this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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Frankly, I feel like I'm alone in this take, but I think people shouldn't spend so much attention basing their politics primarily on references to philosophers who died more than a century prior.
These are important figures for historical study, but we don't base our modern understanding about genetics on the work of Darwin and Mendel: we base these on the work of Watson, and Crick, and Franklin, and Margulis, and Sanger, and hundreds (or thousands) of people who carried the work forward since.
We still teach starting with the early folks to give context. But they aren't the basis for our beliefs.
This goes for Marxists AND anarchists (and everyone else): sell your ideas in the modern age.
Domenico Losurdo, Michael Parenti, Assata Shakur, J. Sakai, Frantz Fanon, Antonio Gramsci, Roland Boer, Jones Manoel, Mao ZeDong, Xi Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Cheng Enfu, Li Shenming, Wang Weiguang, Hou Huiqin, Zhang Weiwei, Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, Vijay Prashad, Gabriel Rockhill, Zak Cope, John Bellamy Foster etc.
Foundational theory also clearly still applies unlike much of early genetics work:
Marx’s theory of surplus value, the value produced by labor still exceeds the wages paid to workers, resulting in profit for capitalists.
Marx’s theory of class struggle society is still shaped by antagonistic class interests.
Marx and Engels’ theory of the state, the state still remains in place protecting class rule and property relations.
Lenin’s theory of imperialism, monopoly capital, finance capital, export of capital, sanctions, debt, unequal exchange, and spheres of influence are still central to the world system.
Marx’s theory of capitalist crisis, capitalism still produces recurring crises, unemployment, overproduction, austerity, and financial instability.
Engels’ argument in On Authority, revolution, large-scale production, war, and state power cannot be handled through pure spontaneity or anti-organizational moralism.
Marx and Engels’ theory of ideology, ruling-class ideas still dominate media, education, culture, academia, and “common sense.”
Lenin’s theory of organization, capitalism is organized, armed, global, and disciplined, so serious opposition to it also requires organization, strategy, and discipline.
And so on...
Marxism is not mainly a list of old opinions; it is a method for studying society, class power, exploitation, imperialism, ideology, and historical change. In that sense it is less like treating Darwin or Mendel as the final word on genetics, and more like still learning Newtonian mechanics in physics. Newton was not the final word, but you do not understand physics by skipping the foundations.
Also, most people do not actually have a meaningful grasp of the foundational works in the first place. They have half-remembered summaries, liberal caricatures, or internet slogans. And Marxism has not been “superseded” as capitalism’s core relations remain intact across much of the world: wage labour, surplus value extraction, class rule, imperialism, and crisis. Much of the foundation is still clearly very relevant.
I want to clarify my point. I'm definitely not dismissing the importance of these figures or the value of reading them.
What I'm saying is that I think people put too much emphasis on what their opinions were rather than just learning from their ideas and synthesizing them with the ideas of their contemporaries and intellectual progenitors.
To go back to my example, there's a meme among creationists that Charles Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his deathbed. It's baseless, but more importantly it's irrelevant. The value of his ideas are not dependent on what he believed. He's notable because he contributed to a framework on which we hang a larger understanding.
Similarly, I think Marx et. al. contributed ideas that are still very useful to our collective discourse. But their opinions are not prophesy, and I think people should focus more on the collective wisdom of the fields that they birthed rather than the specific opinions they personally held.
QinShiHuangsSchlong beat me to the punch, there are countless modern Marxists and Marxists since Lenin that have continued to apply the Marxist method to new eras and new conditions. Marxism-Leninism is referred to as an immortal science because it's based on an ever-adapting framework for understanding the world, dialectical materialism, which in all this time have proven adaptable and fundamentally correct. We may teach Marxism in a new way with new conditions as we discover new eras, but the baseline is still applicable and necessary.
Perhaps I didn't communicate this well, but that was kind of central to my point: the work they did has grown enough beyond their initial writings that we don't really need to fixate so much on the original texts.
For instance, I really liked China Mieville's "A Specter, Haunting". He kind of summarized The Communist Manifesto, and I thought it was more readable than the original. It was easier for me to engage with, and he placed it in modern context.
To put my point another way, I think we should focus more on the ideas rather than the thinkers.
I hear you, there's definitely merit in simplifying or trying to refresh older works if done well, the problem is how demonized Marxism is in the west and the fact that a lot of older works are still valid today. I like Red Sails because it combines the new with the old in an approachable way. Many older works are still valid, and being primary works means it's less likely to be misinterpreted.
There's also the importance of studying history, and the process of how ideas came to be. This part is especially critical, Marx, Lenin, etc. aren't brilliant because they were born that way and had great ideas beamed into their heads from nothing. They existed within definite circumstances, and this shaped the development of Marxism-Leninism. Returning to the classics, and drawing a steady line of development to today, is the only way to get a great idea of what's going on.
For example, if you see a snapshot of something, it's very hard to tell what will happen next without also knowing what led up to it. Take any screenshot from a random movie, and it's unlikely you can predict the next scene. Now watch the movie from the beginning, and you can usually predict the next few seconds, maybe even major plot points. You'll also likely be wrong on some theories, or need to adjust them. That's a microcosm of the Marxist method!