Understanding Marxism: From Each According to His Ability…
Private property, wage labor, competition, and profits — under Karl Marx’s world view, these would have to go. Instead of self-interest, everybody would work for the benefit of everybody else. For many, this is a very seductive idea. Is this the dream we should aspire to? Or would it be a nightmare?
C. Bradley Thomspon is the author of “The Redneck Intellectual” on Substack, and America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It.
#marxism #prageru #history #karlmarx
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Script:
In a remarkably short period of time, the philosophy of Karl Marx changed the course of history.
At the height of its power, half the world fell under its dominion, kept there by a combination of fear, terror, and brute force.
Then suddenly in the late 1980’s, it imploded.
By all rights this should have been the end of Marxism. But it hasn’t turned out that way.
From environmentalism with its rejection of free markets to Critical Race Theory which sees white patriarchy as the source of all evil, you’ll find Marxism at its root. The leaders of Black Lives Matter, for example, openly acknowledge their devotion to Marxist ideology.
How do we explain this fascination for something that has so utterly failed everywhere it’s been put into practice?
We can find answers in one of Marx’s most enduring epigrams.
“From Each According to his Ability, to Each According to his Needs.”
Marx was a poor economist, but a talented journalist, the only actual job he ever had. He knew how to turn a phrase. But what does this slogan mean? According to what ability? According to what need? And who determines anyone’s ability or anyone’s need?
Marx never bothered to answer these obvious questions. He had much bigger things on his mind: nothing less than the creation of an entirely new kind of world for an entirely new kind of human being.
Marx believed that by altering man’s economic and political institutions, he could alter — or even better — rewire the human brain; he could conjure a new consciousness that would replace the old “false” one. This new man would be less selfish and acquisitive and more altruistic and communal. In short, he would be a superior type of man.
Of course, this new man could only reach this goal if he wasn’t preoccupied with having to earn money. According to Marx, money and the pursuit of it ruined everything. Marx hated money – maybe because he never found a way to make it. Getting rid of it was central to his world view. Once a person’s subsistence — one’s daily bread — was distributed on the basis of need rather than greed, man’s natural communal affections — long suppressed by his capitalist overlords — would be renewed.
This is Marx channeling the 18th century French social thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the few people Marx admired. According to Rousseau, this is what you must do if you want to create a new society.
“He who dares to undertake the making of a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing…human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which . . . the individual receives his life and his being…”
Understand this and you understand not only a key feature of Marxist thought, but the dark history of the twentieth century.
Marx took Rousseau literally: human nature had to be returned to its allegedly pure, selfless state before capitalism, with its Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values, “corrupted” him.
But creating this “new man” would be a formidable task. Marx anticipated that many would object, especially the owners and managers that had a large stake in the capitalist system. Friendly persuasion wasn’t going to get the job done. Only the ruthless application of State power would be up to the task.
Marx was all for it.
Private property, wage labor, competition, and profits — these would have to go. The State, now run by the workers themselves — The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, as Marx called it — would control production and pricing. It would wisely manage the economy: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
And imagine how wonderful it would be — no more ego, no more self-interest; instead, everybody working for the benefit of everybody else. Peace. Love. Harmony.
For the complete script, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/understanding-marxism-from-each-according-to-his-ability
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I rather being oppressed by 'Free Market Society' than being oppressed by 'Ruling Elite of Socialists'. At least I have full freedom of choice, freedom to speech and freedom to seek opportunity to grow myself instead of stuck at Totalitarian System with full of misery, terror, coercion, starvation and scarcity of basic goods and services supply
Tyrant Environmentalist, Fascist Feminist, Snowflake Vegan, Socialist BLM, Filthy Woke LGBTQA+ activist, Communist 'Tax the rich' activist, Communist 'democratic socialism' activist
All of those dystopian movement have exactly same inner core ideological construction : "Marxism" And guess who Marx is? Yes a 'parasit' who live under the benevolence of his capitalist friend, Friedrich Engels, a rich textile business owner who are inherited his father business
Anyway, I call him parasit not because of his entitlement to Engel's benevolence, there is nothing wrong with that thing and I don't have a problem with life condition like that. But because of his ultimate hypocrisy towards Capitalist System
Weird PragerU referenced Soviet Union, Cuba, and Venezuela but failed to mention that the US has put crippling economic sanctions on them.
HAHAHAAHHAHA HAHAHAHAHA AAAAHHHHHAA HAAA HAHAHA
From each according to his ability…
Insinuating : a dude pulls his weight (see Tom Sawyer)
To each according to his need…
Insinuating : Setting a proverbial Floor and Ceiling with which each must depend on The Statehead (as an enforcer and controller via Populism) to provide for.
Correct me please
GOSH DARN that propaganda comes out like a hose
its not even good its like a hose connected to rusted lead water
Love the ratio. A lot of offended commie trash.
