Marx never claimed communism would be a utopia; in fact, he argued against it. Utopia, if we say that it is a state of being where *no* problems exist, would really really suck. With nothing to do, no problems to solve, no needs to fulfill, we'd probably die of boredom, or make problems to solve. However, communism is not the be-all-end-all of ending problems. Communism only solves the one fundamental societal/political/economic problem of class contradictions (by having no classes). There may still be problems to solve, like curing diseases, making production more efficient and humane, and even if we reach a hypothetical "Star Trek" level of being, there will still be the problems of philosophy and exploration.
+James Furukawa Yes thank you! This is good. From how I took it, Marx believed there were many problems in the world, but the biggest one that impeded on on solving the others was the class struggle. The alienation of the worker, the wealth gap and the constant manipulation and strict hold of the bourgeois ruling class on the working class. After solving this problem (class struggle) Marx believed that then humanity could solve other problems with the cooperation of all of humanity.
+Menswear Shiba The only problem with all of this, was that an elite few still held the power to decide what "working to one's abilities" and "taking for one's needs" meant, turning life for the elite surgeon into a welfare sustaining position, while making his/her contribution no more valuable than that of a humble street sweeper. Nor his living conditions when he left his job. Which creates a lack of motivation for the elite workers to do any better, and in fact to cut corners rather than strive for anything. I could go on all day, but as the great Homer (Simpson) said in a rare moment of clarity: "Communism works, in theory."
James Furukawa My "claims" are just an extrapolation of the real world effect that communism has on people. If you don't agree, fine, you are dumb, but fine. And as far as me being your research bitch, you have fingers and access to google, off you go now. While we are at it, mr "evidence or GTFO" where is YOUR evidence for YOUR extraordinary claims of a "star trek" like "utopia"? Seems like you just want to argue because you want to be right, not because you give a shit about the truth.
My only issue with this video is the idea that Marx was a utopian. No, he was not. He never claimed communism was utopian and stated that there will still be problems with it once we cross that bridge. Actually he often denounced the Utopian Socialists of his day
@@UltramanII yes, it is a variant of utopian socialism. One very important characteristic of Utopian Socialism is that it is based on principles or ideas, unlike Marxism which is based on purely scientific analysis.
I mean if never needing to work to procure the things I need to survive again isn't utopian, idk what is - not that we'll get there right away, but eventually, someday.
Wow, did I just watch an unbiased, reasonably educated video on a basic introduction on to Marxism on a large channel on a mass media site? Good work, fam.
xFirebird925x You'd probably be lucky to get stuff like this is college, best way to study on it is to read the works of the main revolutionaries at the time on your own (Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, etc.)
Greg ulgcyfvtg Really? Damn the situation is worse than I thought. Anyways yea my humanities class did let us read the start to the manifesto (which is basically what this video talks about--means of production and alienation, etc.) so I guess that was good.
Remember: When he says getting rid of private property, he doesn't mean your laptop or home, he means factories and business won't be owned by individuals, instead by their workers. It'd be stupid to say "Nobody can own anything anymore!"
Cycling in Edmonton from the Eyes of a Teen it's private property vs personal property. property used to further profit vs property that is owned by an individual for individual use
RyRy2057 individuals take according to their need and since workers will become minimalists then you won't be able to afford anything, even if it had any qualities. In theory and reality Marxism doesn't work. Marx was a biology student, not an educated economist
Please make a video explaining the differences between communism, socialism and a social democrat...also how none of these concepts have anything to do with the Third Reich. Explaining this to other people is maddening
(Posting this as a blanket statement for others who see this comment) Socialism is the economic theory in which the means of production are collectivized by society. There have been few societies that have done this and some include Revolutionary catalonia, the French Commune, and the small town of Marinaleda. Communism is a stateless, classless society based around a socialist economy. A social democrat is someone who believes in a society that has some industries owned by the government. Industries can include healthcare or social security, while the rest of society's industries are privately managed. Societies like this include sweden and denmark, and an example of a politician is Bernie Sanders (Even though he says he is a socialist, he really isn't.) None of these relate to the third reich at all really.
as much as you want to claim nazis werent national socialists, they were. they were also a racist genocidal dictatorship that aimed to enforce its system on the entire world. they are seperate. so just stop trying to tell people its "nothing to do with the third reich" and teach them what national socialism was, seperate from the rest of their beliefs.
@@alucrasher27 no, they were Pro thrives having socialism. But it would have been bad around a slavery class that did the hard labour in order for the "aryan" people to benefit from state provided systems. Hitler was all about himself and his government having control over everything. That's socialism. Social program, even the hitler youth ffs was a state social program. The state ran the media, the essentially ran the major industries. They would have controlled everything had they won, and they would have made that benefit all the people. They wouldn't have let an "aryan" person go homeless or sick, or jobless. They were against unions ran by non aryan people. They were against Russian right wing communists because those prior didn't believe in the same thing Hitler did but they were essentially the same. Using the same propaganda tactics, wanted the same level of state control. They just had a difference in ideology of everything else that went around the ideology of socialism. Their form of privatising industries didn't suddenly make all their socialist ideologies go away. You can have individuals who own things within a mostly socialist system. Politics isn't black and white, there is no entirely capitalist or entirely socialist country. Everything is a spectrum and the basis we firmly in the socialism end, just to the benefit of a select group. So please, try to insult me while trying to also take she sort if moral high ground based on an insult. That's absolutely hilarious and its only serving to illustrate how wrong you are and how you don't have a valid argument so you resort to parroting the "Nazis weren't socialist" nonsense you heard someone else say, and insults.
I used to be completely opposed to communism but several years later and I'm now dead convinced Marx was onto something with his theory of alienation. Capitalism is a failing system slowly choking out our individuality for the benefit of the elite few. We need to strive to move past capitalism if humanity is to survive.
@@PK-Radio Well since then I've done further reading and had further experience with specifically anarchist communism. There are some very interesting examples such as the Ukraine Free Territory, Shinmin commune, and Syndicalist Catalonia that tried to implement communism without a state. There is also loads of evidence in evolutionary biology and anthropology that the concept of mutual aid is a key factor.
"Hey, I've just listenned to a 3 min video about marxism, it's basically if I knew everything about it. Now let me explain to you how it can't work and capitalism is better."- 50% of the comments.
@@shoryuken3305 No country has ever reached even the first stage of communism. What people mean by "communist countries" is countries ruled by communists, hell a "communist country" doesn't have to be socialist (for example: Venezuela and China)
@@tnfsg1866 you ever stop to think that since it's been tried and failed so many times that it might not fucking work? "Real communism has never been tried" yes it has, it just burns itself to the ground.
Just a few years ago, I was a greedy and competitive worker because I steadfastly believed in capitalism. Today, I am a Socialist and I see workers as my allies and friends. Thank you for this video!
You can't discredit the possibility of a communist society just because of what happened in the Soviet Union. That would be like saying that the idea of democracy was proven impossible when the French Revolution resulted in just another dictatorship. It should not be a surprise that the Soviet Union failed to establish true communism. The Soviet government itself was based off of the idea of having a central authority controlling society. Where is the stateless, classless society in that? Of course it decayed in to a dictatorship - the small minority within the Party got to tell everyone else what to do. Please do your own research, think for yourselves. There are anti-authoritarian strands of socialism and communism.
a central part of Marxism, and yes this comes directly from Marx and Engels, is that the working class needs to take power in the form of a state, and eventually wither away into a stateless society. read The Civil War in France or State and Revolution
Anti-authoritarian strands of communism are wrong and, mor importantly in the context of this video, anti-Marxist. Marx and Engels were absolutely authoritarian. When Engels was criticized for being an authoritarian, he famously said "have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution?" And then went on to describe how all revolutions are authoritarian because it's the armed overthrow of one class by another. A revolution is the most authoritarian thing that can be. And when we analyze why the Paris Commune failed, we should recognize that, had they used their arms more liberally and suppressed reaction more forcibly, they would have approached success for more than their unfortunately short existence. It's wild that the first thing liberals demand of newly birthed socialist societies is that fascists be allowed to have newspapers.
Also the USSR, while not perfect, was a force for good in the world. Do your own research and check your sources. I guarantee you'll find the CIA's fingers in almost everything
Fine if you don't think this system can work, but to think that Capitalism is the only alternative is more Utopian than Communism. To think that we can go on living the way we are is more unrealistic than Karl Marx's Socialist ideology. The moment we stop thinking about solutions to problems simply because you think it's "too hard" or "impossible" is the moment you show your primitive mindset. By the way, isn't the Capitalist verbal tick to say "stop being lazy"? Well stop being so cynical then. Humanity is capable of coming up with things once thought impossible.
Holy Christ on a sandwich, an actually smart person! I can't believe I found you under the heaps of pessimists, trolls, idiots and capitalists in this comment section!
Please don't mistake communism with socialism. After the oppression of capitalism, workers will retake the production means and give it to the State, this is socialism, however, Marx advises: the State will grow corrupt and even more oppressive, this will make the workers fight against the State in order to abolish it, and this: no private production means and no State, is communism... Socialism is still the "bad guy" for communists.
this seems remarkably well informed and unbiased for a 4 minute video aimed at the mass media consumer about such a disreputable ideology as Marxism. Well done.
***** Originally libertarian refered to anti-authoritarian socialists, as they saw capitalism as anti-liberty, since it gives a small portion of the populaiton control over the means of produciton, and by extension, over a majority of people.
Thank you for being unbiased in either direction, but I have one small gripe: Marx never said communism was a utopia. He argued that life would be better, but we certainly wouldn't be dancing the hokey-pokey all day.
@@timurtheterrible4062 well not that you may care since your comment is a year old. but the guy who made both videos just about takes a dumb on the capitalist system then does not truly explaining why it works. While you watch this video on marxism, he is darn near praising it as a system to where everyone can walk off into the sunset as equals. Rightfully you pointed out that communism is not a utopia but the hard truth is, it's a system that would never work in reality.
@@Orchaisama that's not even how it works? you have like no idea what ur saying do you? ik this was 8 months ago so if you've become more informed then feel free to call me out
You guys forgot to mention the middle part, socialism, where money is divided up through the government among the people, to different extents sometimes. Communism, in Marx's original theory about the progression of economics in society, is the final part of his proposed cycle of government, where the government isn't even needed by the people to divide the wealth created by the people, and instead, people produce, and they borrow from one another in a sort of way like: "You gave me some food for a day, so in turn, I'd give you some food when you need it". Marx believed this was the final step a country would take in the pursuit of the perfect society, and in his mind like many others, believed Communism to be the most idealistic kind of society possible. Socialism is different from the original theory of communism in the way that the Government divides up its country's wealth instead of the people itself, so one could say that the "communism" that the USSR had used in its government was actually more like socialism that was mixed with dictatorship, and in countries like Sweden and Norway, they use socialism by taxing people, and using a lot of the money gained from that to benefit the well being of the people by investing it into stuff like education, and good healthcare. And also in a way, the US does use socialism to an extent in order to keep certain people and corporations from becoming too rich, which had happened in the early 1900s with the Industrial Revolution and what I'd say was the Golden age of Capitalism.
An extra point on that, is that socialism, as the intermediary step would have, according to Marx, need a benevolent dictator. Benevolent dictators are both in short supply and don't last long...
Socialism has nothing to do with government taxing you and providing free stuff. Socialism is when there is a industrial democracy, where workers control the means for their sustenance in a participatory sense.
@@RCmadness888 As did slavery for thousands of years and yes, when the work slaves are stupid and brain washed enough, they will try to bring that, too.
At least there’s someone out there who doesn’t give a biased testimony. I say that, and then I check the comments. The people here are the exact opposite, holy cow.
@@leaheyana6838 alright, from time stamp 0:11 to 0:38 he is explaining the existence of a system that eliminates economic classes for money and resources. Within this small time he calls it a communistic utopia. This important because he never corrects this. It is around 1:20 where the narrator subtly begins degrading the idea of capitalism. Describing it as a system where the worker does not get ahead. The worker becomes "alienated" from the product he/she produces, his peers and even himself. They are paid just a little above the minimum, never what they deserve. The greedy business owners make all the money and doesn't share(concentrations of wealth). In so many words the narrator is expressing capitalism as a system that allows individuals to exploit the economic system to make all the wealth. This makes everyone but the rich unhappy and separates you from your fellow man. He continues to degrade capitalism until about 3:10 when he switches to the notion that one day the oppressed will raise against their oppressors(capitalist business owners) overthrowing them and the idea of capitalism and installing communism where everything and everyone is equal and fair creating a utopia where all people can co-exist. Long answer short; communism good, capitalism bad. Edit: the creator of this video isn't telling you true pros of capitalism nor is he telling you the real cons of communism. There's a reason why that system never works and when it's attempted, it immediately fails. Any questions comments or confusion?
@@youtuber7186 I would be incline to believe that if he had of did the samething with his video on capitalism. Instead in that video he described capitalism through the eyes of a Marxist. Plus I don't remember marx describing communism as a utopia (even though he in his mind may have believed that). However he makes efforts to do so on this video.
I was deeply surprised how accurate of a representation of what marxism is I was just shown. Bravo Though that is the one and only major disagreement I have with marx, that being the inevitability. To me it feels more like something that can very feasibly be achieved, but if we do not unify and work towards it is very possible to fail.
Hey, at least people are communicating. It used to be rare that your ignorance would ever be questioned by a stranger. The tyrannical ideological regimes of the past wouldn't stand a chance in today's cluttered media environment.
It shows just how very real the battle of philosophies and ideologies is in this day and age... but it also is infected with people touting their opinions as facts and talking in finite terms rather than openly and ready to change their views. :/
Channels like this, SciShow, Game Theory, Sequelitis, and anything of critical thinking give me greater hope for the world. Especially seeing comments this good. So thank you, intellectual and curious viewer, for watching something that tackles a larger topic then most even care to think about.
i mean to watch more, but i watched the Feudal Japan series. Had to run it by me a couple of times because all the names were hard to remember, but it was excellent. Samurai lived with such purpose, ready to gut themselves than be taken prisoner. Not sure if living for the purpose of controlling a continent s a great purpose, but IT SHORE DO MAK 4 A GUD HISTORY LESS'N
These videos are so well done! Nearly everyone has an opinion on Marx yet most people really don't even understand him. He has a daunting body of work that would take an incredible amount of time and dedication to comb through. My father and uncle are militant capitalists and always complain that "young kids don't even know what socialism is," but when I ask them what they think it means, they just spout whatever Sean Hannity or Fox news talking heads have been hammering into their cortex. Simply that the State runs every aspect of our lives. I didn't know that wasn't true until I decided to do some research for myself. It's a complicated world and I do think that capitalism and Marxism both have inherent good and bad aspects to their philosophies. There is not a one size fits all philosophy in existence.
Also, thanks to Wisecrack for the super interesting video, I think that people has to know more about economic and political alternatives and also more about philosophy. Keep wisecrackin'!
***** I mean society didn't decide "hey lets have those people work the least and get the least pay". They got money because they owned land correct? Nowadays since we don't use so much land for farming (better techniques) it's what you do with that land that matters more now.
