Leftism has always been a ridiculously reductive creed, but the One Thing all Leftism reduces to has undergone a radical shift. For Marx, of course, the One Thing was that thesis-antithesis-synthesis Hegelian schmear. Hegel’s ontology claims that the universe is talking to itself. Literally. That thesis-antithesis-synthesis thing, summarized by the untranslatable German word Aufheben (“self-transcendence”; something like that), is literally a debate the World Spirit (or whatever) is having with itself.
All Karl Marx did was bring that down to the material level — it’s not the world spirit having a debate with itself, it’s the world, the material object. Both the debate and its conclusion are made manifest in History, capital-H, which is why Marx was one of a long line of gurus who claimed to make History into a hard science. That “wrong side of History” stuff the Left is always going on about? That’s why they use that phrase so much, and why it has such emotional resonance for them. If you’re a Dialectical Materialist, being against Socialism is like being against gravity. What could possibly be the point? You’re just being perverse, comrade, and on some level you must know that …
Alas, History isn’t a hard science. There are patterns, of course, any fool can see that, but those patterns are the intersection of human nature and emergent behavior. The proof is in the writings of Karl Marx himself — every prediction the man ever made was not just wrong, but ludicrously so, and after getting burned a few times he admitted in his letters to writing in such a way that he could never be “proven” wrong. See also: The complete history of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991, and as a side note, you can tell the intellectual caliber of Socialism’s defenders by the fact that they trot out the excuse “That wasn’t real Communism; real Communism has never been tried.” Ah, so Lenin — he of Marxism-Leninism — wasn’t a true Communist. They’ll shoot you for saying that in, say, China, but do please go on …
Severian, “Power”, Founding Questions, 2022-02-02.
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[…] GOOD. BRING OUT THE AUTOGYROS, WHICH AREN’T REAL HELICOPTERS: QotD: “That wasn’t real communism …” […]
Pingback by Instapundit » Blog Archive » GOOD. BRING OUT THE AUTOGYROS, WHICH AREN’T REAL HELICOPTERS: QotD: “That wasn’t real communi — October 8, 2025 @ 02:32
Actually the young Marx made some important observations as a sociologist about the terrible working conditions of the early industrial revolution. If that was all he did he would be remembered today as a reformer. But, as Karl Popper pointed out, he then came to believe he discovered the “real” – materialistic – “laws of history,” and that, alas, was that.
Comment by Skeptic — October 8, 2025 @ 03:02
Real free market economics hasn’t been tried either, but it is so good that it raises standards of living even when done badly.
Comment by Assistant Village Idiot — October 8, 2025 @ 08:27