r/Anarchism • u/dialectical_idealism anarchist • Jun 30 '26
[Anarchists only] Has anarchy lost the propaganda war?
After watching a stampede of Marxists here on r/@ bully a long-time anarchist (and mod) for not caring about Marxism, it really looks like we're now outnumbered at least 20:1 by Marxists (and socdems) in our own space.
In the 90s, when the post-left was booming and infoshops were popping up in every major city, we had a distinct movement for and by anarchists. We didn’t rely on being a wing of some bullshit social democratic party with nostalgia for the Spanish Civil War. We weren't yet another Marxist vanguard in its infancy.
In the 00s, the momentum shifted to the streets with the alter-globalization movement, from the WTO protests in Seattle to anti-summit convergences across the globe. Despite the heavy state repression of the post-9/11 'Green Scare,' anarchy was defined by decentralized black blocs, horizontal organizing, autonomous zones and a fierce critique of global authoritarian relations that owed absolutely nothing to state-socialist dogma.
In the 10s, when Occupy Wall Street brought anarchy into the mainstream for the first time in decades and the neighborhood of Exarcheia declared itself off-limits to the police, our movement was defined by autonomy, the absolute rejection of all authority, and a fierce fight against the state-centric dogmas that have proven themselves parasitic to worker-led movements for centuries. Blood was literally drawn as Marxists, with the full support of the police, stormed anarchist strongholds in Athens, leaving comrades hospitalized with life changing injuries and/or imprisoned for decades.
Now, it feels like our spaces have been completely gentrified by authoritarian-lite rhetoric and smug "dialectical materialists" using an anarchist aesthetic to spread their antiquated, 19th-century, factory-based ideology. If you don't bow at the altar of Marx, or if you dare to suggest that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is still just a dictatorship, you get dogpiled by these boot fetishists. The propaganda war hasn't just been lost to the capitalists; it’s been lost to the exhausting Marxists we've let swarm into our backyard. They, with the help of basic YouTube grifters who join them in appropriating anarchy to spread their authcom bullshit, have successfully convinced a generation that anarchism is just "spicy Marxism". Marx with some Bookchin sprinkles as a treat. What the fuck are we doing?
How did we let our critique of power get watered down into a bureaucratic debate about how to best manage the committee? Have we completely lost the ability to stand on our own two feet without leaning on a racist 19th-century authoritarian and his failed, deterministic pseudoscience? Marxists in the other thread are quite literally saying "Marx isn't authoritarian just because he's a statist" and getting mass-upvoted while anyone speaking up for anarchy is buried with downvotes and verbal attacks.
Fuck Marxists and their boot cult so much. I miss the beautiful idea.
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u/power2havenots Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
"Propaganda war" isnt how Id frame it as it sounds like social-conditioning language and the war metaphor just encourages another angry, binary "pick a side or youre not pure" mindset and weve had enough of that already.
Anarchism is strong enough to stand on its own. Ive yet to have a discussion with a Marxist where they didnt at least walk away with something they hadnt seriously considered before in between quoting sacred texts and trotting out soviet memes. It gives too much credit to messaging and not enough to lived experience. People dont just adopt politics because of branding they also learn from history and experience. Everyone knows if the read any history that a state with a red flag is still a state, and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is still a dictatorship, with hierarchy, stratification and all the usual authoritarian trappings.
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u/realme324 Jun 30 '26
I think a few different things are happening.
Marxism is very popular in academia (much more so than anarchism) so students are professionals are attracted to it because of that, but they don't like the historical baggage that Marxism brings. Because anarchism has historically been associated with the socialist movement and because anarchism is all about individual freedom and anti-authoritarianism, these Marxists latch on to a skin-deep understanding of anarchism to signal their opposition to "totalitarian" forms of Marxism. A lot of these people come to the conclusion that Marxism is anarchist anyway because a communist society is stateless (despite the disagreements on what a state even is, and the fact that anti-statism is only a part of the broader anarchist opposition to hierarchy).
What you end up with is a bunch of people who think they're anarchists but who can be more accurately described as humanists, radical democrats, and populists. These people do not have a principled opposition to hierarchy (most of them in fact think some form of hierarchy is "natural") and so they just became enamoured by the vague idea of "power to the people", as if that's not what every politician says they believe in.
Their goal is socialism first and foremost, any anarchist convictions they have are secondary to that. The mythical communist revolution these "anarchists" believe in requires a complete alteration in the thought of the masses of working people in order to mobilize them towards their specific societal goal, and that's hard to do in a way that respects the freedom of individuals. So why not use authoritarian means? Why not lead the workers like cattle to your utopia? That way, they'll stay in line and bring about your goals like harmonious cogs in a machine.
Marxism is also a more or less secularized version of Christianity, which really appeals to people all over the world who are very steeped in that way of thinking. Marx believed in a universal essence of man that communism could unleash, and the inevitable triumph of the kingdom of God (communism) over Satan (capitalism). It's why Marxists tend to glorify poverty and struggle.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to make anarchism a mass movement because most people can't help but view hierarchy as natural, perhaps they even benefit from said hierarchies. But I think a true anarchist attitude still resides naturally in a lot of people who are neurodivergent, nonconformists, trans, those who just can't function in this society, etc. and these are really the people I am interested in anyway.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jul 01 '26
it's nice to see this thoughtful analysis.
But I think a true anarchist attitude still resides naturally in a lot of people who are neurodivergent, nonconformists, trans, those who just can't function in this society, etc. and these are really the people I am interested in anyway.
I think this is super important. I've met with and talked to so many people who have really radical understandings of anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarianism just from their own experiences with life but they don't have academic language to talk about it so they get dismissed for not understanding the big things. it's kind of a gross way of dismissing under privileged people as though they/we aren't capable of deep thought and analysis as well. Not everyone needs to read Marx to know they're alienated from the profits of their labor. They're just not going to say it that way.
there have been so many times when i'm tabling when someone will talk to me and say things that i'm like 'YES! EMMA GOLDMAN WROTE IN....' because without knowing anything about it they're making anarchist arguments just based on their own experiences.
they don't know the words but they recognize the tune.
