Let's talk about Marxism!! :)

2

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  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    This thread isn't about Capitalism, like I said.

    I could defend Capitalism til I'm blue in the face because it's better than Marxism. It was better in 1776 when globalisation wasn't around and it's better now!

    People like to complain about our system but when you note that their alternatives are plainly false, they can't stop complaining.

    Come up with something better! Otherwise, don't complain.

    i am not complaining. i was responding to your notion that poor people come to rich countries just to be a part of the capitalist system. as if that were their primary motivation. that is all.
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  • RushlimboRushlimbo Posts: 832
    Capitalism isn't perfect but it's far superior to Marxism, which is the subject of this thread. Therefore, you should talk about Marxism.

    If you are gonna get all snippy then forget it. I was just trying to help you move this along.
    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength
  • jeffbrjeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    Rushlimbo wrote:
    Seems as though you are shouting praises from the rooftop just hoping someone will argue for Marxism/communism. I dont think it will happen.

    He may be waiting for Shapur to join the thread. S/He was in the Stupid Americans thread extolling the virtues of communism. So I do know there is one true believer on the board.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • ShapurShapur Posts: 18
    Throughout the civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind of “pernicious sect”. And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage-slave society is as foolishly naïve as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question of whether workers’ wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital.

    To the person who made the comment; "This is 2007!":

    At the end of the twentieth century, humankind is not a pleasant sight. We humans have had centuries of ever-accelerating natural-scientific and technological progress. With this immeasurable advance in our ability to understand and transform the natural world, it ought to be easy to make ourselves reasonably comfortable.

    Instead, humanity seems to be in the grip of some invisible, malevolent force. This uncontrollable demon impels us to tear our world apart, turning our own human productive powers against ourselves, transforming them into forces of self-destruction. Set against one another, we are reduced to a state of-utter powerlessness, mere spectators of our own actions, able neither to control nor to comprehend them. This is what makes the recent changes in the world appear so strange to us.

    For reasons we are quite unable to explain, we devote a huge part of our energy and ingenuity to lying and cheating, to hurting or killing each other. Over many decades, a major part of scientific and industrial activity has been devoted to fabricating the means to kill, torture and maim human beings. They functioned with great efficiency: millions perished miserably in world wars and death camps. After the Holocaust

    If you think that the above is unfair. If you are forced to work for a capitalist, sell your labor to him, give your life to him for a paycheck (and a low one at that!), and have had enough of it, and know that you deserve to be paid more, that you deserve to be paid the full value of your labor instead of a portion of it, then you might be interested in Marxism, since it is a theory based on your liberation as a worker.

    If you are a capitalist, or a person benefiting from the current capitalist system, you're hostile towards Marxism.

    That's basically it, and I have nothing more to add to this thread.

    Good-day everyone :)
  • RushlimboRushlimbo Posts: 832
    jeffbr wrote:
    He may be waiting for Shapur to join the thread. S/He was in the Stupid Americans thread extolling the virtues of communism. So I do know there is one true believer on the board.

    Ah, I see.
    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength
  • once you accept that capitalism-imperialism-and racism are all one, and all exist in this current system, marxism becomes the only logical solution to the death culture.

    There is no good capitalism. Inherent in capitalism is a desire to rule, conquer, hate, opress and exploit. This wont be altered by voting in a Dem. This wont be altered by wanting "reform".

    The only way we as humans and as a species and world will survive is by dismantling the system and installing something way more humane.
  • jeffbrjeffbr Seattle Posts: 7,177
    Shapur wrote:
    ...and know that you deservea to be paid more, that you deserve to be paid the full value of your labor instead of a portion of it...

    I guess this is the crux, right? Who determines that value? If you determine your value, then the only thing left for you is to find the employer who agrees with your valuation, start a business yourself, or hope for a system that coerces someone to recognize that value through threat of force.
    Shapur wrote:
    If you are a capitalist, or a person benefiting from the current capitalist system, you're hostile towards Marxism.

    I would only be hostile toward marxism if it were a threat to my freedom. Right now, it is simply an interesting (and untenable) theory to be discussed on a message board, with ultimately little consequence to me.

