What this podcast (and specifically: its comment section) proved is that a lot of people, probably mostly from The US, are so stuck in their ignorance and preconceived notions about some controversial topics that they have become unable to think about different ideas.
For Americans who have vastly more academia in political science and economics than anywhere else, this shows one of the heterodox pseudointellectuals of our academia who is locked out on the fringes of our renowned economic scholarship tradition. In this clip, he gaslights better-informed people - mostly Americans - with lies and deflections about Marx's direct and explicit prescription of brutal politburo totalitarian dictatorship.
@@ThePathOfEudaimonia 1) The philosophy of Karl Marx is not unclear about communist political economy. 2) Marx's life work is not legitimate economics, sociology or philosophy by mainstream standards. In all of these standards, marxism is unethical and immoral. 3) Marx directly prescribes the brutal centralized dictatorship (no elected top government officials) known as state capitalism. Soviet Russia and USSR were executing marxist dogma and Lenin/Stalin were not inventors in this matter. It was the mrxism from Karl Marx's published works.
What often gets missed in criticisms of Marxism, which Wolff only alludes to, is the centrality of the development of the economic base preceding the socialist revolution. Marx and Engels never foresaw an immediate jump from agrarian-based economies like Russia or China to socialist economies because they weren’t yet industrialized. That’s why both Stalin and Mao (contrary to Lenin and Deng) embarked on policies of rapid industrialization which killed millions. Additionally, both the USSR and PRC were threatened and had to respond by developing the industrial capacity to defend itself. Imagine, for example, how WWII would have gone if Hitler invaded a pre-Stalinist USSR. It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize those policies, but it is very probable they’re not the result of the ideology.
Well you can definitely criticize, the ideology for not taking that into account. That’s what most in America especially leftists completely ignore, taking things into account from BOTH sides. Because a perfect flawless ideology is straight up a scam. Capitalism has the advantage of being, a mostly organic more flexible ideology and a result of industrialization instead of the grievances of some 2 guys in Germany, and a evolution of mercantilism which was the prime way of trade, for thousands of years. Capitalism naturally takes most of the things This is what i absolutely dislike about most leftist ideologies, too much idealism and too much arrogance, in the idea that man can just easily grab the natural formed systems of the world by the balls, there is no real patience in that field of ideologies. Most of the people who perpetuate, leftist viewpoints aren’t in anyway fit for their own utopia. The problem with changing ideologies just like that is that the human component is never Would most people actually commit to something like Communism? No, because in most people Nature still has a tighter grip than idealism. It’s why social democracy has been, in Europe far more successful than marxism. It’s not a whole ass change of economics, it’s a simple step/addition so instead of going straight to marxism/communism you literally get capitalism and basically try fixing the current issue of the system. It’s as simple as that. If Marx simply attempted, to just offer ideas that could fix the issues of capitalism at the time he probably could have gotten a lot better results instead of the hot garbage and millions of deaths that happened in his name. Capitalism isn’t perfect but that’s because it isn’t supposed too, it’s not trying to erase an entire system that naturally evolved and is basically hardwired into most humans. Or in other words, it currently just works so maybe instead of straight up replacing it let’s fix the rusty car until we definitely need a new one and that probably won’t be until another few thousand years.
@@LordBackuro Social democracy was one evolution of the Marxist tradition. It’s highly debatable whether capitalism “works.” It’s a system prone to regular crises, enshrines contending interests predicated on incessant growth, and all the while there are only finite resources to compete over. I agree its difficult (if not impossible) to adopt a whole new system at once but I think something like “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs) will have to become the basis for economic activity worldwide.
@@geopoliticsweekly It was, but even most European countries stopped calling themselves that and prefer the title capitalism or free market economy. because at the end social democracy is just a free market system like capitalism but with some welfare systems that they borrowed from the marxist square of the political spectrum. And while capitalism absolutely has been in many crisis, at this point i feel like most people trying to avoid a crisis basically just go "im too lazy, greedy and narcissistic to fix it nor realize that i just got the bad luck in the generational lotto machine so let the government fix all my problems." Progress comes at a price, and that’s the problem with most of the more marx based ideologies, the absolute dishonesty and absolute no consideration for what that would mean and be in the future from the followers. Progress is sacrifice. No civilization ever got a good lrun without a sacrifice and that’s the issue with ideology, people spout out stuff that they might not even consider would absolutely destroy themselves.
@@geopoliticsweekly If you look more closely at social democracy it is anti-socialist, and based on Bismarckism. Bismarck made socialist organizations illegal, which proved very unpopular, and then supplied the citizens with the things the socialist organizations were already providing and hoping to expand upon, pensions and sick funds being the two main things. But Bismarck gave no power to the working class, and reserved power for an aristocratic and capitalist class. Also many social democracies maintained colonialist, imperialist, and international capitalism, including Germany meaning exploitation of people in foreign countries while the local population enjoys that profit. Reading the de-evolution of the German Social Democrats somewhat illustrates the point, by WW1 they were almost unanimously supporting the war and empire. Obviously things evolved from the Bismarck to be more left on many issues, but the basic aristocratic and capitalist structure is its main feature.
@@geopoliticsweekly The socialist understands so little concerning their own ideology and certainly about the economics it pertains to. For example, you people have not read how Marx describes his own political economic system, so we have to hear this bullshit from you and Wolff that Stalin was not following the marxian script which called expressly for a totalitarian dictatorship. You all act like Lenin was not the same brutal reformer as Stalin before the Krondstadt rebellion. NEP was an acquiescence of the soviets to the will of Russians in lieu of the will of Marx. Following Lenin's death, Stalin restored pure marxist ideation and instituted the complete central takeover of the economy Marx called for. Your nonsense attributing social democracy to anything related to Marx is also the mark of a complete ignoramus. Marx's fundamental critique isn't of capitalism, but of the social democracy which it creates through federated republic, private property rights and strictly market based allocation of labor and commodities. He is so explicit, that it is impossible to attribute to Marx what Marx blames Ferdinand Lasalle for and calls distributism and democracy and vulgar socialism as an insult. By trying to repeat Marx's stupid 18th century ideas about economics is even more inane today as it was in the 19th century when Marx presented them as polished turds. This makes you people wrong and ignorant concerning capital accumulation - the most central aspect of understanding an economy. Marx's capital accumulation model of Kapital vol3 is what informs your nonsense about growth dependency and reliance on profit alone. In real economics which was understood for years before Marx's first publication, capital accumulation (like of John Stuart Mill) encompassed corporate and real equity and other capital gains central to why capitalism works. We are lucky to have history so clear in the rejection of Marx's ideas - specifically by social democrats right there in Germany - and both during Marx's career and in November revolution. Marx himself was exceptionally clear about the ideas you all claim were defined loosely enough for easy revision. You people just listen to what fellas like Wolff say rather than reading Marx's words. Wolff and his type are liars who present propaganda for these totalitarian ideas of Marx and feel justified in covering up for the immoral philosophy with false history and dishonest relation of Marx's theory.
After watching this podcast and the resulting clips I'm glad to realise that it turns out that Marxism has never been responsible for any wrong doing throughout history at all.
A marvelous and well-intentioned ideology whose most loyal followers continue to resave the planet from the next prediction of utter destruction every 10 years or so.
I think the conversation should have touched on whether Marxism's antagonistic framing of a somewhat specific group of people (business & land owners) combined with the lack of prescriptive solution has a heightened risk of creating movements driven by fury and scapegoats. There is probably a pretty interesting and nuanced conversation there.
In the entire interview they talk a lot about that. Democracy at work as a choice is not antagonistic to oligarchy necessarily. Instead a majority consensus vote driven democracy is itself anti oligarchical. But anyways to be against oligarchy or corporate fascism is not the same as being antagonistic to land ownership or business owners perse. There hasn’t actually been a real democracy in history and people say democracy loosely here which they talked about in this interview. And Richard Wolff should talk about voting theory if he is someone who argues for “democracy at work” or democracy in the government because the popular vote is undemocratic due to the spoiler effect, the lesser of two evils logic and the eventual decline into a false compromise between two parties which are essentially a monoparty eventually. And if people used the popular vote at work to make decisions the problem remains of minority consensus driven voting outcomes which are due to the popular vote itself. So ranked choice vote or single transferable or approval votes would work much better in both government and in cooperative driven industry. But in the end all Marxism really actually says is that oligarchy is bad which is the same thing Adam smith said as well.
The entire premise of Marxism is a critique of the economic system of Capitalism, PERIOD; it doesn't really profess a better system (aside from a somewhat murky 'socialist' empowerment of the exploited working class and therefore vilified by Capitalists) and does not delve into the political sphere. Decades of brainwashing and propaganda led people to parrot the inevitable tyranny of Communism when true Communism by definition was never achieved in modern human society (at least on a large scale).
@@themightycamel "The entire premise of Marxism is a critique of the economic system of Capitalism, PERIOD; it doesn't really profess a better system" Yes. If you read what I wrote, then you would see that I was wishing the convo would have been about the risks (or lack thereof) of critique & criticism without solution.
@@Muaahaa A critique is just that, it doesn't require a solution - that is up to the author. I was rather surprised and displeased at Mr. Fridman's somewhat negative bias and antagonism to Marxism which I attribute to his background (former-Soviet sphere immigrants harbor resentment)...
@@themightycamel I am talking about a discussion of impact, not definition. Certainly a critique does not need to involve a solution to be defined as a critique. That isn't interesting or useful. What is interesting is to discuss what happens when a critique gains traction. When a critique motivates action.
To some extent, yes. But I think the difference is that with an ideological system like Christianity (or an economic system like capitalism) we can also point to countless examples of good outcomes, and even make the case that Christianity has been by far a net positive for the world, despite the evils that it has also engendered or contributed to. I’m not expert but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t even begin to make that case with Marxism or communism. Where are the real success stories? Where are the good outcomes? What positive transformation has resulted from a society governed according to Marxist ideology? All of the “good” stuff about Marxism exists only in people’s imaginations; it exists only in theory. If Marxism was such a good theory/ideology/system, it would have something to show for itself by now. I think we can all agree that the various attempts at implementing Marxist ideology at scale have by far been a clear net negative, not only for the societies in which Marxism was implemented, but also for humanity as a whole. I think Marxism’s value, if it has any, lies in its critique of capitalism. Marxism as a social/economic system itself will always fail. But as a way of critiquing and exposing the excesses and dangers of unfettered capitalism, I think it is useful. For free market capitalism to be healthy, it needs to be criticized and regulated up to a point. Otherwise, we just end up with the oligarchical shitshow we currently have.
