NationStates Jolt Archive

Seeing that I've heard a pretty good summary in my lecture the other day, which included aspects of "communist" theory that I hadn't been aware of, I think this might be a good time to direct this at people who say things like
If humans weren't corrupt, greedy, etc. Then it would work how it's planned. But humans are not perfect.
Communism, in theory and on paper, can work. Communism in practice cannot.
Communism is evil.
It is important to note that I'm not picking on you posters, these were just the first of that kind I found.:)

Karl Marx and historical Materialism:
It is pretty impossible to explain all this in a short paragraph, so if you want more detailed info, ask me.
Suffice to say that Marx reckoned: People are formed by their environment. There is no such thing as a "metaphysical world of ideas". We live on earth, on earth we get hungry and from that comes everything else.
Therefore what happens on earth shapes our ideas and ideologies. In Feudalism, there was an entire ideological system meant to help feudalism along (religion, pope, kings, loyalty, hell etc).
Once technology came around, and the original way of being defended by your prince didn't work anymore, the industrial age beckoned. Suddenly trade was possible, and instead of admiring princes and popes people started admiring traders and merchants. In other words: Capitalists.

On the downfall of Capitalism:
He doesn't make a moral judgement throughout his work (well, when he does it's not directly related to his argument, let's put it that way). He sees an internal logic to history, and since he reckons he worked out the past in his analysis of feudalism and before that, he thinks he can forecast what will happen in the future.
Two things to be said about this then:
1) Workers don't get 100% of the value of the stuff they produce.
2) Capitalism requires more and more labour to work. Once all the labour worldwide is in use (including kids etc) capitalists turn on each other and form monopolies. In the end, we produce so much stuff that we essentially solved the economic problem. There is no more scarcity!

Socialism:
Once that happened (or perhaps before then...?), the workers realise that they get screwed, and they take over all the factories in the world. Now they live in socialism - the dictatorship of the "proles".
Important here is merely this: Since there is no scarcity, there are no problems with people being selfish. Capitalism has amassed so much productive capacity that we don't even know where to put all our surplus produce. In this world, everyone receives according to the amount of work they put in.
Note!: Socialism today means many other things beside this strictly "Marxist" (Marx wasn't a marxist, the difference could almost be compared to Jesus vs Calvinism) meaning of the term.

Communism:
After a while, the dictatorship becomes obsolete. Marx wrote decidedly sparsely on this, so I can't say all that much other than that under Communism (the perfect utopia, in which no one has to work other than for pleasure) there is no state, no money, no government - just pure bliss.
Marx himself wanted to go fishing, tend to cattle and play the piano.

Lenin:
Okay, now we're in 1917. Lenin, an fervent communist, has just managed to become the head of the great revolution.
But lo and behold - the economic problem still exists. Instead of unlimited surplus, we have farms and famine. It was a premature revolution! What to do now?
Lenin reckoned two things:
1) The rest of the world will catch up to the USSR (ie have their revolutions) and socialism can proceed globally.
2) For the time being, we need some sort of capital accumulation. Importantly, to Lenin that meant to keep doing capitalism for a while. Not planning, but allowing private enterprise (if on a small scale).
Then Lenin died.

Stalin:
Wisely ignoring Trotsky (about whom I know little), I proceed to Stalin. Believe it or not, the man did a little theory himself.
He decided that this was moving too slowly. Private enterprise took ages and looked like the bad old days, and the West kept attacking the USSR (Whites vs Reds etc). So Stalin said: "We'll get all this capital ourselves! And quickly too!" So he got out a gun, and forced people to work according to "plans".
He turned the economy into a command economy. The Kremlin now told everyone in the nation what and when and where and for whom to produce.
That worked great for WWII, when all resources could be thrown into the war effort, but that didn't work so well for community farms. Apparently the USSR never produced as much food as Russia had done pre-WWI!

And so you see, the planned economy is not a communist idea. It's not even required for communism per se.
It was the planned economy that brought the USSR down, not "communism" as in the theory that can't be applied to the real world for some reason.

On a final note I would like to say that Marx makes sense in some areas, while he doesn't in others.
Yet if he's right, then he still made one fundamental error:
He told everyone about it!
Before capitalist society doesn't collapse by itself, there can be no communism. All the revolutionary movements, inspired by Marx, served to do nothing but throw the project back many decades.
If one is a real communist, in a Marxian sense, then I don't see why you would want to push for the revolution, when you know that you'll be faced with the same unsolvable problems Lenin and Stalin faced.

Very nice, Leonstein. Succinct and pretty accurate.

