this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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In his book, he charts the course of human history and tries to predict where it will end up. He comes to the conclusion that a violent revolution will soon come to pass as the workers overthrow their bosses and start sharing resources.
"Soon come to pass" was 150 years ago, the Revolution hasn't happened. Marxist scholars since then have been recreating the letters between early Christians asking why He hadn't returned yet as promised and pushing the date of the Second Coming back.
In my opinion, Marx wrote his conclusion first, then cherry picked the points in history that supported his conclusion.
I can't fathom the arrogance of people who say "Marx just didn't think of x, y or z". He invariably did, and a quote is easily found to prove them wrong. Yet they continue to say this bollocks. "Marx didn't consider human nature, Marx didn't know about x obscure economic theory," on and on until the cows come home. Capital has 3 volumes, and each is thick and heavy enough to make a decent murder weapon. They are so long precisely because he did do the thinking you accuse him of not doing.
The one single thing we can legitimately say he didn't anticipate was the computer revolution, and it in fact only strengthens his theories, as digital technology has gone on to strengthen the hold of capital, and laid bare its incestuous relationship with the State.
Marx made mistakes though. For example, he assumed that the right of appropriating the whole product of a firm and control rights to direct the workers in the firm were attached to the ownership of capital. In reality, capital can be rented out just as labor can be hired. It is really the employer-employee contract that is at the core of capitalist appropriation. Ownership of capital just increases bargaining power to get favorable contract terms such as the employer contractual role
You just described Marx's theories, while claiming to correct them.
Wild.
Marx thought that control rights over the firm were attached to ownership of capital rather than being logically separately acquired in the employer-employee relationship.
"It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property." -- Marx