At this point, the burden of proof is on the theory to show merit. It's a bit like Extreme Programming in that regard---looks great on paper, but how many times does it get to fall short of its promises before people stop blaming the implementers for "holding it wrong" and start talking seriously about the flaws in the originating theory?
Perhaps also like XP, however, pieces of it do seem worthwhile and are bearing fruit in the nations that have adopted them.
The question of Marx's meaning and intentions, what does or does not flow from his critique, the idea of revolution, the issue of Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin and Mao are all very much actively discussed today. At the same time, there is a distinct, perhaps irreconcilable, difference of opinion between the liberals who treat property as part of an individual, or an extension of him, and the tradition since Marx which does not take this for granted at all.
As for the two attempts to implement Marxism (assuming you're speaking of Russia and China here)... in Russia, you can't separate it from Leninism and Stalinism. Is Marxism the problem, or the authoritarian government?
China is more interesting. China is still ostensibly a Marxist nation, right? Per World Bank data I just looked up, China's per capita GDP (in constant US dollars) was lowest in 1962, at $71.91. That's per year. In 2017, it's $8826.99. Constant dollars, mind you. That's 123 times more.
I have a hard time calling that a failure of any sort.
There hasn't been large-scale political violence in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. That ten-year period killed 5-10 million on the high end. Which is, of course, quite bad, but in comparison to the 50-80M that died in ostensibly capitalist Europe during WWII, it doesn't seem that outsized.
So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.
> So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.
The Communist China's Great Famine[0] is said to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, as much as 30-40M, depending on who is guesstimating.
I am not sure I would call that a triumph of economic prosperity for China.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164732497/a-grim-chronicle-of...
So blaming it on communism seems a little off to me. Matter of fact, one could easily argue that communist revolution is a consequence of capitalist failure, not a cause of failure on its own.
I meant to instead do what you seem to be doing - pointing out a bit of economic turmoil that lead to great loss of life. Mine just happened to be accounting for on the side of the ledger labeled "Communism".
Does it make the Great Famine any less an economic blow to Communist China that there are also historical examples of large famines in capitalist societies?
I'm not sure it does.
For example, Bertrand Russell only 3 years after the revolution (thus 1920):
In a capitalist state, the Government and the capitalists on the whole hang together, and form one class; in Soviet Russia, the Government has absorbed the capitalist mentality together with the governmental, and the fusion has given increased strength to the upper class. But I see no reason whatever to expect equality or freedom to result from such a system, except reasons derived from a false psychology and a mistaken analysis of the sources of political power.
I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire.
I think we ignore him and his work (in favor of sound bites from supporters and detractors) at our peril. There is enough to be critical of in what he said, we don't need to rub out his name over what Badiou called the 20th c. experiments.
e: Oh shit I just realized who I'm replying to. Serious answer time. Socialism will be a disruptive new paradigm for start-ups and other businesses where (following the idea of a meritocracy) workers, and not stuffy old capitalists, each own an equal number of shares at their place of work. And even more innovative in structure than Zappos and Valve, it allows for capital investment decisions to be voted on by individual contributors, throwing away traditional management structures you see at crufty old firms. Pretty cool stuff! According to some dusty old theories it's the "Exit Strategy" for our largest firms.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90223130/how-elizabeth-warrens-a...
dang is the HN admin, lead moderator, or whatever the official title is.
> If you are banned, I'd take it as a badge of honor.
Some people would rather continue to participate then accumulate honor badges.
And let's not even talk about whatever rebranding of Marx is used as a strawman these days, like this "cultural marxism" dog whistle I hear 10 times a day and I can't be bothered to figure out what that's even supposed to mean anymore. Actually I just tried to search the term and the first result was an entry on "urban dictionary" which goes like:
>An umbrella term for identity politics, affirmative action, feminism, radical LGBT activism, Islam apologetics, white privilege, political correctness... Basically the SJW ideology.
I think I missed that part in Das Kapital...