Does anyone out there know enough aboyt Trotsky to stick him in there? I know very little about him or his ideas either.

http://www.trotsky.net/

Trotsky.net, proving the yanks wrong about their no true scotsman claims :p

Very nice, Leonstein. Succinct and pretty accurate.

Does anyone out there know enough aboyt Trotsky to stick him in there? I know very little about him or his ideas either.
Do you REALLY want me to tell you where you can stick Trotsky? ;)

Leonstein:

This is an oversimplified, fairly distorted and "sweetened" version of Marxism, corrected in accordance with the present day fashion. Original Marxism predicted a Communist revolution not in some indefinite future, but during Marx's own lifetime. Still, though, this theory is both unworkable and inhumane in nature.

Workers don't get 100% of the value of the stuff they produce
Communism does not solve that problem, as the state itself becomes the primary consumer, and workers still don't get 100% of the wealth they produce. (And don't give me any anarcho- Communist bullshit, because then I'll flood you with Marx quotes that show that the all-controlling totalitarian state is absolutely central to the entire concept).

Capitalism requires more and more labour to work. Once all the labour worldwide is in use (including kids etc) capitalists turn on each other and form monopolies. In the end, we produce so much stuff that we essentially solved the economic problem. There is no more scarcity!
That is another fallacy. First, production grows, but so does the demand for new, better, more sophisticated consumption items. "End of scarcity" is only possible with the end of technological development- and with the end of human desire for a better life than the one they already have.

But hey, I'm game. Let's suppose for a moment that it is possible. What then?

Once that happened (or perhaps before then...?), the workers realise that they get screwed, and they take over all the factories in the world.
At which point scarcity is generated again, and economic problems return with a vengeance- because the system that excelled in producing wealth has been dismantled and does not produce it anymore. Management by the professionals is replaced with management by the incompetent- because the "proles" who took over do not have sufficient education or experience in the field of economics. Once the wealth generated by the original Capitalist system is consumed, economic downfall becomes inevitable.


Now they live in socialism - the dictatorship of the "proles".
Dictatorship? You bet. Of the "proles"? Hardly.

Maintaining any system requires a limited number of professionals dedicated to tasks of management. A "proletarian" charged with running a factory has two choices- remain a proud proletarian and screw the factory up due to incompetence, or study economics, barricade himself in an office with secretaries, phones, computers and transform from a "proletarian" into a bureaucrat. You cannot have a "dictatorship of proletariat" by definition. You can only generate a new ruling class that may have come out of the proletariat, but is no longer part of it.

Important here is merely this: Since there is no scarcity, there are no problems with people being selfish.
1)See above about "absence of scarcity".
2)People being selfish has nothing to do with scarcity. People can be selfish in great many ways. What if, for example, nobody wants to work cleaning sewers, but everyone wants to be a pilot?

Capitalism has amassed so much productive capacity that we don't even know where to put all our surplus produce.
But you have dismantled the production system. It can no longer maintain the same rate of production growth because of the absence of primary economic motivators- competition and reward of the success.

In this world, everyone receives according to the amount of work they put in.
No they don't. State institutions consume. Unproductive society members (elderly, children, crippled) consume. The workers maintain them all, and still not receive the full value of their work.

After a while, the dictatorship becomes obsolete.
Forgive me while I am suffocating in a laughing fit over this one. Come back to me when you find a historical example of a dictatorship that declared itself obsolete. A new ruling class will inevitably emerge, as I've said above. What makes you think they would want to go back to cleaning toilets like everybody else?

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

George Orwell.

And so you see, the planned economy is not a communist idea. It's not even required for communism per se.
Oh for God's sake. Just how, in your opinion, would the aforementioned "temporary" dictatorship of the "proles" manage production and consumption, if not by the means of planned economy?

Planned economy is the very core of Communism. Once you eliminate the natural economic motivators- competition and accumulation of individual wealth- there is simply no way around planned economy.

Stalin was the most consistent Marxist of them all, Leonstein.

-snip-
Suffice to say that all your arguments come back to one thing:
You don't think the economic problem can ever be solved.

I can't answer that question, it is up to how you imagine the future.
There is some truth in it when people said "We weren't ready for communism", in that technology etc just hasn't gotten us to the point yet.
I personally believe it is absolutely possible that at some point technology can kill capitalism off by producing so much that scarcity disappears.

Nonetheless, Stalin was not the most consistent Marxist of them all (your emotions are interfering with your otherwise well put argument here), and even if he was, Marx wasn't a Marxist, so I don't know why you would want to make him responsible for the megalomania of some Georgian caveman.

Suffice to say that all your arguments come back to one thing:
You don't think the economic problem can ever be solved.
Interestingly enough, there's a book where that comes about. It's called There Will be Dragons by John Ringo. Very good start to a series.

