Questions tagged [marxism]
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Might Marx's argument in Das Kapital be less about justice and exploitation than it is about disenfranchisment?
Might Marx's argument in Das Kapital be less about justice and exploitation than it is about disenfranchisment? I specifically mean his analysis of work, the falling rate of profit, and movement of '...
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65 views
Are Marx's crises of capitalism essentially crises for the working class?
Are Marx's crises of capitalism essentially crises for the working class?
It is well known that Marx predicted increased immiseration of the working class relative to the bourgeoisie, and that crises,...
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0answers
48 views
What is the strongest link made in the philosophical literature between privacy and civil liberties?
What is the strongest link made in the philosophical literature between privacy and civil liberties? In particular, an analysis which eschews 'democracy', or separates out democracy from 'civil ...
2
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1answer
67 views
What does Marx mean by “the real will of the cooperative”?
This is an extract from A Darwinian Left by Peter Singer:
Marx: Under collective property, the so-called will of
the people disappears in order to make way for the real
will of the cooperative.
...
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1answer
80 views
Would a “Classless society” be better than the present society? [closed]
In today's era many countries have 'Marxist' political parties, and their purpose is a "classless society".
Can a classless society be possible, can it run successfully run?
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1answer
162 views
What does Machiavelli say about friends of my enemies?
What does Machiavelli say about friends of my enemies? I read the Prince, and some continental stuff relating it to Marxism, such as Specters of Marx. The former mostly seemed like practical, in some ...
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2answers
111 views
Marxism - primary contradiction of capitalism
After writing a long post, i decided to keep only the summary :
I understand that in the marxist framework a mode of production is constituted by :
the relations of production
the productive forces
...
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0answers
24 views
Has anyone analyzed the possibility or impossibility of communism as an aporia?
I've read Aporias, and Spectres of Marx, and don't recall this exact question coming up, though I understand that some left leaning philosophers are working in a deconstructive tradition.
Has anyone ...
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1answer
192 views
What does Marx mean in the quote from the bible?
The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry
from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself
before it has stripped away all superstition about the ...
2
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1answer
43 views
How does commodity fetishism appear to individuals?
It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves
which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between
things
Das Kapital.
I remember that fetishism ...
2
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3answers
147 views
Marx and teleology : what has happened, what will happen, or what could happen?
In Marxism the idea of history being a process with determinable characteristics is raised. History here being the relations of economic life and social reproduction, and the cultures they give rise ...
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9answers
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How are workers exploited when they have a choice in working for a boss?
Under Marxist theory, workers are being exploited for their labor and not receiving the full value of their labor. Workers however have a choice in who they work for and how much they earn so how can ...
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2answers
123 views
Are there philosophers working with the idea of language being ideological?
Are there philosophers working with the idea of language being ideological? If so, who, what specifically are their research interests, and what studies into it are available?
By 'ideology' I suppose ...
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1answer
166 views
Did 20th-century Marxists acknowledge that the “social science” predictions of Marxism were wrong?
In this video, starting at 5:36, Stephen Hicks claims that there are three central "social science" Marxist predictions, which I would sum up as follows:
Over time, in any capitalist society,
The ...
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4answers
7k views
Does the no true Scotsman fallacy apply to anti Stalinist etc. communism?
The internet is awash with claims that anyone arguing that Stalinist Russia / Maoism wasn't communist is committing the no true Scotsman / ad hoc rescue fallacy. However, I suspect that few of its ...
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2answers
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Is Marxism akin to science fiction or soothsaying prophecy? [closed]
Reading a bit about Marxism (from second hand sources) and it is saying in any society A will happen then B will happen and so on.
So was Marx a futurist much like Asimov. Asimov wrote a lot about ...
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2answers
81 views
Is the folliowing tu quoque a reasonable argument?
Is the following tu quo que a reasonable argument?
Don't be a communist, you saw what happened in Russia
Reply:
And the slave trade was run by capitalists.
