Should we apply Marx to men's issues?

SAM4191 · 2024-06-08T12:13:00+00:00

I think socialism doesn't work without egalitarianism.
And socialism is the only just system.
Marxist feminists that reject egalitarianism have no idea what maxism is.

No one is guilty because of their sex. Men shouldn't feel bad for anything but their own actions.

Argentarius1 · 2024-06-08T04:35:53+00:00

That approach is what leads people to supplant their entire value system with feminism. I don't want men to replace their entire value system with men's issues rhetoric and principles because then they will become poorly adjusted and their psychology geared towards that instead of their own happiness.

SvitlanaLeo · 2024-06-08T02:55:50+00:00

We definitely should apply Marx’s core principle of what an economic exploitation is to men's issues, but we also need understand that economic exploitation exists not only in civilian sphere but also in military sphere.

I mean, the labor of soldiers actually costs more than what they receive in countries where there is conscription.

And we also need to understand one of the most important mistakes of Marxists of 19th-20th centuries that is viewing men as cannon fodder for World socialist revolution and women as the gender which needs liberation.

Updawg145 · 2024-06-09T14:11:27+00:00

I think leftism has largely been coopted by radical liberalism, which focuses almost exclusively on identity politics and not on class issues. While there may have been some overlap with things like feminism/anti-racism/whatever in the past, traditionally leftism is nearly exclusively concerned with class dynamics, probably because those are what actually affect 90-99% of people.

But idpol was a very attractive angle to play for left-liberals, especially the more self-serving and narcissistic kinds, because it allowed them to shift the blame of society away from just the "bourgeoise" to just out-groups they didn't care about, like straight white men. Now people are less concerned with, say, billionaires (unless they're straight white male billionaires) because the focus is on race, gender, etc. A radlib effectively doesn't care about class issues as long as their special interest identity politics are making progress. So for example, a radlib would be more satisfied with a society that has zero racism but tons of billionaires (as long as 13% of them are black!) vs a materially equalized and classless society that might still have some issues with racism.

One reason this is the case is because a lot of modern left-liberals populate the intelligentsia or professional managerial classes, in which they do very little if any real work and so are divorced from the interests of the "real" working class (who are often less educated, more rough around the edges, and often times kinda racist/sexist/homophobic/etc). Playing the class angle was no longer materially beneficial to them since they are generally more well off and benefit a lot from neoliberal capitalism, so instead of undermining their own material interest with class politics they instead decided to target identity politics because it gave them the easy excuse they needed to shit on millions of poor, working class white men for being evil bigoted chud nazis, while still pretending to be leftist/socialist/marxist/good people/whatever.

AskingToFeminists · 2024-06-08T08:02:01+00:00

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are valuable things to take from Marx. The notion of social classes acting in their own interests is important to understand a number of aspects of society. The mysticism, with the progress of history toward a goal etc can fuck right off, though.

And the concept of class warfare is absolutely moronic to apply to gender. Men and women are not opposing classes with diverging interests, and the whole problem with feminism stems from treating it as such, breaking the balance and cooperation inherent between men and women, and fucking us all over.

Like Warren farrell said, when one sex wins, both sex lose.

So, no, we really must not apply marx to gender relations.

flaumo · 2024-06-08T07:38:41+00:00

The problem is, that identity politics is actually a Marxist / Leninist concept. They where the first to introduce standpoint theory and partiality. Feminist epistemology is heavily inspired by this.

The german wikipedia is clearer on this than the english version:

https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Standpunkt-Theorie?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Prinzip_der_Parteilichkeit?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

So feminisms partial, antidemocratic and antiegalitarian aspects are tightly related to the same problems you see in Leninism / counter power / dictatorship of the proletariat.

Liberal universalism and equal rights are the right answer if you hold the radical idea that men need to survive.

yuendeming1994 · 2024-06-12T21:41:47+00:00

Modern feminism is much far away from Marxism, while the general anti-feminists tend to frame it to so called cultural marxism.

I think it is very important to get rid of the false stigma and embrace Marxism (or even Feminist Marxism) for gender (including men) issues

PrettyText · 2024-06-16T22:01:10+00:00

I'm not an expert on Marxism, but what makes me a bit wary that Marx framed things as: there's one evil class (bourgeoisie / oppressors), and one victimized class (proletariat / oppressed). And the most important thing in the world is overthrowing that evil class.

And if you just replace "bourgeoisie" with "men" and "proletariat" with "women", then you have feminism / identity politics right there.

What we need right now is for men and women to actually start working together and achieve actual equality, rather than to have one group of oppressed people fight the evil oppressor group.

Besides, whether or not we apply Marx -- isn't it pretty obvious that actual equality is needed?

I do get that the current economic system isn't working for the 99%, and Marx is a useful lens for THAT, but I don't see how to use Marx to take a step towards actual gender equality for men.

Few_Sink_7386 · 2024-06-19T04:15:30+00:00

I like Marxism mostly for its application in economics. I have slowly drifted away from Marx's political and historical predictions/ideas. About Men's issues, yes you can apply Marx to it but only to understand its implications on the class system as in how the ruling class benefits by using women against Men.

damaggdgoods · 2024-06-08T01:38:52+00:00

Socialism IS bad if we equate it with Soviet style communism. The internet will be forever confused about this so that’s why I’m inclined to drop the socialist label.

I’ve thought about using modified capitalism, social capitalism, which has been proven to work even in the US pre Reagan

Impossible-Age-3302 · 2024-06-07T23:38:51+00:00

Hasn’t he done enough damage?

NonbinaryYolo · 2024-06-08T02:21:46+00:00

You can apply anything to anything so I can't really reply to your poll. We could sit here and talk about rock music from the perspective of a moth.

I'm pro social work, I'm pro social programs, I'm anti-classism. I think classism erodes individuality, and promotes bias, and bigotry. I also think a lot of the Feminist bigotry towards men comes from Marxist perspectives on feminism.

If this place goes Marxist, I'm out.

Sydnaktik · 2024-06-08T11:43:39+00:00

Most people seem to have their own interpretation of what Marxism/Socialism is. Which kinda muddies the discussion.

I thought I'd try to do better and read up on it a little. I found the Communist Manifesto. The actual manifesto starts at page 40, the rest is a bunch of stuff someone else wrote as preamble.

And this is how it starts:

The history of all hitherto existing society2 is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master3 and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

This is so insanely reductionist, I don't know that I can stomach reading the rest of it.

This is the problem with Marxism and a lot of today's social science. It claims to have fully understood a social phenomena that is far too complex for any human being to truly understand. Then proceeds to build a house of cards on top of their "understanding" and start making wild claims on the back of it.

I just can't.

Banake · 2024-06-10T05:57:32+00:00

I voted "Yes, we should apply Marx to men's issues, but socialism is bad", I am not an anarchist, but paticularly, I like way more Proudhon's Mutualism. (That some may call a form of socialism, but that was criticized by Marx.)

Alarming-Turnover353 · 2024-06-08T23:21:40+00:00

So just out right coming out with the communist agenda. What a shocker ... What would you expect from a women led supposed "mens right" subreddit. You people are the dregs of society.

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