I personally believe it is absolutely possible that at some point technology can kill capitalism off by producing so much that scarcity disappears.

Last time I checked, capitalism was driven by this technology. I hope you remember this quote in thirty years: you'll laugh. I promise.

Last time I checked, capitalism was driven by this technology.
And already does one worker produces much more than a worker would have 50 years ago.
Introduce some robots and you get to the point where everyone has so much of everything for such a low price that the utility they get from one extra unit is near zero.
Once everyone is filthy rich, the drive to become even richer becomes somewhat subdued.

I personally believe it is absolutely possible that at some point technology can kill capitalism off by producing so much that scarcity disappears.

Well, there's the rub. We already DO produce enough to theoretically eliminate scarcity in the immediate here and now for most living necessities, if you measure in terms of physical production capacity. For example, there's definitely enough food produced in the world to feed every last human being well above a 2000 calorie diet.

That's what makes the idea of socialism even conceivable and not some crazyass pipe dream. The problem from a Marxist perspective is not production capacity but ownership and distribution (imperialism too, looking a bit further ahead to Lenin). And that's why you need a revolution and a revolutionary movement to carry it out, not just wait for it to fall outta the sky.

Well, there's the rub. We already DO produce enough to theoretically eliminate scarcity in the immediate here and now for most living necessities, if you measure in terms of physical production capacity.
But people aren't happy with just physical necessities - especially when they have known all the luxury goods which still are so scarce today.

Leonstein:

Frankly there are billions of people across the planet for whom even recieving enough of the "bare necessities" to live like a human being would be a HUGE step forward.

But you're right, people don't just need food, shelter, clothes, and something to wipe their ass with. They also need art, culture, entertainment, distractions, etc. - which, too, is monopolized by a small elite and reflects their outlook and worldview. And under socialism that'll have to be changed too.

But luxury goods are kind of a fuzzy term. I don't think everybody in the world can, or expects to, live like a six-figure income Manhattan yuppy. But under socialism a decent livelihood for everyone, in both the necessities and "luxuries", could be come to.

Speaking of art, entertainment, culture, that kinda stuff - this is one of the areas in which I think the socialist state should have a 'hand' in promoting and creating space for new styles, ideas, etc. But not too much. There shouldn't be a a state mandate for one particular style or complete exclusion of opposing ideas, which is one of the places I think the USSR especially screwed the pooch on.

Even as a Leninist I have to regard state-mandated Socialist Realism as one of the most dumbass ideas we've come up with. I mean.. yeah, spread a little around here and there, but jesus-tapdancing-christ how many bright red posters of huge proletarian type dudes symbolically pwning the bourgoiesie with a sledgehammer does one country f$!@ing need?!

Frankly there are billions of people across the planet for whom even recieving enough of the "bare necessities" to live like a human being would be a HUGE step forward.
Agreed, but I happen to have been exposed to the evidence for too long, and Free Trade Capitalism is the way to go for too long now.
I actually wrote an essay on that for uni, I posted it here - the thread should be on page one or two now.

But luxury goods are kind of a fuzzy term. I don't think everybody in the world can, or expects to, live like a six-figure income Manhattan yuppy. But under socialism a decent livelihood for everyone, in both the necessities and "luxuries", could be come to.
Not in a planned economy. It's a very Hayekian argument, but it is true:
Let's take a community of 5 people.
Now there are 10 goods that people can choose from. Let's simply assume that they can either choose to have it or not, not even that they can choose how much.
Do you know how many different ways to distribute stuff there are now?
252 ways (I think...it's been a while since I did Combinatorics).
Now extrapolate to a nation (or a world), all the goods that can possibly be of interest to people, and that everyone can have different amounts.
You can imagine that the number of possible combinations is larger than anything we could imagine.
A market finds a "proper" (ie where waste is relatively small) combination by itself. In a planned economy the state would have to find it.

And after this unbelievably large amount of info is sorted (a near impossible thing), we need to actually implement this perfect plan. Now imagine one tractor bringing cotton breaking down - now we're screwed. Our entire plan is disrupted.

Speaking of art, entertainment, culture, that kinda stuff - this is one of the areas in which I think the socialist state should have a 'hand' in promoting and creating space for new styles, ideas, etc. But not too much.
Keynes made a distinction between the government and the state. He reckoned things like art galleries, or the Times Newspaper were part of the state - things that enabled us to live together collectively in a satisfactory fashion.

Leonstein:

Frankly there are billions of people across the planet for whom even recieving enough of the "bare necessities" to live like a human being would be a HUGE step forward.

