Those countries have more wealth because they create it, not because they steal it. Each idea, technology, product, service... adds wealth, because those things improve the life of those people who get it. Poor countries would be richer if they use their reasources to create and distribute products. If we give wealth to poor people, they will remain poor. We must give them education, equal oportunities, but not give them wealth for nothing.
@@DavidLopez-up3qm Actually, that exploitation is debatable, as third world countries receive medicine, food and assistance from the West. Maybe you are talking about classic colonialism, which was what made rich blacks sell other blacks to Jews, who brought the slaves to the New World.
@@josephang9927 of course, education is essential to empowering the lower class but if you really think about it - what incentive do the rich have to empower these people? It would be much more difficult to hoard wealth and power if we were all on an equal playing field and thus, it's advantageous for the rich to keep the poor impoverished.
this dude probably didn't take much time researching into communism and how it functions and decides to be indolent by summarizing communism with it not being concrete
Unionization has nothing to do with socialism because it maintains the same relations of workers to the means of production. Class is not directly related to wealth disparity or "competence of management" or other things brought up in the polemic above. It is a social relation to the means of production. Capitalism is a system in which private ownership of the means of production gives control over the distribution of surplus to the capitalist class, not to the people who are producing society's goods. There's no democracy over the workplace in capitalism because the economy is considered outside the purview of democratic decision making. Redistribution of wealth and "larger government" also has nothing to do with socialism, for the same reasons--it leaves intact the relations of production. Socialism is NOT government management of the means of production. Socialism requires WORKER control over the means of production. The lecturer probably believes that Obama is a socialist. Government management of capitalism is called Social Democracy and is what happens in countries like Sweden, where people are far happier and better taken care of, by the way, than in the United States. These things are "hard to think about" because of the constant indoctrination and apologizing from people who benefit from capitalism. People should check out Market Socialism and the work of economists like Richard D. Wolff. Also, Marxism-Leninism and Communism are NEVER used interchangeably, except I suppose by the lecturer. Nor is "Marxism" utopian, that accusation can only be made by someone who hasn't read the man and who is shilling for capitalism. And, regarding corruption in political parties, people living in the United States shouldn't throw stones. :) Finally, on the Democracy->Authoritarianism scale, the US is a functional plutonomy where wealthy capitalists control the political system and use it to wage their own intra-class conflicts, using the people only to get formal votes (this is what the Tea Party was about). Just because people can push a lever once in a while doesn't mean they have any real power at all. There was voting in the Soviet Union, too. You have to look at the REAL functioning of systems to get anything out of the analysis. Certainly, the USSR was authoritarian, but you'll have to jump through some hoops to show how it overturned the class relations of production and became "Communist".
U spend so much time trying to say that nobody was ever communist and socialist when u come to the point when u say how real socialism (or whatever u want to call it) would really work in the REAL world (give us details not generic ideas), there is when I will finally start laughing! Until then all u do is excusing urself, just like all Marx did was criticize capitalism...and btw in Sweden the capitalism is managed by the government? hahahah...nice one.
Btw, Switzerland is more capitalist than sweden and they are happy aswell if Not more than sweden and furthermore they also got better services like health (because in switzerland it’s private, whereas it’s gov‘t Runned in sweden). I think Sweden vs Switzerland is a classical example that Social democracy May work with Huge collectivistic indoctrination and janteloven culture, but capitalism will always be far superior
angelbrotherhood No it doesn’t, whoever these ideas belong to I never found them in Marx-Engels’ or Lenin’s collected works nor in the writings I’ve read of Trotsky, Luxemburg, De Leon, Kautsky and Plekhanov. He seems to have made up most of it himself.
The communists/socialists were against traditional cultures. They banned Ukrainians, Russians, Chinese, Koreans and amongst others from: wearing traditional clothing, listening to their folk music, practising their religions, replacing folk architecture with 'socialist realism'(Also 'functionalism' and the like), (sometimes) even speaking their languages. I do not see any reason why those Filipino communist rebel fighters would do the same thing and generally, I don't see any reason why most Marxist-Leninists and Maoists would have abandoned this habit.
Only happens during times when the economy is troubled. When there are more people than jobs to do them. When an economy is growing, however, wages go up and up, lifting many out of poverty
@@SonarWavePulse when the economy goes "up" so does consumption. Which raises prices. Which forces workers to accumulate debt. Which eventually leads to a lack of extra income. Which causes the workers to stop buying as much. Which causes the economy to go "down". Which causes prices to decrease, especially the cost of labor (since unemployment will inevitably be high). Which allows the wealthy to purchase more at a reduced price.... and on and on the cycle goes until either revolution or oligarchy.
Where's surplus value? Where's dialectical materialism? Anyway, you definitely have a bias when it comes to socioeconomic and historical topics. The creation of surplus value is not even related to something material, since it's greater than the value of the constant capital (means of production, commodities) and the variable capital (labour). The extraction of surplus value leads to massive consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few, who then acquire more constant and variable capital to expand the surplus value, ad infinitum. In Capital, Marx referred to this as centralization of capital, which has come true!
the surplus value is the price for the security an employee pays for not having to bear the risk of bankruptcy. 50% of businesses fail in the 1st 5 years. the stress of needing to work 100+h weeks to avoid bankruptcy is sth. no western goverment would allow for any employee outside of a crisis. if the surplus value gets divided too unfairly between employer and employee a competitor can offer better wages or the employee can become an employer by himself after aquireing skills and capital from working. this works as long as the are no monopolies. the job of the goverment is to stop monopolies like the us did to standard oil.
@@MREiermann1000 Great point! Competition is the fuel that makes the Capitalistic Bus go! Without it, we are all standing on the side of the road with our thumb up asking others for help.
@@MREiermann1000 "If the surplus value gets divided too unfairly between employer and employee a competitor can offer better wages" You're incredibly misinformed. A competitor doesn't offer better wages due to the surplus of unemployment which is why they bribe legislators to pass policies to favor this approach. If there were a shortage of employees due to the government focusing on it's infrastructure for the sake of creating jobs, large corporations would be forced to offer better benefits due to the lack of unemployment. This is ignoring the fact they find loopholes to avoid paying wages (such as the prison industrial complex, exploitation of resources via the military industrial complex and getting their materials from slave labor in China). This is also ignoring the fact that they barely pay anything in taxes, yet most of OUR taxes are being funneled into them under a disguise of "cReAtiNg MorE JobS". How many people got laid off during this pandemic by large corporations such as Disney and Amazon? How many of YOUR taxes went to paying for a relief bill whilst small business owners were getting the short end of the stick despite paying drastically more taxes?
@@whysoserious9519 surplus of unemployment is only relevant for unskilled labour. an employee usually doesnt just want to hire anybody. make yourself harder to replace. gain skills. its litterally free on the internet to learn most things like learning to code. but i agree we as voters have to pay more attention to financial criminality and loop holes and vote for parties that want stronger goverment intevention and more money for prosecution. though thats not really sth you can do with a 2 party system i guess. greetings from europe.
That is true, most teachers don't focus on expanding your cultural knowledge, I was talking about the way they make you study, they make you understand the main idea instead of memorizing everything.
"The government, or in the words of communists, the hands of the people" - this is more of a criticism of American democracy. The constitution states the government is of the people and by the people, but most Americans disagree. So if you think the government is a bad thing, then that's because YOUR democracy is bad, not the entire concept of democracy. This video honestly reflects how, despite your best efforts to be impartial, you still can't explain Communism without sounding like capitalism is your religion. Capitalism is treated as a synonym for freedom while you're growing up in the USA. That's why you feel compelled to say things like "I don't want to say too many good things about Marx," despite your only criticism being "utopia is unrealistic lol."
Lmao yeah sure. Cus we don't see ppl still not filling needed hard and high skilled jobs and choosing to sell butthole pics on the internet instead. There's way too many issues to address before communism is possible and not a lazy idiots dream. Maybe one day. But not for centuries. Already to many issues filling jobs that require effort
We are individuals, but as a whole we serve as a species. A painting would be blank, bland and dull if it only consisted on an individual pixel. But what many pixels create when they structure themselves in an organized fashion is what makes a masterpiece.
@@Otknoharuka " tHaTs NoT CoMunIsM" kinda weird how people who have studied the topic for decades and say it doesn't work and have has a correct definition of communism are shut down by people like you who just spend 2 hours reading a manifesto ( reading not even thinking really) and think you know better. Smh
@@someguy4003 North Korea calls itself the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea but do you think it’s actually democratic? Just because a country calls itself a democracy or socialist or communist doesn’t mean it’s policies actually reflect that.
Pretty misleading video, for instance in 3:29, he definitely wrote about the existence of “small capitalists” or “petit-bourgeoisie” but Marx pointed out the existence of competition would result in the tendency for capital to accumulate in bigger and bigger hands. I suggest anyone pick up an very short and concise reading of marxism, I recommend Engels, Socialism : Scientific and Utopian, or Lenin : The three sources and the component parts of marxism.
Who the hell would ever want Communism? I like to own things thank you very much, it's in human nature, every communist society fails for this reason, liberty is the way to go.
Omar Moodie I do want, everyone wants, it's great to want as long as you work for what you get. Wanting isn't greed and confusing conquest with capitalism and liberty will just end in confusion and a skewed picture of it.
Hi there, I am a huge fan of your channel. I've been watching since high school and I'm almost done with my law degree. I was wondering if you could do an update of this video with the latest statistics and so forth? Keep up the awesome work that you guys do!!!
@@monkeyemperor1223 Looks like they have the same problems as capitalism with a banking crisis. Hey maybe that's it? Their problems are connected to going down the capitalist road? Keep feeding the Imperialist war machine and giving away the national treasury when they are too big to fail that way they don't even have to properly manage to earn a profit all they need to do now is buy corrupt politicians who will do their bidding and bail them out of the next crisis caused by the very way the capitalist system works.
Good overview, it is important to note under Marxism there is a distinction between "Personal Property" and "Private Property". Personal would be like your house, car, land(For personal use),etc. Private Property would be factories,warehouses, land used for profit,etc. These two are distinctive in Marxism, as opposed to Feudalism and Capitalism they are the same.
Before saying anything, I want to give you credit for risking your own image, getting through a very controversial topic, to educate us. And I think you did a great job staying neutral. And that was very informative and clear. Thank you :)
@@memethingz6004mate educate yourself on how many communist countries exist and then count how many attempts there have been and the conditions in which the “proletariat” live in those countries Then compare it to the quality of life for the working class in the US or Britain or France Or compare west Germany to east Germany and their quality of life
It bugs me. All of the problems that the socialists and communists point out in capitalism would be way worse if you gave the government even more control. I don't understand why they can't put that together.
@@paperfart3988 because that’s not what communism or socialism actually calls for, just Stalinist/marxist-Leninist interpretations of it, and even then those don’t necessarily call for state control of the means of production.
@@joshuaallen9501 can you tell me who founded communism? Or are you just gonna say Stalin and Lenin? Marx’s interpretation of what communism is was much different
@@Sweatyleftist its because marxs idea is impossible for society to achieve. Feudalism is a more accurate way society tends to work. Peasants have never ruled the means of production.
Khan I love your math/science, let me help you clear up some social theory. You can't imagine what a "stateless" society was about? Socialists and anarchists tended to see the state as an institution devoted to defending the interests of the propertied elite, something which I think is becoming clearer to many people today. Their "stateless" society is an international order where people would have a direct say in decisions that affected them/ "economic democracy."
