Marx never intended for communist revolutions to start with agrarian nations such as Russia and China. Marxism was built on the assumption of a nation that had spent centuries developing its capitalism, such as France or England.
The nations that attempted socialist revolutions were the ones that were liberating themselves from colonisation and imperialism that was performed for profit under capitalist and mercantilist systems.
Also, no large-scale modern society has ever been communist. Many have proclaimed themselves to be so, and nations like the USSR claimed themselves to stride towards it, but communism is fundamentally an ideology with an absence of the state.
He modified his views later when speaking to Russian revolutionaries such as Vera Zasulich. He entertained the possibility of an agregarian society skipping over capitalism if, and only if, it was accompanied by a socialist revolution of capitalist societies.
Marx envisioned seizing the means of production when that was a big industrial machine, an object which could be seized.
What would the “means of production” even be in a modern services economy? The workers themselves? Critical infrastructure?
Marx never intended his ideas for agrarianism, nor for modern services economies. You might conclude that the time for his ideas came and went, and those ideas never manifested as anything good during that time.
The idea is that all businesses are cooperative ones. Every worker is the owner of the business, being it an industry or a restaurant or a radio station or…
Marx distinguishes between abstract and concrete labor in Capital Vol. 1. After developing his concepts using concrete labor, be returns to abstract labor in Volume 3. After all, they had scientist and teachers who created surplus value.
So what would be the means of production? Not the workers since they are the ones who uses the means to produce something of social value. The means of production are still made of instruments and subjects. Let’s take teachers as the workers. They work to educate their students. The students are the subjects of labor. The instruments used to do this are textbooks, classrooms, desk, school yards and more.
As I answered in another comment, Marx was open to an agrarian to socialist revolution under specific conditions. He was cautious though.
Marx never intended for communist revolutions to start with agrarian nations such as Russia and China. Marxism was built on the assumption of a nation that had spent centuries developing its capitalism, such as France or England.
The nations that attempted socialist revolutions were the ones that were liberating themselves from colonisation and imperialism that was performed for profit under capitalist and mercantilist systems.
Also, no large-scale modern society has ever been communist. Many have proclaimed themselves to be so, and nations like the USSR claimed themselves to stride towards it, but communism is fundamentally an ideology with an absence of the state.
He modified his views later when speaking to Russian revolutionaries such as Vera Zasulich. He entertained the possibility of an agregarian society skipping over capitalism if, and only if, it was accompanied by a socialist revolution of capitalist societies.
Marx envisioned seizing the means of production when that was a big industrial machine, an object which could be seized.
What would the “means of production” even be in a modern services economy? The workers themselves? Critical infrastructure?
Marx never intended his ideas for agrarianism, nor for modern services economies. You might conclude that the time for his ideas came and went, and those ideas never manifested as anything good during that time.
But they’ll be appealing fantasies forever.
The idea is that all businesses are cooperative ones. Every worker is the owner of the business, being it an industry or a restaurant or a radio station or…
Marx distinguishes between abstract and concrete labor in Capital Vol. 1. After developing his concepts using concrete labor, be returns to abstract labor in Volume 3. After all, they had scientist and teachers who created surplus value.
So what would be the means of production? Not the workers since they are the ones who uses the means to produce something of social value. The means of production are still made of instruments and subjects. Let’s take teachers as the workers. They work to educate their students. The students are the subjects of labor. The instruments used to do this are textbooks, classrooms, desk, school yards and more.
As I answered in another comment, Marx was open to an agrarian to socialist revolution under specific conditions. He was cautious though.
The teachers, the janitors, … would be the owners of the school.
Marxism also treats women as property
Yeah, that part was weird. Communal women was where I went “wait, this guy makes some good points, but maybe he doesn’t have all the answers”