But you're right, people don't just need food, shelter, clothes, and something to wipe their ass with. They also need art, culture, entertainment, distractions, etc. - which, too, is monopolized by a small elite and reflects their outlook and worldview. And under socialism that'll have to be changed too.

But luxury goods are kind of a fuzzy term. I don't think everybody in the world can, or expects to, live like a six-figure income Manhattan yuppy. But under socialism a decent livelihood for everyone, in both the necessities and "luxuries", could be come to.

Speaking of art, entertainment, culture, that kinda stuff - this is one of the areas in which I think the socialist state should have a 'hand' in promoting and creating space for new styles, ideas, etc. But not too much. There shouldn't be a a state mandate for one particular style or complete exclusion of opposing ideas, which is one of the places I think the USSR especially screwed the pooch on.

Even as a Leninist I have to regard state-mandated Socialist Realism as one of the most dumbass ideas we've come up with. I mean.. yeah, spread a little around here and there, but jesus-tapdancing-christ how many bright red posters of huge proletarian type dudes symbolically pwning the bourgoiesie with a sledgehammer does one country f$!@ing need?!


One of the nicest things about Russian socialism? Even the guy who cleaned the toilets was allowed to watch the best operas and musicians in the world. All he had to do was pick up his ticket before everyone else did. Socialism is a great way to let everyone in a country enjoy good culture.

All he had to do was pick up his ticket before everyone else did.
Not particularly cooperative either.

One of the nicest things about Russian socialism? Even the guy who cleaned the toilets was allowed to watch the best operas and musicians in the world. All he had to do was pick up his ticket before everyone else did. Socialism is a great way to let everyone in a country enjoy good culture.

Except that the politicians and party officials have already got all the tickets, so the cleaner misses out.

That cleaner still won't have to pay for them. Contrary to what you would believe, the Party members didn't get enormous priveleges compared to other Russians. Some, including democratic rights, but not much more than that. And an extra candy bar every once in a while. Maybe some nicer shoes. But everyone was able to enjoy these performances, what would cost several hundred dollars per ticket in the US.

Contrary to what you would believe, the Party members didn't get enormous priveleges compared to other Russians.

Maybe you haven't read about the numerous dachas owned by Stalin and Molotov and Voroshilov, etc.
Being a party official or politician gave you enormous privileges.

That cleaner still won't have to pay for them.
It won't matter because the cleaner wont get them anyway. Only those with the suitable connections will.

And an extra candy bar every once in a while. Maybe some nicer shoes.
More like better pay, a car, a nicer house, power.

Socialism is a great way to let everyone in a country enjoy good culture.

Of course, if the particular piece of culture isn't approved by the state, the ticket becomes a death sentence.

What does it matter that Castro has bought almost 100% literacy to Cuba when books are burned, and people are sent to gaol for 30 years for owning a few books? They might have the skills of reading, but 100% of Cubans can't read whatever they like, nor can they write whatever they like.

Speaking of art, entertainment, culture, that kinda stuff - this is one of the areas in which I think the socialist state should have a 'hand' in promoting and creating space for new styles, ideas, etc.

And what did that produce? Stalin statues, and a zillion war movies.

And already does one worker produces much more than a worker would have 50 years ago.

And he consumes a lot more, he can presicely because he produces more.

Introduce some robots and you get to the point where everyone has so much of everything for such a low price that the utility they get from one extra unit is near zero.

People must make, and fix the robots, and produce the energy required to power them. Intorducing robots doesn't eliminate labour costs, it just means that the power company sees the cash, instead of the supermarket.

Besides, the idea of labour adding value is rubbish. No amount of labour will turn a pile of mud into an apple pile. It remains a pile of mud, value zero, even if a million men each work a year on it, its value remains zero because no one wants a pile of mud (and if they did, they can make it themselves).

In fact, adding labour can reduce the worth of an object, if it is misapplied. A bad book can turn dough and apples, already valuable, into something valueless, on the other hand, a skilled chef can make it something that people are prepared to pay handsomely for.

An object's value is not determined by labour, but by how much people are willing to exchange to get it. If the market is only prepared to pay $9.95 for a widget, then a widget is worth $9.95. If you think its worth more, tough luck. I'm not paying more.

Once everyone is filthy rich, the drive to become even richer becomes somewhat subdued.

I don't see why. People from 200 years ago would think of us as filthy rich, and it that increase in wealth hasn't dampened the desire for more, and you've not conclusively shown that there is a magic threshold the reaching of which will change that.

Last time I checked, capitalism was driven by this technology.

This is correct. The advances in technology reduce costs, enabling more production to be gained from the same capital, increasing a society's wealth. This increase in wealth drives yet more wealth creation through its investment throughout the economy.

More like better pay, a car, a nicer house, power.