"Give according to their abilities and take according to their needs." Like that would ever happen. People will always take more than they need, and give less than their ability. What we really want is a society in which robots cultivate and distribute commodities, so people can have plenty and are required to give no more than they want to.
You wouldn't need to take more than you need. There'd be absolutely no point in doing that. In a communist society, where productive forces are regulated by society, and it's basically post-scarcity, what point would there be to do that?
FirstRisingSouI Human nature is defined by material and societal conditions. It's changed all through-out history. There would literally be no gain in "taking more" than you need, since there is post-scarcity.
Locutus There is also no guarantee that a communist society would be post-scarcity. That seems like a big assumption to me. Also, how can you possibly say there is no gain in taking more than you need? You would be perfectly happy living in a gutter with trash for food and a box to keep the rain off? Because that is all you need to survive. Anything beyond that is more than you need. The only way there could be no gain is if there is enough for you to take "anything you want." Now I personally see that as a possibility. If technology continues to proceed, then we will have robots doing all the labor. In that case, we will have a true post-scarcity economy, where we can contribute according to our desire and take according to our want. I think this is both more realistic and more desirable than a communist state.
FirstRisingSouI What you described in your last paragraph is communism. Communism doesn't just mean that the state owns everything, in fact, the definition of communism is "a stateless, moneyless, and classless society in which the workers own the means of production." Therefore, you can't have a communist state, because it is stateless. It's interesting how people are quite fond of the idea of communism, but once you tell them it's communism, they immediately close their mind to it.
Communism isn't one unified ideology. Like other philosophies, it has variants. You have Marxist and Trotskyist communism (which is what you are describing), Maoist communism, Stalinism, etc. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a Marxist utopia is the fact that Earth is dominated by capitalism. Countries abiding by some form of communism must become more capitalist to survive in a capitalist world.
Andre Hirata Did you pay attention to what i wrote? The allocation of resources without money is IMPOSSIBLE. Your claim that communism is perfect on paper is just wrong. And even if it was right, it makes no sense to make a theory and them have reality adapt to it, it should have been the other way, your theory should adapt to reality. Think with your head man, nothing is free. People have to work for food, housing, clothes, everything. Money is just a proof that you benefited other people in some way or another. Can i imagine having to pay for clean water? a place to live? Are you really that dense? If the water is clean because someone cleaned it yes, you will have to pay, no one has to be slaven so that you can have clean water. If the house was built by someone, yes you will have to pay for it. Things don't just fall into place, people have to work for it. Money represents the value of the work done, based on the subjetive opinion of the whole society.
Yup, then you can be like Preston Tucker. The thing is, the biggest capitalists all hate free markets about as much as they hate controlled ones (or at least markets that aren't controlled for their benefit).
I personally believe there should be a middle point that works better than this. Perhaps having a society that merits you on your work, and also limits the highest amount you can earn. While you might argue about lazy people stealing the amount, but they will be the ones living off the least amount in society. So in a way, it doesn't allow anyone to go out of hand. There should also be a section for the sickly and disabled.
In a communist system, the sick and elderly would be considered a burden to the system so they would be executed, or at least left to die. This means more food for everyone else, so nobody would complain. (That, and the fact that complaining would get you shot. )
At least it's much better than just letting greed take it's course... If you can choose between fighting and not fighting greed, you would choose not fighting it because the solution doesn't look perfect on paper?
The irony is that neither system will be stable long term. A balance is required, with elements of capitalism to encourage growth and create opportunity, and socialism to protect those who are most vulnerable and support those who cannot meet their needs.
All I'm seeing in these comments are Americans who refuse to believe that Capitalism is NOT the best way. It thrives on the manipulation of the poor. Not to say that Communism is the answer to this, but perhaps you should all acknowledge that Karl Marx was more intelligent than most of you, and put a lot more thought into his work than most of you will put into anything, ever.
And it should be noted that Stalin's bastardization of what Karl Marx said is in no way related to Marxism. Initially, Hitler was voted in to power. Does that mean that the Ancient Greeks are responsible for the deaths that occurred during the Holocaust?
If you are referring to caste systems, then unfortunately yes. As long as someone has the audacity to claim that they are superior, and others are either too scared or ignorant to argue, caste systems and hierarchy will exist. Sorry all you anarchists
WakeU.S. from Slumber "People like yourself have been dumbed down to think we are a democracy" Well, that's an extraordinary conclusion considering the post you're responding to precisely argued that we do _not_ have a democracy in the west.
One main problem: how can history ever truly end? Unless we as a species end, then our history couldn't really end. Francis Fukuyama made that mistake with his essay turned book, "The End of History."
+Miroslav Georgiev "The End of History" by Fukuyama was merely a play on Marx's beginning of the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." When the Soviet Union collapsed, the rightwing were euphoric and thought it was the final nail in the coffin of any egalitarian social struggle and capitalism has triumphed completely. As we all know with even greater wealth inequality worldwide, class struggle is alive and kicking!
+Miroslav Georgiev The idea is that contradictions creates change, class contradictions create change in society itself. This is what lead through all the different systems, most recently from Feudalism to Capitalism. After Communism is in place, there is no class, and hence no class contradictions, and is hence the final social model and the end of the history of class struggle, and Marx said "history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", hence the end of history.
Great video! Even though I am a Libertarian, I felt that this was a pretty good summary of Marxism. The end may have had a bit of an air of bias, but all in all, it stuck to what it IS rather that bashing on it, or praising it. Once again, great video ^_^ I look forward to the next one.
I believe Marx was right, but he didn't realize that first technology had to evolve to the point where production of all the goods is extremely cheap, and automation replaces human labor. The monetary system will collapse with low consumer spending and extremely cheap goods.
I at least see the end of the assembly style mass production system. One large machine will replace a thousands workers. I also see the end of long hours, and a reduction of total needed labor. The nature of the work will also change. Because physical labor is useless, any existing work will be related to education. There will be a 'new labor' movement, where the mind is the only thing that matters. Unfortunately, not everyone will be smart enough to perform this kind of work. And educating everyone is more expensive than just giving education to people who show intelligence. I see a meritocratic aristocracy in the future. Everyone who is smart enough will work, and everyone who isn't...I have no idea. That's where the future get's ugly in my opinion. We will have to weed out people who aren't good performers. Unless we find a way to engineer intelligence into people, weeding them out will require unsavory tactics.
EricLeafericson Wow just wow dude, sounds like something Hitler would approve of. I can't believe you want to murder billions of people. Do you realize food and housing will be plentiful in the future? There won't be much scarcity left, so no need to enact genocide.
He did actually realize that technology had to get advanced to a certain point. That's why he argued it was fortunate capitalism arose, for it made realistic the conditions in which everyone could be provided for--of course, he still condemned and despised the system for its faults as we all know. He also argued that communism is only possible in an industrially-advanced country, and were he alive at the time of October Revolution, he would have said, "You guys are fucked, you're too agrarian to pull this off." If I remember correctly, he actually specifically says Russia is one of the places communism *wouldn't* work.
JC Frazier Marx must have also realized that Democratic countries would peacefully progress to a socialist state without armed revolution. The whole idea of revolution would never work with the weaponry available to the military today. Revolution has less and less chance of working the more technology advances.
Two years ago I watched this video and laughed at how "dumb" Marx was. Two years later and here I am now, a personal fan of Marx's work and a communist myself.
Same for me! I remember a few years ago when I came across /r/FULLCOMMUNISM and said "lol, what a bunch of dumbasses". Now, I still consider them a bunch of dumbasses, but for other reasons.
Nice Theory. But it overlooks the fact that when all are equal, somebody still wanna be better than everybody. Look at Soviet Union, Venezuela and China. Know Thyself.
@@GD30.06 You could easily have competition, they just don't want competition that's in a life or death situation. Be a slave to your boss and make minimum wage or starve on the streets. That's the kind of competition we don't want.
@@AndrewAce. bolivia, venezuela, cuba, vietnam, russia, burkano faso, grenada and china all have improved at faster rates than similar counterparts compare cuba to columbia, compare vietnam to columbia, compate burkao faso under sankaras leadership with chad or any of its neighbors at the time compare lybia with gaddafi to its neighbors compare russias fast growth to any other large power, the immediate differences to the tsardom in the following 20 years, compare its later growth to the growth of western markets, look at its collapse and the devastation and mass death that followed, listen to people who live in the soviet union, look at the harvard study 95% approval rate in china while globally under the corona crisis government approval plummets in cuba no child sleeps on the streets, no child goes to sleep hungry, that is a miracle for a post colonial island embargoes from trade with most of the worked and its only possible because they implemented democracy over the economy
@@Voidppppp Non of them has achieved a classless, stateless, moneyless society, but thats understandable considering socialism has yet to beat capitalism, what we are seeing is the results of the intermittent socialist stage
Marxism, on a small scale, does actually work. There's several successful marxist communities within the United States. Small here means less than 500 people. So, technically Karl Marx was correct, but history has made it painfully obvious that a Marxist system does not scale up when suddenly millions of people are involved. At that scale, the system NEEDS workers, it needs people to collect and transport materials, it needs people to organize, store, count, and manage everything, and it needs someone in a position of authority to oversee distribution, and once that person is chosen, it's only a matter of time before he distributes more stuff to himself. On a small scale, there's less resources and everyone shares the duties of managing and distributing resources.
DarklinkXXXX Theoretically, I suppose. I don't know much about Native American culture, but they seemed to have leaned towards a marxist-esque system wherein small familiar groups managed themselves, but also traded and identified within a larger federated tribe structure.
TheJaredtheJaredlong I would also make the argument that above ~400 people it becomes difficult to know everyone in the community, and social pressure to conform to the accepted rules becomes difficult to apply. Once someone can obtain some anonymity he can parasitize the system with less chance of getting caught. Once you have strangers in your community there is a tendency to blame them for cheating the system.
DarklinkXXXX I would argue no, as each community would distrust others and classic utopian Marxism would break down. They could only exist within the greater bourgeois regulatory framework we have now, treating each other as distinct corporations which may have contractual dealings with each other.
Wasn't there also a functional benevolent dictatorship in the Ming Dynasty? It worked for almost 300 years, and basically operated through nepotism and occasional backstabbing. Yet it was one of the best dynasties Ancient China had ever seen, renowned for stability and prosperity. Lots of political systems can work under the right conditions. We can't have a perfect society without perfect people. So I generally place a society's cultural value as more important than it's political system.
Marx's criticism is very profound but I think it's very pretentious that he believes his theoretical solution will be THE solution to solve all the problems. I think it is a single possible solution, and I think there is danger is believing it is the only one and closing yourself off to any other possible ideas that could be even better. Still I think his insight on the flaws of capitalism is spot o.
+InkCorporated Completely agree with you, although I think the point is not to take everything he says as some sort of truth, but rather to build upon and search for the ideal system. What's worst in our curent system, is IMO that the people are completely powerless as to how the system is working. Criticising the System and changing it just isn't accepted. Many ideas that might make the world a better place are simply dismissed by those in power, in fear that they might lose said power. And by those in power, I mean those with money.
he says it because communism is the process of destroying power itself (ie no classes anymore), so no one can enforce his will over another human person, it is the end to our current history since it will end the constant power struggle and infighting of our society. Think of it like the federation in Star Trek (whihc is kind of communist), humanity has evolved past hate and now the "new" human history has begun, our history in space, beyond of fighting ourselfs, but searching for answers on this world
Facey Neck Only if you understand the word "dictatorship" in its modern post 20th century meaning. To Marx, the word "dictatorship" is used simply to indicate who holds political power. In his time, as well as in ours, it is the wealthy capitalist. In Soviet countries, it was the bureaucrats. You can't name a single country that had a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Facey Neck I think it's less about how to define dictatorship and more about the fact thatchy left out the dangers of Marxism. Which is important because most attempts ended pretty horribly and will end horribly when continued in the future.
***** That is fair. However, Marx himself decided to become a political activist and try to accelerate the historical development. In that sense I consider it meaningful to say that "Marxism" has never been attempted.
Though it may contradict Marx's original manifest, I believe there is a possibility of a Marxist utopia with no need of a hierarchy. Through examination of history it becomes evident that the fast majority of civil failures have come from one of three things: 1- Natural disaster 2- Hierarchy and/or unbalanced caste system or 3- our concept of civilization itself. Imagine utopia with no hierarchy, an organized anarchy. Think of John Lennon's song, "Imagine", the lyrics state "imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man". In this utopia it describes, there is no reason, no excuse rather, for any form of hierarchy. Look at history. What positive things have caste systems ever created? Unfortunately, caste systems will exist for as long as someone has the audacity to say he's superior, and another too scared or ignorant to argue. Marxism has never been attempted on a large scale. Soviet Russia had a hint, a small glimmer of it, until Stalin took power and killed Trotsky, then it became Stalinist. China I like to think of as capitalist, only with one capital - the government. Events such as the cold-war and Vietnam have ruined the name of communism, and sadly, the name Karl Marx along with it. Feel free to contradict, in fact, please do. More discussion = more thought.
+Wisecrack Did the makers of this video read directly from marx? And was their reaserch beyond marx's early works? There is a difference from the communist manifesto to Das Kapital , marx's ideas evolved during his lifetime as he got to know economics more and more.
+Wisecrack I would add this: " When Marx called for the abolition of private property, he was not referring to "personal property" such as clothing and furniture that was not used to produce the "social wealth," but to productive property that requires collective effort to operate" So Marx encourages you to buy as much Iphones you want, but you can't buy Apple, wich would rather be socialized in bennefit of humanity, in a kind of sorry Jobs not sorry.
Marx was not concerned with coming up with an ideal system to move towards. His intellectual mission was to look through history and study why societies had undergone significant change. And by tracing these conflicts, he could demonstrate there will very likely be another set of social arrangements to come, since there is still a large portion of the society that has an interest in changing the way things are arranged.
I think the same can be said about capitalism. Pure capitalism was, in the United States, by many accounts a highly repressive state. Not so different from an oligarchy. That's why most of the western world now mixes socialism and capitalism together.
What is forcing the workers to "make things [they] have no personal investment in"? Why aren't they making something they enjoy? How would this change with communism? Do we just assume that someone somewhere would be willing to do your crappy job you hate while you get to do something you love?
1. (with capitalism) nothing 2. because they want money 3. with communism you would still be forced to do things you don't want but everyone else will too so its "fair" 4. I guess so, Marxist theory tends to only consider factory jobs. Most likely because he lived in London during a giant industrial boom...... But under capitalism you have the freedom to pursue what you enjoy, the ability to quit a job you don't like, and the ability to make more money doing crappy jobs like waste management, construction, or coal mining. The idea that someone would be happy in a sewage treatment plant while someone is making the same amount of money cooking food is just divorced from reality. Marx believed we could have a society where everyones work would be of equal value and everyone would only take what they needed and give all they could, but anyone with a brain knows thats just a fantasy.
The point is merely that in the future, as we have seen for the past decades, more and more of these traditionally low paid jobs will be automated. Marx wrote a great deal about automation as well. The fact of the matter is that we are overproducing to a great extent. We don't need everyone to work a full eight hours, we would only need people to work a lot less, and even less in the future as productivity goes up. What is forcing workers to take shitty jobs? The answer is extremely obvious: poverty and coercion. The capitalist exchange assumption is shit, since it asserts that all contracts can be absolutely defined as voluntary. When you have to choose between doing what you love but poor or doing something shit but getting by, you have to go for the latter option. The only real freedom in this world exist for the rich. Your average joe is subjected to an awful lot of authoritarianism.