@@kodabro4322 Leninism and Stalinism are not the same thing. The establishment of a workers state is the first step to socialism. Today the Cuban People and the Cuban state represent workers and farmers state power in the world today.
@@kimobrien. I never said they were the same thing. Marxist-Leninism was developed by Joseph Stalin in the 1920’s based on his understanding of Traditional Marxism and Leninism. Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented by the Soviet Union 1927-1953. Maoism is a form of Marxist-Leninism that Mao Zedong developed. Castro was a Marxist-Leninist. Pol pot was a Marxist-Leninist and Nationalist. Even western Marxist’s 30-100 years ago were hyper critical of the Marxist-Leninists at the time. Tell me, you’ve never read Capital Volume 1 have you?
@@kimobrien. well if you haven't read that far into it. Marx did not provide a detailed blueprint for a future society unlike other utopian at the time. So no surprise you have Marx uncomplete idea, paralleled with Lenins ideas which eventually Stalin studied and adopted as aforementioned
@@bravo________87372 Even the guy who created the modern theory of capitalism (Adam Smith) believed in the labour theory of value. Do you even know what it is?
@@qqqalo you have to buy the individual parts for workers to assemble them. There's other stuff that goes into things other than labor. That theory has already been debunked.
@@joshuaallen9501except labor is a huge part of the process, and is included in all aspects. So to be able to disregard labor to meet profits through the "suggestive" theory of value is foolish.
When I watch a video explaining opposite theories, the least I expect is impartiality, and this video shows how much the US if filled with pro capitalist propaganda.
@@paperfart3988 ideologies in themselves are not propaganda, especially not Marxism. Marxism is so big and full of ideologies that it should not be grouped together. Propaganda is media against a certain thing. This can take shape in either papers on walls saying something bad about the thing that’s being hated or just being integrated into culture and schools to teach something in a negative light. In the USA communism is always talked about poorly, so even in an attempt to be equal they are still pro capitalist in their words. ;TLDR Please learn more about a subject before saying something so stupid as “Marxism is anti capitalist propaganda l lmao”
@@wesly2089 Marx, being a intellectual, from a upper class family, felt only the upper crust should be in charge. In order to persuade the lower class to fall in line to be ruled, came up with the BS of sharing the wealth, that never, ever materializes. Marxist is against free market capitalism. Of individuals making agreements in an exchange for good and service. Capitalism is a economic formula for supply and demand to determine prices. Marxist and communism is a ideology of a way to run a society who ends up serving that upper crust.
@@MelissaR784 sorry to say it but your just reflecting propaganda which originated in the ideas of capitalism. You say under Marxism everybody works for an “upper crust” tell me, in which nation did workers have more rights and why? USA, or ussr? Obviously the ussr. Why? Because workers could go on strike to demand better pay. In the USA, if you don’t obey your boss you could be fired and instantly replaced. In capitalism every worker does labor for the upper crust, the capitalists. The capitalists make a fourtune by doing everything as minimum as possible with maximum prices. The only reason the United States still exists with its free market is regulations to stop total monopolies and a minimum wage. If it weren’t for business laws companies would pour waste into rivers and pollute everything. Capitalism does not make a sufficient society. Getting a house and food should not cost so much and it’s rediculous how so many people reflect capitalist things like an elite class into communism which benefits the people. Please do your research on the left and consider joining the right side, the side that believes in a society to benefit all, not just the rich.
@@MelissaR784 also, just because Marx lived in a decent family doesn’t mean he can’t have communal ideas. In fact, people born into low families especially back then were to busy working some crop field for a few cents worth of usd an hour to actually have ideas. So much talent has been lost to the fields, and socialism has a solution to that.
I was born in SSR of Ukraine, moved away when I was 18. I never considered it Communism, as the LACK OF COMMUNISM was very clear. Where is Communism used at the moment?
@@mylesmacpherson5534 apparently, I found it interesting too. It is a capitalist modified Communism. It's working because..Kerala is one of the better states in India to live in🤷♂️
Food prices rise, food quality is deteriorating, municipal services becoming more expensive, crisis, bankruptcy, job loss, global warming... I love capitalism too!
@Krónika I used to be socialist then i learn nobel prize winnier economists such as Ludwind von Mises, Milton, Hayek and much more. I learn Berlin Wall Prag 1068 Hunagary 1956 Iron Curtain North korea and south korea modern history of Japon Germany and how they got richer with capitalism. I learned since china left socialism in 1978 and went just a little bit capitialist they got richer like never before. In 1800's %90 of world population was living poverty then Capitalism spread among the world humans got richer like NEVER BEFORE. We are exist for centuries so eask your self how in just 200 years 90% poverty drop 8% today ? Why this didnt happen before ? What was that thing we never had before ? Thats Capitalism. Rich get richer and poor get richer. If that want true 90% poverty rate would hit 99% longggg ago but its didint and countiune to drop. Learn econmics and individual liberties.
@Krónika Facts dont care about feelings. I showed you data and basic economics nobel prize winners i bet you know better them and all the data is misleading.
And I just love how you say innovation will only come from competition. The world is either white or black to you. If someone has innovation, it must come from some sort of competition. Innovation will never cease to exist, no matter what political system we live under. Innovation occurs when a curious eye meets the world around it.
And how would you do that? The reason I said I don't support the thesis that everybody should be equal is because I think that variety is actually very important and the struggle of different opinions is reason for discourse. If everybody would be equal, who would take responsibilty? We are individuals you see. Competition is a good thing, if there was no incentive for competition, there would be no innovation, there would be no internet to have this discussion on. Also, define "more".
3:08 Marx did think of other capital owners. Which will inevitably either be bought/destroyed by the competitors. Which causes certain capital owners to start owning more and more capital until they own most of the resources from that industry which then spread and take control of other industries. Creating monopolies. Lenin then also went into more detail and said once capital owners get to big for their own countries that they reside in they will start partaking in imperialism and take resources from other places around the world by force. All in the name for bigger profits. Also not every worker can become a capital owner we can just look at current society right now as many people are given barely and wages which keeps them poor and not even bough to buy anything but survive. Which is also what Marx wrote. 4:49 unions are not unless these unions are controlling the union economy. Which some argue to be a different branch than Marxism. Socialists will support unions and most of the time join them. 6:20 socialism has nothing to do with government. There are different forms of socialism from the anarchist socialist like the makhnovshchina to the more authoritarian version like the USSR. There is a whole bunch of different socialist implementation. Just like how there are different forms of capitalism to be implemented like state capitalism to social democracies. 8:28 Marxism is an analysis of class behavior. It’s not utopian. Marxism mainly talks about how the two classes created due to capitalism the capitalist and the workers interact with each other. Most of Marx’s work is critical of capitalism as we see in das capital volume 1-3. Marxism does not describe communism. Marxism is a philosophy while communism is a type of economic theory. 9:25 Marxism is an analysis like I said before, while Marxist-Leninism is an approach of implementing it. 10:45 the USSR had different parties/factions as there was the “left opposition” like leon trotsky, the “center” like Stalin, and the right opposition like Bulgarian. It wasn’t until later that Stalin put it under one party with zero factions. If I made things confusing just think of the US and see how there are 2 “parties” both are capitalist and follow neoliberalism they just implement it in a slightly different way. You can count the US as one party with 2 major factions. But the US 2 factions do things very similar compared to how the ussr factions interacted. 11:20 China was not communist but socialist it no longer has been since its “socialism with Chinese characters”. China is capitalist 11:40 you can not have an economy be part socialism part capitalism. It’s just not possible. What you are showing is a capitalist country and how much social policies it has. Social policies do not equal socialism. Labor unions as I have said before are not socialistic. They still participate in a capitalist system. Labor unions are just a defense that the workers can create against the capital owners exploitation. 13:10 the USSR as I have said before was a socialist country. You can’t have a communist country because it would have to be moneyless, borderless, classless, etc society. Communism is the end goal of socialism. The USSR never came close to reaching that goal they even admitted. It takes generations to reach that level. I just realize this but before China reverted back to capitalism. It followed maoism which is a different form of think than just Marxist-Leninism. I don’t know much of Maoism so I won’t go to much into detail for that. This video is filled with a lot of misinformation and contradictions. These are just the main point I wanted to point out because other points made would make this comment way to long. I also just wanted to point out major gripes from the video.
I live in a former communist country of Serbia (former Yugoslavia), and what I can tell you for sure is that I lived a far better under communism than it is today! There is more freedom, less violence and people were much closer to each other! The dissolution of my country we had a great misery and poverty!
I like how he implied the existence of social mobility invalidates all of Marxist theory. How to say you didn't read Marx without saying you didn't read Marx
For real, that was my thought the whole time watching this in class. I was like “there ain’t no way he just said that... and we learning this in class?” But I remembered that US is very pro capitalist
@@jaycentral2722 1. He’s already bias by saying which one he is for. Makes it more personal then factual 2. He spoke about authoritarianism as in communism when Marxism or communism is not necessarily always authoritarian. You can have capitalist authoritarian government (ex. nazi Germany and Spain with Francis in power) 3. Constantly relating Leninist to communism which just bc Leninism says they are communist, doesn’t make them communist. I think he needed to differentiate them better so the audience understand that just bc they call themselves communist does not make them communist. (I can call myself Beyoncé but that does make me Beyonce right?)
In capitalism and USA, supply-demand [with little government intervention] defines the product. Products in capitalism were never based on obsolescence. The consumers purchase decides what is made. Not everyone needs a light bulb that will last 1 century. Things that last long are usually very expensive and may not be worth their longevity, in capitalism the consumer decides if it's worth it for them, while in communism the central planners [government] decides for everyone.
Especially considering Marx developed socialism *to* break away from Utopian socialists I'm not sure Sal actually did any significant research for this
@@califighter56 I think it's also kind of relevant to mention that the idea of a utopia has changed over the years, making Marx's ideas slide closer to a Utopia than where it was originally was. Modern utopias are pretty likely to side somewhat closer to Marx's version of communism (plus the idea of a utopia at this point is decently nebulous and different between people)
@@eduardoguimaray9377 he claimed points that Marx supposedly made as fact, Marx mainly talked about freedom and what that freedom would look like, whilst heading into an industrial period for man. This is just one of many examples that he got wrong
''Gods kingdom'' [where everyone was a saint] which was attempted by the Catholics numerous times during the middle ages also never happened, it was also a dictatorship. Attempts at unrealistic utopias almost always lead to oppressive dictatorships.
You have the right to whatever values you want that's obvious but it isn't what Stale Mike asked. He asked "You're telling me you'd rather continue to force people into poverty just so you can save up for a BMW because you came from a position of privilege?" You are completely correct in saying "if I value having a BMW more than helping out a fellow man by paying out bigger wages, I have the complete right to do that" But the question was, is that what you would choose?
I feel the need to raise some points here: You say labourers can become the object of competition for capitalists. But A) that implies that the labourers don't have equal opportunity to start their own buisness, otherwise why would they be labourers? B) Just in case capitalists find that the wages(or taxing costs) are not the LOWEST POSSIBLE, they just move their headquarters to some other country that is cheaper. Exactly what is happening with the greek commercial fleet.
Big oof. I'm not even an expert in communism and yet I can see clear anti-communist bias. The claim at 3:04 that Karl Marx never considered the possibility of wealth accumulation in a capitalist economy is ludicrous. A large portion of communist argument involves declaring wealth accumulation a sort of false promise used by the bourgeoisie to justify their continued existence as an economic class (which is explained as being both wholly unnecessary as well as detrimental to society at large) and continued monopoly over wealth generation.
