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Why socialism is inevitable... and why it isn't (Historical Materialism explained)

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This video is an explanation of why socialists say "socialism is inevitable" or "The collapse of capitalism is inevitable". For this I explain dialectics and materialism as used by Karl Marx to explain a dialectic analysis of our society as well as french society before the french revolution. Using these tools I determine that to solve the conflict of capitalism socialism is the only way. In the second section of the video I explain how despite this conclusion a socialist revolution is in no way certain. After that I explain ways we can make sure the socialist revolution will happen within our lifetimes.
Sources:
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:54 Materialism
3:17 Dialectics
6:47 Society
12:16 Why it is inevitable.
17:31 Why it is not inevitable.
23:12 What to do?
27:06 Conclusion/Outro
Transcript:
Hello everybody, as you are probably aware my audience and myself are pretty leftist. And something you hear a lot among leftists is the idea that socialism is inevitable or alternatively, that the collapse of capitalism is inevitable. I’ll go into that distinction and why it matters a bit later.
It would be easy to write that sentiment off as leftists trying to reassure themselves that the things, they believe in will not just remain a dream. That we aren’t all wasting our lifetime by dreaming of a better world which may never come. But it turns out there are actually really good, scientific, reasons why leftists believe that socialism is inevitable. And it all comes back to Karl Marx and the things he wrote.
Marx’s view of our society was a materialist one, that means he cared first and foremost about the state of reality, which roads are built, which factories exist, how many cars there are and who owns them and so on, instead of looking at spiritual things like religion and ideologies to explain the world. Of course, people can be motivated by non-material things, but material reality is always more important.
A king might really want to go to war for religious reasons, but he can only do that if his economy is doing fine and the peasants and soldiers aren’t starving, this means the material conditions still very much dictate how non-material choices are made.
Even during the first crusade, an event that was definitely religiously and not materially inspired, the leaders of the crusades still collaborated with local Muslims to get supplies. This clearly shows that to them the material fact that they lacked supplies was more important than the religious war because of which they were there. Even if you are motivated by something non-materialist, your ability to do that is still dependent on material conditions. This means materialism works as the basis for any analysis of society.
And those conditions determine how individuals act. You can imagine people like actors on a stage whose behaviour can be predicted based on the role they are given. If you give someone a million-dollar inheritance they will act differently from someone who inherited debt, just because of the different conditions they live in. This is not to say that people don’t have free will, of course they do.
But everything they decide is in the end only possible if their material conditions allow for it. So, taking this materialist view we can assume most of people’s behaviour based on their material reality which allows us to begin to analyse society and try to predict something in the future. Like the idea that socialism is inevitable.
Usually when making scientific predictions we use statistics and precedent. For example, if we want to predict the behaviour of a lion. Let’s say it’s laying in the shade and we want to know when it will get up to go hunt for something to eat.
Sources:
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:54 Materialism
3:17 Dialectics
6:47 Society
12:16 Why it is inevitable.
17:31 Why it is not inevitable.
23:12 What to do?
27:06 Conclusion/Outro
Transcript:
Hello everybody, as you are probably aware my audience and myself are pretty leftist. And something you hear a lot among leftists is the idea that socialism is inevitable or alternatively, that the collapse of capitalism is inevitable. I’ll go into that distinction and why it matters a bit later.
It would be easy to write that sentiment off as leftists trying to reassure themselves that the things, they believe in will not just remain a dream. That we aren’t all wasting our lifetime by dreaming of a better world which may never come. But it turns out there are actually really good, scientific, reasons why leftists believe that socialism is inevitable. And it all comes back to Karl Marx and the things he wrote.
Marx’s view of our society was a materialist one, that means he cared first and foremost about the state of reality, which roads are built, which factories exist, how many cars there are and who owns them and so on, instead of looking at spiritual things like religion and ideologies to explain the world. Of course, people can be motivated by non-material things, but material reality is always more important.
A king might really want to go to war for religious reasons, but he can only do that if his economy is doing fine and the peasants and soldiers aren’t starving, this means the material conditions still very much dictate how non-material choices are made.
Even during the first crusade, an event that was definitely religiously and not materially inspired, the leaders of the crusades still collaborated with local Muslims to get supplies. This clearly shows that to them the material fact that they lacked supplies was more important than the religious war because of which they were there. Even if you are motivated by something non-materialist, your ability to do that is still dependent on material conditions. This means materialism works as the basis for any analysis of society.
And those conditions determine how individuals act. You can imagine people like actors on a stage whose behaviour can be predicted based on the role they are given. If you give someone a million-dollar inheritance they will act differently from someone who inherited debt, just because of the different conditions they live in. This is not to say that people don’t have free will, of course they do.
But everything they decide is in the end only possible if their material conditions allow for it. So, taking this materialist view we can assume most of people’s behaviour based on their material reality which allows us to begin to analyse society and try to predict something in the future. Like the idea that socialism is inevitable.
Usually when making scientific predictions we use statistics and precedent. For example, if we want to predict the behaviour of a lion. Let’s say it’s laying in the shade and we want to know when it will get up to go hunt for something to eat.
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