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Notes -
Leftists are the ones who are most gung-ho about “the system,” which is why it’s a little confusing to me that he refers to himself as a leftist but isn’t against capitalism. That’s the whole crux of all the herp derp about “conservatives not knowing the difference between a liberal and a leftist.” Liberals want to reform capitalism. Leftists want to abolish it for another system.
Your fourth point is more about the harmony that social democracy’s try to achieve by having a mixed system that accomplishes both ends to some extent and mitigates the excesses of the other.
Marx himself is actually a real pain in the ass to read unless you’re familiar with the labor context of the international economy at the time he was writing. And his obtuse writing style makes it all the worse when you’re trying to adapt his observations to the system today. I’ve only read the Communist Manifesto, volume 1 of Capital and the Grundrisse of his directly. I’ve read much more exegesis on his work than him. Personally I’m Catholic so we’re obviously ideological enemies but that doesn’t mean everything he wrote was nonsense. He had many interesting and I’d say correct observations.
I’ve never bought into the post-scarcity argument. Unless you can outsource economic production into space and you’re talking about things on a cosmic scale.
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