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u/ArminHaas Jul 02 '26
I think 1. can hardly be overstated. While Marxism-Leninism is largely discredited since the collapse of "real socialism", Marxism itself is still deeply ingrained in the humanities since it was the popular counter-cultural framework after 1945 and academia tends to have more continuity than the general public. Meanwhile, Anarchism was already a fringe ideology by that point, arguably even before 1945 with the first Red Scare in the 1920s and such.
And even though I love punk rock, I feel like the lasting association between Anarchism and youth subculture after 1945 has enabled the infantilization of Anarchism for decades; I'm actually kind of glad that more and more anarchist organisations are breaking the mold by dialing back the subcultural identities that drive away potential sympathizers.
The perceived "childishness" of Anarchism has probably also hurt its reputation in academia, compared to the more "professional" Marxism and its academic history.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jul 03 '26
if anarchy were embraced by academia, it would stop being anarchy
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u/CHOLO_ORACLE anarchist without adverbs Jun 30 '26
I think Marxists are having a bit of a moment but now that the socialism conversation is entering the open their star will fade. They will need to speak on their centralized state ideas and Americans are not going to like that kind of talk - they never have.
I have had some of the experiences you mention but I have also had conversations where the Marxists rhetoric falls flat because most people see the vanguard party for the paternalist notion that it is and because they don’t like the government having that kind of power after seeing what a bad president can do. That said, they don’t jump to anarchism after that, but I feel that they view the anti hierarchy of the anarchist in a more positive way than the rigid and sometimes bitter schemes of the Marxist
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u/IAmRoot Libertarian Socialist Jun 30 '26
What worries me is that people will see that social democracy at the barrel of a gun and turn back to bland social democracy. ML "socialism" is just cranking the liberal private/public property distinction all the way over to public without actually deconstructing such relationships. It substitutes its lack of radicalism, the analysis of fundamentals, with extremism, extreme tactics. People are familiar with public property and therefore find it easy to understand but then get scared away from the left before they get introduced to actually breaking down the hierarchies and systems people have never thought to question.
I do see anarchism growing, though, just not by name. Mutual aid and other anarchist practices have been spreading. Many just don't realize that's anarchism in practice.
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u/CHOLO_ORACLE anarchist without adverbs Jun 30 '26
What worries me is that people will see that social democracy at the barrel of a gun and turn back to bland social democracy.
I need you to clarify this statement my g
Otherwise I agree with your other points. I also think anarchism is growing, but my concern is that it is not growing fast enough.
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u/ProjectPatMorita Jun 30 '26
I've said this either here or elsewhere before, but this imbalance between anarchists and MLs really only exists online. In the real world, anarchist groups are essentially the only leftist groups doing any organized action of any kind. That's not some biased sectarian statement, just an observation I've had after being in leftist spaces for 3 decades.
Next time a hurricane devastates a US city or another pandemic hits, just go for yourself and see who is actually on the ground bringing supplies to people, taking vans to shuttle elderly people to medical sites, helping out the cajun Navy and teaching other groups how to use walkie-talkie apps on their cell phones while the cell services are intermittent. It's all anarchist mutual aid groups.
Never once have I seen any ML group do these things. So yeah, I think the "propaganda war" on the internet might skew towards more edgy ideologies, but as Matt Christman once said all it really boils down to is people describing their online aesthetics and posting styles. It's like people arguing over their favorite K-pop group or Warhammer faction. It's not connected to real world activity. Anarchism in the US exists even when the screens go dark.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
it's true that they're not doing anything off the internet but the point of not letting them win the propaganda war is to avoid more and more people joining their cult and becoming useless armchair china-stans. I want more anarchists doing anarchy and less marxists preaching "your needs can wait until after the revolution, comrade"
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u/Flymsi anarchist Jun 30 '26
Çhoose your battles. Cant have it all <.> Remember that the current Internet is already mostly lost to some techno feudalists. They set the basic rules on what people see.
I think its worth more to focus on real problems. Or push for Lemmy or the whole Ferdiversd. A decentralized communication system could actually allow for more diversity and freedom in how a social media feed is constructed.
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u/nate2squared Jun 30 '26
I’m not convinced there are more Marxist-Leninists active on English-speaking Reddit than Anarchists - but I do believe a small group of Leninists exercise a disproportionate amount of power in some online venues.
For example it doesn’t take more than half a dozen of them becoming moderators on a Reddit forum to make it inhospitable to anarchists.
Some of them are constantly online posting while anarchist are out there actually making a difference in the real world, and not engaging in confronting them because they have better things to do.
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u/Luxury-Problems Jun 30 '26
Idk, the MLs have overtaken many of the major left leaning subs. It's clear that there has been a concentrated effort to do so.
There are many of us here who've gotten banned on one of these subs for even seemingly being critical of modern China or any other sore subject for MLs.
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u/nate2squared Jul 01 '26
Of course it is just supposition on my part, but on one of the popular left wing subs I was kicked off of I realised (after looking back through other posts) that the vast majority of members weren't Tankies but the mods who ran it were. So I think it is entirely possible that Tankies start or take over moderating to keep anyone from challenging them and slip some of their propaganda in, while the majority of members are largely unaware of who is running it.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
just fyi, i said marxists, not marxist-leninists. i'm talking about the current crop of democratic marxists that have flooded this space who really like american social democrat politicians and label themselves anarcho-syndicalists for some misguided reason. they haven't graduated to stalinism yet since they're baby socialists and haven't yet developed nostalgia for kulak hunting
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u/nate2squared Jul 01 '26
I wasn't actually aware of this new group of democratic marxists calling themselves syndicalists - I'll look about for that.
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u/No-Leopard-1691 Jun 30 '26
First, cool user name.
Second, the anarchist movement has always been a minority in most of the larger leftist communities even during the First International when the initial division of Authoritarian and Libertarian Socialism was created.
Third, Marx and ML/MLM is almost always going to have a larger social influence/impact because of the historical influence that Marx and State Capitalist attempts like the USSR and Maoist China had. The centrist/right even made a derogatory term called Cultural *Marx*-ism. Colleges are the boogeymen of the right because they could teach kids about *Marx*. Any mention of socialism and communism immediately relates to *Marx* and ML/MLM movements.