Benjamin Ljunggren Or you could do a shitty job and get by while educating yourself and then get a much higher paying job with your new educational background and work experience. Then again "getting by" really depends on what you are doing. There is a lot of gray area between "doing what you (think you) love and not getting paid" and "taking first job that pays you money" Like I don't work in a job that I ever considered a dream job or "doing what I love", but I enjoy it immensely and I'm getting paid more than I expected coming out of college and work really isn't that hard. I'm not being paid nearly as much as lucky people in Silicon Valley or even nearer my country's capital, but for my first job I'm doing just fine. Apply your self.
***** I'm in law school dude, I'm going to do well in life. This doesn't mean that everyone is going to be able to do this, nor that I can't look beyond my own circumference.
working should not be something that you hate doing as it is now, probably the hardest thing we struggle with is getting to know ourselves and what we like doing, if you find what you love doing and do it for the common good, it no longer becomes work but an activity you like doing, the same way a mom doesn't see raising her children as a job, but something she is passionate about, through good and bad times. You can fish today, hunt tomorrow, and build a house the day after without becoming a fisherman, hunter or an architect, we all have that capability. Personally i think the biggest problem is that we in essence have forgotten what we are here for. We are not here to develop ourselves as humans, we are not here to build empires and spread religion or political thoughts, we are not here to become professionals and make a lot of money, human essence is to be happy, that's what we are in this world for, to live long happy lives, enjoy Friendships, watch your children grow, do common good, the most valuable asset a human can have is true friendship, not money, greed is an enemy to us all, much love.
Joan Zago Casas As you said without saying (and the video actually ignored), the main problem (that gets we where at we are) is the alienation of work. We lost contact with what defines us as humans and it becomes a sacrifice, a mortification, that we endure when we see ourselves obliged to. It loses its quality of instrument of liberation from external needs and of expression of the human gender.
Private Property =/= Personal Property You owning land and being secluded is “private”. This is land which is where your house is, factories, and anything else. If you land isn’t owned by the state or by/for everyone, it is private Personal property is personal things, such as your tooth brush and your residence. While, yes you can call your house yours, at the end of the day, the state and the people own that land. Almost always they won’t bother you, but if they do, you will almost always result in a better outcome if you cooperate together. You can keep your shitty music and tacky shirts, but know that they are provided to & for the state
When the revolution starts this time we need to throw all Stalinists, Pol Potists, Maoists into the brazen bull. These dipshits always ruin everything.
It's a pity that people are interested only in fascist communism in the USSR and its affiliates states (forced to stick to the same program) rather than practices not dominated by the Soviet programe. I mean the practice of communism repressed by the USSR, which works without surprise. (forgive my bad english)
A pity indeed, comrade. The USSR never utilized real communism to begin with. What it performed was Stalinism, and the rest of the world was so easily fooled into believing Stalinism actually was communism. The reality is, Stalinism contradicts a great many things that Marx originally laid out for communism...
***** Don't fucking tell me you're a *sympathizer* of that inhuman monster, Stalin. He betrayed everything Marx stood for by turning the USSR into a totalitarian nightmare.
Why I'm a opportunist ? If you like Stalin its not a problem, the most important is your ideology. I'm a communist, I want to build it and if i like or dislike someone, there will be no change in my plan. For the end of capitalism we must to stay together. Worker of te world unite ! So, what do you want, the build of a world who love one person or the build of a communist world ?
He have kill to much communists and anarchists. He have destroy the communism because every communist was forced to follow him, look what happenned to the P.O.U.M. or Makhnovtchina. YOU are a anti revolutionnarist because you don't favorise the revolution, you divide us and its what the bourgeoisie want.
History should be analyzed without cathegories like "good" and "bad", it should be analyzed and studied by analyzing what every economic and social system constructed, wanted to do and - at the end - what results wanted to achieve (and achieved). There are politics, economics, social visions and methods. I agree with economic and social\politic USSR view, but I obviously don't agree with Stalin methods (so as I don't agree with USA methods, politic, economic and social vision). Why nazism, fascism or capitalism are crap, according to me (and to the working class)? Not only because they made (or make) many deaths: every system, directly or indirectly, makes - for a long or short period - many deaths (and this is obviously wrong); they're crap also because they have a certain economic, politic and social vision that wants to mantain class divisions, division by poor and rich people exc. (btw I'm trying to not write too much otherwise I'd become boring) Why then we don't talk about all those deaths caused by USA imperialism and economic and social system today? Strange that not so many people are upset by that, but - sanctimoniously - they say they're "shocked" by Stalin. Communism where everyone lives well and has his rights can exist, it's just everything in our hands. PS: Sorry for my bad english
Communism is inherently flawed because in order for it to work everyone has to comply and contribute in equal measure. If someone is unable or unwilling to comply then the only option is to apply force to address the imbalance. In order to use force to maintain the system there has to be a governing authority with a power imbalance in it's favour. Therefore, by necessity, the whole system has to be asymmetric, which completely defeats the purpose of communism. It's kind of obvious when you think about it. You'd think people would've noticed by now :D
you are saying that the workers take away ownership of the factory away from the evil owner hording money and exploiting them. Then once the government takes over it notices production has fallen greatly and has to start cracking the whip because the workers are slacking off. The way I see it the difference between the two systems for the workers is not much in capitalism there is the delusion that you can get ahead in a rig system making people work harder in communism it's absent and it lowers the productivity of the nation as a whole.
It's really funny to be reading this on a networking system where most of the vital software is open source - written by people according to their ability and distributed to everyone according to their needs. I guess there is some secret internet software police somewhere applying force to software authors because not everyone can code web servers.
Once automation has made the vast majority of the workforce obsolete, and technology made the use of a head of state obsolete in this model as well, I think said model is inevitable. He'll end up being right, I'm sure of it
Are you sure? Society might be automated but the buttons for those machines are still in the hands on the capitalist class, and from some testimonies and news I've seen they're hell-bent on preventing armed insurrection against them. Contrary to Marx, I believe that the longer we wait before organising, the slimmer our chances are
@@Dsonsee They'll still be in the vast minority. If there are no jobs, and society refuses to allow the majority a standard of living, they will rise up and destroy the rich. Inequality is inherently unstable, just ask the French ca 1989-1799
They're not communism. Just because the ruling parties call themselves communists doesn't mean anything if they don't follow anything close to the definition of communism. Most of human history was arguably communist before governments and private property came along
Deathkill06 I like how whenever communists do bad shit, other communists crawl from the woodwork and go "not communists!". The oppressed, incarcerated, and dead care not for semantics.
jpz719 you didn't get what is communism and socialism, first, venezuela inst even socialist,and havent a single communist country, socialism is the road for communism, soviet union wasnt communist, was socialist, the socialism is the weapon of proletariat agains the enemy
+jpz719 have you? cuba has pretty nice numbers for a nation under a blockade, and venezuela has the lowest gas price in the world, with all that conveys, is not that simple, educate yourself.
Arturo Castillo So those exscuse living in a society where personal liberties and freedoms are crushed on a daily basis? "BUT THE GAS PRICES ARE CHEAP GUYS!" Said it once, will say it again: when communism and comunists fail, communists will crawl out shouting "NOT COMMUNISM" like it matters.
Thanks Wisecrack for making this video. I read the Communist Manifesto a number of ears ago and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. When I asked another person about it (usually a professor) they tended to go on a rant about the evils of Capitalism and not answering my question in a way I could understand. While I have my reservations on if this ideology is possible, this is the first time someone was able to explain the idea to me. Thanks and keep up the good work.
+TheGetout04 The USSR and China both became State capitalist rather than socialist. - Although to give the Chinese some credit they claim as Marx did that capitalism is a needed step before socialism (and socialism being a step before communism). USSR fell, but time will tell if China can become socialist or communist. North Korea became a sort of post modern despotic kingdom
+SoyElta China has built up its state over time, not taken it down. It isn't headed toward communism at all. And toward capitalism on the economic end. But they /could/ find a nice place in the middle.
Dear Wisecrack, With all due respect and adoration, I beseech you, please stick to videos about Kayne and South Park please. Economic and political philosophy is clearly above your pay grade. Hint: Commies/socialists/Marxists have not had a single academic author of any repute to advance their ideas in the last 200 years. They are unable/refuse to use consistent definitions of words. They deny the most basic and obvious economic concepts and they espouse violent overthrow of peaceful people. I really just do not understand why you would want to give them a voice, as if they had a credible philosophy. ----- Perhaps your staff would like to go to Reddit, /r/Anarcho_Capitalism and ask some questions?
"Repute" is not defined, so any individual I refer you to (Sartre, Zizek, Derrida to an extent, de Beauvoir, Chomsky, etc) will be dismissed. However, Wisecrack has cited all of these people (except Chomsky, I don't know about him, but he is a world renowned linguist), and these people are definitely taken more seriously than you or any ancap ever will be. Your philosophy is the least credible one in the world. At least Mussolini understood basic definitions, and actually read enough philosophy to articulate a point worth engaging with. Rothbard certainly didn't. Right-libertarianism is _pure ideology_, not worth anyone's time. You mean the hellhole subreddit overrun with Pinochet and Franco apologists? Yeah, no. Crawl back into your hole. Leave the actual philosophy to us ebul lefties.
Repute is defined, you moron. It is a word. Look it up. No one has added to the fairy tale ideas of Marx. You know why? Because it's nonsense. As I said, you have not mentioned a single idea which has been advanced in the last 200 years... This is NOT the mark of a credible field which is advancing... Oh and BTW, Noam Chomsky is a Linguist. That means his study is in the field of linguistics. Guess what?! That word has a definition too!! You know what it means?? Nothing to do with economic or political philosophy!! That's like asking an Art History major to explain to you how the Higgs boson works. ----- Ha! Butt-hurt much? All large Reddit subreddits are flooded with riff raff, and that sub has reached 20,000+.... the only difference is, there, thought-provoking conversation can be found in the comments if one is so inclined... (So this is me, doing my best to steer genuinely curious individuals, the Wisecrack team, away from the one-sided-conversations they are bound to have with an obdurate ideologue shit-for-brains zealot, like yourself.) LOL and while I appreciate the imagery of my living in a "cave" xD I actually host the podcast which can be found on the sidebar of that same subreddit. That's right, mate, real life human interaction ;-) And yes, we have had 'lefties' on of various stripes, for discussion... as quite obviously, we don't shy away from healthy debate ツ ----- [PSA; the Casual Observer of this thread will kindly note:] EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION with a communist or socialist or Marxist true believer that you will have on the internet will follow THIS EXACT SAME STRUCTURE. ( it is not recommended that you actually engage them, this is preparing you JIC) * this Zealot will list various obscure debunked authors you need to read (it is very important to note that your interlocutor has not actually read this material him or herself, they just tell you that you need to) - [You will note he or she listed several authors, but made no mention of the alleged ideas therein.] * They will avoid or sidestep any legitimate discussion or debate. - [No ideas were weighed or considered on their own merit, I was merely categorized as vile trash and name called.] * If they do try to have an actual debate (one with logic, rigorous thought) they will fall flat on their face, hard. - [ so far he has saved himself the embarrassment] * It is not uncommon for them to try to redefine words or safe absurd things like words can have no definitions. ( literally his first sentence: "'Repute' is not defined.) * Their final fall back (and really the only skill that they actually practice) is trying to deride you with big vocabulary words or rhetorical slights of hand. In my experience even in this Avenue they will get their ass handed to them. - [ here he referred to himself as an ebul]
Ronald McPaul None of this ranting seems to have addressed my main point. _You_ never defined what you consider reputable, so anything I offer you will be dismissed. Because you've never set a bar where you say "this is reputable", anyone I offer to you, even if they are as well known as Jean-Paul Sartre (who was a Marxist), will be written off as "not reputable enough". Dozens, if not hundreds of people have added to Marx's theories. You just a) haven't read any of them and b) will dismiss all of them out of hand. To simplify that for you, your request is impossible to meet because you have set no measurable goalposts. Your point about Chomsky is textbook sharpshooter fallacy. You've ignored my larger point about the structure of your argument to focus on one particular, largely insignificant piece of evidence I referenced. As for your actual claim here, the study of language is a study of a particular aspect of society...it's a social science, so Marx's theories apply. More importantly, Chomsky has demonstrated _through writing_ his understanding of the political topics he talks about, and often addressed them through his understanding of linguistics, so I fail to see your (rather elitist) point. I've been on the subreddit many times before. Never have I had anything close to a "thought-provoking" discussion. Likely, you have to buy into the ideology before entering to do that.
Marx never ran for public office, owned a company, possesed a bank account or even a source of employment. He was supported for all of his life by a friend who owned a factory complex. He is also still somehow revered as a philosophical genius. All applications of his theory have resulted in resounding failure.
His applications were never applied by the self described communist states, they all radically moved away from Marxism into Leninism and Stalinism. Marx wanted the working class to democratically control the government and then abolish the government into a stateless society once conditions for socialism were possible. The government in the USSR ended up being run by a bureaucratic dictatorship. There's flaws in Marxism but Marx's analysis of capitalism is spot on, he didn't need to run a business to understand a social system, so that argument is awful.
Deathkill06 Spot on. It should be noted that Marx was writing about the development of technologically advanced capitalist societies like Germany and Britain at the time. Tsarist Russia and China were NOT those things when they had their revolutions, aside from any other ideological derivations that Lenin and Mao brought to the table.
Deathkill06 A system without governance is no system. Place a bunch of strangers and put em on a deserted island. They'll form a government-esque system every single time. To abolish government is to abolish the only thing that keeps people from not getting shot. If there's no government, there's no system of maintaining the law.
That argument is not aweful. It's rightfully calling out Marx's lack of economic credentials. Marxism was shortly used in Russia, before it failed and was immediately replaced by 'Leninism' and 'Stalinism'. Marxism destroys economic drive way more than capitalism does. There is not a single country today that can claim to be 100% capitalist or marxist, but that doesn't mean they don't share enough key similarities to also share their flaws.
I just got sent this by a 21 year old man because I'm trying to understand Marxism. Seeing young people educate themselves without emotions is encouraging. The days where we put emotions before education are Slowly disappearing. People are waking up to AMD educating themselves on these ideologies instead of blindly listening to teachers and lecturers who all have their own agendas . They have pushed their ideologies onto kids since the 50s and now it's got to a pint where people scream fascist and Nazi but have zero fkn idea what those labels truly mean. Thank you Lewis that's all I can say.
it's a great idea just so long as 100% of people are on board as soon as one gets greedy it fucks it up for everyone else greedy people mess things up - just take a look at how great the Capitalist system is working for us!
+TankMusic You read that right. By most estimates, anywhere from 100 to 120 million people in the 20th century died as a direct result of Marxist regimes in Asia, Europe and Africa. Most infamous among these are Stalin in the USSR with 20-30M, Mao in China with 50-70M, and Pol Pot in Cambodia with 2.5M.
el estanilismo no es marxismo. No confundamos los justos y necesarios de Karl Marx con las barbaridades hechas por sus mas vulgares seguidores. Es como culpar a jesus por las idioteces de su iglesia.