    I wish you a good day as well.
    "I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
  • Shapur wrote:
    If you think that the above is unfair. If you are forced to work for a capitalist, sell your labor to him, give your life to him for a paycheck (and a low one at that!), and have had enough of it, and know that you deserve to be paid more, that you deserve to be paid the full value of your labor instead of a portion of it, then you might be interested in Marxism, since it is a theory based on your liberation as a worker.

    Clearly you won't listen to reason. Who determines the price of your labor? The capitalist or the person buying from the capitalist? How much should the worker expect to be paid? Why?

    It is that narrow-minded ignorance that causes Marxism to be such a degenerative disease.
    All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
    -Enoch Powell
  • KannKann Posts: 1,146
    jeffbr wrote:
    Socialism/Marxism etc was what Russia needed in the late 19th and early 20th century.
    I don't think there's ever a time when an individual needs to give up freedom and liberty for the good of the state.

    I think he was really talking about 19th century Russia, you know, "tzardom", no liberties, no freedom.
    jeffbr wrote:
    Seems like an endorsement for getting rid of command economies in poor countries. Time to work, innovate, manufacture, invent, create, trade.
    Have you ever been to a 3rd world country? Or do you just pretend to be ignorant about it? Some of these countries can't even offer healthy water to their inhabitants, I doubt very much they feel like inventing and innovating for now. The others (Brazil or China for example) are and we're all eager to see where that will lead.
    If I was selling cookies, I wouldn't add up the price of the flour, chocolate, eggs, and labor that I put into it in order to determine the price. I'd gauge what other cookies sell for and I'd price them accordingly. If I couldn't make a profit on the cookies, I'd quit selling them.

    This is how capitalism works in theory. Marxism in theory is I produce flour, you produce chocolate, jeff produces eggs and Rush makes the cookies and we all get one. Wich is a good deal too.
    In reality in capitalism you would drop the price of your cookies to get rid of competition before buying back other cookies and sellers, till you own the block like a true conqueror you are. And then throwing in the trash unsold cookies, just in front of homeless people, well, because you can.
    And in reality in marxism everyone gets a quarter or no cooky, and gets the right to shut up about it.

    I'm not sure anyone can honestly defend marxism today, not after the 20th century we witnessed. But defending capitalism today is not really something I respect. Not with what you can see and read and learn worldwide.
    I think most people to come here won't defend marxism, I think what you are mistaking for marxist are just people waiting (and willing to help I guess) for the capitalist system to collapse.

    Ho, and because I guess you meant your thread to help debate marxism in the us :
    you are right poor people in the us are richer and have more rights than before in history. But what about the upper classes? Do they have more rights? Are they richer? How much more than the poor? When you compare the evolution of a social class you have to compare it to the evolution of other social classes. I don't think your poor or your lower middle class are really happy about "[making] VASTLY more than anyone in one of the third world countries you are referring to". I think like any poor/low middle class they don't really appreciate to see the gap between poor/filthy rich growing.

    edit: good day to you!
    I'm not complaining, I like my lifestyle. I just don't like what is happening outside of my home.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    So you essentially support anarchism?

    i didn't say that. though i do have an aversion to authority.
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  • angelicaangelica Posts: 6,038
    Harpo was my favorite.....

    but Groucho got all the ladies.......
    :)
    "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr

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  • cornnifercornnifer Posts: 2,130

    Karl Marx made many predictions about what would happen to the proletariet as the capitalists exploited them. He claimed that more and more people would become poorer and poorer, slowly entering into the same proletariet lifestyle. He predicted that the working class and the capitalists would grow farther and farther apart. The capitalists would gain more and more power, but also dwindle in number. More monopolies would arise. Essentially, there would be a proletariet versus the capitalists.

    None of these things have happened.




    ?
    This is happening! The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing larger and larger. The midle class is rapidly shrinking. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. it gets worse almost by the minute.
    "When all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse... better find yourself a place to level out."
  • RainDogRainDog Posts: 1,824
    None of these things have happened. We have a middle class and we have had it for 200 years in America. The level of competition in our economy is enormous. More monopolies have not arisen. The poor are becoming richer and richer! 100 years ago, the bottom rung of society lived FAR (comparably) to the bottom rung of society today. The point is: the poor have a higher standard of living than the poor have ever had at any time in history.
    All of the things you mentioned here are maintained by a mixed economy, not by pure capitalism. Labor laws, wage laws, worker's rights, and sundry other "Marxist" aspects of our economy help keep our poor "rich" and our middle class nice and comfy; while individual business interests, investments, and other capitalist ventures keep us productive, so we'll actually have some of that wealth to spread around. Pure capitalism would likely lead to exactly what Marx predicted.

