Trotsky and Lenin： Early Marxist Philosophers [In Depth Analysis Ep. 3]
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Summary
In this episode, I discuss the role of heuristics in our understanding of the world, and how they influence our political and cultural discourse. Heuristics is a term you'll often hear amongst computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers, and it refers to the nature of problem-solving process. Your heuristic is a filter, which determines what you choose to observe, as well as how you then process the information you receive. A kernel with a good heuristic will maintain all the vital operations in balance, minimizing processing time spent on background services and ensuring steady and hang-free operation of whatever primary application you're currently using. A heuristic with a bad one will regularly hang and crash out for no reason. This is just as important in the humanities as it is in the sciences.
Transcript
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The modern-day left and right, Democrats and Republicans, should be understood through
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a Marxist lens, since that is the ideology which both parties employ.
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In the case of the Democrats, they follow a bottom-up Leninist approach.
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With the Republicans, it's a top-down Trotskyist approach.
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To understand what's going on today, we need to understand what was going on a century ago.
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How different organizations and political ideas from revolutionary Russia came to influence
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And how these old ideologies determine what we're capable of seeing, and what sort of
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Because this is ultimately what's wrong with modern political discourse.
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Ridiculous oversimplifications like the political compass test, which, incidentally, scores almost
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The problem in present-day America isn't left versus right.
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It's that we're looking at the world in black and white.
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Heuristics is a term you'll often hear amongst computer scientists and artificial intelligence
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It refers to the nature of a problem-solving process.
00:02:31.060
Your heuristic is a filter, which determines what you choose to observe, as well as how
00:02:42.720
It breaks down each process into a different tier of importance, and then selects which one
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will have access to the processor at a given time.
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A kernel with a good heuristic will maintain all the vital operations in balance, minimizing
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processing time spent on background services and ensuring steady and hang-free operation
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of whatever primary application you're currently using.
00:03:05.360
A kernel with a bad heuristic will regularly hang and crash out for no reason.
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Heuristics are just as important in the humanities.
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The heuristic you choose for your filter will determine what information you're able to
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notice, and what information you write off as irrelevant.
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For instance, the heuristic of philosophical materialism states that everything in reality
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This leads its adherents to explore the world around them in an effort to explain all observable
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phenomenon through a mechanistic, cause-effect paradigm.
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However, it also necessitates a dismissal of any phenomenon which doesn't fit into this
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My second favorite childhood book, after The Baby Bebe Bird, was The Bunyip of Berkley's
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In it, a bunyip crawls out of a billabon and goes on a journey to try and find out what
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Eventually, he stumbles upon a scientist and asks him.
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However, the scientist is too busy observing his telescope and taking notes to look over
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at the bunyip and simply informs him that bunyips look like nothing, because bunyips don't exist.
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Disheartened, the bunyip wanders back to his creek, only to stumble upon another bunyip emerging
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With this, he realizes what he truly wanted was friendship, and he drops his quest for
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Now, if you're saying that a bunyip is clearly a physical phenomenon which the scientist ought
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Philosophical materialism can acknowledge that you exist as a physical entity, but it can't
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It won't tell you what the true meaning of friendship is, or where the artist finds the
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The bunyip in the story is a metaphorical representation of the human spirit, and science does not, cannot
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address the question of why music moves the soul.
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It will have quite a bit to say about serotonin and audio frequencies, but it won't be able
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Philosophical materialism is a wonderful heuristic when it comes to examining physical reality.
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It dispels Carl Sagan's demon-haunted world, which still plagues places like Africa, but
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it utterly fails in providing meaning or purpose in society.
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Psychiatry, one of its offshoots, is very useful at keeping people medicated so that they
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don't cause too much friction, but it often fails at providing long-term improvement in
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the individual, and even when it does, it's not a testament to the philosophical materialism
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Rather, it is the spiritual heuristics that said practitioner also employs.
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Now keep in mind, science versus spirituality is just one example of a heuristical conflict.
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These sort of conflicts also crop up within science and spirituality.
