Part the 2nd
Picking up where I left off on Tuesday, In today’s money-chasing world, Marxism is sliding down into the Well of Things That Just Don’t Work.
Marx proposed communism as the answer to the “ills” of society in general because humans tend to get lumped together in class groupings, either by birth, by choice, by endeavor, or by lack of will to do better. Nowadays, it’s mostly lack of will to advance, which is as plain as day in young people who’ve been brought up to think they should have everything handed to them instead of having to earn it.
An excellent current example of the misguided belief that communism is a classless order, and how it fails utterly, is this entire generation of yo-yos and spoiled brats who were (somewhere, somehow) led to believe that a classless society is the only way to go… and then they find out that there’s always someone who wants to take over and run things, without asking about it… and that classless society quickly loses its class.
If we’re really all equal, then why do they go to so much trouble to tell everyone that we aren’t all equal?
What are they squabbling about? What have we seen in Seattle? Don’t they have a litter of class levels already made up in that swamp dwelling they are trying to homestead?
Someone said that he was teaching a class in Marxism at some university, but he apparently didn’t notice that this mind pudding twaddle is such drivel that the weak-minded and uninformed can easily get swooped into that line of thought. No realization arrived in his brainpan that it was aimed specifically at the weakminded twits who would swallow it whole without realizing that idealism like Marx’s never works. It’s a lot like an old house that has been freshly painted for the real estate market, but no one went to the bother to fix the plumbing problems or put on a new roof, leaving the structure looking good, but rotten to its core. And it won’t be long before it collapses in on itself, and the plumbing lines are infested with water-seeking tree roots, and the wiring hasn’t been updated since 1932.
It’s obvious that because Marx could get people to do everything for him, including getting an extremely helpful Engels to edit his drivel-loaded manuscripts, that he knew a sucker when he met one.
It’s entirely possible he echoed those famous words: “What fools these mortals be.”
The “class” structure is not impermeable – something the naïve and uninformed targets do not realize – nor does “class” or so-called “social status” bar anyone (in this country) from rising to a higher level or sinking to something lower. Hard work pays off. Criminal behavior does not.
A good example might be John Dillinger in the 1930s robbing banks in Chicago at will and getting shot by FBI guys at the Biograph in 1934. There were Ma Barker and her boys also robbing banks; J.D. Rockefeller getting access to oil fields everywhere he went and founding Standard Oil; and never mind Bell’s invention for deaf children becoming a major communications device. The reason Gates and Allen split off from Jobs and Wozniak was their disagreement about what system to use. Windows simply beat out Apple’s graphical user interface. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/face-to-face/2017/07/steve-jobs-bill-gates-rivalry-170709084024457.html
Otherwise, both went from nearly nothing to what they are today (except Jobs passed). I could go on, but I’d rather not include Zuckerberg in this. But you get the drift, right?
Marxism and communism squelch new ideas. This kept the Soviets mired for decades under Stalin and his successors, regardless of how much US classified stuff was sold to them – you remember that, don’t you? — until Putin came along and began to solve Russian’s economic problems. It kept China in a morass of mass deaths from starvation, poverty and incompetence under Chairman Mao and whoever succeeded him, until finally, Deng XiaoPeng passed and Xi JinPing assumed the Chairmanship of the CCP, putting China on the path to economic stability. Both Putin and Chairman Xi understood the benefits of capitalist economies and were willing to do whatever is necessary to move ahead.
Marxism is the worst form of government and not just because it is philosophical drivel. Marxism fails to recognize human individuality.
It is not human nature to be considered “lesser” or “low on the totem pole”. It is not human nature to work with no real reward for labor, and yet, that is what Marxism does and why Communism can dominate a political hierarchy for decades. Any objections are squelched. Under Stalin, such people simply disappeared physically and were erased from photographs, history, files, publications.
We all have hierarchies, but we can leave them if they don’t work and we want better. We all have dreams, too.
There is no such thing as a classless human society. That’s where the clueless do their pratfalls. They think that Marxism prevents rank rises and rank envy. Must be hard on them to realize they are the bottom rung on the ladder, and they will have to work hard to get out of that.
That is why the clueless wastes time and space trying to lord it all over everyone else when we’re all on even ground. It’s also why someone like that comes off as an arrogant know-it-all ass. There is no barrier to advancing socially or otherwise, other than what is perceived as a barrier by those unwilling to make the effort to move past it.
