been exclusively talking about Europe, when he was an internationalist concerned with global Communism. drag can continue to launch personal insults to avoid engaging with the points made, and it won’t make drag any more correct for doing so.

          • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzBanned from community
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            11 hours ago

            Being an internationalist doesn’t mean you don’t write to an audience. Marx was a very European man with European subconscious biases, and the readers who provided the most feedback on his ideas were Europeans. Writing to an audience is inevitable in the process of creating a work. Ideology doesn’t change the practical truths of the work. As a materialist, you should understand that.

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

              Sure, that doesn’t mean he considered tribal societies to have the same economic formation as post-Socialist, post-Capitalist Communism. In being an internationalist, he believed Communism to be a global system, not isolated in small, relatively disconnected tribes.

              • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzBanned from community
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                11 hours ago

                relatively disconnected

                https://www.odysseytraveller.com/articles/ancient-aboriginal-trade-routes-of-australia/

                Trade was a central part of life for Aboriginal people prior to the British settlement of Australia. Trading routes criss-crossed the nation, dispersing goods, information, technologies and culture thousands of kilometres away from their origins.

                ‘The lines are the way the history stories travelled along the trade routes. They are all interconnected. It’s the pattern of the sharing system.’

                This trading of songs can be thought of as a trading of intellectual property to assist travelling. Aboriginal people travelled a lot. They renewed and created relationships and socialised at small ceremonies and huge gatherings. They travelled for seasonal harvests on land, in rivers or at sea, either seeking or avoiding dominant weather events. If you knew the songs, you held knowledge of the land to aid navigation as well as find water and food resources.

                They weren’t as different from you as you think.

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

                  Relatively disconnected, as in the aboriginal people were not coordinating with people in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, in order to figure out the best production methods to suit everyone’s needs. I of course knew that there were and are relatively complex methods of logistics in tribal societies, but these are in no way comparable to the ability for someone in Korea to communicate near instantly with someone in Alabama.

                  • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzBanned from community
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                    11 hours ago

                    Well that requires the internet, and Aboriginal Australians didn’t have the internet before colonisation. Having the internet wouldn’t have changed much in terms of the economic ideology. It would be the same communism, just with internet. They would have shared songs by email as well as at ceremonial grounds.

                    Also, don’t put Alabama on the same level as Korea. Put the USA on the same level as Korea, or put Alabama on the same level as Gyeonggi. Lemmy has enough US-centrism.