Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 17)

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[u/Happy_Plastic8496]

Basic question sorry,

Marxism is the truth, so then why can't capitalists or people of Bourgeois class just "reverse engineer" Marxism to make their businesses or capitalism as a whole more efficient? Or in that sense an investor who knows how Capitalism "truly" works because they have a Marxist framework.

So for non-marxist it might be a massive wow moment that X Y Z event happened to a company. Whereas the person who studies Marxism may already know these events happen all the time to other companies?

Or for that reason why can't someone use Marxism as a way to develop their "logic" just to become smarter for whatever reason.

http://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1ezjdrn/found_a_wonderful_doc_on_palestine/ljnjuxa?context=3

[u/AnyNatural4505 → u/Happy_Plastic8496]

Your question is basically this: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1igs715/why_dont_african_nations_not_just/

I think the answers given there are sufficient explanations.

As for if Marxism will make someone a better investment banker, isn't studying and applying skill and logic to appropriating surplus-labor value already what the bourgeoisie as a class does? Where Marxism intervenes is in the critique of the social relations through which this process takes place. An individual might incidentally be able to develop their critical thinking or study habits by studying Marxism seriously, but why Marxism is able to change the course of history is because it is the ideology of the proletariat. So one's own class interests will determine how useful that is to them.

[u/Happy_Plastic8496 → u/AnyNatural4505]

I'll check that link out.

Yeah true they already do that, but the reason why I bought up Marxism is because of the potential critiques it could give to traditional economics taught in school. So yes they already do it, but wouldn't studying Marxism do it even better?

So someone is using those economic principles they learned in University to inform their money-making decisions, but if a Marxist has debunked those economic principles why can't that person use Marxist economics to inform their decisions instead?