WHAT WERE THE CORE TENETS OF (KARL) MARXISM (1818-83)? What were Marx’s core ideas?: Supply and … Marx and many right/libertarian thinkers had a key idea in common: The product labor is part of who you, are and to take that is wrong. The key difference is that Marx understood that most taking is done by those who own the means of production. History can be summed up as reactions to changes in patterns of accumulation as those who own stuff try to own more and to resist challenges to that. What are the supposed contradictions of capitalism?: What kind of world was Marx writing for? 1848 What is the law of capitalist accumulation (why do the bourgeoisie take surplus value from the proletariat)? What are the laws of increasing misery and alienation What is the superstructure & hegemony (false consciousness)?

WHAT WERE THE CORE TENETS OF (KARL) MARXISM (1818-83)? Why did Marx think revolution was inevitable?: Why did capitalism replace feudalism and to what effect? Concentration of capital kills off the petit bourgeoisie Worker (proletariat) alienation increases Overproduction leads to crisis and war among capitalist states What supposedly happens after the revolution? What’s really happened? Why would there have be a dictatorship of the proletariat? What was good communist (vs. socialist) life supposed to look like… no property and roughly equal outcomes end oppression (and restructure families  

WHAT MAJOR REVISIONS DID VI LENIN & MAO MAKE? Leninism: Why revolution in Russia? Why hadn’t revolution happened in W. Europe as predicted by Marx? Can imperialism explain the lack of global revolution by temporarily dealing with the capitalism? Why were the Bolsheviks needed as a vanguard party of the proletariat? What’s the appeal of democratic centralism as a way of decision-making Why did Lenin think that a command economy and the strong state would be needed at first. How did Joseph Stalin make both of these permanent… effectively abandoning communism?

WAS MAJOR REVISIONS DID VI LENIN & MAO MAKE? Maoism In what sense was it a response to Stalinism and Russia’s nomenclatura? Why did Mao think communism requires violence by peasant revolutionaries? Why did he think a society could function on a “moral economy” instead of a command economy? Why did he think guerilla warfare and perpetual mobilization must be permanent aspects of the communist society? How was Mao different than Stalin? “Communism” today… Aligned from soft to hard versions: The American welfare stateEuropean democratic socialismstate capitalismpost-Soveit lootocraices  command economies (Cuba, some of Venezuela) and N. Korea. In what sense did Western, social democratic capitalism ultimately incorporate Marx’s ideas more effectively than communism? Conversely, what threat is state capitalism posing to those who think that “the end of history” has occurred? Is there any reason to believe that globalization may create the conditions that Marx dreamed of… global capitalism and the role of the state?

HOW ARE THINGS GOING IN POST- “COMMUNIST” AREAS? Data to follow, but generally: We see radically different outcomes Economically, all of the countries are now doing better than under the Soviet control There is more attention to inequality in many of these states than there is in the US… engaging in “class warfare” in these system’s politis not unusual, but often populist in tone. E. Europe is not especially democratic, especially where there is high inter-ethnic tension. The closer to Russia, the worst it gets The more strategic value or lootable assets a country has, the worse it gets for everyday people.