+El Drugo La mentalidad colectivista del marxismo, la idea de que todo el mundo y todo lo que pertenece a la colectiva, eran perfectos platos de petri para los asesinatos en masa cometidos por Stalin y Mao. No hay ninguna corrupción de la ideología, porque la ideología es mal inherentemente corrupto y absoluta. Las sugerencias que hace Marx implican que las personas son simplemente esclavos del grupo, para ser dispensados con como el colectivo ve ajuste. Translation: The collectivist mentality of Marxism, the notion that everyone and everything belongs to the collective, were perfect petri dishes for the mass murders perpetrated by Stalin and by Mao. There is no corruption of the ideology, because the ideology is inherently corrupt and outright evil. The suggestions that Marx makes imply that people are simply slaves of the group, to be dispensed with as the collective sees fit.
Just introduce a reasonable minimum wage and bam! Exploitation, the main flaw of capitalism, is fixed. The rest is dependant on a healthy economy and a good educational system so everyone can find his place and be happy.
You don't know much about basic maths do you? Minimum wage is not just flawed form the perspective of economists but simply on an accounting level. Read this reddit post I made about it: www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yhtwb/why_is_there_a_blood_shortage_hospitals_charge/cfky1gr
The rest is dependent on creating a system where everyone has a good shot at getting a reasonable-paying job. unfortunately with unlimited immigration and automation, this scenario is less likely. Upping the minimum wage won't work because that will just push companies to automate sooner or drive factories/businesses overseas. If you want wages up, you need fewer workers competing for jobs and for more jobs to remain in this country. But good luck getting that to happen with the current crop of jackal politicians infesting our leadership.
crankCINEMA The thing is that the capitalist system works on maximizing profit and wages can be upped by that profit. Worker's wages are unrealistically low and that's only due to The Man's greed. After all, Capitalism is a system of free enterprise, right? When The Man controlls his money, then he's free to keep it to himself and not pay his workers more. That's pretty much a proven fact- the money gap between the 1% and the 99% is huge and money isn't just paper, it's a right. According to me, the markets are way too complicated for the twisted darwinian model of capitalism(the strongest win). Competition is never fair and the the strongest win, not the best. That creates the fucked up economy we have now. To answer you more profoundly- wealth can be distributed more evenly and that's won't create inflation because the money already exists, it's just in the wrong hands.
Lol found the Ancap. "True private ownership over the means of production has never been tried! It's just the private ownership of the means of production I don't like!"
Marx is wrong on all counts. Capitalism is not oppressive. Anyone willing to work hard may become successful. Most rich people in the US are first generation rich. It is much harder today than in the recent past the government has become more socialist through high taxes and regulation. Communism has failed every time it has been tried and will continue to fail. The concept of "from each according to his ability" requires some government power to enslave people and force them to work to the best of their ability. People need an incentive to work hard and innovate. In capitalism, the incentive is financial gain. In communism, the only incentive is fear of punishment.
Your understanding of Socialism is very thin and wrong on some basic levels. High taxes and regulation is not Socialism, it is 'State Capitalism'. It's the same as Capitalism, it's just controlled by the state rather than business. Socialism does not mean 'the state controls everything', on a basic level it means we all contribute to society rather than the individual hence SOCIALism. Practically it means that there is no separation between 'worker' and 'boss'. A practical example is this, everyone works in a factory Monday-Thursday, on Friday everyone stops gets together and makes the decisions together. No need for a boss, no need for divisions, no need for people getting paid less than they're worth. Capitalism relies on exploitation at a very basic level. If you are paying a worker fairly, you can't be making money. If I'm a big boss, I pay a worker $10 to make a product or provide a service, I can't take a cut unless the product sells for $11. I am paying him less than he is worth by definition. The individualist aspect of Capitalism means we are encouraged to look out for number one, exploitation is encouraged. In fact bosses try their hardest to pay as little as possible. Unemployment is fantastic for Capitalist bosses, because the competition means they can pay less. Don't want to work for minimum wage? Oh well, there's 400 other unemployed people that want your job. In terms of innovation? Let me point out that modern Capitalism has only existed for around 300 years. Did we not make any innovations before that point? We don't need exploitation in order to create new things. Humans are complex creatures and a carrot on a stick is not the only reward system that works. I could type a lot more about this but I'm aware this is a long reply already. If you don't like Socialism please try and educate yourself on it more before you critique it. It may not be perfect and there are potential for a lot of bumps in the road but no system is perfect. It is a lot better than modern Capitalism for the masses and for the planet itself.
First of all, I did not say that the increased regulation and taxes constituted socialism by itself. Your term, "State Capitalism" is a reasonable term to describe it. Other terms I have heard used are, "Crony Capitalism" and "Statism". When and if it gets bad enough, fascism is probably a better term. Fascism is private ownership, but government control. Socialism is government ownership and control. The result, however, is the same. failure and no individual freedom. Your idea of how socialism would work is crazy. Who would be willing to take on the extra work and stress of being a boss, if they will not be compensated any more than the guy bucking rivets. Why spend years of effort and money to train to be an engineer, if the guy bucking rivets gets to start making money years sooner and no higher pay of the engineer when he is fully trained? Where is the money going to come from to even start a business? Of course, the only answer is the government would have to start and own all business because there would be no incentive or enough money for a private individual to do so. Your exploitation argument is bogus and straight out of Karl Marx. The big boss, as you call him, puts up the money to start the business, is responsible for the risk involved, and, therefore contributes much more to the value of the product than the fabricator. If that was not the case, why doesn't the worker simply start his own business, build the item himself, and make all the profit? What a worker earns as a wage is by mutual agreement. It is not exploitation. Your example of $10 payment for an item that sells for $11 is not exploitation of the worker. In fact, the worker is getting a great deal. All he had to do was make the item. He did not have to design it. He did not have to provide the raw materials needed to make it. He did not have to provide the tools and work space necessary. He did not have to market the item to potential buyers. By the time the big boss pays the worker $10 and pays for all the other stuff needed to make and sell the product, he will be losing money and go bankrupt in no time. Socialism has been tried many times and has failed miserably every time. Capitalism, on the other hand, does work, and better than any other system devised by man. The USA went from a small group of 13 colonies to the most powerful and successful country in the world in a short period of time because the Constitution limited the power of the government and allowed people the freedom to work hard and prosper from their labors. Everyone has a choice with capitalism. You can learn a skill and sell your skill and labor to the highest bidder. Or you can start your own business and produce a product that people are willing to pay you for. In every transaction it is a win-win because both parties agree to it voluntarily. The only people that do not do well in true capitalist economy are the lazy and a few disabled. Family and private charity can handle the disabled. Where do you get socialism being better for the planet? If it were not for the advances in food production developed through capitalism, there would be widespread famine all over the world. Capitalism in the USA has led to innovations that have reduced pollution dramatically as well. If you have ever visited a third world country, or a communist one like China, you would see much worse pollution than here is the US. The US, despite not signing the Kyoto protocol, has reduced pollution by more than the countries that did sign it. The only conclusion I can make from your comment is that you would like to see more people die and thus reduce the human population.
The main issue with creating a Marxist utopia is that it requires a unified Earth. A Marxist utopia cannot be created in a country- economics prove that. For Marxism to work, capitalism would have to be overthrown all across the world, in every country, because one country doesn't have the resources to properly hold up any communist society. You are right, in a sense- Marxism doesn't make a lot of economic sense in a capitalist-dominated world. That is why every government which experimented with communism transitioned to a mix between communism and capitalism.
+Danuki L (The Knyaz of Kats) comunism will never work, it is in disagree with a human characteristic... the ambition ans it is not a bad thing as you think
***** What is not as bad as I think? Sorry, I didn't understand :) English is not my primary language I will admit that I am not a Marxist... I believe that regulated capitalism is a good way to go. But I do admire Marx for trying to think up of systems to deal with inequality. Marxist communism may not be perfect, but the faults in his system are useful in aspiring to a perfect system, however impossible that may be to achieve :)
He hasn't a lower engage of economists agree with him not all disagree I've read books and watched lectures by economists either against capitalism or for communism
Berkan Celebi Marxist communism could work economically, yes, but it could only be properly done if the world unifies and capitalism is overthrown. A unified Earth could possibly sustain a Marxist utopia, though it would be hard to put in as the world is so used to capitalism. Basically what I am saying is, Marxist communism could feasibly work, if the right variables are changed to allow a Marxist utopia to exist :)
they were never capitalist so they can never be using marxism to get to socialism thats why those countries failed and industrialised ones didnt (paris commune) (hungarian commune) (german commune) (catalan commune) etc. they failed because of capitalist intrusion not any problems wth the system
@@Photom101 Don't worry. Communism is tolerated within free countries. Go build your hippy commune somewhere. The few I've seen functioning did so thanks to tourism.
@@SalveMonesvol Nice of you to stereotype Communists to just hippies, lol. If you actually had a decent functioning brain you would know that Communists can come from all people.
@@Photom101 Those are the only ones who actually do it without violence. So, leaving aside the insults and guessing who is smarter between us, I live in a socialist country, and I know how dirty it can be. I understand that you would like communism to work, but it doesn't. Never did. It has already cost too much human life and suffering. Don't bring up "it wasn't real communism". It's a system of hate and envy.
Marx never claimed communism would be a utopia; in fact, he argued against it.
Utopia, if we say that it is a state of being where *no* problems exist, would really really suck. With nothing to do, no problems to solve, no needs to fulfill, we'd probably die of boredom, or make problems to solve.
However, communism is not the be-all-end-all of ending problems. Communism only solves the one fundamental societal/political/economic problem of class contradictions (by having no classes). There may still be problems to solve, like curing diseases, making production more efficient and humane, and even if we reach a hypothetical "Star Trek" level of being, there will still be the problems of philosophy and exploration.
+James Furukawa Yes thank you! This is good. From how I took it, Marx believed there were many problems in the world, but the biggest one that impeded on on solving the others was the class struggle. The alienation of the worker, the wealth gap and the constant manipulation and strict hold of the bourgeois ruling class on the working class. After solving this problem (class struggle) Marx believed that then humanity could solve other problems with the cooperation of all of humanity.
+Menswear Shiba The only problem with all of this, was that an elite few still held the power to decide what "working to one's abilities" and "taking for one's needs" meant, turning life for the elite surgeon into a welfare sustaining position, while making his/her contribution no more valuable than that of a humble street sweeper. Nor his living conditions when he left his job. Which creates a lack of motivation for the elite workers to do any better, and in fact to cut corners rather than strive for anything.
I could go on all day, but as the great Homer (Simpson) said in a rare moment of clarity: "Communism works, in theory."
+Metal Monkey Sources for any of that?
Also, what you seem to be referring to isn't even communism.
James Furukawa
There is always one of you guys, isn't there?
Not biting today, sorry.
James Furukawa
My "claims" are just an extrapolation of the real world effect that communism has on people.
If you don't agree, fine, you are dumb, but fine.
And as far as me being your research bitch, you have fingers and access to google, off you go now.
While we are at it, mr "evidence or GTFO" where is YOUR evidence for YOUR extraordinary claims of a "star trek" like "utopia"?
Seems like you just want to argue because you want to be right, not because you give a shit about the truth.
My only issue with this video is the idea that Marx was a utopian. No, he was not. He never claimed communism was utopian and stated that there will still be problems with it once we cross that bridge. Actually he often denounced the Utopian Socialists of his day
Das what I was thinking. Thanks, comrade!!
Engels even wrote Socialism: scientific and utopian/Anti Dühring to combat this idea
Is Fourierism and Utopian Socialism the same thing? I tested my political tendency on a website and got Fourierism as a result.
@@UltramanII yes, it is a variant of utopian socialism. One very important characteristic of Utopian Socialism is that it is based on principles or ideas, unlike Marxism which is based on purely scientific analysis.
I mean if never needing to work to procure the things I need to survive again isn't utopian, idk what is - not that we'll get there right away, but eventually, someday.
Wow, did I just watch an unbiased, reasonably educated video on a basic introduction on to Marxism on a large channel on a mass media site? Good work, fam.
*Very biased and uneducated
Konnonic you must know a lot about marxism
Must be why college tuition keeps rising these days...because nowadays you only gets these unbiased dank goodness from college courses.
xFirebird925x You'd probably be lucky to get stuff like this is college, best way to study on it is to read the works of the main revolutionaries at the time on your own (Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, etc.)
Greg ulgcyfvtg Really? Damn the situation is worse than I thought. Anyways yea my humanities class did let us read the start to the manifesto (which is basically what this video talks about--means of production and alienation, etc.) so I guess that was good.
Remember: When he says getting rid of private property, he doesn't mean your laptop or home, he means factories and business won't be owned by individuals, instead by their workers. It'd be stupid to say "Nobody can own anything anymore!"
All the factories are in China
some people can even share laptop or home
What is it that you don't understand? I might be able to explain.
Cycling in Edmonton from the Eyes of a Teen it's private property vs personal property. property used to further profit vs property that is owned by an individual for individual use
RyRy2057 individuals take according to their need and since workers will become minimalists then you won't be able to afford anything, even if it had any qualities. In theory and reality Marxism doesn't work. Marx was a biology student, not an educated economist
Whats worse is that people will rage below about something they only have a 5th grade education on.
lol people never stop huh?
Aaron Calloway nope
+dc2008242 as above so below
+Aaron Calloway I haven't seen very many comments below that are wrong.
😂😂
These 8-bit philosophies are seriously some of the coolest things I've ever seen. Make more! I love them!!
GoldJacketLuke better read for yourself
In Super Marxrio brother the princess is not in another castle as there is no princess, all are equals
and you lack the understanding of this entire video
Brynden Tully How so?
He was just making a joke, and he's not wrong. I don't think monarchy and socialism can exist simultaneously.
No it’s not xDשחר א.
You’re thinking of Authoritarian Socialism. No Anarcho-Communism
Please make a video explaining the differences between communism, socialism and a social democrat...also how none of these concepts have anything to do with the Third Reich. Explaining this to other people is maddening
(Posting this as a blanket statement for others who see this comment)
Socialism is the economic theory in which the means of production are collectivized by society. There have been few societies that have done this and some include Revolutionary catalonia, the French Commune, and the small town of Marinaleda.
Communism is a stateless, classless society based around a socialist economy.
A social democrat is someone who believes in a society that has some industries owned by the government. Industries can include healthcare or social security, while the rest of society's industries are privately managed. Societies like this include sweden and denmark, and an example of a politician is Bernie Sanders (Even though he says he is a socialist, he really isn't.)
None of these relate to the third reich at all really.
Yes I can RELATE
There's a good video that does exactly that by Azure Scapegoat (search for "communism marxism socialism differences" and you'll probably find it).
as much as you want to claim nazis werent national socialists, they were. they were also a racist genocidal dictatorship that aimed to enforce its system on the entire world. they are seperate. so just stop trying to tell people its "nothing to do with the third reich" and teach them what national socialism was, seperate from the rest of their beliefs.
@@alucrasher27 no, they were Pro thrives having socialism. But it would have been bad around a slavery class that did the hard labour in order for the "aryan" people to benefit from state provided systems.
