Need Some help on understanding Marxism

[Nikolay]

I'd like to learn a lot more about Marxism, but I am having trouble understanding it. I've read tones and tones of things on the internet, but all are too complicated.

So, I've come to you guys. I want to hear what you YOU guys think it is, so please don't give me a link to a site (I learn better when I am personally involved in the discussion), and don't recommend me a book either.


Sorry if I sound like a complete idiot, I'm just a very curious person, and I've been wanting to know what Communism (Marxism) is all about.

EDIT: You can make your response as long as you need it, I don't care if it's like 20 paragraphs, just as long as it makes sense. :)

[Broletariat]

Alright well maybe we should do this in a very long drawn out and involved way then.

First lets examine the composition of society. Private property currently exists in a form based on Title, this is more formally known as neo-lockesian or jus ad rem basis of property. All this really means is that I can own something without ever even coming in contact with it.

Because of this, society is fundamentally divided into two main classes (there are more but for basic purposes lets merely focus on these two).

One class owns the means of production, and the other does not.

The class that owns, is called the bourgeoisie, and the class that does not is called the proletariat. Alternative names include Capitalist and Worker respectively.

Already we can see that the Working class is at a disadvantage due to having no control over the means of production. The workers must therein sell their labour to the capitalists in order to survive. The capitalists hire the workers and pay them a wage that is less than the value of their labour (if you want me to go into more detail about this exploitation I will, but the easiest way to explain it is to visualise it with this I find http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/ed4a754f.png )

Because the workers receive less value than they produce, they cannot even purchase the goods that they just made. This contradiction of Capital manifests itself in various different ways, national debt, credit, to name a few.

Now to glance briefly at the social effects of this process you have to understand that the working class is working for a wage, not because they enjoy their labour. They work in a factory they have no interest in, on products they have no reason to care about that will be stolen from them after they are created. This is what is known as alienated labour.

All of this and more arises simply from defining property on Neo-lockesian jus ad rem terms. The Socialist solution to this problem is to redefine property to be based on Lockesian jus in rem terms, which is simply ownership based on use and occupancy. Any further questions do ask, this is a VERY basic rundown.

I've actually just now recalled an essay that I wrote explaining the basics, here it is. http://pastebin.com/qnyfxSZn It jumps around a bit but meh, and now I'm feeling insecure that I've just posted that >_> constructively criticize my essay via PM or in the topic if you're reading this so as not to derail (or keep it on the rail if it's relevant) the topic if you will.

[Zanthorus]

I would say that "Marxism" and "Communism" are slightly different things.

Marxism is the critique of political economy. This critique has two parts:

1) The critique of political economy on the basis of political economy. The purely technical critique of political economy that aims to show that the way in which capitalist economists look at the economy is wrong.

2) The critique of political economy from the standpoint of socialised humanity. This is the idea that political economy as a discipline arises from mystified production relations, the production relations of capitalism. By planning the economy instead of allowing it to be ruled by the "invisible hand" of the market political economy as a discipline becomes irrelevant.

"Communism" is the society advocated by Marxists in which the means of production are owned in common, production is socially planned and commodity production is abolished.


One class owns the means of production, and the other does not.

The class that owns, is called the bourgeoisie, and the class that does not is called the proletariat. Alternative names include Capitalist and Worker respectively.

Finance capitalists and merchant capitalists don't own means of production but they are just as bourgeois as factory owners. A capitalist is someone who owns capital - Money which brings it's owner more money through interest, rent or profit. Similarly the proletariat is the class which can only make a living by selling it's labour as a commodity on the market. People who work for a wage but are rich enough to not have to don't necessarily count.


Because the workers receive less value than they produce, they cannot even purchase the goods that they just made.

Not a problem. Capitalists can simply redirect their investment into means of production instead of means of consumption. It doesn't matter wether or not a capitalist's investment satisfies any real human need as long as it generates some kind of profit.


All of this and more arises simply from defining property on Neo-lockesian jus ad rem terms. The Socialist solution to this problem is to redefine property to be based on Lockesian jus in rem terms, which is simply ownership based on use and occupancy.

