Can someone explain the  attraction that far left radicals have with Marxism? I'm rather ignorant of the philosophy of Karl Marx  since I've never studied the subject. Also, what is the difference between Marxism and communism? I know they seem to be conjoined.

Life is unfair. The rich have too much. Everyone should be equally miserable. Kill or enslave the dissenters.

It has a different appeal to different people.

You have your bleeding hears that thing everything should be "fair," except they don't want equal opportunities, they want equal outcomes.  You have your people who have a hatred of people that have more than they do, and think that it should be taken away and given to them.  Then you have people that know exactly what it is, but they feel they will be the ones in power (remember, with communism, the government controls everything.  If someone lusts power and control, working in the government under communism is their dream.)  

I am sure there are other subcategories of sympathizers, but those are the ones I have seen/heard the most.

The far left believers make the mistake of assuming that they will get to eat because they supported the regime.  Sad truth is that they'll be just as fucked as the 20 million peasants who starved to death in the 1920s soviet union because a guy in Moscow thought he knew better how to farm then career farmers.

If Marxism is the question, then Obama is the answer.

Communism is the belief that everyone can make a living off someone else's work.

Marxism is an ideology and a means that supports socialism and eventually communism.

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Utopian dream of equality.

Truth is the only way to achieve that dream is that everyone becomes like Hay-Seuss.  However, socialism doesn't tolerate anything greater than the state and religion gets in the way.  BTW, religion to a socialist is the opium of the masses.

You really should read Marx on capitalism.

The leftists we have today aren't even good Marxists.

Neither were the commies, really.

Wikepedia is far from authoritative, but for practical purposes you'll find OK answers to your questions there.  Marxism is one vision (a subset) of Communism.

They are either willfully ignorant or just stupid.

The appeal is "Get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free".

Make  everyone the same except for us. By all means, dont have them revolt or stand at OUR  gates with pitch forks.

The left loves humanity and hates people.

This guy is right. The truth is if the state needs farmers you are now a farmer comrade.

The answer lies in the way Marx lived his life. He was pretty much a financial loser that didn't get most things to work his way and he also expected other people to pay his bills. = lets start a new party!

ETA  = Marx was an old school "hater". Communism is a way to bring everyone down to your level.

Jealousy and shared misery

Communism, and socialism are based on a false belief, the belief that people are willing to work together for the common good.

They believe that if properly organized and managed, people working cooperatively can achieve and sustain a better society with everyone receiving a fair share.

This has been repeatedly proven false.

Humans, by nature, are selfish, and only work for themselves, and their family. We cooperate with others only if it appears it will help us achieve our own goals, not for the common good.

Common good through cooperation is a byproduct of selfishness.

But the progressive social engineers are deluded, believing that the experiment has just not been properly conducted, and that they are smarter than all who came before, and that they can make it work.

They believe that the greedy, selfish people who built our society through their hard work should support the lazy and stupid who haven't achieved, out of a twisted concept of " fairness".

The Mayflower company was a socialist experiment by some reports, which was the reason they almost starved and had to be saved by the local Indian tribe. No one wanted to work farming because it was going to be divided equally among all the colony, so everyone felt that someone else should do the work. After the failure of the first years crops, each family was given their own plot to farm for themselves, which resulted in a surplus the following year, and repayment of the debt to the Indians with a feast, also known as the first Thanksgiving.

I'm on track with everything everyone has stated as my prior understanding of Marxism. I thought I may have missed a key piece since it is such an allure to the left. I guess, I just can't wrap my brain around how they can dismiss the whole aspect that humans in an industrialized society, typical will strive to better themselves and or their children. Also, how can they dismiss the whole notion that free market creates innovation and creativity.  As an American, how can they not understand that our system has made us the leader in technologies, wealth, and overall education. ( % wise I believe Americans have the greatest chance to earn a higher education).
I guess it's the old adage, Don't let the facts get in the way... Just bizarre to me

You really ought to read the communist manifesto.  It's fairly short and rather entertaining to anyone who has small children or even 2 dogs.   Marx utterly and completely ignores basic human nature by postulating that everyone will work altruistically for the good of society.   Since people work for their own self interests first - picture small children fighting over toys and the adult who's first priority is feeding themselves and said children, it's clear to anyone with any common sense that marxism is purest nonsense.

