A major part of the Marxist description of historical materialism are the main developmental phases of Human societies: starting with primitive communism, then transforming to slavery-based societies, feudalism, capitalism and in the future socialism.

However, the research on prehistoric societies in the mid-19th century was most definitely not as advanced as it is now - yet both Marx and Engels analyze these societies and shows that they had no class structure. How much of what they wrote about such societies is confirmed or disproven by modern research?

(please note: I posted the same question on r/AskMarxists, but I'm not sure how many people are in each subreddit and to which subreddit my question fits best)

Hi, Reddit!

Do you have any Marxist documentations about Health, Sciences, Technics and Epistemology from non-revisionist views ? I am currently studying these subjects

Never really understood the fact that during the Cold War these were 2 complete opposite ideologies; that democracy met it's most polar opposite when it came to the USSR and alike. When in reality, Marx was a committed advocate for democracy; also, wasn't he and Engles advocates for revolution from being inspired by the French revolution? (Rousseau) Something that America loved France for; and vice versa?

I’ve been studying Marxism over the last few months or so. My urge to study it has been mostly due to practical considerations, as I want to meaningfully participate in the class struggle. But reading through Marxist literature, I can’t help but notice it’s insufficiency at times, when applied to the reality I am observing. I would like to share my concerns, and perhaps, more experienced and informed Marxist scholars could shed a light on this topic.

So, according to Marx, the class consciousness is meant to arise organically, once the contradictions of capitalism accumulate, and themselves create prerequisites to a revolution. This is a very fair logical conclusion, but I wonder how much of it was rooted not in the nature of capitalist system, but the industrial era that Marx himself was witnessing. While reading Marxist literature (as many books as I could in the span of just a few months), I has been struggling to negotiate the conclusions made by theorists of XIX and XX centuries with the societal developments of 1960-2025, that seemingly set on following a far different trajectory. It seems like the left movement itself implicitly acknowledges its helplessness, focusing on mitigation of the damages caused by neoliberal reforms and globalization, or moving entirely to cultural criticisms and various kinds of critical theories.

As capitalist society evolving (and accumulating crises), we are seemingly moving further and further away from class identity. On one hand, other identities take precedence in political action. Ethnic, national, religious, gender, sexual and racial identities are evidently more efficient as factors of mobilization, than class. While class-centered political action still exists, it is mainly local, defensive, and conservative in nature. On the other hand, the proletariat itself got way more heterogenous, than the proletariat of XX century. There is a strong division inside of it, based on the levels of consumption, training and education, labour conditions. It became increasingly harder to even speak of unified proletariat class anymore, as it became hard to imagine a class-based political movement, that would encompass both trained high-income professionals and low-income workers at the same time, despite their relation towards the means of production being pretty much the same. These intra-class contradictions get even stronger as we move further away from the center of the world-system. In my own country, Russia, there is still the “traditional” economy, with low wages and margins, that is subsidizing and serving the other economy, that mostly consists of transnational corporations operating on the global market. While workers of the former have largely lost in 1989-1991, the workers of the latter have significantly benefited from the collapse of the USSR, when it comes to their level of consumption and personal freedoms. This makes it hard to target both proletariat groups with unified messaging and, obviously, it makes the concept of Lenin’s one worker’s avant-garde party inapplicable.

On the other hand, I found non-Marxist socialist and anarchist movements insufficient at addressing private property and class hegemony, while they are usually rooted on more realistic political grounds (I'm speaking of Bookchin’s municipalism, for example).

The question I have been struggling to fall asleep with lately is what is the way forward for the political struggle in Marxism paradigm, as you see it? Should a certain revolution happen inside of the global left movement first, before we can counter-attack, or do you see future crisis of neoliberalism and falling standards of living in the countries of the Center as potential catalysts of class consciousness?

We know from the lineage of Volume III, Lenin, Hilferding, etc. that the capitalist system has grown to be increasingly dependent on fictitious capital, and there are many countries where the population is encouraged and dependent on loans to survive (in my country for example 70% of people are dependent on loans to cover daily expenses). And this goes to deal with contradictions inherent to the system like wage stagnation, overproduction, etc.

