Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Marx: A Complete Guide to Capitalism" video.

  1. I think you made your magnum opus. You should publish it, because it is an accessible, but comprehensive introduction to Marx's critique. And yes, we are in desperate need of it to better understand our modern world. Thank you.
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  2. That's how dialectism works: Thesis>Antithesis>Synthesis and back to Thesis. It's the evolutionary and dynamic path of ideas. There are no absolute settled, universal truths, because we are limited in our capacity to perceive or interact with reality completely. This is why we we devised technologies that expanded our capacity. This is why Marx saw Capital as a dynamic and constantly evolving concept, that evolved through ideas and beliefs being constantly questioned. That's how Capitalism has survived and it's discontent too. Capitalism sees the intellect as a commodity and continuously strives to develop it and extract value from it. How? By encouraging it to be questioned and challenged. And the discontents find new ways to challenge capital's hegemony too. So all Ideas are dynamic and dialectical, and are the means by which we evolve our interactions with everything. But it's not challenging ideas for ideas sake. It's literally ensuring our survival. If we hadn't innovated over time, we would not have been as a successful species as we are. Indeed, where we are failing to innovate is where we are experiencing crises. For example, climate change is more a conflict of ideas, whilst the material impacts progress. Capital is driven by the Profit Motive, and Shareholder Primacy ensures capital has the means to impose its will, but it is still being challenged by scientists, and the increasing consciousness of the public that Climate Change is real. There will be a tipping point, but when depends on the public literally disabusing themselves of that notion that their current existence is settled and safe. Dialectics again. And the wisest of us knows that Change is the only constant. And when we submit to thar reality we increase our chances of survival individually and collectively. Why? Being challenged by change is how we evolve. And in my opinion, Marx wanted us to be far more open to such possibility.
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  3. We interact with our environment, but the environment also interacts with us. It's when we stop interacting with reality and meeting it's challenges openly and fully that we stop evolving. Why? our understanding of ourselves is limited by our own capacity, and that limitation expands to what lies beyond us as individuals. So we struggle with a universe we don't and won't ever fully understand, and struggle with our selves which is another universe within us. The problem with ideals is the pretension that reaching them is the endpoint. That runs contrary to reality. There are no end points that are definitively and absolutely the last word on anything. only waypoints we perceive from our limited perspective, whilst unknowns that will challenge us force us to grow. So don't confuse the map with the territory, and remember the least valuable part of any journey is the destination. How you get there is what helps you to grow.
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