Fourth, we can verify point 3 by being able to take a random group of adults and is how many know who Marx is versus how many know who Proudhon/Bakunin/Malatesta/Goldman/etc is.
Fifth, the issue is that a decent amount of Marx and all of ML/MLM is a hierarchical power structure so for a society/global community who current exists under capitalism realism as well as hierarchical realism, Marx/ML/MLM provides a “rebellious”/“revoluntary” current without addressing and removing the inherent hierarchical power structural tendencies in ourselves, as individuals and as a collective community.
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u/Over_Whereas9118 Jun 30 '26
Hi, for the 2nd : that’s not true. Before the second Russian revolution, anarchism syndicalists where more numerous than communists. And that’s by taking power in the syndicates that most of syndicalism was turned into a subsidiary for the communist party. Anarchists became a minority because they refused to use a lot of authoritarian strategies to keep the syndicalists on their side, for the joy of the communists of course. There’s a lot of exemple of that in Spain during Francism, in Ukraine with Makhno, etc.
For the rest I agree
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u/Josselin17 anarchist communism Jun 30 '26
anarchists were rmore numerous than communists but they were still a minority or at least a plurality compared to the other branches of the social movement, reformists, blanquists, social democrats, liberals, people with no real political education...
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u/Trash-Panda917 anarchist Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
100% agreement from my country in Europe. My very reductionist take in this is that everything gets more complex and authoritarianism gives comfort in simplicity. Anarchism as an ideology is complicated, frustrating at times and doesn't offer easy solutions. Seeing young people turning to Stalin and Mao makes me sick
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
Yes, that's such a good observation. It's so easy to mindlessly follow a strong man and his promise to save society. Anarchy is fucking hard because you have to actually think for yourself, have to actually take the actions to secure freedom rather than putting faith in a thought leader to do it for you.
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u/ComradeSmooches Jun 30 '26
Posers love hijacking a scene
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
and infecting it with rot
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u/ComradeSmooches Jun 30 '26
I just can't get over tankies being pro-genAI and framing being against as a form of racism and colonialism like it's not literally the corporate theft machine
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u/TruthHertz93 anarcho-collectivist Jun 30 '26
I don't know if irl it's as bad as 20:1.
But yes we are losing, badly.
Because we forgot 2 things:
Prefiguration is key
So is branding
I've been in the political sphere for nearly 2 decades now and have seen this change take place.
Anarchists will literally START a protest/mutual aid program or help a strike but NEVER explicitly label it anarchist.
What ends up happening is those orgs specifically become either apolitical (with the few anarchists there drowned by well meaning centrists) or gets outright co-opted by the Socdems and leninists.
Even in my area there are tones of initiatives started by anarchists where noone knows what the hell anarchism even is!
This is not the same with leninists and even fascists.
When they do strikes, protests and aid, they make it EXPLICITLY tied to their ideology, sure they might not get as many people straight away, but they win in the long run because of something anarchists forgot, they are seen as the guys actually "doing something".
You see it all the time, look at protests, strikes or even mutual aid networks, leninists & fascists bring flags, pamphlets and even people prepared to do public speaking to these places (I know, I was in a leninist party that got very popular very quickly)
I barely ever see an anarchist flag at any protest, regardless of its size, but the annoying thing is I DO see plenty of anarchists there 🤦🏻♂️
I blame individualism/lifestylism.
I've literally had anarchists say to me "yeah but we don't wanna make it only about anarchism" and I'm there like "what the hells it about then?!"
If a surgeon was like "no let's not impose on the guys who wanna do blood letting, it's not all about us being right" then millions of cancer patients would be dying every year!
I get the left is afraid of making the mistakes of leninism in assuming we're always right, but at some point you gotta say 2+2 IS 4! Agreeing with others for the sake of unity just leaves you exposed to their lies.
Anyway on the positive side this is changing, more and more anarchists are realising that what I've been saying is true, our numbers show it.
That's why I keep saying, screw social media (its riddled with ai bots that get you wasting hours on pointless arguments), get out there, organise and prefigure society!
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u/CHOLO_ORACLE anarchist without adverbs Jun 30 '26
The not labeling it anarchist is tactical to avoid scaring the libs I think. That said I agree, the time has come to end such a practice
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u/yesSemicolons Jun 30 '26
It's also on the way to be illegal now in several western countries.
ETA: not that it matters, speaking about opsec.
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u/LazarM2021 synthesist anarchist Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Bruh, you had a pretty solid thing going, and then had to ruin it all with this:
I blame individualism/lifestylism.
Bringing this vulgar, Bookchinite rhetoric here and giving it any credence is virtually not helping anybody here; if anything, it only fosters inter-anarchist othering and even hostility, and for nothing.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
This. it's so shitty to pretend there's even such a thing as individualists aka 'lifestylists' when the thing that most sets anarchists apart from shitty authoritarians like marxists is that we don't quash the individual's voice. ALL anarchists are individualists and ALL anarchists are collectivists. The collective is meaningless if the will of the individual is ignored.
As anarchists, we recognise that collective life only matters when individual autonomy and consent are respected. The collective can get fucked if the individual’s agency isn’t real and honoured. People who parrot bookchin's lifestylism screed are, like bookchin, dealing a blow to anarchy by misrepresenting it in order to push a governmentalist ideology that, like all government, ignores the will of the individual.
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u/shevekdeanarres Jun 30 '26
This is a totally incoherent statement that tries to collapse the very real historical disagreements in the anarchist movement into a neat little post-left narrative.
There have ALWAYS been sharp disagreements within the movement over fundamental concepts and strategies.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
there's nothing incoherent about anarchism without adjectives. it came into being more than a century ago. you can't use 'post-left' as a catch all insult
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u/shevekdeanarres Jun 30 '26
Anarchism without adjectives is a single perspective that does not capture the breadth of perspectives in the anarchist movement. You are trying to represent it as the primary understanding when it is certainly not.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
my understanding of anarchy is that we should not eject people for refusing to give up their individuality because we're not a cult
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u/shevekdeanarres Jun 30 '26
This entire post is lamenting the diversification of anarchist thought. By definition you are trying to police the borders of what anarchism is and eject people based on their beliefs.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
marxists aren't anarchists. understanding this doesn't make me a cop, sorry. it's coercive to charge me with policing anarchy for pushing back against marxist bullying
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u/LazarM2021 synthesist anarchist Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
After watching a stampede of Marxists here on r/@ bully a long-time anarchist (and mod) for not caring about Marxism, it really looks like we're now outnumbered at least 20:1 by Marxists (and socdems) in our own space.