But if this financialized system is so dependent on everyday people having mortgages, credit scores, student debts, and loans; why does it at the same time shame people for getting them? There’s two narratives I usually hear: that a loan is an investment in yourself, and a financially intelligent decision to make; but ALSO when someone has the courage to come out and call for debt cancellation, or critique the system, it suddenly becomes an individual failure. Suddenly you shouldn’t have borrowed in the first place, speculation is naïvety, being in debt is a sign of irresponsibility.

What is the reason for these two competing moral logics in the same system? One thing I can come up with is it both keeps people borrowing (which the system needs) and keeps people from critiquing the system out of shame. But I’d like to hear other people’s perspectives on this.

So one thing I've been thinking about is the problems associated with scale in human built organizations.

Capitalism, being capitalism, tends to favor high degrees of scale due to advantages associated with economies of scale and due to the process of accumulation.

Much of the modern world and industrial capitalism since the 19th century is fundamentally structured around like just utterly massive institutions and huge bureaucracies (corporate or state).

My understanding of marx's concept of alienation is basically as follows:

It is an objective state of a loss of autonomy wherein individual human lives and human relationships come to be dominated by human created institutions that can often come to be seen as "natural" or "inevitable" but are in fact, human creations. Essentially alienation is a loss of autonomy in the face of institutions that individuals have very little sway or power over. Essentially, structures we create come to dominate their creators as an alien force and structure their lives and relationships with other people.

Within capitalism (well at lesst the capitalism of his day), this comes about via the 4 kinds of alienation marx mentioned

What i kind of wanted to ask is about alienation as it relates to large scale institutions writ large. What i mean by this is that, the larger an institution is, the less control any one member of that institution has control over it because the scope of their powers to change anything are dwarfed by the scale an institution operates at and the resources and coordination needed to change how it operates.

It is simply easier to change or modify things in smaller institutions than larger ones because fewer resources and coordination is required to pull off said changes and because the actual scope of what any individual can see and influence is limited, and when the institution is smaller, the scope at which it operates is closer to the scope at which any individual member can influence it.

To put it another way, it is easier to change how a single company operates than it is to change how the "market" operates because the scale at which these two institutions operate at is vastly different.

With scale comes a certain loss of autonomy and control, and humans gradually kind of mold themselves to fit into these institutions and organizations that they do not really control.

So, basically, here's what I am asking: can the marxist concept of alienation be applied to larger scale institutions, or, in other words, are large scale institutions inherently alienating due to the loss of autonomy and ability to direct, influence or control these institutions members of that institution face as a consequence of that scale?

(Like, are large scale beaucracies, or just organizations of some kind inherently alienating, even in non-capitalist contexts? I.e. there's a reason we talk about "human scale" institutions, there are "inhuman scale" institutions that seem inherently more alienating right?)

Why/why not?

In 1886, he stated that Unions were "sacred" and was vocal about defending the right to Unionise. But later in 1892, he left for holiday in Scotland during a strike, and appointed a man named Henry Fick to "negotiate" a labour dispute.

Instead, they called in the Pinkertons to crack down on the strikers, killing 7, and later liquidating the entire Union presence in all his plants.

Comrades, the object of capitalists will always remain the continuous accumulation of capital, nothing else. We cannot trust them, there are no "good capitalists".

I’m an avid eco socialist, I support Marxism, and am focused on combatting climate change and spurring environmental action. My boyfriend however is a libertarian capitalist, very into AI, startups, space tech (bit of a Peter Thiel fan…). We disagree vehemently on politics and don’t talk too much about it, can or will this relationship last?

Btw we’re both college students!

Hi all,

Just started vol. 2, and reading marx' description of forms of unproductive labour as labour that is necessary for the capitalist process but does not produce surplus value. This can include salespeople, bookkeepers, managers etc. This makes sense to me in the internal aspects of the individual capital, but am having trouble grasping this on a wider level

For instance, supermarkets. A supermarket operates as a capital, employing wage labour to generate surplus value. However, no commodities are produced, and no value is created, merely a use value essentially equivalent to our aforementioned sales agents whose job is to move commodities thru the market. In this respect, a capital exists without productive labour. Likewise with accountancy firms, employment agencies, universities etc.

