If you want a bibliography, recommended reading list, with comments on the books and the order you should read them in, PLUS if you want to support the channel AND get bonus videos like a mini course on 'thinking like a historian' PLUS (yes, there's more!) these videos ad-free and early, join the Then & Now Patreon community at: www.patreon.com/thenandnow
@@realchoodle The bibliography is cited through the video for free, but these videos take a lot to make and are only possible with Patreon, so I've turned my recommendations into a document with some comments for Patreons.
When I was in university, I met an American who told me that he was in England to study Marx since at the time (mid 70s) that was not possible in the U.S. Things have changed, but only partially. I wonder how this video would have been received if it were part of hoax of discovery of a secret diary of say J. F. K. Or one of these Bible thumbing pastors. Given the general gullibility of Americans, provided it was presented in appropriate disguise, I tend to speculate that it would become a best seller with people like Jordan Peterson waving it around like a little red book. It might not lead to any change, but it might lead to a new type of enlightenment. I have always thought Marx was not prescribing what Lenin or Mao interpreted. Marx was imagining how things might change with education and his only sin was that he was an optimist and didn't know human nature. That is that he didn't the know about the indisputable natural phenomenon that for the sake of evolution sympathetic nervous system must always override the parasympathetic part because unless life survives there would be no need for a parasympathetic system. You can't get any further from non-materialism than this. It is the very makeup of physiology of life. From that simple observation you can see why Marx prediction were bound to be wrong.
I won't get the chance to sit and watch this start to finish for a while, but MAN I cannot wait til that moment comes. Commenting to help out with the algorithm!
Marx's famous analysis of history is encapsulated in the opening line of The Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Concept of the class struggle was developed by french scholars of the mid 18 century. They also had described the economic reality, which creates classes and makes them oppose each other. Marx contribution is the assertion that this struggle will be resolved in post-class society.
amazing work done here. a video-essay/documentary on Marx which is both accessible and comprehensive. I will definitely be recommending this to people as a perfect introduction to Marx's thought.
Wonderful, you did a work here that should be praised, turning introduction to Marx so accessible, without losing it's senses. Congratulations, I hope a lot of people do watch this video as a whole, and not only the ones with left tendencies.
@@epochphilosophy I got that initial feeling of excitement when I saw the thumbnail but once my eyes made it to the timestamp I threw my first up and yelled out. I don’t think I even waited to read the title at first to make sure it wasn’t titled like “why he sucks” because I saw dude in the thumbnail and knew that wasn’t gonna be the case
Had sat down to watch something at lunch and thought, maybe I'll watch an old Then&Now vid... and was greeted with this feature length Marx vid. Booyakasha!
What a fantastic video - remaining accessible while tackling so many components of Marx. I will definitely recommend this as an introduction, although its breadth will naturally be overwhelming for any newcomer.
I was so confused, bc I have seen this (awesome video!!!) already -- I forgot I watched it as soon as it came out on Patreon. 😁 Amazing work, thank you so much.
At the end of the day, Marx's most important message and the one that has kept me as a marxist thru the years, is the freeing of humanity from abstractions, be it gods, magic, kings, the market, capital or whatever, and opening the possibility for us truly becoming "human" (post human?). Can't wait to see this!
This also ties into one of the critical theories of Nazis being defined as seekers of destroying abstraction. The obvious examples of this were their disdain for modern art like abstract expressionism or conceptual art- reactionaries hating the Fountain (Duchamp) come to mind- or their systematic attacks on academia and higher education. But the ideological history of Nazis comes from Italian fascism, which has its hands in both irrationalism, the idea that emotions and feelings should be prized over reason, and something I call actionism- a form of anti-intellectualism whereby contemplation and abstract thinking are detested (the passive intellectual) and the concrete and practical are elevated are valuable intrinsically (the active intellectual). Moving along, Italian fascism was a response to the alienation felt within capitalism. It sought to end alienation through nationalism and perpetual war, so folks would feel comfortable subordinating themselves to the capitalist machine if they thought it was necessary for their survival and the survival and prosperity of the nation-state. So Italian fascism was at least symbolically anti-capitalist, and Nazism took after that tradition and this is seen in their official name- National Socialist German Workers' Party. When we think about capitalism, it is an incredibly abstract system with invisible working parts involving larger-than-life ideas. Finances, markets, banking, money, commodities, production, natural resource extraction, homogeneous labor, etc. It seems to create real-life consequences-like economic crises, poverty, unemployment, inflation, and deprivation of basic necessities- through purely fictitious and abstract means, some kind of invisible force that exerts an influence on the concrete life of humans from seemingly another dimension. Because anti-semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries implicated Jews to be the symbol of this abstract "international finance" system responsible for so many problems, the Nazis projected their internalized property relations and alienation regarding the abstract nature of the world *onto* the Jews, turning them into a scapegoat that must be sacrificed (through the Holocaust) in order to release this inner collective tension felt by the Germans-don't forget that most Nazis came from middle class or below backgrounds so they were most affected by the workings of capitalism. As a result, fascism and communism are both opposing responses to the same underlying phenomena: abstraction. But while communism identifies highly abstract systems and seeks to destroy those systems such as the state, capitalism, money, class, etc. Fascism identifies highly abstract PEOPLE (and nations) and seeks to destroy them through genocide, slavery, war, ecocide, and occupation.