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For instance, there is presently an incipient revolution happening in our understanding of
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the cosmos, which can be tracked back to heuristical assumptions, heuristical assumptions which are
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As creatures who exist on the surface of a planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, with
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a sun of a certain magnitude, we've developed sensory organs attuned to the world around us,
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an environment which is strikingly exceptional when you consider what the rest of the universe
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The challenge for the cosmologist is to pull himself out of this environment, to try and
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understand a cosmos that is mostly empty space, or at least, what appears to be empty space
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According to this new theory, which is challenging traditional cosmology, the old school has failed
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on two fronts, our understanding of matter, and on the importance of gravity.
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Here on Earth, we're mostly familiar with solids, liquids, and gases.
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Plasma, the fourth state of matter, is almost completely unknown, despite being omnipresent in
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Similarly, gravity is incredibly important to us naked apes, crawling about on the surface
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of the third rock from the sun, but when it comes to fundamental forces, it's one of
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the weakest, paling in comparison to electromagnetism.
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The Electric Universe theory holds that plasma and electromagnetics are far more important
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than gravity, and that they may offer an explanation for the curious movements of stars and galaxies
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that doesn't require speculation about dark matter or dark energy.
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Whether the theory is right or not remains to be seen, but it serves as an example of how
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heuristical assumptions can lead you down the wrong path and make you blind to the reality
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With history and political science, the challenge is to find a heuristic that gives you the most
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useful picture and to constantly challenge it with new perspectives.
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When analyzing a society, data such as population density, technological levels, and farming capacity
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But what about standardized weights and measurements?
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Failure to take these into account, or, conversely, placing too much emphasis on them, will result
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in a distorted understanding of the world and complete blindness to the historical forces
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Present-day universalism, for instance, assumes that all religions are essentially the same
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because they all address the same topics—birth, death, marriage, and the question of the
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A civil engineer, for instance, shouldn't waste time considering whether a public transit
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system is being developed for a Buddhist country or a Christian country.
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But in other situations, this cultural chauvinism will have disastrous results.
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So when it comes to considering the tenets of Marxism, it's important to remember that
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We're not simply discussing policy disagreements between the left and the right.
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What we're talking about is a fundamental approach and assumption about the nature of humanity, which
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has many cachet values within it, and many blind spots on matters it considers irrelevant.
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So with that in mind, let's jump into the history between Leninism and Trotskyism.
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To understand the difference between Leninism and Trotskyism, we need to understand about
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the preceding split between the Bolshevist and Menshevist forms of Marxism.
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And to understand why Marxism split into Bolshevism and Menshevism, we need to understand both the
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theory and the historical context in which all of this occurred.
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This is a tall order, but we're going to simplify things by analyzing each shade of Marxist thought
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That is, an explanation of why history and politics operated as they had up to that point.
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An explanation of the situation which Marxist philosophers found themselves in.
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Second, as a movement within a particular historical context.
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Why such and such a school arose, at such and such a place, and what they were trying to achieve.
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We'll be looking at how the theory, plus the historical context, led to a certain prescription
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This breakdown will allow us to specifically identify each movement, what sort of animal
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it was, how it operated, and where its blind spots were.
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For example, let's apply this breakdown to the social science of marketing and propaganda.
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The theory which underlies modern marketing techniques goes all the way back to the beginning
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of the 20th century, to a man named Edward Bernays.
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Inspired by the psychoanalytic theories of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays posited that
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individuals are subconsciously motivated by a universal set of desires.
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And that arguments which appealed to these subconscious desires would be more effective than arguments
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The modern science of marketing and propaganda arose in conjunction with two specific technologies.
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The first is industrialization and the normalization of replaceable parts.
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These days, not only is every 10mm bolt identical to every other 10mm bolt, we've even homogenized
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Think about when you buy a dozen eggs from the grocery store.
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All 12 are not only the same size, they're even the same color.
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The second important technology which influenced Bernays' theories was the mass media, the one-to-many
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data model which could assume mass consumption.
