The Thought of, Critiques, Sources on Marx

[untermensche]

China made staggering progress after the Cultural Revolution by bringing in foreign investment, those dirty capitalists.

The Soviet union made incredible technical advancements.

They were the first to put a satellite and a man in space.

They could not keep up with an insane arms race though.

The US economy is based on constant war and an arms race.

It can't last forever.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

In the 70's, the Chinese Peoples army found itself short on money to run the Red Army. So it became capitalist, opening and running many businesses to stay operative. Since it was the armed forces and had the guns, there was no stopping that. Marxist communism was abandoned with gusto.

 

[untermensche]

There is not one way to "become capitalist".

But clearly there is no connection between democracy and capitalism.

China is proof of that.

 

[rousseau]

The Oxford Very Short Introduction to Marx is what I hand to interested students, it is a surprisingly effective summary. But then, I teach freshpersons, so...

Yea that's the sense I get, that Marx produced a lot of work which I probably don't have the motivation to parse in it's entirety. But then I'd definitely like to have a more complete understanding of what that thought is.

Already I have a sense of what I think is the most essential part of it. Property and business owners become wealthier at a faster pace than wage-earners, which means a 'capitalist' society tends toward inequality. (as an aside, I think this is apt, but I don't think it has anything to do with an economic system, and everything to do with material reality). So eventually wage earners need to rise up to take ownership of the means of production, resulting in the next stage of social evolution.

So that strikes me as the essential, or most important part, but it sounds like there is a mountain of thought surrounding this that I don't even have a vague notion of.

In any case, I'll throw the Oxford Very Short Introduction onto my Goodreads. Books like that do have a way of pulling out what's actually essential.