It’s been almost a century and a half since Karl Marx’s death, and decades since the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. In the still nominally…View Post
more importantly, Marx’s assumption that labour is the only source of economic value has been completely rejected by almost all mainstream economists.
Hmmmm wonder why
Or perhaps you’re interested in why World War 1 started. The Marxist formula suggests that the war might have begun as an attempt to further the interests of German businessmen, who had close links with leading politicians, through a landgrab by a rising imperial power.
Wish I had more historical knowledge, but the extent of my western neolib education regarding world war 1 is “Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. However I’m almost certain that there were more material forces at play though and have heard it’s a war whose causes are still debated
a more macro analysis would be that austria-hungary, russia, and the ottoman empire treated the majority of their populations as slaves (as feudal monarchies tend to do), and certain ethnic groups as less-than-slaves, and that was just gonna end up exploding at some point, and that occurring would cause the present system of european capitalism and its supply chains to come to a halt, creating the need for war, expansion, and the creation of new supply lines in order to stabilize capitalism.
Hmmmm wonder why
Wish I had more historical knowledge, but the extent of my western neolib education regarding world war 1 is “Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. However I’m almost certain that there were more material forces at play though and have heard it’s a war whose causes are still debated
a more macro analysis would be that austria-hungary, russia, and the ottoman empire treated the majority of their populations as slaves (as feudal monarchies tend to do), and certain ethnic groups as less-than-slaves, and that was just gonna end up exploding at some point, and that occurring would cause the present system of european capitalism and its supply chains to come to a halt, creating the need for war, expansion, and the creation of new supply lines in order to stabilize capitalism.
A teenager was hungry. Shot the duke. Caused a world war. Crested Hitler. Simple