Marx was right.

@CdnCurmudgeon

Marx was right about almost everything and it's so depressing that everyone thinks of him as some evil guy when he really wasn't.

Did he have some bad views? Yes! A lot of those were a product of his time, but they were still kinda bad and don't need to be defended.
But those were in his letters, and maybe 1 or 2 minor essays he published. Doesn't make the rest of what he said bad.

@burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon Communist manifesto is shit too.
@livinghell @burnoutqueen
The Communist Manifesto has valid content, if you understand that Marx was writing >150 years ago and the world he describes has radically altered beyond anything Marx imagined. Still, there are valid statements and concerns in it, though, that are relevant to today's predatory capitalism.
@CdnCurmudgeon @burnoutqueen Productivism was always a misguided approach. With modern science we know just how suicidal it is. Concept of a historically progressive bourgeoisie is also worth reconsideration.
@burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon who TF thinks of Karl friggin Marx as an "evil guy"? (It's Americans, isn't it)
@silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon As an American, oh, yes, it's a lot of Americans. "Socialism" is an "evil" word to most Americans—even though they have no idea what socialism is and how they already benefit from our (currently extremely weak) social support systems here.

@elight @silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon

Many decades of dumbing down your education system is really paying off for the fascists...

@Walrus @silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon GenX here. We had Government class that taught us how things were supposed to work in this country. And, JFC, we are so far from that now.

@Walrus @silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon Like "checks and balances".

How do those even work?

Well, Little Joey, in 2025, the answer is that they don't!

@Walrus @silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon BTW, that's not performative for the internet. I actually talk like this.
@elight @silhouette @burnoutqueen @CdnCurmudgeon In that respect, it would be accurate to say that many (if not most) Americans are ignorant.
@elight @silhouette @burnoutqueen
In my long experience, most Americans (and few Canadians) understand what 'socialism' is, and have been taught to associate it with communism. Yet pensions, parks, libraries, public utilities, universal healthcare, environmental protection, air traffic controllers... they are all thanks to socialism.

@CdnCurmudgeon @silhouette @burnoutqueen That is, you mean that they have been taught to associate it with 'communism'. The negation in your first clause can easily be read to apply it to the second.

I agree on all counts. And it's frustrating.

@CdnCurmudgeon @silhouette @burnoutqueen pensions means "social security" here. And one party has been seeking to kill it since its inception.
@silhouette @burnoutqueen
Decades of the Soviets promoting Marxist-Leninist ideology created the false belief they two were alike, and only after the fall of the USSR was Marx able to be freed from that association. Now we can assess his views independently.
@CdnCurmudgeon capitalist nazi pigs, go fuck yourself.
@CdnCurmudgeon he was always right about the defects of capitalism. He just never outlined a suitable replacement
@PizzaDemon
Yes, Marx didn't foresee everything and his vision is deeply flawed in terms of practicality. But he was astutely aware that without limits to it, capitalism would mutate into a ravenous beast that turned on itself.
@CdnCurmudgeon Of course, it was said already a hundred years ago that then was ”late-stage capitalism”. Just saying.
@CdnCurmudgeon Literally the ultimate enshitification (as "enshitification" is entirely about profit at any cost at all, including customers and society).
@CdnCurmudgeon #alt4you White text quoted on a black background:
"The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx predicted, would be marked by global capital being unable to expand and generate profits at former levels. Capitalists would begin to consume the government along with the physical and social structures that sustained them. Democracy, social welfare, electoral participation, the common good and investment in public transportation, roads, bridges, utilities, industry, education, ecosystem protection and health care would be sacrificed to feed the mania for short-term profit. These assaults would destroy the host."
-Chris Hedges
@CdnCurmudgeon End-stage capitalism is fascism.