Can anybody explain what marxism is?

Question

i tried reading up on it but got confused, can anyone explain it to me?

Answer 1

okay...

instead of marxism lets use the word 'communism'

that better explains it.

what does 'communism' mean?

what are the things that come to your mind?

its like..one for all and all for one...

it talks about equality for all humans rather than a society based on competition.

its also about the rights of the working class... the poor.

communism / marxism is against the classes in the society.... like poor, middle class and the rich, its an ideology which believes everybody should be equal economically with no one exploiting anyone or no one getting exploited in the society.

that was in brief.

its a fantastic ideology... but hasn't really worked...

it has worked in China to a great extent but after severe compromises of human rights.

hope this helped. you can read more online.

edit :

jeez guys.. she's asking for a simple explanation! lol.

Answer 2

Marxism believes that social justice is achieved with social equality.  To achieve social equality we must eliminate property rights, especially property intended as a means of production.  If the means of production, tools, energy, machinery, land, etc. are in owned by a collective power (a government) that manages production and consumption of the society (economy), then a doctor, a scientist and a bricklayer would earn the same amount of money, would meet EQUALLY their needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc. and there would be a classless society - no poor, no rich people.

This, of course, is the general utopian idea of Communism.  In order to achieve such society, the individual's desire to make use of his own mind to improve HIS life above that of anybody else become the worst form of immorality.  Ideally, in Communism, is one for everybody else and everybody for one.  This means no one should enjoy a standard of living higher than anyone else in the same society.  If someone cannot have a car, no one should have it either; if all we can have is a blue overall and a bicycle, that's what everybody should be happy to have.

The collectivist philosophy which places society's rights as a higher priority than individual rights, dictates the rules for how an individual must conform to society's needs rather than his own.  Collectivism holds the exact opposite principles of individualism, upon which individual inalienable rights to life, property and liberty to pursue one's happiness are founded.    

Since existence does not provide equally and automatically for the satisfaction of human needs, the attempt to force some individuals to produce for others and receive no benefit for themselves, as the practice of Communism teaches, creates another form of injustice.  Here, the more able and intelligent members of society are prevented from enjoying the production of their extra efforts, while the more incompetent and dependent members of society benefit from what others have produced.  The system rewards the incompetent and punishes the competent.

For this reason, even by using force and dictatorship, no society can actually develop if based on the absolute principle of collective equality, since individuals are the motors of society and if they have no incentive to produce for themselves they will choose incompetence and laziness over hard work and productivity.

Answer 3

Lenin, in his "Philosophical Notebooks," stated that for 50 years previously so-called "Marxists" had not understood Marxism.

Marx famously stated, referring to some French Marxists, that if they were Marxists, he was not a Marxist.

Basically, "marxism" is any critique, or kvetch (depending on how accurate and/or psychologistic it is), of any perceived injustice.

The axes of analysis are typically of the political (power), economic (wealth), and human spirit (soul or psyche).

Marx stated his particular kvetch or historical analysis was not to be taken as the model for any future kvetch.

Some particular points re K Marx' kvetch:

1.  He made a basic error of logic, when claiming "God is not."  This claim is logically impossible to support, as it claims to prove a universal negation.  To do so, the claimer herself must be Omniscient and Omnipresent, aka God Herself.

2.  His basic motif is Hegel's:  power corrupts, and master-slave relations develop.  However, while Hegel claimed Spirit as part of History, a claim that can be argued, Marx erred by claiming "No Spirit is."  This is the reductivist error mentioned in "1."

3.  In place of God, Marx postulated Matter as Evolutionary Force inevitably leading toward mankind.  This is an error of reification, as physics has tended to confirm that "matter" is a geometric form of energy, that matter is finely structured, and that many possible forms of universal matter would not support biological life.

4.  Marx erred in assuming a "golden age" of man, in which humans were noble savages, without capitalism-quirks.  In point of anthropological fact, early humans have repeatedly been shown to have behaved ignobly, i.e., like plutocrats without the benefit of large bank balances.

5.  Marx failed to understand that interchangability of labor is less productive and even less satisfying than specialization.  Henry Ford trumps Karl Marx in this key area.

6.  Karl's mother has the last word:  "Karl should have made capital, not written it."

As for current popular kvetches:  "The True Story of the Bilderberg Group," Daniel Estulin,

"Hope of the Wicked," Ted Flynn,

"Marx and Satan," Richard Wurmbrand,

and "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," John Perkins.

Answer 4

Marxism is a collection of social and economic theories. It deals with the idea of value and the evolution of economic systems through time. As such, it predicts that certain political and economic changes should almost inevitably occur. It in itself is not really a political system.

The socio-economic system that Marx predicted would arise after capitalism is called socialism. In each previous revolution an obstacle to a workers' realizing the profits of his own labours was removed. The pronounced one remaining in capitalism is capital - the expensive tools needed to perform work efficiently. In a socialist system, instead of being privately owned, all the capital would be collectively owned by the workers or society at large. We already see manifestations of this in national disaster insurance, government police and fire services, and so on.

Marx also throught that once a more advanced system manifested it would make all the older systems obsolete. There aren't really too many authentic feudal or slave states any more, after all... where capitalism penetrates these older systems are washed away. Historically, the few countries that tried to speed this evolution along, adopt a socialist system, and set the world on fire with an economic revolution were a bit upset when the revolution never really happened.

Whether this is an invalidation of Marxism, a demonstration that those revolutionary states were actually more fascist than socialist, or simply shows that more time is needed is a matter of much protracted debate.