    You seem to have your head stuck on the idea that your average American liberal is on the far left - a communist or Marxist - when the truth is far from it. Just as American conservatives are not glorifying (nor glorified by) the far right - fascism/Nazism - due to the fascistic belief in Nation over the individual and corporate control over the State and personal "business" - American liberals are not typically glorifying (nor glorified by) the far left. Soviet and Chinese style communism were/are not in favor of freedom of speech or expression, violently oppressed Jews, Christians, homosexuals, etc., and completely abandoned the idea of individual human rights. Face it, in a communist society, the ACLU would be strung up right alongside the bourgeoisie.

    Mixed economies seem to have the most success, both in wealth production and civil rights. Capitalist means to socialist ends - and it's what we have here in the U.S. If we could just accept the fact that our country owes just as much of its prosperity to "Marxism" as it does Capitalism, we could quit this bickering about ideology and get back to arguing over where to spend the money.
  • RainDogRainDog Posts: 1,824
    cornnifer wrote:
    This is happening! The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing larger and larger. The midle class is rapidly shrinking. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. it gets worse almost by the minute.
    Hopefully, in the near future the trend starts to spring back and the wealth gap begins to shrink. It's not too late, and it doesn't require the total usurption of our current structure.

    We'll know when it's too late when that gap is forcibly shrunk. Bad times ahead if we let that happen.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    socialism will look very appealing to the fatcats when they lose all their wealth.
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  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    marxism...lol...

    how foolish
  • miller8966miller8966 Posts: 1,450
    marxism is for people who cant leave the university.
    America...the greatest Country in the world.
  • VictoryGinVictoryGin Posts: 1,207
    The simple fact is: the gap between rich and poor has not widened in America.

    American Roulette

    In our winner-take-all casino economy, the middle class is getting royally screwed. A call to arms for populism, before it’s too late.

    By Kurt Andersen

    A couple of weeks back, out in Omaha, I happened to share a ride to the airport with a pair of United pilots. Both were classics of the type—trim, square-jawed, silver-haired, twangy-voiced white men, one wearing a leather jacket. Sam Shepard or Paul Newman could’ve played them. They spent the entire trip sputtering and whining—about being baited and switched when their employee ownership of the airline had been evaporated by its bankruptcy, about the default of their pension plan, about their CEO’s 40 percent pay raise, about the company to which they’d devoted their whole careers and now didn’t trust a bit, and, in effect, about turning from right-stuff demigods who worked hard and played by the rules into disrespected, sputtering, whining losers. The next morning back in New York, I read the news about the record-setting bonuses on Wall Street, an aggregate amount 1,100 percent higher than in the go-go year of 1986. The 2006 revenues at just one bank, Goldman Sachs, were larger than the GNPs of two-thirds of the countries on Earth—a treasure chest from which the firm was disbursing $53.4 million to its CEO and an average of $623,000 to everybody who works at the place.

    read the rest here: http://nymag.com/news/imperialcity/26014/index.html
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    This thread epitomises the concept of false consciousness.
  • This thread epitomises the concept of false consciousness.

    Marx's ideas epitomise the concept of a falsehood.
    All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
    -Enoch Powell
  • miller8966 wrote:
    marxism is for people who cant leave the university.


    LOL, I like that. Mostly because it's true. :)
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  • OutOfBreathOutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    CorporateWhore.
    If the point of this thread is to call out anyone agreeing with marxism just to tell them "You're stupid", well the debate wont exactly be going anywhere.

    Also, what constitutes a marxist isn't clear either, as there are many schools of thought within marxism. You seem to mean Soviet communism by marxism, and I think you will be hard pressed to find any supporters of that. Especially on an american/european board.