Speaking of Lenin, there's a great article on his journey to becoming the first communist leader in March 2017 issue of Smithsonian magazine. I also find it exciting and shockingly enlightening that last month (April of '17) was the 100 year anniversary of Lenin's trip from his place of exile (Switerland) to his home country of Russia. Even though the actions carried out by his administration violated human rights, we need to understand the logic behind them. When we of the present analyz the actions and events of the past, we see patterns. I think if a majority of people who understood these patterns came together, we could prevent them from happening again.
Jimmy "Human Rights" Carter rediscovered "Human Rights" when he claimed Cuba was holding political prisoners. Then he looked up his now free political prisoners in the Atlanta Pen. The Imperialists started WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution was the means of putting an end to the Imperialist war. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and no the US Imperialists didn't win the cold war.
They're never constant and neither are wages, but both can be compared relatively between services. No one person goes to a restaurant or hospital everyday, but both places will attract other consumers daily. Now compare your desire to have a waiter when at a restaurant vs your desire to have a surgeon when your heart tissue becomes inflamed. Do you think the majority of people won't desire greater the latter over the former?
Different jobs earn differently because we value their services differently. Anyone would give more to see a surgeon than to have a waiter serving their food because most people value their immediate health more than restaurant convenience. Thus, one occupation pays more than another because of its demand. The inequality in value for services is not something that can be changed simply by switching economic systems; it's our own natural preference of priority.
Of course, the rich people would like to do it the Capitalist way, but remember that there are more poor people than rich, so I believe that Karl Marx's idealogy works for all humankind and not just the 1% or 0.1% of the rich people. This doesn't mean that we have to do everything Marx says, we could change some of the idealogy and come up with something perfect or something that suits our country's system more. I personally believe that a Socialist state would be the best.
You did a decent job explaining PARTS of each ideology, but failed to grasp the "big picture" if you will. One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein, who said "If you cannot explain something simply, then you do not know it well enough".
bahahahahhahahahahahhhahahaahhaah he explained it u dont understand this simple fact. How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands marx and lenin.
There are several studies, PISA is not the only one. What you should also realize is that there are many wealthy Americans, the average wage for an American is much higher than the average wage in Europe. What i would agree is that it's better to be poor in Europe, but if you work [the majority] id pick USA. Also; with Obamacare being poor isn't as bad, in several states university is also payed by the state. Happiness is subjective and can't be measured.
3/3 To build a middleclass requires hard work no matter what the system. Russia had communism for a while but they were 3rd world, they had famines where every1 went hungry, USA grain donations saved tens of millions of Russians in their 1921 famine. USSR only developed after WW2 where reportedly millions died in work camps. Many have also died developing a middle class in capitalist systems, but there's more choice in working in a factory than in a communist work camp.
Very well spoken sir. I think people often get too brainwashed to hate some ideas without even thinking about it deeply. I have always thought any job as important as the next.
And some people get so brainwashed by their own lack of critical thinking to think that communism would EVER work. I would rather have a nucleur war and a nucleur winter than have a global communist government. Atleast one of the options allow humanity for a instant death while the other offers slow death of the human race through famine and disease.
The funny mistake people make all the time is assume that Russia was a communist country when this is simply not true. USSR stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, they were closer to capitalism with the difference between the lower and upper classes than communism. If you think about it truthfully, why would anyone revolt unless they knew they weren't getting their equal share? So we don't know if pure communism would work, but we know that extreme authoritarianism(soviets) doesn't.
If only barbaric capitalist oppression and exploitation were a thing of the past. Sadly, Marx's vision of caplitalism couldn't be more true in our time of life.
I'm a just S.Korea student. I very difficult to live in south korea. In Korea, about hundred people's suicides per all people per one day. Because of the pressure of competition. And even if a children of rich parents not, almost impossible that social mobility. This means that poor people's are carried poverty from their descendants. Thus, I hope my country into a socialist state rather. But, I do not hope like the North Korea socialist system. ha... I so hate capitalism.
1/2 I don't think more people can't afford to live better. In the 60's some people thought there wasn't enough resources for Chinese & Japanese to consume as much as they do. Remind you in those 50 years about 1.5 billion peoples living standard skyrocketed in those 2 countries alone. The problem i see is that even though more & more countries develop, population also keeps rising. Nothing is infinite, there has to be a limit.
That sort of collective action is impossible for a population on the national scale without a clear incentive. No one society will ever agree to what specifically is "good for the community" other than a general notion because people value things differently. It then falls on increasingly authoritarian governments to direct such a conformed incentive. The only worthwhile case it didn't was Che Guevara's "moral incentive"-based reforms in Cuba. And we all know how that turned out.
This video is a pretty good introduction for 15 minutes, but I would have to disagree on where the USSR feel on the spectrum. Like many countries that have called themselves communist, that isnt really the case. Communism, and this is probably the most important problem of communism to be solved, is it's ability to be taken over quickly by a totalitarian (such as the USSR under Stalin, North Korea under Kim-il Sung). Stalin also made quiet a few false claims. At one point, he declared that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be over. When that happens, Government is supposed to dissolve to nothing, which it clearly didn't under Stalin. One issue with the video, it did not make it clear that while Marx had a lot of critques of Capitalism, but he didn't necessarily hate it. It was mentioned the evolution of capitalism to socialism to communism. But it did not express the importance Marx saw in Capitalism, especially the fact that Marx did not endorse the Russian Communists. Marx thought the Russian to be barbaric and they didn't have a proper industrial revolution (key step), so he thought that Russia would probably be the last place for a revolution. Marx may have endorsed the Russian communists late in life, if so it was because it became clear that the Russians were the only ones that may have a shot at revolution. But he still did not internally approve. To describe his distaste, his works were Translated into many languages, but not Russian (on purpose), and did not want his works circulated in Russia. Lenin and other Russian Marxists had to read it in another language (mostly German). Actually rather funny story. During the time, the Tsar of Russia had tight rules on literature that could be circulated. Marx's work would have been banned except that the Tsar government thought their own population was too stupid to understand it, so it was allowed. Back to Marx and Capitalism. Capitalism was the route from Feudalism and to begin introducing ideas of Democracy. But, capitalism would lead to a limited Democracy, think of it as a spectrum also. Representational Democracy is not the same as true direct democracy. Feudalism leads into Capitalism, giving some power to the lower portion of society, limited control and say, but more say than in Feudalism. Capitalism would also generate the necessary environment, as it creating or launching industry. The factories would be started under the Capitalist. Also, there isnt an emphasis on the Anarchy portion. The core of Communism/Marxism is Anarchy. Not only would the economic transitions give power to the proletariat and make the bourgeois whither away, it would give control locally. The factory comes under control of the workers who work in it. Once enough control is shifted over, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ends and government is no more*. I place an asterick because the best way to think of it is like communal anarchism.
Thanks Todd. Pleasure to see smart comment. Want to make a remark about "false claims", I'am sure comrad Stalin could write or say that at somepoint, but it is not his own statemnet, it's Marx&Engels statement. And it ain't false at least as a part of Marxism theory. To understand what means statement "Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be over and then State supposed to be desolved" you have to understand what is State and Dictatorship through the pirsm of Marxsim. So, State is machine of repressions, and it's main purpose since first countries (Slaveholders oppresed slaves by Democratic government (of Ancient Greece for example). In every State structure there is oppresors and opressed. Dictatorship is power doesn't held back by any laws or rules ("but we always have law" someone may say, yes but who are set these rules and laws? Ones who have power, dictators), now we live in Era of Capitalist Dictatorship. And communism is a way to destroy machine of repressions (the State) because it will nulify social classes through Dictatorship of Proletarinas (the most common class), therefor there won't be opressors and opressed. Little more abput Joseph Stalin, he made a lot of mistakes most of them in 1937-1939 but i belive that it might was optimal dessisions in the politic sitiation of that years, great war is on the doorstep, Gitler's Germany doest cover it's intentions to "free living space for German's" on the Slavs territory, and other Capitalist countries doesn't seemed to be bothering about it, because guess what? And second major factor is countrevalution threat. Thats reasons why USSR Government "untied hands" of the police, and many people got in prisons and even executed with no reason. Goal of anarchism is to destroy the State, but in Commuinsm the State would desolve itself, because there are no classes.
@@OlegRouse I actually just started getting into this with Stalin. That his crimes may have been fabricated/taken out of proportion by right leaning journalist trying to smear the Soviet Union. Found it fascinating that he tried to step down 4 times and the politburo denied it.
Capitalism did not introduce democracy. Capitalism has nothing to do with a republic from of govt with representative democracy or direct democracy. We went from Feudalism to Mercantilism and then into the industrialization and this brought us capitalism. There is nothing democratic about businesses. In the 1700s those of us who were not slaves largely owned own business. Post ACW we were neck deep in wage slavery. We we employees working for someone else now,
actually initially both light bulbs used to cost the same. But an example now a days in capitalist countries: if you have a printer, or any bought goods, that malfunctions , including apple, the stores won't fix it or tell you how to fix it, they will advise you to buy a new one, thus throwing more wood in the fire. Where does the US get materials and workers to satisfy this consumption? Third world countries, this continues to make the poor more poor and the rich richer.
Another important thing to note is, Marxist Socialism doesn't "have" to be State Socialism, it can be workers cooperatives like credit unions, worker owned factories,etc. As for "Communist State", that is an oxymoron as Communism is a Classless, Stateless, Moneyless Society. Communism comes long after Socialism.
Thank you for the video. Very good. I have been doing a lot of research on communism and my thoughts are leaning in the direction that socialism or communism has not been the issue. It has been the Authoritarianism within the state. What about a Democratic Socialist / Communist society. What are your thoughts on that? Thansk
The main issues in my mind with a democratic socialist/communist society is that for any society larger than a city state will have to rely on a representative democracy that could lead back to some semblance of a class system
@@gabesynnott6506I am pretty sure that Switzerland has a pretty direct democracy even at the federal level. The same thing was said about a democracy itself that it is too inefficient and was the argument made by monarchists in Europe.
"i don't like making it a habit of defending Marx". how bias. as if Marx was an evil tyrannical dictator. dude was literally just a philosopher/writer who was an exile all his life.
Your assertion, at around 3:00, that Karl Marx didn't take the possibility of an inverse of the situation into account, is both incorrect, and representative of a misunderstanding/inadequate understanding of his analysis. Basically, capitalism operates according to laws, and, as a matter of fact, the very conditions you outlined (many property owners and relatively few workers) HAPPENED in America during its initial settlement. Professor Richard Wolff is a modern Marxist professor who's talked about this in detail on Democracy at Work and on his own individual channel (this was basically the driving force behind the existence and perpetuation of slavery in the United States; all the natives were murdered, there were relatively few white colonists compared to the work that needed to be done, and the wide availability of land for homesteading forced property owners to fiercely compete for the skilled laborers. This led to the import of slave labor as a way to compensate). These laws also guarantee that any growth-oriented society (all hitherto existing societies) will eventually reach a state where the number of proletarians dramatically exceeds the number of capitalists, and because of this, market forces, after the initial boom that comes with rapid growth, drive wages down and push workers into ever more precarious conditions with fewer rights. Unfortunately (for the capitalists), because of these very same laws (the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the tendency of markets towards monopolization, the crisis of overproduction, etc) capitalism inevitably suffers periodic collapses every 4-8 years that threaten the existence of the entire system, and these economic crisises, combined with the existence of large numbers of workers who's very existence is tenuous and uncertain at best, and with the fact that the state apparatus that currently exists serves the interests of property owners and not these impoverished workers creates revolutionary conditions that, over time and through enough repetition, will either result in the overthrow of the existing relations of production, or the common ruin of all society.
