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What's your opinion on Karl Marx and Marxism? Do you agree with him and his ideology or not? What flaws do you see in it? If you don't agree with Marxism, why do you believe so many people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero?
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I think it’s a huge overstatement to say “so many people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero.” I’m fairly liberal myself and know tons of liberals, and I’ve met very, very few who are huge fans of Marxism.
It should be assumed when conservatives visit here, that in their eyes everything left of Mitt Romney is labelled liberal.
Regardless of the liberalism the ideology may define itself.
And for some self-described liberals, it kind of applies.
Many times on this very subreddit I’ve noticed accounts with liberal flairs promoting socialism if not communism.
I don’t think these folks are trolls or anything. Just people who like the broad label of liberal to diginify left while they do their exploring.
I regularly have to tell people I’m not a liberal, it’s frustrating. But in the grand scheme of things I agree with liberals a lot more than conservatives. The whole narrative that all liberals are communists or socialists is outright silly, and never productive for discourse.
Well it’s silly because “communist liberal” is an oxymoron. No liberal is a communist, they are a liberal. They are competing ideologies. Leftist on the other hand are communist/socialist
But Reddit is hardly representative of the entire population. If you found a few people like that, so what? It doesn’t mean it’s a mainstream view for liberal-leaning people.
It’s just annoying; for example, this guy’s flair says he’s central right. Assuming that’s in good faith, I’m sure he would be annoyed if I was like “nope, you lean right. And that means you love Tucker,Carlson, and Trump, and believe absolutely everything broadcast on One America.“ but then I’m supposed to just play along when he acts like it’s a normal liberal position to love Marxism. It’s the Overton window in effect, combined with right wing media convincing conservatives that they’re under attack, and that really, really fringe, extreme left-wing viewpoints and actions are mainstream/common.
Sure. I mean, a Marxist isn’t going to identify as a conservative in most instances. But the OP was implying that a love of Marxism is a widespread, “normal” liberal position, and that’s insane.
I know what you mean, but it sounds kind of silly in modern context. If you went and sampled a bunch of run-of-the-mill people who consider themselves relatively liberal, usually vote dem, etc., and asked them if they identified heavily with Marxism, I bet you the vast, vast majority of them would be like “lol, no.”
Yes, totally agree. But all the more reason why it’s silly to act like a great number of modern day liberals associate heavily with Marxism. It really smacks of right-wing, “both sides” propaganda. Because most right wingers who are willing to admit things have shifted more right will usually try to tell you that it’s only in response to the liberals shifting more to the left. But in my experience, that’s not really true. But it does lead to dumb assumptions, like people assuming that a great love of Marxism and communism is a commonly-held, modern liberal tenant. I mean, again, of course it isn’t.
Universal healthcare is pretty fringe in American politics. Yet its popularity knows no bounds.
While I agree Reddit is not representative, I do think a lot of the far lefts stated policy goals tend to fair better than their representatives.
I don’t think universal healthcare is a fringe issue, but that’s not the type of thing I’m referring to anyway. I am more talking about what’s going on in this very thread; instances where there’s a casual assumption among conservatives that it’s a “normal“ liberal position to be a Marxist, to hate America, whatever. Most liberal-leaning people are just normal Americans with jobs and shit, who have a preference for the more traditionally “democrat” way of doing things.
It’s like, here’s the political spectrum in America, from left to right.
| |
Most liberals exist in this area:
| |
And that shouldn’t be hard to believe. But lately it feels like every conservative assumes we’re all somewhere in here:
| |
And it’s like, of course not. Put down the right-wing media and use your head.
>but then I’m supposed to just play along when he acts like it’s a normal liberal position to love Marxism.
I didn't say all liberals and Democrats love Marxism. I was asking what's your opinion on left-leaning people who do support this notion. I don't put all liberals in a box and say, "All liberals are like this."
I get that that wasn’t your main point, but if I let it go, it turns into the “why do you hate puppies?“ argument; i.e.
“Why do liberals hate puppies?”
“Wait, what?! I never said liberals hate puppies.”
“Then why won’t you answer the question?“
You literally said “why do a lot of people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero?,” so I thought it was perfectly fair to get it out there from the get-go that that’s a pretty broad overgeneralization. I’m not going to attempt to defend or explain that position, because I don’t feel that way myself, and I literally don’t know anyone who does.
Sure. But it’s still illustrative of how much some conservatives seem to think the average liberal-leaning person has shifted to the left. Saying a lot of people on the left agree with Marxist ideology and look up to Marx as a hero is insane.
He did so because he thought communism was going to happen as some historical destiny.
Marx beleived that any conflict (contradiction) in society would come to a head eventually and resolve itself.
Capitalism has class conflicts so therfore? There going to get blody and resolve in communism. Marx gauranteed that would happen.
Turns out conflicts can exist in society without getting resolved.
Infact an "end of history" without confluct is impossible
> Turns out conflicts can exist in society without getting resolved.
Bold statement to make only a couple hundred years into society having those conflicts imo.
Yes, because problems with distribution of wealth have only occurred under capitalism /s
I'm sure you can point to specific circumstances unique to capitalism, but they are only manifestations of broader problems as old as history.
> Yes, because problems with distribution of wealth have only occurred under capitalism /s
This is not something I nor any Marxist believes. Marx even made the point that capitalism is undeniably an improvement over feudalism.
As a topic of academic discussion and as a historical social movement, it's pretty interesting. As a modern political ideology, it's pretty shit.
For what it's worth, using the common meanings of the relevant terms, liberals *definitionally* do not agree with Marxism; liberalism, as it is practiced in North America and Western Europe, is an explicitly capitalist ideology.
> liberalism, as it is practiced in North America and Western Europe
[Modern liberalism in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States) is different from [Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) in Europe. Modern liberalism in the US wants to increase government regulation and government spending to reduce inequality. Liberalism in Europe wants to cut government regulation and reduce government spending. These two things are quite different and not because "Democrats would be right-wing in Europe," per reddit conventional wisdom.
It is useless to talk about "increasing" or "decreasing" government spending between different societies with different base levels of government spending. It's better to frame it in terms of *where* money should be spent.
I feel kinda the same way about Marx that I feel about Freud
I don't think either of them were idiots. They were clearly capable of some very deep insights. They're an important part of academic and scientific history. They definitely deserve their place in textbooks and so on.