I'm pretty sure that most people on this board are not Proudhonists. Marxism seeks to replace commodity production with social production for use, not to create any kind of "self-managed" commodity production with "use and occupancy" based ownership.

[Broletariat]

I'm pretty sure that most people on this board are not Proudhonists. Marxism seeks to replace commodity production with social production for use, not to create any kind of "self-managed" commodity production with "use and occupancy" based ownership.
Wouldn't simply redefining property along those lines imply social production for use? If you make something and can't use it then obviously it should go to someone who can. I've actually not read anything by Proudhon to be frank, I don't recall where I stumbled upon the terms (neo)-lockesian and jus ad rem vs jus in rem. But it seemed to make sense to me.

[Zanthorus]

Wouldn't simply redefining property along those lines imply social production for use? If you make something and can't use it then obviously it should go to someone who can. I've actually not read anything by Proudhon to be frank, I don't recall where I stumbled upon the terms (neo)-lockesian and jus ad rem vs jus in rem. But it seemed to make sense to me.

Maybe you should read What is Property? then as that was one of the big points of Proudhon's theory. As Marx himself said in The Holy Family it's good insofar as he adopts a critical attitude toward private property, but he fails to retain the same attitude with regard to other capitalist institutions like wage-labour, commodity production etc. I'm going to guess that it was something that Ian McKay wrote since that guy seems to have some kind of quest to re-appropriate Proudhon as some kind of communist.

What you (And Proudhon) are essentially doing (Even if you apparently don't realise it) is attempting a move back to artisan production. If property is based on occupancy and use then you still have people carrying on production for private account, since society as a whole doesn't own the means of production. The only difference would be that each producer would own the means of production within their own production unit (As in pre-capitalist artisan production). However commodity production would still exist and hence money, wage-labour, capital (In it's finance and merchant forms) and the law of value.

[Broletariat]

Maybe you should read What is Property? then as that was one of the big points of Proudhon's theory. As Marx himself said in The Philosophy of Poverty it's good insofar as he adopts a critical attitude toward private property, but he fails to retain the same attitude with regard to other capitalist institutions like wage-labour, commodity production etc. I'm going to guess that it was something that Ian McKay wrote since that guy seems to have some kind of quest to re-appropriate Proudhon as some kind of communist.

What you (And Proudhon) are essentially doing (Even if you apparently don't realise it) is attempting a move back to artisan production. If property is based on occupancy and use then you still have people carrying on production for private account, since society as a whole doesn't own the means of production. The only difference would be that each producer would own the means of production within their own production unit (As in pre-capitalist artisan production). However commodity production would still exist and hence money, wage-labour, capital (In it's finance and merchant forms) and the law of value.
That's actually what my line of reasoning was, that society as a whole DOES own the means of production rather, >_> I think I was just using the terms "use and occupancy" in a more broad sense.

[Zanthorus]

That's actually what my line of reasoning was, that society as a whole DOES own the means of production rather, >_> I think I was just using the terms "use and occupancy" in a more broad sense.

Fair enough. Just a heads up that generally "use and occupancy" is something you hear thrown around by Mutualist types.

[Broletariat]

Fair enough. Just a heads up that generally "use and occupancy" is something you hear thrown around by Mutualist types.
What would be a better phrase to use that still conveys my meaning while still using that line of reasoning? I can't think of one unless I go on to explain how things are socially created and occupied by society as a whole.

[Nikolay]

Alright well maybe we should do this in a very long drawn out and involved way then.

First lets examine the composition of society. Private property currently exists in a form based on Title, this is more formally known as neo-lockesian or jus ad rem basis of property. All this really means is that I can own something without ever even coming in contact with it.

Because of this, society is fundamentally divided into two main classes (there are more but for basic purposes lets merely focus on these two).

One class owns the means of production, and the other does not.

The class that owns, is called the bourgeoisie, and the class that does not is called the proletariat. Alternative names include Capitalist and Worker respectively.

Already we can see that the Working class is at a disadvantage due to having no control over the means of production. The workers must therein sell their labour to the capitalists in order to survive. The capitalists hire the workers and pay them a wage that is less than the value of their labour (if you want me to go into more detail about this exploitation I will, but the easiest way to explain it is to visualise it with this I find ...