Hitler was all about himself and his government having control over everything. That's socialism. Social program, even the hitler youth ffs was a state social program. The state ran the media, the essentially ran the major industries. They would have controlled everything had they won, and they would have made that benefit all the people. They wouldn't have let an "aryan" person go homeless or sick, or jobless.
They were against unions ran by non aryan people. They were against Russian right wing communists because those prior didn't believe in the same thing Hitler did but they were essentially the same. Using the same propaganda tactics, wanted the same level of state control. They just had a difference in ideology of everything else that went around the ideology of socialism.
Their form of privatising industries didn't suddenly make all their socialist ideologies go away. You can have individuals who own things within a mostly socialist system. Politics isn't black and white, there is no entirely capitalist or entirely socialist country. Everything is a spectrum and the basis we firmly in the socialism end, just to the benefit of a select group.
So please, try to insult me while trying to also take she sort if moral high ground based on an insult. That's absolutely hilarious and its only serving to illustrate how wrong you are and how you don't have a valid argument so you resort to parroting the "Nazis weren't socialist" nonsense you heard someone else say, and insults.
I used to be completely opposed to communism but several years later and I'm now dead convinced Marx was onto something with his theory of alienation. Capitalism is a failing system slowly choking out our individuality for the benefit of the elite few. We need to strive to move past capitalism if humanity is to survive.
I dunno man
Communism seems way worse
@@PK-Radio Well since then I've done further reading and had further experience with specifically anarchist communism. There are some very interesting examples such as the Ukraine Free Territory, Shinmin commune, and Syndicalist Catalonia that tried to implement communism without a state. There is also loads of evidence in evolutionary biology and anthropology that the concept of mutual aid is a key factor.
@@PK-Radio has never been implemented on mass, places that come the closest are places like free ukraine and revolutionary catalonia.
@@Photom101 That's because it doesn't work on mass.
@@NoOne-go3ml "Tried" being the key word.
"Hey, I've just listenned to a 3 min video about marxism, it's basically if I knew everything about it. Now let me explain to you how it can't work and capitalism is better."- 50% of the comments.
You're goddamn right.
Well when has communism worked?
FUNNY
@@shoryuken3305 No country has ever reached even the first stage of communism. What people mean by "communist countries" is countries ruled by communists, hell a "communist country" doesn't have to be socialist (for example: Venezuela and China)
@@tnfsg1866 you ever stop to think that since it's been tried and failed so many times that it might not fucking work?
"Real communism has never been tried" yes it has, it just burns itself to the ground.
Just a few years ago, I was a greedy and competitive worker because I steadfastly believed in capitalism. Today, I am a Socialist and I see workers as my allies and friends. Thank you for this video!
king
You can't discredit the possibility of a communist society just because of what happened in the Soviet Union. That would be like saying that the idea of democracy was proven impossible when the French Revolution resulted in just another dictatorship.
It should not be a surprise that the Soviet Union failed to establish true communism. The Soviet government itself was based off of the idea of having a central authority controlling society. Where is the stateless, classless society in that? Of course it decayed in to a dictatorship - the small minority within the Party got to tell everyone else what to do.
Please do your own research, think for yourselves. There are anti-authoritarian strands of socialism and communism.
Actually there was a revolution in Russia that established a democracy, then Lenin happened and fucked that up.
What a good chap.
a central part of Marxism, and yes this comes directly from Marx and Engels, is that the working class needs to take power in the form of a state, and eventually wither away into a stateless society. read The Civil War in France or State and Revolution
Anti-authoritarian strands of communism are wrong and, mor importantly in the context of this video, anti-Marxist. Marx and Engels were absolutely authoritarian. When Engels was criticized for being an authoritarian, he famously said "have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution?" And then went on to describe how all revolutions are authoritarian because it's the armed overthrow of one class by another. A revolution is the most authoritarian thing that can be. And when we analyze why the Paris Commune failed, we should recognize that, had they used their arms more liberally and suppressed reaction more forcibly, they would have approached success for more than their unfortunately short existence.
It's wild that the first thing liberals demand of newly birthed socialist societies is that fascists be allowed to have newspapers.
Also the USSR, while not perfect, was a force for good in the world. Do your own research and check your sources. I guarantee you'll find the CIA's fingers in almost everything
Name one successful communist country.
Fine if you don't think this system can work, but to think that Capitalism is the only alternative is more Utopian than Communism. To think that we can go on living the way we are is more unrealistic than Karl Marx's Socialist ideology. The moment we stop thinking about solutions to problems simply because you think it's "too hard" or "impossible" is the moment you show your primitive mindset. By the way, isn't the Capitalist verbal tick to say "stop being lazy"? Well stop being so cynical then. Humanity is capable of coming up with things once thought impossible.
Holy Christ on a sandwich, an actually smart person! I can't believe I found you under the heaps of pessimists, trolls, idiots and capitalists in this comment section!
CatMaster90001 Impressive indeed, I'm with you guys, there is still hope!
Rafael Aragão There's always hope if you're willing to keep it alive, comrade! Let's all never give up on Marx's dream!
Rise up and claim the future!
☭
Please don't mistake communism with socialism.
After the oppression of capitalism, workers will retake the production means and give it to the State, this is socialism, however, Marx advises: the State will grow corrupt and even more oppressive, this will make the workers fight against the State in order to abolish it, and this: no private production means and no State, is communism... Socialism is still the "bad guy" for communists.
this seems remarkably well informed and unbiased for a 4 minute video aimed at the mass media consumer about such a disreputable ideology as Marxism. Well done.
Brace for impact, the libertarians are coming
***** Allow me to show you, it's right here in Gula- I mean the libertarian registration area
Right wing libertarians or left wing libertarians?
FS Spring Libertarian means right wing. I know that libertarian "really" is a left wing term, but in modern discourse it's a right wing word
***** Yes, however, "libertarian" was originally a left wing term. Its modern defitinon is not what we're discussing.
***** Originally libertarian refered to anti-authoritarian socialists, as they saw capitalism as anti-liberty, since it gives a small portion of the populaiton control over the means of produciton, and by extension, over a majority of people.
Thank you for being unbiased in either direction, but I have one small gripe: Marx never said communism was a utopia. He argued that life would be better, but we certainly wouldn't be dancing the hokey-pokey all day.
Watch his 8 bit on capitalism. He is most definitely biased
@@Orchaisama I did a while back. My comment and my watch of the capitalism video was over a year ago though, so I don't remember shit.
@@timurtheterrible4062 well not that you may care since your comment is a year old. but the guy who made both videos just about takes a dumb on the capitalist system then does not truly explaining why it works. While you watch this video on marxism, he is darn near praising it as a system to where everyone can walk off into the sunset as equals. Rightfully you pointed out that communism is not a utopia but the hard truth is, it's a system that would never work in reality.
@@vurbi1027 it doesn't. It would only breed a more selfish mind set among those who get to choose what everyone else gets.
@@Orchaisama that's not even how it works? you have like no idea what ur saying do you? ik this was 8 months ago so if you've become more informed then feel free to call me out
One of the best videos I have seen, ever. Thank you for your bravery in making this. And thank you for you honesty.
You guys forgot to mention the middle part, socialism, where money is divided up through the government among the people, to different extents sometimes. Communism, in Marx's original theory about the progression of economics in society, is the final part of his proposed cycle of government, where the government isn't even needed by the people to divide the wealth created by the people, and instead, people produce, and they borrow from one another in a sort of way like: "You gave me some food for a day, so in turn, I'd give you some food when you need it". Marx believed this was the final step a country would take in the pursuit of the perfect society, and in his mind like many others, believed Communism to be the most idealistic kind of society possible. Socialism is different from the original theory of communism in the way that the Government divides up its country's wealth instead of the people itself, so one could say that the "communism" that the USSR had used in its government was actually more like socialism that was mixed with dictatorship, and in countries like Sweden and Norway, they use socialism by taxing people, and using a lot of the money gained from that to benefit the well being of the people by investing it into stuff like education, and good healthcare. And also in a way, the US does use socialism to an extent in order to keep certain people and corporations from becoming too rich, which had happened in the early 1900s with the Industrial Revolution and what I'd say was the Golden age of Capitalism.
An extra point on that, is that socialism, as the intermediary step would have, according to Marx, need a benevolent dictator. Benevolent dictators are both in short supply and don't last long...
@@nayandusoruth2468 show a citation
Socialism has nothing to do with government taxing you and providing free stuff. Socialism is when there is a industrial democracy, where workers control the means for their sustenance in a participatory sense.
"He must pay the workers little more then its necessary to survive"
Every boss.
Welcome to capitalism
@@innocentrage1 Yeah, well its working out great ...what can i say :)))
Reality: Some other boss might take the skilled person, I must give as much incentive for him to come to me instead.
@@AureliusLaurentius1099 they will take quantity over quality, they would've shortend the work week to four days already if they cared about quality.
@@RCmadness888 As did slavery for thousands of years and yes, when the work slaves are stupid and brain washed enough, they will try to bring that, too.
At least there’s someone out there who doesn’t give a biased testimony. I say that, and then I check the comments. The people here are the exact opposite, holy cow.
No he was completely biased. You got to be able to pick up on the tone.
@@Orchaisama Please show what part he said that is biased. Thank you good sir or ma'am.
@@leaheyana6838 alright, from time stamp 0:11 to 0:38 he is explaining the existence of a system that eliminates economic classes for money and resources. Within this small time he calls it a communistic utopia. This important because he never corrects this.
It is around 1:20 where the narrator subtly begins degrading the idea of capitalism. Describing it as a system where the worker does not get ahead. The worker becomes "alienated" from the product he/she produces, his peers and even himself. They are paid just a little above the minimum, never what they deserve. The greedy business owners make all the money and doesn't share(concentrations of wealth). In so many words the narrator is expressing capitalism as a system that allows individuals to exploit the economic system to make all the wealth. This makes everyone but the rich unhappy and separates you from your fellow man. He continues to degrade capitalism until about 3:10 when he switches to the notion that one day the oppressed will raise against their oppressors(capitalist business owners) overthrowing them and the idea of capitalism and installing communism where everything and everyone is equal and fair creating a utopia where all people can co-exist.
Long answer short; communism good, capitalism bad.
Edit: the creator of this video isn't telling you true pros of capitalism nor is he telling you the real cons of communism. There's a reason why that system never works and when it's attempted, it immediately fails.
Any questions comments or confusion?
@@Orchaisama He is describing the philosophy of Marx, not once did he personally intervene with moral or economic judgements.
@@youtuber7186 I would be incline to believe that if he had of did the samething with his video on capitalism. Instead in that video he described capitalism through the eyes of a Marxist. Plus I don't remember marx describing communism as a utopia (even though he in his mind may have believed that). However he makes efforts to do so on this video.
Now I have to go watch the rest of the series, this was great.
I was deeply surprised how accurate of a representation of what marxism is I was just shown. Bravo
Though that is the one and only major disagreement I have with marx, that being the inevitability. To me it feels more like something that can very feasibly be achieved, but if we do not unify and work towards it is very possible to fail.
*Reads video comments*
*Proceeds to facepalm at almost every single one*
I'm with you, Barry. The seething pessimism and hopelessness down here is just sickening, isn't it?
Hey, at least people are communicating. It used to be rare that your ignorance would ever be questioned by a stranger. The tyrannical ideological regimes of the past wouldn't stand a chance in today's cluttered media environment.
Company Laser You mean basically every government before about 1980. Actually, there was Thatcher and Bush. Scratch that. Every government ever.
It shows just how very real the battle of philosophies and ideologies is in this day and age... but it also is infected with people touting their opinions as facts and talking in finite terms rather than openly and ready to change their views. :/
Lung kisser That's humanity for you. We are indeed a strange species, are we not?
Channels like this, SciShow, Game Theory, Sequelitis, and anything of critical thinking give me greater hope for the world. Especially seeing comments this good. So thank you, intellectual and curious viewer, for watching something that tackles a larger topic then most even care to think about.
skaterdude7277 I recommend Extra History than
i mean to watch more, but i watched the Feudal Japan series. Had to run it by me a couple of times because all the names were hard to remember, but it was excellent.
Samurai lived with such purpose, ready to gut themselves than be taken prisoner.
Not sure if living for the purpose of controlling a continent s a great purpose, but IT SHORE DO MAK 4 A GUD HISTORY LESS'N
These videos are so well done! Nearly everyone has an opinion on Marx yet most people really don't even understand him. He has a daunting body of work that would take an incredible amount of time and dedication to comb through. My father and uncle are militant capitalists and always complain that "young kids don't even know what socialism is," but when I ask them what they think it means, they just spout whatever Sean Hannity or Fox news talking heads have been hammering into their cortex. Simply that the State runs every aspect of our lives. I didn't know that wasn't true until I decided to do some research for myself. It's a complicated world and I do think that capitalism and Marxism both have inherent good and bad aspects to their philosophies. There is not a one size fits all philosophy in existence.
People might argue about Marxism but one thing is true without arguing his magnificent beard.
I call it the Karbarx!
Also, thanks to Wisecrack for the super interesting video, I think that people has to know more about economic and political alternatives and also more about philosophy. Keep wisecrackin'!
wow, what a great production of animation and representation of marx's theory in mario aesthetics! well done!
Guys, your work is amazing. I loved they way you decided to approach to knowledge.
Thank you this really helped.
Anybody here read animal farm?
+Dragonytamer2 Love that book. Perfectly details how Stalin perverted communist ideals.
+Shotwell Gaming Carl Marx never held a job and never held any significant positon
***** because lazy people want free stuff? Silly goose
***** I mean society didn't decide "hey lets have those people work the least and get the least pay". They got money because they owned land correct? Nowadays since we don't use so much land for farming (better techniques) it's what you do with that land that matters more now.
***** they weren't given that business for free, they made the business, hired to workers, provide the jobs...
"Give according to their abilities and take according to their needs." Like that would ever happen. People will always take more than they need, and give less than their ability. What we really want is a society in which robots cultivate and distribute commodities, so people can have plenty and are required to give no more than they want to.
You wouldn't need to take more than you need. There'd be absolutely no point in doing that.
In a communist society, where productive forces are regulated by society, and it's basically post-scarcity, what point would there be to do that?
Locutus Greed.
FirstRisingSouI Human nature is defined by material and societal conditions. It's changed all through-out history. There would literally be no gain in "taking more" than you need, since there is post-scarcity.
Locutus There is also no guarantee that a communist society would be post-scarcity. That seems like a big assumption to me. Also, how can you possibly say there is no gain in taking more than you need? You would be perfectly happy living in a gutter with trash for food and a box to keep the rain off? Because that is all you need to survive. Anything beyond that is more than you need. The only way there could be no gain is if there is enough for you to take "anything you want."
Now I personally see that as a possibility. If technology continues to proceed, then we will have robots doing all the labor. In that case, we will have a true post-scarcity economy, where we can contribute according to our desire and take according to our want. I think this is both more realistic and more desirable than a communist state.
FirstRisingSouI What you described in your last paragraph is communism. Communism doesn't just mean that the state owns everything, in fact, the definition of communism is "a stateless, moneyless, and classless society in which the workers own the means of production." Therefore, you can't have a communist state, because it is stateless. It's interesting how people are quite fond of the idea of communism, but once you tell them it's communism, they immediately close their mind to it.