1/2 Again; you're wrong, healthy products are NOT more expensive than fast foods especially if you make them yourself. I've work in restaurants which makes fresh foods. Fresh food meals, especially made at home, are far cheaper than fastfoods. Yesterday i made a hamburger for myself with pure ground meat [no wheat added], leccute, tomato & cheddar cheese. It cost me about $2. Eating in any restaurant, including fast food, is a luxury for those with enough $ to pay others to cook for them.
Explaining capitalism, socialism, and communism without considering the concepts of coloniality and colonialism makes this video good for the middle school level, even conservative and in many ways biased.
@@gooooblaster1800Communists have a much deeper understanding of past socialist experiments than anyone else. They too have much harsher criticisms of past socialist states than anyone else. Id say youd get a fair explanation from them if you asked.
I think he forgot to mention that Karl Marx thought that Russia would be one of the last places where communism would happen because he expected that when the industry becomes big enough it won't need capitalism.
As for our ideology, historical materialism, we know that capitalism created it's own destructor, the proletairat and its end is inavitable. Also we don't say that the end of this road is just communism. As Rosa said" Socialism or Vandalism" we'll either create socialist state, or you'll cause all humanity to destruction. Greetings from Turkey comrades! There's no rest till the revolution!
Have you checked out Jacque Fresco redesign of a culture. It is neither communist, nor capitalist nor any of the old systems used in the past or today. Its a new way of thinking about mans position in life. The Venus Project
@@provostic8421 Because when you attempt to achieve something difficult, even if you don’t reach your goal the place you end up is better than the place you started at. You sound like you’ve never worked hard for anything in your life.
@@Captain_Kel you know nothing about me, stop pretending like you do. You can aim for something great, but it’s also important to set realistic goals. The problem is that throughout history, people that tried to create utopia often ended up creating dysfunctional and poor societies (USSR, Cuba, China before the adoption of market policies)
@@provostic8421 You’re right i know nothing about you except for the depressing pessimistic viewpoints you’re spouting. Countries that have attempted to be socialist or communist have always been met with violence by other capitalist nations like Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Catalonia, Cuba, Chile, the list goes on. Imagine if i tore your house down every time you attempted to build it and then claimed you have no idea how to build a house simultaneously ignoring my own intervention. And you say Chinas economy is futile but they are on track to surpass America’s in the next decade lol. Fox News didn’t tell you that huh?
@@provostic8421 Also you are so brainwashed and ignorant that you don’t even know that in the 1900s Russia had the fastest growing GDP in the world. Can you guess who has the fastest growing GDP of this current century? Yup, you guessed it, the “dysfunctionally poor society” of China😂😂 read a book moron.
indeed, in an actual communist system you could never be forced to work extra hours (because of the principle of equality, nobody would have more "power" than to you, nobody could tell you what to do. Your only "boss" would be the democratically established constitution and laws). That's why i'm still convinced that communism is just an excuse for the N.Korean dictatorship, not an actually applied socio-economic principle.
If bees are "superorganisms" because they work as cohesive unit then so are humans. I wasn't talking about "Indian" tribes (though they did work as a cohesive unit also) I said Amazon tribes. You completely missed my point about capital.
@@garbandgulyberdimuhamedow4604 This can be an okay starting point, but I think we all have to try to make an effort to notice people's biases. Sal says here near the start of the video while defending something about Marx's point of view, "I don't want to get in the habit of defending Marx, but..." This tips you off that he is personally against the ideology. That's okay because no one is impartial, but it's important to realize that the information you're taking in is being given to you through a lens. Then you can go listen to other people who see it through another lens to try to get a better picture. I myself am still figuring out what communism actually is and as an American, I know most Americans are very against it (which is why I grew up knowing almost nothing about it... it's a "bad word" here). But you're never going to find an objective source on such a heated topic. You're either going to be listening to people selling it to you or people who are trying to scare you away from it.
@@kellyriddell5014 this can't really be a starting point because no state can be communist and if the ussr is communist then every country on earth is communist. He is confusing state capitalism with communism. Communism is a stateless classless market less society. Socialism even had only been realized in a few small countries.
@@kellyriddell5014 ofc. Just search up the death toll from all those babies that died. Imagine being their and a communist soldier smacking your baby to the ground and hitting you in the face with the end of their gun and blowing a hole im your baby's chest. Sicko's. I regret reading that commie book.
3:40 I couldn't take it anymore. You're too biased. Don't give out information if you're going to do it this shitty; 3:40 - no, this is how it is TODAY.
1/2 US has made it it's mission to help develop nations economically. The Japanese starved in the millions, after we conquered we placed capitalist factories, they worked in low wages but developed. S.Korea & Taiwan were the same exact story. Middle classes are NOT made from thin air, it takes hard work. Research breaker boys to see why USA is developed. China is now making a middle class & far less starve today then ever in their history thanks to our factories.
But supply and demand are never constant variables. What you are telling me is how people's needs that can vary on a day to day basis. No one goes to a surgeon or a restaurant everyday unless circumstances which cause that arise. Should we judge a job's importance on supply and demand or consider each job as important as the next.
I haven't watched any Khan Academy videos which are as subjective as this one! I felt very bad Sal. I hope you take an objective position and redo this video! I admire your ideas, and I really like how you want to make education available to everyone, as a right not as a service. And making natural resources available to everyone equally is all the core about Communism. I hope you agree and take a note to redo this lesson.
You are teaching something, we don't care what you think. You should just stick to the point and explain what communism is, nothing more. You just gave a biased opinion, that's not education, that's just indoctrination
I wouldn't refer to myself as a capitalist or a communist. I don't like capitalism because i think it is a system based on competition, greed and the exploitation of others. where as communism I don't like because although it may be noble in theory there are way too many flaws in it to ever work, and rather then everybody becoming well off and happy. everybody becomes equal but everybody has nothing =-/. That's why I honestly believe in a democratic socialism, I think it's a happy medium if you will. I think it incorporates a lot of the pros of both systems while at the same time leaving out a lot of the cons. I'm not saying it is perfect because there is no form of government without it's flaws. I'm just saying in my opinion it is the best political system.
Marx said that there are two big groups of people: those who own capital and those who don't. The people who don't own the means of production will have to sell their job, but for a capitalist to buy that job it is necessary that the money that work generates is greater than the money paid for it. If a capitalist pays you $10 per hour, your job must be generating more than $10 per hour or else he wouldn't have any benefit. That is the basis of the marxist filosophy.
Why wouldn't anybody be happy? ONLY the people that become happy at the fact that they are superior to a different class within their own society, may be unhappy if everyone is equal. But in that system, there is always someone wealthier than you unless you, yourself, are the richest person.
I’m still amazing how good this guy can write with a mouse
Doesn't he use laptop though?
Daniel Frazier he uses a drawing board
Ikr!!
@@oliverplougmand2275 That was a joke, mate
I had to do khan academy in 3rd grade and I was so impressed by it
The 85 richest people own the same wealth as 3.5 billion people. No, I have to disagree, what Marx observed still occurs today.
Those countries have more wealth because they create it, not because they steal it.
Each idea, technology, product, service... adds wealth, because those things improve the life of those people who get it.
Poor countries would be richer if they use their reasources to create and distribute products.
If we give wealth to poor people, they will remain poor. We must give them education, equal oportunities, but not give them wealth for nothing.
@@josephang9927 but what if third world countries are poor because they're being exploited by first world countries?
@@DavidLopez-up3qm Actually, that exploitation is debatable, as third world countries receive medicine, food and assistance from the West. Maybe you are talking about classic colonialism, which was what made rich blacks sell other blacks to Jews, who brought the slaves to the New World.
@@josephang9927 of course, education is essential to empowering the lower class but if you really think about it - what incentive do the rich have to empower these people? It would be much more difficult to hoard wealth and power if we were all on an equal playing field and thus, it's advantageous for the rich to keep the poor impoverished.
Hahaha! Was it only five years ago when it was 85? That's a cute number.
That number is a countdown.
this dude probably didn't take much time researching into communism and how it functions and decides to be indolent by summarizing communism with it not being concrete
Please give examples
Unionization has nothing to do with socialism because it maintains the same relations of workers to the means of production. Class is not directly related to wealth disparity or "competence of management" or other things brought up in the polemic above. It is a social relation to the means of production. Capitalism is a system in which private ownership of the means of production gives control over the distribution of surplus to the capitalist class, not to the people who are producing society's goods. There's no democracy over the workplace in capitalism because the economy is considered outside the purview of democratic decision making.
Redistribution of wealth and "larger government" also has nothing to do with socialism, for the same reasons--it leaves intact the relations of production. Socialism is NOT government management of the means of production. Socialism requires WORKER control over the means of production. The lecturer probably believes that Obama is a socialist.
Government management of capitalism is called Social Democracy and is what happens in countries like Sweden, where people are far happier and better taken care of, by the way, than in the United States.
These things are "hard to think about" because of the constant indoctrination and apologizing from people who benefit from capitalism. People should check out Market Socialism and the work of economists like Richard D. Wolff.
Also, Marxism-Leninism and Communism are NEVER used interchangeably, except I suppose by the lecturer. Nor is "Marxism" utopian, that accusation can only be made by someone who hasn't read the man and who is shilling for capitalism.
And, regarding corruption in political parties, people living in the United States shouldn't throw stones. :)
Finally, on the Democracy->Authoritarianism scale, the US is a functional plutonomy where wealthy capitalists control the political system and use it to wage their own intra-class conflicts, using the people only to get formal votes (this is what the Tea Party was about). Just because people can push a lever once in a while doesn't mean they have any real power at all. There was voting in the Soviet Union, too. You have to look at the REAL functioning of systems to get anything out of the analysis.
Certainly, the USSR was authoritarian, but you'll have to jump through some hoops to show how it overturned the class relations of production and became "Communist".
U spend so much time trying to say that nobody was ever communist and socialist when u come to the point when u say how real socialism (or whatever u want to call it) would really work in the REAL world (give us details not generic ideas), there is when I will finally start laughing! Until then all u do is excusing urself, just like all Marx did was criticize capitalism...and btw in Sweden the capitalism is managed by the government? hahahah...nice one.
If you like so much sweden and Scandinavia why you don’t move there?
Btw, Switzerland is more capitalist than sweden and they are happy aswell if Not more than sweden and furthermore they also got better services like health (because in switzerland it’s private, whereas it’s gov‘t Runned in sweden). I think Sweden vs Switzerland is a classical example that Social democracy May work with Huge collectivistic indoctrination and janteloven culture, but capitalism will always be far superior
@@marianotrani8438 because nobody does that. you could just say this to anyone wanting to make their country better.
@@marianotrani8438 well we don't really have any non capitalist or state capitalist states to compare it to do we?
A video to supposedly explain what communism is but i felt that all we got was your opinion.
angelbrotherhood Moar complicated = better!
That's what any teaching is, someone's opinion. You just have too decide if they've hinted you in a good direction.
angelbrotherhood No it doesn’t, whoever these ideas belong to I never found them in Marx-Engels’ or Lenin’s collected works nor in the writings I’ve read of Trotsky, Luxemburg, De Leon, Kautsky and Plekhanov. He seems to have made up most of it himself.