People often compare Marxism to earlier forms of Christianity (back in the pre enlightenment era). They contend that they are what could be deemed “closed system ideologies” meaning that they A- give rise to a way of life and B- approach criticism of their doctrine in relation to their own theory. For example, one could argue that there are no known cases in the west where communism had succeeded, a Marxist would reply that the time of revolution hasn’t come yet/the bourgeois have payed off any attempts. The same way that a Christian would respond to any questions about the logical contradictions of the holy trinity by saying that they are mysteries that are only understood by God and not mere mortals. I would argue that the structure of closed system ideologies rather than the doctrine alone is what allows such horrors to occur, as they are entrenched, and allow east manipulation of their followers by promising an indisputable truth about humanity.
This sort of statement is typical, especially from the western marxist. These people don't read. They've not taken the time to read how Marx describes his own political economic system, although Stalin certainly did. This results in socialists gaslighting everyone as if Stalin and Lenin had different approaches. They both had the marxist approach: institute enough totalitarian state power so that in time the abuse results in a fundamental change of heart in humans.
Marxism requires central planning. Central planning requires the individual plans of otherwise free citizens to be aligned with the central plan. Come hell or high water, the citizen must yield. Many will refuse. Yes, therefore, the evil is baked into the cake.
I think Richard Wolff is right about a few things. Wolff is absolutely right that Stalin was not an originator of the system he was in. Stalin was a beneficiary of a system that allowed him to rule as he did. Marxism-Leninism is a system that had the intentions of ushering in the dictatorship of the proletariat but actually created an authoritarian system. Again, I believe Wolff is right is saying that the excesses of brutality exhibited by Mao and Stalin were also a product of the society and culture the men lived in. Russia was an agrarian society merely 50 years removed from Serfdom by the time the Bolsheviks came to power. China was an agrarian society that was many years away from industrialization. So Marx's Dialectical Materialist model was not being followed correctly, as it required a bourgeois revolution to replace feudalism before socialism can come about and then ultimately communism, as even Leon Trotsky conceded in his important 1906 book, "Results and Prospects" in Russia. What Mao and Stalin had to do is drag Russia and China, kicking and screaming, into modernization by brute force because that was what worked in those countries. It speaks more about Chinese and Russian society than Mao and Stalin. But on the question about whether Marxism is responsible for the evil of Stalin, that is a bit tough to answer. But to answer briefly, in my opinion, I think Marxism was destined to fail. For one, it is decidedly against individualism, which is a central tenet in a long, lasting democracy. Socialism is basically a sociological and economic system that is the opposite of individualism-- which capitalism was called "individualism" in the 19th century-- as it seeks to promote the ideals of democracy such as egalitarianism and freedom through collectivism. But one can see that collectivism is the wrong tool to use to promote democracy, as it requires strict obedience to the collective ideal. Rousseau intimated this in his book "The Social Contract." Though Rousseau's idea of the general will did have some ingredients of individualism in theory, there were certain passages in his book that revealed that the practice of the general will destroys individual liberty and agency. In fact, after reading Rousseau's important work, I was left believing that there was no real way to make collectivism compatible with individualism as his attempt was the best I have seen from a philosopher. Moreover, Marx was through and through a socialist and he made repeated prohibitions against "bourgeois property" in his Communist Manifesto, which largely translates to private property. With the abolition of private property, the question of who devises what happens to collective property is all the more important-- something Hegel criticized Rousseau for with his idea of the general will. I believe that systems that promote collectivism naturally devolve into propagating and sustaining authoritarian leaders because the need for unity is extremely vital for the survival of the collective, something that Lenin learned in the very early days of the Communist Party in Russia, which led to the ban of fractions in 1921 to unify the party, as covered by Stephen Cohen and his writings. Thus, I think even without the vanguardism of Leninism, I think Marxism probably would have devolved into having bad dictators. But I think the degree of evil is relative to the culture and society leaders are in, so Marxism isn't to blame there. I hope this all made sense. I always enjoy writing these kinds of comments to intellectuals. Take care.
What are the causal connections between the ideas of Marxism and stalinist repression? What Marxist teachings were being followed in those repressions? Is there documentation that the ideas of Marxism were being followed and not just careerist self-interest?
@@Zayden. Read Wolff and Resnik's "Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR", both studied this question over many years and they found that, no, Marxism and communism are not remotely blueprints for an authoritarian dictatorship, lol I mean, duh! Communism is the ABSCENCE of a dictator and the presence of democracy on every level of societal organization. Some socialist ideas were implemented, the soviets did have an opportunity to shape aspects of society, but it was still an hierarchical system answerable to a tiny elite, so definitely not communism. The socialist aspects of the Soviet system were the good parts - a better standard of living in most social metrics than Americans for most of its history - fact. Stalin and his regime was the bad part.
@@Zayden. that’s easily answered, Marxism, is a belief in systems like socialism and communism. Those systems are solely based on the fact that the state takes control of everything it possibly can both economically and production wise. The Soviet Union, under state control, you had millions of deaths from starvation and neglect. Now I ask you this question, did we have those same sort of deaths in the same time frame here in America? No we didn’t and it’s because we have a Republic in which state officials can and will be held responsible. We also allowed democratic elections for those who fail to govern. Within a socialist, communist society, which is preached of in Marxism, you have a state that has full control of its own policing, its own officiating, most means of production, and in most cases educational control as well. Because it is severely important in socialist and communist states, that the people are indoctrinated to basically worshiping the state and to work for it, over individualisms. That is why the Soviet union dissolved in less than 75 years, and the United States is still the most powerful country in the world.
@@selwynr that’s what everyone says, but the point is, is that communism is a pipe dream. It operates under the inception that everyone will learn to work together cohesively, and that there will never be disagreements, and that there will never be power struggles within said system. That has been proven false over and over again. Full centralized control makes no sense, it’s a natural, and it doesn’t go along with the lines of nature. Nature does not force balance, balance find away within nature. Someday you come in his kids will learn to understand that.
It’s always “ but but but…that wasn’t real communism!! “ and /or “ but but but…look at all the bad things that have been caused by capitalism!! “ How about simply speaking honestly about what atrocities have happened in the name of Marxism? And why? If one is not an ideologue it shouldn’t be so difficult.
@@johnsamson9680 The foundational basis of pure marxism and socialism is not feasible, why hasn't there ever been a communist state? cause marx expected there to be a class uprising every tranistional period aka after capitalism it would be socialism where the state collectivizes all the goods stolen from capitalism then eventually that would be so tyrannical since having a unelected party of oligarchs with all the power doesn't equal utopia so there fore they would blow that entity up then live in a stateless communist utopia, but ironically marx a journalist with no education in politics , military theory or economics couldn't forsee that complete centralized states cant just be blown up internally especially when there are daily qoutas to snatch people then send them to concentration camps. This argument is so boring to me now, for the two decades I've been alive I've seen multiple communist argue for something they never experienced and ignore the entire collection of experiences, history and people who live through these things. The west isn't perfect but we have ironed out most of our kinks without many genocides nor oppressive states but rather a decline in them.
@@johnsamson9680 So when he points out Luxemburg was killed by social democrats of SPD in one of many efforts of Lex to illicit a rationale for soviet brutality, wasn't that the red herring described above? How about his next red herring and philosophical gaslighting concerning the imposition of socialism in single states? How does this relate to the question of brutality in soviet political economy? Wolff dodges a question concerning the failure point of socialist ideation - the part of it being the worst political science ever proposed for lack of attendance to human rights of the governed and deliberate juxtaposition to freedom (economic autonomy) and democratically controlled government.
Would be so amazing. Thomas Sowell would be much better than Schiff though. Schiff isn't on the same level as either person. And I suspect it would devolve into a yelling contest.
@@edwinurey4927 fair point, schiff can be a bit of a hothead. Sowell would be amazing I just feel like it would be harder to get him on considering his age
Wonder if there are any other respectable but eloquent Keynesians. Lex had professor on recently who did a rather poor job IMO. He simply assumed everyone agreed with him instead of laying out his perspective.
What the hell is with this guy. He asks him what if anything did Marxism have to do with the resulting deaths in the Soviet Union. And his answer was it’s not what they did in the Soviet Union but instead what every other country did? He’s talking gibberish
His point was that the combination of Russia being poor and many powerful nations working against the new Soviet government created the difficult situation in Russia that was ripe for brutal dictatorship. You can make up your own mind about whether you think that had more negative impact or Marxist philosophy, but I would disagree that he was talking "gibberish".
I don't think there's anything inherent in Marxism that makes totalitarian statism, or some lesser authoritarianism, inevitable. Wolff makes a fair point about cultural standards, which I would shorthand it to say most of these countries were Stalinism took root were backwards to begin with, with largely uneducated, agrarian societies or had a very long history of autocratic or otherwise authoritarian rule. An analogy I would use is Marxism is to Stalinism what libertarianism is to Trumpism. You add enough ideas to the former with toxic populism and you can easily get the latter. It's not right to say it's "inevitable", no more than many other populist movements.
These comments miss the mark. He's contextualizing his answer. He's right to do it. He's making sure it's known that capitalism has created the same issues as communism and thus answering the question that he thinks it's a greater issue than it all coming back to an economic ideology only. People here can't understand when he's speaking clearly because you are too anxious to defend capitalism and that's what he's explaining. Capitalism is not blameless and had caused death, decay, and suffering just as Marxism has.
@@LetsGetitBoah Only people from poor countries would want to come to the USA. America is a homeless infested sinking ship, the intellectuals are leaving.
@@LetsGetitBoah yeah and there are millions who want to get out. beating the living shit out of everyone who did not conform to its global capitalist hegemony, potentially crippling them so; what is your point?