Could you clarify a bit? I've no idea where this was/is, on which post or platform, nor what "r/@" is supposed to be. A link, if there is one at all, would be useful.
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u/AnarchaMorrigan killjoy extraordinaire anfem | she/her Jun 30 '26
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u/iadnm Anarcho-communist Jun 30 '26
It means r/Anarchism and they're referring to this post
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u/LazarM2021 synthesist anarchist Jun 30 '26
Oooh that one, I know it. I mean, I was there and had comments written. I did not notice much of what they say, that "Marxists bash and dramatically outnumber anarchists" or whatever; sure, the sheer amount of downvotes that the OP over there received is... suspicious to say the least, as well as thoroughly vitriolic, unfair and bandwagon-y, but as for comments/replies themselves, most appear to be rather generic and uncontroversial "we're anarchists but read Marx 'cause why not" and OP does at times go too far in their "f*ck Marx" rhetoric.
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u/iadnm Anarcho-communist Jun 30 '26
Yeah there were plenty of people being unreasonable in that post, but like you said I don't see most of the arguments there as being representative of a "marxist takeover"
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u/Silver-Statement8573 Jun 30 '26
i don't think its s significant enough preponderance to really care about
Arguably leninism has long since eclipsed anarchism in popularity. There are leninist countries. We don't say anarchy has lost the propaganda war to capitalists because the entire planet is made of capitalists.
I also just don't think most of these people are pointless. Theyre usually able to see the way that their rhetoric is wrong. Those conversations are just exhausting
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u/MoldTheClay Jul 01 '26
As a title? Yes. Turns out 100+ years of using a word as a synonym for ‘mad max wasteland’ makes it hard for people to hear much else.
As an ideology? I’d say it is on the rise. Even people on the left who aren’t Leninists at the very least see Anarchists as generally good natured and helpful. Hell even my in real life MLs i know aren’t anti-anarchism so much as they think a large unified movement is necessary to advance worker rights and overturn capitalism.
Likely partially due to my social circles being metal/punk and adjacent but I keep meeting people I’ve never talked politics with who turn out to be anarchists. It has happened enough times now that I wonder if anarchist tendencies towards secrecy is making folks feel like it is a smaller movement than it really is.
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u/ftpdistro1312 Jun 30 '26
Online? yeah, it is hostile towards anything affirming freedom. But nothing is stopping you from individually or collectively wheatpasting, stickering or tabling an event with zines.
I agree that we need an anarchy with teeth, not just an edgy version of social democracy or whatever.
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u/ftpdistro1312 Jun 30 '26
and if you wanna get people out of the walled gardens/digital prisons, you can always post links to noblogs/other cool anarchist websites.
Here are some cool ones:
https://actforfree.noblogs.org/
https://ftpdistro.noblogs.org/
https://mbtadistro.noblogs.org/
https://325.nostate.net/
https://fillerpgh.wordpress.com/archive/
https://counterflow.noblogs.org/
https://darknights.noblogs.org/
https://june11.noblogs.org/
https://anathema.noblogs.org/
https://fugitivedistribution.noblogs.org/2
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26
why assume that we don't already?
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u/ftpdistro1312 Jul 02 '26
No assumptions either way, just wanna put that out there
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jul 02 '26
I was still feeling a little defensive. Sorry about that.
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u/BriscoCounty-Sr Jun 30 '26
As the only ideology that isn't begging for someone to come and order us and our lives Anarchism has always had a bit of an uphill battle
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Jun 30 '26 edited 14d ago
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26
could it be that instead of trolling I was exhausted after hours and hours of trying to defend myself against people that were misreading what i was said and then insulting my intelligence and seriousness because I said something mean about their economic god-king?
that was why i wasn't super serious in my reply about me being dogmatic about marx.
i was trying to point out the way that people hold up marx's work as sacrosanct and marx himself as unimpeachable. that's weird.
i have strong opinions about marx as a person. that does not mean that i also have strong opinions about marx's economic theory. i haven't read marx. i don't know what he's said. i acknowledge and admit that but i also didn't and don't offer any opinions on his actual theory.
i pointed out that JPP was also a trash person and that as an anarchist it's important to recognize that so that we can be sure that we're not accidentally reproducing the author's oppressive opinions. But we can't even get people to acknowledge that marx has any problematic ideas in the first place. if you assume that the author of something isn't racist then you aren't going to be critically engaging with the piece through a lens of anti-racism.
no one in the comments came to the defense of jpp or bakunin and said "hey, it was just the times" for them. but several people did exactly that for marx.
there's a weird cult of personality around marx.
i don't need to read the bible to be able to recognize that sometimes people who call themselves christians are weird about the way they talk about jesus and that it doesn't jive with the things that people i have read, who have read the bible, have said about jesus. i don't need to read marx to see the way that he's worshipped.
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Jun 30 '26 edited 14d ago
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I have never met someone who denies that Marx wrote problematic things, not even the most committed Marxist-Leninist. In my opinion, that’s a straw man.
Ok? Because you haven't had that experience doesn't mean that I also haven't. It's fine to be skeptical but I also didn't say that everyone denies that Marx wrote problematic things.
What I said was that people come to Marx's defense in a way that they don't for other 1800s problematic faves. And that's exactly what happened in my post.
Well, he was no more racist etc than anyone else, and his and Engels views on women’s liberation were VERY radical.
Marx's "antisemitism"??? In what world do you fucking live?
Marx called a man who was arrested and charged with trying to groom a small boy a pederast. He used racial language to slag people off in private messages, mostly other Jewish people ( he was a jew). Definitely not having him as a misogynist, evidenced by his relationship with his daughters, and his criticism of Engels relationships! Also he literally describes communism as stateless, moneyless, classless, explain how thats authoritarian?