I have simply ‘splained, in dumbed down language, how Marx’s drivel was just that: drivel, in addition to which, he was a bum who sponged off of everyone he could snooker into inviting him for dinner. As I said previously, I tried reading the first five pages of his “manifesto” in a required undergrad class and found myself waking up on page 2. It is drivel. I said so in my evaluation of it. I also said it applied to Aristotle, Heidegger, Socrates, Camus, and any other self-important ass that history could dig up out of dusty tomes and unsearched bookshelves.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
The get something for nothing mentality of the kids who were never properly parented will always be clamoring for the smoke and mirrors of communism / socialism. Again the weak minded useful idiots we see protesting.
Yes, that is all well and good coming from the brainwashed mass media type Ex-PH2.
If people would just learn the true history of the United States https://www.teachingforchange.org/contact/zinn-education-project?hilite=%22haiti%22
They would “know” how their parents are leaving them nothing but toxic land, corrupt food supplies, and debt so vast it can never be paid off. If it weren’t for the heroic people standing up to these corrupt worshippers of the all mighty dollar, who have spent their entire lives working for the people, we would be much worse off than a few months away from correcting the great stain that is in Office!
We must ensure the “correct” history is taught to our children in the classrooms!
Marx’s commentary on Capital (Das Kapital) is far more interesting than the Commie Manifesto. Das Kapital is a long, slow read across three volumes but it is not without value. The dynamics of capitalism, unrestricted capitalism, are what led to child laborers in coal mines. The struggle of wage labor against capital was what produced actual child labor laws and reasonable work weeks mandated by law. None of that happened because of the benevolent nature of capitalism or capitalists in general. There is an intrinsic value in understanding how capitalism benefits a society only if that capitalism is harnessed by that society to work for the society at large as opposed to work only for the benefit of a few at the top of the class system produced by unrestricted capitalism. This country is at its best economically when the middle working class share of wealth versus the top tier share of wealth is at its lowest as opposed to today where it’s at some of the highest differences seen in the history of the nation. Anyone not clear on those concepts only need to look at the gap from roughly 1945 through the 1970s to see it remained roughly the same throughout that period. The one paycheck can afford a home and provide all the necessities for a family time period. There were significant restrictions on capitalism as a process during that time frame. As Eisenhower warned the corruption of the system altered that structure to where we are today. Almost every working class family requires two incomes to provide a home and sustenance to a family of four. And the income inequality since that time frame in the 1970s has only widened in this country. Wealth has been transferred from the bottom to the top over that time period. If you review wealth in real terms you’ll see that the top 1 percent in 1980 held 30 percent of the wealth of the nation. By 2016 that amount rose to almost 40% of the nation’s wealth, interestingly enough during that same time frame the bottom 90 percent’s percentage… Read more »
IMHO (I’m no political scholar) it’s always seemed to me that Marx pointed out the obvious. Government that isn’t answerable to the governed results in bad behavior. Every form of government has the same issue.
The difference being in a capitalist economy people can vote with their $$. As opposed to a communist society the government decides who makes what $$ and even how much the $$ is worth.
The bad behavior of private companies led to the creation of labor laws, OSHA, EPA, etc… The people had a voice and they exercised that voice in unison. As big a pain in the ass as OSHA and the EPA can be, they’ve done lots of good.
Capitalism and democracy allow the people to have a voice that doesn’t require blood shed. Communism requires blood shed for the people to have a voice. I prefer using the ballot box over the gun.
For me it boils down to the simple math of does one want the individual to have precedence or does one want the state to have precedence? Dangerous freedom over safe servitude every day of the week for me.
penguinman000 your income has been used to transfer the wealth of the nation upwards for 40 years now.
I’m not suggesting we kill capitalism what I am suggesting is we understand that the control mechanisms we used in the past kept more wealth in lower 90 percent’s hands which was a benefit for the larger society.
A review of those controls and the resulting reduction of income inequality would benefit the nation far more than further reducing those controls to a more unrestricted capitalism and a return to the late 1800s and early 1900s with massive disparity across the nation.
These are not either/or positions. You can be against communism and still support the restrictions on capitalism. Especially when you recognize the reality of the level of corruption in both parties rendering them nearly indistinguishable in real terms of governance.
I misinterpreted the message you were attempting to communicate.
I’m in agreement with you about oversight being necessary. One simply needs to look back to labor 100 years ago or environmental abuses 50 years ago. Companies in the private sector simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing anymore than government can be trusted to do the right thing.
It’s a dull subject for most Americans, as a result we tend to overlook what’s happened over the last 60 years and the subsequent definable wealth transfer over the last 40 years.
We Americans dislike complex, multilayered mathematical issues regarding our incomes. We’ve been trained to avoid talking about money with each other.
We prefer single issue politics of yes and no answers.
Marx was a garbage human, make no mistake that my comments in any way suggest praise or admiration there is none from me.
That said it doesn’t make every observation wrong, it just makes every conclusion wrong that he came up with along with every solution he provided.