@@LetsGetitBoah So I see you’re going to leave out how the sadistic nature of U.S. empire in toppling and ultimately killing Gadhafi in Libya for threatening the U.S. dollar, 6 decades of sanctions on Cuba, and crushing black radicalism here in America just to name a few.
@@BlackAnarchist1992 no I’m not actually I bring that up a lot to point out how hypocritical the Democrats are. Make no mistake, the EU was just as implicit in all of this.
Russia emancipated its slaves, while the US never fully abolished slavery. It’s somewhat disingenuous for Americans to make any distinction between Marxism and its own version of capitalism…a form of capitalism that tolerates slavery and rewards wage thieves and landlords
@@LetsGetitBoah Our for-profit prison system puts the gulags to shame. The American carceral state is a capitalist driven slave labor system. You wonder why certain American communities struggle, it’s because their labor is stolen from them after their freedom has been wrenched away
@@WILD__THINGS yeah boisey state University. That was where the debate was supposed to happen. It was agreed then peterson upped his fee to some amount the school was never going to be able to pay.
Thought the same thing. He sort of danced around it by blaming the rest of the world’s reaction to the Marxist takeover of Russia then pivoted to the Republican Party to justify its authoritarian nature. All this, rather than actually address the bloodshed. I could sort of understand the approach if it were just a hostile takeover of government, but you have a few more questions when the death told reaches nine digits.
@@26Toshiro He killed people and executed other communist that disagreed with him cause it turns out the "movement mannnn" doesn't last when your centralizing power to reorder every aspect of society.
@@Orgotheonemancult you're welcome. Your second reading tracked with my intention. I'm now realizing I did not write that as clearly as I should have. Glad you caught on.
This non-confrontational style in the face of total bullshit is frustrating, but taken as a whole, Wolff just digs a whole for himself by gaslighting about blaring flaws in socialist political science.
@@jamesbuckley972 Gtfo. Russian culture did not make Russia brutal. This was executing Marx's advice for communist government that everyone there suffered under.
I thought this episode was overall a good and interesting one, but there were times where Wolff seemed to skirt around the question being asked, this being one of them.
If he believes Communism doesn't enable someone like Stalin, and it's the social issues that are to blame, in what universe would an economic/governing system exist outside the influence of social issues?
He makes a valid point that people are desperate. Half of Americans could not afford a $500 unexpected bill. That’s insane and it’s why people are becoming more and more militant and extreme. The two parties are not capable of solving our problems any more.
It’s a hatred for those that have under the guise of caring for those that have not. Hatred is the true motive. Power, when garnered under this revolution of the proletariat results in an unending persecution of the so called bourgeoisie.
Marx wrote that to "raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class" would require " means of despotic inroads." Marxism 's aim is revolution, which "is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations" which means "it's development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas." Violence was baked into the Marxist cake from the beginning. It's ridiculous to think Stalin enacted such violent measures because the world didn't accept the revolution. Wolfe seems to be avoiding quoting Marx to explain Stalin's violence, but Marx is exactly why that violence occurred.
He's NOT as slick as he thinks he is when he slides 3rd rail issues into a discussion primarily on economics imo. Most EUs have more abortion restrictions or are more PROLIFE than most US states. Facts. Why ?
More pro life? abortion is legal in almost every country in the EU. There are states in the US that have effectively outlawed abortion (6 week ban is basically a full ban)
@@Mark-zk3gu United States also has more liberal ideas than Europe on abortion in some states. Abortion is part of an ethnic cleansing movement in 20th century US and was popularized in Europe by this movement in the 1960s.
@@ColorMatching Well its a ideology that has no prescription on the structure of its new economic theory, simply put, when you demonize one class against another you end up with the french revolution, haiti slave revolut, Russia, vietnam, cambodeia. Do you know what else happened in the last century, America specifically pushed for decolonization and mainly europeans couldn't afford it after two world wars to they slump back into parlimentary democracies instead of socialist dictatorship and as soon as the central government in the USSR was weak enough, did all the marxistr colonies russia swallowed continue or did they all democractize?
@@peterhaag9344 he said that what stalin did was mainly due to the west not wanting to death with russia, so uh thats a pretty dumb and makes no sense. now, you could say about hitler and him regrowing his nation and warfare was due to europeans punishing germany but the antisemitism was all hitler.
Look at Bertrand Russell's opinion about Lenine when they had a conversation. Lenine would do the same thing if he had lived! The problem wasnt Stalin, was the marxist ideology! Just like the problem wasnt Hitler ( a frustrated man ) but the nazist ideology he elaborated!
Perhaps, then, the problem with Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and all the rest of these murderous American leaders who are responsible for far more deaths represent the problems of capitalism.
The Nazi ideology directly calls for the genocide of multiple groups of people and wished to create a master race through eugenics. Can you show me where Marx has said anything similar to that?
Love Lex but missed an opportunity here. He could have said “Look, every Communist system has ended up with a dictator and camps and atrocities. How do you explain that?
@@ForOrAgainstUs Marxism in practice always end centralized. Theres not ever an attempt to descentralize shit. And capitalism... lol, without a goverment regulating that always end with monopolies popping out of nowhere, so the sacred free market isn't non existent, basically a myth as much as the proletariat and communes are the sacred myth of marxism. We as a society, as humanity must reject such old, rancid and outdated ideologies and systems. They never worked as it was supposed too (we can argue that capitalism did better, but honestly without workers protesting and unions forming the system would've imploded decades ago, and it's also a zero sum game where x numbers of nations exploits others for resources. For an example look at USA with the warmongering culture. But without that is there a chance for globalism and global trade, thus prosperity for the western world? without USA and the West outsourcing manufacture to China is there prosperity, eventually to China? I don't think so. Now we got decades of increasing automation leaving workers without a job, increasing evermore the rate of unemployment. And the AI's are getting better. So, I don't think marxism or capitalism have a capacity as ideas or systems to makes sense of the world we are right now, and even less for the future world where AI is gonna be more predominant. We need to invent a new language to discuss about that, eventually.
Much of it has been debunked by later historians, but the debunked myths continue. It seems to me that the myths are more useful. The biggest contested myth was the holodomor was “intentional” and unique to Ukraine. When there is ample evidence that it was not intentional, it was a natural famine that occurred after several earlier highly productive harvests. The only people in the 1930’s pushing the myth were Hitler and his Western collaborators. It wasn’t even mentioned as one of the “horrors of Stalin” until the 1970’s only to be debunked again in the 1990’s. And now it is written again by Ukrainian nationalists even though it goes against the evidence. So I would say judging from the evidence, skepticism in regards to what we think we know about Stalin or the USSR and Eastern Bloc is necessary. That said, policies like vanguardism and central planning are huge deviations from democratic worker control. What I would like to see happen is actually verifiable facts, and honest analysis which is very difficult to find in the USA on this topic. But spending time in former East Germany has certainly helped me debunk a lot of propaganda.
I would stop studying, to be honest. If you have the maths, you can just practice in the economics or finance field. I achieved this with a comp math BASc.
Is there something like communism - yes...Marx literally said that the proletariat will never decide on things in their own favor...therefore there needs to be a vanguard of the proletariat in order to decide in their best interest...secondly, his idea on the proletariat best intestests depending on a centralized industrialization...
I’m just here for all the comments from people who hated history class and reading books who now claim to know about communism and Marxist theory!!! So much fun!!
Marxist theory isn't hard to understand. The point is that an ideal "perfect" system CANNOT be implemented properly because humans are VERY much imperfect
@@louielogicsxxx3669 I used to be a communist myself. So obviously yes, and when I grew up and experienced the REAL WORLD I realized it's complete poppycock
@@arturravenbite1693 communists and Marxist are not interchangeable….were you a Marxist or a communist if you were a communist were you a Maoist Stalinist Leninist Trotskyite…..also are you claiming countries that are currently functioning as communist are not actually in the “real world”?
@@louielogicsxxx3669 "yeah bro I like deathcore but not death metal but black metal is alright but don't even get me started on metalcore" Apples and oranges. I'm done with this conversation because you're too worried about splitting hairs. Good day.
Wollf is an obnoxious individual, with an obnoxious ideology. He gets away with that by existing solely in Academia for 40+ years, where he's insulated from the Real World
As a tradesman, manual laborer and business owner i find wolf to be full of hot air. Notice he nor any of his followers have ever started his fabled democratized bread company he always uses as an example.
@@BluesAndNoise - Nope, Wolff is NOT more successful than anyone. 40-plus years peddling the same BS apologies for Marxism, and nitwits like you actually believe this brainwashed ideologue is successful! Your gullibility and self-delusion are astonishing!
The heart of the problem has always been centralization vs decentralization I am a decentralist. Every cell is an autonomous agent with a complete copy of the genome It must still act coordinated with the organism to thrive but its personal fate is still its own The millions of cells that you shed and die each day were not your minions Socialism is about health just as is the coordination of an organisms cells I live in a country with socialised health care. Its excellent Unfortunately we do not realize that both education and welfare are really just healthcare Unfortunately we don't realize that corporations that end up sucking out our resources are cancer Unfortunately we do not understand the difference between governance and government and so our governments become cancer also. More usually just large fairly benign cysts sucking out our resources We need decentralised money not controlled by governments and there corporate parasites We need Bitcoin Bitcoin is THE revolution. That's why you don't know that it is
@@shawnradke No. This is the issue with marxism and Marx's call for central organization of government and economics. It takes one of you socialist imbeciles to believe that the central issuance of currency is something people are upset with.
This guy is pretty ignorant for a person who claims to be "educated" the government is no making abortions illegal, its putting that choice to the state. This guy would flunk a civics 101 course.
… the governments of the states will make abortion illegal. does that change his point at all? at the end of the day, in some places in the US women will not have the freedom of choice offered to them and that is simply unacceptable. whether you frame it as a states rights issue or not; and we all know the history of “states rights” issues in this country.
The socialist operates in their own economics and political science field with their own civics inventions. This is why these twats can have Democratic People's Republic of Korea and we can't see the democracy or republic.
How can you argue that Stalin‘s take on Marxism didn’t have anything to do with the mass deaths that occurred in the Soviet Union during that timeframe? After World War II, did the US have any mass death scenarios, did we have millions of our own people just dying of starvation and neglect?
