NationStates Jolt Archive

The common fallacy of Marxist Communism is oversimplification.

This starts right off from the beginning. Marx makes the assumption that the defining characteristic of humanity is production, but there is tremendous evidence that this is wrong. Humans, while being able to produce, are not the only creatures capable of some form of production. Other Great Apes are capable of producing basic tools. Bees produce hives, ants produce anthills and extensive tunnel networks. Yet, Marx seems to define humanity as the sole producer, a fact that is simply not true. And this assumption is the basis of marxist ideology.

And then comes the common arguement that these animal societies are communal and authority is shared by all. But that also isn't so. All social animals have a hierarchical structure of some sort.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

Marx and his followers viewed the world as little more than a function of economics, everything to a marxist revolves around production and economics. But we all know that there are other factors in the world. We all have a desire for respect. We all desire, whether we admit it or not, glory. To be recognized by others is a common drive. The human being is a complex creature, and its needs often reach above the level of mere sustenance. I'm sure there are going to be people who will attempt to argue that this is a function of economics, but as I said earlier, with genetics being 55% of our character, this really cannot be the case.

Another assumption of marxist dogma is that society will somehow know the best way to go. This is simply not possible without some sort of societal organization, an inherently hierarchical structure forms. To accomplish this, you'd need to rely on the odd and unproven Psychology of Jung. A branch of psychology which lacks evidence.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank the collectivists for hijacking the word liberal.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

Didn't Marx deny the existence of human nature?

Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank the collectivists for hijacking the word liberal.
I don't, I wish I could describe myself as liberal without having all sorts of assumptions being attached.

Other then that, I maily agree.

This starts right off from the beginning. Marx makes the assumption that the defining characteristic of humanity is production, but there is tremendous evidence that this is wrong. Humans, while being able to produce, are not the only creatures capable of some form of production. Other Great Apes are capable of producing basic tools. Bees produce hives, ants produce anthills and extensive tunnel networks. Yet, Marx seems to define humanity as the sole producer, a fact that is simply not true. And this assumption is the basis of marxist ideology.

Doesn't really make a difference, though, does it? Humans are the only creatures which can be effectively communicated with. Try explaining Marxist philosophy with a dog. They just don't listen, the capitalist hounds.

And then comes the common arguement that these animal societies are communal and authority is shared by all. But that also isn't so. All social animals have a hierarchical structure of some sort.

Hard to say with insects. Yes, the queen is always considered of more value than the hive, but that's mainly because she's the breeding device. Ants and bees generally act as one.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

45% is still an awful lot. And look at various studies involving the effect of uniforms on psychology; some had to be abandoned because of the effect that wearing a certain outfit had on testees.

Marx and his followers viewed the world as little more than a function of economics, everything to a marxist revolves around production and economics. But we all know that there are other factors in the world. We all have a desire for respect. We all desire, whether we admit it or not, glory. To be recognized by others is a common drive. The human being is a complex creature, and its needs often reach above the level of mere sustenance. I'm sure there are going to be people who will attempt to argue that this is a function of economics, but as I said earlier, with genetics being 55% of our character, this really cannot be the case.

True enough.

Another assumption of marxist dogma is that society will somehow know the best way to go. This is simply not possible without some sort of societal organization, an inherently hierarchical structure forms. To accomplish this, you'd need to rely on the odd and unproven Psychology of Jung. A branch of psychology which lacks evidence.

Almost all psychology lacks solid evidence. The reasons given are always conjecture, and psycholanalysis doubly so. It generally still works.

Oh, and you forgot the greatest fallacy of all: That the workers will rise up of their own accord one day with no apparent catalyst. Yeah, that's well likely. They do it all the time, otherwise they wouldn't be able to go to work and earn some pay. The masses will only rise when they are starving, or led by some opportunist bastard who intends to take over and bugger them like everyone else has before.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank the collectivists for hijacking the word liberal.

Yeah, you buggers.

The common fallacy of Marxist Communism is oversimplification.

This starts right off from the beginning. Marx makes the assumption that the defining characteristic of humanity is production, but there is tremendous evidence that this is wrong. Humans, while being able to produce, are not the only creatures capable of some form of production. Other Great Apes are capable of producing basic tools. Bees produce hives, ants produce anthills and extensive tunnel networks. Yet, Marx seems to define humanity as the sole producer, a fact that is simply not true. And this assumption is the basis of marxist ideology.

Irrelevant.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

A cite for the figure of 55% would be nice. How exactly is a 'peronality characteristic' defined? Anyhow, this is missing the point of Marx. He was arguing that social conditions as they vary through history create different human natures. The fact that there may be something which is unchanged does not throw the whole Marxist view of human nature out the window.