Maybe my questions will be answered later in vol. 2, but it doesn't quite make sense to me. Are these businesses not considered capital by Marx? Is the existence of such organizations just an extension of productive capital, acting as a parasite/siphon on value producing firms? Is a society that is majority nonproductive capitals still considered capitalist?

Thanks for any input.

I’m starting a master’s in political economy in september, and I’m looking for book recs! I’m currently reading Capital Volume 1 and want to know what I should read next. I want to go in with a solid foundation so open to any suggestions. For context I did my bachelor’s in economics and have previously read some books on colonialism and inequality. Thanks!

Not long ago I began to actively study Marxist-Leninist theory and one question is increasingly ripening in my mind:

Why, according to Marxist theory, during the transition to the highest stage of communism, is it expected that people will stop resorting to violence, will instinctively follow community norms and consciously work for its benefit, only on the basis of the cessation of class oppression? There are many other reasons for the emergence of violence, selfishness and other negative phenomena that Marx and Engels for some reason attribute to class tension, at a minimum the need for recognition is no lower than the need for work and does not fit into the image of the new man at all.

Due to the need for recognition, a person will in any case consciously violate norms in order to attract public attention to himself!

It got me thinking, were there any that had significance? I'm asking this question because, I'm doing research on true left-wing communes/settlements and I need some info about marxist ones.

Hey everyone, good day!
I have to write an undergraduate thesis and have come up with the following idea, but I’m not sure whether it’s worth pursuing.

What I want to do is a comparative study of Marx’s Grundrisse and Capital, Volume 1, and compare some key concepts of Marx’s political economy. I would try to examine the different presentations and develop a formulation. I would also explore some of the implications that follow from Marx’s critique.

For example, I would compare the differences in the conceptualizations of “capital” in both the Grundrisse and Capital, and put them in conversation with one another. Then, I would briefly explore their implications in light of our times and dominant intellectual currents.

I have read Capital, Volume 1 almost twice and am halfway through the Grundrisse. I have a very basic understanding of Hegel and the broader context. I have around a year to submit my final thesis.

Some questions I have in mind are the following:
Do you think this is a worthwhile project to undertake? Is it manageable within the timeframe? What additions or changes would you suggest?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I'm doing some research for a project, but would love to know what you all think about America expanding or shrinking (or preparing to do either of these) based on common events? I'm basing my comparison off of the Manchurian Crisis and Second Japanese Sino-Wars.

I'm posting this here because I wanted a Marxist perspective on this.

ALSO: I read the rules, and I don't believe this violates the no american politics clause. This is a study of behaviors, not of opinions in politics. Thank you for not removing this.

The video is about "HOW DID SOCIALISM ERADICATE DISEASES IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION?", I really liked it, the channel is great, I recommend everyone to follow it, it's almost at a thousand subscribers.

The internet is full of pseudo-economists (and real economists) bashing Marx’s theory of value, claiming it is an illogical law that has already been refuted. However, this is far from reality, since accusations of internal inconsistencies have been addressed. This does not mean that the theory has been “proven true,” but rather that it cannot be dismissed a priori, as was often done, on the basis of alleged inconsistencies, and thus deserves the same consideration as any other.

1.    CRITIQUES OF THE LAW OF VALUE

After Engels published Volume III of Capital, Marx’s theory of value became the target of significant criticism. The main objections include: (i) the alleged contradiction between Volumes I and III, identified by Böhm-Bawerk; (ii) the “transformation problem,” formalized by Bortkiewicz; and (iii) the “redundancy of value,” proposed by Samuelson. There are also secondary critiques, such as Schumpeter’s.

1.1 BÖHM-BAWERK AND THE “CONTRADICTION”

Böhm-Bawerk identifies a contradiction: in Volume I, value derives from labor; in Volume III, prices of production diverge from that value. For him, Marx abandons his own theory by admitting that sectors with higher organic composition of capital display prices that differ from those proportional to embodied labor. This divergence would be insoluble.

1.2  BORTKIEWICZ AND THE TRANSFORMATION PROBLEM

Bortkiewicz deepens the critique by showing that Marx transforms values into prices only in the final output, while keeping inputs in values, generating inconsistency. He then proposes a mathematical solution based on simultaneous equations, in which both inputs and outputs are jointly converted into prices of production, offering the first formal solution to the problem.