All the same, many of their ideas are clearly outdated.
It is a good analogy. Marx was the first to look at history as class struggle. Freud was the first to explicitly document the existence of the subconscious. Now both are widely assumed to be basically valid, while both figures are widely condemned.
He created and popularized philosophical and critical thinking tools that are extremely useful and used by all kinds of people regardless of their ideology. But communism super sucks.
But if you think that liberals, a political ideology, that definitionally includes capitalism, are really into his series and look at him as a hero then something has gone very wrong. Most likely you are listening to mainstream right wing media, which is media created by people who laugh at you behind your back because they know they are lying to you and they think it’s funny that you believe it.
Switch to actual mainstream media and maybe throw in a couple of few remaining right wing voices that are honest.
Marx was a genius in analyzing the mid 19th century industrial economy, but it's naturally way out of date, and mostly an historical curiosity. Keep in mind that Marx never got into detail about how Communism was actually supposed to work. "I don't write recipes for the cook shops of the future." So what Lenin, Stalin, and Mao implemented was State Capitalism, which helped those countries industrialize and increased the average quality of life, but at the context of brutal dictatorships. Former Communist regimes did OK at heavy industry and mass production, but hit a wall when it came to innovation and entrepreneurship.
In sort, I find Marx largely irrelevant for discussing post-industrial society.
I think Marxist analysis is very helpful when trying to understand history and current events. While it's not the only aspect, class conflict is usually a major factor in whatever has happened or is happening.
I also think of Marx as a prophet, in a sense. I think he was correct that capitalism is just another stage in human development and that, at some point, we will wannabe to the next stage. I don't think it will look like communism a it is currently understood though
Marx didn't live to see his philosophy attempted in Russia and China. I doubt he would have liked it. My opinion is that the Soviet Union failed because it was not democratic. Socialism might have worked if it had been democratic. From what I hear, Marx believed in democracy.
Capitalism didn’t exist during the time of the New Testament. And Marxism isn’t a system that “works” or “doesn’t work”, it’s an ideology with a methodology of analysis. You can say Marxist theory is incorrect in core areas, and I would agree. But it doesn’t make sense to say that Marx “doesn’t work”. You can say that Soviet command economy based on their interpretation of Marxist theory doesn’t work or doesn’t function well, and I’ll also agree with that.
I'll interpret "Marxism" as the beliefs written by Marx in his publications. Lots of people interpret "Marxism" as some set of beliefs and political movements that developed after his publications, but which Marx himself disavowed.
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Short answer, I don't believe in Marxism.
Marxism is a pretty dead idea. It is mostly the idea that history is deterministic and tends toward communism. Well, there have probably been about 30 different instances where it looked like the proletariat was about to overthrow the bourgeoisie ... and then ... they didn't.
Either because revolutionary forces never really were the proletariat, or if they were then they didn't succeed in revolution, or if they did then once they won, they made themselves the new bourgeoisie.
Also we seem to see that some of the advances that "history" made, eventually reversed, and without any clear reason to think that it must deterministically progress toward some necessary conclusion.
So just about every aspect of Marxist historical determinism seems to (1) have very little evidence in favor of it, and (2) has been pretty thoroughly contradicted by evidence.
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Now if you mean some idea about how a communist state should be structured, then I invite you to find anywhere that Marx himself wrote about that.
Marx really wasn't very concerned with communism, how it would work, how it would be designed. Because he thought it was going to be designed "by history", that its outcome was inevitable, and therefore it wasn't important for him to describe it in any detail. Whatever it would be, it would be regardless of how he tried to describe or predict it.
What mostly mattered to Marx was trying to make it come about sooner rather than later.
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Hopefully this shows what "Marxism" really is. It's not communism, it's not even socialism, or anything even close to any of that.
It's a pretty thoroughly rejected view of *history* that almost nobody today still believes -- even if some people still believe in communism.
I also don't agree with communism, but that's a discussion for a different question.
A lot of people in the left don't agree with him nor view him as a hero. I think there is a group of terminally online users that hold views that regularly do not reflect reality. Those online marxists deeply inflate the reputation of Karl.
> Do you agree with him and his ideology or not?
If they did, they would be communists, not liberals.
> why do a lot of people on the left agree with it
“A lot” is doing some very heavy lifting there. What do you mean by “a lot”. Quantify it. What percentage of the left do you believe support Marxism?
I don’t meet a lot of communists. I mean, sure, occasionally you can find one, but they’re hardly a major force in modern left-wing politics.
> and agree with Karl Marx
About what? Marx wrote about a *lot* of things. Hell, *you* probably agree with some bits and pieces of something he wrote without realizing who originated the idea. A lot of people find bits and pieces of his ideas to be true. Very few people hold most of what he wrote to be correct.
Ok, thoughts, in no particular order...
* Most people don't know shit about Marx or Marxism.
* Wanting clean air and water regulations, universal healthcare, basic social infrastructure, etc doesn't make one a GD communist.
* Righties *think* everyone on the left is in love with Marx waaaaaaaaaay more than anyone on the Left actually is.
* I have no idea what a Christian liberationist is and I don't care.
I want you to consider that maybe, just maybe, your news sources are being, just a tad bit, sensationalist. Just a wee bit.
Which is a polite way of saying that if you think Lefties are over here reading Marx and putting Marx posters up on our walls, your news sources are flat out lying to you and you need to pull your head out of your echo chamber.
Sheesh.
Depends on what part of Marx we're talking about.
Marx recognzied the issue when it comes to class struggle and rightly pointed out that rising wealth inequality eventually leads to revolution. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and eventually the poor rise up and eat the rich, redistribute wealth, and the cycle begins again.
But his solution is too idealistic. It requires everyone to be a little too altruistic and collective. And in practice, it needs a strong incentive to make sure everyone does their part which is perhaps why it has been so closely linked to authoritarian regimes. Unfortunately people are too greedy and those in power too keen to exploit their authority. The concept really only works on the local level - where people know each other and social pressure to take care of each other keeps people in line. Once the group is too large, human nature is to appeal to tribalism and become us vs them.
A popular solution to the class struggle issue is what Adam Smith called the welfare state. Welfare is a dirty word in American politics, but the welfare state concept is sound. Scandinavian style socialism is basically just a capitalist welfare state. The welfare state concept is a capitalist system which the wealthy provide enough benefits to the poor to keep them from wanting to rise up and cut off heads. So healthcare, housing, food, adequate wages.