Yeah. The frequency with which one can have in depth conversations on complex topics has greatly decreased over the last few years.
It’s almost like most folks have started viewing dissenting opinion from their own through the lens of support for a sports team.
Well, as I said yesterday, Engels edited Marx’s manuscripts while he was alive. He went on with that after Marx died. Marx made up the ideas. Engels made the products readable.
You may have liberal leanings, which is your business, but if you really believe down deep that any of that represents the real human spirit – the need to advance, explore, acquire, etc. – you’re heading right down the road of being suckered into believing in that crap, which was Marx’s intention all along.
You have been snookered, VOV, snookered but good.
I disagree, my reply clearly states I believe capitalism is the best outlet for human endeavor.
Having said that the larger point is that capitalism needs to be harnessed to the society it serves lest it corrupt that government and become a simple system of wealth transfer upwards.
If you don’t think wealth is being transferred upwards at your expense you’re either a 1% income earner who benefits from the transfer or you’re not paying attention.
The numbers are the numbers. Wealth since 1980 has been transferred from the bottom 90 to the top 1 percent.
That’s a fact.
Capitalism corrupts a government of weaklings, it then corrupts a nation of apathetic voters. We are seeing that corruption take place today.
It doesn’t mean I want to take down the system it means I believe we were better off with more control levers on capital that benefit society. The notion those at the top tier in that 1% have hearts of gold and will willingly work to benefit the society that sustains them has been proven wrong over and over and over.
Thus the bottom 90 percent can either accept being looted, or they can take back government and make it once again represent their views as was intended all along.
Well said.
Wealth has been transferred upwards since taxation was invented, VOV. That’s history. And government spending has either been out of control, as with Philip of Spain, with a bankrupt treasury, or modified enough to make a nation prosperous, as with Elizabeth I. Government lives for taxes and the chance to ripoff the subjects/citizens. That is nothing new.
The split between “the people” and “government” is exacerbated by excessive taxation. I know that. You know that. It’s always been that way. There is no such thing as reasonable taxation levels.
What Marx said is that humans are not hierarchical, even though we always have been and always will be, and at some point we will not accept government abuses, including excessive taxation.
I understand your point of view, but unless you can get politicians to agree to work for free for half of their terms in office, the tax/money transfer will continue unabated. At some point, we’re going to be bankrupt because those who should know better are spending us right into it.
Joe Six Pack and Suzy Homemaker will never leave the US and politicians know this. Hell, we can’t even get rid of Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda and they easily can afford to live in Europe or Canada. As 5/77 keeps asking why do so many immigrants flee Marxist/communist/socialist countries to come to America? Because there’s no better place on Earth to be poor yet free than in ‘Murica. Plus you can own and shoot guns too. And we can still watch NFL football games on broadcast stations for free.
To think Jeff Bezos will likely become America’s and the world’s first Trillionaire is almost beyond my statistical comprehension. Yet, he’s on track to do that even after his $60B+ divorce settlement.
spapos the seagull showing up to screech about how wrong you are AND “ORANGE MAN BAD!” “The classless society will work this time because my minions and handlers will be in charge.”
Like VOV, and others here, we were poor folks, fiscally, but rich in desire to improve our lots in life. I’ve read the literature that Ex made mention of on several occasions and managed to stay awake thru it all long enough to answer the questions on the test. Thru a combination of Academic and Technical training, with a healthy dose of hard work, we have been fairly well successful, monetarily, and have a good life. And at least 2 of us in the immediate family, and many others in the extended family, served in the armed forces in areas where the scourge of Communist Governments have left their mark.
And no, spapos, I’m not stuck in the indoctrinated Red Scare of the 1950s, tho I did live thru that, and the time frames since then. We also did the whole duck and cover/cower under the desks in school (a wasted exercise if there ever was one). Watched/heard the loaded alert B 52s claw for altitude 500 feet AGL going over the school yard heading to the divergent splits leading to the fail safe points.
If Communistic/Socialistic/Marxist way is so great, why are so many people trying to get into the USA?
Grats, Ex, you found something you know less about than North Korea.
VERY classy there tuff guy; the way you have now turned your everyday anger toward Ex. Eng Comp must have seemed awfully frivolous to you.
Your the guy that called black people “evil apes”, right?
Yeah, that was you.
Go fuck yourself. You opinion and your integrity is for shit.
*you’re
SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK!
Most of us know less about capitalism than we think we do, we have been trained to accept the notion that capitalism is the savior of society while it’s mortal enemy must be communism which is the killer of societies.
The harsh reality of communism is that it simply doesn’t function as intended because it has a basic theory of From each according to his ability to each according to his need functionality. That’s an algorithm that remains uncomputable to this day.
It assumes that others have a right to the results of my abilities as a function of government policy.