28:22 made me spit hamburger all over my screen. Now my brand new shining gaming laptop feels alienated and is protesting against my exploitative use of it. Thanks.
It's been a long time. I should reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to refresh myself with Pirsig's philosophical breakdown of value and quality and see how it layers over Marx's theory of value in labor
I'm always a bit frustrated with the way Idealism and Materialism are presented as so opposed to one another. Surely, it is true that our material/phenomenological circumstances shape our subjectivity, and that includes the ideologies we inherit from family and education. But Plato says these very things as well in the Republic (reading Robin Waterfield's OWC translation now), and he's considered the prototypical idealist. Hegel, in fact, was hugely influenced by the neoplatonist named Proclus, but Proclus viewed the phenomena of a place in the 'material' world as the luminous vehicle of the Psyche. Psyche was thoroughly embodied. I don’t believe it diminishes Marx's analytical accomplishments to say this. I just think his (Marx's) temperament and metaphysics are more like Aristotle's than Plato's.
I think it only makes sense to view the idealism vs materialism binary strictly within the historical context of 19th century philosophy. Marx was responding strictly to the "idealism" of his day. It just muddles things to broaden it out beyond that.
@@colonelweird Maybe, but Marx was responding directly to the Hegelian influence, and that was influenced by Christian and Hermetic platonisms. Edit: And we see a very strict subculture of materialist/anti-idealists on youtube who've not actually engaged with idealisms beyond what is usually just ideological disagreement.
I’ll never understand the propensity for philosophical conversation to constantly revolve around the dissemination/evaluation of prior thinkers. Those that came before lead us to where we are, so I question the wisdom of placing SO much time and attention on these old ideas.
Marx doesn't have a metaphysical view, dialectical materialism was formalized by Engels. Marx's materialism is strictly historical and developed out of a critique of the perceived teleology of Absolute Idealism. Even his materialist 'critique' of religion was not so much a rebuke to metaphysics as much as an exercise in going from Feuerbach's anthropologizing 'what is the truth?' of God to his own 'what is the truth of the illusion?' As he says in his Theses: “that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice” In other words, the realm of theology is the result of real material contradictions man faces, and may only be resolved through resolving these material contradictions. The idea that the antinomies of philosophy have their basis and therefore resolution in resolving the contradictions within material reality Feenberg calls (taking Gramsci's term) the 'philosophy of praxis.' From here Marx focuses on the inner logic of mode of productions as the driving force of historical change, though not without affording agency to the people within it. His primary motivation is to develop a theory of real abstraction, a form of impersonal domination rooted neither in relations of direct domination nor ideological distortions but the unique material relations of man in the capitalist mode of production.
You guys are wrong when saying that the "transformation problem" poses a problem to Marx's theory of value. It's a misinterpretation of the theory of value that leads to the transformation problem. Marx himself doesn't commit the error, so there is no "transformation problem" in his theory. Some other people, such as Answar Shaikh, disagree with Marx on some points and have a different interpretation of the theory of value. And the transformation problem is a problem to THEIR interpretation. Their interpretation directly leads to the problem, and they then try to find a way to work around it. But Marx interpretation doesn't have this problem to begin with. I can explain more, if someone else is also confused about that so called "problem". And if someone is curious about the difference between Marx's interpretation and that of those other thinkers (who run into the problem), I suggest checking out Andrew Kliman's book about Marx's Capital. He explain in depth where the misinterpretation comes from and why the problem isn't real.
I think of the labor theory of value not as a descriptive theory, but as a normative theory. From that perspective, it's not wrong, it's just unrealized.
It’s not wrong as a descriptive theory. In terms of goods across industries, surplus outputs are directly proportional to labour inputs. This is easily tested and proven, like in this video: th-cam.com/video/emnYMfjYh1Q/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ecJlNKYMTqqks9Eq
Even _Chomsky_ made the horrendous continuous-mistake of telling people to vote for Democrats. You have to fully oppose Noam Chomsky telling you that, _and also all these media “journalists” for the Ds or Rs of the duopoly._
Alienation, for Marx, is not a feeling. This is a tired and incorrect reading. Its too often abused as a muddled catch all concept that is used in the place of various phenomena to avoid saying something concrete. It’s a functional fact of property. I am quite literally estranged from my labor activity and its product not because I don’t feel like I see myself in it, but because I do determine it nor own the product. The firm does. I am estranged in actuality from my fellow worker as we compete for job positions. I am estranged from the world because I own none of it, despite everyday contributing to its creation. Althusser’s assertion of the young/late Marx dichotomy was rigorously disproven and even abandoned by him. It requires we pretend the Grundrisse doesn’t exist, a text which ought to have been mentioned. Alienation was never abandoned, it’s overcoming is the practical abolition of property. It also would have been helpful to dive into the “is/ought” dichotomy, particular Hegel’s critique of it, rather than just asserting it. Also, Marx did not wish to combine economics and philosophy, but just as with religion, thought himself to be going beyond these schools through their critique. Hence Capital being “A Critique of Political Economy”, or his earlier critique of philosophy as such.