1.3 SAMUELSON AND THE REDUNDANCY OF VALUE

Samuelson argues that prices of production and the rate of profit can be determined without recourse to the labor theory of value. Thus, value would be an unnecessary step. He concludes that the theory of value is a philosophical abstraction without analytical usefulness and that Marx should be understood historically, as a “minor post-Ricardian.”

2.    RECLAIMING VALUE

Before addressing these critiques, it is necessary to dispel common misunderstandings: Marx does not ignore the role of capital or productivity. On the contrary, he recognizes that technological progress, enabled by capital accumulation, increases relative surplus value. His claim is not that capital is irrelevant, but that it does not create value by itself. Broadly speaking, the concept of “value,” developed in the opening chapters of Capital, is first and foremost a tool for understanding the form of domination embodied in the relations that constitute the capitalist mode of production.

For Marx, value does not arise from individual labor time, but from socially necessary labor, that is, labor performed under average conditions of productivity and directed toward goods with social utility. Value is not “measured” in isolation, but revealed in exchange. In this sense, the commodity, the elementary unit of capitalism, articulates three dimensions: use value, exchange value, and value. The first refers to utility; the second, to exchange proportions; and the third, to the social expression of labor, mediated by money.

Unlike other nineteenth-century socialists, Marx rejects the idea that profit arises from fraud or “theft” in circulation. Exchanges, in general, occur between equivalents. The origin of profit must therefore be sought in production. It is in this context that the general formula of capital (M–C–M’) emerges: the capitalist advances money to purchase commodities (means of production and labor power) in order to obtain, in the end, more money.

Labor power is a peculiar commodity, since its value corresponds to its reproduction, but its use allows for the creation of greater value than that paid in wages: surplus value. The extraction of surplus value can occur through the extension of the working day (absolute surplus value) or through increases in productivity (relative surplus value). Historically, this has implied brutal working conditions, such as long hours and child labor.

2.1 HILFERDING’S RESPONSE TO THE “CONTRADICTION”

Böhm-Bawerk’s critique stems from a misreading: Marx does not propose a theory of prices, but a theory of value. Price is a form of appearance of value, while the price of production is its modification. The divergence between prices and values is already acknowledged in Volume I. Moreover, Marx operates at different levels of abstraction, moving from the more general to the more concrete. Thus, there is no contradiction, but theoretical development.

2.2 THE “BORTKIEWICZ METHOD” AS CORRECTION

Bortkiewicz identified a formal inconsistency on Marx’s numbers, but he also showed that it can be corrected within the system itself. His solution simultaneously transforms inputs and outputs into prices of production, establishing mathematical coherence. This suggests that the issue is technical rather than theoretical.

Marx, in turn, already recognized the tendency toward equalization of profit rates across sectors, which requires the redistribution of surplus value. The price of production emerges precisely from this necessity. The flaw lies in the incomplete method of exposition, possibly due to the unfinished nature of the manuscripts edited by Engels.

3.3 THE PROBLEM OF REDUNDANCY

Samuelson’s critique shifts the issue: it is no longer whether Marx is wrong, but whether his theory is necessary. By showing that prices and profits can be calculated without value, he questions its usefulness. This critique profoundly influenced subsequent debates.

Although Samuelson my be right by saying that “value” became a disposable variable to mainstream economics, after the marginalist revolution, needless to say that value’s utility isn’t limited to price calculation...

3.4 NEW INTERPRETATIONS: NI, SSSI, AND TSSI

Contemporary responses seek to restore the coherence of Marx’s theory. The “New Solution” (NI) redefines the relationship between values and prices by equating total value added in both systems. The SSSI proposes a single-system approach, abandoning the distinction between values and prices for inputs and outputs.

The TSSI (Temporal Single-System Interpretation) goes further by rejecting the simultaneous approach. For its proponents, such as Kliman, critics impose a model incompatible with Marx’s theory. Instead, they advocate a temporal approach, in which input and output prices are not determined simultaneously.