Very good episode. Love how you guys saved Mario until such a relevant ideologist.
wow did I just be come a communist
It sounds nice on paper, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Communism isn't one unified ideology. Like other philosophies, it has variants. You have Marxist and Trotskyist communism (which is what you are describing), Maoist communism, Stalinism, etc.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a Marxist utopia is the fact that Earth is dominated by capitalism. Countries abiding by some form of communism must become more capitalist to survive in a capitalist world.
Andre Hirata 'no corruption'
sure.........
Andre Hirata I have payed for education, which you claim a lack of makes people stupid, but I am stupid. Okay.
Andre Hirata Did you pay attention to what i wrote? The allocation of resources without money is IMPOSSIBLE.
Your claim that communism is perfect on paper is just wrong. And even if it was right, it makes no sense to make a theory and them have reality adapt to it, it should have been the other way, your theory should adapt to reality.
Think with your head man, nothing is free. People have to work for food, housing, clothes, everything. Money is just a proof that you benefited other people in some way or another.
Can i imagine having to pay for clean water? a place to live? Are you really that dense? If the water is clean because someone cleaned it yes, you will have to pay, no one has to be slaven so that you can have clean water. If the house was built by someone, yes you will have to pay for it. Things don't just fall into place, people have to work for it. Money represents the value of the work done, based on the subjetive opinion of the whole society.
Sounds nice until you start your own business
Yup, then you can be like Preston Tucker. The thing is, the biggest capitalists all hate free markets about as much as they hate controlled ones (or at least markets that aren't controlled for their benefit).
Coouge Marxists view that as exploitive.
@@jacktheboss1896 It's not.
I personally believe there should be a middle point that works better than this.
Perhaps having a society that merits you on your work, and also limits the highest amount you can earn.
While you might argue about lazy people stealing the amount, but they will be the ones living off the least amount in society. So in a way, it doesn't allow anyone to go out of hand.
There should also be a section for the sickly and disabled.
In a communist system, the sick and elderly would be considered a burden to the system so they would be executed, or at least left to die. This means more food for everyone else, so nobody would complain. (That, and the fact that complaining would get you shot. )
Z-oreo § that middle ground is called the United States.
Jan Mikhailowicz I'm planning to move there lol
Nice in theory - but not in practice...there will always be the human element of greed.
What a revolutionary notion.
the theory is that over time it lessens
that's what my teacher in high school said when we studied communism; it looks great on paper but it would always fail because of human nature.
At least it's much better than just letting greed take it's course... If you can choose between fighting and not fighting greed, you would choose not fighting it because the solution doesn't look perfect on paper?
notorioustim10
As if their were 'one' kind of human nature
I miss 8-Bit Philosophy and Thug Notes so much.
Thank you so much! You explained in 3 minutes and 45 seconds what my teacher couldn't explain to me after 8 lectures.
The irony is that neither system will be stable long term. A balance is required, with elements of capitalism to encourage growth and create opportunity, and socialism to protect those who are most vulnerable and support those who cannot meet their needs.
Would be very ironic if this gets copyright claimed by Nintendo.
Nintendo wouldn't even exist in a communist society.
in an equal outcome society, there is no oppurtunity, and eventually rights as humans will decline.
That's not what communism is about really
All I'm seeing in these comments are Americans who refuse to believe that Capitalism is NOT the best way. It thrives on the manipulation of the poor. Not to say that Communism is the answer to this, but perhaps you should all acknowledge that Karl Marx was more intelligent than most of you, and put a lot more thought into his work than most of you will put into anything, ever.
And it should be noted that Stalin's bastardization of what Karl Marx said is in no way related to Marxism. Initially, Hitler was voted in to power. Does that mean that the Ancient Greeks are responsible for the deaths that occurred during the Holocaust?
It is in our nature for some to rise to power while others fall.
And? just because we have a tendency towards it doesn't means we can't nor shouldn't try to self-regulate.
WakeU.S. from Slumber As opposed to the oligarchy we have in the west?
If you are referring to caste systems, then unfortunately yes. As long as someone has the audacity to claim that they are superior, and others are either too scared or ignorant to argue, caste systems and hierarchy will exist. Sorry all you anarchists
WakeU.S. from Slumber "People like yourself have been dumbed down to think we are a democracy"
Well, that's an extraordinary conclusion considering the post you're responding to precisely argued that we do _not_ have a democracy in the west.
***** You can propagandize the gun away ;)
One main problem: how can history ever truly end? Unless we as a species end, then our history couldn't really end. Francis Fukuyama made that mistake with his essay turned book, "The End of History."
+Miroslav Georgiev "The End of History" by Fukuyama was merely a play on Marx's beginning of the Communist Manifesto:
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the rightwing were euphoric and thought it was the final nail in the coffin of any egalitarian social struggle and capitalism has triumphed completely. As we all know with even greater wealth inequality worldwide, class struggle is alive and kicking!
+Miroslav Georgiev The idea is that contradictions creates change, class contradictions create change in society itself. This is what lead through all the different systems, most recently from Feudalism to Capitalism. After Communism is in place, there is no class, and hence no class contradictions, and is hence the final social model and the end of the history of class struggle, and Marx said "history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", hence the end of history.
Great video! Even though I am a Libertarian, I felt that this was a pretty good summary of Marxism. The end may have had a bit of an air of bias, but all in all, it stuck to what it IS rather that bashing on it, or praising it. Once again, great video ^_^ I look forward to the next one.
Great job explaining a difficult concept easily!
I believe Marx was right, but he didn't realize that first technology had to evolve to the point where production of all the goods is extremely cheap, and automation replaces human labor. The monetary system will collapse with low consumer spending and extremely cheap goods.
Actually He did it. ;)
I at least see the end of the assembly style mass production system. One large machine will replace a thousands workers.
I also see the end of long hours, and a reduction of total needed labor. The nature of the work will also change. Because physical labor is useless, any existing work will be related to education. There will be a 'new labor' movement, where the mind is the only thing that matters.
Unfortunately, not everyone will be smart enough to perform this kind of work. And educating everyone is more expensive than just giving education to people who show intelligence.
I see a meritocratic aristocracy in the future. Everyone who is smart enough will work, and everyone who isn't...I have no idea.
That's where the future get's ugly in my opinion. We will have to weed out people who aren't good performers. Unless we find a way to engineer intelligence into people, weeding them out will require unsavory tactics.
EricLeafericson Wow just wow dude, sounds like something Hitler would approve of. I can't believe you want to murder billions of people. Do you realize food and housing will be plentiful in the future? There won't be much scarcity left, so no need to enact genocide.
He did actually realize that technology had to get advanced to a certain point. That's why he argued it was fortunate capitalism arose, for it made realistic the conditions in which everyone could be provided for--of course, he still condemned and despised the system for its faults as we all know. He also argued that communism is only possible in an industrially-advanced country, and were he alive at the time of October Revolution, he would have said, "You guys are fucked, you're too agrarian to pull this off." If I remember correctly, he actually specifically says Russia is one of the places communism *wouldn't* work.
JC Frazier Marx must have also realized that Democratic countries would peacefully progress to a socialist state without armed revolution. The whole idea of revolution would never work with the weaponry available to the military today. Revolution has less and less chance of working the more technology advances.
What better way to express a fantasy, than via a video game. Marxism: I'm too lazy to do my own thing, therefore gimme.
Two years ago I watched this video and laughed at how "dumb" Marx was.
Two years later and here I am now, a personal fan of Marx's work and a communist myself.
ElvishisnotTengwar so you're dumber than you were 2 years ago?
Welcome in the great family of Communism!
Same for me!
I remember a few years ago when I came across /r/FULLCOMMUNISM and said "lol, what a bunch of dumbasses".
Now, I still consider them a bunch of dumbasses, but for other reasons.
So in two years you became a moronic parasite?
Alex xeon In two years he became smarter than you.
To whoever made this... I LOVE YOU. PLEASE KEEP MAKING MORE.
Nice Theory. But it overlooks the fact that when all are equal, somebody still wanna be better than everybody. Look at Soviet Union, Venezuela and China. Know Thyself.
Basically no competition everything stagnants and becomes corrupt
@@GD30.06 You could easily have competition, they just don't want competition that's in a life or death situation. Be a slave to your boss and make minimum wage or starve on the streets. That's the kind of competition we don't want.
Karl Marx was brilliant in describing the evils that capitalism entails, the alienation part is spot on. Very good video.
less marx, more Mises
Thing is, people don't work in factories anymore. The world is different.
_This time it's gonna work for sure, I promise!_
its always worked
@@PowersOfDarkness Lmao
@@AndrewAce. bolivia, venezuela, cuba, vietnam, russia, burkano faso, grenada and china
all have improved at faster rates than similar counterparts
compare cuba to columbia, compare vietnam to columbia, compate burkao faso under sankaras leadership with chad or any of its neighbors at the time
compare lybia with gaddafi to its neighbors
compare russias fast growth to any other large power, the immediate differences to the tsardom in the following 20 years, compare its later growth to the growth of western markets, look at its collapse and the devastation and mass death that followed, listen to people who live in the soviet union, look at the harvard study 95% approval rate in china while globally under the corona crisis government approval plummets
in cuba no child sleeps on the streets, no child goes to sleep hungry, that is a miracle for a post colonial island embargoes from trade with most of the worked and its only possible because they implemented democracy over the economy
@@PowersOfDarkness name one that actually achieved Communism, I am a communist by the way I just can't see how socialism achieves Communism.
@@Voidppppp Non of them has achieved a classless, stateless, moneyless society, but thats understandable considering socialism has yet to beat capitalism, what we are seeing is the results of the intermittent socialist stage
can't wait
+Jack Laurence for what comrade
lol
Cool, talk about temporal division of labor next!
Marxism, on a small scale, does actually work. There's several successful marxist communities within the United States. Small here means less than 500 people. So, technically Karl Marx was correct, but history has made it painfully obvious that a Marxist system does not scale up when suddenly millions of people are involved. At that scale, the system NEEDS workers, it needs people to collect and transport materials, it needs people to organize, store, count, and manage everything, and it needs someone in a position of authority to oversee distribution, and once that person is chosen, it's only a matter of time before he distributes more stuff to himself. On a small scale, there's less resources and everyone shares the duties of managing and distributing resources.
So... could a federation of marxist communities work, theoretically?
DarklinkXXXX Theoretically, I suppose. I don't know much about Native American culture, but they seemed to have leaned towards a marxist-esque system wherein small familiar groups managed themselves, but also traded and identified within a larger federated tribe structure.
TheJaredtheJaredlong
I would also make the argument that above ~400 people it becomes difficult to know everyone in the community, and social pressure to conform to the accepted rules becomes difficult to apply. Once someone can obtain some anonymity he can parasitize the system with less chance of getting caught. Once you have strangers in your community there is a tendency to blame them for cheating the system.
DarklinkXXXX
I would argue no, as each community would distrust others and classic utopian Marxism would break down. They could only exist within the greater bourgeois regulatory framework we have now, treating each other as distinct corporations which may have contractual dealings with each other.
Wasn't there also a functional benevolent dictatorship in the Ming Dynasty? It worked for almost 300 years, and basically operated through nepotism and occasional backstabbing.
Yet it was one of the best dynasties Ancient China had ever seen, renowned for stability and prosperity.
Lots of political systems can work under the right conditions. We can't have a perfect society without perfect people. So I generally place a society's cultural value as more important than it's political system.
Marx's criticism is very profound but I think it's very pretentious that he believes his theoretical solution will be THE solution to solve all the problems. I think it is a single possible solution, and I think there is danger is believing it is the only one and closing yourself off to any other possible ideas that could be even better. Still I think his insight on the flaws of capitalism is spot o.
+InkCorporated Completely agree with you, although I think the point is not to take everything he says as some sort of truth, but rather to build upon and search for the ideal system.
What's worst in our curent system, is IMO that the people are completely powerless as to how the system is working. Criticising the System and changing it just isn't accepted. Many ideas that might make the world a better place are simply dismissed by those in power, in fear that they might lose said power. And by those in power, I mean those with money.
+InkCorporated I like the simile, "Marx was like the doctor who discovers the nature of the disease, but not the cure."
he says it because communism is the process of destroying power itself (ie no classes anymore), so no one can enforce his will over another human person, it is the end to our current history since it will end the constant power struggle and infighting of our society. Think of it like the federation in Star Trek (whihc is kind of communist), humanity has evolved past hate and now the "new" human history has begun, our history in space, beyond of fighting ourselfs, but searching for answers on this world
Marx: hey workers should own the means of production
Lenin: well yes but actually no
I think you left out the part where a dictatorship was required to realize communism. Lol. I don't think that's a minor point to miss. O_o
Facey Neck Only if you understand the word "dictatorship" in its modern post 20th century meaning. To Marx, the word "dictatorship" is used simply to indicate who holds political power. In his time, as well as in ours, it is the wealthy capitalist. In Soviet countries, it was the bureaucrats.
You can't name a single country that had a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Facey Neck I think it's less about how to define dictatorship and more about the fact thatchy left out the dangers of Marxism. Which is important because most attempts ended pretty horribly and will end horribly when continued in the future.
Tate Hildyard Marxism has never been attempted.
***** That is fair. However, Marx himself decided to become a political activist and try to accelerate the historical development. In that sense I consider it meaningful to say that "Marxism" has never been attempted.
Though it may contradict Marx's original manifest, I believe there is a possibility of a Marxist utopia with no need of a hierarchy. Through examination of history it becomes evident that the fast majority of civil failures have come from one of three things: 1- Natural disaster 2- Hierarchy and/or unbalanced caste system or 3- our concept of civilization itself. Imagine utopia with no hierarchy, an organized anarchy. Think of John Lennon's song, "Imagine", the lyrics state "imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man". In this utopia it describes, there is no reason, no excuse rather, for any form of hierarchy. Look at history. What positive things have caste systems ever created? Unfortunately, caste systems will exist for as long as someone has the audacity to say he's superior, and another too scared or ignorant to argue. Marxism has never been attempted on a large scale. Soviet Russia had a hint, a small glimmer of it, until Stalin took power and killed Trotsky, then it became Stalinist. China I like to think of as capitalist, only with one capital - the government. Events such as the cold-war and Vietnam have ruined the name of communism, and sadly, the name Karl Marx along with it. Feel free to contradict, in fact, please do. More discussion = more thought.
1:08 what is poduction
Typo, typo, typo. Ok, ok... :)
+Wisecrack Did the makers of this video read directly from marx? And was their reaserch beyond marx's early works? There is a difference from the communist manifesto to Das Kapital , marx's ideas evolved during his lifetime as he got to know economics more and more.
+Wisecrack I would add this:
" When Marx called for the abolition of private property, he was not referring to "personal property" such as clothing and furniture that was not used to produce the "social wealth," but to productive property that requires collective effort to operate"
So Marx encourages you to buy as much Iphones you want, but you can't buy Apple, wich would rather be socialized in bennefit of humanity, in a kind of sorry Jobs not sorry.
+Kreeslak Tube thanks that makes a lot of sense.