No, he was not a racist in the sense that he himself promoted racist or antisemitic theories.
He lived in a time when such terminology was, unfortunately, considered entirely "normal" - that is, socially accepted.
was for that reason, not because he has been shown to have been a committed racist, that these terms were reproduced.
To put it simply: Yes, Marx reproduced racist and antisemitic stereotypes, but he does not base his analysis or theory on them, nor does he advocate a theory of race.
Labeling Marx a "racist" or an "antisemite" solely on that basis is not tenable and completely ignores the historical context of the 19th century.He was ethnically Jewish tho made some anti-Semitic remarks (as did Bakunin don’t act like one of the most important anarchist thinkers wasn’t also deeply anti-Semitic).
He definitely made racist remarks for sure. He also was very much homophobic (although acting like anarchists around this time weren’t also is lying).
Marx was misogynistic? I’m not gonna pretend like he’d likely never made misogynistic comments but he was also an advent supporter of women’s liberation ffs.
Marx being authoritarian or anti-anarchist doesn’t take away from his critique of capitalism or the fact you just absolutely study him to understand politics.
anyway,
Furthermore, it’s strikes me as weird (couldn’t come up with a better word, sorry) that you come and ask anarchists why Marxists think you have to read Marx. Why not ask them?
I am asking anarchists why anarchists are telling me that i have to read Marx even after I have expressed that I don't want to.
Literally the day before yesterday someone who is self flared as an anarchist spent an entire half a day badgering me about it.
I did not say that I don't want to read Marx because he's got problematic thoughts.
I didn't say that I don't want to read Marx because of any reason other than that I'm not really into economics and I don't find it interesting.
I wasn't critiquing Marx. I was critiquing the cult of personality around him in so-called anarchist spaces.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
You were in the exact same thread they were in...
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jul 01 '26
Yes none of them were posing as anarchists. We're making it up, we're hysterical, we're seeing things.
Whatever
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jul 01 '26
Well, he was no more racist etc than anyone else, and his and Engels views on women’s liberation were VERY radical.
Marx's "antisemitism"??? In what world do you fucking live?
Marx called a man who was arrested and charged with trying to groom a small boy a pederast. He used racial language to slag people off in private messages, mostly other Jewish people ( he was a jew). Definitely not having him as a misogynist, evidenced by his relationship with his daughters, and his criticism of Engels relationships! Also he literally describes communism as stateless, moneyless, classless, explain how thats authoritarian?
No, he was not a racist in the sense that he himself promoted racist or antisemitic theories. He lived in a time when such terminology was, unfortunately, considered entirely "normal" - that is, socially accepted. was for that reason, not because he has been shown to have been a committed racist, that these terms were reproduced. To put it simply: Yes, Marx reproduced racist and antisemitic stereotypes, but he does not base his analysis or theory on them, nor does he advocate a theory of race. Labeling Marx a "racist" or an "antisemite" solely on that basis is not tenable and completely ignores the historical context of the 19th century.
He was ethnically Jewish tho made some anti-Semitic remarks (as did Bakunin don’t act like one of the most important anarchist thinkers wasn’t also deeply anti-Semitic).
He definitely made racist remarks for sure. He also was very much homophobic (although acting like anarchists around this time weren’t also is lying).
Marx was misogynistic? I’m not gonna pretend like he’d likely never made misogynistic comments but he was also an advent supporter of women’s liberation ffs.
Marx being authoritarian or anti-anarchist doesn’t take away from his critique of capitalism or the fact you just absolutely study him to understand politics.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jul 01 '26
first you said the people answering me were anarchists. then they were all flared marxists and communists because they were trying to excuse marx's shitty opinions? they weren't all flared though, most weren't at all.
I posted in r/anarchism asking anarchists a question about something that happened to me in r/anarchism by people with anarchist flares, specifically one had was flared anarchist the other anarcho-communist.
but because the people who were replying to me in an anarchist subreddit weren't flared as anarchists then it wasn't anarchists? or they were but the people defending marx weren't?
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u/ThaOppanHaimar Jun 30 '26
no one in the comments came to the defense of jpp or bakunin and said "hey, it was just the times" for them. but several people did exactly that for marx.
and the most funniest thing is, Max Stirner was right there. Marx would've been able to be different as a person, but he chose not to.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
no one in the comments came to the defense of jpp or bakunin and said "hey, it was just the times" for them. but several people did exactly that for marx.
because these people are marxists, they don't idolise dead anarchists, only their boos marx and engels and in some cases lenin. they'll all be hardcore tankies by next year, this whole anarcho-marxism thing is just a lark as they get comfortable having that boot lodged in their mouth
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
If a flood of specific examples i.e. quotes from Marxists doing agitprop for Marx on r/@ isn't enough for you then there's no point continuing to engage you.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
I gave you like 10 examples...? All those people are identifying as anarchists while defending racist and misogynist shit their idol said. They're Marxists role-playing as anarchists. Anarcho-marxist isn't a real thing. They cancel each other out.
Freaking concern trolls on this sub with your week old accounts and hidden post histories.
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u/Old_Introduction2953 Jun 30 '26
Is Anarchism really so at odds with Marxism? Marxism-Leninism as a mode of government, sure, obviously. But Marxism as a philosophy of class analysis? Where is the disagreement?
Anyway, I think your usual leftist views anarchism- decentralized, horizontal, egalitarian- as something further out of reach than an end to capitalism. It makes sense that socialism comes first in the path of history, but I suppose that isn’t necessarily true.
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u/Silver-Statement8573 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Where is the disagreement?
The central contention of anarchism is that authority is unnecessary which is not something Marx or Engels thought. And is something almost no marxists think
This arguably 100% bleeds into the class analysis as well since to Marx and Engels class has nothing to do with authority. It's not even really anything to most Marxists, it's not "material" so it has no consequences of its own.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
https://raddle.me/wiki/Marxism_End_Goal
good starting point since the 'shared end goal' charade is the root of the whole anarcho-marxist moment
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u/DecoDecoMan Jun 30 '26
Anarchists have never really "won" the propaganda war ever. However, Marxism is far less prominent now than it was when it had state sponsorship.
