Was Marx A Utopian Genius Or An Absolute Buffoon?

I am personally of the opinion that Marxism is impressively irrational. Others may disagree, but that’s fine. This topic is just for people to discuss their opinions on Marxism freely (keep profanity to a minimum and be civil with each other).

He was a utopian buffoon.

Maybe that's too harsh. I'd probably classify him as a good philosopher but a bad economist, which would match the reception he gets in each respective field. You can be a good philosopher and still wrong almost all the time.

But at least most people who follow the work of Socrates, Plato, Keynes, or Newton admit that the field has advanced past them. Occasionally you get someone like Marx with a cult of personality that insists all modern research that contradicts them is wrong.

I like that view. He was right to believe that there would be some sort of revolution against a ruling class that was, back in his time, much more emphasized and tyrannical than that of modern-day America. But he was a terrible economist, considering that his proposed economic system would have to result in the state having to generate prices at random, provide manufacturing quotas based on uninformed guesses, and also that he seemed to be completely ignorant of the fact that employers might actually be an important part of a functioning society.

Karl Marx never ran a lemonade stand, or he would have understood there's more to a producing business than bourgeois and proletariat [management and direct labor], and would have realized that his brand off economy does not know how to create personal wealth, but everything about spending other peoples' wealth until there is no more. He ignored a n enduring free market economy for one that collapses when other peoples' money is used up.

Christians who think the story of the young wealthy man who asked Jesus how to get to heaven think Christ's advice to him was for all off us: give all your money to the poor. No, that was advice for that young man, because he was jealous of his wealth. There are many wealth people who are charitable to help a person down on their luck, and wants to recover, but do not want to help when an able-bodied potential worker is too lazy for self-sufficiency. The wealthy should remain wealthy to help as many people as they can, while retaining wealth to continue that practice.  Christ was social, not a socialist.

Marxism won in almost every country, even in USA, which is why you have things Marx argued for, such as government healthcare, minimum wage, regulations of buisnesses, welfare...

Its great that you think how ideology which conquered almost entire known world is "irrational", but it is actually the world which is irrational for allowing itself to be conquered by such nonsense.