How do people just completely ignore Marx?

[RadioRaheem84]

I was watching a documentary called National Geographic: Stress where scientists found a link between stress and the hierarchy of human social system. They also tied this with a pattern in hierarchies found in the animal kingdom. Whereas before stress was seen as a result of peptic ulcers, the real source of stress was social. The main cause of it; a hierarchical human man made social system.

This is just one of the many, many, many times I've read scientific, medical or social science journals that just constantly knock on the social system as the leading cause of all sorts of dehumanizing stuff.

I mean seriously, from global warming, to food shortages, to environmental degradation to wars to famine, etc. etc. etc.

Just what is it that's missing from the puzzle that keeps people in positions of science, medicine and politics just overlook Marx or socialism or anti-capitalism critiques?

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Fear. Those freakin' liberals rule the world and let everyone believe that socialism and that weird masacre of a state called USSR were one and the same. They all think it's scary and dangerous.
Also, socialism is capitalisms biggest natural enemy, so if you are all about making money and being 'succesfull' (in a monetary-sense), then socialism can't be good.

Most people are too lazy to think nowadays. Why think about a different world? It'll only give you a headache!

[RadioRaheem84]

Could it really be an irrational fear of the USSR? I mean democracy was tried several times in the past, failing each time and replaced back with feudalism or fascism.

Why is so special about socialism that makes people so afraid or bitterly opposed when all signs point to it being a solution rather than a cause of the problems today?

[MarxArchist]

1:57 - 2:03 Capitalism is great because ....."we needed weenies, Mr Brown had weenies. It's as simple as that". Mr Brown even delivered the weenies because his truck is private property! Think of everyone who made profit from those weenies. Competition, freedom of contract, profit, private property...everyone gets weenies. Capitalism is great! (ya right)

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And it's not just weenies anymore....freedom means "free to choose" whatever image you want via consumerism (as Milton Friedman burns in hell). Global communism, quite frankly, can't provide the same sort of lifestyle capitalism provides in first world western nations. The sort highlighted in the video below. The culture so many people are immersed in. Even many of us.

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Then we have the education and media which both sell the idea of capitalism and help to normalize and promote the new culture on top of the already in place systemic mechanisms highlighted in the video below:

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Then we have the perversion of "communism" by Russian Bolsheviks, China, North Korea, Cambodia etc which has been some of the best sources for capitalist propaganda a capitalist could dream of. Anything from Lenin's CHEKA, the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot), Stalin, Mao's rather indiscriminate slaughter of people copying early Russia, the famines, the failed Great Leap forward, Marxists generally pushing capitalist development under the name of socialism, the Kim Jong's and the Orwellian mind fuck that is Juche etc and so on.

Everything went to shit starting with Russian Bolshevism. Most of the attempts at socialism using that base model have ruined the image of communism or Marxism but it's not like capitalists didn't have a huge hand in that. The cold war aslo scared people half to death with hundreds of thousands of nuclear bombs pointed at every corner of the globe. We did just about see the end of humanity on earth as we know it and again this was due to the Russian path to "socialism/communism". Marxists/Anarchists and or communists in general should have and should now be advocating revolution in the advanced western capitalist nations but this has now been made quite the uphill battle due to, but not limited to, the things mentioned above.

[B5C]

I think also that many people think that Marx work is commentary on economics than social sciences when in reality it's both. There is a lot of mass ignorance on Marx.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Many people think that Marx has been either partially or wholly discredited due to the impact of the fUSSR and other regimes which have claimed his influence.

That's the biggest reason.

[International_Solidarity]

In my area of the United States I commonly hear phrases like "Marxism -- isn't that when the whole country is ruled by one person?" There is a massive ignorance and hatred of Marx in America. They equate Marx with policies of Stalin and Khrushchev. It is an abominable situation, although it is beginning to get a little bit better. . . slowly.

[Strannik]

Communism is about actual, concrete, self-produced freedom. Capitalism in its current advanced form is about illusory, packaged freedom that is "handed down" from the elites. Unfortunately, in short term illusions are as satisfying and come more easily to us than reality.

However, in the end reality always triumphs over illusions. Where I live, most people actually hate capitalism, but they can't see any progressive alternative. So they are beginning to look towards keinsialism and fashism.