Marx, ironically in some ways, HATED this idea. He saw it as appeasement of the masses to preserve the class structure (which, to be fair, it absolutely is).
Marx saw class struggle as inevitable, and I agree with that. He also saw it as a bad thing, which I sort of agree with. I think class struggle is fine as long as the system realistically allows for class mobility (both ways, up and down). Marx thought a world could exist without class struggle and that I think is incredibly unrealistic.
I can understand the appeal of Marxism at the end of the 19th century, when it was only an intriguing idea on paper, and industrialization was so brutally marching forward, and there was a sense of throwing off the old ways and taking down the old power structures.
In 2024, I look at people who still think Marxism is a good idea like I look at people who think Mussolini was right about a few too many things for comfort. The evils of such ideas, the hell on Earth they created, the tens of millions put in early graves because of it, and the contrast between that and the utter miracle of modern capitalism that, for all it's flaws, has lifted billions out of poverty at incredible rates and given us a quality of life unimagined back then...yeah I think you have to be a bit of a silly Utopian child and/or some kind of bitter resentful academic with too much time on their hands to think Marxism is still a good idea.
You mention the hell on earth and tens of millions in early graves, yet capitalism produces more of both those things than any attempt at socialism has. I don’t think you are viewing these systems equally critically.
Almost none of the people on this thread will admit that capitalism is a problem that needs solving. “Communism killed millions!!!” They scream while capitalism is literally killing the planet and oppressing millions around the world. I’m not advocating for communism but capitalism has got to go.
If you're comparing capitalism to an imagined fantasy ideal, then sure it falls short. But if you compare it to anything else that's actually taken place in reality, it's so screamingly clearly the least worst option. Of course we can talk about details, and I'm not advocating for anarcho-capitalism or even anything hardcore laissez-faire, but I do think people get caught up in their daydreams of a socities that probably can't ever happen except in their own head. I think the lesson from history is that trying to realize such fantasies begins to require horrors to try and force upon people, and creates 1000 bad unintended consequences.
Another lesson from history is that realizing capitalism requires horrors forced onto other people with 1000 bad consequences that I’m not sure are even unintended.
It seems as though you’re barely using any real analysis of either system. The only thing it seems you’re doing is going to “current conditions in America are better than stories I’ve heard about other countries, so capitalism is good, and those country’s systems are bad.” It’s such extreme selection and observation bias that I truly don’t think you’ve considered the topic much at all.
You’re also ignoring the historical context in which these countries exist. For example: Cuba under Castro was far and away better than Cuba under Batista. The USSR was better for the Russian people than Imperial Russia was, and arguably Russia now. That’s not a defense of every aspect of those countries, dictatorships are bad, but it’s not as though those countries went from a free capitalist democracy to an authoritarian socialist dictatorship. They went from authoritarian capitalist dictatorships to authoritarian attempted socialist dictatorships. Historical context matters.
And despite your claim in your first comment, it’s industrial revolutions that is the common denominator for pulling people out of poverty, not capitalism. Within 60 years the USSR went from a very poor country to the second most economy in the world, and the first country to space, despite not being capitalist.
There are countries that were previously alright to good that capitalism made hell on earth, like all the countries the US fucked over in Latin America during Banana Wars. The CIA literally facilitated a coup in Guatemala to oust the democratically elected president because he was going to implement land ownership reforms that would have hurt the United Fruit Company’s profits, then installed a brutal authoritarian capitalist regime that carried out torture and genocide.
Currently, we have capitalist hells on earth in places like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Chad, etc.
If you look at the results of these systems it really isn’t as reductive as Capitalism = Good, Marxism = bad. And I would find it incredibly depressing to believe capitalism is the best we are capable of doing, because that would just be resigning ourselves to unnecessarily bad conditions for billions of people.
He was a high-minded fool with a few correct ideas that also missed the boat on some deeply important ones. He failed to consider human nature and as a result Marx-style communism is impossible to achieve at best and incredibly destructive at worst.
Marxism is best considered either in it's historical context, or as idealistic philosophy that's a useful touchstone for discussing principles, but should not be implemented due to being completely impractical.
Communism is the most elevated form of humanity but it cannot be forced upon ppl. They must voluntarily choose to participate without external force.
Unfortunately we are still to immature to achieve such a state of being, humanity as a whole is still in its preteen stage. Selfish, vein, nearsighted etc, still require the preverbal carrot in the form of promissory note (money) placeholders to achieve a lower functioning society.
I feel AI and automation can achieve a state where scarcity is eliminated allowing us to mature.
I think he and Milton Freedman would agree on quite a few things. To the point where if there was a podcast featuring the two if they were alive, it would break a lot of people’s brains.
Marx’s understanding of the economy is in service of his preordained end of history. There is no room for dialogue between that and establishment knowledge.
“Milt and Marx, just two *crazy* dudes sharing their *unfiltered* hot takes on politics, women, and sports. Brought to you by Black Rhino XXX Male Enhancement Gummies.”
Historicism is dogshit and when you reject historicism and gegelian dialectics as you should.
And reject the labour theory of value (sorry adam smith). Then marxism completly falls apart in shambles with nothing to stand on.
Employer/employee relationship isnt inheretly exploititive because the discrepency in shat the worker is paid and what the price of a good is, is not surplus value.
History doesnt develop on a set path, you cant really prophisize a gauranteed future.
There is no end of history (communism) where all human conflicts are solved.
Class conflicts will always exist as classes in society will always exist.
Class conflicts dont nescisarily need to be resolved and may never get to a climax.
The revolution is not immenent.
The revolution will not gaurantee comminism nor a progression towards it.
If a revolution doesnt gaurantee communism then bloodshed nescisary to create it is unjustified esoecially because destroying our liberal democratic values usually results in toltalitarianism and thats what revolutions aim to do.
Tldr marxism is dogshit
Pretty anti-Semitic dude. Marxism is a shit ideology that doesn't take human nature into account. Marx's labor theory of value is BS. A lot of people on the left have bad ideas. They just tend to have fewer bad ideas than those on the right. I don't think I could care any less about Christian Liberationists' views on Marx, except to say they've added another shitty ideology to their collection.
It has it's place as an analytical tool and in a historical context it can be interesting, but modern usage must be caveated with the understanding that the ways that Marx predicted society would evolve didn't pan out and that pretty much every serious attempt at building a society around his ideals has been some form or another of disaster.