Or, in the case of North Korea, food.

Do you REALLY want me to tell you where you can stick Trotsky? ;)



Yes. Yes, I do. Communism makes me hot. ;)

That cleaner still won't have to pay for them. Contrary to what you would believe, the Party members didn't get enormous priveleges compared to other Russians. Some, including democratic rights, but not much more than that. And an extra candy bar every once in a while. Maybe some nicer shoes. But everyone was able to enjoy these performances, what would cost several hundred dollars per ticket in the US.
What bullshit.

The lower rank Communist party members in the SU had better jobs, for one. Virtually all jobs that entailed some degree of power had party membership as a prerequisite. Jobs in the higher education had party membership as a prerequisite too, I believe. Not to mention that the higher echelon, starting from the secretaries of the "Ispolkoms" (Communist party executive committees that basically functioned as magistrates) lived in a completely different world from the ordinary people- different, "privileged" shops selling hard-to-obtain "deficit" goods, higher quality hospitals, access to imported goods like jeans and Western medicaments and cars that a normal person couldn't have even if they had the money (I mean the Chaika, commonly known as the "chlenovoz"- "[party] member driver"- and yes, the word "member" has the same double meaning in Russian too ;))

Yes. Yes, I do. Communism makes me hot. ;)
Strange. Normally Communism makes people cold- when they turn the heating off in the middle of the Russian winter, y'know.

Strange. Normally Communism makes people cold- when they turn the heating off in the middle of the Russian winter, y'know.

It turned over 100 million people stone cold, although for any communist who got killed, it couldn't possibly get hotter (special corner of hell)

It turned over 100 million people stone cold, although for any communist who got killed, it couldn't possibly get hotter (special corner of hell)
You're being rather emotional about this, aren't you.

One doesn't have to agree with it (I don't), but one should at least keep your brain free of this irrational hatred.

You're being rather emotional about this, aren't you.

One doesn't have to agree with it (I don't), but one should at least keep your brain free of this irrational hatred.

Yet if I told you Hitler and Goering were getting pitchforks in the you-know-what in their special corner of hell, you'd hardly blink. I find nothing irrational in consigning people like Pol Pot, or Erich Honecker, to a special corner of hell.

Frankly, anyone who considers the killing of so many people coldly has some serious issues.

Frankly, anyone who considers the killing of so many people coldly has some serious issues.
But you said "any communists". You didn't say "Stalin" or "Mao" - so you can't compare the two.
I don't think every single Nazi or Communist was necessarily a bad person who would have deserved it to go "hell" - there were plenty who merely went along, or who really had some sort of idealistic, good intentions that went wrong.
Honestly, you can't think that every poor worker who went out on the streets in 1917, after so many had been massacred only months (?) before, you can't tell me that all those couragous fellas deserve all these bad things.
That, and I reckon comparing Honecker to Pol Pot is maybe stretching it juuuust a little.

And finally, I don't believe in "hell", so it's fairly pointless anyway.

What I'm saying is that you should evaluate the theory independently of whatever crimes were committed in its name.
Plenty of good things have come from it too - I don't think we'd have had worker's movements at all without some theoretical foundation, the one Marx provided.

Suffice to say that all your arguments come back to one thing:
You don't think the economic problem can ever be solved.
1)Whenever anyone does the "snip" thing, it is most often an indication that this person didn't really read the text they are quoting
2)My arguments are not limited to stating that the "economic problem", whatever the hell it is, can't be solved

If you want a brief summary of my arguments for a lazy reader, here it is:

1)Marx's theory is based on a number of false premises and faulty definitions, starting from the way he defines "work and ending with the way he describes the economic dynamics of Capitalism. In fact, even the dedicated Marxist intellectuals like Theodor Adorno were eventually forced to admit that Marx was wrong on most counts.
2)The claim that generation of abundant wealth by the Capitalist economy is considered a prerequisite for Communism indicates that even the Communists themselves cannot deny Communism's economic inefficiency. Simply put, Communism can only live off the inheritance of a more effective economic system- and only for as long as there is anything left to consume. Communism cannot produce sufficient wealth to maintain itself. Which makes Communism, essentially, a parasite.
3)Communist ideology is inherently totalitarian and can only be implemented and maintained by repressive totalitarian means.


Nonetheless, Stalin was not the most consistent Marxist of them all (your emotions are interfering with your otherwise well put argument here),
What emotions? We've been there before, haven't we? Stalin had realised all the Communist manifesto demands- with the exception of making child labor at the service of the state compulsory.


and even if he was, Marx wasn't a Marxist, so I don't know why you would want to make him responsible for the megalomania of some Georgian caveman.
If Marx wasn't a Marxist, who was?

