Karl Marx, born on this day in 1818, was a foundational political theorist and journalist associated with the philosophy of Marxism.
Among Marx's best-known texts are the "The Communist Manifesto" and the three-volume "Das Kapital", in which he set out to define and explain the behavior of the capitalist mode of production.
Marx's political and philosophical thought have had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history, and his name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory.
Marx's critical theories about society, economics and politics - collectively understood as Marxism - hold that human societies develop through class conflict. In capitalism, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production, and the working classes (known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labor power in return for wages.
Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx concluded that, like previous socio-economic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system known as socialism.
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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
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When people say “You can’t be putting your hope on China to save us, we have to save ourselves” I get the point but honestly it sounds naive to me. Which is ironic since they think I’m naive.
Like, I saw someone say we need an “American Che” and like, that’d be cool but that’s not where we are.
This is 1939 Germany. We don’t need an American Che, we need a Mexican Stalin and a Chinese FDR. Did the German resistance do good and important work? Of course they did. But did they stop the Nazis? No, the Nazis were only stopped by military intervention from outside forces.
Genuinely I see very little hope for a positive future in North America that doesn’t involve being militarily occupied. I hope I’m wrong.
I live under active American colonial occupation, and even I believe that it's hard to imagine a world where people here pick up arms and fight a revolutionary war to overthrow the bourgeoisie when we get American treats and get paid in USD.
I think the greater emphasis is on the fact that China is not going to save us. If we are going to be saved, it will have to come from ourselves. Maybe its improbable we are going to be saved at all.
Saying we need an American Che is "great man of history"ing Che and the Cuban Revolution. In the past I said "we need an American Lenin" because I thought there isn't any intellectual figure that can lead a party or revolution in the US. Im also probably wrong in stating that we "need an American Lenin", and what we actually "need" is a theoretical understanding of how revolution can move forward in the US because that I don't see. I don't see a mass workers movement happening because the working class is just in disarray. It feels like we are in much different times than 1917 and even during the rise of fascism where there were semblances of class solidarity.
What shape would a revolution in the US take today?
1917? no, we're in 1320.
I will also accept a Chinese Stalin and a Canadian FDR, but honestly I think Canada is Austria in this analogy
Ooh! Who's Poland?
Given today's events, it might be the Vatican. It has begun.
Probably one of the islands in the Caribbean, maybe Panama? Could also be Greenland.
I just pictured q slow Zack Snyder trailer version of Panama by VanHalen
Yeah, all Americans are gettin' is fucking American Gustav Noske.