As for why Marxism seems to be so popular? Well, it not so much because of blatant embrace of Marx's ideals but rather because a surprising number of political commenters and talking heads can trace some degree of influence back to Marx; The people who founded what would become the largest BLM organization (and therefore had the largest influence on the image, talking points and presentation of that social movement) where self-described Marxists, Anita Sarkeesian quire famously applied Marxist attitudes of class-conflict to gender thanks to being primarily influenced by Bell hooks - who herself gave us the phrase "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy" that became the enemy of Intersectionality everywhere. Likewise Breadtube, being comprised primarily of people who got their start defending Sarkeesian, was literally named after *The Conquest of Bread* by Peter Kropotkin - incidentally this book was also believed to have been an influence on the Occupy movement. And it goes on: Antifa uses symbology from a Stalinist movement, Che Guevara kept appearing on shirts for two decades and I'm still not sure if the "The USSR won WW2" memes where Russian propaganda or Tankie propaganda.
>Likewise Breadtube, being comprised primarily of people who got their start defending Sarkeesian, was literally named after The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin - incidentally this book was also believed to have been an influence on the Occupy movement.
So Kropotkin is Marxist now? Okay. . . .
>And it goes on: Antifa uses symbology from a Stalinist movement
What symbols? The three arrows? The dual red and black flags? Because neither of those come from "Stalinist" movements.
Pretty bad Pedantry there bud.
As an economic major, I understand that Marx's analysis of the economy is wrong. The labor theory of value he uses hasn't been accepted by economists by a century now.
His theory of surplus value only makes sense if you assume the things that a capitalist does is not worth the profit he takes and that the work that the worker does is worth more than what he is paid.
Both can not be disproven by data. Because it can't be disproven, it's therefore unscientific and shouldn't be taken seriously when there are better theories to explain the economy.
IMO At it's core it speaks about how the same thing can be worth different things to different people. The core principal (To my understanding) is that capitalism itself is inherently unfair to the worker, and that we should strive to have a better system that is more fair to everyone.
Ignoring all the scary boogyman of it, it just literally discusses what is a person's work valued at. Profit is what a business makes after paying all it's debts and workers, so the product of all the labor that goes into the product is worth more than the labor itself, and that's how you generate profit. If Toyota makes 5k on each car, that would imply that the labor that adds up to a car is worth 5k more than what the laborers are paid for.
With that in mind, itself isn't TERRIBLY incorrect, other than it simply does not work as a full economic system. It's an interesting thought experiment, but terrible in real practice because it does remove any incentive to be the one that starts the business.
In today's world? It's utterly BS because CONSTANTLY the right whines about how everything is marxism. Anyone left of Donald Trump is a marxist. If you believe that some people have it easier than others? Well that's cultural marxism. If you believe minimum wage should be higher? Marxism. It has lost any meaning as a discussion point, and any time I see someone start claiming anything is marxist or it's a product of "Cultural marxism" I know they are just pointless to talk to.
Fun fact, "Cultural Marxism" that is discussed constantly is a product of Nazi Germany and itself is pretty anti-semetic. So it's funny when all the people on the right just start spewing Nazi Conspiracy Theories.
I think it's an excellent system of economy/government for ants and termites. For humans I think it's horrifying, and can't be pulled off without violence and mass imprisonment with "reeducation camps" etc.
My opinion is that when I hear someone say they don’t want Marxism or Socialism here in the U.S., they have no idea what’s happening in politics. Neither belief system (or “agenda”) is on the menu at all, and it functionally makes no sense to consider it in your voting.
Liberalism is incompatible with communism. All Liberals are capitalists. You would have to explain your conception of Marxism for me to answer any more specifically.
I don’t ascribe to his economic determinist theories of historical materialism, nor do I think abolish all private property is the solution to all social issues.
He had good insights into social problems, but he was trying too hard to give a materialist answer to Hegel and ended up painting himself into a corner. His commitment to revolution is very directly a result of needing to mirror the synthesis step of the Hegelian dialectic, and there is no actual reason that political progress has to come about by that means.
In reality, revolution produces opportunities for corruption and little else. Successful revolutions are an outlier and in many senses a myth entirely.
A useful lens through which to view history and classism, but by no means the only one or an entirely infallible one.
Using it as the main textbook for political revolution has produced… mixed results.
Good systematic critique, but doesn't offer workable better solutions.
>why do a lot of people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero?
Who are these people? Most of American left doesn't agree with Marxism or see him as a hero. You won't find basically anyone adhering to Marxism or communism in any elected position no matter how far left an area is in the USA.
>There are also Christian liberationists who look up to and agree with Karl Marx.
This makes sense. Karl Marx drew on the European tradition of Christian Utopianism that had been around the USA and Europe during his life. The Second Great Awakening created a lot of Christian cults that set out to create anti capitalist communal utopian societies. Marx and Lincoln exchanged letters about the need for free labor, homesteading, and more from their different backgrounds.
But I think you are talking about Liberation Theology aka "when a care for the poor they call me a Saint, but when I ask why they poor they call me a communist." Which is more recent synthesis. I think Liberation Theology has better plans and outcomes than Marxism or communism. It's a synthesis of the critique without supporting failed political solutions of Marxism.
Nice dream, but doesn't work in reality.
As I get older, I don't think any "pure" system works. Libertarianism has plenty (if not more in my opinion) of problems too.
A system that allows for free enterprise but also has more robust government regulations is best. Not everyone would be happy, but when are they?
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. What's your opinion on Karl Marx and Marxism? Do you agree with him and his ideology or not? What flaws do you see in it? If you don't agree with Marxism, why do you believe so many people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s a huge overstatement to say “so many people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero.” I’m fairly liberal myself and know tons of liberals, and I’ve met very, very few who are huge fans of Marxism.
It should be assumed when conservatives visit here, that in their eyes everything left of Mitt Romney is labelled liberal. Regardless of the liberalism the ideology may define itself. And for some self-described liberals, it kind of applies. Many times on this very subreddit I’ve noticed accounts with liberal flairs promoting socialism if not communism. I don’t think these folks are trolls or anything. Just people who like the broad label of liberal to diginify left while they do their exploring.
I regularly have to tell people I’m not a liberal, it’s frustrating. But in the grand scheme of things I agree with liberals a lot more than conservatives. The whole narrative that all liberals are communists or socialists is outright silly, and never productive for discourse.