@@gamer106892 because a majority of his audience are kids in high school.
The communists/socialists were against traditional cultures. They banned Ukrainians, Russians, Chinese, Koreans and amongst others from: wearing traditional clothing, listening to their folk music, practising their religions, replacing folk architecture with 'socialist realism'(Also 'functionalism' and the like), (sometimes) even speaking their languages. I do not see any reason why those Filipino communist rebel fighters would do the same thing and generally, I don't see any reason why most Marxist-Leninists and Maoists would have abandoned this habit.
that same arrangement you described still happens today, the minority with lots of capital imposing low to no wages on the masses
Only happens during times when the economy is troubled. When there are more people than jobs to do them.
When an economy is growing, however, wages go up and up, lifting many out of poverty
Back then you couldn't accumulate Capital, now you can, so the Marxist argument doesn't apply.
@@SonarWavePulse when the economy goes "up" so does consumption. Which raises prices. Which forces workers to accumulate debt. Which eventually leads to a lack of extra income. Which causes the workers to stop buying as much. Which causes the economy to go "down". Which causes prices to decrease, especially the cost of labor (since unemployment will inevitably be high). Which allows the wealthy to purchase more at a reduced price.... and on and on the cycle goes until either revolution or oligarchy.
@@SonarWavePulse that is not true
@@Gamerad360 again not true
Where's surplus value? Where's dialectical materialism? Anyway, you definitely have a bias when it comes to socioeconomic and historical topics. The creation of surplus value is not even related to something material, since it's greater than the value of the constant capital (means of production, commodities) and the variable capital (labour). The extraction of surplus value leads to massive consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few, who then acquire more constant and variable capital to expand the surplus value, ad infinitum. In Capital, Marx referred to this as centralization of capital, which has come true!
the surplus value is the price for the security an employee pays for not having to bear the risk of bankruptcy.
50% of businesses fail in the 1st 5 years.
the stress of needing to work 100+h weeks to avoid bankruptcy is sth. no western goverment would allow for any employee outside of a crisis.
if the surplus value gets divided too unfairly between employer and employee a competitor can offer better wages or the employee can become an employer by himself after aquireing skills and capital from working.
this works as long as the are no monopolies.
the job of the goverment is to stop monopolies like the us did to standard oil.
@@MREiermann1000 Great point! Competition is the fuel that makes the Capitalistic Bus go! Without it, we are all standing on the side of the road with our thumb up asking others for help.
@@MREiermann1000 "If the surplus value gets divided too unfairly between employer and employee a competitor can offer better wages"
You're incredibly misinformed. A competitor doesn't offer better wages due to the surplus of unemployment which is why they bribe legislators to pass policies to favor this approach. If there were a shortage of employees due to the government focusing on it's infrastructure for the sake of creating jobs, large corporations would be forced to offer better benefits due to the lack of unemployment. This is ignoring the fact they find loopholes to avoid paying wages (such as the prison industrial complex, exploitation of resources via the military industrial complex and getting their materials from slave labor in China).
This is also ignoring the fact that they barely pay anything in taxes, yet most of OUR taxes are being funneled into them under a disguise of "cReAtiNg MorE JobS". How many people got laid off during this pandemic by large corporations such as Disney and Amazon? How many of YOUR taxes went to paying for a relief bill whilst small business owners were getting the short end of the stick despite paying drastically more taxes?
i didnt understad that, but i think more people should see this
@@whysoserious9519 surplus of unemployment is only relevant for unskilled labour. an employee usually doesnt just want to hire anybody. make yourself harder to replace. gain skills. its litterally free on the internet to learn most things like learning to code.
but i agree we as voters have to pay more attention to financial criminality and loop holes and vote for parties that want stronger goverment intevention and more money for prosecution. though thats not really sth you can do with a 2 party system i guess. greetings from europe.
That is true, most teachers don't focus on expanding your cultural knowledge, I was talking about the way they make you study, they make you understand the main idea instead of memorizing everything.
"The government, or in the words of communists, the hands of the people" - this is more of a criticism of American democracy. The constitution states the government is of the people and by the people, but most Americans disagree. So if you think the government is a bad thing, then that's because YOUR democracy is bad, not the entire concept of democracy.
This video honestly reflects how, despite your best efforts to be impartial, you still can't explain Communism without sounding like capitalism is your religion. Capitalism is treated as a synonym for freedom while you're growing up in the USA. That's why you feel compelled to say things like "I don't want to say too many good things about Marx," despite your only criticism being "utopia is unrealistic lol."
Lol communism go brr
Communism has committed 50 million deaths.
@@LoveShuffleBlues dont argue with idiots. Im pro capital. Just let it be. These commies are delusional. Shhh. The secret is Don't say nothing.
Totally ignores the revolutionary road pointed to by Marx and the role of Imperialism capitalism highest stage.
Lmao yeah sure. Cus we don't see ppl still not filling needed hard and high skilled jobs and choosing to sell butthole pics on the internet instead. There's way too many issues to address before communism is possible and not a lazy idiots dream. Maybe one day. But not for centuries. Already to many issues filling jobs that require effort
You could've saved 10 minutes by saying you don't understand Marx
11:04 when the teacher forgets the lesson plans
Brain got stuck in a loop. It's a miracle Sal managed to get out if it, lest be trapped inside forever.
@@kennarajora6532 🤣
The manifesto is a 2 hour read tops and it sounds like you didn't prep Sal
Marxists don't like when their ideology is picked apart.
@@paperfart3988 yeah thats why they spent years of their life studying it
We are individuals, but as a whole we serve as a species. A painting would be blank, bland and dull if it only consisted on an individual pixel. But what many pixels create when they structure themselves in an organized fashion is what makes a masterpiece.
Sal's method is just amazing.. No script, he just explains what he knows.. beautiful
He doesn’t really know though and that’s the problem.
@@Otknoharuka " tHaTs NoT CoMunIsM" kinda weird how people who have studied the topic for decades and say it doesn't work and have has a correct definition of communism are shut down by people like you who just spend 2 hours reading a manifesto ( reading not even thinking really) and think you know better. Smh
@@someguy4003 North Korea calls itself the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea but do you think it’s actually democratic? Just because a country calls itself a democracy or socialist or communist doesn’t mean it’s policies actually reflect that.
Pretty misleading video, for instance in 3:29, he definitely wrote about the existence of “small capitalists” or “petit-bourgeoisie”
but Marx pointed out the existence of competition would result in the tendency for capital to accumulate in bigger and bigger hands.
I suggest anyone pick up an very short and concise reading of marxism, I recommend Engels, Socialism : Scientific and Utopian, or Lenin : The three sources and the component parts of marxism.
The bias against communism is too real in this video.
Are you saying this is a bad thing?
Michael Simpson If you think it's not, there's clearly something wrong with you.
Who the hell would ever want Communism? I like to own things thank you very much, it's in human nature, every communist society fails for this reason, liberty is the way to go.
95TurboSol The ignorant greed is clear in you. "I want"
Omar Moodie
I do want, everyone wants, it's great to want as long as you work for what you get. Wanting isn't greed and confusing conquest with capitalism and liberty will just end in confusion and a skewed picture of it.
Hi there, I am a huge fan of your channel. I've been watching since high school and I'm almost done with my law degree. I was wondering if you could do an update of this video with the latest statistics and so forth? Keep up the awesome work that you guys do!!!
Latest statistics lmao like the CCP and Australia
@@TTTTTTTTT853 fr tho, check out how well communism is working in the cyberpunk-state that is china now
@@monkeyemperor1223 Looks like they have the same problems as capitalism with a banking crisis. Hey maybe that's it? Their problems are connected to going down the capitalist road? Keep feeding the Imperialist war machine and giving away the national treasury when they are too big to fail that way they don't even have to properly manage to earn a profit all they need to do now is buy corrupt politicians who will do their bidding and bail them out of the next crisis caused by the very way the capitalist system works.
@@kimobrien. That is my point lol. Everything is run by the same people, they want us mad so no one can retaliate...
Then you've become an Internationalist like the movement around the American Socialist Workers Party and "The Militant" newspaper?
He's actually defending capitalism?!
Yeah my mom made me and my dad watch this so we wouldn't be communists anymore, (Ps. Didn't work.)
@@brenna3354 lol
It was like CNN report about Russia and China, very weak argument. You should know that Marx was not the only one critical about capitalism.
who cares, he was the best of them
@@spacemarx6318 LOLLLLLLLLL
@Blue Wall Kropotkin lmfaooo
Good overview, it is important to note under Marxism there is a distinction between "Personal Property" and "Private Property". Personal would be like your house, car, land(For personal use),etc. Private Property would be factories,warehouses, land used for profit,etc. These two are distinctive in Marxism, as opposed to Feudalism and Capitalism they are the same.
So you don’t think capitalism has different rules for owning a car or a company?
Fascinating.
@@CaptainTae Since a car is expensive the capitalist often sell it by a debt contract much like selling homes, farm land and trucks.
@@CaptainTae can i have some example pls
@@congdanhao4639 examples of what?
@@kimobrien. That’s a very bad analogy.
Before saying anything, I want to give you credit for risking your own image, getting through a very controversial topic, to educate us. And I think you did a great job staying neutral.
And that was very informative and clear. Thank you :)
Very worrying how communism is controversial in America capitalist mindset is so deeply rooted in that country
@@memethingz6004mate educate yourself on how many communist countries exist and then count how many attempts there have been and the conditions in which the “proletariat” live in those countries
Then compare it to the quality of life for the working class in the US or Britain or France
Or compare west Germany to east Germany and their quality of life
11:04 good point
It bugs me. All of the problems that the socialists and communists point out in capitalism would be way worse if you gave the government even more control. I don't understand why they can't put that together.
@@paperfart3988 because that’s not what communism or socialism actually calls for, just Stalinist/marxist-Leninist interpretations of it, and even then those don’t necessarily call for state control of the means of production.
@@Sweatyleftist so you understand communism better than the very people that founded it?
@@joshuaallen9501 can you tell me who founded communism? Or are you just gonna say Stalin and Lenin? Marx’s interpretation of what communism is was much different
@@Sweatyleftist its because marxs idea is impossible for society to achieve. Feudalism is a more accurate way society tends to work. Peasants have never ruled the means of production.
Khan I love your math/science, let me help you clear up some social theory. You can't imagine what a "stateless" society was about? Socialists and anarchists tended to see the state as an institution devoted to defending the interests of the propertied elite, something which I think is becoming clearer to many people today. Their "stateless" society is an international order where people would have a direct say in decisions that affected them/ "economic democracy."
I absolutely agree. Marxist-Leninism and Command Economies are different than traditional Marxism
@@kodabro4322 Leninism and Stalinism are not the same thing. The establishment of a workers state is the first step to socialism. Today the Cuban People and the Cuban state represent workers and farmers state power in the world today.
@@kimobrien. I never said they were the same thing. Marxist-Leninism was developed by Joseph Stalin in the 1920’s based on his understanding of Traditional Marxism and Leninism. Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented by the Soviet Union 1927-1953. Maoism is a form of Marxist-Leninism that Mao Zedong developed. Castro was a Marxist-Leninist. Pol pot was a Marxist-Leninist and Nationalist. Even western Marxist’s 30-100 years ago were hyper critical of the Marxist-Leninists at the time. Tell me, you’ve never read Capital Volume 1 have you?
@@kodabro4322 I've read the beginning as far as the declining rate of return on investment. I've also read many of the writings of Leon Trotsky.