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Communism is way too idealistic. There is no way humans can live in a perfect Utopia. Its simply impossible.
Or they can, its just a luck, small, select group that do, and the rest are kinda in the mud, a lot like the movie Elysium
They already did in Chiapas, Mexico and in Marinaleda, Spain. It only works at a community level. Large centralized states can't do it.
Marx was not concerned with coming up with an ideal system to move towards. His intellectual mission was to look through history and study why societies had undergone significant change. And by tracing these conflicts, he could demonstrate there will very likely be another set of social arrangements to come, since there is still a large portion of the society that has an interest in changing the way things are arranged.
Not with that attitude!
I think the same can be said about capitalism. Pure capitalism was, in the United States, by many accounts a highly repressive state. Not so different from an oligarchy. That's why most of the western world now mixes socialism and capitalism together.
It won't work and is not working.
Great video, but I really appreciate the FE Gaiden reference at 0:40
What is forcing the workers to "make things [they] have no personal investment in"? Why aren't they making something they enjoy? How would this change with communism? Do we just assume that someone somewhere would be willing to do your crappy job you hate while you get to do something you love?
1. (with capitalism) nothing 2. because they want money 3. with communism you would still be forced to do things you don't want but everyone else will too so its "fair" 4. I guess so, Marxist theory tends to only consider factory jobs. Most likely because he lived in London during a giant industrial boom......
But under capitalism you have the freedom to pursue what you enjoy, the ability to quit a job you don't like, and the ability to make more money doing crappy jobs like waste management, construction, or coal mining. The idea that someone would be happy in a sewage treatment plant while someone is making the same amount of money cooking food is just divorced from reality. Marx believed we could have a society where everyones work would be of equal value and everyone would only take what they needed and give all they could, but anyone with a brain knows thats just a fantasy.
The point is merely that in the future, as we have seen for the past decades, more and more of these traditionally low paid jobs will be automated. Marx wrote a great deal about automation as well.
The fact of the matter is that we are overproducing to a great extent. We don't need everyone to work a full eight hours, we would only need people to work a lot less, and even less in the future as productivity goes up.
What is forcing workers to take shitty jobs? The answer is extremely obvious: poverty and coercion. The capitalist exchange assumption is shit, since it asserts that all contracts can be absolutely defined as voluntary. When you have to choose between doing what you love but poor or doing something shit but getting by, you have to go for the latter option. The only real freedom in this world exist for the rich. Your average joe is subjected to an awful lot of authoritarianism.
Benjamin Ljunggren Or you could do a shitty job and get by while educating yourself and then get a much higher paying job with your new educational background and work experience. Then again "getting by" really depends on what you are doing. There is a lot of gray area between "doing what you (think you) love and not getting paid" and "taking first job that pays you money"
Like I don't work in a job that I ever considered a dream job or "doing what I love", but I enjoy it immensely and I'm getting paid more than I expected coming out of college and work really isn't that hard. I'm not being paid nearly as much as lucky people in Silicon Valley or even nearer my country's capital, but for my first job I'm doing just fine.
Apply your self.
***** I'm in law school dude, I'm going to do well in life. This doesn't mean that everyone is going to be able to do this, nor that I can't look beyond my own circumference.
Benjamin Ljunggren So I can assume you are going to be donating hefty sums of your paycheck to poor and needy? Or do you not live by your ideology?
But Communism means as well no matter if you work harder than your colleagues you'll get the same of what they getting
working should not be something that you hate doing as it is now, probably the hardest thing we struggle with is getting to know ourselves and what we like doing, if you find what you love doing and do it for the common good, it no longer becomes work but an activity you like doing, the same way a mom doesn't see raising her children as a job, but something she is passionate about, through good and bad times.
You can fish today, hunt tomorrow, and build a house the day after without becoming a fisherman, hunter or an architect, we all have that capability.
Personally i think the biggest problem is that we in essence have forgotten what we are here for.
We are not here to develop ourselves as humans, we are not here to build empires and spread religion or political thoughts, we are not here to become professionals and make a lot of money, human essence is to be happy, that's what we are in this world for, to live long happy lives, enjoy
Friendships, watch your children grow, do common good, the most valuable asset a human can have is true friendship, not money, greed is an enemy to us all, much love.
Stacy No No communism is a stateless moneyless society where everything is for free. That is why it is a utopia.
Joan Zago Casas As you said without saying (and the video actually ignored), the main problem (that gets we where at we are) is the alienation of work. We lost contact with what defines us as humans and it becomes a sacrifice, a mortification, that we endure when we see ourselves obliged to. It loses its quality of instrument of liberation from external needs and of expression of the human gender.
Private Property =/= Personal Property
You owning land and being secluded is “private”. This is land which is where your house is, factories, and anything else. If you land isn’t owned by the state or by/for everyone, it is private
Personal property is personal things, such as your tooth brush and your residence. While, yes you can call your house yours, at the end of the day, the state and the people own that land. Almost always they won’t bother you, but if they do, you will almost always result in a better outcome if you cooperate together. You can keep your shitty music and tacky shirts, but know that they are provided to & for the state
I love these, keep them coming!
How many more corpses? Let’s go for 200 million!
Hail Karl Marx and Lenin!
Not Stalin though, he's an antidemocratic bitch.
When the revolution starts this time we need to throw all Stalinists, Pol Potists, Maoists into the brazen bull.
These dipshits always ruin everything.
Thunder Jay Stalin fix the democratic system and help the Soviet union become industrialized
Devon Alex Reckon He fixed the Democratic system by becoming a ruthless dictator. If that isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is.
Thunder Jay he was elected and no he wasent a dictator he dident have all the power in the gouverment search up Soviet demecrocy
It's a pity that people are interested only in fascist communism in the USSR and its affiliates states (forced to stick to the same program) rather than practices not dominated by the Soviet programe. I mean the practice of communism repressed by the USSR, which works without surprise. (forgive my bad english)
A pity indeed, comrade. The USSR never utilized real communism to begin with. What it performed was Stalinism, and the rest of the world was so easily fooled into believing Stalinism actually was communism. The reality is, Stalinism contradicts a great many things that Marx originally laid out for communism...
M. Woller Communism must be achieved after global scale victory. There is problem when reactionaries attacks socialist countries.
***** Don't fucking tell me you're a *sympathizer* of that inhuman monster, Stalin. He betrayed everything Marx stood for by turning the USSR into a totalitarian nightmare.
Why I'm a opportunist ? If you like Stalin its not a problem, the most important is your ideology. I'm a communist, I want to build it and if i like or dislike someone, there will be no change in my plan. For the end of capitalism we must to stay together. Worker of te world unite ! So, what do you want, the build of a world who love one person or the build of a communist world ?
He have kill to much communists and anarchists. He have destroy the communism because every communist was forced to follow him, look what happenned to the P.O.U.M. or Makhnovtchina. YOU are a anti revolutionnarist because you don't favorise the revolution, you divide us and its what the bourgeoisie want.
*SOMETIMES I WATCH THESE VIDEOS OVER AGAIN JUST FOR THE SOUNDTRACK.*
History should be analyzed without cathegories like "good" and "bad", it should be analyzed and studied by analyzing what every economic and social system constructed, wanted to do and - at the end - what results wanted to achieve (and achieved).
There are politics, economics, social visions and methods.
I agree with economic and social\politic USSR view, but I obviously don't agree with Stalin methods (so as I don't agree with USA methods, politic, economic and social vision).
Why nazism, fascism or capitalism are crap, according to me (and to the working class)?
Not only because they made (or make) many deaths: every system, directly or indirectly, makes - for a long or short period - many deaths (and this is obviously wrong); they're crap also because they have a certain economic, politic and social vision that wants to mantain class divisions, division by poor and rich people exc.
(btw I'm trying to not write too much otherwise I'd become boring)
Why then we don't talk about all those deaths caused by USA imperialism and economic and social system today? Strange that not so many people are upset by that, but - sanctimoniously - they say they're "shocked" by Stalin.
Communism where everyone lives well and has his rights can exist, it's just everything in our hands.
PS: Sorry for my bad english
Communism is inherently flawed because in order for it to work everyone has to comply and contribute in equal measure. If someone is unable or unwilling to comply then the only option is to apply force to address the imbalance.
In order to use force to maintain the system there has to be a governing authority with a power imbalance in it's favour. Therefore, by necessity, the whole system has to be asymmetric, which completely defeats the purpose of communism.
It's kind of obvious when you think about it. You'd think people would've noticed by now :D
you are saying that the workers take away ownership of the factory away from the evil owner hording money and exploiting them. Then once the government takes over it notices production has fallen greatly and has to start cracking the whip because the workers are slacking off. The way I see it the difference between the two systems for the workers is not much in capitalism there is the delusion that you can get ahead in a rig system making people work harder in communism it's absent and it lowers the productivity of the nation as a whole.
It's really funny to be reading this on a networking system where most of the vital software is open source - written by people according to their ability and distributed to everyone according to their needs.
I guess there is some secret internet software police somewhere applying force to software authors because not everyone can code web servers.
Your do know some native american tribes were communist ;every one worked for the tribe to survive
It only works at a small community level. Large centralized states can't uphold the doctrines of communism.
Isn't that a criticism that actually applies to capitalism?
It's sad known that 200 years later we're still in this same system. Capitalism must end.
Social democratic countries are always ranked highest in the world for happiness and quality of life and they're still capitalist, so not really.
Once automation has made the vast majority of the workforce obsolete, and technology made the use of a head of state obsolete in this model as well, I think said model is inevitable. He'll end up being right, I'm sure of it
Are you sure? Society might be automated but the buttons for those machines are still in the hands on the capitalist class, and from some testimonies and news I've seen they're hell-bent on preventing armed insurrection against them.
Contrary to Marx, I believe that the longer we wait before organising, the slimmer our chances are
@@Dsonsee They'll still be in the vast minority. If there are no jobs, and society refuses to allow the majority a standard of living, they will rise up and destroy the rich. Inequality is inherently unstable, just ask the French ca 1989-1799
I guess you could call it a "Pipe Dream." :D
...anyone? Hello?
It's VERY easy to praise communism/marxism when you live outside them. Spend 5 minutes in Cuba or Venezuela and see just how well communism works.
They're not communism. Just because the ruling parties call themselves communists doesn't mean anything if they don't follow anything close to the definition of communism. Most of human history was arguably communist before governments and private property came along
Deathkill06 I like how whenever communists do bad shit, other communists crawl from the woodwork and go "not communists!". The oppressed, incarcerated, and dead care not for semantics.
jpz719 you didn't get what is communism and socialism, first, venezuela inst even socialist,and havent a single communist country, socialism is the road for communism, soviet union wasnt communist, was socialist, the socialism is the weapon of proletariat agains the enemy
+jpz719 have you? cuba has pretty nice numbers for a nation under a blockade, and venezuela has the lowest gas price in the world, with all that conveys, is not that simple, educate yourself.
Arturo Castillo So those exscuse living in a society where personal liberties and freedoms are crushed on a daily basis? "BUT THE GAS PRICES ARE CHEAP GUYS!" Said it once, will say it again: when communism and comunists fail, communists will crawl out shouting "NOT COMMUNISM" like it matters.
537 reactionaries disliked this video
Thanks Wisecrack for making this video. I read the Communist Manifesto a number of ears ago and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. When I asked another person about it (usually a professor) they tended to go on a rant about the evils of Capitalism and not answering my question in a way I could understand.
While I have my reservations on if this ideology is possible, this is the first time someone was able to explain the idea to me. Thanks and keep up the good work.
so many angry capitalists in the comments haha
See, communism is good!
Though it's impossible because of our human tendencies.
Communism looks beautiful
So What the fuck Happened to North Korea, China and Russia!?!?
+TheGetout04 Id say corruption but thats a barely informed opinion.
+TheGetout04 They were never Communist societies.
+TheGetout04 The USSR and China both became State capitalist rather than socialist. - Although to give the Chinese some credit they claim as Marx did that capitalism is a needed step before socialism (and socialism being a step before communism).
USSR fell, but time will tell if China can become socialist or communist.
North Korea became a sort of post modern despotic kingdom
+TheGetout04 Spoiler alert: It doesnt work
+SoyElta China has built up its state over time, not taken it down. It isn't headed toward communism at all. And toward capitalism on the economic end. But they /could/ find a nice place in the middle.
last week's uni lecture summed up in 4 mins
Dear Wisecrack, With all due respect and adoration, I beseech you, please stick to videos about Kayne and South Park please. Economic and political philosophy is clearly above your pay grade.
Hint: Commies/socialists/Marxists have not had a single academic author of any repute to advance their ideas in the last 200 years. They are unable/refuse to use consistent definitions of words. They deny the most basic and obvious economic concepts and they espouse violent overthrow of peaceful people.
I really just do not understand why you would want to give them a voice, as if they had a credible philosophy.
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Perhaps your staff would like to go to Reddit, /r/Anarcho_Capitalism and ask some questions?
"Repute" is not defined, so any individual I refer you to (Sartre, Zizek, Derrida to an extent, de Beauvoir, Chomsky, etc) will be dismissed. However, Wisecrack has cited all of these people (except Chomsky, I don't know about him, but he is a world renowned linguist), and these people are definitely taken more seriously than you or any ancap ever will be.
Your philosophy is the least credible one in the world. At least Mussolini understood basic definitions, and actually read enough philosophy to articulate a point worth engaging with. Rothbard certainly didn't. Right-libertarianism is _pure ideology_, not worth anyone's time.
You mean the hellhole subreddit overrun with Pinochet and Franco apologists? Yeah, no. Crawl back into your hole. Leave the actual philosophy to us ebul lefties.
Repute is defined, you moron. It is a word. Look it up. No one has added to the fairy tale ideas of Marx. You know why? Because it's nonsense.
As I said, you have not mentioned a single idea which has been advanced in the last 200 years... This is NOT the mark of a credible field which is advancing...
Oh and BTW, Noam Chomsky is a Linguist. That means his study is in the field of linguistics. Guess what?! That word has a definition too!! You know what it means?? Nothing to do with economic or political philosophy!!
That's like asking an Art History major to explain to you how the Higgs boson works.
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Ha! Butt-hurt much? All large Reddit subreddits are flooded with riff raff, and that sub has reached 20,000+.... the only difference is, there, thought-provoking conversation can be found in the comments if one is so inclined... (So this is me, doing my best to steer genuinely curious individuals, the Wisecrack team, away from the one-sided-conversations they are bound to have with an obdurate ideologue shit-for-brains zealot, like yourself.)
LOL and while I appreciate the imagery of my living in a "cave" xD I actually host the podcast which can be found on the sidebar of that same subreddit. That's right, mate, real life human interaction ;-)
And yes, we have had 'lefties' on of various stripes, for discussion... as quite obviously, we don't shy away from healthy debate ツ
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[PSA; the Casual Observer of this thread will kindly note:] EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION with a communist or socialist or Marxist true believer that you will have on the internet will follow THIS EXACT SAME STRUCTURE. ( it is not recommended that you actually engage them, this is preparing you JIC)
* this Zealot will list various obscure debunked authors you need to read (it is very important to note that your interlocutor has not actually read this material him or herself, they just tell you that you need to) - [You will note he or she listed several authors, but made no mention of the alleged ideas therein.]