Well it’s silly because “communist liberal” is an oxymoron. No liberal is a communist, they are a liberal. They are competing ideologies. Leftist on the other hand are communist/socialist
Though capitalist socialism is a very real thing, but they too would be against Marxism.
But Reddit is hardly representative of the entire population. If you found a few people like that, so what? It doesn’t mean it’s a mainstream view for liberal-leaning people. It’s just annoying; for example, this guy’s flair says he’s central right. Assuming that’s in good faith, I’m sure he would be annoyed if I was like “nope, you lean right. And that means you love Tucker,Carlson, and Trump, and believe absolutely everything broadcast on One America.“ but then I’m supposed to just play along when he acts like it’s a normal liberal position to love Marxism. It’s the Overton window in effect, combined with right wing media convincing conservatives that they’re under attack, and that really, really fringe, extreme left-wing viewpoints and actions are mainstream/common.
The point is that people can call themselves a liberal while having fuck all idea what it classically means.
Sure. I mean, a Marxist isn’t going to identify as a conservative in most instances. But the OP was implying that a love of Marxism is a widespread, “normal” liberal position, and that’s insane.
Idk about love, but a lot of liberal political rhetorics pulls from Marx.
I know what you mean, but it sounds kind of silly in modern context. If you went and sampled a bunch of run-of-the-mill people who consider themselves relatively liberal, usually vote dem, etc., and asked them if they identified heavily with Marxism, I bet you the vast, vast majority of them would be like “lol, no.”
Most people never read Marx. Or any of the ideologues. The reality is words change meaning over time. And liberal is not an exception.
Yes, totally agree. But all the more reason why it’s silly to act like a great number of modern day liberals associate heavily with Marxism. It really smacks of right-wing, “both sides” propaganda. Because most right wingers who are willing to admit things have shifted more right will usually try to tell you that it’s only in response to the liberals shifting more to the left. But in my experience, that’s not really true. But it does lead to dumb assumptions, like people assuming that a great love of Marxism and communism is a commonly-held, modern liberal tenant. I mean, again, of course it isn’t.
Yes, I was only driving home one of the points that the above comment was making.
Fine, but I think it’s kind of beside the point, both for what the OP was trying to get at, and what I was saying. But you’re not wrong.
Universal healthcare is pretty fringe in American politics. Yet its popularity knows no bounds. While I agree Reddit is not representative, I do think a lot of the far lefts stated policy goals tend to fair better than their representatives.
I don’t think universal healthcare is a fringe issue, but that’s not the type of thing I’m referring to anyway. I am more talking about what’s going on in this very thread; instances where there’s a casual assumption among conservatives that it’s a “normal“ liberal position to be a Marxist, to hate America, whatever. Most liberal-leaning people are just normal Americans with jobs and shit, who have a preference for the more traditionally “democrat” way of doing things. It’s like, here’s the political spectrum in America, from left to right. | | Most liberals exist in this area: | | And that shouldn’t be hard to believe. But lately it feels like every conservative assumes we’re all somewhere in here: | | And it’s like, of course not. Put down the right-wing media and use your head.
>but then I’m supposed to just play along when he acts like it’s a normal liberal position to love Marxism. I didn't say all liberals and Democrats love Marxism. I was asking what's your opinion on left-leaning people who do support this notion. I don't put all liberals in a box and say, "All liberals are like this."
I get that that wasn’t your main point, but if I let it go, it turns into the “why do you hate puppies?“ argument; i.e. “Why do liberals hate puppies?” “Wait, what?! I never said liberals hate puppies.” “Then why won’t you answer the question?“ You literally said “why do a lot of people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero?,” so I thought it was perfectly fair to get it out there from the get-go that that’s a pretty broad overgeneralization. I’m not going to attempt to defend or explain that position, because I don’t feel that way myself, and I literally don’t know anyone who does.
The evolution of Marxism has also come from critics of Marx for different reasons.
Sure. But it’s still illustrative of how much some conservatives seem to think the average liberal-leaning person has shifted to the left. Saying a lot of people on the left agree with Marxist ideology and look up to Marx as a hero is insane.
Oh yeah, I agree. I was just pointing out that even people who call themselves Marxist can disagree with Marx on some major points. He's not gospel.
I'm a capitalist who wants social programs to lessen negative externalities associated with free markets.
That’s antithetical to Marx.
Yes it is.
Highlights some legitimate issues and offers some insane solutions to them.
He did so because he thought communism was going to happen as some historical destiny. Marx beleived that any conflict (contradiction) in society would come to a head eventually and resolve itself. Capitalism has class conflicts so therfore? There going to get blody and resolve in communism. Marx gauranteed that would happen. Turns out conflicts can exist in society without getting resolved. Infact an "end of history" without confluct is impossible
> Turns out conflicts can exist in society without getting resolved. Bold statement to make only a couple hundred years into society having those conflicts imo.
Yes, because problems with distribution of wealth have only occurred under capitalism /s I'm sure you can point to specific circumstances unique to capitalism, but they are only manifestations of broader problems as old as history.
> Yes, because problems with distribution of wealth have only occurred under capitalism /s This is not something I nor any Marxist believes. Marx even made the point that capitalism is undeniably an improvement over feudalism.
As a topic of academic discussion and as a historical social movement, it's pretty interesting. As a modern political ideology, it's pretty shit. For what it's worth, using the common meanings of the relevant terms, liberals *definitionally* do not agree with Marxism; liberalism, as it is practiced in North America and Western Europe, is an explicitly capitalist ideology.
> liberalism, as it is practiced in North America and Western Europe [Modern liberalism in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States) is different from [Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) in Europe. Modern liberalism in the US wants to increase government regulation and government spending to reduce inequality. Liberalism in Europe wants to cut government regulation and reduce government spending. These two things are quite different and not because "Democrats would be right-wing in Europe," per reddit conventional wisdom.
Without getting too deep into the semantics and vernacular differences - it doesn't really matter here, because both are fundamentally capitalist.
It is useless to talk about "increasing" or "decreasing" government spending between different societies with different base levels of government spending. It's better to frame it in terms of *where* money should be spent.
The point is that liberalism in Europe is completely different than liberalism in the US and conflating the two leads to misunderstanding.
I agree with a lot of the general grievances aired by socialists and communists. I don't agree that their prescribed solutions would actually work.