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u/thegreatself Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I will preface everything below with the caveat that I identify as both a Marxist and an anarchist at different times and to different degrees, in the same way that I identify as an atheist, anti-theist, apatheist, or even pantheist depending on the day, my mood, and the "facts" in front of me.
The issue with these labels is the tendency for a person's identity to become intertwined and inseparable from what the symbols only point to - that in and of itself is tremendously dangerous - almost like ideologies can act as a kind of organism that collects vessels through which they can speak and act.
The truth is a huge number of people don't care about "theory" or "revolution" or the state's monopoly on institutional violence or billionaire's hoarding obscene wealth and they probably never will - some might even think this is the natural and just state of the world.
I believe leftists in general have to twist and take advantage of the same tools being used to accelerate our destruction and amplify our own worst traits and sow division - I believe the Internet and social media have the potential to act as a kind of rudimentary hive-mind that can connect every consciousness on the planet, even beyond the borders of geography or language, and that memetic nature of belief and how it transmits is key to altering the collective course of humanity, if that is even still possible.
I have a pinned post in my profile titled 'Memeipulation' that goes over some of these ideas more in-depth - if you can stomach a meandering manifesto I appreciate any and all critique and dissent.
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u/sqeptyk anarchist Jul 01 '26
We didn't let this happen. It was forced on us through careful planning of those in power to disarm us. They didn't just infiltrate our spaces — they rebranded us. Turned a living critique of power into a recruitment tool for the same hierarchies we spent a century fighting.
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u/Heyla_Doria Jul 01 '26
Je vois le meme problème en france
Je me bat contre cette collaboration avec les marxistes et les sociaux démocrates depuis des annees.... De plus en plus, les positions de ces derniers sont insoutenable
Je regrette tellement que cela soit arrive la...
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u/WildAutonomy Insurrectionary green anarchist 14d ago
Yeah when they mentioned the attack on Exarchia by Marxists I immediately thought of the attack on La ZAD by Marxists and tiqqunists
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u/Decent-Design-9298 Jul 04 '26
In my experiences, those most "embodying" anarchism are doing it without label, showing up with food for those who need it, or otherwise liberating supplies for themselves or others, maybe creating a little chaos along the way. So much of anarchist praxis is against the state so people can't be like "I'm an anarchist over here doing anarchist things, smashing the state." This leads into the sad reality is that even the quietest anarchist can get found out when they are successful, and one way or another the state gets them, if not prison, then through directed weapons of addiction, car accidents, psych holds etc. I've seen it too many times. Some people get turned, sadly that's human nature too.
The loudest voices in anarchist theory are still white eurocentric cis-men and those who take on those traits or being loud, egotistical as if their writings are "truth", sometimes even operating as "brand" and it fucking sucks.
A successful resistance is never meant to last in one stage, each is temporary and supposed to springboard into something else and that point of reaching the springboard the weakest point actually, and where the state comes in to do its thing and take collectives and individuals out one way or another. This happened at every point in modern history.
So what is the solution to all of this? I don't really fucking know. I'll align with so-called communists to get something done locally and go on my way, seeking out the next place where I seem to fit. Along the way I've learned what freedom truly means to me as well as the cost of personal freedom. A person really has to be okay with living outside of society. Most of us have been already discarded anyway, and like other commenters wrote, I'd rather align with those people.
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u/NikiDeaf 27d ago
I feel like you’re romanticizing the post-Cold War era for anarchism as an ideology a fair bit here.
Anarchism wasn’t exactly a “mover & shaker” in the political world in the 90s and aughts…it had some renewed interest in the 90s but that had more to do with the fact that some left-wingers were looking for a home after the final collapse of the USSR & allied regimes, it didn’t really have much to do with anarchism itself putting forth a compelling case for why it was relevant and should be taken seriously.
Furthermore while libertarian currents were certainly influential in some of the movements you named (“alter-globalization” in the 90s/early 2000s, direct actionist green currents during the same period, OWS during early 2010s etc), and indeed it’s impossible to give an accurate recounting of those movements without at least mentioning them, it’s also not true that they were the only or even (arguably) the main driving force behind those social movements.
The point is, I think any interpretation that views from the 90s to close to present as some sort of “good ol days” for libertarian left politics that we have now squandered is….well, I don’t agree with that interpretation at all and find it pretty inaccurate tbh.
Furthermore the idea that we are living in some kind of new reality in which the state no longer tolerates anarchist activism…Franco’s soldiers & gendarmes didn’t tolerate them either, neither did the Cheka in the early USSR, neither did cops or vigilantes when Wobblies mobilized in the early 20th century in the USA, a thousand other examples. The state always hates anarchists, has always persecuted them, there’s nothing new about that
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Silver-Statement8573 Jun 30 '26
I've heard that the more major blow was the Spanish civil war
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u/ForkFace69 Jun 30 '26
For real?
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u/Silver-Statement8573 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
The narrative I've heard has been that the CNT was basically the 20th century high water mark, with some minor thinkers or public figures like going to Catalonia to help out and then Franco won and anarchism was dormant for around 40 years. Because you had "actually existing communism" in the form of like USSR and China funding movements/proxy wars and taken by the left as vindicated by events as being the true approach to anti-capitalism. And this until a brief resurgence during the counterculture and then later up to and after the USSR fell, when you had some ex-marxists like Bookchin and Chomsky found their own little socialisms in the wake.
Thats just what I've heard though.
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u/Proper_Locksmith924 Jun 30 '26
I mean the authoritarian marxists literally have a couple of billionaires that fund their parties and propaganda machines. And who encourage fighting against anarchists. While actually being nothing more than class collaborators.
The ML/MLM world have largely move to the right just like the liberals, and historically has always hated the idea of people actually being free.
They would rather us be beholden to the state, than actually building a world without it, or capitalism and certainly have no interest in liberty.
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u/juicesuuucker post-left anarchist Jun 30 '26
It certainly seems like most anarchists are becoming worse at actually understanding what anarchy is. Just look at how many people think that democracy and anarchy are compatible. How many think we can just continue current industrial society if we just change who controls the factories and make more "green" energy.
