Why read Karl Marx?

yes, I have it was a very complex read and I'd appreciate your continued insight to develop my understanding even more.

free markets was a state capitalist economic policy that I think Marx would have seen as a legitimate institution of his theories.

That's what you chose to highlight, out of context. Here's the whole context of the sentence.

The nationalization of large industry to prevent private monopoly that enabled small, free markets was a state capitalist economic policy that I think Marx would have seen as a legitimate institution of his theories.

So, as you can see, I said the small free markets that emerged where enabled by the nationalization of large industry under Lenin's new economic policy. I never said Marx would agree with markets, clearly he was against them. I was referring to the nationalization of industry as a mechanism to give democratic control of the means of production to the proletariat as a legitimate socialist policy. Would you disagree that the nationalization of large industry is antithetical to Marx's socialist economics?

I guess my belief that Marx viewed capitalism as a vehicle for socialism was a reference to historical materialism. Capitalism has given the workers a forum to revolt against their oppressors and has given them a mode of production in which the economy is structured in a way where large industry can be democratically controlled. Industrialization and capitalism go hand in hand and it seems the organizational capacity of the means of production that capitalists installed was a prerequisite for socialist revolution. That's just how I interpreted it though.

New Deal rant.

For sure, it's text-book Keynesian-ism. Why didn't you touch upon the other examples I gave?

nope they pretty much wrote nothing about it.

I mean, maybe I misuse the term feminism for the liberation of women from capitalist oppression

This is a piece Engels wrote on women's oppression, I don't think it qualities as "nothing about it"

Its talked about the root of women's oppression as part of the family structure that capitalism perpetuates in the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, iirc.

I hear you on the philosophy of feminism being a tool for the capitalists. Great article and interesting read.

/r/philosophy Thread Link - normanpilon.com