I shall graciously explain Marxism

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I think I posted earlier that marxism and christianity were both concepts that have never been practiced properly. Yes I am aware the label was deliberately designed to be a tool for US propaganda, but it doesn't mean that the early ANC movement and even the early civil rights movement in the US did not receive help/ideology from their friends in the Marxist heartland.

I think even the poster boy of capitalism in Asia, Mr Lee Kuan Yew (later prime minister of Singapore) was an ideological communist (according to his biography) which was infact fairly common in the early independence movements throughout Asia, Middle east and Africa,

The thing is, not all Marxists are Leninists or supporters of dictatorship. Pointing to the fact that there's Marxists within a movement doesn't inherently diminish it's ties to social democracy. Many social democratic parties included Marxists within their founding membership.

Marxism doesn't oblige one to support violent revolution in the immediate future. Further, violent revolution would be far more justified in a situation like apartheid South Africa. Reforming the institutions to the point that violent revolution is no longer justified seems like an agreeable goal.

People throw Marxism around like it's a synonym for Leninism. How is it different when you do it compared to when anticommunist types do it? It all contributes to the same issue of social democracy being conflated with more radical ideologies.

Yes but the anti-communist propaganda emerging from the post-WWII era USA was that small grassroot movements could spread like wildfire and countries would fall to communism like dominoes.

The legacy of that US doctrine of military intervention in places like Koreas and Vietnam was reflected in heavy indoctrination of the American public that communism was "un-american"

This was also convenient for successive post-war US governments who connected workers unions fighting for increasing wages and workers rights and civil rights movements (women, gay and black Americans) to communism.

It's no surprise that when hardcore republicans imagine the antitheses of American patriotism they imagine a rainbow or BLM flag. Funny enough that's the current target for the post-Trump republicans who honestly can't distinguish between Leninism, Trotskyism, Marxism or other "isms" because it's all "anti-American" to them.

It's one thing to mistake all of the offshoots of Leninism for each other (Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc), they all require an authoritarian state. It's another thing to fail to differentiate between social democracy and Soviet style communism.

Further, when did murdering people for disagreeing with one's ideology become compatible with libertarian ideals?

It seems rather authoritarian. I guess oppression is only a problem when it's the state, not when it's private individuals murdering other people because they have different opinions. Apparently that's hunky-dory.

I need to kill everyone who disagrees with me before they threaten muh liberties!

Well, what about their rights? Doesn't murder infringe on their liberties?

Ayn Rand -- the 'spiritual' founder of Libertarianism -- would have just let the "dissidents" die in poverty.

Defending Marxism it's extremely offensive to me. What's next, defending fascism? How Hitler didn't get it quite right? Maybe I should refrain from commenting any further on the dumb s**t uttered in this thread.

Defending Marxism, Libertarianism, or Fascism is extremely offensive to me.
Hmm!  That would be your choice, would it not?

Maybe you should just wait until you're not worked up and maybe even try to learn about what you're attempting to criticize until your criticisms sound informed.

For starters, you seem to be under the impression that all Marxists have worked towards the same goals as though someone seeking to create a social safety network is on par with Lenin or Hitler.

How can you expect to be taken seriously when your understanding of what you seek to criticize appears this poor?

Is it though? Did Libertarianism cause the extreme suffering of billions of people all arround the world like fascism and Marxism did? I don't like modern Liberals but I am not offended by them because they did not cause the immense suffering that Marxism did. It reduced people to cannibalism in some places. It brought tyrany upon half of humanity. Neither Libertarianism (Classical Liberalism) neither Modern Liberalism are at that level of evil, no matter how much you might desagree with them.

Weren't all of the horror scenario examples you might name conducted by Leninists?

Considering that Leninism (and it's offshoots) only represent one branch of Marxist thought, you might want to learn about why it's Leninism that inevitability leads to that outcome.

But, Marx's influence isn't limited to Leninists, so pretending Leninism is a synonym for Marxism demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the topic you're trying to school us about.

It might be a bit of a stretch calling the ANC social democrats. Jacob Zuma was set to be president for life and was allied to the South African communist party who helped him get into power.

I think the 'democrat' portion gets pretty sketchy.

Did the SACP's support translate into policy changes?

The SACP has been hijacked in recent years by a movement to expropriate land owned by white south Africans to indigenous hands. South Africa has some of the most arable farmland and lucrative mining so not surprisingly 70% of land is still in the hands of white families.

The problem with so called "land reform" is that it has provided a convenient distraction to the failure of the ANC to manage South Africa's economy.

I know very well that what was implemented, and still is being implemented in some places, is called Marxism-Leninism. Which was Lenin's interpretation of Marx's work. Still though, how is it possible that such an immense evil like Marxism-Leninism was inspired by Marxism, if Marxism is indeed such an innocent ideology. To the contrary I believe that the elements that set up the communist onslaught where already there in Marx's work. He called to violence. Also his entire theory is flawed, which is the reason about why people had to suffer.

His labour theory of value is dumb (which is expected by a person who didn't work but leached off of others). He basicaly said that the value of a product is determined by the intensity of labour required in order to produce it. That's dumb because suppose someone or an entire industry decides to dig giant holes in the ground with a very high intensity of labour. Do those holes have any value? The answer is no except somebody finds them useful enough to pay for that value. So, the value of the goods produced will be determined by the subjective judgement of people who are willing to pay for that value, not by the intensity of labour.

Not to mention his historiography and his immaginary concept of class struggle. His whole work was garbage and billions of people had to pay dearly.

To be fair, Marx was a product of his time. The value of products and services in the 19th century was often governed by intensity of labour so he wasn't entirely wrong. This simple relationship has become more nuanced in 2023 where high value products with demand can be produced with less labour intensity than other products demanding on a myriad of other factors. Marx was not a futurist and couldn't have guessed how technology would change the labour market.