And isn't it strange that anyone who touches Marxism on any remotely practical level somehow stops being a true Marxist?

Strange. Normally Communism makes people cold- when they turn the heating off in the middle of the Russian winter, y'know.

They had heating in the Soviet Union outside of high-ranking party members' personal palaces? That's news to me. I always thought the plebs had to rely on vodka.

They had heating in the Soviet Union outside of high-ranking party members' personal palaces? That's news to me. I always thought the plebs had to rely on vodka.
LOL!

They did have heating in most places. The trouble was, though, that it was often inconsistent and failed right when you needed it most. I remember when my little sister was born, they turned off the heat and hot water in the beginning of January, with some -20 Celcius outside. Imagine living in such cold for a couple of months when you have a newborn to take care of.

But you said "any communists". You didn't say "Stalin" or "Mao" - so you can't compare the two.
I don't think every single Nazi or Communist was necessarily a bad person who would have deserved it to go "hell" - there were plenty who merely went along, or who really had some sort of idealistic, good intentions that went wrong.
Honestly, you can't think that every poor worker who went out on the streets in 1917, after so many had been massacred only months (?) before, you can't tell me that all those couragous fellas deserve all these bad things.
That, and I reckon comparing Honecker to Pol Pot is maybe stretching it juuuust a little.

And finally, I don't believe in "hell", so it's fairly pointless anyway.

What I'm saying is that you should evaluate the theory independently of whatever crimes were committed in its name.
Plenty of good things have come from it too - I don't think we'd have had worker's movements at all without some theoretical foundation, the one Marx provided.

Its not a crime to be deceived, and someone who's decieved into joining, or cooperating with the communists isn't really a communist, just a gullible idiot.

It is immoral to join a communist party simply for advancement (one has a moral duty to disassociate with criminals, even if it means falling behind in the rat race).

As for good intentions, they all believed that they had good intentions, and guess what the road to hell is paved with?

The difference between Honecker and Pol Pot is scale only. They acted from essentially the same thinking: that implementing communism was more important than anything, even life itself, so Polt Pot could have 2 million Cambodians starved and murdered, just as Honecker could have hundreds shot for trying to leave his "workers' paradise"..

One should only evaluate a theory independently of the crimes committed for it if those crimes are not essential to carrying it out. Obvious example: National Socialism cannot be evaluated without reference to The Holocaust. I have shown in the Opinions of Communism thread that the crimes committed by communist regimes were necessary to implement Marx's program.

And isn't it strange that anyone who touches Marxism on any remotely practical level somehow stops being a true Marxist?

Just as any Muslim who disagrees with bin Laden somwhow stops being a true Muslim.

Equality for all is a noble sentiment, but the fact is that some people are always going to be better than some others. Any belief to the contrary is nothing more than religious brainwashing. The guy who makes a hundred grand a year trading stocks is always smarter and more capable than the guy who cleans his office building. If he wasn't the janitor would have his job. If someone is incapable of providing something for themselves, they don’t deserve it.

Whenever anyone does the "snip" thing, it is most often an indication that this person didn't really read the text they are quoting
I did initially write a longer, more detailed response, but essentially always came back to that one point - so I didn't post the whole thing.
And because I'm not here to defend Communist Theory, I just thought I'd avoid a long discussion about points that are of no importance if you don't make that initial mental leap.

The claim that generation of abundant wealth by the Capitalist economy is considered a prerequisite for Communism indicates that even the Communists themselves cannot deny Communism's economic inefficiency.
No one's trying. The point is not that Capitalism can't produce more, it's not even important whether or not you consider it moral.
Whether or not labourers accept being oppressed (which Marx claimed they are), and whether or not there are enough customers to actually buy all the shit that's being produced - that is the only question that matters.

Simply put, Communism can only live off the inheritance of a more effective economic system- and only for as long as there is anything left to consume. Communism cannot produce sufficient wealth to maintain itself. Which makes Communism, essentially, a parasite.
You're apparently taking me for a communist. You don't have to be scared, I have yet to meet a modern economist who actually believes in the stuff.
But who is being served if all we do is misrepresent it, if we start censoring the very word?
Anyways, I digress. As I said before, according to Marx the Capitalists don't serve a purpose other than that of buying more capital - not because of skill but because of the money they've got lying around since ancient times.
So not having capitalists to tend to machines is of no importance to economic productivity - workers can organise the factories themselves.

Communist ideology is inherently totalitarian and can only be implemented and maintained by repressive totalitarian means.
You're oversimplifying stuff. Yes, the capitalists will be thrown off their thrones. Yes, some may die.
But the idea is that everyone is part of this dictatorship of the proletariate. Thus no one is really being oppressed.