I'm not even sure if the reply is true, ...
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3answers
218 views
Was early Christianity the Communism of its day? [closed]
I have been watching a lot of documentaries on Vietnam, Russia and Marxism, and Religion debates here and there. I've come to a conclusion but I am not sure if it is true.
It seems to me that ...
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1answer
192 views
Who Are the Most Prominent Modern Socialist Thinkers?
Who Are The Ten Most Prominent Modern Socialist Thinkers? (Big Tent: Social Democrats, Socialists, Communists, etc. are all acceptable).
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4answers
413 views
How can land and natural resources become “private property”?
I’ve been trying to understand how an anarchic society would be initiated, but the two main ideas- anarcho-communism and anarcho-capitalism- not only contradict each other, but seem to be riddled with ...
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1answer
468 views
Why is Slavoj Zizek considered a Marxist?
Not that I have read any of his books but I've watched the documentary and several of his magazine articles and he totally seems like a centrist. On some subjects (like Islam/immigration) maybe even ...
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1answer
96 views
Do we need principles about every ethical decision / dilemma we have?
Do we need principles about every ethical decision / dilemma we have? I'm interested in an answer from any of the major ethical standpoint.
And even ones inclusive to Marxism, either Marx's wish to ...
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5answers
427 views
Is there a philosophical basis for the conflation of the cultural left and the economic/fiscal left?
In the U.S and most of the West, the cultural left (used loosely to include movements like feminism, secularism, being pro-diversity and pro minority-rights, the LGBTQ movement, being pro-immigration, ...
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5answers
848 views
Would an universal basic income eliminate exploitation (a la Marx) in capitalism?
Marx's argument in the theory of exploitation is that capitalists do not need to sell their labour power in the market in order to live, whereas workers need to do so. As such, workers are not really "...
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1answer
304 views
Adorno and identity politics
People on the political right like to throw around the phrase "cultural Marxism" as a label for identity politics, feminism, intersectionality etc. Evidently its a reference to the Frankfurt school, ...
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1answer
170 views
Was Communism meant to be a telos, for Marx, or for Lenin etc.?
Was Communism meant to be a telos, for Marx, or for Lenin etc.? By that, I mean to ask whether Communism is already contained in anything that creates Communism? My apologies if my jargon is off, I ...
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0answers
183 views
Can the capitalist class realise they are alienated?
I was taught that even the most self interested bourgeois is alienated, I think due to having to continually invest capital in competition with other capitalists. As so called state capitalism seems ...
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2answers
494 views
Do Deleuze and Baudrillard really advocate extracting capitalism's “subversive energy”?
I'm reading Forget Foucault by Baudrillard, or starting to, anyway. Still in Sylvere Lotringer's introduction. He claims that, after the failure of the '68 revolution in France, thinkers like Deleuze ...
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3answers
234 views
Do any Marxists write about Ulysses' “nightmare of history”
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake
Usually, it seems, associated with the artistic career of Joyce. But yes, it does sound like rich pickings for an aestheticising Marxist.
Do ...
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3answers
126 views
Could a Marxist claim that interpreting the world is all that a Marxist vanguard can do (but that the working class can still change it)? [closed]
Could a Marxist claim that interpreting the world is all that a Marxist vanguard can do, but that the working class can still change it? Marx, quite famously, said that
philosophers have only ...
1
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1answer
141 views
What did Karl Marx mean by “revolutionary combination due to association”?
In "The Communist Manifesto", it is said that:
"The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by the ...
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2answers
101 views
Could Zen have a chance to “transform” ( aka outbreak ) the Western logos oriented thoughts?
This Saturday I will have a chance to meet someone whose father is a Zen Buddhist.
Personal things aside, along with learning Zen, I have found out the similarity that Zen, one of whose main methods, ...
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4answers
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What is the value of the individual in Marx's writing?
Very obviously, Marx put emphasis on changes to, and the value of, society. But in his writing is he doing away with the value of the individual? Or does it simply go without saying, that individuals ...