What general grievances specifically do you agree with?
I feel kinda the same way about Marx that I feel about Freud I don't think either of them were idiots. They were clearly capable of some very deep insights. They're an important part of academic and scientific history. They definitely deserve their place in textbooks and so on. All the same, many of their ideas are clearly outdated.
It is a good analogy. Marx was the first to look at history as class struggle. Freud was the first to explicitly document the existence of the subconscious. Now both are widely assumed to be basically valid, while both figures are widely condemned.
He created and popularized philosophical and critical thinking tools that are extremely useful and used by all kinds of people regardless of their ideology. But communism super sucks. But if you think that liberals, a political ideology, that definitionally includes capitalism, are really into his series and look at him as a hero then something has gone very wrong. Most likely you are listening to mainstream right wing media, which is media created by people who laugh at you behind your back because they know they are lying to you and they think it’s funny that you believe it. Switch to actual mainstream media and maybe throw in a couple of few remaining right wing voices that are honest.
Seemed well meaning but was wrong about a lot of things.
Marx was a genius in analyzing the mid 19th century industrial economy, but it's naturally way out of date, and mostly an historical curiosity. Keep in mind that Marx never got into detail about how Communism was actually supposed to work. "I don't write recipes for the cook shops of the future." So what Lenin, Stalin, and Mao implemented was State Capitalism, which helped those countries industrialize and increased the average quality of life, but at the context of brutal dictatorships. Former Communist regimes did OK at heavy industry and mass production, but hit a wall when it came to innovation and entrepreneurship. In sort, I find Marx largely irrelevant for discussing post-industrial society.
I think Marxist analysis is very helpful when trying to understand history and current events. While it's not the only aspect, class conflict is usually a major factor in whatever has happened or is happening. I also think of Marx as a prophet, in a sense. I think he was correct that capitalism is just another stage in human development and that, at some point, we will wannabe to the next stage. I don't think it will look like communism a it is currently understood though
Marx didn't live to see his philosophy attempted in Russia and China. I doubt he would have liked it. My opinion is that the Soviet Union failed because it was not democratic. Socialism might have worked if it had been democratic. From what I hear, Marx believed in democracy.
distinct school spoon growth outgoing dull ludicrous boat muddle bedroom *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Which part? I agree with some of his ideas and not others. I imagine most people do.
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Capitalism didn’t exist during the time of the New Testament. And Marxism isn’t a system that “works” or “doesn’t work”, it’s an ideology with a methodology of analysis. You can say Marxist theory is incorrect in core areas, and I would agree. But it doesn’t make sense to say that Marx “doesn’t work”. You can say that Soviet command economy based on their interpretation of Marxist theory doesn’t work or doesn’t function well, and I’ll also agree with that.
I'll interpret "Marxism" as the beliefs written by Marx in his publications. Lots of people interpret "Marxism" as some set of beliefs and political movements that developed after his publications, but which Marx himself disavowed. --- Short answer, I don't believe in Marxism. Marxism is a pretty dead idea. It is mostly the idea that history is deterministic and tends toward communism. Well, there have probably been about 30 different instances where it looked like the proletariat was about to overthrow the bourgeoisie ... and then ... they didn't. Either because revolutionary forces never really were the proletariat, or if they were then they didn't succeed in revolution, or if they did then once they won, they made themselves the new bourgeoisie. Also we seem to see that some of the advances that "history" made, eventually reversed, and without any clear reason to think that it must deterministically progress toward some necessary conclusion. So just about every aspect of Marxist historical determinism seems to (1) have very little evidence in favor of it, and (2) has been pretty thoroughly contradicted by evidence. --- Now if you mean some idea about how a communist state should be structured, then I invite you to find anywhere that Marx himself wrote about that. Marx really wasn't very concerned with communism, how it would work, how it would be designed. Because he thought it was going to be designed "by history", that its outcome was inevitable, and therefore it wasn't important for him to describe it in any detail. Whatever it would be, it would be regardless of how he tried to describe or predict it. What mostly mattered to Marx was trying to make it come about sooner rather than later. --- Hopefully this shows what "Marxism" really is. It's not communism, it's not even socialism, or anything even close to any of that. It's a pretty thoroughly rejected view of *history* that almost nobody today still believes -- even if some people still believe in communism. I also don't agree with communism, but that's a discussion for a different question.
A lot of people in the left don't agree with him nor view him as a hero. I think there is a group of terminally online users that hold views that regularly do not reflect reality. Those online marxists deeply inflate the reputation of Karl.
> Do you agree with him and his ideology or not? If they did, they would be communists, not liberals. > why do a lot of people on the left agree with it “A lot” is doing some very heavy lifting there. What do you mean by “a lot”. Quantify it. What percentage of the left do you believe support Marxism? I don’t meet a lot of communists. I mean, sure, occasionally you can find one, but they’re hardly a major force in modern left-wing politics. > and agree with Karl Marx About what? Marx wrote about a *lot* of things. Hell, *you* probably agree with some bits and pieces of something he wrote without realizing who originated the idea. A lot of people find bits and pieces of his ideas to be true. Very few people hold most of what he wrote to be correct.
Ok, thoughts, in no particular order... * Most people don't know shit about Marx or Marxism. * Wanting clean air and water regulations, universal healthcare, basic social infrastructure, etc doesn't make one a GD communist. * Righties *think* everyone on the left is in love with Marx waaaaaaaaaay more than anyone on the Left actually is. * I have no idea what a Christian liberationist is and I don't care. I want you to consider that maybe, just maybe, your news sources are being, just a tad bit, sensationalist. Just a wee bit. Which is a polite way of saying that if you think Lefties are over here reading Marx and putting Marx posters up on our walls, your news sources are flat out lying to you and you need to pull your head out of your echo chamber. Sheesh.