What emotions? We've been there before, haven't we? Stalin had realised all the Communist manifesto demands- with the exception of making child labor at the service of the state compulsory.
As opposed to child labour for the capitalists (not out of free will either). Consider the times.
I said everything I had to say about Stalin. The man thought his idea of socialism in one country, of a command economy, of electrification could give the USSR the capital base it needed to get ahead according to the theory.
Couple that with what was essentially insanity, and you have the recipe for a totalitarian dictatorship.
And besides, the Manifesto is Marx condensed and written to sound nice. You hardly get any idea of the theory at all if you write this propaganda material. It just so happens that Kapital and the others are not as easy to read.

If Marx wasn't a Marxist, who was?
Everyone who calls himself a Marxist and tries to forcibly move Marxian theory into the practical world could be called a Marxist.
But Marx himself didn't like the term, nor was he a "Marxist" himself. He was a scientist who thought he had worked out history - that the aggression he received from his fellow rich people ripped him out of society (the only cause why he would have even written the Manifesto) is regrettable.

It is immoral to join a communist party simply for advancement (one has a moral duty to disassociate with criminals, even if it means falling behind in the rat race).
"Moral"? Please, I don't think romanticism has a place here.

As for good intentions, they all believed that they had good intentions, and guess what the road to hell is paved with?
Great. How about we just do nothing at all, at least it can't get any worse, can it?

The difference between Honecker and Pol Pot is scale only. They acted from essentially the same thinking: that implementing communism was more important than anything, even life itself, so Polt Pot could have 2 million Cambodians starved and murdered, just as Honecker could have hundreds shot for trying to leave his "workers' paradise"..
Except that Pol Pot wanted to destroy everything and start from a clean sheet. That is different.

I have shown in the Opinions of Communism thread that the crimes committed by communist regimes were necessary to implement Marx's program.
Well first I just see you repeatedly reverting to arrogance whenever someone happens to disagree with you - or even considers a moderate statement.
You immediatly resort to words like "idiot" and the like.
Especially the bit about "there must always be a government" is interesting, I suggest you contact our resident ultra-rightwinger BAAWA about that. The very same society he would advocate for anarcho-capitalism can be represented to form anarcho-communism.
It also becomes quite obvious that the only work you are familiar with is the aforementioned Manifesto, a poor representation at best. And one that I've never even bothered to read.
Anyways, the crimes committed by the leadership in the USSR must also be split into two seperate bits: Those caused by the actual socialist policies, and those caused by the fact that Stalin was insane and paranoid.
At any rate, in a society that would be "ready" for a socialist revolution, those policies don't need to be associated with "crimes" - other than taking capitalist property, and property rights are another romantic notion created by "moral philosophy".

Just as any Muslim who disagrees with bin Laden somwhow stops being a true Muslim.
:rolleyes:
What was that letter, urging Zarqawi not to kill Muslims?

And finally, has anyone ever watched "Star Trek"?
That's what Communism would look like: Unlimited resources eliminating the need for competition or altruism.

Equality for all is a noble sentiment, but the fact is that some people are always going to be better than some others. Any belief to the contrary is nothing more than religious brainwashing. The guy who makes a hundred grand a year trading stocks is always smarter and more capable than the guy who cleans his office building. If he wasn't the janitor would have his job. If someone is incapable of providing something for themselves, they don’t deserve it.
There is no equality of opportunity in capitalist society. As long as it costs money to start a life, people with rich parents are going to have a better start than children of poor parents. That's a fact.
Essentially you would be saying that this poor janitor is responsible, and must thus pay for, mistakes his parents, or their grandparents made.
Look at Melkor Unchained. He would be the last person to admit it, but he's one of those who have been somewhat hurt by society.
The guy couldn't afford to go to university for ages, working near minimum wage jobs - all the while being one of the deepest thinkers around here.

Your Darwinism is a product of the easy life you've apparently had, no more and no less.

"Moral"? Please, I don't think romanticism has a place here.

Why has morality no place? (Apart from it being an inconvenient consideration when discussing communism)

Great. How about we just do nothing at all, at least it can't get any worse, can it?

False dilemma. You also missed the point, good intentions are no defence for crime.

Except that Pol Pot wanted to destroy everything and start from a clean sheet. That is different.

In East Germany, practically everything had been destroyed beforehand by the Red Army, the RAF, and the USAAF.

Anyway, why is it a relevant difference. Each wanted to force a sick vision on society, a vision they didn't want, and each was prepare to walk over mountains of corpses to do it.

Especially the bit about "there must always be a government" is interesting, I suggest you contact our resident ultra-rightwinger BAAWA about that. The very same society he would advocate for anarcho-capitalism can be represented to form anarcho-communism.