Marx and his followers viewed the world as little more than a function of economics, everything to a marxist revolves around production and economics. But we all know that there are other factors in the world. We all have a desire for respect. We all desire, whether we admit it or not, glory. To be recognized by others is a common drive. The human being is a complex creature, and its needs often reach above the level of mere sustenance. I'm sure there are going to be people who will attempt to argue that this is a function of economics, but as I said earlier, with genetics being 55% of our character, this really cannot be the case.

The point with Marx is that he is writing in reaction to Hegel who claimed that it was ideas alone that drove the world: Marx notes that these ideas do not come into the world ex nihilo, instead they are produced as a result of experiences in the world - the social structures which are produced by man's productive nature.

Another assumption of marxist dogma is that society will somehow know the best way to go. This is simply not possible without some sort of societal organization, an inherently hierarchical structure forms. To accomplish this, you'd need to rely on the odd and unproven Psychology of Jung. A branch of psychology which lacks evidence.

Marx remains a Hegelian at heart - there is no best way for society to go. The mechanism of history creates new ideas and new moral systems and there is no external standard by which to judge them.

Oh, and you forgot the greatest fallacy of all: That the workers will rise up of their own accord one day with no apparent catalyst.

You've missed the point of the first line of The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels are carrying out two different actions simultaneously with that line, not only are they announcing the spectral presence of Communism, they are also evoking it so as to clothe its bones in flesh.

You've missed the point of the first line of The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels are carrying out two different actions simultaneously with that line, not only are they announcing the spectral presence of Communism, they are also evoking it so as to clothe its bones in flesh.

Doesn't work, though, does it? Unless everyone reads the Manifesto. It was hunger that made the Russians rise up, it was hunger that caused the Chinese revolution, it was hunger that made France kill it's kings and queens.

The revolution will not be born of words, but of hunger. Communists don't understand that. The only time a society becomes sufficiently unstable for people to revolt is when they are starving. Three meals from Anarchy and all that.

Doesn't work, though, does it? Unless everyone reads the Manifesto. It was hunger that made the Russians rise up, it was hunger that caused the Chinese revolution, it was hunger that made France kill it's kings and queens.

The revolution will not be born of words, but of hunger. Communists don't understand that. The only time a society becomes sufficiently unstable for people to revolt is when they are starving. Three meals from Anarchy and all that.

The last line seems to address this point quite well, no?

Anyhow, the catalyst* which Marx believed would be the spark that ignited the revolution in the industrialised world was the contradiction involved in capitalism: that the proletariat are driven to work harder and harder for less wages so as to produce goods that they themselves cannot afford whilst the gap between their social conditions and the social conditions of the bourgeoisie grows ever disparate.



* Yeah, I know its not technically a catalyst.

All social animals have a hierarchical structure of some sort.

except humans, whose observed social structures vary from the nearly perfectly egalitarian to the extreme hierarchies of modern dictatorships and the old god-kings.

except humans, whose observed social structures vary from the nearly perfectly egalitarian to the extreme hierarchies of modern dictatorships and the old god-kings.

But following from Marx, history began with the division of labour and thus the establishment of asymmetrical power-relations. There is the assumption that there was a period of egalitarianism prior to this point, but once the division of labour had taken place, then class struggle came into being, and as such history.

Lest I appear like a rabid authoritarian Marxist: the main fallacy he presented was that his works were scientific, and that the dialectic of history inevitably lead to the revolution and the final withering away of the state. Putting aside objections that this believed progress may in fact only be asymptotic, the point is that following from Hume he had no way of knwoing for sure that the revolution would come, and the whole treatment of events such as wars and revolutions makes massive assumptions that one war is equatbale to another, or one development in production is equatable to another.

If anything, though it seems that Marx himself betrayed the fact that he didn't believe in the inevitability of the final Communist state: if he did, then there would have been no need to decide toa ctually advocate it or fight for it. This goes back to the double action that the first line of the CM undertakes.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

In further response to this, the fact that certain human characteristics are determined as a result of genetics doesn't argue that Marx was wrong. What determines what genetic admixture will go towards creating a new human being? It amy be that we are genetically predisposed to seek out mates of a particular genetic stock or make-up, but social conditions also exert an influence upon what partners are both available to us or compatible with us: thus social conditions can be seen to not only influence living human beings, but also to act so as to shape the as yet unborn.

Bodies, you're doing that rabid authoritarian thing.

A good argument for why Marx was wrong about the capitalist market economy, and on why a socialist economy may be unworkable.

http://www.mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae8_2_5.pdf

The common fallacy of Marxist Communism is oversimplification.

This starts right off from the beginning. Marx makes the assumption that the defining characteristic of humanity is production, but there is tremendous evidence that this is wrong. Humans, while being able to produce, are not the only creatures capable of some form of production. Other Great Apes are capable of producing basic tools. Bees produce hives, ants produce anthills and extensive tunnel networks.