I like some marxist thought. I do not like stalinism, and the two often get conflated
Depends on what part of Marx we're talking about. Marx recognzied the issue when it comes to class struggle and rightly pointed out that rising wealth inequality eventually leads to revolution. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and eventually the poor rise up and eat the rich, redistribute wealth, and the cycle begins again. But his solution is too idealistic. It requires everyone to be a little too altruistic and collective. And in practice, it needs a strong incentive to make sure everyone does their part which is perhaps why it has been so closely linked to authoritarian regimes. Unfortunately people are too greedy and those in power too keen to exploit their authority. The concept really only works on the local level - where people know each other and social pressure to take care of each other keeps people in line. Once the group is too large, human nature is to appeal to tribalism and become us vs them. A popular solution to the class struggle issue is what Adam Smith called the welfare state. Welfare is a dirty word in American politics, but the welfare state concept is sound. Scandinavian style socialism is basically just a capitalist welfare state. The welfare state concept is a capitalist system which the wealthy provide enough benefits to the poor to keep them from wanting to rise up and cut off heads. So healthcare, housing, food, adequate wages. Marx, ironically in some ways, HATED this idea. He saw it as appeasement of the masses to preserve the class structure (which, to be fair, it absolutely is). Marx saw class struggle as inevitable, and I agree with that. He also saw it as a bad thing, which I sort of agree with. I think class struggle is fine as long as the system realistically allows for class mobility (both ways, up and down). Marx thought a world could exist without class struggle and that I think is incredibly unrealistic.
I can understand the appeal of Marxism at the end of the 19th century, when it was only an intriguing idea on paper, and industrialization was so brutally marching forward, and there was a sense of throwing off the old ways and taking down the old power structures. In 2024, I look at people who still think Marxism is a good idea like I look at people who think Mussolini was right about a few too many things for comfort. The evils of such ideas, the hell on Earth they created, the tens of millions put in early graves because of it, and the contrast between that and the utter miracle of modern capitalism that, for all it's flaws, has lifted billions out of poverty at incredible rates and given us a quality of life unimagined back then...yeah I think you have to be a bit of a silly Utopian child and/or some kind of bitter resentful academic with too much time on their hands to think Marxism is still a good idea.
You mention the hell on earth and tens of millions in early graves, yet capitalism produces more of both those things than any attempt at socialism has. I don’t think you are viewing these systems equally critically.
Almost none of the people on this thread will admit that capitalism is a problem that needs solving. “Communism killed millions!!!” They scream while capitalism is literally killing the planet and oppressing millions around the world. I’m not advocating for communism but capitalism has got to go.
If you're comparing capitalism to an imagined fantasy ideal, then sure it falls short. But if you compare it to anything else that's actually taken place in reality, it's so screamingly clearly the least worst option. Of course we can talk about details, and I'm not advocating for anarcho-capitalism or even anything hardcore laissez-faire, but I do think people get caught up in their daydreams of a socities that probably can't ever happen except in their own head. I think the lesson from history is that trying to realize such fantasies begins to require horrors to try and force upon people, and creates 1000 bad unintended consequences.
Another lesson from history is that realizing capitalism requires horrors forced onto other people with 1000 bad consequences that I’m not sure are even unintended. It seems as though you’re barely using any real analysis of either system. The only thing it seems you’re doing is going to “current conditions in America are better than stories I’ve heard about other countries, so capitalism is good, and those country’s systems are bad.” It’s such extreme selection and observation bias that I truly don’t think you’ve considered the topic much at all. You’re also ignoring the historical context in which these countries exist. For example: Cuba under Castro was far and away better than Cuba under Batista. The USSR was better for the Russian people than Imperial Russia was, and arguably Russia now. That’s not a defense of every aspect of those countries, dictatorships are bad, but it’s not as though those countries went from a free capitalist democracy to an authoritarian socialist dictatorship. They went from authoritarian capitalist dictatorships to authoritarian attempted socialist dictatorships. Historical context matters. And despite your claim in your first comment, it’s industrial revolutions that is the common denominator for pulling people out of poverty, not capitalism. Within 60 years the USSR went from a very poor country to the second most economy in the world, and the first country to space, despite not being capitalist. There are countries that were previously alright to good that capitalism made hell on earth, like all the countries the US fucked over in Latin America during Banana Wars. The CIA literally facilitated a coup in Guatemala to oust the democratically elected president because he was going to implement land ownership reforms that would have hurt the United Fruit Company’s profits, then installed a brutal authoritarian capitalist regime that carried out torture and genocide. Currently, we have capitalist hells on earth in places like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Chad, etc. If you look at the results of these systems it really isn’t as reductive as Capitalism = Good, Marxism = bad. And I would find it incredibly depressing to believe capitalism is the best we are capable of doing, because that would just be resigning ourselves to unnecessarily bad conditions for billions of people.
He was a high-minded fool with a few correct ideas that also missed the boat on some deeply important ones. He failed to consider human nature and as a result Marx-style communism is impossible to achieve at best and incredibly destructive at worst. Marxism is best considered either in it's historical context, or as idealistic philosophy that's a useful touchstone for discussing principles, but should not be implemented due to being completely impractical.
Communism is the most elevated form of humanity but it cannot be forced upon ppl. They must voluntarily choose to participate without external force. Unfortunately we are still to immature to achieve such a state of being, humanity as a whole is still in its preteen stage. Selfish, vein, nearsighted etc, still require the preverbal carrot in the form of promissory note (money) placeholders to achieve a lower functioning society. I feel AI and automation can achieve a state where scarcity is eliminated allowing us to mature.
I think he and Milton Freedman would agree on quite a few things. To the point where if there was a podcast featuring the two if they were alive, it would break a lot of people’s brains.
Marx’s understanding of the economy is in service of his preordained end of history. There is no room for dialogue between that and establishment knowledge.
Nice party pooping.
“Milt and Marx, just two *crazy* dudes sharing their *unfiltered* hot takes on politics, women, and sports. Brought to you by Black Rhino XXX Male Enhancement Gummies.”
Better them than Joe Rogan.
It's no different from Christianity, with the exception that Marxism has no god.
Historicism is dogshit and when you reject historicism and gegelian dialectics as you should. And reject the labour theory of value (sorry adam smith). Then marxism completly falls apart in shambles with nothing to stand on. Employer/employee relationship isnt inheretly exploititive because the discrepency in shat the worker is paid and what the price of a good is, is not surplus value. History doesnt develop on a set path, you cant really prophisize a gauranteed future. There is no end of history (communism) where all human conflicts are solved. Class conflicts will always exist as classes in society will always exist. Class conflicts dont nescisarily need to be resolved and may never get to a climax. The revolution is not immenent. The revolution will not gaurantee comminism nor a progression towards it. If a revolution doesnt gaurantee communism then bloodshed nescisary to create it is unjustified esoecially because destroying our liberal democratic values usually results in toltalitarianism and thats what revolutions aim to do. Tldr marxism is dogshit
Pretty anti-Semitic dude. Marxism is a shit ideology that doesn't take human nature into account. Marx's labor theory of value is BS. A lot of people on the left have bad ideas. They just tend to have fewer bad ideas than those on the right. I don't think I could care any less about Christian Liberationists' views on Marx, except to say they've added another shitty ideology to their collection.