It's a "big lie" scenario - gloss over the big, obvious problems and focus on how great it will be when it's all said and done.   Obamacare took a page from that playbook and ran with it.

An amazingly succinct description of marxism/socialism.

What's amazing is that even with all that slave labor, the soviet union was still a shithole by our standards.

The Left just sees Marxism as a means to and end.  Power.
Kind of like the global warming or climate change.  They don't care it's just a vehicle to use for power.  Some are dumb and pretend to believe it.  Some are the higher up mucky mucks, like Al Gore, Hillary and Obama.   It's just a front to get power.

Lazy and crazy. Socialism in 3 words.

Idealistic college kids with no experience, expenses paid for by their parents, relate to an idealistic college type dead beat who had it all figured out.

They value relativism over realism

The value emotions over facts

The value "equality" over quality

They value Oikophobia (hate and destruction of ones own culture and people) over loyalty and cultural defense

They value hope over experiences(which the lack), human nature and the vast lessons of history(which they ignore or are intentionally not taught)

They value magical thinking over reality.

Ayn Rand — 'We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.'

Also people did not want to work for the good of others when they could look for Gold and improve their own fortune.

the ones that like it only like it if they're the top class
commies still have a ruling class

Besides, if you have a highly centralized government making decisions ranging from how many shoes to make this year to what sort of technologies should be developed you're going to need a class of highly educated technocrats in charge.  Who better to fill that role?

Thank you.

Equality only works if everyone has nothing.

This

In theory, Communism is great. The community works together for the greater good. However, like you said, human nature just doesn't allow for that.

What results is extreme Socialism with government control and oversight that destroys the economy, society, and desire to work for more.

Great idea, but not feasible whatsoever.

They believe that the philosophy will cure all of mankind's problems.  They count on













































 

It's a belief system, which requires Faith; belief without supporting facts or evidence. The practitioners and supporters are committed to a belief , much like any other faith or religion. They believe that they know something that everyone else doesn't.

Delusional people who have convinced themselves that they have superior intellectual abilities.

Don't forget Engels. There's a healthy dose of the ignorance of the dilettante in there, too.

not even worth spending valuable seconds on

"For the greater good."

then study some the books are short and have a very low reading level


the attraction is what marx got right, capitalism's endgame is slavery.  the problem is after identifying the problem his solution is half assed shit.

If you want to really get educated read some reviews on gramsci that guy was at times scary on the spot but again no solutions

There have been peasant revolts seeking to kill the wealthy for the inequities of life since time immemorial.  Marx just put an intellectual veneer on this old tradition.  

They generally believe that wealth is a zero-sum game - where one person becomes wealthy, they have directly caused others to be poor. To them, wealth is not created or earned, it is 'distributed'. When one person has more than another, it's an unequal 'distribution' of wealth.

They only focus on the outcome, not on what it took to achieve the outcome, to measure people's equality.

Tag for AlexanderA's Marxist reply

Screw Marx, read up on Robert Owens and his "New Harmony" experiment in the early 19th Century.



This is the dude that coined the term "Socialism".  He managed to take a thriving, profitable town

and run it right into the ground in just a couple of years using the same ideas that Marx/Engels

claimed was man's future a couple of decades later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_uCqAHW0bw



One of my favorite quotes from that documentary is the one from Owens' son (Who saw the whole

fiasco of "socialism" unravel in front of his eyes).



Robert Dale (Owens son) said "All cooperative schemes which provide equal remuneration to the skilled

and industrious and the ignorant and idle must work their own downfall.  For by this unjust plan, they

must of necessity eliminate the valuable members and retain only the improvident, unskilled and vicious."



Owen (SR) blamed "Poor human capital" for the failure of "socialism" (Sound familiar?).