@@kimobrien. well if you haven't read that far into it. Marx did not provide a detailed blueprint for a future society unlike other utopian at the time. So no surprise you have Marx uncomplete idea, paralleled with Lenins ideas which eventually Stalin studied and adopted as aforementioned
This guy just completely skips over the labor theory of value. This is biased.
How biased? And biased against what? Do you know the "value" theory?
He didn't mention it because the labour theory of value is garbage
@@bravo________87372 Even the guy who created the modern theory of capitalism (Adam Smith) believed in the labour theory of value. Do you even know what it is?
@@qqqalo you have to buy the individual parts for workers to assemble them. There's other stuff that goes into things other than labor. That theory has already been debunked.
@@joshuaallen9501except labor is a huge part of the process, and is included in all aspects. So to be able to disregard labor to meet profits through the "suggestive" theory of value is foolish.
When I watch a video explaining opposite theories, the least I expect is impartiality, and this video shows how much the US if filled with pro capitalist propaganda.
Marxism is anti capitalist propaganda lmao
@@paperfart3988 ideologies in themselves are not propaganda, especially not Marxism. Marxism is so big and full of ideologies that it should not be grouped together. Propaganda is media against a certain thing. This can take shape in either papers on walls saying something bad about the thing that’s being hated or just being integrated into culture and schools to teach something in a negative light. In the USA communism is always talked about poorly, so even in an attempt to be equal they are still pro capitalist in their words. ;TLDR Please learn more about a subject before saying something so stupid as “Marxism is anti capitalist propaganda l lmao”
@@wesly2089 Marx, being a intellectual, from a upper class family, felt only the upper crust should be in charge. In order to persuade the lower class to fall in line to be ruled, came up with the BS of sharing the wealth, that never, ever materializes.
Marxist is against free market capitalism. Of individuals making agreements in an exchange for good and service. Capitalism is a economic formula for supply and demand to determine prices. Marxist and communism is a ideology of a way to run a society who ends up serving that upper crust.
@@MelissaR784 sorry to say it but your just reflecting propaganda which originated in the ideas of capitalism. You say under Marxism everybody works for an “upper crust” tell me, in which nation did workers have more rights and why? USA, or ussr? Obviously the ussr. Why? Because workers could go on strike to demand better pay. In the USA, if you don’t obey your boss you could be fired and instantly replaced. In capitalism every worker does labor for the upper crust, the capitalists. The capitalists make a fourtune by doing everything as minimum as possible with maximum prices. The only reason the United States still exists with its free market is regulations to stop total monopolies and a minimum wage. If it weren’t for business laws companies would pour waste into rivers and pollute everything. Capitalism does not make a sufficient society. Getting a house and food should not cost so much and it’s rediculous how so many people reflect capitalist things like an elite class into communism which benefits the people. Please do your research on the left and consider joining the right side, the side that believes in a society to benefit all, not just the rich.
@@MelissaR784 also, just because Marx lived in a decent family doesn’t mean he can’t have communal ideas. In fact, people born into low families especially back then were to busy working some crop field for a few cents worth of usd an hour to actually have ideas. So much talent has been lost to the fields, and socialism has a solution to that.
I was born in SSR of Ukraine, moved away when I was 18. I never considered it Communism, as the LACK OF COMMUNISM was very clear. Where is Communism used at the moment?
In Kerala..a state in India. IMO... they successfully implemented it but with the help of Capitalism and Socialism.
@@Shadowmanchronicles wait fr
@@mylesmacpherson5534 apparently, I found it interesting too. It is a capitalist modified Communism. It's working because..Kerala is one of the better states in India to live in🤷♂️
My family was born in the former Soviet Union and they and you were in a communistic country.
throw people into jail, mass murder them, control ur think and ur life aspect, spread same ideology into other part of the world repeat
Food prices rise, food quality is deteriorating, municipal services becoming more expensive, crisis, bankruptcy, job loss, global warming... I love capitalism too!
"he didn't think too much about..." YES HE DID!!
YOU did not!
it is not possible for everybody too be a capitalist. you have no f'n clue !!
communism is evil and unhuman system
@@selimfurkandalgic9548 u know nothing, loser
all these systems are messed up because they are manmade
@Krónika I used to be socialist then i learn nobel prize winnier economists such as Ludwind von Mises, Milton, Hayek and much more. I learn Berlin Wall Prag 1068 Hunagary 1956 Iron Curtain North korea and south korea modern history of Japon Germany and how they got richer with capitalism. I learned since china left socialism in 1978 and went just a little bit capitialist they got richer like never before. In 1800's %90 of world population was living poverty then Capitalism spread among the world humans got richer like NEVER BEFORE. We are exist for centuries so eask your self how in just 200 years 90% poverty drop 8% today ? Why this didnt happen before ? What was that thing we never had before ? Thats Capitalism. Rich get richer and poor get richer. If that want true 90% poverty rate would hit 99% longggg ago but its didint and countiune to drop. Learn econmics and individual liberties.
@Krónika Facts dont care about feelings. I showed you data and basic economics nobel prize winners i bet you know better them and all the data is misleading.
And I just love how you say innovation will only come from competition. The world is either white or black to you. If someone has innovation, it must come from some sort of competition. Innovation will never cease to exist, no matter what political system we live under. Innovation occurs when a curious eye meets the world around it.
And how would you do that? The reason I said I don't support the thesis that everybody should be equal is because I think that variety is actually very important and the struggle of different opinions is reason for discourse. If everybody would be equal, who would take responsibilty? We are individuals you see. Competition is a good thing, if there was no incentive for competition, there would be no innovation, there would be no internet to have this discussion on. Also, define "more".
I can't believe i let this man teach me things in school.
@@sylvann7501 yeah
3:08 Marx did think of other capital owners. Which will inevitably either be bought/destroyed by the competitors. Which causes certain capital owners to start owning more and more capital until they own most of the resources from that industry which then spread and take control of other industries. Creating monopolies. Lenin then also went into more detail and said once capital owners get to big for their own countries that they reside in they will start partaking in imperialism and take resources from other places around the world by force. All in the name for bigger profits. Also not every worker can become a capital owner we can just look at current society right now as many people are given barely and wages which keeps them poor and not even bough to buy anything but survive. Which is also what Marx wrote.
4:49 unions are not unless these unions are controlling the union economy. Which some argue to be a different branch than Marxism. Socialists will support unions and most of the time join them.
6:20 socialism has nothing to do with government. There are different forms of socialism from the anarchist socialist like the makhnovshchina to the more authoritarian version like the USSR. There is a whole bunch of different socialist implementation. Just like how there are different forms of capitalism to be implemented like state capitalism to social democracies.
8:28 Marxism is an analysis of class behavior. It’s not utopian. Marxism mainly talks about how the two classes created due to capitalism the capitalist and the workers interact with each other. Most of Marx’s work is critical of capitalism as we see in das capital volume 1-3. Marxism does not describe communism. Marxism is a philosophy while communism is a type of economic theory.
9:25 Marxism is an analysis like I said before, while Marxist-Leninism is an approach of implementing it.
10:45 the USSR had different parties/factions as there was the “left opposition” like leon trotsky, the “center” like Stalin, and the right opposition like Bulgarian. It wasn’t until later that Stalin put it under one party with zero factions. If I made things confusing just think of the US and see how there are 2 “parties” both are capitalist and follow neoliberalism they just implement it in a slightly different way. You can count the US as one party with 2 major factions. But the US 2 factions do things very similar compared to how the ussr factions interacted.
11:20 China was not communist but socialist it no longer has been since its “socialism with Chinese characters”. China is capitalist
11:40 you can not have an economy be part socialism part capitalism. It’s just not possible. What you are showing is a capitalist country and how much social policies it has. Social policies do not equal socialism. Labor unions as I have said before are not socialistic. They still participate in a capitalist system. Labor unions are just a defense that the workers can create against the capital owners exploitation.
13:10 the USSR as I have said before was a socialist country. You can’t have a communist country because it would have to be moneyless, borderless, classless, etc society. Communism is the end goal of socialism. The USSR never came close to reaching that goal they even admitted. It takes generations to reach that level.
I just realize this but before China reverted back to capitalism. It followed maoism which is a different form of think than just Marxist-Leninism. I don’t know much of Maoism so I won’t go to much into detail for that.
This video is filled with a lot of misinformation and contradictions. These are just the main point I wanted to point out because other points made would make this comment way to long. I also just wanted to point out major gripes from the video.
said he didnt think about...stfu, he thought about that reality- defend him, marxism is objective and a crucial addition to the canon of human genius
I live in a former communist country of Serbia (former Yugoslavia), and what I can tell you for sure is that I lived a far better under communism than it is today! There is more freedom, less violence and people were much closer to each other! The dissolution of my country we had a great misery and poverty!
this video was a big bruh moment tbh, imagine thinking that workers can compete with big businesses or assuming that everyone has equal opportunity.
I like how he implied the existence of social mobility invalidates all of Marxist theory. How to say you didn't read Marx without saying you didn't read Marx
wow... I just can't keep up with counting the errors in this.
I should study the subject a bit more and then make my own video.
Hi
For real, that was my thought the whole time watching this in class. I was like “there ain’t no way he just said that... and we learning this in class?” But I remembered that US is very pro capitalist
Can you lay out at least 3 of those errors for me please I’m curious
@@jaycentral2722 1. He’s already bias by saying which one he is for. Makes it more personal then factual
2. He spoke about authoritarianism as in communism when Marxism or communism is not necessarily always authoritarian. You can have capitalist authoritarian government (ex. nazi Germany and Spain with Francis in power)
3. Constantly relating Leninist to communism which just bc Leninism says they are communist, doesn’t make them communist. I think he needed to differentiate them better so the audience understand that just bc they call themselves communist does not make them communist. (I can call myself Beyoncé but that does make me Beyonce right?)
@@jaycentral2722 sorry for the grammatical errors, English isn’t my first language
@11:03 The, thee, the, thee, the, thee... For reals though, you're a damn good teacher and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
11:04 is hilarious
"and obviously the thee the thee the thee nEEEgative year uh"
In capitalism and USA, supply-demand [with little government intervention] defines the product. Products in capitalism were never based on obsolescence.
The consumers purchase decides what is made. Not everyone needs a light bulb that will last 1 century. Things that last long are usually very expensive and may not be worth their longevity, in capitalism the consumer decides if it's worth it for them, while in communism the central planners [government] decides for everyone.
8:30 calling Marx's ideas utopian is incredibly disingenuous, considering his writings are what made socialism scientific
Especially considering Marx developed socialism *to* break away from Utopian socialists
I'm not sure Sal actually did any significant research for this
@@califighter56 I think it's also kind of relevant to mention that the idea of a utopia has changed over the years, making Marx's ideas slide closer to a Utopia than where it was originally was. Modern utopias are pretty likely to side somewhat closer to Marx's version of communism (plus the idea of a utopia at this point is decently nebulous and different between people)
11:05 ""tha, thi, tha thi, ... " :D
U shouldn’t make fun of ppl who stutter.. they didn’t choose to have issues
Coolz Alpink he doesnt stutter he just stuttered. Like if your friend tripped ok something and u laugh lol. If hes got cerebral palsey tho😳
@@بيانالفارسية bro chill, it happens to everyone sometimes, he doesn’t have a speech impediment
Okay sorry :( it’s just that I have issues speaking my self that’s why I got triggered.
Quoting Shakespeare....
china is state-capitalist bro.