Alienstion is both a feeling and a socio-economic reality for Marx. It's a socio-economic reality felt by the worker. So saying alienation is a feeling isn't wrong, just incomplete.
@@Alex-jj1jx I am discussing specifically how Marx develops the concept. Not to be conflated with other uses or misappropriations. You can “feel” alienated, just as you can feel like you’ve been robbed, but the feeling is not equal to the actuality of the situation. If I feel like I see myself in my work, but I’m a wage worker without ownership of my product, I am still alienated from my labor in reality.
The transformation problem has long been "solved", as it hinges entirely on the assumption that rates of profit will equalize over time, yet it has been reasonably argued that it is not the case. Therefore no transformation problem exists in the labour theory of value. It wasn't necessarily a problem to begin with, but alas it has largely been resolved.
I cringed when he brought up Althusser’s abandoned late/early Marx dichotomy. I haven’t even got to the part where he brings up the so-called “transformation problem”. A pretend problem which was born of misunderstanding and nevertheless provided fodder for an embarrassing amount of academic discourse surrounding it. I don’t understand why he’d waste time in this video talking about irrelevant intellectual fashions which popped up a century after Marx’s death.
Marx had always seen that capitalism would see the maximization of profits, but leave working people stagnant and in desperate need for resources. He took a scientific approach to observing the practices of capitalists and saw where it would lead to. Once people collectively start to listen, maybe we'll be free.
@@Craig121000 your parents being poor has a massive impact on social mobility. is that really your responsibility? free will is an acceptable argument (in extremely small doses) but the science does not agree with you ultimately.
@@Craig121000 And yet you seek gratification...maybe sexual, but I'm not kink-shaming...from trying to wind people up with silly comments. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems you are maybe even more needier than most people.
@@SneakySteevy In the terms of effect, yes. But neoliberal ideology is also very effective, that doesn't make it better than Marx. Either way, I don't recall Spinoza's philosophy having lead to an almost direct overthrow of half of regimes worldwide. Why do you think Spinoza is more influential? I'm not hating on Spinoza by the way.
*1 of 2. This is how you always need to vote worldwide-* We must fully criticize and _always vote_ *against* (& less authoritarian than) both the Republican *and* Democratic Parties- including *Tim Walz, Kamala Harris,* AOC, all of the squad, Bernie Sanders, Edward Markey, Mark Pocan, the justice democrats, & all other democrats. Vote in every single election- at all levels. And also _endorse or anti-endorse,_ in all elections you can, for outside your voting jurisdiction. For _all_ public positions. And this same strategy applies against the one or more party-monopolies in _all_ countries worldwide. Real progressives will never be Democratic Members or Democratic loyalists. Never vote for _any_ Republican member or loyalist either. If no candidates for a position fit that bill: -Where _write-ins_ are permissible, always write-in an anti-authoritarian person; -Where write-ins aren’t permissible, always vote uncommitted or leave the ballot blank. This will continuously reduce the power of _all_ authoritarian parties in the party monopolies: Until our task is complete. Repeat strategy for all new authoritarian parties that emerge. *2 of 2. This is how you always need to vote worldwide-* We must fully criticize and _always vote_ *against* (& less authoritarian than) both the Democratic *and* Republican Parties- including *Trump,* RFK Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Rand Paul (He’s _no_ Ron Paul), Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Ron Johnson, and all other Republicans. Vote in every single election- at all levels. And also _endorse or anti-endorse,_ in all elections you can, for outside your voting jurisdiction. For _all_ public positions. And this same strategy applies against the same one or more party-monopolies in _all_ countries worldwide. Real libertarians will never be Republicans or Republican loyalists. Never vote for _any_ Democratic member or loyalist either. If no candidates for a position fit that bill: -Where _write-ins_ are permissible, always write-in an anti-authoritarian person; -Where write-ins aren’t permissible, always vote uncommitted or leave the ballot blank. This will continuously reduce the power of _all_ authoritarian parties in the party monopolies: Until our task is complete. Repeat strategy for all new authoritarian parties that emerge.