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1answer
320 views
What is Benjamin saying in thesis VI in On the Concept of History?
What is Benjamin saying in thesis VI in On the Concept of History?
I quote it in full from here, having annotated the key points I'm struggling with in bold
To articulate what is past does not ...
2
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1answer
208 views
Can the communist revolution be blamed for the violence of the USSR? [closed]
Can the communist revolution be blamed for the violence of the USSR?
Obviously communists claim that there was a "counter-revolution", so for the sake of the question, let's assume that Communism is ...
6
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1answer
234 views
What's the difference between the “hermeneutics of suspicion” and conspiracy theory?
The term "conspiracy theory" was invented by Karl Popper as a way to describe Marxist theories of history as a collusion of the bourgeoise class against the working class. So, as far as I can tell, ...
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0answers
85 views
Is Althusser's Marxism a degenerating research program?
His essay "Marxism and Humanism" is a strong statement of
anti-humanism in Marxist theory, condemning ideas like "human
potential" and "species-being", which are often put forth by Marxists,
as ...
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1answer
96 views
Is every mistake or reactionary form of Marxism “substitutionalist”?
Substitutionism is a term in Marxist theory which refers to the
relationship between the revolutionary party and the working class,
where the former's activity substitutes the latter's. It is seen ...
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2answers
71 views
Are there forms of capital which are not overtly economic?
Are there forms of capital which are not overtly economic, e.g. political capital? Especially, in what ways is capialism reproduced besides the investment of money into means of production, to extract ...
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1answer
133 views
How do Marxists explain the failures of the working movement?
How do Marxists explain the failures of the working movement? I don't so much mean the counter revolution in Russia, but the lack of an international working class movement, especially one which ...
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2answers
691 views
Why is Marxism (not) historicist?
I have been reading bits and pieces on historicism, mostly from Wikipedia and other online publications. In my understanding, it is an ideological evaluation model which emphasizes the context in ...
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0answers
67 views
If history repeats as farce, then how can Nietzsche's madman prove the truth?
I keep wondering what "farce" really amounts to, in class terms, for Marx, rather than individual. On this question, there was the following comment
But, if we look at more class based movements, ...
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2answers
105 views
Is large scale strike action an essential element of Marxism?
Is large scale strike action an essential element of Marxism?
I'm asking because something significant and unforeseen has to occur, I think, to make that at all possible.
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3answers
2k views
Who are the most prominent post-Marx thinkers within Marxism?
I'm becoming more interested in Marxism, and the ensuing economies that attempted to use Marxist thought. What I wonder is, which post-Marx, modern thinkers have most successfully built on Marxist ...
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0answers
225 views
What's a good translation for “De” in Dao De Jing?
The Dao De Jing is a classic about how Nature operates (or doesn't operate) to achieve its ever-evolving marvels.
Jing here means a classic book. Dao is the Way, the "first cause": to me a fancy name ...
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2answers
316 views
Guy Debord - society of spectacle - thesis 3
I'm reading the book by Guy Debord, "society of spectacle". I think it's quite known, but it's difficult to read!
In thesis number 3, he talks about a so called process of "unification". Can someone ...
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1answer
128 views
Is Nietzsche's thought primarily a solution on how to classify people?
I was just now doing some super light reading on Nietzsche's aristocraticism. Seems to me that a lot of human history, both intellectual and social, is an attempt to create a stronger class system. ...
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What other defects did Marx think there was to hitherto existing metarialism?
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of
Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is
conceived only in the form of the object
Does Marx allege any ...
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4answers
1k views
What did Marx mean by “revolutionary terror”?
there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old
society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be
shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is ...
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2answers
1k views
Was Marx an existentialist?
Obviously someone like Marcuse is often lumped under both 'Marxism' and 'existentialism'.
What about Marx?
I ask myself a lot how there can be any meaning to life when death is inevitable and ...
