this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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I have read Wage, Labor and Capital in its entirety, as well as Value, Price, and Profit. Both are better than the manifesto, which I've also read. His critique of Gotha was also interesting. I think Engels was honestly much more interesting than Marx, though Eugen Dühring was more practical (as demonstrated by the success of SocDems and the Nordic model, while "Marxism" never went anywhere in a practical sense.
It's nice to read those, so props to you for that, but you should absolutely read Anti-Dühring to understand why social democracy is a failure while Marxism-Leninism is the governing ideology of the largest and most successful country on the planet, leaving the imperialist nordic countries in the dust. You should also read Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism to see how the social democracies you uphold act as parasites on the global south, living off of their labor and resources via financial domination.
Really, the idea that Marxism never went anywhere is absurd in the 21st century. Not only was the USSR the fastest developing country in the 20th century, but right now we are watching China adopt Marxist analysis and continue their rapid improvements year over year since their inception. Dühring was highly impractical, which is why his ideas were all failures.
I have read Anti-Duhring , that's why I specifically brought up Duhring immediately after saying I liked Engels better than Marx.
The problem is, social democracy didn't fail in practice, and Marxism did because, while China is economically successful, the Nordic states are much more successful per capita and have things like basic human rights, AND China's success largely occurred after they switched to a mixed economy, effectively abandoning Marxism.