Were Marx, Lenin and Luxemburg right about capitalism?

... or at least partly right?

I recently read Terry Eagleton's Why Marx Was Right and it looks like the ominous giant of the Left predicted rather accurately the final results of liberal capitalism - the ever larger gap between the rich and the poor, the ever more ruthless competition over limited resources, the extinction of middle class, the power of corporations, the alienation of an individual, nihilism, thoughtless hedonism etc.

Does it mean that the West is in the final stage of capitalism, which has to end with a massive war/revolution, or can the prophecy still be avoided? Or is it all nonsense and I should stop reading books from the dark side of the force? ;)

....they were so wrong! Humans just don't work that way....

No "system"..."ideology"....or how you call it will ever win over the inborn wish to be free, to be in full control over ones own life!

Something which has to be teached to kindergarten children, brain washing through school...which has to be enforced with secret police and army....which has to jail opponents will never work in the end.

It's all a matter of having the choice! If one choses to be socialist/communist, trying to work forward to this....okay...one's own personal and rightful choice. But forcing the next generation to follow that, to live like that, after the proletarian/workers war is "won"....is something else altogether. And here is where they all fail every time. The new generation has no longer a choice! The downfall begins....

The question is: does the West still stand for individual freedom, fairness and equal chances for everyone?

On the other hand, what's the alternative - China?

If only we could all switch to good old German ordoliberalism and balance what's good in both left and right. Ehh...

IMHO yes!


...yeah....that mix worked for the longest time very well!

The kind of "Turbo capitalism" is not to everybodies liking....

Thing is the western style of living doesn't need to be teached and enforced....and even allows people to chose for socialism/communism. And all the migration movements show people making their choices with their feet, preferring capitalism.

*sighs a huge sigh of relief*


... and it doesn't seem to work well for everybody either!

...yeah....trying not be so German:) But I would say Ordoliberalism...why not? It works!

Have to think about it some more.....

'night all *waves*

I am all for Ordoliberalism. Prawica Rzeczypospolitej (Marek Jurek) were big advocates of Ordoliberalism in Poland, and for a short moment it looked like PiS were convinced to follow this way. We all know how it ended though. :-/

Good night, BB. :)

The first yes. He was first and foremost an economist, and his economic and historical theories are hard to refute. The other two? No. They were wrong.


Sometimes more wrong than right however yes, he does make very good points. He's mellowed with time; he could be very outspoken back in the day. He must be quite old now.

And after all, it is inherently immoral that a so called investor should get more money from someone's job than the person actually doing it.


Possibly, however Marx didn't spend much time looking at things from a global perspective and Lenin was naive. The rise of India etc and the decline of America may well change things in ways that were hard to predict.

Eagleton's rival Frank Furedi would probably disagree with me on this. His followers believe Marxism is transhumanist and try to apply the theories to a 'post-work' age.


Not so massive, however as Marx and Engles wrote in the manifesto, exploiters aren't going to give up their booty without a fight.

Only those abundant social benefits spoil the image of liberal capitalism. :):):)

Which is forecast by some "experts" for distant future but hasn`t taken place yet coz the class is doing quite well in developed countries where it has always been strong or at least for the last 200 years.
Why are you mentioning things which are written on the water with a stick???

It doesn`t matter if they were right or wrong about capitalism. It matters that we don`t want communism. If so, we have no choice but to stick to capitalism.

Well, you're an expert on leftist thought but didn't they (especially Luxemburg) oppose capitalism's ruthless logic of profit (the society being merely an addition to economy, and human life, work and nature subordinated to profit, profit uber alles and all that)? I am not defending communists, God forbid, merely saying that not everything they wrote seems like complete and utter nonsense.


May you never have to live on those "abundant social benefits". :)


Is it? I thought there was more or less a consensus among economists that since Covid-19 the middle class has been shrinking all over the West (including Poland), and that the post-pandemic inflation hit them the hardest. It seems to be true, at least in Poland where the lower classes were protected from the inflation by an unprecedented rise in minimum wage, the rich - as they are bound to - found ways to weather the storm (e.g. with inflation indexed state obligations, efficient tax evasion etc.) whilst the middle class took the major hit. It was/is reported by the press - various sources as different as Przegląd and Najwyższy Czas (but also less extreme Newsweek and Polityka). They can't all be wrong, can they?


Of course we don't want communism, but is there anything about the current version of capitalism that could possibly be improved? I mean, it's easy for us to be pro-capitalist, Pawian. We are both well established in our profession, diligent, have no mortgages (here I am guessing about you but I think it's a good guess) and don't have to worry about job stability. However, when I look at young people today, I don't envy them. Imagine being 25-30 today and having to buy an apartment in a city like Gdańsk at current prices and current wages. Even for people with university education and above average salaries the prospect seems somewhat daunting.

An actual Marxist would say I'm very much not.

With Rosa Luksemburg (a Polish hero), she literally lived in a time of exploitation and revolution. Calmer voices are needed.

