this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Genuinely, though. You describe democratic worker councils, large public programs, criticize Capitalism, even point out Imperialism, and everyone agrees with you and what you want, as long as you don't call yourself a Marxist.
I see this a ton on Lemmy, if I describe what I want and how I want to get there, very few people openly disagree unless I add that this is Marxism. So, I've stopped trying to hide that these ideas are Marxist and instead focus on correcting misconceptions about Marxism, like thinking Communism would have no government because Marx used the word "stateless" when describing it, not realizing he meant things like Private Property Rights and other statist means of upholding Capitalism. Marx wasn't an Anarchist nor did he want Anarchism.
The problem is, Marxism was created over 100 years ago. I bet Karl Marx wouldn't agree to his own theorem for the world we live actually. It needs upgrades, and an other name and shouldn't be set in comparison with the systems which tried to be marxism / communism.
Smaller steps would be a good start, why not take a closer look at Portugal? A left government recreate the whole state in just a few years and save the country from being bankrupt. This wasn't Marxism, but it was a left wing party with really good ideas.
What in Marxism do you think needs upgrades?
An ideology has to evolve over time in order to remain relevant to the generations that come and go from time to time. If you don't do that, you will stagnate with a small group of people.
To gather more people, you have to find a common ground of the groups that are marginalized from society at that time, and you have to lead them to achieve that goal.
What in Marxism needs to be upgraded, specifically?
They should have a Marxist ideology that is friendly to a large part of the population or marginalized groups in order to achieve relevance.
Adapt new technologies to their ideology and not come into conflict.
Such as?
The word 'Marxism' means five different things in five different fields. You'll need to be clearer about what exactly you feel should change.
From what I understand, the core ideas of Marxism - the ones about epistemiology, metaphysics, sociology and history - are more or less universally accepted in those fields (to the point that a student of, say, history may learn Marx's theories as revealed truth, without even questioning them). His writings on economics are controversial, but again the core of it has remained largely unchanged.
Also, Marx thought of sociology, economics and so on as sciences, meaning that a theory is either right or wrong (or partially right). How many people believe in them has no effect on their truth value. So I don't get what you mean by an 'ideology that is friendly to a large part of the population or marginalized groups'.