That’s really shows how bad communism is when a regime that literally has communist in their name and still are capitalist
@@kye4216 I don't think that really makes sense to use that as an example of how bad it is.
@@scaltra6709 well if somebody sells Mercedes and constantly says how great they are but then owns a different car that’s kinda weird
for every great idea there is a simple, short, wrong explanation
How wrong?
Eduardo Guimaray completely wrong. He got a lot of theory wrong and claimed points were unaddressed when they had explanations.
@@eduardoguimaray9377 he claimed points that Marx supposedly made as fact, Marx mainly talked about freedom and what that freedom would look like, whilst heading into an industrial period for man. This is just one of many examples that he got wrong
''Gods kingdom'' [where everyone was a saint] which was attempted by the Catholics numerous times during the middle ages also never happened, it was also a dictatorship.
Attempts at unrealistic utopias almost always lead to oppressive dictatorships.
You have the right to whatever values you want that's obvious but it isn't what Stale Mike asked. He asked "You're telling me you'd rather continue to force people into poverty just so you can save up for a BMW because you came from a position of privilege?"
You are completely correct in saying "if I value having a BMW more than helping out a fellow man by paying out bigger wages, I have the complete right to do that"
But the question was, is that what you would choose?
I feel the need to raise some points here:
You say labourers can become the object of competition for capitalists. But
A) that implies that the labourers don't have equal opportunity to start their own buisness, otherwise why would they be labourers?
B) Just in case capitalists find that the wages(or taxing costs) are not the LOWEST POSSIBLE, they just move their headquarters to some other country that is cheaper. Exactly what is happening with the greek commercial fleet.
Big oof. I'm not even an expert in communism and yet I can see clear anti-communist bias. The claim at 3:04 that Karl Marx never considered the possibility of wealth accumulation in a capitalist economy is ludicrous. A large portion of communist argument involves declaring wealth accumulation a sort of false promise used by the bourgeoisie to justify their continued existence as an economic class (which is explained as being both wholly unnecessary as well as detrimental to society at large) and continued monopoly over wealth generation.
Speaking of Lenin, there's a great article on his journey to becoming the first communist leader in March 2017 issue of Smithsonian magazine.
I also find it exciting and shockingly enlightening that last month (April of '17) was the 100 year anniversary of Lenin's trip from his place of exile (Switerland) to his home country of Russia. Even though the actions carried out by his administration violated human rights, we need to understand the logic behind them.
When we of the present analyz the actions and events of the past, we see patterns. I think if a majority of people who understood these patterns came together, we could prevent them from happening again.
Jimmy "Human Rights" Carter rediscovered "Human Rights" when he claimed Cuba was holding political prisoners. Then he looked up his now free political prisoners in the Atlanta Pen. The Imperialists started WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution was the means of putting an end to the Imperialist war. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and no the US Imperialists didn't win the cold war.
They're never constant and neither are wages, but both can be compared relatively between services. No one person goes to a restaurant or hospital everyday, but both places will attract other consumers daily. Now compare your desire to have a waiter when at a restaurant vs your desire to have a surgeon when your heart tissue becomes inflamed. Do you think the majority of people won't desire greater the latter over the former?
Different jobs earn differently because we value their services differently. Anyone would give more to see a surgeon than to have a waiter serving their food because most people value their immediate health more than restaurant convenience. Thus, one occupation pays more than another because of its demand. The inequality in value for services is not something that can be changed simply by switching economic systems; it's our own natural preference of priority.
The example you made in the Capitalism stage, wouldn’t that be social hierarchy?
Of course, the rich people would like to do it the Capitalist way, but remember that there are more poor people than rich, so I believe that Karl Marx's idealogy works for all humankind and not just the 1% or 0.1% of the rich people.
This doesn't mean that we have to do everything Marx says, we could change some of the idealogy and come up with something perfect or something that suits our country's system more. I personally believe that a Socialist state would be the best.
You did a decent job explaining PARTS of each ideology, but failed to grasp the "big picture" if you will. One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein, who said "If you cannot explain something simply, then you do not know it well enough".
Go ahead and eplain it then, genius.
6 years and still waiting
bahahahahhahahahahahhhahahaahhaah
he explained it u dont understand this simple fact. How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands marx and lenin.
There are several studies, PISA is not the only one.
What you should also realize is that there are many wealthy Americans, the average wage for an American is much higher than the average wage in Europe.
What i would agree is that it's better to be poor in Europe, but if you work [the majority] id pick USA.
Also; with Obamacare being poor isn't as bad, in several states university is also payed by the state.
Happiness is subjective and can't be measured.
3/3
To build a middleclass requires hard work no matter what the system.
Russia had communism for a while but they were 3rd world, they had famines where every1 went hungry, USA grain donations saved tens of millions of Russians in their 1921 famine. USSR only developed after WW2 where reportedly millions died in work camps.
Many have also died developing a middle class in capitalist systems, but there's more choice in working in a factory than in a communist work camp.
Very well spoken sir. I think people often get too brainwashed to hate some ideas without even thinking about it deeply. I have always thought any job as important as the next.
And some people get so brainwashed by their own lack of critical thinking to think that communism would EVER work. I would rather have a nucleur war and a nucleur winter than have a global communist government. Atleast one of the options allow humanity for a instant death while the other offers slow death of the human race through famine and disease.
How could a teacher be capable of teaching a concept which he is not also willing to defend?
I love this guys voice and sounds like Brian Sapient
The funny mistake people make all the time is assume that Russia was a communist country when this is simply not true. USSR stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, they were closer to capitalism with the difference between the lower and upper classes than communism. If you think about it truthfully, why would anyone revolt unless they knew they weren't getting their equal share? So we don't know if pure communism would work, but we know that extreme authoritarianism(soviets) doesn't.
Because we as a species are not ready for that level of cooperation, efficiency, and self sustainability.
11:04 is what you call a "DuhhDi...DuhhDi" interval
If only barbaric capitalist oppression and exploitation were a thing of the past. Sadly, Marx's vision of caplitalism couldn't be more true in our time of life.
I'm a just S.Korea student. I very difficult to live in south korea. In Korea, about hundred people's suicides per all people per one day. Because of the pressure of competition. And even if a children of rich parents not, almost impossible that social mobility. This means that poor people's are carried poverty from their descendants. Thus, I hope my country into a socialist state rather. But, I do not hope like the North Korea socialist system. ha... I so hate capitalism.
1/2
I don't think more people can't afford to live better. In the 60's some people thought there wasn't enough resources for Chinese & Japanese to consume as much as they do. Remind you in those 50 years about 1.5 billion peoples living standard skyrocketed in those 2 countries alone.
The problem i see is that even though more & more countries develop, population also keeps rising. Nothing is infinite, there has to be a limit.
That sort of collective action is impossible for a population on the national scale without a clear incentive. No one society will ever agree to what specifically is "good for the community" other than a general notion because people value things differently. It then falls on increasingly authoritarian governments to direct such a conformed incentive. The only worthwhile case it didn't was Che Guevara's "moral incentive"-based reforms in Cuba. And we all know how that turned out.
@2:52 that was addressed in das capital.
I hate when Khan academy teachers think their smarter than famous well regarded people
This video is a pretty good introduction for 15 minutes, but I would have to disagree on where the USSR feel on the spectrum. Like many countries that have called themselves communist, that isnt really the case. Communism, and this is probably the most important problem of communism to be solved, is it's ability to be taken over quickly by a totalitarian (such as the USSR under Stalin, North Korea under Kim-il Sung). Stalin also made quiet a few false claims. At one point, he declared that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be over. When that happens, Government is supposed to dissolve to nothing, which it clearly didn't under Stalin.
One issue with the video, it did not make it clear that while Marx had a lot of critques of Capitalism, but he didn't necessarily hate it. It was mentioned the evolution of capitalism to socialism to communism. But it did not express the importance Marx saw in Capitalism, especially the fact that Marx did not endorse the Russian Communists. Marx thought the Russian to be barbaric and they didn't have a proper industrial revolution (key step), so he thought that Russia would probably be the last place for a revolution. Marx may have endorsed the Russian communists late in life, if so it was because it became clear that the Russians were the only ones that may have a shot at revolution. But he still did not internally approve. To describe his distaste, his works were Translated into many languages, but not Russian (on purpose), and did not want his works circulated in Russia. Lenin and other Russian Marxists had to read it in another language (mostly German). Actually rather funny story. During the time, the Tsar of Russia had tight rules on literature that could be circulated. Marx's work would have been banned except that the Tsar government thought their own population was too stupid to understand it, so it was allowed. Back to Marx and Capitalism. Capitalism was the route from Feudalism and to begin introducing ideas of Democracy. But, capitalism would lead to a limited Democracy, think of it as a spectrum also. Representational Democracy is not the same as true direct democracy. Feudalism leads into Capitalism, giving some power to the lower portion of society, limited control and say, but more say than in Feudalism. Capitalism would also generate the necessary environment, as it creating or launching industry. The factories would be started under the Capitalist.
Also, there isnt an emphasis on the Anarchy portion. The core of Communism/Marxism is Anarchy. Not only would the economic transitions give power to the proletariat and make the bourgeois whither away, it would give control locally. The factory comes under control of the workers who work in it. Once enough control is shifted over, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ends and government is no more*. I place an asterick because the best way to think of it is like communal anarchism.
Thanks Todd. Pleasure to see smart comment.
Want to make a remark about "false claims", I'am sure comrad Stalin could write or say that at somepoint, but it is not his own statemnet, it's Marx&Engels statement. And it ain't false at least as a part of Marxism theory. To understand what means statement "Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be over and then State supposed to be desolved" you have to understand what is State and Dictatorship through the pirsm of Marxsim. So, State is machine of repressions, and it's main purpose since first countries (Slaveholders oppresed slaves by Democratic government (of Ancient Greece for example). In every State structure there is oppresors and opressed. Dictatorship is power doesn't held back by any laws or rules ("but we always have law" someone may say, yes but who are set these rules and laws? Ones who have power, dictators), now we live in Era of Capitalist Dictatorship. And communism is a way to destroy machine of repressions (the State) because it will nulify social classes through Dictatorship of Proletarinas (the most common class), therefor there won't be opressors and opressed.
Little more abput Joseph Stalin, he made a lot of mistakes most of them in 1937-1939 but i belive that it might was optimal dessisions in the politic sitiation of that years, great war is on the doorstep, Gitler's Germany doest cover it's intentions to "free living space for German's" on the Slavs territory, and other Capitalist countries doesn't seemed to be bothering about it, because guess what? And second major factor is countrevalution threat. Thats reasons why USSR Government "untied hands" of the police, and many people got in prisons and even executed with no reason.
Goal of anarchism is to destroy the State, but in Commuinsm the State would desolve itself, because there are no classes.
@@OlegRouse I actually just started getting into this with Stalin. That his crimes may have been fabricated/taken out of proportion by right leaning journalist trying to smear the Soviet Union. Found it fascinating that he tried to step down 4 times and the politburo denied it.
@@toddmartin7030 From a communist. Stalin was bad and did everything he was accused of.
Capitalism did not introduce democracy. Capitalism has nothing to do with a republic from of govt with representative democracy or direct democracy.
We went from Feudalism to Mercantilism and then into the industrialization and this brought us capitalism. There is nothing democratic about businesses. In the 1700s those of us who were not slaves largely owned own business. Post ACW we were neck deep in wage slavery. We we employees working for someone else now,
actually initially both light bulbs used to cost the same. But an example now a days in capitalist countries: if you have a printer, or any bought goods, that malfunctions , including apple, the stores won't fix it or tell you how to fix it, they will advise you to buy a new one, thus throwing more wood in the fire. Where does the US get materials and workers to satisfy this consumption? Third world countries, this continues to make the poor more poor and the rich richer.