So there -- not only the phrase makes perfect sense if you do read Gramsci like I have, it's been uttered by Marxist professors somewhere in the world sometime this century.
He contributed a great challenge to economics with his ideas, having to work towards rebuttal and debunking of his simple, yet appealing models.
It seems to be standing academic scrutiny today, at least, it is debated to be. Kliman's[0] Temporal Single System Interpretation of Marx, upheld by Alan Freeman, David Laibman and Guglielmo Carchedi is one example which also attempts to solve for the transformation problem. On the other hand, Paul Cockshott has written on the empirical validity from the opposite pole[4] (note, one which Kliman rejects). Anwar Shaikh takes up what (I believe to be, my memory is rusty) a neo-Ricardian approach to the empirical strength of Marx's theory of value[8]. With regard to Marx's falling rate of profit, Okishio's Fundamental Marxian Theorem is currently upheld by Dong-Min Rieu (in several interpretations)[10]. Recent work has also been done on the empirical validity of the TRPF using actual econometric data[9]. Marx's theory of exploitation is currently upheld by John Roemer, Roberto Veneziani and Naoki Yoshihara[1]. Marx's "third thing" proof is currently upheld by James Furner[2]. The interpretation of the labour theory of value in the causal-explanatory mode is discussed since Steven Fleetwood[3]. The Sraffian criticism of Marx is also very much discussed[5][6][7]. There is also, of course, the Neue Marx-Lektur school which takes the sociological and cultural approach to the theory of value, the relatively new idea of the "value theory of labour", and the philosophical reading of capital such that price and value are different levels of abstraction and thus irreconcilable.
My point is that to say Marx was "wrong, really wrong" does not do justice to the fact that he was wrong on some counts and right on other counts, and your dismissal is much too heavy handed to dismiss much of the work and debate done in political economy.
[0] "Two Concepts of Value, Two Rates of Profit, Two Laws of Motion," Research in Political Economy 18, 243–67
[1] http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/~yosihara/Reexamination_of_the_Ma...
[2] Furner, James (2004) 'Marx's critique of Samuel Bailey', Historical Materialism 12(2)
[3] Fleetwood, S. (2001) 'What kind of theory is Marx's labour theory of value? A critical realist inquiry', Capital & Class 73
[4] http://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/eea97.pdf
[5] Freeman, Alan, (2002), Marx After Marx After Sraffa, MPRA Paper, University Library of Munich, Germany.
[6] http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ecn265/value.pdf
[7] Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. (1981): “Structure and ractice in the Labor Theory of Value,” Review of Radical Political Economics 12,pp.1-26.
[8] "The Empirical Strength of the Labor Theory of Value" in Conference Proceedings of Marxian Economics: A Centenary Appraisal, Riccardo Bellofiore (ed.), Macmillan, London.
[9] Basu, Deepankar and Manolakos, Panayiotis T., "Is There a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall? Econometric Evidence for the U.S. Economy, 1948-2007" (2010). Economics Department Working Paper Series. 99.
[10] Rieu, D.-M. (2009). Interpretations of Marxian Value Theory in Terms of the Fundamental Marxian Theorem. Review of Radical Political Economics, 41(2), 216–226.
Nowadays, it's sort of a generic derogatory epithet by the right for anything that they disagree with that can't be ascribed directly (even in a very loose view) to actual economic Marxism, because everything bad must have “Marxism” stamped on it somewhere.
Marx isn't responsible for cultural Marxists, Nietzsche isn't responsible for Nazis and Darwin isn't responsible for social Darwinists.
Implementations of Leninism did, sure, but (deliberate mislabeling aside), I'm not sure what that has to do with Marc, since Leninism rejected the preconditions Marx laid out and altered the approach to address the changed preconditions.
Leninism is farther from Marxism than the near-universal abandonment of the system Marx named “capitalism” for modern mixed economies (which, to be sure, is still pretty far from Marxism), so if you are going to blame Marx at all for the failure of the former, you have to credit him at least as much for the success of the latter.