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The confluence of these two physical technologies is what drove the formation of marketing as a
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We have a one-size-fits-all product and a one-size-fits-all media outlet.
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Marketing addressed the question of how to combine these two different systems, which, on
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their own, would both be innately alienating, but by combining them, he was able to create
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something which seemed intimate and comforting.
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The marketer or propagandist starts out by breaking down their audience into specific
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Stay-at-home mums, blue-collar workers, urban yuppies, so on and so forth.
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And then, they determine what sort of psychological need is being unmet amongst each group.
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For instance, you might have a working mother who feels guilty about not being able to cook
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So what you do is you take instant pancake batter, just add water, and remove the dehydrated
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Now you have to add water and eggs, and this token gesture assuages her sense of guilt,
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even though it doesn't change the nutritional value of the meal itself.
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So that's the science of marketing and propaganda as understood and developed in the 20th century.
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Today, in the 21st century, much of it no longer applies, due to easy product customization and
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the many-to-many model of internet communications.
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Failing to understand this has resulted in numerous marketing failures, in particular, the notorious
00:14:13.640
So now let's consider the original topic of this video, Marxism itself.
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Marx's theories are often misunderstood as being primarily economic in nature, from each
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according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
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First is the legacy of the Cold War, the battle between free-trade capitalism and state-run
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Second is the sociopolitical environment in which Marx developed his theories.
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And third is the simple fact that economic policies are far easier to delineate and define
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than the esoteric heuristics which are the actual core.
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Marxism is primarily a theory of history, more properly known as dialectical materialism.
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It looks at society as a negotiation between different physical and social forces, technology, capital,
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religion, and culture, and predicts a certain pattern to how all human cultures will develop.
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The first stage is known as primitive communism, an egalitarian society where one's contributions
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are recognized by the rest of the tribe, all members are provided for, and high status
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Today you can see this sort of organization spontaneously arising in hippie communes such as the annual
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rainbow gathering, as well as being orchestrated by larger organizations such as the military.
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The currency of these organizations is how much you contribute to the group as a whole.
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The second stage of dialectical materialism is the slave society, which is triggered by
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The rise of agriculture, requiring laborious managed servitude, and the organization of religion.
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No longer did we have shamans offering guidance on the individual's path through the ineffable,
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but instead, we developed god-emperors and the priestly caste who maintained order by threat
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These slave societies created massive suffering for most of the individuals within them, but
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Eventually, they created sufficient excess wealth to lead to the next stage of development.
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In the feudal society, elites no longer needed to grind the peasants under their heels.
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Life was still difficult, but the slaves were becoming serfs, tied to the land, but no longer
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And the aristocracy began leading as much by example as by divine fiat.
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This loosening of social controls opened up avenues for a new caste within society, the
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The excess wealth provided opportunities for speculation and traders, and the merchants
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found ways to profit off of wealth's redistribution.
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Eventually, they became so powerful that they overtook the ruling class, leading to the next
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This was the society in which Marx developed his theories.
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In France, they'd been completely ousted, while in Britain, their rights and privileges were worth
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Back in 1600, the Crown had commissioned the East India Company, granting the merchants permission
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By the 1700s, the Crown had become reliant upon the merchants.
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Organizations such as the South Sea Company were vital in financing foreign wars and servicing
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While the aristocrats still held nominal power, it was the bankers and capitalists, that is,
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the owners of large factories whom the peasants turned worker proletariat, dependent upon
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This is the historical context in which Marx's theory arose, a society driven not by the rhythm
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of nature or by the narrative of chivalry, but by the incessant, clanging demands of remorseless
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The aristocrat might put on airs of noblesse oblige, but they were ultimately co-opted by
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They'd become parasitical off of the capitalist class, allowed to exist so long as they did
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The proletariat, meanwhile, the peasants and serfs and slaves who had become workers, found
00:19:01.960
themselves divorced from the means of production.
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They performed meaningless tasks in ugly environments, disconnected from the long-term purpose of their
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laborers, and subject to the whims of economic trade winds which they could not predict, let
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alone control, all while renting their homes from absentee landlords.