@@mithape4199 Most fentanyl deaths are from drugs coming over the border. So basically a centralized government agency supposedly controlled by Democratic vote is failing to do its job. Homelessness is a major problem because state legislators have focused more on taking a care of illegal immigrants and refusing to enforce existing laws that could stop it all from happening. They decided lockdowns were the way to go, which only helped increase an already huge problem. Oh and they passed legislation encouraging drug usage. Next?
@@LetsGetitBoah It didn't take long for you to bring up illegal immigrants and you "almost" blamed COVID-19 for homelessness - well done sir! Now, google Purdue Pharma and their story and profit-driven motives for pushing opioids on the American people. Oh and how McKinsey, the home of consulting capitalists, blessed it all.
@@mithape4199 lol what a reach are people being forced to buy opioids? could it be the govt getting in the way of the housing market like it does with other sectors? you people have 0 understanding of actual capitalism conflate it with the state's overreach/crony capitalism
I listened to this with an open mind but by the end I have to say I completely disagree with his argument. This whole discussion is him dancing around the fact that Marxism is a failed ideology when implemented into practice. How many times do they need to attempt it before they consider it ineffective, unrealistic and immoral? But no, it must be humans. "If only humans were perfect it would work". I'm sad to say that this idea will never die because it is intellectually appealing but practically disasterous
I think the point Wolff was trying to make but didn't is that marxism/communism is essentially a flatland social structure trying to be imposed on a historically hierarchical one, in fact, inherently hierarchical. The top down structure of God, King, Priest, Chief, Father, Mother etc can't be thrown out in a day for a 'talking stick' social structure. Hence the deification of Castro etc. Even in communism a hierarchy emerged. The real issue, outside of the political mechanisms, was the attempted destruction of the most important hierarchical structure which was Christianity in the case of the West, and Tibet/an Buddhism and the massive spiritual traditions of the East, in China. As much as we can see the destructive history of Christianity, nothing we have as a Western society, including Christianity itself, came about without the co-evolution of Science, Maths, Art, Music, Literature, the abolishment of slavery in the west and civil rights within the relative shade of Christianity. Christianity, unremarkably, and yet remarkably went through a series of enlightenments, as it should have, to accommodate the evolution of everything we enjoy in society today. The worst example of social-spiritual co-evolution is Islam because their simply has not been one. There is no great tradition of literature, music, ballet, civil rights or anything since our youngest religion surfaced in the 7th century. All of the beautiful societies of the middle east were smashed by Islam, crushed and ground to dust. Just look at Iran in the last 50years. Marxism/communism: To come 20 centuries later with a system that literally oppressed the evolutionary function of our society, the function to grow and 'find out', was going to be an obvious failure, and it was. And millions died to find out that people don't like to stop striving upwards, people want to move forward, they want to expand and evolve, they want to pray and believe and love. In essence, oppression never works.
Active shooter situations account for less than 5% of gun related homicides my man. They've started classifying gang shootouts where more than 3 people are involved as "mass shootings" so keep that in mind. I would estimate the amount of gun homicides in the US as being 80% gang related and the rest a split between law enforcement shootings and personal disputes. Active shooters are a problem but it's completely unrelated to guns other than that's what they choose to use. I don't know what any of this has to do with this video but I wanted to respond with what you were likely alluding to
@@joshuabradshaw5757 - You know very well that Richard Wolff and his ilk will never want to live in a nation that is actually run along Marxist lines. Come on now! Be honest with your class consciousness.
There's a lack of either clear thinking or clear communication. My experience is that people who have a deep understanding of a subject and have tested their ideas can communicate much more clearly and stick to the subject at hand. In the case of Richard Wolff i keep sensing motivated reasoning, over and over again. It'd be interesting to hear him reason unconstrained from his ideology but unfortunately he's either unwilling or incapable of it.
You seem unaware of your own biases and also unaware of biased statements and framing that coincide with your bias. You then go on to project those tendencies on to Wolff. He has to peel back those layers of bias you're unable to objectively recognize, causing the responses to seem less concise than the digestible talking points that are likely the extent of your analysis. It becomes clear why you're confused by his responses and don't understand them. There's a saying that a genius can explain complex concepts in a way that even a simpleton could understand. I doubt Wolff ever claimed genius.
@@Zhagg1 You might be right. We all have biases. I used to watch him a lot and agree with pretty much everything back then. I can recommend looking into Mondragon corporation. They're a worker owned, huge company, in Basque, Spain.
I think there's big potential for more worker and employee ownership in the future. As crypto economies grow and new ways of ownership become possible I hope we can more collectively own our economy. Crypto networks are scaling exponentially...
@@feverpitchn5 indeed. Lex is highly biased towards defending capitalism and the way he discusses socialism/communism does not indicate that he's familiar with Marxist analysis, let alone any other deep critique of capitalism. He has to unwind all that in order to clarify the reality of the situation. Wolff cites Mondragon often.
@@feverpitchn5 that could be one vector for collective ownership. I get in arguments with evangelical Marxists about the significance of cultural progress and revelation, where I believe the nexus for change to exist. For instance, chattel slavery was an accepted practice and the system existed until it wasn't. The Marxist argue that the only reason that it ended was because material conditions changed so that it could. My argument to them is that due to cultural boundaries, no material conditions would exist that would allow its return. I believe the cultural acceptance of capitalist exploitation allows its continued existence. If the culture changes, then the system will too.
Under Lenin, Trotsky was running the military early on. Compare Trotsky's policies as a military leader to the standard that later evolved, The Geneva Convention. He was a war criminal, with a coterie of war criminals beneath and beside him. The American "Red Scare" scooped up a lot of people fairly characterized as democratic socialists. American socialist leader Eugene Debs was far from a pathological figure, but early Soviet Russia was murderous before Stalin. In the 20's, Debs as a participant in the political process was fine, but Soviet Russia and the Comintern later had to be weakened and deterred.
Castro and Stalin were the product of marxist ideology and they were brutal due to how those ideas empower totalitarian leaders on a basis with no accountability.
What Stalins evil Lex is talking about? Does he want to talk about massive repressions and bloodshed in Finland? In China (by Japan and chineese rights)? About extreme poverty in the USA in the same time killed mass of paupers? Does he want to discuss bloodshed made by CIA in colonies?
Extreme poverty in US is nothing compare to China and USSR. When was the last time you hear massive famine and lack of food in US? Is food health?NO but damn sure you will still alive.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Please, have him in a podcast with Malice , it ain't no way that podcast isn't going to be a masterpiece of entertainment
And Malice has been researching Marxist crimes for the past year.
There is no bigger clown than Michael Malice
@@mikeyfreeman5776 ok highschool educated dude, your opinion matters too!
Richard Wolff wouldn't agree to be on a podcast where his views are being substantively challenged.
@@Jackaroo. He’s been on multiple debate platform vs Libertarians like Peter Shiff and others
What this podcast (and specifically: its comment section) proved is that a lot of people, probably mostly from The US, are so stuck in their ignorance and preconceived notions about some controversial topics that they have become unable to think about different ideas.
Yuppppppp
For Americans who have vastly more academia in political science and economics than anywhere else, this shows one of the heterodox pseudointellectuals of our academia who is locked out on the fringes of our renowned economic scholarship tradition.
In this clip, he gaslights better-informed people - mostly Americans - with lies and deflections about Marx's direct and explicit prescription of brutal politburo totalitarian dictatorship.
Debunk our points then. There is no country where socialism or communism has been tried that did not lead to mass starvation and suffering.
@@jhonklan3794 Which points exactly?
@@ThePathOfEudaimonia 1) The philosophy of Karl Marx is not unclear about communist political economy.
2) Marx's life work is not legitimate economics, sociology or philosophy by mainstream standards. In all of these standards, marxism is unethical and immoral.
3) Marx directly prescribes the brutal centralized dictatorship (no elected top government officials) known as state capitalism. Soviet Russia and USSR were executing marxist dogma and Lenin/Stalin were not inventors in this matter. It was the mrxism from Karl Marx's published works.
What often gets missed in criticisms of Marxism, which Wolff only alludes to, is the centrality of the development of the economic base preceding the socialist revolution. Marx and Engels never foresaw an immediate jump from agrarian-based economies like Russia or China to socialist economies because they weren’t yet industrialized. That’s why both Stalin and Mao (contrary to Lenin and Deng) embarked on policies of rapid industrialization which killed millions. Additionally, both the USSR and PRC were threatened and had to respond by developing the industrial capacity to defend itself. Imagine, for example, how WWII would have gone if Hitler invaded a pre-Stalinist USSR. It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize those policies, but it is very probable they’re not the result of the ideology.
Well you can definitely criticize, the ideology for not taking that into account.
That’s what most in America especially leftists completely ignore, taking things into account from BOTH sides.
Because a perfect flawless ideology is straight up a scam.
Capitalism has the advantage of being, a mostly organic more flexible ideology and a result of industrialization instead of the grievances of some 2 guys in Germany, and a evolution of mercantilism which was the prime way of trade, for thousands of years. Capitalism naturally takes most of the things
This is what i absolutely dislike about most leftist ideologies, too much idealism and too much arrogance, in the idea that man can just easily grab the natural formed systems of the world by the balls, there is no real patience in that field of ideologies. Most of the people who perpetuate, leftist viewpoints aren’t in anyway fit for their own utopia.
The problem with changing ideologies just like that is that the human component is never
Would most people actually commit to something like Communism? No, because in most people Nature still has a tighter grip than idealism.
It’s why social democracy has been, in Europe far more successful than marxism.
It’s not a whole ass change of economics, it’s a simple step/addition so instead of going straight to marxism/communism you literally get capitalism and basically try fixing the current issue of the system.
It’s as simple as that.
If Marx simply attempted, to just offer ideas that could fix the issues of capitalism at the time he probably could have gotten a lot better results instead of the hot garbage and millions of deaths that happened in his name.
Capitalism isn’t perfect but that’s because it isn’t supposed too, it’s not trying to erase an entire system that naturally evolved and is basically hardwired into most humans.
Or in other words, it currently just works so maybe instead of straight up replacing it let’s fix the rusty car until we definitely need a new one and that probably won’t be until another few thousand years.
