• @[email protected]
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    211 days ago

    Reading Marx is like reading Adam Smith. Both wrote about economic systems before economics was even a thing. All ideas start somewhere but our ideas, and our society, have advanced dramatically in the 140+ years they’ve been dead. They’re more interesting for historical purposes than economic ones.

    • @[email protected]
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      1711 days ago

      But it’s also hard to know what contemporary economists are arguing without reading those foundational writers

    • Dessalines
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      1211 days ago

      All of Marx’s main concepts, surplus value, classes and class struggle, alienation, are just as relevant today as when they were written. Much like Newton, Marx built the solid foundation that scientific socialists stand on today.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 days ago

        Right, but nobody tells anyone interested in physics to read Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. If you’re interested in history, sure. If you’re interested in physics, read a modern physics textbook.

    • @rockSlayer
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      1111 days ago

      Das Kapital described crypto before digital computers were even an idea. His work is still relevant.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 days ago

        I thought to look this up cause I think it’s neat and it’s often the case that some technology is described long before you’d think. The first description of using electrical switches to do logic operations came in 1886 in a letter from Charles Sanders Peirce. That’s between Capital volume 2 and 3, and most importantly, AFTER he described the law of value.

    • Cowbee [he/him]
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      11 days ago

      Both wrote about economic systems before economics was even a thing.

      Lol. Lmao, even.

      and our society, have advanced dramatically in the 140+ years they’ve been dead.

      In what manner has this proven Marx wrong?

      • @[email protected]
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        11 days ago

        You’re very good at saying you’re right and very bad at providing evidence. The best thing about lemmy’s size is I can recognize which usernames to disregard immediately after enough encounters.