There is no way to vote ourselves out of capitalism. The capitalists own and control the whole system. Trusting our current 'democracy' to deliver change is a multi-generational waste of our time. We cannot revolt because there is no mass appetite for revolution. So what remains, if we want change, is to build that change from the grassroots up. Prove to the indoctrinated that there is a viable alternative. Let's not waste our time on political parties and elections. We should use your lives to build something progressive and anti-capitalist in our communities. Build a network with others, demonstrate the reality of putting people before profit. Here are some ideas: start a profit sharing co-operative business that doesn't exploit people or the environment, start a local solar energy network with your neighbours, work to help people who are struggling to survive, join a food bank, start a communal vegetable garden, volunteer at a community repair workshop. Most of all, we need to unite against the established forces of greed and exploitation.
This is like begging you to use the suggestion box at work. It won’t do shit to save us. Democracy is and always has been an ideal which hides the dictatorship of the bourgeois. We will not ask the bourgeois to be nice. “We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
You are genuinely among the dumbest people on "Left-Tube". No logic, no strategy, only rants that are made up of fears and insecurity. Just sad really.
@@TheStarBlack You can do all of this while also spending 5 minutes to vote for the side that doesn't want to immediately tear down everything you want to build at their first possible opportunity. One party is apathetic towards you. The other is rabidly against you. The choice is pretty obvious. You can also vote in more progressive Dems in the primaries. We've made progress that way. This doesn't have to be all one or all the other.
It's a dialectic social partnership. It has to be because without the social, the dialectic can't exist. Language only forms through disparity between the other. The existentialism of sharing space with each other in the first place.
Considering that you can barely spell and punctuate a 9 word sentence it’s fair to say that pretty much every concept covered in this video went over your head. That’s just sad.
@@NikosKoutsilieris Marx is woke because explaining class relations under capitalism and applying DiaMat makes me feel bad for expropriaters and other bourgeois elements 😔
Almost certainly a Socialist in european common terms. Communist? Bits of it possibly... but I don't see him having any sympathy for any kind of dictatorship..
If you want a bibliography, recommended reading list, with comments on the books and the order you should read them in, PLUS if you want to support the channel AND get bonus videos like a mini course on 'thinking like a historian' PLUS (yes, there's more!) these videos ad-free and early, join the Then & Now Patreon community at: www.patreon.com/thenandnow
Locking your bibliography behind a pay wall seems strange. The other stuff makes sense.
@@realchoodle The bibliography is cited through the video for free, but these videos take a lot to make and are only possible with Patreon, so I've turned my recommendations into a document with some comments for Patreons.
@@ThenNow Oh fair. Probably should have double checked before commenting.
When I was in university, I met an American who told me that he was in England to study Marx since at the time (mid 70s) that was not possible in the U.S.
Things have changed, but only partially. I wonder how this video would have been received if it were part of hoax of discovery of a secret diary of say J. F. K. Or one of these Bible thumbing pastors.
Given the general gullibility of Americans, provided it was presented in appropriate disguise, I tend to speculate that it would become a best seller with people like Jordan Peterson waving it around like a little red book.
It might not lead to any change, but it might lead to a new type of enlightenment. I have always thought Marx was not prescribing what Lenin or Mao interpreted. Marx was imagining how things might change with education and his only sin was that he was an optimist and didn't know human nature. That is that he didn't the know about the indisputable natural phenomenon that for the sake of evolution sympathetic nervous system must always override the parasympathetic part because unless life survives there would be no need for a parasympathetic system. You can't get any further from non-materialism than this. It is the very makeup of physiology of life.
From that simple observation you can see why Marx prediction were bound to be wrong.
No way! Over two hours of Marx, you are seizing my means of doing anything i planned to do right now!
Siezing your means of being productive this afternoon
@@leonardopatrizio I have nothing to lose but my internet access.
Today's modes of production are well and truly fucked. Not that I'm complaining!
he's seizing the video quality from other videos about marx too
Neither communism nor capitalism has produced a functioning lightsaber.
It finally happened! Super stoked to watch.
I won't get the chance to sit and watch this start to finish for a while, but MAN I cannot wait til that moment comes. Commenting to help out with the algorithm!
When the world needed him the most, he returned with the G.O.A.T
Marx's famous analysis of history is encapsulated in the opening line of The Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Concept of the class struggle was developed by french scholars of the mid 18 century. They also had described the economic reality, which creates classes and makes them oppose each other. Marx contribution is the assertion that this struggle will be resolved in post-class society.
amazing work done here. a video-essay/documentary on Marx which is both accessible and comprehensive. I will definitely be recommending this to people as a perfect introduction to Marx's thought.
I am a simple man. I see a new 2 hour Then & Now video, I click.
Hey! It's here! And there was me today walking down Oxford St. today and thinking, 'I just feel so alienated.'
Wonderful, you did a work here that should be praised, turning introduction to Marx so accessible, without losing it's senses. Congratulations, I hope a lot of people do watch this video as a whole, and not only the ones with left tendencies.