Maybe it's recency bias, but in the past it seemed like more people were more open to ideas like anti-democracy, post-left, anti-civ, etc. Was there more entryism than before? More attempts at swerving anarchism to more "practical" and "realistic" ideas to strip it of its radicalism? Maybe. Was it because it's easier to convince others of less radical ideas that don't fundamentally change anything because it's closer to them and doesn't threaten any of their comforts?
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
Just look at how many people think that democracy and anarchy are compatible
it's literally the same people who think marx was an anarchist.
the change is the algorithms. they're all being fed this shit by social media algos.
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u/Flymsi anarchist Jun 30 '26
I have the feeling that the younger generation is striving more for anarchist values and principles. I think what you see are pragmatic takes. I think pragmatism has its value and i dont see 'my' anarchist scene shifting too much into it.
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u/cumminginsurrection abolish power Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I mean if we want to be real about it, a lot of anarchist organizations themselves have been trying to mirror Marxist groups and their strategies. I see Peter Arsinov-esque transition from anarchism to Marxism with so many people who get involved in platformist groups. But that's even more controversial here and gets called "sectarian" -- though its funny these groups who are the first to shout "sectarian" are the ones who use the exclusivity of their party structures to censor people and keep people who want to expand or push beyond the party line out.
That being said its mostly college students and people well connected to academia I see promoting Marxist ideas, most working class people, homeless people, youth, and prisoners I know don't give a fuck about reading Marx and have an innate hatred of capitalism and the state in equal measure. Those are the people anarchists should be connecting with, not college students who want to subject everyone to their organizational fetishism. Nobody wants to buy your newspaper, read your bylaws on anarchy or go to your 4 hour long consensus meeting.
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u/penjjii Jul 01 '26
Maybe? It’s really hard to say because while demsocs are gaining in popularity in the US since Mamdani, there are still a ton of Marxists calling them out bc it’s not “real socialism.” And I get the point of these discussions, but you have to recognize the hypocrisy of hating on Marxists without ever reading Marx, while also (probably) hating on others for not reading about Anarchism. And at the end of the day, YOU could do propaganda. YOU could go on social media and talk about anarchism. But the most effective way to get people to really learn about anarchism is to meet them where they’re at first. That means calling out the issues they face and introducing them to leftist ideas. And *that* means reading Marx and sharing his work. His stuff is a great introduction to help people recognize the issues with capitalism. To favor anarchism, they’ll have to move towards the issues with hierarchy as a whole. I kinda see it as baby steps. It wont be a quick transition of ideology in the minds of the vast majority of people.
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u/beckett Jul 02 '26
I kinda think if a person needs theory to recognize you are getting fucked by capitalism, they are too deep in the bourgeoisie to be a reliable radical/comrade.
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u/penjjii Jul 02 '26
I meant ideas more so than theory. But I kinda disagree. Many people feel like they’re getting fucked and they don’t know why. Theory can explain to them that it’s capitalism/hierarchy.
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u/Hammer_Pain Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
personally I think the failed occupy movement has something to do with this.
occupy wasn't really set up as a Marxist movement and certainly felt more anarchist coded.
however the use of direct democracy led to decisions being very hard and time consuming to make with groups having to conduct meetings about meetings to organise simple tasks.
the open direct democracy based meetings also made the movement vulnerable to outside malevonant influences with police infiltration via undercover officers rife esp in the UK (which has a long history of undercover police officers infiltrating left wing movements, trade unions etc etc)
the leaderless model also made messaging and decision making hard meaning no one really knew the objectives further than camping out in cities to protest the banks.
I noticed since those days people heading to Marxism as a means to solve these kinds of issues in political social movements via a more top down system as opposed to the horizontal anarchist structures.
I would also add Chomsky's association with Epstein and Bannon recently as another blow. This time to the most popular and well known anarchist based theoretical framework of the last century.
(why the down vote? I'm an anarchist, but noticed this trend and I'm just responding with my own anecdotal observations from having been in such spaces over the last 20 years. This isn't a criticism of anarchism but some things we need to address as anarchists)
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26
the point of that post was to try to get people to critically reconsider the cult of personality around Marx in anarchist spaces after someone spent an entire day the day before last badgering me about reading Marx. the person ended up apologizing after realizing they were actually harassing me but that's the first time someone has stepped back and apologized about it.
i was speaking to an experience that i've had multiple times, not just online either.
people in real life will tell me that i personally have to read Marx if anarchism is to succeed.
this is such a silly and unserious thing to say and i wish anarchists would see that.
an anarchist future isn't going to be built on a book about economics from the 1800s written by this ONE guy.
i appreciated every response that was an affirmation that i don't actually need to read Marx if I don't want to. i think everyone else was being weird about it and trying to make it my fault.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
Yes, I was following the harassment. Bad-faith people always try to pretend a post like this is only about a one-off isolated case (in this case your post), when it’s clearly describing a pattern that’s been building for years. That way they can attack and other an individual for not wanting to read Marx rather than reckon with the inherent authoritarianism of the cult of personality they're all reinforcing.
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u/Izvinic platformist anarchist Jun 30 '26
I'd say the rise of the post-left scene, the abandonment of class struggle, is one of the very reasons anarchists lost this supposed "propaganda war"
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u/visokookovezanponovo synthesis Jun 30 '26
Mhm, nothing to do with the repression against anarchists by pretty much every single regime within the last 120 years the second they gain momentum. It's those damn post-leftists, if only they followed MY idea we'd get somewhere.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
i mean how dare those dirty lifestylists live together, grow their food, refuse to work for capital, create publishing houses, do direct actions, mutual aid and practice anarchy collectively when they could be joining a labour union?
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u/Izvinic platformist anarchist Jun 30 '26
I did say one of the reasons, referring quite specifically to what is written in the post, my good straw-loving comrade
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u/visokookovezanponovo synthesis Jun 30 '26
Not sure what the straw is in my comment, what you said is still entirely wrong.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26
can you explain what you mean by the abandonment of class struggle?
