Anarchism

Everyone here is an anarchist so I'd like to give my view as far as I understand Marx.

People have already talked about anarchist views here anyways.

“The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” Marx.

The condition where revolution occurs is when contradictions reach a breaking point, Marx thought the proletariat would become conscious of its collective exploitation and overthrow the capitalist system.

This is not a gradual reform but a revolutionary transformation, since the capitalist state and its institutions (law, police, army, religion, ideology) serve the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Contradictions being the concentration of wealth in fewer hands (bourgeoisie) and the growing exploitation and alienation of the proletariat.

Then theres the infamous Dictatorship of the Proletariat which I see misunderstood in memes a lot here.

After the revolution, Marx envisioned a transitional phase but this is not a dictatorship in the modern sense, but the political rule of the working class.

In this stage:

• The workers would abolish private property in the means of production.
• They would use the state to suppress the former ruling class.
• Production would be organized collectively and democratically.

The state would begin to “wither away” as class divisions disappeared.

Then we get to communism and humanity reaches a stage of freedom and self-realization beyond the struggle for survival.

In Marx’s view, true communism is a classless, stateless, and moneyless society characterized by common ownership of the means of production, cooperative labor, abolition of alienated work and full human development and creativity.

Also Marx did not think communism could be imposed artificially or “designed” by intellectuals. It had to emerge historically, through the self-emancipation of the working class as capitalism exhausted its potential.

“The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.”

To me the bone of contention between most anarchists and Marxists is that dictatorship of the proletariat phase. In a way you could argue for that being an anarchic structure in the right historical setting (not ours). “The dictatorship of the proletariat” tends to become simply a dictatorship. Theres no good solution to avoid this.

The more vaguely you read Marx the more anarchic you can make him. And hey after all, ‘if a philosopher really has compromised, it is the job of his followers to use the inner core of his thought to illuminate his own superficial expressions of it’ -Marx.

Now Marxism has changed as the world has changed. Globalism firstly is the big issue.

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.”

Marx saw “globalism” as a structural feature of capitalism itself.

There is the historical problem of Marx. His key prediction failed, he expected the proletarian revolution to occur first in the most advanced capitalist countries (like Britain or Germany). Instead revolutions happened mainly in less industrialized societies (e.g., Russia, China).

Capitalism has proved more resilient than he thought.

Now theres this idea in modern Marxism that the world is a single capitalist system divided into:

• Core (wealthy industrial states)

• Semi-periphery (developing industrial countries)

• Periphery (poor, raw-material-exporting nations)

Capitalism survives by shifting exploitation globally — cheap labor in the periphery sustains profits in the core.

This is globalized class domination. Institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO enforce capitalist rules worldwide. Outsourcing, financialization, and global supply chains reproduce class inequalities internationally.

Then theres the cosmopolitan Marxists, who think the working class must organize globally too. Problems like climate change, migration, and corporate power are transnational, so solutions must be as well. They advocate global labor solidarity, international regulation of capital, and a cosmopolitan socialism that builds institutions beyond the nation-state. This position differs from older Marxist anti-globalization movements, which often viewed globalism purely as imperialism.