I feel like I understand communist theory pretty well at a basic level, and I believe in it, but I just don't see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter. I don't believe in matter and I'm still a communist. And it seems that in the 21st century most people believe in materialism but not communism. What part of "people should have access to the stuff they need to live" requires believing that such stuff is real? After all, there are nonmaterial industries and they still need communism. Workers in the music industry are producing something that nearly everyone can agree only exists in our heads. And they're still exploited by capital, despite musical instruments being relatively cheap these days, because capital owns the system of distribution networks and access to consumers that is the means of profitability for music. Spotify isn't material, it's a computer program. It's information. It's a thoughtform. Yet it's still a means of production that ought to be seized for the liberation of the musician worker. What does materialism have to do with any of this?

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Thanks! I knew about the secret debate in Marxism about reality being dialectical itself but I didn't know Marx disagreed with Engels about it...

    • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I don't have a source for it, but I know the source I found wasn't that Marx disagreed with the claims Engels was building arguments for but rather that Marx disagreed that it mattered.

      • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh I see, that makes sense given Marx's correspondence with Charles Darwin. Tbh this whole thread has started to melt my brain. I'm gonna logout for rn lol.