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7/14/2025, 8:27:08 PM
>>63982931
>I think it's because Marx really liked Utopian Socialism, which to the extent it works works on the small scale like Owenism.
Another anon pointed this out, but I don't think that's right. Marx was for big-scale stuff. Now, that doesn't contradict your main argument here, but Marx's whole theory was against "utopian socialist" things where you just go off inna woods and establish a commune with no money and everything is free. Marx was all about how capitalist industrialization on huge scale (global scale) eliminates peasants and small-scale producers for big industries and their mass work forces, and it's those guys who become the revolutionary army of the future. Didn't work out that way, but it was an extrapolation of trends he was seeing in the 19th century. But then you can see how China can rationalize what it's doing via Marxist language. After all, you need an industrial proletariat to have communism:
https://youtu.be/L7i1LY441Hs
This did have a lot of influence because the theory is located in actual material stuff in the world like factories and shit, not just saying "we need a revolution because capitalism is bad mmm'kay." You'll see a lot of self-described communists who are like that, though.
>One thought that's crossed my mind is the reform vs revolution argument ... I feel like that's a more valid argument in the 1920s
I think the main thing is that there's no reason to have one. Historical necessity. It was different in Syria, for example. If there's a sorta-Marxist insight that I have, it's that economic necessity does rule the day on the long axis. There are random events, choices, accidents, etc. but societies which lag economically will eventually reform or abolish their political / ideological "superstructures" if they're standing in the way for a different one that better enables the development of the productive forces. Otherwise they'll perish. But it doesn't automatically follow that any given society will pick socialism.
>I think it's because Marx really liked Utopian Socialism, which to the extent it works works on the small scale like Owenism.
Another anon pointed this out, but I don't think that's right. Marx was for big-scale stuff. Now, that doesn't contradict your main argument here, but Marx's whole theory was against "utopian socialist" things where you just go off inna woods and establish a commune with no money and everything is free. Marx was all about how capitalist industrialization on huge scale (global scale) eliminates peasants and small-scale producers for big industries and their mass work forces, and it's those guys who become the revolutionary army of the future. Didn't work out that way, but it was an extrapolation of trends he was seeing in the 19th century. But then you can see how China can rationalize what it's doing via Marxist language. After all, you need an industrial proletariat to have communism:
https://youtu.be/L7i1LY441Hs
This did have a lot of influence because the theory is located in actual material stuff in the world like factories and shit, not just saying "we need a revolution because capitalism is bad mmm'kay." You'll see a lot of self-described communists who are like that, though.
>One thought that's crossed my mind is the reform vs revolution argument ... I feel like that's a more valid argument in the 1920s
I think the main thing is that there's no reason to have one. Historical necessity. It was different in Syria, for example. If there's a sorta-Marxist insight that I have, it's that economic necessity does rule the day on the long axis. There are random events, choices, accidents, etc. but societies which lag economically will eventually reform or abolish their political / ideological "superstructures" if they're standing in the way for a different one that better enables the development of the productive forces. Otherwise they'll perish. But it doesn't automatically follow that any given society will pick socialism.
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