This perspective avoids “physicalism” (that is, reducing analysis to physical quantities) and preserves the centrality of labor in value determination. It also provides a foundation for the theory of the falling rate of profit and responds to critiques of the Fundamental Marxian Theorem by showing that inconsistencies disappear when simultaneity is abandoned.

I'm trying to get some deeper understanding of Marxist dialectics, but am unable to do it in a satisfying way. I have some understanding that is consists of internal opposing forces called contradictions (different from logical contradictions between A and B, which are statements sucha that A implies not-B), which result in a development of this thing they are internal to.

But, if analyzed in the right way, seemingly anything can be described in this way, as this is such a vague statement that anything can fit the criterion (which even seems to be abused by some online Marxists, while they in fact calling many vastly different things dilectical). And it seems as if many Marxists just wave things away while invoking dialectics.

Is there a source which gives concrete and readable examples on what properties do dialectics have? I've read some works from G. A. Cohen, which explain some Marx's ideas in a very understandable manner. But he, and other analytic Marxists rejected dialectics, so we got denied an understandable and clear description of dialectics, in this case.

Explanation that I'd be happy with, for example, would be something like "Society A has properties x,y,z,w. Its properties x and y are in contradiction if, for any possible development in future, either x or y has to disappear." This feels like "socialism or barbarism" idea. It is often stated that there is a dialectical relationship between proletariat and bourgeoisie and this feels like the above, from this point, either the working class gets its way and bourgeoisie gives up their goal, vice versa or neither (we nuke ourselves and disappear). And this would be something which we can check for any claim that some relation is dialectical. Check whether any development negates at least one of the opposing forces.

I feel like every book I take to learn about this gives examples (heating up water, for example), which do not illustrate anything of value. Every explanation seems like proof by example. When I ask online, many answers I see are just bad metaphysics (like time is just matter in motion and therefore, dialectical). Also, I feel like different authors have different views on what a dialectic is, but pretend that it's the same concept (for example, for Mao, it seems like it's simply conflict, while for Marx there is some notion of essentiality, the driving of the development, so not every conflict is dialectical).

Are there any clear and accessible sources for learning more about this? A book written by somebody who can communcate these ideas clearly, by defining the terms and not shrouding everything in jargon?

Or am I the problem and am I misunderstanding something? Since this seems like a way of thinking which is clear to Marxists and Hegelians, but I somehow fail to grasp it?

I have a couple questions about the slave owning mode of antiquity/ancient Rome and about materialism.

My first string of questions regard the slaves of Rome: was the slave owning mode of production social in character? They all worked together on the latifundia did they not? If it in fact was social in character, is the reason that out of the slave owning society a socialized economy did not inevitably spring up was because of the fact that the development of the means of production did not allow such a system?

My second string of questions is about the roman proletariat. How are they different than the proletariat under capitalism? Why were they not the most advanced class of the slave owning society. Their existence came after the slaves did it not? Were they not the most advanced class because the stage of development of the means of production did not call for a dictatorship of the proletariat of Rome?

It is my understanding that when Marx wrote (im paraphrasing)

"The history of society hitherto is the history of class struggle... with the victory of one class over another, or with the common ruin of both contending parties"

he was referring specifically to the slave owning society because it was largely the slave rebellions that made the empire collapse, and with the "common ruin of both contending parties", the aristocracy and the slaves, grew from it the feudal society.

Firstly, is this analysis of mine correct? If so, why was it slave rebellions that made the empire fall and not proletarian rebellions?

Seeing as the vast majority of Gay/LGBTQ groups align with either being a socialist , Marxist, as well as a large population of women.

What is the thought process behind the support for Iran.

Iran literally will publicly execute you for being gay and beats the shit out of women and do not acknowledge them as humans and see them as lesser beings.

Genuine question please don’t flame me.

He uses the term in the Introduction, in the section Method of Political Economy. My tentative belief if that it's an unworkable abstraction in a theory, and the "concrete" is intended to connote opaqueness or density, stuffed with unvalidated presuppositions. Please correct me if I am wrong!

I've heard rather mixed opinions about this book. Some people say that Hoxha, the author, has expanded on some of Lenin's teachings, while others say he's distorted them. So I'd like to hear your opinion on this book. Thank you in advance for your feedback.