    Furthermore, as raindog pointed out, any success you claim for capitalism is really a success for mixed economy. There are no pure "capitalism" as there is no pure "marxism" or "socialism". Difference between countries is in the mix of the two. Utilizing capitalist means for socialist ends is the force responsible for the development and so on you brag about.

    And this is precisely why Marx was wrong back in the day. He didn't think that the capitalists and workers could ever be reconciled. But his foundation was relatively skilless (hence replacable) workers, whereas industry and labour market specialized so that the interchangability of workers were reduced drastically. Together with the building of welfare states and redistribution of resources through taxation, the middle class became possible, and the lowest classes weren't as poor off as before. This happened during the mid to late 1800s across the board in western countries. Fueled by concerns about civil unrest among the rulers. If you read history from that era, you'll see numerous riots, revolts, establishing of communes and so on.

    However, removal of these intermediates may still prove Marx right.

    One can also take the view that the proletariat has been moved out of our countries and into the third world. Looking globally on it, Marx may not have been proven wrong yet. In that view, we in the west are the owners and middle class, while our working class is working for us for a pittance a day in some third world country.

    One can also say, in continuance of the historical account, that Marx never got to be right, because his warnings and scenarios were heeded and changed.

    If you're out for calling names, then I guess you can call me a marxist. But I am not a communist, nor do I support command economy. It's possible. Me being a marxist has then more to do with the fundamental perspective of my worldview, and heeding and acknowledging some of Marx' central concepts. (if not all, or even the most widely known ones)

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • OutOfBreathOutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    miller8966 wrote:
    marxism is for people who cant leave the university.
    Hehe. Somewhat true. At least marxists tend to be thorougly educated and knowing of the ways of the world. ;)

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • angelicaangelica Posts: 6,038
    Marx's ideas epitomise the concept of a falsehood.

    False consciousness is something entirely different. 98% of our population lives with a false consciouseness, literally, according to base psychology. (Maslow's hierarchy of needs, whereupon a mere 2% clarify their awareness becoming REAListic)

    With such a minority REALizing the "truth", people such as Marx have been able to see what others presumably are unable to. Also, even Marx was dismayed that his ideas became skewed within his own lifetime. This has been said about him: ""there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

    Like with what the mystics have told us through the ages, what many great thinkers have shown us has been distorted by the wide majority who with lack of awareness are labouring under ignorance, and lack of personal insight and vision. This false consciousness is independent of the original ideas in question being faulty. aka: when you point the finger at someone else, there just may be three more pointing back at you.
    "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr

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  • Just to point out something that no one has said yet:

    Marx was thinking globally. he did not believe that a communist utopia could be achieved through one country becoming socialist/communist.

    Stalin pushed for 'socialism in one country' Hitler was a national socialist. This had nothing to do with Marx.

    And as many people have pointed out, viewing Marxist theory from a global perspective and the man is bang on.

    'the wreck is going down,get out before you drown'
  • also, this is how Lenin and the Bolsheviks justified doing things like invading Poland, to spread communism. In Germany, Britain and France there were fairly strong calls or attempts for socialism around the same time. The failure of these and the onset of the USSR has left a perception that communism failed. But by Marx's definition, it had never existed in the first place. Hence why we are still able to view ourselves in the middle stage...
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Marx's ideas epitomise the concept of a falsehood.


    What do you know about Marxism? Clearly nothing. Maybe as little as you know about the concept of nationhood. Marxists have better things to do than engage for any length of time in tit for tat internet squabbles, with a lumpenproletariat armed with 2MB Internet connection speeds and a bookmark of the Drudge Report.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    lumpenproletariat
    noun

    1. People in a society who, for whatever reason, do not work, eg the homeless, beggars, criminals, etc.

    Form: Lumpenprotelariat
    2. now derog
    People of the lower classes in a society who are perceived as having no interest in improving them-selves intellectually, financially, etc.
    Derivative: lumpenproletarian
    adj

    Etymology: 1920s: from German Lumpen rag + proletariat; first coined by Karl Marx in 1850.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Thanks for that. The term tends also, more recently, to connote people not of the educational or earning elite in a capitalist society, who are easily bought off by supposedly improved material conditions (access to state controlled media, for example), and "think they're so clever and classless and free", but are still fucking peasants as far as anyone with a brain can see.
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