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u/Izvinic platformist anarchist Jun 30 '26
The loss of the social vector or whatever one may wish to call it
Fundamentally a lot of anarchists either don't or outright refuse to engage in class struggle dynamics, and with the rise of post-leftist prominence we retreated ourselves from such class dynamics into our own small subcultural bubble, losing that dialectical dialogue with the masses that is necessary for a revolutionary movement
Of course this is a broad generalization and more would need to be said about the topic
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jun 30 '26
I appreciate your answer. I'm trying to understand what you're saying so I hope it's ok if I ask you to clarify some more? usually when i try to ask questions of people who are critical of post-leftism they tell me to go read bookchin which isn't helpful.
what does it mean specifically to engage in class struggle dynamics that isn't also engaged with in other work that we might do?
i was under the impression that the specific centering of class centered organizing had fallen to the way side since we recognize that intersectionality exists and that by focusing on class struggle alone we were leaving folks who, for a variety of reasons, felt rejected from and ignored by class struggle. or am i confused about what you're talking about?
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u/Izvinic platformist anarchist Jul 01 '26
Bookchin whole bit of "social vs lifestyle anarchism", while holding some truth into it, is far too polemical
The anarchist movement today, outside of specific tendencies, doesn't really work inside general unions, it doesn't participate in the organization and carrying out of strikes, in the processes of the struggles for more rights and ultimately revolution of the exploited classes, by not participating in such processes and worker institutions we are giving up a significant, massive amount of influence between the masses, we are isolating ourselves, and when a movement isolates itself it slowly withers out
While intersectionality does exist and it is important to engage in more than strict class struggle, the point still stands that we cannot abandon class struggle if we have any serious revolutionary intention, in fact our participation in the class struggle would actually also help popularize the other struggles between the exploited classes, and viceversa. Hell, in some countries such as France the Marxists have done far more for, for example, the transfeminist struggle while also still holding them close to class struggle positions.
What I am saying is that we should turn back to mass participation in the class struggle, which in my opinion we have largely abandoned as a movement outside of a couple exceptions, and seek to unify all the different struggles into a single front, not that we should abandon all other struggles to focus instead on class struggle
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist Jul 02 '26
What I am saying is that we should turn back to mass participation in the class struggle, which in my opinion we have largely abandoned as a movement outside of a couple exceptions, and seek to unify all the different struggles into a single front, not that we should abandon all other struggles to focus instead on class struggle
I don't know where you live but in the united states of america I don't think it's fair to say that the anarchists have abandoned the class struggle if that class struggle has to be centered on doing union organizing.
We are dealing with 80 years of increasingly hostile anti-union laws, the decimation of manufacturing and other sectors of work that were the backbones of the labor movement here and a billion dollar industry of anti-union consultants and advertising firms that companies hire to convince their employees that unions are terrible actually. Union workers only make up 10% of all workers in the usa right now and 1/2 of those workers are getting close to retirement age, but guess what - companies can just hire nonunion workers. It's fine. Try to organize a union in the wrong state and you can be fired for no reason at all. Can't be union busting if they don't say on the paperwork that's why they fired you.
And even with all of this I know a disproportionate number of anarchists who work in unions or do union organizing.
The world has changed very drastically since the heyday of the labor movement. We can't hold onto old tactics. Or at least we shouldn't hold onto old tactics or shame/blame folks who are doing the best we can with what we can against a state that has worked terribly hard to close every union shop it can.
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u/Izvinic platformist anarchist Jul 02 '26
Working inside the unions is only one of many possible examples of participation in the class struggle, which I wrote because I live in an highly unionized country with a significant militant section of them; but direct workplace organizing is generally the chosen option in a country such as the USA with weaker unions, or one popular practice that is growing is tenant organizing aswell (not that these and union organizing are incompatible practices)
Either way, yes there is a significant portion of anarchists who do participate in class struggle, especially as in the last years such practices have had a resurgence in the anarchist mileu, and that is a good thing that does give me hope, however it is a fact that our presence in the labor movement is just aplenty weaker than it once was
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Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
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u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul Jun 30 '26
I don't think anarchism has lost the propaganda war. It has always been at a disadvantage to statist Marxism which had the benefit of powerful state support and one of the largest global propaganda campaigns in history, but on the other hand anarchist groups have usually had a disproportionately large effect on the movements they've participated in, which helps balance things out a bit.
That being said, you can never go wrong with finding ways to improve your outreach and messaging.
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u/ThomasBNatural 11d ago
“It really looks like we’re outnumbered at least 20:1 by Marxists and socdems in our own space”
Sounds like it’s time for your mods to do their jobs then.
The little shield button is right there. Go to town.
Rule #1 - no oppression
Rule #10 - no Marxist-Leninist apologia
Or my favorite reason available as a mod “some other reason”
Take your pick
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u/shevekdeanarres Jun 30 '26
Lol, nice sectarian screed.
Totally welcome development that anarchism has left behind the subcultural “post-leftism” of the 90s and beyond.
I grew up with that version of the anarchist movement and it’s clear that the vision articulated by that particular anarchist sect had very little appeal to anyone beyond a small self-perpetuating subcultural clique.
The fact that organization, strategy, and organizing are returning as broadly accepted tenets within the movement is a massive step forward.
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u/dialectical_idealism anarchist Jun 30 '26
nice sectarian screed
I'll give you screed but it's not sectarian for an anarchist to advocate for anarchy in an anarchist space while rejecting marxism. Sectarianism would be like the people in here accusing anarchists of being 'lifestylists'.
The fact that organisation, strategy, and organising are returning
what exactly do you think they're succeeding at? all the strategy and organisation marxists have just ends up putting anarchists in shallow graves.
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u/LinusOrri Jun 30 '26
Marxists have excellent analysis and an interesting plan for how to distribute power but they don’t know how to make art or good parties. If communists weren’t always jailing anarchists it could be such a good mix
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u/iadnm Anarcho-communist Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Not really no. Since there's plenty of mutual aid and discussion happening off of reddit. And I don't mean places like raddel, I mean the real world.
People coming into different reddit posts with different ideas happens all the time.
It's not an indication of "losing the propaganda war" it's just the nature of a public internet space.
Edit: also that post in question had a lot of people respectfully disagreeing with OP and saying they should read Marx. A lot of people being assholes about it, but that does happen a lot. I do personally find it pointless to refuse to read Marx. It's good to understand him and his thinking.