this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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Hum... The guy's call to fame was inventing the "dictatorship of the proletariat" thing and calling for people to create it.
And if you just study his ideas for the economic theory, it was mostly just flat wrong, and the good parts have already been extended into much more useful theories so you won't get anything from it.
The "dictatorship of the proletariat" is contrasted with the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" - the question is not of a literal dictatorship, but of which class holds political power. Marx, quite explicitly, did not advocate for a form of literal dictatorship, but for a workers' democracy, of which universal suffrage was a basic prerequisite (though insufficient on its own to make a workers' democracy).
Much of his criticism of capitalism remains true, cutting, and insightful to this day; furthermore, Marx is widely and with good cause considered one of the founders of modern academic sociology. His economic thought is generally not taken as dogma in serious economic academia, but there are also few that would deny that his thinking was radical and changed economic thought for the better, both in its own contributions and in the attempts of other thinkers to refute it.
As Marx once said, "If there is one thing that is certain, it is that I am not a Marxist." Marx did not claim to be a prophet. He claimed to be an academic, and history has vindicated him as a damn good one.
A fact that can't be stated enough. It was figurative and philosophical speech. Not a literal call to dictatorship as the D-students of history keep proclaiming. It was a call for the workers to rise up, not to empower a new vanguard bourgeoisie. And repeat the cycle of oppression. But to become ungovernable to all bourgeoisie. And only answer to themselves. To dictate their own terms.