I had a journey

imAadesh@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 1370 points –

Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

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I honestly don't even know what a Marxist is.

Dont worry about it, neither do the people who accuse you of it.

Karl Marx was a philosopher and economist. He wanted to understand class relations and social conflict, so he developed theories to explain why things are the way they are. A Marxist uses Marx's theories to understand why the world is the way it is.

Marx had a lot of theories, such as historical materialism - that all history was primarily motivated by socio-economic forces, not supernatural forces or grand conspiracy. Marx wrote that the dominate socio-economic system running the world in his time was capitalism/imperialism which fueled capital accumulation through exploitation and alienation, and used technology to further this process with imperialist wars for resources etc... He also focused on class struggle between those with the most resources, and those with the fewest resources - the bourgeoisie (capitalists) vs. the proletariat (workers/peasants).

Marx went further than trying to explain why the world is the way it is, he also theorized on how humanity could replace the dominate socio-economic system, and what a non-exploitative non-alienating socio-economic system might look like. "Marxist" refers to anyone who believes Marx's theories are valid and uses them to understand the way things are.

Marxism is the classical version of communism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As opposed to later ideologies such as Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

No, marxism is a lense through which to analyze capitalism. It isnt communist by itself, although marx was a communist.

It’s both, criticism of capitalism and the inevitability of the communist revolution were part of the same philosophy. I suppose you could make an argument that a non-communist dialectical materialist is also a Marxist, though I’ve never seen it used that way in practice.

suppose you could make an argument that a non-communist dialectical materialist is also a Marxist

That's my argument

though I’ve never seen it used that way in practice.

Sometimes capitalists spout marxist shit and it is recorded. Marxist capitalists are the worst because they have an understanding of the contradictions their counterparts dont. More commonly there are non communist Marxists in philosophy.

I agree that almost all Marxists are communists, I just felt your initial response was a simplification that lost more meaning in the simplification than it necessarily needed to.

I only got my undergrad in philosophy so I’d certainly defer to someone with more experience in the field, but I’ve only ever heard the term with regards to his economic theories.

:gulp:

I have no formal training in philosophy maybe I need to read less philosophy if philosophy undergrads aren't being exposed to it

Nah, undergrads read almost zero Marxist literature, almost 100% from Marx and just a tiny bit from Engels. The rest is memory-holed from history.

I think Marxism is functionally but not technically inherently communist on the grounds that it avoids discussion of moral values and things like that.

I'd argue you're just describing vulgar idealist(as opposed to materialism, not cynicism) philosophy.

Remember idealist/materialist in a philosophical context is, in its most common use, a metaphysical distinction. Marx's use of "idealism" is based on this but isn't the same.

But an important element of Marxism is that it ascribes strategy based on a) class position and b) conflict-aversion. If you are a prole or you just want to play it safe, even as a member of the bourgeoisie, it tells you that socialism is the best way to accomplish that goal, but it's by the same framework that it can give a capitalist insight on how to practice capitalism with still-more-brutal efficiency if that is what they want.

Isn't it extremely common to accept only some of a person's ideas? Most modern historians and sociologists would agree that history is mostly driven by material forces rather than by 'great men' or supernatural forces. Doesn't mean they have to be communists.

It is not "the classical version of communism", that would be the Utopian or anarchist ideas and projects that preceded it. Marxism is a class of ideology that has historically and still does have the greatest weight in geopolitical importance, starting with "classical Marxism", a now-dead ideology, and its many successors, like you list.