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Marx saw the pregnant possibilities of this technological era, as well as the strict class
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divisions and the withering of the old world's cultures and religions.
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Inspired by Hegel's theory of historical dialectic, that is, unmovable object A meets unstoppable
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force B, creating new society C, he predicted a world where wealth could be effectively limitless,
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where narratives based upon superstition could be eschewed, where the owners would be overthrown,
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and a new communist man could emerge to glorify in his mastery of the material.
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His methodology was revolution, a worldwide elimination of all cultures and histories, a purely
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materialistic belief system that eschewed narrative for machinery, a resetting of the clock to year
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With a century and a half of retrospective, we can see the foundational flaws in his theory.
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Their form of primitive communism relies upon exclusion and murder to maintain a productive
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Both the hippie communes and the military use similar, though less brutal, techniques to achieve
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They are both very selective about who is allowed in.
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They are merely enclaves of primitive communism within a larger social context.
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Another problem is the emphasis on materialism.
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If there's one thing that the 20th century taught us, it's that we're not as smart as we
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The Great War managed to kill more than 15 million people and devastate Europe, even though nobody
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And then we have Frederick Gordell and Alan Turing, proving what philosophers have been
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saying for centuries, that there are hard physical limits to how far our reasoning can
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Nineteenth-century materialism saw man as the pinnacle of creation, not just the measure of
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all things, but the master of the measuring system itself.
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And finally, there's the imprecision of Marx's terminology.
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The man who owned the factory and the machines that were used to produce.
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If you drive for Uber, does that make your car capital and you a capitalist?
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His capital is a domain name and a bit of code that people voluntarily subscribe to.
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For that matter, being a CEO of a company seems like a lot more work than most people
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Most of us would prefer the easy work and weekends off that a salaried job offers, rather
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than the 24-7 dedication and stress of running a multinational firm.
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Dialectical materialism mistook a temporary socioeconomic condition for an absolute state of
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It was as if he saw a man kicking a vending machine because it just ate his last dollar
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and decided that he must just be an angry individual, probably with bad parents.
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At most, dialectical materialism was a contemporary critique of British manufacturing and foreign
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But by providing such a rational-sounding theory, which fit in perfectly with the average working
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man's problems, and that prescribed a specific response with the promise of utopia, it managed
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to take root in many places throughout the globe.
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Even in Russia, despite the fact that industrialization had yet to take place across that vast wilderness.
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At the turn of the 20th century, Russia was still firmly entrenched in the third Marxist
00:23:34.840
How could they leap over the fourth stage of capitalism to achieve the utopia promised
00:23:41.760
Russia's population was still 90% rural, the breakdown of most medieval societies.
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In stark contrast to contemporary Great Britain, where less than 20% of the population lived
00:24:02.620
The Marxist game plan assumed a society where the nobility and priestly castes had withered
00:24:09.660
Where the bourgeoisie had risen to prominence, capturing the means of production, and where
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the peasants had matured into the city-dwelling proletariat who chafed under the yoke of capitalism.
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The Romanov dynasty had been ruling for 300 years.
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The population was primarily composed of uneducated peasants in rural areas.
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The proletariat, the city-dwelling workers, were a minority.
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And even worse, the bourgeoisie capitalists whose investments had created this small proletariat
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mostly dwelt in foreign lands, offering no direct antagonists for the revolutionaries
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Despite this, the political upheavals that had been plaguing Western Europe for the past
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century and a half began to reach the Near East.
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Demands for an end to the Romanov autocracy, and for workers' rights, led to repeated clashes
00:25:04.840
between government forces and various radical factions, but the latter remained disorganized
00:25:10.300
with no specific plan or strategy for seizing power.
00:25:21.080
Born in 1870 to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbersk, a major city 500 miles east of Moscow,
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he became involved in radical politics following the death of his brother, who was executed
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in 1887 for his attempted assassination of Alexander III, the penultimate Russian emperor.
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Lenin was the most important political agitator of his time.