With Capitalism and heavy restrictions the subtle difference is the notion that government and society at large recognizes the the reality that those with more drive, more ability, and more talent will produce more and thus they deserve more of the results of their labor but there is an obligation to the society at large that provides the infrastructure and society of educated workers that makes capitalistic ventures successful. It rewards the risk takers, consequently those of us willing to mortgage our houses to get a business off the ground and go without pay for a while to make sure we meet payroll of the work force will get a real boost to our rewards at some point. Or face abject failure when our vision was wrong.
Communism rewards risk aversion, because dissent is a death sentence under communism. Consequently a risk averse economic model never achieves the same outcome as a risk reward model.
The tricky part for those working the capitalistic model is the dividing line between the reward and the obligation. Most modeling suggests that a tax rate just under 50% at the highest tiers provides the best benefit.
Under Eisenhower the listed max rate was close to 90 but the actual, effective rate was about 46% and that was where we were best in keeping wealth disparity to a minimum.
Everyone has an opinion on this topic, few of them have the math to support their version of events.
I am astonished that you set out to read 5 pages out of more 30 pages of a single pamphlet, only managed two pages; then opined on how he essentially got everything he ever wrote wrong. Thousands of pages of contribution to human thought. You read two, assumed the rest, then concluded he was a fool.
Also, he was not lazy. Not even close. Making a profit or not the only measure of work.
He was a mooch and likely nuts.
Like his followers.
Thus the hundred million dead from trying to force it all to work when it manifestly won’t work.
You lose again.
This from the guy who flaunts his ignorance with every letter he types.
It is easier for you to believe that, than it is to question your anachronistic worldview.
Welcome back Lars Van Winkle.
It has nothing to do with my worldview, Lars. You regularly talk a bunch of shit, then get proven wrong on all of it by people with actual knowledge of the subject matter. Oftentimes it’s people with specific training and years of hands-on experience. I’ve done it to you myself. Remember?
Capitalism is a 17th century theory. Communism 19th century.
Human thought did not cease at the end of the 19th century.
Economic as a discipline did not even exist until the 19th century.
It is ridiculous that this blog constantly tries to frame any discussion on how government, the economy, or society functions based on binary arguments about capitalism and communism.
Even basic distinctions between socialism and communism are utterly lost on this forum.
There have been dozens of theories of political economy since the 19th century. Many based on actual empirical economic data going back a century. And advanced economic modeling.
Something that did not exist for 17th-19th century thinkers.
This blog seems to think humanity “solved” all socio, economic, and political problems with capitalist theory.
We just failed to “properly” implement it.
It is absurd to think that the best of all possible systems of economics was theorized 300 years ago. And no theories of economics since the 17th century are worthy of consideration because they are not strictly capitalism.
Marx got a lot wrong. As did every 19th century thinker.
But he saw some of the more significant flaws of capitalism. Flaws that were not only proven to exist but we have spent more than a century trying to manage and mitigate.
Only to learn that the fundamental assumptions of capitalism are false, and the measure of value in capitalism if inadequate at best, and too often downright destructive.
The more interesting aspect of this for me is the simple reality you can’t even have a discussion in this country, never mind this blog about capitalism without someone losing their shit over you being some sort of commie.
If anyone actually knew me, knew my life, my background the notion that I’m a commie is one of the more amusing aspects of the commentary I’ve been subjected to over the years…along with being a libtard.
That said there’s really no way to fix the inherent flaws in any system if you can’t even talk about that system without being shouted down or criticized.
When you talk about wealth transfers upward and everyone responds, well that’s just how it was before and is now…and no one wants to look at disparity indexes and consider that we had moment where that disparity was minimized and economically speaking the middle class did pretty well. Because if you consider that moment in time you have to consider what’s changed in the last forty to sixty years. Once you start down that rabbit hole the answers get uncomfortable fast for those who think they live in a free society that isn’t in fact a corrupt oligarchy that’s looting the treasury while they argue over single issue politics like abortion or gun control as if those two issues are the defining moments in our time.
Until we can actually just talk about the realities behind our current economic model without histrionics there will be no change, and in another generation your children and my great grandchildren will need three or four incomes to remain in the median income range.
I keep wondering at what point in the wealth disparity will Americans in 90 percent start to question why they own so little of their own country’s overall wealth…
Government monkeying with the free market, and tax/spend insanity is the problem.
Stop monkeying with it and it works pretty good.
My ol’ man had a great solution to poverty. He said, “son, you want to know how to help the poor, don’t be one of them.”
We will always have the poor, and socialism/communism does nothing for them in the long run. Especially, when the “socialist” economy has the “poor” eating the zoo animals and stray dogs.
“Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying.”
~ William Pitt