posted in Asklemmy

As a non communist, should i read the manifesto? (Plus other Marx and Engels stuff)

I am interested in politics, and even tho i am not a communist, i am interested in what can be learned from it and i also want to learn more about political ideologies as a whole, instead of speaking out of my ass whenever someone mentions communism and potentially say some bullshit. What do you think?

Edit: thanks for all the answers! I swear i read them all, i just don’t know how to answer to each of them, but thanks for all the recommendations!

Replying to @⁨curious_beetle@lemmy.ml⁩

The Communist Manifesto was satirical. Marx himself said he wasn’t a Marxist.

It is like Jonathan’s Swifts’ “A Modest Proposal”.

The entire system depends on building a one world government with the hopes that the dictator of the proletariat, once they gain world domination, will simply step down and destroy government once and for all.

The criticisms made of government were very valid, which led to movements.

Yes, you should read it, no question. Lots of great points.

But it isn’t a functional plan. Like, you would be asking for a cult to drive us to war to create the One Ring… and we don’t have a Frodo.

I mean, with the USSR, it just created a fantastic divide between the haves and have-nots, even worse than capitalism was doing.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

The entire system depends on building a one world government with the hopes that the dictator of the proletariat, once they gain world domination, will simply step down and destroy government once and for all.

The fact you have such a shallow understanding of the material as to have this be part of your takeaway of what Marxists advocate for while speaking with such unearned confidence truly boggles the mind. A worse grasp of the material than your average Chinese school child.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

Truly don’t understand why we went to Lemmy to get away from pointless internet warrior kids/idiots and bots,

I don’t know about you but I came to Lemmy because my friend recommended the communist side of it as an interesting place to practice English without the racial abuse of non self hating Chinese that is normalised on Reddit and RedditorLemmy.

When now we have pointless internet warrior kids accusing people of being bots.

Sorry to hear that but I did no such thing I simply found your comment to be far too wrong and completely divorced from the material at hand for how confidently you were saying it.

Do you have a fucking punching bag, because I am not it. Why write so much to literally say nothing? Is your life so bleak?

I think I said the main things that were on my mind when I saw your comment. Honestly I don’t even know where to begin to try explain this to you given that you didn’t seem to be able to grasp such a base concept as the difference between the state and government not toind the complete strawman invention of your mind of the one world government idea or complete lack of understanding of the USSR and it’s many achievements compared to where it actually had issues.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

Where are you from?

I invite you to take a guess given the obvious context clues.

I am only speaking to what the manifesto was proposing and nothing more.

You’re speaking to what you imagined it was proposing not at all what it actually proposed not to mind when you take into account the wider writings of both Marx and Engels (as is necessary to truly understand the pamphlet that the manifesto is) both consistently differentiate between the state as an instrument of class rule and what we would call the government as an institution providing a necessary function of administration in advanced societies.

While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-eminence over society itself, and restored to the responsible agents of society itself."

— The Civil War in France

State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It dies out.

— Anti Duhring

I am also certain that you can provide nothing to back up the one world government claim (unless you choose to cherry pick and misinterpret harder than an evangelical) as it is simply not a position that Marx Engels or even any later Marxists have ever advocated for.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

Really unnecessarily aggressive for not being able to piece together the blatantly obvious fact I’m Chinese. No wonder your understanding of Marx is so poor if you can’t even manage this. Also what wall of text? It’s a sentence, a short paragraph, and 2 quotes if that’s a wall of text in your eyes it again speaks to your reading capability (or more importantly lack there of) and really demystifies how you could arrive at the completely nonsensical “understanding” you did.

Replying to @⁨gualudengren@lemmy.ml⁩

Dude, tried to give this a second chance, but you fucks are just regurgitating AI while accusing me of doing the same, with no fucking point.

Spend all the money that you would inherit to pretend to be smart. Fuck all social media.

In reality, I am actually a rather nice guy, and I buy dinners for the homeless. But I am dealing with this brainless slop.

This was supposed to be a network that would protect against bots. And now we have meat puppets. Check out Lake of Fire!!! rofl

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

Dude, tried to give this a second chance, but you fucks are just regurgitating AI while accusing me of doing the same, with no fucking point.

Entirely untrue but if it makes you feel better about your self you can feel free to believe it. Also no one accused you of using ai? Are you hallucinating? You were accused of being arrogant, unintelligent and there was an implication of you being annasshole (which I feel is quite accurate given the crash out) nothing about ai that’s all you.

Spend all the money that you would inherit to pretend to be smart. Fuck all social media.

This is just a nonsense random non sequitur.

In reality, I am actually a rather nice guy, and I buy dinners for the homeless.

Hard to believe given you’ve been nothing but artogant and an asshole this entire time, but even if true so what? Do you want a standing ovation for doing the bare minimum of allegedly having human decency?

This was supposed to be a network that would protect against bots. And now we have meat puppets

More dehumanising nonsense fantasies so you can shield yourself from the fact that you are as unintelligent as you are arrogant.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

A few quick points:

  1. None of it was satirical.

  2. Marx claimed that he wasn’t a Marxist as a response to those of his time labeling themselves Marxists. He still developed what became Marxism as an ideology.

  3. The dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t one person, but the absolute rule of the entire working class itself over capitalists. It’s saying that workers run the world, not capitalists, ever again, and that when there are no capitalists all workers will simply be people, a classless society.

Replying to @⁨expletivedeleted@lemmy.zip⁩

I upvoted this comment because I couldn’t make a more ridiculous caricature of what liberals believe capitalism is if I tried. “Dictator of the proletariat” is such an absurd distortion of dictatorship of the proletariat. All the other stuff. Like, I can’t even be mad at how silly all the stuff you just said is.

R I P in penis, banned poster. You would have made a good pet.