Communism | The 20th century | World history | Khan Academy

Overview of Communism and Marxist-Leninist states. Created by Sal Khan.

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[socrazytwin]

I’m still amazing how good this guy can write with a mouse

[JusSirois]

The 85 richest people own the same wealth as 3.5 billion people. No, I have to disagree, what Marx observed still occurs today.

[comradehogan]

You could've saved 10 minutes by saying you don't understand Marx

[固执的鱼]

this dude probably didn't take much time researching into communism and how it functions and decides to be indolent by summarizing communism with it not being concrete

[aidanclare]

Where's surplus value? Where's dialectical materialism? Anyway, you definitely have a bias when it comes to socioeconomic and historical topics. The creation of surplus value is not even related to something material, since it's greater than the value of the constant capital (means of production, commodities) and the variable capital (labour). The extraction of surplus value leads to massive consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few, who then acquire more constant and variable capital to expand the surplus value, ad infinitum. In Capital, Marx referred to this as centralization of capital, which has come true!

[Bannister]

A video to supposedly explain what communism is but i felt that all we got was your opinion.

[johnpublic]

Unionization has nothing to do with socialism because it maintains the same relations of workers to the means of production. Class is not directly related to wealth disparity or "competence of management" or other things brought up in the polemic above. It is a social relation to the means of production. Capitalism is a system in which private ownership of the means of production gives control over the distribution of surplus to the capitalist class, not to the people who are producing society's goods. There's no democracy over the workplace in capitalism because the economy is considered outside the purview of democratic decision making.

Redistribution of wealth and "larger government" also has nothing to do with socialism, for the same reasons--it leaves intact the relations of production. Socialism is NOT government management of the means of production. Socialism requires WORKER control over the means of production. The lecturer probably believes that Obama is a socialist.

Government management of capitalism is called Social Democracy and is what happens in countries like Sweden, where people are far happier and better taken care of, by the way, than in the United States.

These things are "hard to think about" because of the constant indoctrination and apologizing from people who benefit from capitalism. People should check out Market Socialism and the work of economists like Richard D. Wolff.

Also, Marxism-Leninism and Communism are NEVER used interchangeably, except I suppose by the lecturer. Nor is "Marxism" utopian, that accusation can only be made by someone who hasn't read the man and who is shilling for capitalism.

And, regarding corruption in political parties, people living in the United States shouldn't throw stones. :)

Finally, on the Democracy->Authoritarianism scale, the US is a functional plutonomy where wealthy capitalists control the political system and use it to wage their own intra-class conflicts, using the people only to get formal votes (this is what the Tea Party was about). Just because people can push a lever once in a while doesn't mean they have any real power at all. There was voting in the Soviet Union, too. You have to look at the REAL functioning of systems to get anything out of the analysis.

Certainly, the USSR was authoritarian, but you'll have to jump through some hoops to show how it overturned the class relations of production and became "Communist".

[mensamussamussa]

that same arrangement you described still happens today, the minority with lots of capital imposing low to no wages on the masses

[shanfarooq]

11:04 when the teacher forgets the lesson plans

[jaxciohc]

Pretty misleading video, for instance in 3:29, he definitely wrote about the existence of “small capitalists” or “petit-bourgeoisie”
but Marx pointed out the existence of competition would result in the tendency for capital to accumulate in bigger and bigger hands.

I suggest anyone pick up an very short and concise reading of marxism, I recommend Engels, Socialism : Scientific and Utopian, or Lenin : The three sources and the component parts of marxism.

[qqqalo]

This guy just completely skips over the labor theory of value. This is biased.

[guilhermetomas]

The manifesto is a 2 hour read tops and it sounds like you didn't prep Sal

[Jorbyte]

"The government, or in the words of communists, the hands of the people" - this is more of a criticism of American democracy. The constitution states the government is of the people and by the people, but most Americans disagree. So if you think the government is a bad thing, then that's because YOUR democracy is bad, not the entire concept of democracy.

This video honestly reflects how, despite your best efforts to be impartial, you still can't explain Communism without sounding like capitalism is your religion. Capitalism is treated as a synonym for freedom while you're growing up in the USA. That's why you feel compelled to say things like "I don't want to say too many good things about Marx, " despite your only criticism being "utopia is unrealistic lol."

[TiberiusStorm]

He's actually defending capitalism?!

[HawreKoyi]

It was like CNN report about Russia and China, very weak argument. You should know that Marx was not the only one critical about capitalism.

[bernd]

"he didn't think too much about..." YES HE DID!!
YOU did not!
it is not possible for everybody too be a capitalist. you have no f'n clue !!

[udai]

Sal's method is just amazing.. No script, he just explains what he knows.. beautiful

[drrdragoss]

for every great idea there is a simple, short, wrong explanation

[vovapetruhin]

Food prices rise, food quality is deteriorating, municipal services becoming more expensive, crisis, bankruptcy, job loss, global warming... I love capitalism too!

[juliancombrinck]

Hi there, I am a huge fan of your channel. I've been watching since high school and I'm almost done with my law degree. I was wondering if you could do an update of this video with the latest statistics and so forth? Keep up the awesome work that you guys do!!!