You're confusing Marx's simplification of class as a binary, all-exclusive system as shown in the manifesto with Marx's actual full theory, but class is bimodal, not binary. There were capitalists and wage laborers in feudalism, mercantilists, small manufacturing workers, etc, and even in capitalist-dominated economies there are the sole proprietors, petty bourgeois cooperatives, etc. Marx's point is that society is bimodal, and is dominated by one ruling class and their largest associated working class, be they lords and serfs, slavemasters and slaves, or capitalists and wage laborers.
Further, class itself is a social category, not an individual, and thus trying to analyze edge cases and outliers to disprove medians and averages is like the ones who think spending 15 hours of labor on a chair customarily produced in 5 will cost 15 hours of labor. Outliers exist in all categories, but what's important are the averages and medians, and their contexts and trajectories.
Next, you go on to equate CEOs with administrators in socialism as though they are perfect analogues. This isn't true, though. Capitalism is run on the basis of profit, not for fulfilling needs. There's absolutely no basis for an administrator in a late-stage socialist, early communist society (pre-abolition of money) to make that much money, or even to have the ability to invest that money in a market to earn off of speculation. It's a false-connection, and taking the Soviet Union as an example, the top of their society made around 10 times the bottom, while in capitalist and Tsarist Russia that numbers in the hundreds of thousands to billions.
Moving forward, no, modern times do not resemble feudalism more than capitalism. The sale of wage labor and the fact that we no longer focus on agrarian production producing rent for lords and nearly everything else for ourselves distances us from capitalism entirely. What we see today is capitalism's latest stage, imperialism, and how that pushes manufacturing onto the global south while the north plunders and profits. Marx's analysis is just as valid today, heightened by Marxists like Lenin.
As for the Bakunin quote, I was familiar with what you meant. Reality sides with Marx, though, the Soviet Union was more in line with Marx's depiction of socialist society than it was Bakunin's. The Soviet Union is caricatured by you, not accurately represented. I do agree that that's one of my favorite responses to Bakunin from Marx, though.
What we see today is capitalism’s latest stage, imperialism, and how that pushes manufacturing onto the global south while the north plunders and profits. Marx’s analysis is just as valid today, heightened by Marxists like Lenin.
I don't get this notion that Lenin was right about imperialism as the last stage of capitalism. He said that more than a century ago and we are still in this last stage.
The original title in Russian, Империализм, как высшая стадия капитализма, actually translates to "current highest" or "latest highest," not the last or final. Authors like Cheng Enfu have written works like Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism, analyzing the current characteristics of and contradictions in imperialism today. Moreover, Lenin has still been correct, the global south is rising against imperialism and the global north is declining. The US Empire has become the indusputed hegemon, and as it dies is taking the whole imperialist system propping it up down with it.
You're confusing Marx's simplification of class as a binary, all-exclusive system as shown in the manifesto with Marx's actual full theory, but class is bimodal, not binary. There were capitalists and wage laborers in feudalism, mercantilists, small manufacturing workers, etc, and even in capitalist-dominated economies there are the sole proprietors, petty bourgeois cooperatives, etc. Marx's point is that society is bimodal, and is dominated by one ruling class and their largest associated working class, be they lords and serfs, slavemasters and slaves, or capitalists and wage laborers.
Further, class itself is a social category, not an individual, and thus trying to analyze edge cases and outliers to disprove medians and averages is like the ones who think spending 15 hours of labor on a chair customarily produced in 5 will cost 15 hours of labor. Outliers exist in all categories, but what's important are the averages and medians, and their contexts and trajectories.
Next, you go on to equate CEOs with administrators in socialism as though they are perfect analogues. This isn't true, though. Capitalism is run on the basis of profit, not for fulfilling needs. There's absolutely no basis for an administrator in a late-stage socialist, early communist society (pre-abolition of money) to make that much money, or even to have the ability to invest that money in a market to earn off of speculation. It's a false-connection, and taking the Soviet Union as an example, the top of their society made around 10 times the bottom, while in capitalist and Tsarist Russia that numbers in the hundreds of thousands to billions.
Moving forward, no, modern times do not resemble feudalism more than capitalism. The sale of wage labor and the fact that we no longer focus on agrarian production producing rent for lords and nearly everything else for ourselves distances us from capitalism entirely. What we see today is capitalism's latest stage, imperialism, and how that pushes manufacturing onto the global south while the north plunders and profits. Marx's analysis is just as valid today, heightened by Marxists like Lenin.
As for the Bakunin quote, I was familiar with what you meant. Reality sides with Marx, though, the Soviet Union was more in line with Marx's depiction of socialist society than it was Bakunin's. The Soviet Union is caricatured by you, not accurately represented. I do agree that that's one of my favorite responses to Bakunin from Marx, though.
I don't get this notion that Lenin was right about imperialism as the last stage of capitalism. He said that more than a century ago and we are still in this last stage.
The original title in Russian, Империализм, как высшая стадия капитализма, actually translates to "current highest" or "latest highest," not the last or final. Authors like Cheng Enfu have written works like Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism, analyzing the current characteristics of and contradictions in imperialism today. Moreover, Lenin has still been correct, the global south is rising against imperialism and the global north is declining. The US Empire has become the indusputed hegemon, and as it dies is taking the whole imperialist system propping it up down with it.