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How does socialism decide what to produce, how much?
- people's needs are supposed to determine this, regardless of money
- it should not be based on rich people's money and desire for luxuries
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Socialist's view of human nature
- philosophizing: imagining the ideal society
- experimentation: to demonstrate the benefits
- persuasion (not coercion)
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Capitalist's view of human nature
- capitalism's warped social environment causes people to become bad
- the social institutions have to be changed to free up people's goodness
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Why did Karl Marx expect capitalism to have crises,
then collapse?
- worker revolution
- capitalism would be less and less able to generate employment/profits
- creation of automation will cause unemployment
- companies go out of business
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What is communism?
- kind of paradise-on-earth
- products are abundant and people can do whatever they want, whenever they wanted
- no more need for economic organization
- no more struggle or survival
- no more incentive for some people to be ruthless and selfish at the expense of others
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Why was Marx so influential?
- new, true predictions: realistic predictions of economy
- discontent: people were dissatisfied with the work life
- organization: not waiting for the revolution to organize itseft, but took steps to forge the discontented into a political force
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How did Lenin and Mao modify Marx?
- Marx though that an economy had to go through a capitalist stage before it would be ready for socialism
- Lenin changed this by saying that a socialist revolution could occure successfully, even in societies that were barely capitalistic
- Mao said that the peasants could form an army
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What do modern Marxists believe, compared to Marx?
agreed with Marx stating that society needs to reach an advanced stage of capitalism before most people see its flaws
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