I literally yelled fuck yeah when I saw this video pop up
Same, same.
@@epochphilosophy I got that initial feeling of excitement when I saw the thumbnail but once my eyes made it to the timestamp I threw my first up and yelled out. I don’t think I even waited to read the title at first to make sure it wasn’t titled like “why he sucks” because I saw dude in the thumbnail and knew that wasn’t gonna be the case
I won't have time to watch this for a while but I think this channel is incredible and I'd happily comment for engagement's sake
Had sat down to watch something at lunch and thought, maybe I'll watch an old Then&Now vid... and was greeted with this feature length Marx vid. Booyakasha!
What a fantastic video - remaining accessible while tackling so many components of Marx. I will definitely recommend this as an introduction, although its breadth will naturally be overwhelming for any newcomer.
You crushed the Hegel video, now this? Thank you!!!
I was so confused, bc I have seen this (awesome video!!!) already -- I forgot I watched it as soon as it came out on Patreon. 😁 Amazing work, thank you so much.
who needs college when we have this... absolute based gem, thanks for making this dude
At the end of the day, Marx's most important message and the one that has kept me as a marxist thru the years, is the freeing of humanity from abstractions, be it gods, magic, kings, the market, capital or whatever, and opening the possibility for us truly becoming "human" (post human?). Can't wait to see this!
Marx freed humanity from abstractions? I thought Aporia and Ch'an did that.
This also ties into one of the critical theories of Nazis being defined as seekers of destroying abstraction. The obvious examples of this were their disdain for modern art like abstract expressionism or conceptual art- reactionaries hating the Fountain (Duchamp) come to mind- or their systematic attacks on academia and higher education. But the ideological history of Nazis comes from Italian fascism, which has its hands in both irrationalism, the idea that emotions and feelings should be prized over reason, and something I call actionism- a form of anti-intellectualism whereby contemplation and abstract thinking are detested (the passive intellectual) and the concrete and practical are elevated are valuable intrinsically (the active intellectual).
Moving along, Italian fascism was a response to the alienation felt within capitalism. It sought to end alienation through nationalism and perpetual war, so folks would feel comfortable subordinating themselves to the capitalist machine if they thought it was necessary for their survival and the survival and prosperity of the nation-state. So Italian fascism was at least symbolically anti-capitalist, and Nazism took after that tradition and this is seen in their official name- National Socialist German Workers' Party.
When we think about capitalism, it is an incredibly abstract system with invisible working parts involving larger-than-life ideas. Finances, markets, banking, money, commodities, production, natural resource extraction, homogeneous labor, etc. It seems to create real-life consequences-like economic crises, poverty, unemployment, inflation, and deprivation of basic necessities- through purely fictitious and abstract means, some kind of invisible force that exerts an influence on the concrete life of humans from seemingly another dimension.
Because anti-semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries implicated Jews to be the symbol of this abstract "international finance" system responsible for so many problems, the Nazis projected their internalized property relations and alienation regarding the abstract nature of the world *onto* the Jews, turning them into a scapegoat that must be sacrificed (through the Holocaust) in order to release this inner collective tension felt by the Germans-don't forget that most Nazis came from middle class or below backgrounds so they were most affected by the workings of capitalism.
As a result, fascism and communism are both opposing responses to the same underlying phenomena: abstraction. But while communism identifies highly abstract systems and seeks to destroy those systems such as the state, capitalism, money, class, etc. Fascism identifies highly abstract PEOPLE (and nations) and seeks to destroy them through genocide, slavery, war, ecocide, and occupation.
@@Barklord no he didn't...
@@BojoschannelContradiction is not an Argument. I came in here for a good argument.
@Bojoschannel This is the No Theory Required faction of Post-Leninist-Marxism.
28:22 made me spit hamburger all over my screen. Now my brand new shining gaming laptop feels alienated and is protesting against my exploitative use of it. Thanks.
Chapter 10 well done. Cuts right through the fog of culture war.
I can’t believe I haven’t subscribed until this episode. I’ve been freeloading for so long. Please forgive me!
16:31 He said the thing!
This actually feels like video-essay is an appropriate term, great job in that!
It's been a long time. I should reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to refresh myself with Pirsig's philosophical breakdown of value and quality and see how it layers over Marx's theory of value in labor
I'm always a bit frustrated with the way Idealism and Materialism are presented as so opposed to one another. Surely, it is true that our material/phenomenological circumstances shape our subjectivity, and that includes the ideologies we inherit from family and education. But Plato says these very things as well in the Republic (reading Robin Waterfield's OWC translation now), and he's considered the prototypical idealist. Hegel, in fact, was hugely influenced by the neoplatonist named Proclus, but Proclus viewed the phenomena of a place in the 'material' world as the luminous vehicle of the Psyche. Psyche was thoroughly embodied. I don’t believe it diminishes Marx's analytical accomplishments to say this. I just think his (Marx's) temperament and metaphysics are more like Aristotle's than Plato's.
