Originally posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism:

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a dialectical materialist interpretation of historical development, known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict. Originating in the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Marxist approach views class struggle as the central driving force of historical change.[1][2][3]

Marxist analysis views a society's economic mode of production as the foundation of its social, political, and intellectual life, a concept known as the base and superstructure model. In its critique of capitalism, Marxism posits that the ruling class (the bourgeoisie), who own the means of production, systematically exploit the working class (the proletariat), who must sell their labour power to survive. This relationship, according to Marx, leads to alienation, periodic economic crises, and escalating class conflict.[4] Marx theorised that these internal contradictions would fuel a proletarian revolution, leading to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist mode of production. For Marxists, this transition represents a necessary step towards a classless, stateless communist society.[5]

He's still right, regardless of what kind of man he was

A lot of the things people say about Marxism -- like that it’s hopelessly inefficient or that it inevitably turns authoritarian -- clearly aren’t unique to Marxist ideas at all given the authoritarian nature of all three major countries. Russia, China, and the USA are all authoritarian despite their respective societal models. The issues people most commonly throw around seems to be just basic corruption whenever humans try to organise huge, complex societies, no matter what name you put on the label

Free markets aren’t magic -- they’ve melted down spectacularly, from the Great Depression’s mass unemployment to more recent crashes like the dot‑com bust, the housing bubble, covid, and currently the transition to AI automation

And when it comes to individual freedoms, it’s true some self‑styled Marxist states have stifled dissent; but so has literally every other major societal model. The USA specifically does theirs covertly through the use of corporations, and Valve for example, is complicit in that. Have you gotten banned for saying something that doesn't violate the rules, but does speak out against the satus quo? Shadow-banned on YouTube? Banned from social medias like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and others? What about PRISM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM) where the NSA orchestrates mass global surveillance on EVERYONE? Even “free” democracies have clamped down on your rights, granted some do it covertly like the USA while others do it overtly like Russia and China. It seems that whenever a system perceives any threat threat, regardless of validity, the line between “protecting people” and “silencing them” gets blurry

People also love pointing at the chasm between rich and poor that Marx predicted under capitalism. How can you not? Any major city has an incredibly elevated homeless population while the 1% own more than 30% of the total wealth; the bottom 50% of the USA only owns about 2%. Again, let's keep this in mind: 1/100th of capitalist society owns 15 times more than what 50/100 collectively own

As for the fear that Marxism always leads to a one‑party dictatorship: OPEN YOUR EYES. We're living in a one-party dictatorship which uses the guise of choice to persist

Donald Trump (2025 - Present) - Republican
Joe Biden (2021 - 2025) - Democratic
Donald Trump (2017 - 2021) - Republican
Barack Obama (2009 - 2017) - Democratic
George W. Bush (2001 - 2009) - Republican
Bill Clinton (1993 - 2001) - Democratic
George H. W. Bush (1989 - 1993) - Republican
Ronald Reagan (1981 - 1989) - Republican
Jimmy Carter (1977 - 1981) - Democratic
Gerald Ford (1974 - 1977) - Republican
Richard Nixon (1969 - 1974) - Republican
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963 - 1969) - Democratic
John F. Kennedy (1961 - 1963) - Democratic
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953 - 1961) - Republican
Harry S. Truman (1945 - 1953) - Democratic
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 - 1945) - Democratic
Herbert Hoover (1929 - 1933) - Republican
Calvin Coolidge (1923 - 1929) - Republican
Warren G. Harding (1921 - 1923) - Republican
Woodrow Wilson (1913 - 1921) - Democratic
William Howard Taft (1909 - 1913) - Republican

A recent example of this corruption is Mark Carney attending the last Bilderberg Group meeting and now being the Prime Minister of Canada. These things aren't coincidences. History’s full of examples of this happening under monarchies, republics, and democracies too. Rome’s oligarchy turned into an empire, revolutionary France spiralled into the Terror, and countless elected governments have seized “emergency” powers that never go away

Even the sense of alienation Marx talked about -- workers feeling cut off from their labour -- shows up in every major societal model. Whether you’re on a Soviet assembly line or driving for a gig‑economy app like Uber, the feeling that you’re just a cog in a machine persists anywhere work is fragmented or stripped of creativity and/or meaning

The bottom line is that every critique I've heard about Marxism hypocritically persists in the other major societal models, except without the benefits associated. These critiques aren’t exclusive to Marxism. They’re ugly representations of humanity and greed.

We need a society which asks: "How do we share resources fairly, keep power in check, and give people meaningful work?" Regardless of what form it takes, that would be for the betterment of everyone

Instead of tossing away Marxist ideas wholesale because you've been indoctrinated to do so, I suggest reading about societal models so that you can better understand them if you're to properly critique them without championing a model which does the very things you're trying to critique