@@LordBackuro Social democracy was one evolution of the Marxist tradition. It’s highly debatable whether capitalism “works.” It’s a system prone to regular crises, enshrines contending interests predicated on incessant growth, and all the while there are only finite resources to compete over. I agree its difficult (if not impossible) to adopt a whole new system at once but I think something like “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs) will have to become the basis for economic activity worldwide.
@@geopoliticsweekly
It was, but even most European countries stopped calling themselves that and prefer the title capitalism or free market economy. because at the end social democracy is just a free market system like capitalism but with some welfare systems that they borrowed from the marxist square of the political spectrum.
And while capitalism absolutely has been in many crisis, at this point i feel like most people trying to avoid a crisis basically just go "im too lazy, greedy and narcissistic to fix it nor realize that i just got the bad luck in the generational lotto machine so let the government fix all my problems."
Progress comes at a price, and that’s the problem with most of the more marx based ideologies, the absolute dishonesty and absolute no consideration for what that would mean and be in the future from the followers.
Progress is sacrifice.
No civilization ever got a good lrun without a sacrifice and that’s the issue with ideology, people spout out stuff that they might not even consider would absolutely destroy themselves.
@@geopoliticsweekly If you look more closely at social democracy it is anti-socialist, and based on Bismarckism. Bismarck made socialist organizations illegal, which proved very unpopular, and then supplied the citizens with the things the socialist organizations were already providing and hoping to expand upon, pensions and sick funds being the two main things. But Bismarck gave no power to the working class, and reserved power for an aristocratic and capitalist class. Also many social democracies maintained colonialist, imperialist, and international capitalism, including Germany meaning exploitation of people in foreign countries while the local population enjoys that profit. Reading the de-evolution of the German Social Democrats somewhat illustrates the point, by WW1 they were almost unanimously supporting the war and empire.
Obviously things evolved from the Bismarck to be more left on many issues, but the basic aristocratic and capitalist structure is its main feature.
@@geopoliticsweekly The socialist understands so little concerning their own ideology and certainly about the economics it pertains to.
For example, you people have not read how Marx describes his own political economic system, so we have to hear this bullshit from you and Wolff that Stalin was not following the marxian script which called expressly for a totalitarian dictatorship.
You all act like Lenin was not the same brutal reformer as Stalin before the Krondstadt rebellion. NEP was an acquiescence of the soviets to the will of Russians in lieu of the will of Marx. Following Lenin's death, Stalin restored pure marxist ideation and instituted the complete central takeover of the economy Marx called for.
Your nonsense attributing social democracy to anything related to Marx is also the mark of a complete ignoramus. Marx's fundamental critique isn't of capitalism, but of the social democracy which it creates through federated republic, private property rights and strictly market based allocation of labor and commodities. He is so explicit, that it is impossible to attribute to Marx what Marx blames Ferdinand Lasalle for and calls distributism and democracy and vulgar socialism as an insult.
By trying to repeat Marx's stupid 18th century ideas about economics is even more inane today as it was in the 19th century when Marx presented them as polished turds. This makes you people wrong and ignorant concerning capital accumulation - the most central aspect of understanding an economy. Marx's capital accumulation model of Kapital vol3 is what informs your nonsense about growth dependency and reliance on profit alone. In real economics which was understood for years before Marx's first publication, capital accumulation (like of John Stuart Mill) encompassed corporate and real equity and other capital gains central to why capitalism works.
We are lucky to have history so clear in the rejection of Marx's ideas - specifically by social democrats right there in Germany - and both during Marx's career and in November revolution. Marx himself was exceptionally clear about the ideas you all claim were defined loosely enough for easy revision. You people just listen to what fellas like Wolff say rather than reading Marx's words.
Wolff and his type are liars who present propaganda for these totalitarian ideas of Marx and feel justified in covering up for the immoral philosophy with false history and dishonest relation of Marx's theory.
After watching this podcast and the resulting clips I'm glad to realise that it turns out that Marxism has never been responsible for any wrong doing throughout history at all.
Yep, not one bad thing has come from Karl Marx. His ideology is absolutely flawless.
Truth. And they all did it wrong .
. So let's try it again!
Please join the ranks of the liberated in so many 3rd world countries. Try Cuba as a first stop, I've seen it in person.
Of course. There's nothing violent in it at all and the only reason those dictatorships fell was because they needed nicer dictators 👍
A marvelous and well-intentioned ideology whose most loyal followers continue to resave the planet from the next prediction of utter destruction every 10 years or so.
I think the conversation should have touched on whether Marxism's antagonistic framing of a somewhat specific group of people (business & land owners) combined with the lack of prescriptive solution has a heightened risk of creating movements driven by fury and scapegoats. There is probably a pretty interesting and nuanced conversation there.
In the entire interview they talk a lot about that. Democracy at work as a choice is not antagonistic to oligarchy necessarily. Instead a majority consensus vote driven democracy is itself anti oligarchical. But anyways to be against oligarchy or corporate fascism is not the same as being antagonistic to land ownership or business owners perse.
There hasn’t actually been a real democracy in history and people say democracy loosely here which they talked about in this interview. And Richard Wolff should talk about voting theory if he is someone who argues for “democracy at work” or democracy in the government because the popular vote is undemocratic due to the spoiler effect, the lesser of two evils logic and the eventual decline into a false compromise between two parties which are essentially a monoparty eventually. And if people used the popular vote at work to make decisions the problem remains of minority consensus driven voting outcomes which are due to the popular vote itself.
So ranked choice vote or single transferable or approval votes would work much better in both government and in cooperative driven industry.
But in the end all Marxism really actually says is that oligarchy is bad which is the same thing Adam smith said as well.
The entire premise of Marxism is a critique of the economic system of Capitalism, PERIOD; it doesn't really profess a better system (aside from a somewhat murky 'socialist' empowerment of the exploited working class and therefore vilified by Capitalists) and does not delve into the political sphere. Decades of brainwashing and propaganda led people to parrot the inevitable tyranny of Communism when true Communism by definition was never achieved in modern human society (at least on a large scale).
@@themightycamel "The entire premise of Marxism is a critique of the economic system of Capitalism, PERIOD; it doesn't really profess a better system"
Yes. If you read what I wrote, then you would see that I was wishing the convo would have been about the risks (or lack thereof) of critique & criticism without solution.
@@Muaahaa A critique is just that, it doesn't require a solution - that is up to the author. I was rather surprised and displeased at Mr. Fridman's somewhat negative bias and antagonism to Marxism which I attribute to his background (former-Soviet sphere immigrants harbor resentment)...
@@themightycamel I am talking about a discussion of impact, not definition. Certainly a critique does not need to involve a solution to be defined as a critique. That isn't interesting or useful. What is interesting is to discuss what happens when a critique gains traction. When a critique motivates action.
Blaming Stalins evil on Marxism is like blaming Christianity for the evil of a child molesting priest
To some extent, yes. But I think the difference is that with an ideological system like Christianity (or an economic system like capitalism) we can also point to countless examples of good outcomes, and even make the case that Christianity has been by far a net positive for the world, despite the evils that it has also engendered or contributed to.
I’m not expert but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t even begin to make that case with Marxism or communism. Where are the real success stories? Where are the good outcomes? What positive transformation has resulted from a society governed according to Marxist ideology?
All of the “good” stuff about Marxism exists only in people’s imaginations; it exists only in theory. If Marxism was such a good theory/ideology/system, it would have something to show for itself by now. I think we can all agree that the various attempts at implementing Marxist ideology at scale have by far been a clear net negative, not only for the societies in which Marxism was implemented, but also for humanity as a whole.
I think Marxism’s value, if it has any, lies in its critique of capitalism. Marxism as a social/economic system itself will always fail. But as a way of critiquing and exposing the excesses and dangers of unfettered capitalism, I think it is useful. For free market capitalism to be healthy, it needs to be criticized and regulated up to a point. Otherwise, we just end up with the oligarchical shitshow we currently have.
People often compare Marxism to earlier forms of Christianity (back in the pre enlightenment era). They contend that they are what could be deemed “closed system ideologies” meaning that they A- give rise to a way of life and B- approach criticism of their doctrine in relation to their own theory. For example, one could argue that there are no known cases in the west where communism had succeeded, a Marxist would reply that the time of revolution hasn’t come yet/the bourgeois have payed off any attempts. The same way that a Christian would respond to any questions about the logical contradictions of the holy trinity by saying that they are mysteries that are only understood by God and not mere mortals. I would argue that the structure of closed system ideologies rather than the doctrine alone is what allows such horrors to occur, as they are entrenched, and allow east manipulation of their followers by promising an indisputable truth about humanity.
This sort of statement is typical, especially from the western marxist. These people don't read. They've not taken the time to read how Marx describes his own political economic system, although Stalin certainly did. This results in socialists gaslighting everyone as if Stalin and Lenin had different approaches. They both had the marxist approach: institute enough totalitarian state power so that in time the abuse results in a fundamental change of heart in humans.
@@davidp5262100%
Marxism requires central planning. Central planning requires the individual plans of otherwise free citizens to be aligned with the central plan. Come hell or high water, the citizen must yield. Many will refuse. Yes, therefore, the evil is baked into the cake.
I think Richard Wolff is right about a few things. Wolff is absolutely right that Stalin was not an originator of the system he was in. Stalin was a beneficiary of a system that allowed him to rule as he did. Marxism-Leninism is a system that had the intentions of ushering in the dictatorship of the proletariat but actually created an authoritarian system. Again, I believe Wolff is right is saying that the excesses of brutality exhibited by Mao and Stalin were also a product of the society and culture the men lived in. Russia was an agrarian society merely 50 years removed from Serfdom by the time the Bolsheviks came to power. China was an agrarian society that was many years away from industrialization. So Marx's Dialectical Materialist model was not being followed correctly, as it required a bourgeois revolution to replace feudalism before socialism can come about and then ultimately communism, as even Leon Trotsky conceded in his important 1906 book, "Results and Prospects" in Russia. What Mao and Stalin had to do is drag Russia and China, kicking and screaming, into modernization by brute force because that was what worked in those countries. It speaks more about Chinese and Russian society than Mao and Stalin.