I think it only makes sense to view the idealism vs materialism binary strictly within the historical context of 19th century philosophy. Marx was responding strictly to the "idealism" of his day. It just muddles things to broaden it out beyond that.
@@colonelweird Maybe, but Marx was responding directly to the Hegelian influence, and that was influenced by Christian and Hermetic platonisms.
Edit: And we see a very strict subculture of materialist/anti-idealists on youtube who've not actually engaged with idealisms beyond what is usually just ideological disagreement.
I’ll never understand the propensity for philosophical conversation to constantly revolve around the dissemination/evaluation of prior thinkers. Those that came before lead us to where we are, so I question the wisdom of placing SO much time and attention on these old ideas.
@NightRogue77 How do you interpret the nighttime torch horse relay-race at the festival of Bendis? Or the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Marx doesn't have a metaphysical view, dialectical materialism was formalized by Engels. Marx's materialism is strictly historical and developed out of a critique of the perceived teleology of Absolute Idealism. Even his materialist 'critique' of religion was not so much a rebuke to metaphysics as much as an exercise in going from Feuerbach's anthropologizing 'what is the truth?' of God to his own 'what is the truth of the illusion?' As he says in his Theses:
“that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice”
In other words, the realm of theology is the result of real material contradictions man faces, and may only be resolved through resolving these material contradictions. The idea that the antinomies of philosophy have their basis and therefore resolution in resolving the contradictions within material reality Feenberg calls (taking Gramsci's term) the 'philosophy of praxis.' From here Marx focuses on the inner logic of mode of productions as the driving force of historical change, though not without affording agency to the people within it. His primary motivation is to develop a theory of real abstraction, a form of impersonal domination rooted neither in relations of direct domination nor ideological distortions but the unique material relations of man in the capitalist mode of production.
Amazing work here my friend.
You guys are wrong when saying that the "transformation problem" poses a problem to Marx's theory of value.
It's a misinterpretation of the theory of value that leads to the transformation problem.
Marx himself doesn't commit the error, so there is no "transformation problem" in his theory.
Some other people, such as Answar Shaikh, disagree with Marx on some points and have a different interpretation of the theory of value. And the transformation problem is a problem to THEIR interpretation. Their interpretation directly leads to the problem, and they then try to find a way to work around it. But Marx interpretation doesn't have this problem to begin with.
I can explain more, if someone else is also confused about that so called "problem".
And if someone is curious about the difference between Marx's interpretation and that of those other thinkers (who run into the problem), I suggest checking out Andrew Kliman's book about Marx's Capital. He explain in depth where the misinterpretation comes from and why the problem isn't real.
I Highly recommend this video. More power to your channel. 🎉
I think of the labor theory of value not as a descriptive theory, but as a normative theory. From that perspective, it's not wrong, it's just unrealized.
It’s not wrong as a descriptive theory. In terms of goods across industries, surplus outputs are directly proportional to labour inputs. This is easily tested and proven, like in this video: th-cam.com/video/emnYMfjYh1Q/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ecJlNKYMTqqks9Eq
Marx in a straightforward easily digestible form, fantastic video essay T&N!
Thank you! :)
Thank you so muchhh for uploading this, i know it took many work, i really respect you
Be like Marx, join the revolutionary communist international 🚩🚩
amazing work!
Thank you so much for your top-notch work!
Great video, but my god, the caption is atrocious.
Love your video and your work as always, but you've mispronounced 'Feuerbach' I believe.
Even _Chomsky_ made the horrendous continuous-mistake of telling people to vote for Democrats.
You have to fully oppose Noam Chomsky telling you that, _and also all these media “journalists” for the Ds or Rs of the duopoly._
Parenti is the Goat . He expose Chomsky in Blackshirts and Reds
Even Ralph Nader said it repeatedly back in the 90s.
Ok Trumpist🤣🤣
WAT
@@truthbetold8233 YAP
Alienation, for Marx, is not a feeling. This is a tired and incorrect reading. Its too often abused as a muddled catch all concept that is used in the place of various phenomena to avoid saying something concrete.
It’s a functional fact of property. I am quite literally estranged from my labor activity and its product not because I don’t feel like I see myself in it, but because I do determine it nor own the product. The firm does. I am estranged in actuality from my fellow worker as we compete for job positions. I am estranged from the world because I own none of it, despite everyday contributing to its creation.
Althusser’s assertion of the young/late Marx dichotomy was rigorously disproven and even abandoned by him. It requires we pretend the Grundrisse doesn’t exist, a text which ought to have been mentioned. Alienation was never abandoned, it’s overcoming is the practical abolition of property.