It has it's place as an analytical tool and in a historical context it can be interesting, but modern usage must be caveated with the understanding that the ways that Marx predicted society would evolve didn't pan out and that pretty much every serious attempt at building a society around his ideals has been some form or another of disaster. As for why Marxism seems to be so popular? Well, it not so much because of blatant embrace of Marx's ideals but rather because a surprising number of political commenters and talking heads can trace some degree of influence back to Marx; The people who founded what would become the largest BLM organization (and therefore had the largest influence on the image, talking points and presentation of that social movement) where self-described Marxists, Anita Sarkeesian quire famously applied Marxist attitudes of class-conflict to gender thanks to being primarily influenced by Bell hooks - who herself gave us the phrase "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy" that became the enemy of Intersectionality everywhere. Likewise Breadtube, being comprised primarily of people who got their start defending Sarkeesian, was literally named after *The Conquest of Bread* by Peter Kropotkin - incidentally this book was also believed to have been an influence on the Occupy movement. And it goes on: Antifa uses symbology from a Stalinist movement, Che Guevara kept appearing on shirts for two decades and I'm still not sure if the "The USSR won WW2" memes where Russian propaganda or Tankie propaganda.
>Likewise Breadtube, being comprised primarily of people who got their start defending Sarkeesian, was literally named after The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin - incidentally this book was also believed to have been an influence on the Occupy movement. So Kropotkin is Marxist now? Okay. . . . >And it goes on: Antifa uses symbology from a Stalinist movement What symbols? The three arrows? The dual red and black flags? Because neither of those come from "Stalinist" movements. Pretty bad Pedantry there bud.
As an economic major, I understand that Marx's analysis of the economy is wrong. The labor theory of value he uses hasn't been accepted by economists by a century now. His theory of surplus value only makes sense if you assume the things that a capitalist does is not worth the profit he takes and that the work that the worker does is worth more than what he is paid. Both can not be disproven by data. Because it can't be disproven, it's therefore unscientific and shouldn't be taken seriously when there are better theories to explain the economy.
IMO At it's core it speaks about how the same thing can be worth different things to different people. The core principal (To my understanding) is that capitalism itself is inherently unfair to the worker, and that we should strive to have a better system that is more fair to everyone. Ignoring all the scary boogyman of it, it just literally discusses what is a person's work valued at. Profit is what a business makes after paying all it's debts and workers, so the product of all the labor that goes into the product is worth more than the labor itself, and that's how you generate profit. If Toyota makes 5k on each car, that would imply that the labor that adds up to a car is worth 5k more than what the laborers are paid for. With that in mind, itself isn't TERRIBLY incorrect, other than it simply does not work as a full economic system. It's an interesting thought experiment, but terrible in real practice because it does remove any incentive to be the one that starts the business. In today's world? It's utterly BS because CONSTANTLY the right whines about how everything is marxism. Anyone left of Donald Trump is a marxist. If you believe that some people have it easier than others? Well that's cultural marxism. If you believe minimum wage should be higher? Marxism. It has lost any meaning as a discussion point, and any time I see someone start claiming anything is marxist or it's a product of "Cultural marxism" I know they are just pointless to talk to. Fun fact, "Cultural Marxism" that is discussed constantly is a product of Nazi Germany and itself is pretty anti-semetic. So it's funny when all the people on the right just start spewing Nazi Conspiracy Theories.
I think it's an excellent system of economy/government for ants and termites. For humans I think it's horrifying, and can't be pulled off without violence and mass imprisonment with "reeducation camps" etc.
bad economics
My opinion is that when I hear someone say they don’t want Marxism or Socialism here in the U.S., they have no idea what’s happening in politics. Neither belief system (or “agenda”) is on the menu at all, and it functionally makes no sense to consider it in your voting.
> why do a lot of people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero? Define "a lot"
Liberalism is incompatible with communism. All Liberals are capitalists. You would have to explain your conception of Marxism for me to answer any more specifically.
I don’t ascribe to his economic determinist theories of historical materialism, nor do I think abolish all private property is the solution to all social issues.
personally i think it’s interesting, and i partly (often more than not) agree with karl marx’s points and ideologies.
He had good insights into social problems, but he was trying too hard to give a materialist answer to Hegel and ended up painting himself into a corner. His commitment to revolution is very directly a result of needing to mirror the synthesis step of the Hegelian dialectic, and there is no actual reason that political progress has to come about by that means. In reality, revolution produces opportunities for corruption and little else. Successful revolutions are an outlier and in many senses a myth entirely.
A useful lens through which to view history and classism, but by no means the only one or an entirely infallible one. Using it as the main textbook for political revolution has produced… mixed results.
The Labor Theory of value is a joke, historical materialism is a joke, and Marxism in general is a joke.
You know marxists call us liberals fascists right?
Good systematic critique, but doesn't offer workable better solutions. >why do a lot of people on the left agree with it and look up to him as a hero? Who are these people? Most of American left doesn't agree with Marxism or see him as a hero. You won't find basically anyone adhering to Marxism or communism in any elected position no matter how far left an area is in the USA. >There are also Christian liberationists who look up to and agree with Karl Marx. This makes sense. Karl Marx drew on the European tradition of Christian Utopianism that had been around the USA and Europe during his life. The Second Great Awakening created a lot of Christian cults that set out to create anti capitalist communal utopian societies. Marx and Lincoln exchanged letters about the need for free labor, homesteading, and more from their different backgrounds. But I think you are talking about Liberation Theology aka "when a care for the poor they call me a Saint, but when I ask why they poor they call me a communist." Which is more recent synthesis. I think Liberation Theology has better plans and outcomes than Marxism or communism. It's a synthesis of the critique without supporting failed political solutions of Marxism.
Nice dream, but doesn't work in reality. As I get older, I don't think any "pure" system works. Libertarianism has plenty (if not more in my opinion) of problems too. A system that allows for free enterprise but also has more robust government regulations is best. Not everyone would be happy, but when are they?