You would think this if you had never read Marx. Like most Enlightenment and Enlightenment-influenced intellectuals, Marx distinguishes humans from other animals based on the fact that we "think" and have "free will." When he put this in terms of "production," what he was talking about is the fact that other animals just have a "static" sort of "species-being." That is, bees produce hives... just because that is what bees are. Ants produce anthills and extensive tunnel networks because ants are anthill and tunnel producing creatures. Marx wrote that there was no activity that could be called "the human activity." Rather, "the human activity" is deciding what to do, putting one's own labor and creativity into the world to produce things out of raw materials.

It was this concept that led him to the belief that "fulfillment" as a human has something to do with making one's own decisions about what to produce, rather than producing for capitalist task-masters, and/or producing things for one's own use.

And then comes the common arguement that these animal societies are communal and authority is shared by all.

Where does Marx say that?

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

While you have not specified, I am assuming that you refer to the Marxian belief that competitiveness is not an inherent trait of human beings -- that if you get rid of capitalism and start up communism, everything will be rosy and fun.

You do well to criticize any Marxists who hold this view, including Marx himself (although he was rather vague about it). It was a very common romantic notion of the nineteenth century, certainly not limited to Marx -- just take a look at the American transcendentalists. Honest twentieth-century Marxists have abandoned the idea -- but it still persists among the more naive and utopian communists, anarchists, and socialists.

Marx and his followers viewed the world as little more than a function of economics, everything to a marxist revolves around production and economics. But we all know that there are other factors in the world. We all have a desire for respect. We all desire, whether we admit it or not, glory. To be recognized by others is a common drive. The human being is a complex creature, and its needs often reach above the level of mere sustenance. I'm sure there are going to be people who will attempt to argue that this is a function of economics, but as I said earlier, with genetics being 55% of our character, this really cannot be the case.

Also a valid criticism, although I think a thorough understanding of the Marxist position is important to an education in politics and/or economics. While economics may not be the beginning and end of all things, the Marxist analysis of how economics does impact a wide range of human phenomena still provides useful insights.

I hope that this thread helps people overcome the common confusion about the difference between "criticism" and "rejection." Virtually everything we read can be criticized... but if after hundreds of years people still talk about it, very rarely can it be rejected outright as having no worthwhile insights at all.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank the collectivists for hijacking the word liberal.

Agreed. Damn you, Franklin Roosevelt! :upyours:

And then comes the common arguement that these animal societies are communal and authority is shared by all. But that also isn't so. All social animals have a hierarchical structure of some sort.

Another common marxist dogma is the assumption that society and human nature can be changed through social pressures. But we can clearly tell from the research of many psychologists that this is simply not the case. We know that about 55% of our personality characteristics are determined by genetics, as many of the twin studies show us. An unless a marxist is willing to get into the bottomless pit of eugenics, well this one cannot be avoided.

Do the words "Free Will" mean anything to you? Obviously not. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go on a killing spree because I am genetically predetermined to.

Another assumption of marxist dogma is that society will somehow know the best way to go. This is simply not possible without some sort of societal organization, an inherently hierarchical structure forms. To accomplish this, you'd need to rely on the odd and unproven Psychology of Jung. A branch of psychology which lacks evidence.

Ah yes, which is why democracy is such a useless system. Only a dictator can be expected to make decisions for the whole of society. :rolleyes:

I'm not even a Marxist, but these arguments apply somewhat to other areas I have interests in.

Do the words "Free Will" mean anything to you? Obviously not. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go on a killing spree because I am genetically predetermined to.
I'm not saying individual actions are predetermined, but attitudes are partially determined by genetics.



Ah yes, which is why democracy is such a useless system. Only a dictator can be expected to make decisions for the whole of society. :rolleyes:

I'm not even a Marxist, but these arguments apply somewhat to other areas I have interests in.
I'm not arguing against democracy or republics or that, but I'm arguing against the lack of a government.

And from my understanding of Marx (I've read some Marx, but not everything, so if I'm making a mistake, please excuse me) there is no organization that figures stuff out. From what I understand No beureaucratic structure to handle the logistics of figuring out what people want.

I'm not saying individual actions are predetermined, but attitudes are partially determined by genetics.

Such inauthentic thinking.

I'm not arguing against democracy or republics or that, but I'm arguing against the lack of a government.

And from my understanding of Marx (I've read some Marx, but not everything, so if I'm making a mistake, please excuse me) there is no organization that figures stuff out. From what I understand No beureaucratic structure to handle the logistics of figuring out what people want.

I'm not sure how Marx planned on it working, but in anarcho-communism, my politics, the wants are determined through direct democracy.