It also would have been helpful to dive into the “is/ought” dichotomy, particular Hegel’s critique of it, rather than just asserting it.
Also, Marx did not wish to combine economics and philosophy, but just as with religion, thought himself to be going beyond these schools through their critique. Hence Capital being “A Critique of Political Economy”, or his earlier critique of philosophy as such.
Alienstion is both a feeling and a socio-economic reality for Marx. It's a socio-economic reality felt by the worker.
So saying alienation is a feeling isn't wrong, just incomplete.
@@Alex-jj1jx I am discussing specifically how Marx develops the concept. Not to be conflated with other uses or misappropriations. You can “feel” alienated, just as you can feel like you’ve been robbed, but the feeling is not equal to the actuality of the situation. If I feel like I see myself in my work, but I’m a wage worker without ownership of my product, I am still alienated from my labor in reality.
He mentioned the Grundrisse several times man
Early night tonight. 2 hours early. Cheers for this. 👍🏼
Thank you for the exceptional content.
Man imagine the human species finally moving away from god like Star Trek tng "who watches the watchers" episode.
The materialist dialectic is the theory of the proletarian revolution
23:20 "being alienated, innit?"
I'm very excited to watch this
2:12:59 This is so much Hegel
Summit this to education institutions for knowledge based learning.
This is such a high-grade, high-quality, breakdown of Karl Marx.
Wake up babe, Then and Now just dropped a Marx video
Thanx, Marx.
The transformation problem has long been "solved", as it hinges entirely on the assumption that rates of profit will equalize over time, yet it has been reasonably argued that it is not the case. Therefore no transformation problem exists in the labour theory of value. It wasn't necessarily a problem to begin with, but alas it has largely been resolved.
I cringed when he brought up Althusser’s abandoned late/early Marx dichotomy. I haven’t even got to the part where he brings up the so-called “transformation problem”.
A pretend problem which was born of misunderstanding and nevertheless provided fodder for an embarrassing amount of academic discourse surrounding it.
I don’t understand why he’d waste time in this video talking about irrelevant intellectual fashions which popped up a century after Marx’s death.
Amazing work!
Cadê os camaradas do Brasil?
Long live "Then & Now"💪💪💪🏻
Thank you so much ❤
Insert histrionic statement of one's enthusiasm here.
Left is best
How about we try a bit of Anarchism🏴🚩...wink wink 😉
Oh hell yes a new Then & Now vid?? So excited! :D
Marx had always seen that capitalism would see the maximization of profits, but leave working people stagnant and in desperate need for resources. He took a scientific approach to observing the practices of capitalists and saw where it would lead to. Once people collectively start to listen, maybe we'll be free.
You're responsible for yourself being poor.
@@Craig121000 Have a good day.
@@Craig121000 your parents being poor has a massive impact on social mobility. is that really your responsibility? free will is an acceptable argument (in extremely small doses) but the science does not agree with you ultimately.
Absolutely Lorrie, I've been having a great time not being impacted by inflation.
I'll be lovely and warm, again, this winter. 😁
@@Craig121000 And yet you seek gratification...maybe sexual, but I'm not kink-shaming...from trying to wind people up with silly comments. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems you are maybe even more needier than most people.
you should watch Jonathan Meades.
You want long from videos? I'll show you looooooong form videos
But no one wants to change the world for the worse.
Way ahead of his time.. AI will make it all possible
Let’s goooooooo!!!
Love him or hate him, he is still right, capitalism still has the same problems, and would have disagreed with the leninism of USSR and China.
Magnum Opus Lewis.
Christ, this video is too agood
Omg yes thank you
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Another masterpiece video.... Thank you for the hard work ! ❤
algo comment!!
The most monumental event of the year.
« Accuse your enemy of what you are doing as you are doing it to create confusion. » Karl Marx
I am going to recommend this to a favourite high school humanities teacher. You can safely do so in some places ❣️🇨🇦
Was desperately waiting for this to come out. Finally!
I really wonder the music being played in the beginning part of the video
Omg!! I'm so happy, thanks for making this. Been looking up a lot of Marx videos recently
No communist in here. But Marx paved the way to a more constructive understanding of society. This is simply a fact.
Just as I started reading capital yesterday lol perfect timing
I wash myself with a rag on a stick
My man! It's always a good day when there's a new video. Cheers!
Mmmmm delicious
holy shit dude
LFG
brother has balls for posting this
Surely not ?
Spinoza is much more influential than Marx on every levels.
It's not a contest, nobody cares who's more influential. It's about the content.
@@FreyrDK it’s always a contest
@@SneakySteevy In the terms of effect, yes. But neoliberal ideology is also very effective, that doesn't make it better than Marx. Either way, I don't recall Spinoza's philosophy having lead to an almost direct overthrow of half of regimes worldwide. Why do you think Spinoza is more influential? I'm not hating on Spinoza by the way.
