Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre
What exactly is Marxism?
I know that it's an ideology based on the relationship of economic structures and social evolution that highly criticizes capitalism for creating social hierarchies based on class.
But is there a better description I can be given or is this just too complicated of an ideology?
And why exactly is Marxism becoming a dirty word being fear mongered by the right? Is it because our society is starting to turn against the symptoms of capitalism's flaws and most politicians on the right directly benefit from that system or am I missing something?
Are the people on the left really as Marxist as people on the right try to scare us into thinking they are or are they just leaning on socialist ideas?
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Right-wingers don't like Marxism because they believe that attempts to implement it have killed more people than Capitalism, and also that it tends to fail at scale historically. So in that sense their fears are justified: income inequality as a consequence is better than nobody having anything at all. Doesn't mean such a system would never work, but that's the gist of it.
Secondly, all politicians (especially here in the West) benefit from capitalism. Bernie Sanders owns multiple homes and has a net worth way higher than the average person. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's father was a highly successful architect and she benefited greatly when she settled his estate after his death, plus she owned a publishing company for a few years before she ran for office. That's why their positions don't tend to gel well with the majority of independents who want the federal government to have less power in shaping people's lives rather than more.
As flawed as Capitalism can be, it has produced more success stories than not. There are plenty of untold stories out there of people who went to six-figure incomes or millionaires despite in a lot of cases coming from average or even low-income origins....a situation that would be impossible in any other economic system. And even if all you ever aspired to be was middle class, that's pretty feasible too:
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/t...-middle-class/
If someone wants to prove the benefits of a purely Marxist system, they need to go build a country above the pygmy village level and prove it works with populations that are comparable to the U.S.'s biggest cities.