Because the workers receive less value than they produce, they cannot even purchase the goods that they just made. This contradiction of Capital manifests itself in various different ways, national debt, credit, to name a few.

Now to glance briefly at the social effects of this process you have to understand that the working class is working for a wage, not because they enjoy their labour. They work in a factory they have no interest in, on products they have no reason to care about that will be stolen from them after they are created. This is what is known as alienated labour.

All of this and more arises simply from defining property on Neo-lockesian jus ad rem terms. The Socialist solution to this problem is to redefine property to be based on Lockesian jus in rem terms, which is simply ownership based on use and occupancy. Any further questions do ask, this is a VERY basic rundown.

I've actually just now recalled an essay that I wrote explaining the basics, here it is. It jumps around a bit but meh, and now I'm feeling insecure that I've just posted that >_> constructively criticize my essay via PM or in the topic if you're reading this so as not to derail (or keep it on the rail if it's relevant) the topic if you will.

I have no questions so far. I completely understand. :)

[Broletariat]

I have no questions so far. I completely understand. :)
Definitely be sure to read what Zanny posted, he expounded and corrected me in several places.

[Nikolay]

Definitely be sure to read what Zanny posted, he expounded and corrected me in several places.

Oh, I did. ;)

[The Idler]

I know you said no books, but there are two which are practically comicbooks;
Icon Books


Introducing Marx by Rius (http://www.iconbooks.co.uk/book.cfm?isbn=1-84046-714-2)
Introducing Marxism by Rupert Woodfin (http://www.iconbooks.co.uk/book.cfm?isbn=978-184831058-2)

For me, socialism can be summed up as "power to the people".

[mikelepore]

To put Marx into perspective, people would benefit by realizing that the 19th century was a time when any social movement had to be called a science to be respectable, particularly in the universities, and particularly in the universities of Germany. No working class revolutionary could get away with saying simply that the wealthy are ripping off the workers. You need a whole philosophy of history to explain how the world got to this point in the first place (what Marx's called "the materialist conception of history" or "historical materialism"), you need a sociological model to explain the categories and roles in the population ("the class struggle"), and you need a complete economic theory to explain the exact process that brings about the result that the owning class systematically extracts wealth from the working class (the "law of value" and its corollary, the "theory of surplus value"). Some of the details may not be strictly necessary to understand the situation that we're in, but it's an approach that illuminates a lot of things. Unfortunately, what I consider the two most important subjects to discuss, the structure of the new society that can replace capitalism, and the method to make the transition to the goal, are the two things that Marx wanted to think about the least, therefore, for every one sentence about a goal and a method, there are about a thousand sentences about the past and the ancient past.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

For what its worth, I've always thought that a great way to learn Marxism was to read work by other Marxist theories. For example, a few pamphlets by Lenin helped put a lot of Marxism into context where Marx's language was difficult to understand.

This helped me a lot too:

http://www.marxism.org.uk/

[BAM]

Maybe you should read What is Property? then as that was one of the big points of Proudhon's theory. As Marx himself said in The Holy Family it's good insofar as he adopts a critical attitude toward private property, but he fails to retain the same attitude with regard to other capitalist institutions like wage-labour, commodity production etc. I'm going to guess that it was something that Ian McKay wrote since that guy seems to have some kind of quest to re-appropriate Proudhon as some kind of communist.

Just a side note on this, it's not that important but I just spotted it.

You're right about what Marx says about Proudhon. FWIW, I don't think Iain Mackay is trying to re-appropriate Proudhon as a communist, rather he is taking Proudhon back from the "anarcho"-capitalist fringe which has tried to appropriate his as one of their own. (BTW, I have something of a vested interest in this project.)


What you (And Proudhon) are essentially doing (Even if you apparently don't realise it) is attempting a move back to artisan production. If property is based on occupancy and use then you still have people carrying on production for private account, since society as a whole doesn't own the means of production. The only difference would be that each producer would own the means of production within their own production unit (As in pre-capitalist artisan production). However commodity production would still exist and hence money, wage-labour, capital (In it's finance and merchant forms) and the law of value.

