Mark's had a lot of emotional ideas with almost no mathematical theories that could be proven or consistently relied upon. It's all "this feels like it should be right" and no calculations. He got a lot right about how people feel, but a lot wrong about how policy will accurately affect economies.
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
28 points (93.8% liked)
videos
22947 readers
101 users here now
Breadtube if it didn't suck.
Post videos you genuinely enjoy and want to share, duh. Celebrate the diversity of interests shared by chapochatters by posting a deep dive into Venetian kelp farming, I dunno. Also media criticism, bite-sized versions of left-wing theory, all the stuff you expected. But I am curious about that kelp farming thing now that you mentioned it.
Low effort / spam videos might be removed, especially weeb content.
There is a cytube that you can paste videos into and watch with whoever happens to be around. It's open submission unless there's something important to commandeer it with at the time.
A weekly watch party happens every Saturday (Sunday down under), with video nominations Saturday-Monday, voting Monday-Thursday. See the pin for whatever stage it's currently in.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Famously, Das Kapital starts with "dear diary, today i feel very sad and I wish I didn't feel sad. Kisses, Mark"
Good bait, but writing Mark's was a step too far. You flew too close to the sun, mate.
I see I failed here. Damn that autocorrect. But I will take the consequences of my failure. My shame is bitter. (Yes I'm talking out of my ass here, but not in my criticism of Marx) Give me a mathematical equation or economic law proposed by Marx. Not a stump speech, but something that uses math that can be proven or disproven.
For example, ROI on government investment (which includes tax cuts) can be calculated quite accurately. Anything under a 1.0 is a loss. The projected ROI can be checked with the final ROI and economists propose theories as to why it was incorrect using new mathematical models that then have to be proven or disproven. I don't remember seeing anything like that in Marx's work. His was all stump speech that evokes strong feelings of camaraderie and unification. But I am always open to learning. Provide me the math he proposed and its results (the accuracy of those predictions). Not just ideas.
I don't remember seeing anything like that in Marx's work
lol you haven't even opened capital, have you?
For fuck's sake read something other than the Manifesto.
Marx wrote 2 and a half volumes of what was at the time the most up to date state of classical economic theory, incorporating all of the previous theories of classical economy, and providing further real world scientific economic evidence (with what was available at the time) for theories that had been previously established. Literally, his economic proof for the labor theory of value is literally just providing concrete evidence for what was at the time Adam Smith's labor theory of value, responding to the emerging neo-classical liberal theorists that sought to obscure the insights of the foundational works of Smith and Ricardo, the neo-classicals have just convinced you that it was Marx's because Marx=bad/dangerous. Marx was literally the first person to do this kind of in-depth non-vibes based political-economic analysis and it is because of this he was recognized as a genius by others who didn't seek to obscure the economic relationship between labor and capital.
His activism and agitation was driven by his belief in the scientific progression of socialism, that capitalism can either progress towards socialism and empower and free the productive class or it will stagnate to barbarism and simply enrich the ownership class of whom the classical mechanisms of the market that drive production will break down into a monopoly and renters economy, stagnating production and growth, based on the very economic mechanisms that were first elucidated by Smith, and then expanded on by Ricardo and Marx.
this criticism "feels" like something someone who's never actually read Marx might think sounds right, but very quickly falls apart when you start reading Capital and realize that he's responding to liberal economists of his time with very specific critiques by working through their own economic logic, and yes, using real world examples to illustrate his points
maybe you're confused because you mistakenly believe Marx invented communism and wanted everyone to share the same toothbrush, when in reality the bulk of his economic writing is spent analyzing and critiquing the foundational assumptions of capitalist production and exchange