Atlas Shrugged.
250k+ views on a vid with 3k likes from a channel with 3M subs? Yikes… that's an L.
you can't change human nature. everyone is greedy. so the only option is to work WITH greed instead of against it. free markets reward greed for helping others. marxism ignores it and thus falls to greed
CRT framework evolved from CT which plagiarized Lennon's Marxism along with CRT quotes Lennon's Marxism. which requires an end to systematic and natural gentrification and integration to destroy democracy and modern capitalism.which promotes democide. Don't you just love adaptive marxism?
Here is a perfect example of why we need to see the number of dislikes, so that viewers know that what they are watching is completely wrong. Youtube you are complicate in this unethical spread of misinformation.
Marxism and Socialism have never worked in human history. Why do people think "Oh next time will be different." To think that you can rewire or change human nature is arrogant, ignorant and naive. There will never be a perfect human system because we are all by our nature imperfect and flawed. No system has ever created as much opportunity and possibility as Capitalism though. People who want something for nothing don't like Capitalism though because it actually requires you to work and do something. Anyone can be successful in America but it does require some actual hard work.
From each according to his ability to each according to his greed! Who Is John Ga!t! 😇😎
0:29 that isn’t marxism
CRT isn’t marxism
Dissing Marxism and Socialism is another way of the way for those who need we workers to keep stoking the fires so our bosses can continue to live in warmth and luxury.
marxism = not based
To desire to do away with self-interest is a desire to do away with life itself. To understand how to live as a productive individual and value other individuals in concrete terms is basic to human life as such. Any ideology that denies this basic truth, to wit, Marxism/Socialism ends creating famine and murder. To say that individuals working together voluntarily to produce the necessities of life is oppressive is a monstrous distortion by would-be dictators. They call economic freedom capitalism or worse, fascism, which is a total inversion of truth. It is time to put Marxism, with its HUNDREDS of millions of victims, on the ash bin of history
Step one: Don't read Marx.
Step two: Spew propaganda
Step three: Mislead rubes
Step four: Profit!. Works every time.
Life pro tip: read the actual source material, if you care at all that is.
I love how most of his critiques of Marxism are based on what Lenin wrote.
Lenin wanted big state power, Marx just wanted a government system where regular people were properly represented and never said we needed an insurrection to get there. I'm not even a Marxist and I know this, read a book dude.
Hold the phone.
I've read Marx. You're blaming him for all kinds of malevolent shit he never said.
The root of Marxism is this: who gets to control the surplus produced by the workers? The workers? Or somebody else?
Marx thought that the ones who grew the corn should eat the corn.
I don't have a problem with that. And I don't understand why you do.
I love that this guy never defines Marxism.
it sounds like a free-willed slavery. why do the so-called social justice want people to be slaves?
I no longer ascribe a love of Marxism to ignorance, I now believe it is stupidity.
It was tried in Jamestown and Plymouth. Both colonies nearly died off from starvation.
being born and raised in former USSR I had to study this stuff like very close because you can't graduate from anything school and college without taking that course. what the Lord all this is that socialism is the first stage of a communism. in 1960 it was a assembly of Communist Party of Soviet Union and it declared that the socialism is already built and we have to build the communism now. in order to do this they established three goals which need to be achieved to build the communism and those goals are to make enough production base to achieve everybody needs and also to convince everybody to work hard and the contribute, and also to be reasonable in your need.
This year has been like a bad episode of the twilight zone
I was born in the Soviet Union, and I saw it collapse. Everything that was said in this video is true. I hate Marxism more than anything else in the world. It's not just an ideology, but it's a demonic cult. I believe that Marxism was invented by the devil. Karl Marx was just his "prophet".
It’s the politics of envy wrapped in a cult of utopianism
So.. the Borg. We fled Soviet occupied Poland.
🤔 You’d think if you were going to make a video titled ‘Understanding Marxism’ you’d first have to… ya know? Understand Marxism!? 🤷🤦
How did this dimwit become a professor?
Marx' critique of capitalism is extraordinary
Marxims is as wrong about human nature as are the libertarians. (One think human nature can be changed, the others think that the wealthy are better people then the rest….)
What Marx got right, is that unchecked capitalism, will lead to a purely utilitarian setup…where people are only seen as an utility and disposed off if they are no longer useful
There are a lot of Republicans who favor State control and protectionism over free markets.
Hell is paved with good intentions.
Prager is too afraid to debate the Left:
https://youtu.be/49D_8ZIWmXU
capital is irrefutably the single most destructive construct of human beings.
it never fails to amaze me how many adults can fall prey to fairy tales.
Who gave you $10mill PragerU?
wow i actually like marxism now, thanks!
This Marxism shit seem lit
You said less acquisitive, but the text said inquisitive. Two very different words.
Marx apparently forgot the beasts from which we came.
This channel is a joke