Karl Marx vs Ayn Rand

[stegosaurus]

While I probably agree with Rand on more...have you actually read her novels? 700+ page domagtic fairy tales with virtually no plot development. You may as well read the Bible.

[TNF]

To those who blame Marx for what Stalin or Mao did: you do realize that Marx died in 1883, yes?

Ideas are kind of important in history.

I must have missed that part of Capital where Marx recommends forced industrialization and liquidation of the peasantry and/or collaborating with Nazis

Marx advocated violent revolution against the bourgeoisie and agricultural collectivization, both of which were responsible for mass deaths in the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere

Literally nothing wrong with either of those policies, the problem of course lies in how said policies are implemented. The bourgeoisie are parasites in need of removal. Of course, in the case of Stalin and Mao, neither actually removed the bourgeoisie of their nations. Stalin came into power without a bourgeoisie in existence (they had been thankfully removed from power) as the representative of the new bureaucracy that arose in response to the degradation of the Soviet Union on account of its isolation. Mao advocated an alliance with the national bourgeoisie and governed not as a representative of the working class, but of the peasantry, which constituted his revolutionary base. So it's really inaccurate to describe the actions of Stalin (bureaucratic despot) or Mao (petit bourgeois revolutionist) as stemming from the works of Marx, who advocated working class control of production and the state, ideas which persisted for a short time in a few places, notably under Lenin in Russia and during the Spanish Civil War. Cuba is a weird outlier that was initially not Stalinist but kind of adapted to the conditions around it in return for aid.

It's also kind of rich that you point out the death tolls from agricultural collectivization (a process that was engaged in haphazardly and stupidly by Stalin and Mao alike), but like all good capitalist ideologists completely ignore the fact that a lot of the problems associated from that policy stem from outright sabotage by the peasantry, global capitalist encirclement, and of course, you ignore the fact that these policies pale in comparison to the number of deaths caused annually by capitalist agricultural production methods, which simultaneously starve masses of people to death while inflicting an epidemic of obesity and other such disorders on others.

[checkers]

I'll take one of the most significant political thinkers/economists in history over some dreary fiction writer, thanks.