I don't defend it. Merely point out that capitalism dramatically improving the lot of many people by doing things like improving crop yields and enhancing technology better than socialism could isn't really a ding against Marxism. Marx would have granted capitalism's great power in that regard. I believe his criticism had to do with the cost, the unjustness of it, and that that inherent unjustness would spell its doom. Again, as I understand Marxism; I'm no expert. I don't believe that to be correct, at least no more than it's correct to say that every massively powerful institution falls from within, not from without.
Exactly. Marx was predicting the natural failure state of capitalism, which is when innovation and productivity are no longer the driving forces of profit but everything has been optimized to a point where the only way for capitalists to continue to profit is to destroy wages. The reason this hasn't happened is because it turns out there were a lot of industries that were only at the beginning stages of capitalist innovation at the time Marx was writing, and I think Marx himself would be surprised and how much runway capitalism turned out to have by innovating entirely new service industries and telecommunications industries into existence. Which, good! But now we are at a point where we can basically see the same dynamic in every single industry that only a decade or two ago was thought to be at the frontier of boundless new potential and they are all flagging and stuttering. The service industries can't afford to pay people a wage they want, and all the fancy disruptive tech industries are instituting massive layoffs and pushing AI innovation in the desperate hope that it will open up some new field of profit because otherwise they aren't going to be able to sustain the share prices that make them seem immune to the economic gravity everyone else is dealing with.
As a narrative, it makes sense. But then, Marx's narrative made sense in his time, too. I'm ever suspicious of (but open to) the idea that now is a time of special stagnation rather than simply much slower overall productivity / growth increase. Perhaps under Marxism that makes now the right time for the revolution. But I can't help but think that, at any point over the previous 150 years or so, you could make an argument for "now" and you'd have missed out on a hell of a lot.
The thing is, it doesn't have to stagnate, it just has to slow down sufficiently. If economic productivity doesn't out pace the supply of workers in any particular field, then wages will go down. That's not Marx's observation, btw, that's Adam Smith.
I mean, I don't think its automatic. Presumably we could collectively find ourselves in a new corpo-feudalism, where the vast majority of people are serfs, for whom every decision from how much they get fed to how many children they can afford is directly tied to corporate profit margins. It sounds sci-fi dystopian, but its not that hard to imagine, or that different from your average company town in the age before big unions and workers reforms.and it doesn't have to be completely dystopic, maybe the company will spring for a football field or a park, or heavily subsidized internet pornography to keep people happy. But only a relatively few people will really thrive.
Presumably that's why so much of communism is built around outreach and organization and prosthelytizing because people needed to be aware of the alternatives way before that stage to have the best chance of determining a more optimal outcome.
Nah, Marx was far less insane than his average follower.
And in one sense he was very right--the prosperity brought from industrialization and capitalism inevitably brings calls for redistribution via political means. (Most industrialized countries do this via social democracy, not via Socialism, however.)
Which is even MORE magical thinking.
I don't defend it. Merely point out that capitalism dramatically improving the lot of many people by doing things like improving crop yields and enhancing technology better than socialism could isn't really a ding against Marxism. Marx would have granted capitalism's great power in that regard. I believe his criticism had to do with the cost, the unjustness of it, and that that inherent unjustness would spell its doom. Again, as I understand Marxism; I'm no expert. I don't believe that to be correct, at least no more than it's correct to say that every massively powerful institution falls from within, not from without.
Exactly. Marx was predicting the natural failure state of capitalism, which is when innovation and productivity are no longer the driving forces of profit but everything has been optimized to a point where the only way for capitalists to continue to profit is to destroy wages. The reason this hasn't happened is because it turns out there were a lot of industries that were only at the beginning stages of capitalist innovation at the time Marx was writing, and I think Marx himself would be surprised and how much runway capitalism turned out to have by innovating entirely new service industries and telecommunications industries into existence. Which, good! But now we are at a point where we can basically see the same dynamic in every single industry that only a decade or two ago was thought to be at the frontier of boundless new potential and they are all flagging and stuttering. The service industries can't afford to pay people a wage they want, and all the fancy disruptive tech industries are instituting massive layoffs and pushing AI innovation in the desperate hope that it will open up some new field of profit because otherwise they aren't going to be able to sustain the share prices that make them seem immune to the economic gravity everyone else is dealing with.
As a narrative, it makes sense. But then, Marx's narrative made sense in his time, too. I'm ever suspicious of (but open to) the idea that now is a time of special stagnation rather than simply much slower overall productivity / growth increase. Perhaps under Marxism that makes now the right time for the revolution. But I can't help but think that, at any point over the previous 150 years or so, you could make an argument for "now" and you'd have missed out on a hell of a lot.
The thing is, it doesn't have to stagnate, it just has to slow down sufficiently. If economic productivity doesn't out pace the supply of workers in any particular field, then wages will go down. That's not Marx's observation, btw, that's Adam Smith.
Presumably, this wage drop would be the precipitant or catalyst for the kind of revolution Marx envisioned.
I mean, I don't think its automatic. Presumably we could collectively find ourselves in a new corpo-feudalism, where the vast majority of people are serfs, for whom every decision from how much they get fed to how many children they can afford is directly tied to corporate profit margins. It sounds sci-fi dystopian, but its not that hard to imagine, or that different from your average company town in the age before big unions and workers reforms.and it doesn't have to be completely dystopic, maybe the company will spring for a football field or a park, or heavily subsidized internet pornography to keep people happy. But only a relatively few people will really thrive.
Presumably that's why so much of communism is built around outreach and organization and prosthelytizing because people needed to be aware of the alternatives way before that stage to have the best chance of determining a more optimal outcome.
Nah, Marx was far less insane than his average follower.
And in one sense he was very right--the prosperity brought from industrialization and capitalism inevitably brings calls for redistribution via political means. (Most industrialized countries do this via social democracy, not via Socialism, however.)