Equating the two is... super off base. Crucially, you can make any point you want when writing a novel, since you set up the world and the characters and get to choose the reactions of everything. Marx at least wrote about the real world, and our ability to critique that work rests at least in part upon its claims about the real world.
– Corey Robin in "The Reactionary Mind"
As to writing whatever you want, Marx did write the most insane and damaging things in his work. His work, in fact, led directly to tens of millions of deaths in 20th century, and the way I see it, the damage is not yet over, as some idiot somewhere will always be tempted to live off somebody else's money, just like Marx himself did.
Oh well. :(
Marx, for all intents and purposes, created what we today would consider "communism". That is, from a academic perspective, and not whatever goes as "communism" in American pop culture.
> the damage is not yet over, as some idiot somewhere will always be tempted to live off somebody else's money
The above is a terribly ironic criticism, considering how Ayn Rand lived out her life living off of the dime of the government.
> His work, in fact, led directly to tens of millions of deaths in 20th century
If we presuppose that any death, as a result of the actions of a state claiming to be using a given economic system, is attributed to said economic system we should be counting honestly. Every death caused by Capitalist countries, both domestically and abroad, should also be counted.
Every person that has ever starved to death under capitalism should be counted. Whether there's a direct shortage of food, or the person can't afford the food available, doesn't really matter. A person isn't receiving food when acting inside the system and thus died.
Then consider the imperialism carried out by these capitalist states. Millions upon millions of native inhabitants of Africa, South-East Asia, Southern America, and North America have been all but wiped out by capitalism.
What about WWII? Because in the of-cited number of "100 million killed by Communism" several wars are counted. In WWII a major contributor was the failure of the capitalistic system in Europe after WWI.
I could go on, but I think the point has been made.
You can count, but I can tell you right now, you wouldn't like the comparison. :-)
* Just to take a single point: 72k/deaths per year in just the US because of lack of access to health care.
Socialist of today want to extend democracy into the economic sphere - which today are totally undemocratic. That is, to actually give the workers control of the means of production, not to just change the bosses from capitalists to state bureaucrats.
Today, under capitalism, we already have democracy in the economic sphere. Each of us already has single-use votes proportional to our means (i.e. money). If you want more votes to use, do something valuable so that others vote for you (i.e. pay you). If a worker wants durable rights to the means of production, they can trade some votes for stock.
Now, one might cry foul that not everyone has the same voice under this system. Not everyone has the same voice in the US legislative branch on account of the Senate's design. So it goes. Least bad solution. Etc.
Sincerely, please point me somewhere that I might read about why this socialism you profess won't degenerate into sclerotic totalitarianism within two generations. What has changed about people's hearts so that the noble experiment you want to run (with other people's resources) won't cause the same calamities that it has before? As folks often quip, insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
I have no idea how you can write such a thing with a straight face. This is not democratic in any way shape or form.
> funny way to describe theft by the majority.
The concept of private-property is not ordained by God, it's a social construct upheld by force in favour of the propertied.
> Sincerely, please point me somewhere that I might read about why this socialism you profess won't degenerate into sclerotic totalitarianism within two generations.
Well you are making the suggestion so I think it would be more appropriate for you to supply some basis to it. Please don't be lazy and point to states like the USSR that was never ever democratic to begin with.
What I can do however is link to the critics, who were socialists, of the totalitarian regimes when it happened, like for example Bertrand Russell's "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism" that was published in 1920, only 3 years after the October revolution.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17350/pg17350.txt
You can just read the preface and skim the first few pages (in Russell's famous easy-to-read writing style) to get an idea of the scathing criticism he delivered.
e.g:
"But the method by which Moscow aims at establishing Communism is a pioneer method, rough and dangerous, too heroic to count the cost of the opposition it arouses. I do not believe that by this method a stable or desirable form of Communism can be established. Three issues seem to me possible from the present situation. The first is the ultimate defeat of Bolshevism by the forces of capitalism. The second is the victory of the Bolshevists accompanied by a complete loss of their ideals and a régime of Napoleonic imperialism. The third is a prolonged world-war, in which civilization will go under, and all its manifestations (including Communism) will be forgotten."
Sure!
What word do you see over and over and over again on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_totalitarian_regimes ?
Of the current countries listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states half are places where I am glad that I do not live.
> What I can do however is link to the critics...
That socialist intellectuals condemn totalitarianism when it arises from socialist roots is irrelevant. Those victims remain dead and those societies stay shackled no matter how sternly the intellectual writes.
And to be clear, I'm not a Stalinist or want to excuse that regime in any way shape or form, but this hypocrisy regarding "communist/socialist deaths" is a very annoying propaganda tool to dismiss progressive movements.
Progressive movements can be distinct from socialist ones.
Both Marx and Rand have very easy vulnerabilities to critique. Just saying there on equal and opposite ends of some imaginary scale where the truth must lie in the middle and those on the extremes are irrational advocates who write "screeds" is not rational, although it can look like it if you're in a friendly room or say it quickly enough.