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He was responsible for organizing the various radical groups and adapting Marxist philosophy
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He started off by offering an explanation of why Marx's predicted utopia had failed to
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It's a theory that all of you will be intimately familiar with, since it's still taught in
00:26:09.440
A new stage of Marxism in between capitalism and utopia
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According to imperialist theory, the rise in class consciousness of the working proletariat
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provoked a response in the capitalist bourgeoisie.
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Realizing that they could no longer exploit the working man of their own countries,
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they turned their gaze abroad to undeveloped, technologically primitive lands.
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The capitalists would develop these countries, but only for the sake of extracting natural resources.
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A form of super-exploitation, which kept the natives laboring in bondage,
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subjugated by invisible masters in foreign lands.
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The resources thus acquired would be sufficient to keep the European proletariat content,
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while keeping the far-off, third-world peasants ignorant and impoverished.
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This new historical stage of capitalist imperialism required a new sort of communism,
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a global communism, where the workers of the world would finally unite to achieve this unity.
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And this revolution would start in Russia before eventually expanding to the rest of the globe.
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To achieve this, Lenin proposed a two-pronged strategy.
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The inner-party vanguard and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
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The communist vanguard would be made up of the inner-party intellectuals,
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those who had the knowledge and historicity to understand what was happening on a global scale.
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The dictator of the proletariat, meanwhile, would arise through education of the masses,
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introducing them to an understanding of the global situation
00:27:49.740
and their own role of becoming democratic dictators of industrial resources.
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Lenin's theories were adopted by the Bolsheviks in Russia,
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They wanted to create a wide base, an alliance of everybody on the left.
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Marxists, social democrats, anybody and everybody.
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They wanted an ideological movement which allowed input from the masses and discussion of policy,
00:28:20.320
rather than a top-down indoctrination and one-party democracy.
00:28:24.280
This open-mindedness would eventually lead to their downfall.
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With such a diverse base, they weren't able to form a specific strategy.
00:28:36.400
but they were powerless against their supposed allies to the left.
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and Marxist Leninism was adopted as the party platform of the revolutionary Russians.
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One party, an inner vanguard, and the indoctrination of the masses.
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Now let's briefly review Leninism using the three-fold breakdown from earlier.
00:29:16.440
Leninism addresses two failures of traditional Marxist theory.
00:29:20.000
The first is its failure to achieve its predicted utopia
00:29:24.320
through raising the class consciousness of the proletariat.
00:29:28.780
The second is its failure to acknowledge events in societies outside of Western Europe
00:29:37.900
Leninism posits a fifth historical stage which Marx and Engels had ignored.
00:29:43.380
In between capitalism and utopia was capitalist imperialism.
00:29:47.200
In this stage, ignorant second and third world peasants would be hyper-exploited
00:29:52.800
for the sake of satiating the working class in first world countries.
00:29:57.580
Thus, the first world proletariat would never develop class consciousness
00:30:01.240
until the second and third world workers threw off their own chains,
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at which point the revolution would become global.
00:30:09.260
To accomplish this would require the education of the third world peasants,
00:30:14.480
indoctrination into Leninist theory by an inner-party vanguard.
00:30:19.100
On their own, the third world peasants would be too ignorant
00:30:35.700
Leninism was specifically designed for Russian conditions
00:30:46.360
a country that was still largely pre-industrial
00:30:48.880
with a traditional government, powerful church, and a rural populace.
00:30:54.160
While the revolutionary fervor of the last century
00:31:02.720
The specific situation and triggers for Western revolutions
00:31:08.420
and demands for workers' rights were easily sated
00:31:42.660
Leninism was not just one ideology amongst many.
00:31:56.900
which also plotted to overthrow the other groups.
00:32:15.500
as part of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
00:32:28.720
of Marxist philosophy which arose during this time,
00:32:53.740
that he first became familiar with Lenin's work
00:32:59.860
Though he initially supported the Russian Mensheviks,
00:33:46.620
Trotsky's vision was focused upward and outward.
00:34:03.720
While the workers might not have the same numbers