this one drives me up walls omg.
how did they manage to demonize something thats so common sense.
Propaganda is a powerful drug
Genuinely, though. You describe democratic worker councils, large public programs, criticize Capitalism, even point out Imperialism, and everyone agrees with you and what you want, as long as you don’t call yourself a Marxist.
I see this a ton on Lemmy, if I describe what I want and how I want to get there, very few people openly disagree unless I add that this is Marxism. So, I’ve stopped trying to hide that these ideas are Marxist and instead focus on correcting misconceptions about Marxism, like thinking Communism would have no government because Marx used the word “stateless” when describing it, not realizing he meant things like Private Property Rights and other statist means of upholding Capitalism. Marx wasn’t an Anarchist nor did he want Anarchism.
The problem is, Marxism was created over 100 years ago. I bet Karl Marx wouldn’t agree to his own theorem for the world we live actually. It needs upgrades, and an other name and shouldn’t be set in comparison with the systems which tried to be marxism / communism.
Smaller steps would be a good start, why not take a closer look at Portugal? A left government recreate the whole state in just a few years and save the country from being bankrupt. This wasn’t Marxism, but it was a left wing party with really good ideas.
Marxism is a living, constantly evolving science, so it very much adapts with the times.
It’s best to think of Marx and Engels as the Newton of political science and sociology… did they get everything right, and should we treat their words as gospel? Of course not, but their central tenets and ideas stand, and they built a solid foundation for others to build on.
We can recommend a lot of works on how marxism has evolved as a science, and how modern marxists view class struggle in the 21st century.
You haven’t seriously engaged with Marx if you think the stuff he wrote isn’t still relevant.
Not meant as a diss, but please actually engage with his body of work before making this criticism.
What in Marxism do you think needs upgrades?
An ideology has to evolve over time in order to remain relevant to the generations that come and go from time to time. If you don’t do that, you will stagnate with a small group of people.
To gather more people, you have to find a common ground of the groups that are marginalized from society at that time, and you have to lead them to achieve that goal.
What in Marxism needs to be upgraded, specifically?
They should have a Marxist ideology that is friendly to a large part of the population or marginalized groups in order to achieve relevance.
Adapt new technologies to their ideology and not come into conflict.
Such as?