Reality always triumphs in the end. While currently bourgeoise uses illusions to play sections of proletariat against each other, it is true, that for huge majority of mankind capitalism offers only poverty. It is no longer a progressing system - it has started to eat itself, since it has nothing else to eat. So I believe that revolution is immensely hard to start, but once people see a working alternative, most either will reject current order or at least refuse to defend it with their lives. It is fear that things get worse, that keeps bourgeoise in power. What happens when people start to believe that they have nothing to lose?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

It is a manufactured ignorance. At what age are we taught that Marx is lumped together with Pol-Pot again? Age 15 in History class?

[Willin']

There are two kinds of people in this world. Ones who care and the ones who don't apparently there are more ignorants than wise man on this planet. If you are born a sheep it's likely you will stay that way.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

You know what i was thought at age 15 in school? Communists are as bad as Fascists.
Why? Because their both extremists...yeah, we'd love to kill all those who are different, just because...stupid dumb-fuck.

In one of Hollands biggest newspaper (Telegraaf; maybe even the largest) even managed to compare the most right-winged liberal to Karl Marx!
Now i know that Telegraaf is pretty right-winged and anti-socialist (always trying to discredit the Socialist Party's leader), but this comparison can mean only two things

1) Telegraaf is truly that dumb (just might be, most of it's content is pulp)

or

2) They knew about the people's ignorance about different opinions and used the existing anti-socialism-emotions most Dutchies have.

Both is bad, but i can't tell which is worse.
I stopped reading it altogether. Half is pulp, half is bullshit.

[RadioRaheem84]

The mass ignorance on Karl Marx is downright scary! I mean I have never seen such a damning image given to anyone ever in the history of the media with the exception of Hitler (and rightly so). But there is an even stronger hatred of Marx in American unlike I've ever seen. It's almost like a reaction people have to child molesters or something, their reaction is one of get the fuck outta here you nut. But at the same time they can be OK with capitalists saying near eugenics type of stuff, that people can die if they cannot afford healthcare, and that war is cleansing the earth of undesirables (radical muslisms, etc).

But that's the regular public though. I am talking about intellectuals, scientists, politicians, professors, etc. They should know a hell of a lot better than everyone else.

[subcp]

There's some anecdotal evidence that sales (and thefts) of Marx's works are way up all over since the latest manifestation of the crisis in 2007-2008.

Most of the social sciences and even bourgeois economics had Marx as a starting point. Weber's theories of class have become dominant in many central capitalist countries (class as defined by income level, consumer habits, etc.); mainstream economists like Schuempter, Sraffa, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Just what is it that's missing from the puzzle that keeps people in positions of science, medicine and politics just overlook Marx or socialism or anti-capitalism critiques?What's missing from the puzzle is a vaiable alternative - IMO - actual workers movements that can make a dent and change the "rules of the game".

Some of these academics are ideologically convinced that Marxism is a dead-end, some are just self-serving, but probably more often than not, when they look at these problems and they look for solutions they are confined to thinking within the system.

Someone who is in that position and analyzing why there is man-made climate change or why there is food inequality when more food than is needed by the world's population can easily be produced can't write a policy paper that says: "In summary, some movement (non-existant at this point) needs to democratize all of society through revolution and change the relationship of man to man and man to nature... so while we can look at the effects, really we scientists should be spending our time trying to help build a movement capable of this".

It's a hegemonic effect. Though scientists and academics will often realize that lobbying or current governmental initiatives on things like the envioronment are too little too late (at best!) they know that lobbying can be done, they know that governmnets have social power currently and so on. So they are stuck to the confines of "what is possible" in the current system and many then favor "carbon credits" and other things that fit within the logic of the system. On top of that is the monopoly on most of the means of doing this research by governmental and privitely funded (i.e. funded by the capitalists) institutions - while criticism is allowed, they also must work "within their field" so a scintific journal or paper is unlikely to persue social solutions, rather than recommend "realistic" tweaks on the current ways of doing things.

[Left Voice]

There is also the fact that academia is extremely insular. It's very difficult to 'break ranks' and adopt a theoretical perspective that is currently out of 'vogue' in the academic world.

