>>1870792No problems. I thank you, OP, for being curious and open-minded. It's always my pleasure to have a good conversation.
>Why are these people excluded?Social-Democrats and Social Liberals are progressive forces relative to Capitalism, but they seek to reform Capitalism instead of abolishing it, to ameliorate the conditions of the impoverished people instead of taking care of the root cause. Analyzing history, we see that reforming Capitalism steps on the toes of the bourgeoisie without really taking power away from them, so they react back with Neoliberalism or some flavor of Fascism. The Social-Democrats and Social Liberals are what we call the "Reformists" of the Left, distinct from the "Radicals" (Radical as in: going to the root of the issue).
>theory of the surplus valueThis one might be hard to explain concisely, as it depends on a few theoretical building blocks, but you might be able to grasp it intuitively if you've ever been employed in a private enterprise.
Think about it: private enterprises raise profit, right? This profit is usually split between the stakeholders of said company. In contrast, the employees are paid fixed rates, regardless of how productive the enterprise was in a particular month or fiscal year.
This profit is what Marx calls "surplus-value". Now, where does this profit come from? Of course, if the company sells products to consumers, for example, they're taking in the consumer's money. But if that was the end of the story, the economy would be a zero-sum game where money simply circulates from one hand to another, wouldn't it? And we would still be in the same stage of technological development of the 17th century.
What Marx (and many before him, such as Smith and Ricardo) propose is that these products can be represented by "value", and that this "value" is an abstraction of the amount of human work put into the manufacture of that product (plus natural resources used in its production). In sum, the enterprise could only raise a profit because you and your colleagues invested hours of physical and/or intellectual work into that product.
Now think about how much the enterprise pays you to work for the stakeholders. They pay it out of the revenue the company raised in said year, right? So we can conclude that you yourself generated the "value" in your monthly wage by investing your work on it.
Marx calls "surplus-value" the amount of "value" (expressed in, for example, money) of the enterprise's revenue that doesn't compose the working expenses. He proposes that this profit that the stakeholders put into their pockets, without you having a say on it, was actually generated by you and your colleagues, since you were the ones who put in hours of work into the manufacture of that product. That is "surplus-value", it's value generated by human labor that, in Capitalism, doesn't go to the workers.
This doesn't mean, of course, that every worker should split the revenue equally into wages, because the enterprise still necessitates manteinance of equipment, investment to grow further etc. What Marx proposes is that this value should be democratically managed by the workers instead of put into the pockets of people who didn't work, but rather simply had "the right to own the tools", which is simply parasitic.
I don't know if I did a good job explaining it, but that's the gist of it. Though there's much more, it's quite robust of a theory: you can learn the details across the lengthy collection of books called "Das kapital", or tidbits of it in shorter works.
>I think you mean the Soviet Union and the fall of it, oh and China right? Are those the big ones of the socalist experiments you mentioned?Correct, but many others too. Did you know that Mongolia was once a socialist State? So was East Germany, and Paris at the time of the Paris Commune. These are big examples. There were small scale insurrections, guerrillas and revolutions across all continents of the world. There's a post that compiles them neatly, I'll see if I can find it for you.
Nowadays, Communists agree that the following governments count as currently existing socialist experiments:
>Cuba>Vietnam>Laos>DPRK (colloquially known as North Korea)The categorization of China is still heavily debated among Communists. It undoubtedly had a socialist revolution under Mao Zedong, but it suffered from aggressive counterreforms in the Deng Xiaoping era. Nowadays, China is leaning back into state ownership of important sectors and public services accessible to the population. But it still has billionaires, private schools, expensive medical bills (not as much as in the West but still), abusive work hours. In sum, the commodity mode of production is still strong in China, but the ruling party is internally disputed between the working class and the national bourgeoisie. And don't get me wrong, they're a far cry from Western propaganda, but it's no paradise either and they have a lot to catch up on. Because of said discussions, China could be considered Capitalist or Socialist depending on who you ask. I personally consider China "Revisionist Socialism".
>If I remember correctly, [revolution] has to be world wide right? It can't just be one or two countries?It can for a brief amount of time, but it has to either destroy or outlive Capitalism while under military and economic threat of destruction by Capitalist countries. The USSR lived what some call "war communism" because they had to develop a strong military industry as to defend themselves against bourgeois States. Stalin's strategy was to "export revolution" by aiding communist insurgencies in other countries. Contemporary China's strategy, on the other hand, seems to be to wait for the USA to shit the bed while growing its own geopolitical influence to the point the rest of the world will depend on the Chinese industry to exist.
Capitalism and Socialism are oil and water, and Communism is what we call a mode of production where Socialism doesn't have to defend itself against Capitalism; so while both exist, one of them will devour the other.
>I think this has happened to me, I only know Marx as a german who used his father and made theories, I owe it to my friend to break these conceptions and learn about what they belieive in.It happens to everyone to varying degrees, but material conditions are often stronger than ideology, and luckily Communism as a school of thought and political praxis doesn't need to rely on moralism. It's in the best material interests of the working class, and that's what makes it so resilient against bourgeois propaganda.
>What were these conclusions? I am happy to read marx but an intro would be greatly appreciated!That Capitalism can only function as long as the workers allow it. Profit can't be raised without human labor, so if the human majority turns against its rulers, it's over for them.
Many in this thread have recommended books. I personally started with Engels' basic principles, but the Manifesto is fine as well. If you still want to talk, I'll keep watching this thread closely.