* They will avoid or sidestep any legitimate discussion or debate. - [No ideas were weighed or considered on their own merit, I was merely categorized as vile trash and name called.]
* If they do try to have an actual debate (one with logic, rigorous thought) they will fall flat on their face, hard. - [ so far he has saved himself the embarrassment]
* It is not uncommon for them to try to redefine words or safe absurd things like words can have no definitions. ( literally his first sentence: "'Repute' is not defined.)
* Their final fall back (and really the only skill that they actually practice) is trying to deride you with big vocabulary words or rhetorical slights of hand. In my experience even in this Avenue they will get their ass handed to them. - [ here he referred to himself as an ebul]
Ronald McPaul None of this ranting seems to have addressed my main point. _You_ never defined what you consider reputable, so anything I offer you will be dismissed. Because you've never set a bar where you say "this is reputable", anyone I offer to you, even if they are as well known as Jean-Paul Sartre (who was a Marxist), will be written off as "not reputable enough". Dozens, if not hundreds of people have added to Marx's theories. You just a) haven't read any of them and b) will dismiss all of them out of hand.
To simplify that for you, your request is impossible to meet because you have set no measurable goalposts.
Your point about Chomsky is textbook sharpshooter fallacy. You've ignored my larger point about the structure of your argument to focus on one particular, largely insignificant piece of evidence I referenced. As for your actual claim here, the study of language is a study of a particular aspect of society...it's a social science, so Marx's theories apply. More importantly, Chomsky has demonstrated _through writing_ his understanding of the political topics he talks about, and often addressed them through his understanding of linguistics, so I fail to see your (rather elitist) point.
I've been on the subreddit many times before. Never have I had anything close to a "thought-provoking" discussion. Likely, you have to buy into the ideology before entering to do that.
>says marxism is nonsense
>is an ancap
LMAOOOO
you could hear the sarcasm in his voice when he described Marx's dream they were just explaining it
Marx never ran for public office, owned a company, possesed a bank account or even a source of employment. He was supported for all of his life by a friend who owned a factory complex. He is also still somehow revered as a philosophical genius. All applications of his theory have resulted in resounding failure.
His applications were never applied by the self described communist states, they all radically moved away from Marxism into Leninism and Stalinism. Marx wanted the working class to democratically control the government and then abolish the government into a stateless society once conditions for socialism were possible. The government in the USSR ended up being run by a bureaucratic dictatorship. There's flaws in Marxism but Marx's analysis of capitalism is spot on, he didn't need to run a business to understand a social system, so that argument is awful.
jpz719 Cuba seems to be doing rather well despite the US embargo.
They even have a better healthcare system than we do on all metrics. Go figure.
Deathkill06 Spot on.
It should be noted that Marx was writing about the development of technologically advanced capitalist societies like Germany and Britain at the time. Tsarist Russia and China were NOT those things when they had their revolutions, aside from any other ideological derivations that Lenin and Mao brought to the table.
Deathkill06 A system without governance is no system. Place a bunch of strangers and put em on a deserted island. They'll form a government-esque system every single time. To abolish government is to abolish the only thing that keeps people from not getting shot. If there's no government, there's no system of maintaining the law.
That argument is not aweful. It's rightfully calling out Marx's lack of economic credentials. Marxism was shortly used in Russia, before it failed and was immediately replaced by 'Leninism' and 'Stalinism'. Marxism destroys economic drive way more than capitalism does. There is not a single country today that can claim to be 100% capitalist or marxist, but that doesn't mean they don't share enough key similarities to also share their flaws.
I just got sent this by a 21 year old man because I'm trying to understand Marxism. Seeing young people educate themselves without emotions is encouraging. The days where we put emotions before education are Slowly disappearing. People are waking up to AMD educating themselves on these ideologies instead of blindly listening to teachers and lecturers who all have their own agendas . They have pushed their ideologies onto kids since the 50s and now it's got to a pint where people scream fascist and Nazi but have zero fkn idea what those labels truly mean. Thank you Lewis that's all I can say.
it's a great idea just so long as 100% of people are on board
as soon as one gets greedy it fucks it up for everyone else
greedy people mess things up - just take a look at how great the Capitalist system is working for us!
Small correction: The term 'Dialectical Materialism' was invented by Plekhanov.
120 million people dying wasn't enough?!!
Source please
+TankMusic You read that right. By most estimates, anywhere from 100 to 120 million people in the 20th century died as a direct result of Marxist regimes in Asia, Europe and Africa. Most infamous among these are Stalin in the USSR with 20-30M, Mao in China with 50-70M, and Pol Pot in Cambodia with 2.5M.
+TankMusic I don't know where to start, but the three biggest causes were intentional famines, the gulags, and the mass executions.
el estanilismo no es marxismo. No confundamos los justos y necesarios de Karl Marx con las barbaridades hechas por sus mas vulgares seguidores. Es como culpar a jesus por las idioteces de su iglesia.
+El Drugo
La mentalidad colectivista del marxismo, la idea de que todo el mundo y todo lo que pertenece a la colectiva, eran perfectos platos de petri para los asesinatos en masa cometidos por Stalin y Mao. No hay ninguna corrupción de la ideología, porque la ideología es mal inherentemente corrupto y absoluta. Las sugerencias que hace Marx implican que las personas son simplemente esclavos del grupo, para ser dispensados con como el colectivo ve ajuste.
Translation:
The collectivist mentality of Marxism, the notion that everyone and everything belongs to the collective, were perfect petri dishes for the mass murders perpetrated by Stalin and by Mao. There is no corruption of the ideology, because the ideology is inherently corrupt and outright evil. The suggestions that Marx makes imply that people are simply slaves of the group, to be dispensed with as the collective sees fit.
Just introduce a reasonable minimum wage and bam! Exploitation, the main flaw of capitalism, is fixed.
The rest is dependant on a healthy economy and a good educational system so everyone can find his place and be happy.
You don't know much about basic maths do you? Minimum wage is not just flawed form the perspective of economists but simply on an accounting level. Read this reddit post I made about it: www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yhtwb/why_is_there_a_blood_shortage_hospitals_charge/cfky1gr
The rest is dependent on creating a system where everyone has a good shot at getting a reasonable-paying job. unfortunately with unlimited immigration and automation, this scenario is less likely. Upping the minimum wage won't work because that will just push companies to automate sooner or drive factories/businesses overseas. If you want wages up, you need fewer workers competing for jobs and for more jobs to remain in this country. But good luck getting that to happen with the current crop of jackal politicians infesting our leadership.
Instead of taxing income, you tax wealth and assets.
Look up basic income. It's similar to what you just proposed, and many politicians are trying to make it a reality.
crankCINEMA
The thing is that the capitalist system works on maximizing profit and wages can be upped by that profit. Worker's wages are unrealistically low and that's only due to The Man's greed. After all, Capitalism is a system of free enterprise, right? When The Man controlls his money, then he's free to keep it to himself and not pay his workers more. That's pretty much a proven fact- the money gap between the 1% and the 99% is huge and money isn't just paper, it's a right. According to me, the markets are way too complicated for the twisted darwinian model of capitalism(the strongest win). Competition is never fair and the the strongest win, not the best. That creates the fucked up economy we have now.
To answer you more profoundly- wealth can be distributed more evenly and that's won't create inflation because the money already exists, it's just in the wrong hands.
True Capitalism has never been tried.
Lol found the Ancap. "True private ownership over the means of production has never been tried! It's just the private ownership of the means of production I don't like!"
im genuinely interested in someone explaining what they mean by this. It sounds batshit insane but idk people believe it.
lol you purposely put a typo in... Production, you sir are one of a kind 😂💓💗
What's the timestamp?
Imagine having to explain in ideology to somebody through a video game. And this is how we end up with antifa 🤦🏼♀️
Whatever you think is "antifa" predates the video game that inspired this video's graphics by about half a century
Eli M Interesting fact.
Well, it's probably how a lot of modern Antifa kids become "educated" anyway....Those are some derpy people.
Marx is wrong on all counts.
Capitalism is not oppressive. Anyone willing to work hard may become successful. Most rich people in the US are first generation rich. It is much harder today than in the recent past the government has become more socialist through high taxes and regulation.
Communism has failed every time it has been tried and will continue to fail. The concept of "from each according to his ability" requires some government power to enslave people and force them to work to the best of their ability. People need an incentive to work hard and innovate. In capitalism, the incentive is financial gain. In communism, the only incentive is fear of punishment.
Your understanding of Socialism is very thin and wrong on some basic levels. High taxes and regulation is not Socialism, it is 'State Capitalism'. It's the same as Capitalism, it's just controlled by the state rather than business. Socialism does not mean 'the state controls everything', on a basic level it means we all contribute to society rather than the individual hence SOCIALism. Practically it means that there is no separation between 'worker' and 'boss'. A practical example is this, everyone works in a factory Monday-Thursday, on Friday everyone stops gets together and makes the decisions together. No need for a boss, no need for divisions, no need for people getting paid less than they're worth.
Capitalism relies on exploitation at a very basic level. If you are paying a worker fairly, you can't be making money. If I'm a big boss, I pay a worker $10 to make a product or provide a service, I can't take a cut unless the product sells for $11. I am paying him less than he is worth by definition. The individualist aspect of Capitalism means we are encouraged to look out for number one, exploitation is encouraged. In fact bosses try their hardest to pay as little as possible. Unemployment is fantastic for Capitalist bosses, because the competition means they can pay less. Don't want to work for minimum wage? Oh well, there's 400 other unemployed people that want your job.
In terms of innovation? Let me point out that modern Capitalism has only existed for around 300 years. Did we not make any innovations before that point? We don't need exploitation in order to create new things. Humans are complex creatures and a carrot on a stick is not the only reward system that works.
I could type a lot more about this but I'm aware this is a long reply already. If you don't like Socialism please try and educate yourself on it more before you critique it. It may not be perfect and there are potential for a lot of bumps in the road but no system is perfect. It is a lot better than modern Capitalism for the masses and for the planet itself.
First of all, I did not say that the increased regulation and taxes constituted socialism by itself. Your term, "State Capitalism" is a reasonable term to describe it. Other terms I have heard used are, "Crony Capitalism" and "Statism". When and if it gets bad enough, fascism is probably a better term. Fascism is private ownership, but government control. Socialism is government ownership and control. The result, however, is the same. failure and no individual freedom.
Your idea of how socialism would work is crazy. Who would be willing to take on the extra work and stress of being a boss, if they will not be compensated any more than the guy bucking rivets. Why spend years of effort and money to train to be an engineer, if the guy bucking rivets gets to start making money years sooner and no higher pay of the engineer when he is fully trained? Where is the money going to come from to even start a business? Of course, the only answer is the government would have to start and own all business because there would be no incentive or enough money for a private individual to do so.
Your exploitation argument is bogus and straight out of Karl Marx. The big boss, as you call him, puts up the money to start the business, is responsible for the risk involved, and, therefore contributes much more to the value of the product than the fabricator. If that was not the case, why doesn't the worker simply start his own business, build the item himself, and make all the profit? What a worker earns as a wage is by mutual agreement. It is not exploitation. Your example of $10 payment for an item that sells for $11 is not exploitation of the worker. In fact, the worker is getting a great deal. All he had to do was make the item. He did not have to design it. He did not have to provide the raw materials needed to make it. He did not have to provide the tools and work space necessary. He did not have to market the item to potential buyers. By the time the big boss pays the worker $10 and pays for all the other stuff needed to make and sell the product, he will be losing money and go bankrupt in no time.
Socialism has been tried many times and has failed miserably every time. Capitalism, on the other hand, does work, and better than any other system devised by man. The USA went from a small group of 13 colonies to the most powerful and successful country in the world in a short period of time because the Constitution limited the power of the government and allowed people the freedom to work hard and prosper from their labors. Everyone has a choice with capitalism. You can learn a skill and sell your skill and labor to the highest bidder. Or you can start your own business and produce a product that people are willing to pay you for. In every transaction it is a win-win because both parties agree to it voluntarily. The only people that do not do well in true capitalist economy are the lazy and a few disabled. Family and private charity can handle the disabled.
Where do you get socialism being better for the planet? If it were not for the advances in food production developed through capitalism, there would be widespread famine all over the world. Capitalism in the USA has led to innovations that have reduced pollution dramatically as well. If you have ever visited a third world country, or a communist one like China, you would see much worse pollution than here is the US. The US, despite not signing the Kyoto protocol, has reduced pollution by more than the countries that did sign it. The only conclusion I can make from your comment is that you would like to see more people die and thus reduce the human population.
+schizoidman hey guys what about social democracy
+schizoidman hey guys what about social democracy
+schizoidman hey guys what about social democracy
heavens why?
Marx was refuted by inumerous economists but nowadays you see idiots following his ideas, like it was flawless
The main issue with creating a Marxist utopia is that it requires a unified Earth. A Marxist utopia cannot be created in a country- economics prove that. For Marxism to work, capitalism would have to be overthrown all across the world, in every country, because one country doesn't have the resources to properly hold up any communist society.
You are right, in a sense- Marxism doesn't make a lot of economic sense in a capitalist-dominated world. That is why every government which experimented with communism transitioned to a mix between communism and capitalism.
+Danuki L (The Knyaz of Kats)
comunism will never work, it is in disagree with a human characteristic...
the ambition
ans it is not a bad thing as you think
***** What is not as bad as I think? Sorry, I didn't understand :) English is not my primary language
I will admit that I am not a Marxist... I believe that regulated capitalism is a good way to go. But I do admire Marx for trying to think up of systems to deal with inequality. Marxist communism may not be perfect, but the faults in his system are useful in aspiring to a perfect system, however impossible that may be to achieve :)
He hasn't a lower engage of economists agree with him not all disagree I've read books and watched lectures by economists either against capitalism or for communism
Berkan Celebi Marxist communism could work economically, yes, but it could only be properly done if the world unifies and capitalism is overthrown. A unified Earth could possibly sustain a Marxist utopia, though it would be hard to put in as the world is so used to capitalism.
Basically what I am saying is, Marxist communism could feasibly work, if the right variables are changed to allow a Marxist utopia to exist :)
YOU ARE FANTASTIC! THANK YOU A LOT FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO
And the best of all, is that you can go live this utopia TODAY. Just travel to North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, or even China.
they were never capitalist so they can never be using marxism to get to socialism thats why those countries failed and industrialised ones didnt (paris commune) (hungarian commune) (german commune) (catalan commune) etc. they failed because of capitalist intrusion not any problems wth the system
Maybe if we had enough money we could but Capitalism is flawed like that.
@@Photom101 Don't worry. Communism is tolerated within free countries. Go build your hippy commune somewhere. The few I've seen functioning did so thanks to tourism.
@@SalveMonesvol Nice of you to stereotype Communists to just hippies, lol. If you actually had a decent functioning brain you would know that Communists can come from all people.
@@Photom101 Those are the only ones who actually do it without violence.
So, leaving aside the insults and guessing who is smarter between us, I live in a socialist country, and I know how dirty it can be. I understand that you would like communism to work, but it doesn't. Never did. It has already cost too much human life and suffering. Don't bring up "it wasn't real communism".
It's a system of hate and envy.