But on the question about whether Marxism is responsible for the evil of Stalin, that is a bit tough to answer. But to answer briefly, in my opinion, I think Marxism was destined to fail. For one, it is decidedly against individualism, which is a central tenet in a long, lasting democracy. Socialism is basically a sociological and economic system that is the opposite of individualism-- which capitalism was called "individualism" in the 19th century-- as it seeks to promote the ideals of democracy such as egalitarianism and freedom through collectivism. But one can see that collectivism is the wrong tool to use to promote democracy, as it requires strict obedience to the collective ideal.
Rousseau intimated this in his book "The Social Contract." Though Rousseau's idea of the general will did have some ingredients of individualism in theory, there were certain passages in his book that revealed that the practice of the general will destroys individual liberty and agency. In fact, after reading Rousseau's important work, I was left believing that there was no real way to make collectivism compatible with individualism as his attempt was the best I have seen from a philosopher. Moreover, Marx was through and through a socialist and he made repeated prohibitions against "bourgeois property" in his Communist Manifesto, which largely translates to private property. With the abolition of private property, the question of who devises what happens to collective property is all the more important-- something Hegel criticized Rousseau for with his idea of the general will. I believe that systems that promote collectivism naturally devolve into propagating and sustaining authoritarian leaders because the need for unity is extremely vital for the survival of the collective, something that Lenin learned in the very early days of the Communist Party in Russia, which led to the ban of fractions in 1921 to unify the party, as covered by Stephen Cohen and his writings. Thus, I think even without the vanguardism of Leninism, I think Marxism probably would have devolved into having bad dictators. But I think the degree of evil is relative to the culture and society leaders are in, so Marxism isn't to blame there.
I hope this all made sense. I always enjoy writing these kinds of comments to intellectuals. Take care.
Enjoyed reading that Ty
Blaming it all on Marxism I think is wrong, but saying it's blameless is absurd, lazy, and absolutist
It's blameless. And guess what? I'm not absurd, lazy or absolutist. That would make you wrong.
What are the causal connections between the ideas of Marxism and stalinist repression? What Marxist teachings were being followed in those repressions? Is there documentation that the ideas of Marxism were being followed and not just careerist self-interest?
@@Zayden. Read Wolff and Resnik's "Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR", both studied this question over many years and they found that, no, Marxism and communism are not remotely blueprints for an authoritarian dictatorship, lol I mean, duh! Communism is the ABSCENCE of a dictator and the presence of democracy on every level of societal organization. Some socialist ideas were implemented, the soviets did have an opportunity to shape aspects of society, but it was still an hierarchical system answerable to a tiny elite, so definitely not communism. The socialist aspects of the Soviet system were the good parts - a better standard of living in most social metrics than Americans for most of its history - fact. Stalin and his regime was the bad part.
@@Zayden. that’s easily answered, Marxism, is a belief in systems like socialism and communism.
Those systems are solely based on the fact that the state takes control of everything it possibly can both economically and production wise.
The Soviet Union, under state control, you had millions of deaths from starvation and neglect.
Now I ask you this question, did we have those same sort of deaths in the same time frame here in America?
No we didn’t and it’s because we have a Republic in which state officials can and will be held responsible. We also allowed democratic elections for those who fail to govern.
Within a socialist, communist society, which is preached of in Marxism, you have a state that has full control of its own policing, its own officiating, most means of production, and in most cases educational control as well. Because it is severely important in socialist and communist states, that the people are indoctrinated to basically worshiping the state and to work for it, over individualisms.
That is why the Soviet union dissolved in less than 75 years, and the United States is still the most powerful country in the world.
@@selwynr that’s what everyone says, but the point is, is that communism is a pipe dream.
It operates under the inception that everyone will learn to work together cohesively, and that there will never be disagreements, and that there will never be power struggles within said system.
That has been proven false over and over again. Full centralized control makes no sense, it’s a natural, and it doesn’t go along with the lines of nature.
Nature does not force balance, balance find away within nature. Someday you come in his kids will learn to understand that.
It’s always “ but but but…that wasn’t real communism!! “
and /or
“ but but but…look at all the bad things that have been caused by capitalism!! “
How about simply speaking honestly about what atrocities have happened in the name of Marxism? And why? If one is not an ideologue it shouldn’t be so difficult.
If that is all that you took away from this video then Is seems that the ideologue here is you. Can you perhaps elaborate?
@@johnsamson9680 The foundational basis of pure marxism and socialism is not feasible, why hasn't there ever been a communist state? cause marx expected there to be a class uprising every tranistional period aka after capitalism it would be socialism where the state collectivizes all the goods stolen from capitalism then eventually that would be so tyrannical since having a unelected party of oligarchs with all the power doesn't equal utopia so there fore they would blow that entity up then live in a stateless communist utopia, but ironically marx a journalist with no education in politics , military theory or economics couldn't forsee that complete centralized states cant just be blown up internally especially when there are daily qoutas to snatch people then send them to concentration camps. This argument is so boring to me now, for the two decades I've been alive I've seen multiple communist argue for something they never experienced and ignore the entire collection of experiences, history and people who live through these things. The west isn't perfect but we have ironed out most of our kinks without many genocides nor oppressive states but rather a decline in them.
You didn't watch the clip lol
@@johnsamson9680 So when he points out Luxemburg was killed by social democrats of SPD in one of many efforts of Lex to illicit a rationale for soviet brutality, wasn't that the red herring described above?
How about his next red herring and philosophical gaslighting concerning the imposition of socialism in single states? How does this relate to the question of brutality in soviet political economy?
Wolff dodges a question concerning the failure point of socialist ideation - the part of it being the worst political science ever proposed for lack of attendance to human rights of the governed and deliberate juxtaposition to freedom (economic autonomy) and democratically controlled government.
It was real communism and it was based.
Lex, it would be amazing if you did a podcast with Wolff and an opposing viewpoint having a debate. Someone like Thomas Sowell or Peter Schiff
Would be so amazing. Thomas Sowell would be much better than Schiff though. Schiff isn't on the same level as either person. And I suspect it would devolve into a yelling contest.
@@edwinurey4927 fair point, schiff can be a bit of a hothead. Sowell would be amazing I just feel like it would be harder to get him on considering his age
Wonder if there are any other respectable but eloquent Keynesians. Lex had professor on recently who did a rather poor job IMO. He simply assumed everyone agreed with him instead of laying out his perspective.
I would have loved to see Milton Friedman debate Wolff! But yep Thomas Sowell would have to be my very close second preference!
Schiff already debated wolff
What the hell is with this guy. He asks him what if anything did Marxism have to do with the resulting deaths in the Soviet Union. And his answer was it’s not what they did in the Soviet Union but instead what every other country did? He’s talking gibberish
He’s on just talks babble
Talks babble
He is in denial like most Marxists are.
His point was that the combination of Russia being poor and many powerful nations working against the new Soviet government created the difficult situation in Russia that was ripe for brutal dictatorship. You can make up your own mind about whether you think that had more negative impact or Marxist philosophy, but I would disagree that he was talking "gibberish".
@@fuzzfuzz4234 I am not making any arguments. Just clarify what was actually said during this clip.
I don't think there's anything inherent in Marxism that makes totalitarian statism, or some lesser authoritarianism, inevitable. Wolff makes a fair point about cultural standards, which I would shorthand it to say most of these countries were Stalinism took root were backwards to begin with, with largely uneducated, agrarian societies or had a very long history of autocratic or otherwise authoritarian rule. An analogy I would use is Marxism is to Stalinism what libertarianism is to Trumpism. You add enough ideas to the former with toxic populism and you can easily get the latter. It's not right to say it's "inevitable", no more than many other populist movements.
These comments miss the mark. He's contextualizing his answer. He's right to do it. He's making sure it's known that capitalism has created the same issues as communism and thus answering the question that he thinks it's a greater issue than it all coming back to an economic ideology only. People here can't understand when he's speaking clearly because you are too anxious to defend capitalism and that's what he's explaining. Capitalism is not blameless and had caused death, decay, and suffering just as Marxism has.
Capitalism also beat the living shit out of communism, and is the reason why millions of people want to get to the United States.
@@LetsGetitBoah Only people from poor countries would want to come to the USA. America is a homeless infested sinking ship, the intellectuals are leaving.
@@LetsGetitBoah yeah and there are millions who want to get out. beating the living shit out of everyone who did not conform to its global capitalist hegemony, potentially crippling them so; what is your point?
@@LetsGetitBoah So I see you’re going to leave out how the sadistic nature of U.S. empire in toppling and ultimately killing Gadhafi in Libya for threatening the U.S. dollar, 6 decades of sanctions on Cuba, and crushing black radicalism here in America just to name a few.
@@BlackAnarchist1992 no I’m not actually I bring that up a lot to point out how hypocritical the Democrats are. Make no mistake, the EU was just as implicit in all of this.
Glad Lex had him on but this guy is so far down De-nile that there's no way home. A truly brilliant apologist!
Russia emancipated its slaves, while the US never fully abolished slavery. It’s somewhat disingenuous for Americans to make any distinction between Marxism and its own version of capitalism…a form of capitalism that tolerates slavery and rewards wage thieves and landlords
Uhhhh….ask Soviets of old if they felt free.
How many slaves do we have again?
@@LetsGetitBoah Our for-profit prison system puts the gulags to shame. The American carceral state is a capitalist driven slave labor system. You wonder why certain American communities struggle, it’s because their labor is stolen from them after their freedom has been wrenched away
@@LetsGetitBoah To answer your question, we have roughly 2 million people in American prisons. That’s roughly 2 million slaves under 13th amendment
What about gulags?
I'd love to see Peterson debate this guy
Peterson backed out to my knowledge. I'd love to see it as well
@@ryangreene50 Oh I didn't know anything was ever being planned
They almost did but peterson ran for the hills when he done a bit of research on the guy.
@@tonyclifton2230 OH really?
@@WILD__THINGS yeah boisey state University. That was where the debate was supposed to happen. It was agreed then peterson upped his fee to some amount the school was never going to be able to pay.
can't believe this guy is 80
I can't believe his IQ is better than 80.
BTW, He never did answer for the question asked.