Those motherfuckers have been saying the same shit for almost two hundred years....."This shit would

work if ONLY we had the right people!" LOL



It's like a cake recipe that blows-up and kills everyone in the kitchen whenever you try and bake it.  They

always scream......"We'll get it right next time!" LOL!!!

What I find cute are all the socialists that oppose Communism, but believe in the same lies.

Read The Communist Manifesto.  The little red version (with the hammer and sickle on the front of it) was under 180 pages and that's with a bunch of forewords and additional stuff that you don't have to read--at least that's what I remember from the last time I had to read it.  You don't even have to buy it, as it's in the public domain.  You'll  see some of the romanticism and revolutionary spirit that sucks some people in if you read it instead of Das Kapital.  You can read that, too, for free on the internet if you like.  Pick one--there are enough conservatives running around whining about things like "the Frankfurt school," Rules for Radicals, or "critical theory" who have not the slightest idea of how those things relate to leftists, and who have damn sure never read anything about them save for wikipedia articles or the bleatings of conservative pundits about such.  It isn't a hard or burdensome book to get through.

Marxism attracts dweebs and social outcasts.  For proof, just look at pictures of the people on any Marxist/'RevCom' blogsite or see who's running a "revolutionary bookstore" in a big city:  They're twits, nerdy oafs, angry faegalas, and lame-ass losers. People who'll go through their whole lives having their big coke bottle spectacles snatched from their faces and stomped on by the high school football team linebacker. HAW HAW!

They're hardly legion and total cowards. Bravest hero their kind ever spawned was Lee Harvey Oswald.  Females are almost never among this crowd, and when they are they're the kind of blotchy bipolar sack of lard that you wouldn't fuck with Hitler's dick.  It is God's will these people don't often breed.  

It's a fantasy of Marxist dorks to ultimately be emperor of all mankind, even if they think they're doing it for altruistic reasons.  They imagine they'd act as benevolent dictators for the welfare of all people... Er, once they finally got back at all the people they hate first.  Like that big bully in high school who gave them an atomic wedgie and locked them in their PE locker.  He'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade!  Now, let us go down to the check cashing place to cash our government SSI checks because the hated landlord is once again complaining about the back rent that filthy capitalist pig says we owe.  He too, like all landlords, will be first against the wall!

Marxist dorks imagine that if the world adopted communism, they'd naturally be the ones to take control: Of course the central committee shall be headed by they, the academics with multiple Philosophy degrees in secular humanism, revolutionary puppetry, and interpretive dance.  The people shall naturally call upon them to lead!  What really happens is that militaristic gangsters seize control saying "Thanks, dorks" and bulldoze the dead nerds into mass graves up in the forest.  The final ghastly irony comes as the nerds discover that the sneering execution squad is captained by that big bully from high school as they stand with their backs to the open pit.  "That one there, the crying one... HAW HAW, aim for his big stupid glasses!"

Here's the reason why, quote, "Communism has never worked because it was never given a chance":  Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and dozens of other communist dictators in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia seized power by murdering all the feeble Marxist egghead geeks after the revolution was complete.

Some of the posts mention that marxists want an equality of outcome, and I think that is the major appeal to most of the educated middle class socialist types that I know. They are often frustrated by a perceived (and often actual) low compensation for their work.

I am solidly anti-communist, but I can understand some of the events that cause people to be drawn to a socialist society. I think it is in the best interest for a self-determined society, that we equally protect against a marxist ideology as well as the corruptions of an oligarchy led society. This part is on us - to be just as anti-oligarch as anti-marxist, in order to support an environment of self-determination. We should strive to ensure there remains an equality of opportunity. As pro capitalist as I am, I know that there are plenty of industries that pretent to support "capitalism" only in so far as their business interests are protected.

ie: even though I support capitalism, it does not mean that salary alone is an accurate reflection of someone's value to society. If that is so, then a rather low paid EMT or soldier really brings little value to society, compared to a financial executive, since the executive is compensated so much more than the E3 serving in the army. I would think most of us here on ar15 would not think that someone's value to society is necessarily matched to their wage.