For example, the current 'in vogue' theoretical framework for international relations is Constructivism, and attempts to either prove or disprove something on those lines. It is very difficult for even frameworks with a long academic history such as Realism to maintain acceptance among modern academics, let alone something like Marxism which is perceived as even more archaic and leftfield.

[Brutus]

We need to make Marx relevant.

[Jimmie Higgins]

There are three things which I think have made Marxism something that academics pay attention to: deep crisis/economic collapse, existing workers movements and more overt class struggle, and (since I know of two examples) I guess also when a regime outlaws other radical ideologies but forgets to include Marxism because they think it's irrelevant (Russia and contemporary Iran).

[RadioRaheem84]

So how did Marx become so irrelevant? Is it because of the fall of the FSU?

It would seem that the sheer magnitude of it's relevance today and the logical sense it makes describing capitalism would be enough.

They really see it as an outdated, archaic social science?

[tuwix]

Just what is it that's missing from the puzzle that keeps people in positions of science, medicine and politics just overlook Marx or socialism or anti-capitalism critiques?

It can be answered in one word – bourgeoisie. It is the force that pays to forget about Marx and other revolutionary thinkers. They are still danger to them.

[RadioRaheem84]

But here is the thing. Above and beyond all other alternative ideologies out there, Communism/Socialism or hell even progressive social democracy are the absolute most dangerous of all ideologies for the upper crust. That is mind boggling.

I mean they can tolerate crazy Klansmen, Neo=Nazis, and even extreme right wing libertarians and conservatives out there in the media, in the streets or causing a raucous. But for Marxists, Socialists, Anarchists and even left progressives, the State will use full force.

If the ideas are so discredited, archaic and irrelevant, then why go to great lengths to red bait any remotely liberal person? Why start off ranting about the evils of communism when no one is reading Marx on a mass scale to effect any change? Why did Fox and Glen Beck go on and on about Communism, Socialism and Progressives when they posed 0 threat?

It makes me think that above all other schools of thought out there, Marxism is the real deal. The one they fear the most from gaining any ground what so ever. I doubt they would put this much effort into discrediting libertarians considering how much sway they've reached in power since the 70s and 80s.

I really really think that Marxism/the leftist critique of capitalism is the only logical critique of the system and offers solutions.

This might be another topic altogether but it's helped me think more scientifically if that makes sense? It has really helped me see the holes, pressupositions, and biases and down right irrationality of a lot of the idealistic thinking of liberals and conservatives. I think this method, Marxists and leftists use, is scientific. Why is it not more studied and pushed beyond the social sciences?

Am I too bias? Is it just that once you break out of the framework there is no going back?

[Brutus]

We need to say " you are poor because of capitalism" and explain surplus value

[tuwix]

If you say so, you gives room to whole bunch of capitalist reformers or even less pleasant guys like nazis, fascists, etc.

“You are poor because of (private) property. And this (private) property has nothing to do with your personal things as house, car, etc. The property is in hands of richests. Only when it is abolished, nobody will be poor.” - this IMHO is better.

[piet11111]

Marxism is the most scientific analysis of the capitalist system it explains where profit comes from (exploitation) how it expands itself and how value is determined and why it goes into crisis.

But the dangerous part is that it also logically leads to conclusions that are revolutionary and will lead to a lot of powerful and rich people ending up slobs like us.

Seeing how modern economics are invested with idealism instead of science they are able to claim capitalism will sort itself out and why they are blind to what is really going on and unable to act in any manner that could lead to results.

[Orange Juche]

Just what is it that's missing from the puzzle that keeps people in positions of science, medicine and politics just overlook Marx or socialism or anti-capitalism critiques?

Alot of it, at least in the United States, is the strong anti-leftist attitude stemming from the cold war era/McCarthyism - people risked their careers and livelihoods, at one time, if they explored leftism in academia... modern academia is still in the shadow of that.

It was weird the first time I heard Marxist economist Richard Wolff talk about how, in getting a PhD in economics, he didn't have to read a single shred of Marx. This being a guy who went to three Ivy League schools. It's like it doesn't exist.

[$lim_$weezy]

God, my philosophy professor is a prime example of this kind of thing.

He says things like "Baudrillard was a Marxist, but then he became interested in commodities and commodification"