Marx's critique, in both Poverty of Philosophy and Capital, was that Proudhon's moneyless exchange system would be impossible in practice. This is because money itself arises out of commodity exchange. Proudhon thought that the labour theory of value was normative, ie that it says how much x commodity should be worth, but in so doing ends up actually wanting to abolish capitalism simply by a more thorough application of capitalism's own principal ideals (free competition, fair exchange, etc.).

Marx and Ricardo held that the market (ie supplyand demand) is the mechanism through which value (socially necessary labour time) is disclosed, whereas Proudhon thinks that value can determine supply and demand. He has it all upside down. He misses the social validation of the market in commodity production. As Marx says, whereas in fine weather people go for a walk, but Proudhon would have us go out for a walk to get fine weather!

[Nikolay]

For what its worth, I've always thought that a great way to learn Marxism was to read work by other Marxist theories. For example, a few pamphlets by Lenin helped put a lot of Marxism into context where Marx's language was difficult to understand.

This helped me a lot too:

(Link to the site)

Is that site mainly on a British view of Marxism, or is it universal?

[Blake's Baby]

That's the website of the Socialist Party of England and Wales. They're a Trotskyist organisation, and part of the Committee for a Workers' International, I believe, that has sections in several countries. I wouldn't think there'd be anything that is a particularly 'British' take on Marxism, Trotskyism in its many forms is an international tendency.

[Nikolay]

For what its worth, I've always thought that a great way to learn Marxism was to read work by other Marxist theories. For example, a few pamphlets by Lenin helped put a lot of Marxism into context where Marx's language was difficult to understand.

This helped me a lot too:

(Link to the site)

Do you have anymore sources? :)

[Zanthorus]

Do you have anymore sources? :)

I reccomend reading all of the essays at this site:

http://marxmyths.org/

They are really helpful.

Personally I also learned a lot about Marx by reading Cyril Smith (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/index.htm).

[Nikolay]

Thank you for the links. I think they'll help me out quite a bit.

More links would be great guys. :P (preferably only on Marxism, as stated on the title of the thread..)

[BAM]

Personally I also learned a lot about Marx by reading Cyril Smith (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/index.htm).

I second this! :)

[Nikolay]

I second this! :)

Which one of his works would you recommend (one that explains Marx the best)?

[Nikolay]

Here's a list of what I am currently reading:

1. What is Marxism?;
2. Wage, Labour, and Capital;
3. The Principles of Communism;
4. Communist Manifesto.

Do you think these will give me a firm grasp of what Marxism is, or do I need to read a bit more? (Mind you that I don't want to become a master on Marxism, I just want to know enough so I can label myself as a Marxist, and so I can defend Marxism, and know some basics about Marxian Economics)

So, anymore recommendations, or are these good enough (and yes, I will read Cyril Smith, and those essays)?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I would say that those are a great starting point for understanding Marxism. Get through those, and when you're done you will understand the theories of Marx a lot bettet.

[BAM]

Which one of his works would you recommend (one that explains Marx the best)?

I would read Marx at the Millennium (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/index.htm) first. It's his main book - the second one he wrote - and it's quite easy to read.

[Nikolay]

Alright, I'll add that to my list. :)

If anyone has any more links, feel free to share.

[Nikolay]

Anyone know a book selling site that is selling Das Kapital Volumes I, II & III (in English) for a cheap price (in Canadian dollars)?

[Proletarian Ultra]

I'd actually recommend reading the economics section of the anarchist faq. even though many of its conclusions are 'wrong' from a Marxist point of view, they're not that far off, and they're simpler to understand. It will give you a basic feel for the way socialists in general think about economics, which will help when you delve into the more complicated arguments that Marx advances.

[Proletarian Ultra]

I second this! :)

Cyril Smith is awesome. And considering I'm an a-hole Stalinist and I'm still praising him, that's saying something.

[BAM]

Cyril Smith is awesome. And considering I'm an a-hole Stalinist and I'm still praising him, that's saying something.

oh really?! Wow ...

TBH, I am pleasantly surprised how much I have seen him talked about on here. Cyril would have been happy. You know, almost all his old friends in the movement stopped talking to him or fell out with him because of his work.