re: Does anyone else find Marx’s view of history interesting?

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Smart people can be dumb as frick due to thinking in a utopian fantasy rather than reality.

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Smart people thinking in fantasy vs reality is what begets a visionary who effects massive positive change. An incredible number of those roads are ultimately a dead end, but smart men travelling them is what leads to great things.

He blew it on the Labour Theory of Value.

Something is only worth what someone will
pay for it.

99% of the people that refer to Marx, discuss his writings, or otherwise mention his ideology have never read one thing he ever wrote.

You’re not going to get anything out of D&G if your goal is to critique Marx qua Marx. Anti-Oedipus is a response to the failures of communism in France, post May ‘68. It’s an attempt to rethink desire ontologically. It’s a genealogy of various historical human societies ala Nietzsche’s (Deleuze’s model) genealogy of morals. Capitalism has a somewhat positive valence (as does schizophrenia). Without getting bogged down in the metaphysics, it is THIS discussion of capitalism that leads to the entire philosophy of Nick Land, the most radically PRO-capitalist philosopher.

You’re thinking of the discourse of the death of meta narratives. Lyotard and Derrida would be the French fries in question.

And Marx is exclusively concerned with a constrained world. He is only interested in material relations. That’s the entire point of his project.

Also, Marx was not opposed to capitalism. He thought it was necessary. He thought it was a vast improvement over feudal relations. If he was mistaken, it was in his faith that capitalism was inevitably leading to communism (D&G do not agree in the slightest, writing from the perspective of the failed communist revolution in France ‘68).

I just read through the preface yesterday and it said the book talks about how our individualism is created by power structure, like government. That is insane. If that were true, then why does nearly everyone hate letters from the IRS. It talks of how we need to "de-individualize" ourselves. Collectivist BS.

Marx definitely didn't view the world as constrained, because he completely rejects human nature in the end. Sure, he thought there'd be such a thing as scarcity, but what he rejected is the fact that humans care more about their kids then some stranger a million miles away...or even their own neighbors. The idea that humans will basically be robots w/ all motivations, preferences, skills, desires to be equal is crazy talk.

Would the average person be more upset if their pet died or if some stranger got murdered that you don't even know? Of course they'd be more upset about their pet dying. Yet, Marx pretty much rejects that idea.

Marx didn't even know how value was created.

Marxism is a massive endeavor to justify Envy as a human behavior, rather than a sin.

I'll never be impressed by anyone who has to jump through hoops to make such a thing into a virtue. It doesn't matter how elaborate the dog and pony show.

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I don’t agree with them, but being so cocksure about how they all are dumbasses is just something I don’t think anymore.

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Smart people can have dumb ideas. Happens all the time.

If you can read the Unibomber’s manifesto and find it compelling, you should also have to read some Marx. Just even it all out.

I feel like it’s better not to have a super high IQ. The people I see like this seem to struggle with day to day tasks relating to other people. They often live unhappy lives and die alone.

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more class-based reading of history.

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Yes, wrapping (or should that be warping?) your brain around the conflict theorist model of viewing all human interactions is not a particularly good choice. It is only one filter which people can consider, but not a healthy or accurate habit to cultivate.