*1 of 2. This is how you always need to vote worldwide-*
We must fully criticize and _always vote_ *against* (& less authoritarian than) both the Republican *and* Democratic Parties- including *Tim Walz, Kamala Harris,* AOC, all of the squad, Bernie Sanders, Edward Markey, Mark Pocan, the justice democrats, & all other democrats. Vote in every single election- at all levels. And also _endorse or anti-endorse,_ in all elections you can, for outside your voting jurisdiction.
For _all_ public positions. And this same strategy applies against the one or more party-monopolies in _all_ countries worldwide.
Real progressives will never be Democratic Members or Democratic loyalists. Never vote for _any_ Republican member or loyalist either.
If no candidates for a position fit that bill:
-Where _write-ins_ are permissible, always write-in an anti-authoritarian person;
-Where write-ins aren’t permissible, always vote uncommitted or leave the ballot blank.
This will continuously reduce the power of _all_ authoritarian parties in the party monopolies: Until our task is complete.
Repeat strategy for all new authoritarian parties that emerge.
*2 of 2. This is how you always need to vote worldwide-*
We must fully criticize and _always vote_ *against* (& less authoritarian than) both the Democratic *and* Republican Parties- including *Trump,* RFK Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Rand Paul (He’s _no_ Ron Paul), Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Ron Johnson, and all other Republicans. Vote in every single election- at all levels. And also _endorse or anti-endorse,_ in all elections you can, for outside your voting jurisdiction.
For _all_ public positions. And this same strategy applies against the same one or more party-monopolies in _all_ countries worldwide.
Real libertarians will never be Republicans or Republican loyalists. Never vote for _any_ Democratic member or loyalist either.
If no candidates for a position fit that bill:
-Where _write-ins_ are permissible, always write-in an anti-authoritarian person;
-Where write-ins aren’t permissible, always vote uncommitted or leave the ballot blank.
This will continuously reduce the power of _all_ authoritarian parties in the party monopolies: Until our task is complete.
Repeat strategy for all new authoritarian parties that emerge.
There is no way to vote ourselves out of capitalism. The capitalists own and control the whole system. Trusting our current 'democracy' to deliver change is a multi-generational waste of our time.
We cannot revolt because there is no mass appetite for revolution.
So what remains, if we want change, is to build that change from the grassroots up. Prove to the indoctrinated that there is a viable alternative.
Let's not waste our time on political parties and elections. We should use your lives to build something progressive and anti-capitalist in our communities. Build a network with others, demonstrate the reality of putting people before profit.
Here are some ideas: start a profit sharing co-operative business that doesn't exploit people or the environment, start a local solar energy network with your neighbours, work to help people who are struggling to survive, join a food bank, start a communal vegetable garden, volunteer at a community repair workshop.
Most of all, we need to unite against the established forces of greed and exploitation.
Dude. Shut up.
This is like begging you to use the suggestion box at work. It won’t do shit to save us. Democracy is and always has been an ideal which hides the dictatorship of the bourgeois. We will not ask the bourgeois to be nice.
“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
You are genuinely among the dumbest people on "Left-Tube". No logic, no strategy, only rants that are made up of fears and insecurity. Just sad really.
@@TheStarBlack You can do all of this while also spending 5 minutes to vote for the side that doesn't want to immediately tear down everything you want to build at their first possible opportunity. One party is apathetic towards you. The other is rabidly against you. The choice is pretty obvious.
You can also vote in more progressive Dems in the primaries. We've made progress that way. This doesn't have to be all one or all the other.
Can't wait to find out why my previous extensive studies of Marx have been wildly insufficient!
もういらんやろ流石に。この手のやつは
It's a dialectic social partnership. It has to be because without the social, the dialectic can't exist. Language only forms through disparity between the other. The existentialism of sharing space with each other in the first place.
Wow, can't believe Then & Now has gone WOKE
Considering that you can barely spell and punctuate a 9 word sentence it’s fair to say that pretty much every concept covered in this video went over your head. That’s just sad.
@@daudimasinde6280 you're right, and I'm definitely being 100% serious about Marx being "woke"
You people are just illiterate. Only buzzwords. Can you explain what woke is and then go on and explain why marx is indeed "woke" ;
They went woke 8 years ago 😢
@@NikosKoutsilieris Marx is woke because explaining class relations under capitalism and applying DiaMat makes me feel bad for expropriaters and other bourgeois elements 😔
gott seid dank ❤❤❤
WE IN HERE!!!
is this guy a red?
Almost certainly a Socialist in european common terms. Communist? Bits of it possibly... but I don't see him having any sympathy for any kind of dictatorship..
Let’s go!
The intro was pretty funny!
HELL YEA
0.5% of the population in the UK. In the US, they're 2%.
How funny it is, i had to start one of the books explaining marxism this evening, and drop the phone. I'm cooked now, i habe to go through thos now
Yippee