Thought the same thing. He sort of danced around it by blaming the rest of the world’s reaction to the Marxist takeover of Russia then pivoted to the Republican Party to justify its authoritarian nature. All this, rather than actually address the bloodshed. I could sort of understand the approach if it were just a hostile takeover of government, but you have a few more questions when the death told reaches nine digits.
He did, but you have the comprehension of a 4th grader.
What an absolutely horrible Steward of this viewpoint lmao
It sure as hell was responsible for the evil of Lenin 😅
What evil?
@@26Toshiro He killed people and executed other communist that disagreed with him cause it turns out the "movement mannnn" doesn't last when your centralizing power to reorder every aspect of society.
@@26Toshiro Read "Gulag Archipelago"
@@FallLineJP You can read about zar Nikolas also.
@@FallLineJP it was necessary, the blue green haired sjws need to be thrown in the gulags
Mr Wolff may have the lungs to huff down the Great Pyramid :D
Lex asked the same question three times but got three different lectures in bs
His guest is educated beyond his intelligence
@@Orgotheonemancult you're welcome. Your second reading tracked with my intention. I'm now realizing I did not write that as clearly as I should have. Glad you caught on.
This non-confrontational style in the face of total bullshit is frustrating, but taken as a whole, Wolff just digs a whole for himself by gaslighting about blaring flaws in socialist political science.
What a contorted rationalization from Wolff.
I wonder if it even sounds plausible to his own ears.
@@tariel1928 No differently than a priest with their stories.
So sorry that you don't accept facts.
@@jamesbuckley972 Gtfo. Russian culture did not make Russia brutal. This was executing Marx's advice for communist government that everyone there suffered under.
Can you repeat that in a sentence that actually makes sense, thanks.
Cult of emperor was exchanged for the
Cult of personality
Pretty undialectical
The short answer to this is, “yes.” You can say the same about Mao, Pol Pot, or anyone else.
I thought this episode was overall a good and interesting one, but there were times where Wolff seemed to skirt around the question being asked, this being one of them.
If he believes Communism doesn't enable someone like Stalin, and it's the social issues that are to blame, in what universe would an economic/governing system exist outside the influence of social issues?
He makes a valid point that people are desperate. Half of Americans could not afford a $500 unexpected bill. That’s insane and it’s why people are becoming more and more militant and extreme. The two parties are not capable of solving our problems any more.
China
It’s a hatred for those that have under the guise of caring for those that have not. Hatred is the true motive. Power, when garnered under this revolution of the proletariat results in an unending persecution of the so called bourgeoisie.
A scholarly work at beating around the bush never truly answering the question
Marx wrote that to "raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class" would require " means of despotic inroads." Marxism 's aim is revolution, which "is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations" which means "it's development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas." Violence was baked into the Marxist cake from the beginning. It's ridiculous to think Stalin enacted such violent measures because the world didn't accept the revolution. Wolfe seems to be avoiding quoting Marx to explain Stalin's violence, but Marx is exactly why that violence occurred.
He's NOT as slick as he thinks he is when he slides 3rd rail issues into a discussion primarily on economics imo. Most EUs have more abortion restrictions or are more PROLIFE than most US states. Facts. Why ?
Why do you lot love relating everything to abortion. Abortion policies mean nothing
More pro life? abortion is legal in almost every country in the EU. There are states in the US that have effectively outlawed abortion (6 week ban is basically a full ban)
@@Mark-zk3gu United States also has more liberal ideas than Europe on abortion in some states. Abortion is part of an ethnic cleansing movement in 20th century US and was popularized in Europe by this movement in the 1960s.
What about the millions of deaths? Let's see a t-shirt with Stalin, Mao and Lenin with their hands up saying " it wasn't me."
show me proof that Marx is responsible for whatever Stalin, Mao and Lenin did.
Who is defending Stalin ? Are we even watching the same video here? WTF
@@ColorMatching Well its a ideology that has no prescription on the structure of its new economic theory, simply put, when you demonize one class against another you end up with the french revolution, haiti slave revolut, Russia, vietnam, cambodeia. Do you know what else happened in the last century, America specifically pushed for decolonization and mainly europeans couldn't afford it after two world wars to they slump back into parlimentary democracies instead of socialist dictatorship and as soon as the central government in the USSR was weak enough, did all the marxistr colonies russia swallowed continue or did they all democractize?
@@peterhaag9344 he said that what stalin did was mainly due to the west not wanting to death with russia, so uh thats a pretty dumb and makes no sense. now, you could say about hitler and him regrowing his nation and warfare was due to europeans punishing germany but the antisemitism was all hitler.
European modernism also killed millions. What's your point?
as soon as I turned on a VPN, I could watch this and the video wasn't "refreshing"
It wasn't a "refreshing" discussion either. It never is when you have Marxist ideologues spouting dogma.
Lex did a good job of keeping his cool (I think that he was really in disagreement with the Cool-aid drinking Wolff).................
Try reading a book for yourself
Look at Bertrand Russell's opinion about Lenine when they had a conversation. Lenine would do the same thing if he had lived! The problem wasnt Stalin, was the marxist ideology! Just like the problem wasnt Hitler ( a frustrated man ) but the nazist ideology he elaborated!
Perhaps, then, the problem with Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and all the rest of these murderous American leaders who are responsible for far more deaths represent the problems of capitalism.
The Nazi ideology directly calls for the genocide of multiple groups of people and wished to create a master race through eugenics. Can you show me where Marx has said anything similar to that?
Love Lex but missed an opportunity here. He could have said “Look, every Communist system has ended up with a dictator and camps and atrocities. How do you explain that?
Strongly disagree with Richard Wolff and his conclusions.
Marxism or capitalism… “One ring to rule them all.”
Centralized or decentralized. Who owns the property? Governments or individuals?
@@ForOrAgainstUs Marxism in practice always end centralized. Theres not ever an attempt to descentralize shit. And capitalism... lol, without a goverment regulating that always end with monopolies popping out of nowhere, so the sacred free market isn't non existent, basically a myth as much as the proletariat and communes are the sacred myth of marxism.
We as a society, as humanity must reject such old, rancid and outdated ideologies and systems. They never worked as it was supposed too (we can argue that capitalism did better, but honestly without workers protesting and unions forming the system would've imploded decades ago, and it's also a zero sum game where x numbers of nations exploits others for resources.
For an example look at USA with the warmongering culture. But without that is there a chance for globalism and global trade, thus prosperity for the western world? without USA and the West outsourcing manufacture to China is there prosperity, eventually to China? I don't think so.
Now we got decades of increasing automation leaving workers without a job, increasing evermore the rate of unemployment. And the AI's are getting better. So, I don't think marxism or capitalism have a capacity as ideas or systems to makes sense of the world we are right now, and even less for the future world where AI is gonna be more predominant. We need to invent a new language to discuss about that, eventually.
Everything I know about Stalin comes from my western education, does this mean it’s true??
Much of it has been debunked by later historians, but the debunked myths continue. It seems to me that the myths are more useful. The biggest contested myth was the holodomor was “intentional” and unique to Ukraine. When there is ample evidence that it was not intentional, it was a natural famine that occurred after several earlier highly productive harvests. The only people in the 1930’s pushing the myth were Hitler and his Western collaborators. It wasn’t even mentioned as one of the “horrors of Stalin” until the 1970’s only to be debunked again in the 1990’s. And now it is written again by Ukrainian nationalists even though it goes against the evidence. So I would say judging from the evidence, skepticism in regards to what we think we know about Stalin or the USSR and Eastern Bloc is necessary.
That said, policies like vanguardism and central planning are huge deviations from democratic worker control. What I would like to see happen is actually verifiable facts, and honest analysis which is very difficult to find in the USA on this topic. But spending time in former East Germany has certainly helped me debunk a lot of propaganda.
i am a software engineer last year but all my heart soul and brain love economics histroy i so wanna do an mba
Surely an actual history/economics/economic history degree would be more fulfilling.
I would stop studying, to be honest. If you have the maths, you can just practice in the economics or finance field. I achieved this with a comp math BASc.
Is there something like communism - yes...Marx literally said that the proletariat will never decide on things in their own favor...therefore there needs to be a vanguard of the proletariat in order to decide in their best interest...secondly, his idea on the proletariat best intestests depending on a centralized industrialization...
How do you say the opposite of what a tariff actually is??
I’m just here for all the comments from people who hated history class and reading books who now claim to know about communism and Marxist theory!!! So much fun!!
Marxist theory isn't hard to understand. The point is that an ideal "perfect" system CANNOT be implemented properly because humans are VERY much imperfect
@@arturravenbite1693 have you read any Marxist theory?
@@louielogicsxxx3669 I used to be a communist myself. So obviously yes, and when I grew up and experienced the REAL WORLD I realized it's complete poppycock
@@arturravenbite1693 communists and Marxist are not interchangeable….were you a Marxist or a communist if you were a communist were you a Maoist Stalinist Leninist Trotskyite…..also are you claiming countries that are currently functioning as communist are not actually in the “real world”?
@@louielogicsxxx3669 "yeah bro I like deathcore but not death metal but black metal is alright but don't even get me started on metalcore"
Apples and oranges. I'm done with this conversation because you're too worried about splitting hairs. Good day.
Yes.
What distorted take on history. Wolf could have been an amazing scifi writer. Still could be.
Wollf is an obnoxious individual, with an obnoxious ideology. He gets away with that by existing solely in Academia for 40+ years, where he's insulated from the Real World
Yup, Watch him debate Peter Skiff. He gets his ass grinded every time he debates him.
You seem bitter. Is it because he’s more successful than you?
@@BluesAndNoise LOL 😆 😂 🤣
As a tradesman, manual laborer and business owner i find wolf to be full of hot air. Notice he nor any of his followers have ever started his fabled democratized bread company he always uses as an example.
@@BluesAndNoise - Nope, Wolff is NOT more successful than anyone. 40-plus years peddling the same BS apologies for Marxism, and nitwits like you actually believe this brainwashed ideologue is successful! Your gullibility and self-delusion are astonishing!
Marx would have been disgusted by stalins actions
The idea still came from Marx. Wether he was disgusted or not he wanted to equalize society. And equality by force always results in genocide.