Among the Polish left, the voices were drowned out by r*SSian occupation, violence and oppression however one id listen to is the late Andrzej Strug. The museum dedicated to him in Warsaw is worth a visit.

One thing that harms the left in Poland, Germany etc is that most of the ideas came late and through Marxism. I'm more used to the British Labour movement which had its roots in different things, particularly religious values.

Then again, Poland did give us the Warszawianka.

Don't know about Germany but in Poland the left seems to be totally fixated on genital issues (abortion, LGBT, marriage/adoption rights for homosexuals, sexual education at schools etc.). If they could only somehow break this magical fixation on genitals and concentrate on traditional leftist aims - better wages and work conditions, fairer taxes on corporations, nature preservation, affordable housing and so on, they would gain much more support.


0_0 wow - that's interesting!

Will check out Strug, thanks.

On the Catholic side it was the Rerum novarum encyclical (Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor) issued by Pope Leo XIII

I know about Catholic Social Teaching but it can hardly be called leftist (not to mention communist). Or did you mean that British Labour movement drew inspiration from papal encyclicals in their approach to economy? I really have to look deeper into this - thanks, Amiga.

Many people would consider the principles of human dignity, the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity (grassroots) as leftist, whatever that term means these days.

Human dignity a leftist value? The Chinese Communist Party doesn't seem to think so. But, as you said, there is so much confusion these days as to what is or isn't leftist/rightist.

It's roots are in something called Owenism (very worth reading up on), that and a mix of evangelical Protestant self help and Catholic social justice (most British Roman Catholics are industrial workers with roots in Ireland and are staunchly socialist).

Some would trace its roots back to the 17th century Diggers, Ranters and Levellers (though that's a bit of a stretch and you could even argue that its roots arenie late Medieval religious guilds though I'd not really do that f).


Yes. The Chinese regime are more an example of Chinese culture rather than socialism which they clearly don't have.in any western sense.

Probably only the leftists themselves would...they love seeing themselves as the good ones, the right ones, the only ones fighting for the betterment of mankind, if mankind wants to or not!

There has been no example that after a leftist victory things like


had played any role anymore...it to fast developed into oppression! ALWAYS!

There may be a reason for that.....

Don't we?


There has and is. Britain, Canada, Australia, the Scandinavian countries ...

It all boils down to one question. Who should get the most material benefit from someone's job?

Should it be the worker himself or herself and the society they live in or should it be an 'investor' that has never even visited the workplace?

Seriously, Jon???

You would call Britain and Canada etc. successful examples of Marx' teachings????

Oh boy.....we are talking not about the same, don't we....

There is even a list of socialist/communist countries....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states

And I don't want to live in either of them!

TDS has consumed his entire entity and getting worse.

congratulations on Germanys election.. Bye bye Olaf! lol

Marx? We're talking about the workers movement.

This must be the 10th time I've repeated to you that the political left wasn't invented by Marx nor does it depend on him.

And yes, much of what happens in UK society (and many of the benefits that you enjoy too like universal healthcare, sickness benefit, old age pensions, free education, a five day working week, paid holidays and health & safety at work etc etc) originate with the British left which we were fighting for (and slowly winning) before Das Kapitał was ever written.

Even the term "left wing" was coined in France decades before he was born.

Yeah....the thread header somehow triggered me!

You would probably like Ordoliberalism too....a successful capitalism with a strong social balance. Why can we agree and keep it at that?

But somehow there is always a part of leftism which wants to "transform" the society, end capitalism, save the world and what not....

Don't be sarky, BB; members of some nations do humour better than others. There's a reason we've not heard of any French comedians; they only laugh when someone hurts themselves or they've had a particularly large meal!

The left doesn't depend on Marx and there is little actually left wing in absolutist politics of the mainland European type.


It sounds like the type of socialism we have in English speaking countries. Though hopefully it's not tainted by nationalism. No need for a new name for it though; there's already social democracy and socialism which have a huge overlap.

That's a dumb take. The left is deeply rooted in Marxism, even if not every leftist today is a Marxist. Pretending the left doesn't depend on Marx is ignoring basic history. And calling mainland European politics "absolutist"? That's just pure ignorance.

It isn't.

The left predates Marx.

Instead of coming out with rubbish like suggesting that anyone who dislikes a particular controversial politician must have some made-up "derangement syndrome", try looking at actual history.

Several of the founding fathers of your country were very much on the left and were inspired by the very people who coined the term "left wing" (decades before Karl was born) and you would not have either independence or a constitution without them.

Leftists and woke scum should be exterminated.

Can Auschwitz be made operational again?

Your drivel doesn't have much effect on me, Ryszard. I used to work in a psychiatric secure unit where some of the more disturbed inmates would say things like that. It does however annoy people who are easily shocked, deters new posters and derails threads; obviously deliberately.

I suspect you'd be delighted if this forum shuts down through lack of users.