It’s more like you’re not a true Marxist if you haven’t read Capital, which is kind of obviously true. You’re still a leftist, but a non-Marxist leftist.
No science in the world places such emphasis on a 150-year-old text, and rightly so.
No science is the same. What exactly is your issue here? Do you think that Marx is wrong? If he is right, then what’s wrong with emphasizing the foundational text of scientific socialism?
Can you believe Newtonian physics is a useful model without having read Newton’s original work? You can – everyone here probably does – and you can just as easily be a Marxist without having read Capital.
No science is the same.
No science demands that every adherent read the original works of foundational thinkers who have been dead for over a century. Sciences constantly re-write their textbooks to include recent development in the field, and constantly rephrase and reframe the ideas of their foundational thinkers.
And of course Marx was wrong about some things (to the extent “wrong” even makes sense when you’re talking about non-falsifiable predictions of the future of humanity). He was not a prophet, and his writings were not handed down by some unerring divinity. He got a lot “right,” which is why his ideas are still so useful, but it’s those ideas that are important – not their original textual packaging.
Can you believe Newtonian physics is a useful model without having read Newton’s original work? You can – everyone here probably does – and you can just as easily be a Marxist without having read Capital.
If only it were that easy. You have people saying China or North Korea or Cuba are either already socialist or on the path to socialism. You have people whose idea of praxis is “community building” or “protesting”. You have people talking about science fiction shit like FALGSC in an unironic manner. You have people claiming “worker ownership” is the goal of socialism. And this is just Chapo, where people are nominally better read. In real life, most socialists are just liberals of different flavors.
You absolutely need to read Capital to understand Marxism. It’s ok to admit you’re not a Marxist socialist. But my issue is when people call on Marx for their arguments without ever actually understanding Marx (MLs being a major culprit of this)
And of course Marx was wrong about some things (to the extent “wrong” even makes sense when you’re talking about non-falsifiable predictions of the future of humanity). He was not a prophet, and his writings were not handed down by some unerring divinity. He got a lot “right,” which is why his ideas are still so useful, but it’s those ideas that are important – not their original textual packaging.
Great! And it’s time to read those important ideas. Why read someone else’s interpretation of Marx, when you literally have the original writing available for free? I can guarantee if people actually read and understood Marx, it would be impossible to still be an ML or an anarchists, at least for those who are intellectually honest.
You have people saying China or North Korea or Cuba are either already socialist or on the path to socialism.
None of these governments existed while Marx was alive, and Marx famously erred in predicting that the imperial core would be where socialism first took root. This is just one example, but on virtually any topic there’s been so much development since Marx that your best sources on any given matter are likely something newer.
You absolutely need to read Capital to understand Marxism.
How is this any different from “you need to read Newton’s original papers to understand Newtonian physics”?