Does anyone know the name of the book mentioned at 0:40?
probably
Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff (2002). Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR
@@rainbowraver666
Do you know the title of the book mention by Professor Wolff when mentions a certain Meyer or Mayer or some such??
I forgot about the Russo Japanese War.
What’s the book called Richard come on mannnn
Then capitalism isn't to blame for anything either
states are
Wolff has a distorted view of reality. How is this guy even a professor?
The heart of the problem has always been centralization vs decentralization
I am a decentralist.
Every cell is an autonomous agent with a complete copy of the genome
It must still act coordinated with the organism to thrive but its personal fate is still its own
The millions of cells that you shed and die each day were not your minions
Socialism is about health just as is the coordination of an organisms cells
I live in a country with socialised health care. Its excellent
Unfortunately we do not realize that both education and welfare are really just healthcare
Unfortunately we don't realize that corporations that end up sucking out our resources are cancer
Unfortunately we do not understand the difference between governance and government and so our governments become cancer also. More usually just large fairly benign cysts sucking out our resources
We need decentralised money not controlled by governments and there corporate parasites
We need Bitcoin
Bitcoin is THE revolution. That's why you don't know that it is
exactly, 99% of the 'issues' people have with what they term capitalism is really down to (poor) centralized planning/fiat currency
@@shawnradke No. This is the issue with marxism and Marx's call for central organization of government and economics. It takes one of you socialist imbeciles to believe that the central issuance of currency is something people are upset with.
This guy is pretty ignorant for a person who claims to be "educated" the government is no making abortions illegal, its putting that choice to the state. This guy would flunk a civics 101 course.
… the governments of the states will make abortion illegal. does that change his point at all? at the end of the day, in some places in the US women will not have the freedom of choice offered to them and that is simply unacceptable. whether you frame it as a states rights issue or not; and we all know the history of “states rights” issues in this country.
The socialist operates in their own economics and political science field with their own civics inventions. This is why these twats can have Democratic People's Republic of Korea and we can't see the democracy or republic.
He who is free of sin throw the first stone! 😂😂
How can you argue that Stalin‘s take on Marxism didn’t have anything to do with the mass deaths that occurred in the Soviet Union during that timeframe? After World War II, did the US have any mass death scenarios, did we have millions of our own people just dying of starvation and neglect?
You should google “homelessness problem” and “opioid crisis”. Just to point out the most recent issues. Both results of capitalistic ideas ;)
@@mithape4199 Most fentanyl deaths are from drugs coming over the border. So basically a centralized government agency supposedly controlled by Democratic vote is failing to do its job.
Homelessness is a major problem because state legislators have focused more on taking a care of illegal immigrants and refusing to enforce existing laws that could stop it all from happening. They decided lockdowns were the way to go, which only helped increase an already huge problem. Oh and they passed legislation encouraging drug usage.
Next?
@@LetsGetitBoah It didn't take long for you to bring up illegal immigrants and you "almost" blamed COVID-19 for homelessness - well done sir! Now, google Purdue Pharma and their story and profit-driven motives for pushing opioids on the American people. Oh and how McKinsey, the home of consulting capitalists, blessed it all.
@@mithape4199 lol what a reach
are people being forced to buy opioids? could it be the govt getting in the way of the housing market like it does with other sectors?
you people have 0 understanding of actual capitalism conflate it with the state's overreach/crony capitalism
@@shawnradke "you people". The same argument goes to overreach/crony communism or marxism.
Yes! It was the main ideology Socialism eventually leads to Communism! Marx said it!
I listened to this with an open mind but by the end I have to say I completely disagree with his argument. This whole discussion is him dancing around the fact that Marxism is a failed ideology when implemented into practice. How many times do they need to attempt it before they consider it ineffective, unrealistic and immoral? But no, it must be humans. "If only humans were perfect it would work". I'm sad to say that this idea will never die because it is intellectually appealing but practically disasterous
You've obviously never read Marx or Lenin.
@@DMM1840 Neither have you, obviously.
I think the point Wolff was trying to make but didn't is that marxism/communism is essentially a flatland social structure trying to be imposed on a historically hierarchical one, in fact, inherently hierarchical. The top down structure of God, King, Priest, Chief, Father, Mother etc can't be thrown out in a day for a 'talking stick' social structure. Hence the deification of Castro etc. Even in communism a hierarchy emerged. The real issue, outside of the political mechanisms, was the attempted destruction of the most important hierarchical structure which was Christianity in the case of the West, and Tibet/an Buddhism and the massive spiritual traditions of the East, in China. As much as we can see the destructive history of Christianity, nothing we have as a Western society, including Christianity itself, came about without the co-evolution of Science, Maths, Art, Music, Literature, the abolishment of slavery in the west and civil rights within the relative shade of Christianity. Christianity, unremarkably, and yet remarkably went through a series of enlightenments, as it should have, to accommodate the evolution of everything we enjoy in society today. The worst example of social-spiritual co-evolution is Islam because their simply has not been one. There is no great tradition of literature, music, ballet, civil rights or anything since our youngest religion surfaced in the 7th century. All of the beautiful societies of the middle east were smashed by Islam, crushed and ground to dust. Just look at Iran in the last 50years. Marxism/communism: To come 20 centuries later with a system that literally oppressed the evolutionary function of our society, the function to grow and 'find out', was going to be an obvious failure, and it was. And millions died to find out that people don't like to stop striving upwards, people want to move forward, they want to expand and evolve, they want to pray and believe and love. In essence, oppression never works.
Lex, can you do a podcast concerning texas? and what’s happening in America.
concerning what specifically about texas?
Are there re-education camps in Texas?
Active shooter situations account for less than 5% of gun related homicides my man. They've started classifying gang shootouts where more than 3 people are involved as "mass shootings" so keep that in mind.
I would estimate the amount of gun homicides in the US as being 80% gang related and the rest a split between law enforcement shootings and personal disputes.
Active shooters are a problem but it's completely unrelated to guns other than that's what they choose to use.
I don't know what any of this has to do with this video but I wanted to respond with what you were likely alluding to
Thomas Sowell would destroy Richard.
Maybe Richard should give up his cozy lecture gig and move to China.
You should express your class conciousness better than that LOL.
@@joshuabradshaw5757 - You know very well that Richard Wolff and his ilk will never want to live in a nation that is actually run along Marxist lines. Come on now! Be honest with your class consciousness.
Lord protect us 🙏
There's a lack of either clear thinking or clear communication. My experience is that people who have a deep understanding of a subject and have tested their ideas can communicate much more clearly and stick to the subject at hand. In the case of Richard Wolff i keep sensing motivated reasoning, over and over again. It'd be interesting to hear him reason unconstrained from his ideology but unfortunately he's either unwilling or incapable of it.
You seem unaware of your own biases and also unaware of biased statements and framing that coincide with your bias.
You then go on to project those tendencies on to Wolff.
He has to peel back those layers of bias you're unable to objectively recognize, causing the responses to seem less concise than the digestible talking points that are likely the extent of your analysis.
It becomes clear why you're confused by his responses and don't understand them.
There's a saying that a genius can explain complex concepts in a way that even a simpleton could understand. I doubt Wolff ever claimed genius.
@@Zhagg1 You might be right. We all have biases. I used to watch him a lot and agree with pretty much everything back then. I can recommend looking into Mondragon corporation. They're a worker owned, huge company, in Basque, Spain.
I think there's big potential for more worker and employee ownership in the future. As crypto economies grow and new ways of ownership become possible I hope we can more collectively own our economy.
Crypto networks are scaling exponentially...
@@feverpitchn5 indeed.
Lex is highly biased towards defending capitalism and the way he discusses socialism/communism does not indicate that he's familiar with Marxist analysis, let alone any other deep critique of capitalism.
He has to unwind all that in order to clarify the reality of the situation.
Wolff cites Mondragon often.
@@feverpitchn5 that could be one vector for collective ownership.
I get in arguments with evangelical Marxists about the significance of cultural progress and revelation, where I believe the nexus for change to exist.
For instance, chattel slavery was an accepted practice and the system existed until it wasn't. The Marxist argue that the only reason that it ended was because material conditions changed so that it could. My argument to them is that due to cultural boundaries, no material conditions would exist that would allow its return.
I believe the cultural acceptance of capitalist exploitation allows its continued existence. If the culture changes, then the system will too.
Good one... Makes you think wtf🤔
He sure like to deflect his peoples involvement.
This sounds very suspect when he said Fidel Castro was only a baseball playing lawyer.
The genius of Woolf (🍮)
Arre Mahesh Bhatt ?!
Results results results...he misses the mark on results
Ask yourself, what about themselves do the Bolsheviks, Lex, and Wolff all have in common?
No
Oh, my god, is this guy deluded.
Under Lenin, Trotsky was running the military early on. Compare Trotsky's policies as a military leader to the standard that later evolved, The Geneva Convention. He was a war criminal, with a coterie of war criminals beneath and beside him.
The American "Red Scare" scooped up a lot of people fairly characterized as democratic socialists. American socialist leader Eugene Debs was far from a pathological figure, but early Soviet Russia was murderous before Stalin. In the 20's, Debs as a participant in the political process was fine, but Soviet Russia and the Comintern later had to be weakened and deterred.
all these comments make me sad. People forget just recently we almost had our own gov overthrown by a dictator, our society is sick.
No.
Wolff is not a serious intellectual.
He is great!
‘People are the product of history’ .... but comparing Castro and Stalin is reaching for it . Wolff could’ve done better here .
You think?
Castro and Stalin were the product of marxist ideology and they were brutal due to how those ideas empower totalitarian leaders on a basis with no accountability.
Wow. He's wrong.
What Stalins evil Lex is talking about? Does he want to talk about massive repressions and bloodshed in Finland? In China (by Japan and chineese rights)? About extreme poverty in the USA in the same time killed mass of paupers? Does he want to discuss bloodshed made by CIA in colonies?
Not evidence that poverty in usa is man made, not has the same extention as holodomor.
U see what u want to see, disgusting.
Extreme poverty in US is nothing compare to China and USSR. When was the last time you hear massive famine and lack of food in US? Is food health?NO but damn sure you will still alive.
Why use thumbnails that make him look like a loon? Kinda crappy.
I think hes wrong
Marxism baby 🕺🏿
guy needs a psychology class