the Philosophy of Marx by Michael Aquino

In this episode, we descend from the crystalline heights of Hegel's Absolute Spirit into the smoke-choked valleys of the industrial revolution, where philosophy is no longer the contemplation of eternity but the analysis of the factory floor. We explore how Karl Marx—the Rhineland journalist, the exile in London, the most incendiary thinker of the modern age—seized Hegel's dialectic and dragged it down to earth, declaring that the engine of history is not the unfolding of divine reason but the grinding collision of social classes over the means of production.From the critique of private property and the fetishism of commodities to the alienated labor of the proletariat, from the theory of surplus value and the inevitable concentration of capital to the revolutionary seizure of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, from the withering away of the state to the dream of a classless, stateless utopia—we trace the shattering, prophetic, and deeply contested legacy of Marxist thought and ask: In a world where capital flows like blood through the veins of the global system, do we have the courage to imagine a society beyond exploitation, or will we blink and retreat into the comfortable delusion that this is the only world possible?🎧 ABOUT THE RUBY TABLETThe Ruby Tablet Podcast is a philosophical and spiritual journey through the essays of the Temple of Set, exploring the great traditions of human thought—from ancient Egypt to the present day. Each episode is a deep dive into the ideas that help shape the Self and fan the Black Flame.🔗 SOURCES & READING LIST:Essay #17: The Philosophy of Marx (Aquino VI°, V2 - 102 - 17) Reading List: #16A, #16L, #16M📚 RECOMMENDED READING:Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich, The Communist Manifesto (trans. Samuel Moore)Marx, Karl, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I (trans. Ben Fowkes)Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (trans. Martin Milligan)Marx, Karl, The German Ideology (with Friedrich Engels)David McLellan, Karl Marx: A BiographyJonathan Sperber, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century LifeGareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and IllusionIsaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment💬 JOIN THE DISCUSSION:What do you think? Is the proletarian revolution an inevitable historical necessity, or a romantic fantasy that ignores the stubborn reality of human selfishness? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat a necessary transitional stage toward liberation, or a recipe for a new and more terrible form of tyranny? And can we truly imagine a society beyond class, beyond the state, and beyond exploitation, or is class conflict an eternal feature of the human condition?Drop your thoughts in the comments below. Which side are you on—the comfortable security of the bourgeois order, or the terrifying freedom of the revolutionary upheaval? The peace of the market, or the creative chaos of the class struggle?#Marx #Philosophy #DialecticalMaterialism #ClassStruggle #Proletariat #Bourgeoisie #SurplusValue #LaborTheoryOfValue #Communism #Socialism #Capital #DasKapital #CommunistManifesto #DictatorshipOfTheProletariat #Alienation #FetishismOfCommodities #HistoricalMaterialism #TempleOfSet #LeftHandPath #TheRubyTablet #PoliticalPhilosophy #GermanPhilosophy #Economy #Revolution #ClassConsciousness #Materialism #Hegel #Marxism #MarxismLeninism #Set #Xeper #WisdomTraditions #ModernPhilosophy #PhilosophyPodcast #19thCenturyPhilosophy #IndustrialRevolution #CritiqueOfCapitalism #Utopia #StatelessSociety #WitheringAwayOfTheState