Another important thing to note is, Marxist Socialism doesn't "have" to be State Socialism, it can be workers cooperatives like credit unions, worker owned factories,etc.
As for "Communist State", that is an oxymoron as Communism is a Classless, Stateless, Moneyless Society. Communism comes long after Socialism.
this is *OUR* video.
Thank you for the video. Very good.
I have been doing a lot of research on communism and my thoughts are leaning in the direction that socialism or communism has not been the issue. It has been the Authoritarianism within the state. What about a Democratic Socialist / Communist society. What are your thoughts on that? Thansk
The main issues in my mind with a democratic socialist/communist society is that for any society larger than a city state will have to rely on a representative democracy that could lead back to some semblance of a class system
@@mattliteyoutube554 A communist country can't exist. Because communism requires a stateless society.
@@gabesynnott6506I am pretty sure that Switzerland has a pretty direct democracy even at the federal level. The same thing was said about a democracy itself that it is too inefficient and was the argument made by monarchists in Europe.
"i don't like making it a habit of defending Marx". how bias. as if Marx was an evil tyrannical dictator. dude was literally just a philosopher/writer who was an exile all his life.
Stalin, by no means, failed at communism. His two main economic policies were a huge success. However, he did grow paranoid. Not power hungry.
Your assertion, at around 3:00, that Karl Marx didn't take the possibility of an inverse of the situation into account, is both incorrect, and representative of a misunderstanding/inadequate understanding of his analysis.
Basically, capitalism operates according to laws, and, as a matter of fact, the very conditions you outlined (many property owners and relatively few workers) HAPPENED in America during its initial settlement. Professor Richard Wolff is a modern Marxist professor who's talked about this in detail on Democracy at Work and on his own individual channel (this was basically the driving force behind the existence and perpetuation of slavery in the United States; all the natives were murdered, there were relatively few white colonists compared to the work that needed to be done, and the wide availability of land for homesteading forced property owners to fiercely compete for the skilled laborers. This led to the import of slave labor as a way to compensate).
These laws also guarantee that any growth-oriented society (all hitherto existing societies) will eventually reach a state where the number of proletarians dramatically exceeds the number of capitalists, and because of this, market forces, after the initial boom that comes with rapid growth, drive wages down and push workers into ever more precarious conditions with fewer rights.
Unfortunately (for the capitalists), because of these very same laws (the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the tendency of markets towards monopolization, the crisis of overproduction, etc) capitalism inevitably suffers periodic collapses every 4-8 years that threaten the existence of the entire system, and these economic crisises, combined with the existence of large numbers of workers who's very existence is tenuous and uncertain at best, and with the fact that the state apparatus that currently exists serves the interests of property owners and not these impoverished workers creates revolutionary conditions that, over time and through enough repetition, will either result in the overthrow of the existing relations of production, or the common ruin of all society.
Khan academy man, this isn’t very based of you
This is a very biased video.
Your math videos are very good. This on the other hand isn’t. Stick to math.
1/2
Again; you're wrong, healthy products are NOT more expensive than fast foods especially if you make them yourself.
I've work in restaurants which makes fresh foods. Fresh food meals, especially made at home, are far cheaper than fastfoods. Yesterday i made a hamburger for myself with pure ground meat [no wheat added], leccute, tomato & cheddar cheese. It cost me about $2.
Eating in any restaurant, including fast food, is a luxury for those with enough $ to pay others to cook for them.
Explaining capitalism, socialism, and communism without considering the concepts of coloniality and colonialism makes this video good for the middle school level, even conservative and in many ways biased.
I lost a little respect for Khan Academy on this one.
Where else would you get a better explanation from someone’s profession is to teach
@@gooooblaster1800 maybe socialists and communists themselves?
@@gpedre21 ya sure and you'll be looking at the most biased explanation from people who arent trained to teach.
@@gooooblaster1800 you think this isn’t biased?
@@gooooblaster1800Communists have a much deeper understanding of past socialist experiments than anyone else. They too have much harsher criticisms of past socialist states than anyone else. Id say youd get a fair explanation from them if you asked.
the information presented in this video is fundamentally incorrect..
Please substantiate your statement.
@@vicj2141 it's a joke
@Siuz Start somewhere, just one of the many for a start, but please show don't tell.
Kind of looks like we are in a new Gilded Age.
true in this guys defense it was 2011 but I don't want to get in the habit of defending him
I think he forgot to mention that Karl Marx thought that Russia would be one of the last places where communism would happen because he expected that when the industry becomes big enough it won't need capitalism.
As for our ideology, historical materialism, we know that capitalism created it's own destructor, the proletairat and its end is inavitable. Also we don't say that the end of this road is just communism. As Rosa said" Socialism or Vandalism" we'll either create socialist state, or you'll cause all humanity to destruction. Greetings from Turkey comrades! There's no rest till the revolution!
Have you checked out Jacque Fresco redesign of a culture. It is neither communist, nor capitalist nor any of the old systems used in the past or today. Its a new way of thinking about mans position in life. The Venus Project
This is a good snapshot of Capitalism/Communism. Ayyeee -- what do you want in 15 minutes??
Just because a "utopian" society seems far fetched, does that mean we should not pursue it?
Yes. Why pursue a goal that you know is futile and unachievable?
@@provostic8421 Because when you attempt to achieve something difficult, even if you don’t reach your goal the place you end up is better than the place you started at. You sound like you’ve never worked hard for anything in your life.
@@Captain_Kel you know nothing about me, stop pretending like you do. You can aim for something great, but it’s also important to set realistic goals. The problem is that throughout history, people that tried to create utopia often ended up creating dysfunctional and poor societies (USSR, Cuba, China before the adoption of market policies)
@@provostic8421 You’re right i know nothing about you except for the depressing pessimistic viewpoints you’re spouting. Countries that have attempted to be socialist or communist have always been met with violence by other capitalist nations like Korea, Vietnam, Germany, Catalonia, Cuba, Chile, the list goes on. Imagine if i tore your house down every time you attempted to build it and then claimed you have no idea how to build a house simultaneously ignoring my own intervention. And you say Chinas economy is futile but they are on track to surpass America’s in the next decade lol. Fox News didn’t tell you that huh?
@@provostic8421 Also you are so brainwashed and ignorant that you don’t even know that in the 1900s Russia had the fastest growing GDP in the world. Can you guess who has the fastest growing GDP of this current century? Yup, you guessed it, the “dysfunctionally poor society” of China😂😂 read a book moron.
indeed, in an actual communist system you could never be forced to work extra hours (because of the principle of equality, nobody would have more "power" than to you, nobody could tell you what to do. Your only "boss" would be the democratically established constitution and laws).
That's why i'm still convinced that communism is just an excuse for the N.Korean dictatorship, not an actually applied socio-economic principle.
If bees are "superorganisms" because they work as cohesive unit then so are humans. I wasn't talking about "Indian" tribes (though they did work as a cohesive unit also) I said Amazon tribes. You completely missed my point about capital.
this man has helped me through physics chem and calc and i'm now watching him explain economics for fun
this isn't reliable at all it's much more effective to watch debates so you can understand the counterarguments to flimsy arguments.
@@Salmanul_ well this is a pretty bad understanding and is extremely biased and just wrong in many ways.
@@garbandgulyberdimuhamedow4604 This can be an okay starting point, but I think we all have to try to make an effort to notice people's biases. Sal says here near the start of the video while defending something about Marx's point of view, "I don't want to get in the habit of defending Marx, but..." This tips you off that he is personally against the ideology. That's okay because no one is impartial, but it's important to realize that the information you're taking in is being given to you through a lens. Then you can go listen to other people who see it through another lens to try to get a better picture. I myself am still figuring out what communism actually is and as an American, I know most Americans are very against it (which is why I grew up knowing almost nothing about it... it's a "bad word" here). But you're never going to find an objective source on such a heated topic. You're either going to be listening to people selling it to you or people who are trying to scare you away from it.
@@kellyriddell5014 this can't really be a starting point because no state can be communist and if the ussr is communist then every country on earth is communist. He is confusing state capitalism with communism. Communism is a stateless classless market less society. Socialism even had only been realized in a few small countries.
@@kellyriddell5014 ofc. Just search up the death toll from all those babies that died. Imagine being their and a communist soldier smacking your baby to the ground and hitting you in the face with the end of their gun and blowing a hole im your baby's chest. Sicko's. I regret reading that commie book.
lets just all agree to be like switzerland. best state. peaceful, and full of chocolate.
yea dream country :)
+Amna khan 4nh to 2
and they speak German and French and Italian... a polyglot's dream ❤
Taxes tho
Also to sjws but everything else is fine
3:40
I couldn't take it anymore. You're too biased. Don't give out information if you're going to do it this shitty; 3:40 - no, this is how it is TODAY.
sounds like someone has a bias and its definitely not him lol
He got 2 millions from Bill Gates, so what do you expect?
@@angeleydrian what?
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US has made it it's mission to help develop nations economically. The Japanese starved in the millions, after we conquered we placed capitalist factories, they worked in low wages but developed.
S.Korea & Taiwan were the same exact story.
Middle classes are NOT made from thin air, it takes hard work. Research breaker boys to see why USA is developed.
China is now making a middle class & far less starve today then ever in their history thanks to our factories.
But supply and demand are never constant variables. What you are telling me is how people's needs that can vary on a day to day basis. No one goes to a surgeon or a restaurant everyday unless circumstances which cause that arise. Should we judge a job's importance on supply and demand or consider each job as important as the next.
I haven't watched any Khan Academy videos which are as subjective as this one! I felt very bad Sal. I hope you take an objective position and redo this video! I admire your ideas, and I really like how you want to make education available to everyone, as a right not as a service. And making natural resources available to everyone equally is all the core about Communism. I hope you agree and take a note to redo this lesson.
You are teaching something, we don't care what you think. You should just stick to the point and explain what communism is, nothing more. You just gave a biased opinion, that's not education, that's just indoctrination
I wouldn't refer to myself as a capitalist or a communist. I don't like capitalism because i think it is a system based on competition, greed and the exploitation of others. where as communism I don't like because although it may be noble in theory there are way too many flaws in it to ever work, and rather then everybody becoming well off and happy. everybody becomes equal but everybody has nothing =-/. That's why I honestly believe in a democratic socialism, I think it's a happy medium if you will. I think it incorporates a lot of the pros of both systems while at the same time leaving out a lot of the cons. I'm not saying it is perfect because there is no form of government without it's flaws. I'm just saying in my opinion it is the best political system.
Read Peter Kropotkin. Anarcho-Communism is a healthy alternative.
Pool's Closed I assure you Anarchism is the alternative that will solve every question you have.
Marx said that there are two big groups of people: those who own capital and those who don't. The people who don't own the means of production will have to sell their job, but for a capitalist to buy that job it is necessary that the money that work generates is greater than the money paid for it. If a capitalist pays you $10 per hour, your job must be generating more than $10 per hour or else he wouldn't have any benefit. That is the basis of the marxist filosophy.
Why wouldn't anybody be happy? ONLY the people that become happy at the fact that they are superior to a different class within their own society, may be unhappy if everyone is equal. But in that system, there is always someone wealthier than you unless you, yourself, are the richest person.