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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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I mean that's the rub right? Enlightenment liberalism clawed its way out of the corpse of feudalism. Marx assumed communism would do the same thing to the corpse of capitalism. So far he's just been wrong, at least in terms of the revolutionary/vanguardism model. That's why there's been an entire century of revision to that model to incorporate more democratic forward values. It's just you average internet leftist refuses to acknowledge this, because the fan service isn't as good.
How is a representative election every 4 years in a system where mass media are owned by the capitalist class more democratic than the ideas of Marx? The Soviet Union started out as the name implies, as a union of republics in which soviets, or worker councils, had the decision power. The fact that international interference and civil war (such as 14 countries invading the USSR militarily and many more sponsoring the tsarist loyalists or the anti-revolutionary Mensheviks) didn't allow for a high degree of work democracy without extreme risk to the stability or the country, has more to do with the material and historical conditions of the USSR than it has to do with the ideas of Marx and Lenin.
Part of the problem is that, while Marx writes well regarding the economic flaws of capitalism, he isn't as good at writing about the politics of change.
When induced by the body politic, we see that some of the economic surplus can be reallocated to the workers provided there is political pressure. It can come in the form of state backed rights, progressive taxation, and even direct welfare payments.
It probably isn't the perfect system Marx envisioned, but enlightened liberalism is able to make subtle shifts over time in a way that absolute monarchies can't.
Your comment portrays a lack of reading of Marxist literature. Lenin, as far back as 1916, talks about this surplus being reallocated to workers through political pressure. He describes the leftists who pursue this as "opportunist socialists", and explains why this is only possible in imperialist countries which exploit the resources and labor of other countries. It's why basically all socialist revolutions have taken place in less developed countries, whether it be democratically like Chile under Allende or Spain and its second republic and Iran under Mosaddegh, or a coup as happened in Libya, or a bloody revolution as in the USSR or Cuba.
What problems are there with the solutions he gives? Welfare Capitalism solves none of the problems with Capitalism Marx describes.
In what manner has Marx been wrong? Where in the history of Marxism has democracy not been core to the central ideas of it, especially when compared to Capitalism?