I outlined exactly why government was necessary. You must have read it. A lie of ommission is still a lie.

Anyways, the crimes committed by the leadership in the USSR must also be split into two seperate bits: Those caused by the actual socialist policies, and those caused by the fact that Stalin was insane and paranoid.

And Lenin, and Kruschev, and Brezhnev, and Chernenko, and Gorbachev, and so on.

What you don't consider is this: Communism must be forced on people, it won't happen inevitably, and people won't ask for it. When it is forced upon them, they resist, or they simply go. Whether the people Stalin has killed were an actual threat to his regime is not something we can determine (owing to the fact that the people we could ask are all dead), the point is that communists cannot tolerate dissent, and can never loosen the reins if they wish to see communism realised. If they do, the best they can expect is what China is now.

At any rate, in a society that would be "ready" for a socialist revolution, those policies don't need to be associated with "crimes" - other than taking capitalist property, and property rights are another romantic notion created by "moral philosophy".

Utpoian hogwash. Any claptrap can be defended by saying "if society were ready for it, it would work". The point is that society won't be forced into shape.

The lack of property rights makes any sort of workable society impossible.

Once again, you dismiss any inconvenient consideration.

You're oversimplifying stuff. Yes, the capitalists will be thrown off their thrones. Yes, some may die.
But the idea is that everyone is part of this dictatorship of the proletariate. Thus no one is really being oppressed.

And this univeral participation has occurred in how many attempts to implement communism? None.

Few prominent communists were prolitarian. Most were middle class, or upper class.

There is no basis in reality for talk of a "dictatorship of the prolitariat". Pure theory is irrelevant when evaluating political ideas. How they work in the world is.

As opposed to child labour for the capitalists (not out of free will either). Consider the times.

For an alleged non-communist, you certainly like coming with irrelevant communist complaints. Virtually everyone nowadays finds child-labour practices during the industrial revolution objectionable. The only people who advocate their continuation are communists.

As I said before, according to Marx the Capitalists don't serve a purpose other than that of buying more capital - not because of skill but because of the money they've got lying around since ancient times.

Skill is necessary. Otherwise their money would be wasted. A capitalist who spends his money foolishly won't have it long, and he won't see any return. A capitalist who spends wisely will see considerable return. You oversimplify the role of investors.

Your notion of a fixed upper-class has no basis in reality. Social mobility is greater than ever before. Most of the people in the top income brackets today were previously in the bottom brackets. So much for "ancient times".

So not having capitalists to tend to machines is of no importance to economic productivity - workers can organise the factories themselves.

To do so in such a way that maintains, or increases productivity, the workers must become, or appoint managers themselves. This is why the dictatorship of the prolitariat cannot work. If the prolitariat is to govern, some must become able in the ways of government, or all must appoint those who are. Which is by and large what they do in current Western societies.

By the way, having capitalists pay for the machines is very important to industrial production. If they hadn't, the machines wouldn't be there. Also, having risked what they own to obtain them, why should they be denied a share of the profits the production brings? Especially since such rewards will engender more investment in production, and hence more for society.

Leonstein, you're really starting to fall apart here. Of particular disgust to me is your constant contempt for the application of morals, making it a point to put the word in quotes and placing it in an obviously trivial context.

Philosophy is not a bauble of the intellect, it is a force from which no man can escape. Every social or political decision has moral connotations that need to be weighed rationally before one can no for sure whether they should actually carry them out. Your contempt for morals says much more about your ethics than your counterarguments ever will.

Whether or not labourers accept being oppressed (which Marx claimed they are), and whether or not there are enough customers to actually buy all the shit that's being produced - that is the only question that matters.
No it's not. There is also the question of whether the proposed new social structure is realistic to install, economically sustainable once installed, and whether or not it can be maintained without exersising the kind of oppression that would make the Capitalist "oppression" look like a worker's paradise.


You're apparently taking me for a communist. You don't have to be scared, I have yet to meet a modern economist who actually believes in the stuff.
But who is being served if all we do is misrepresent it, if we start censoring the very word?
I don't care if you are a Communist. I am making my case regarding Communism, not regarding your personality.


Anyways, I digress.
Indeed you do.


As I said before, according to Marx the Capitalists don't serve a purpose other than that of buying more capital - not because of skill but because of the money they've got lying around since ancient times.
Which is already a false premise, since the owners of the "money lying around since ancient times" were not the bourgeosie, but the medieval nobility, and it is not them that Marx seeks to overthrow. It is the bourgeosie, the self-made rich men, whom he accuses of oppression.

You need to do a LOT of re-reading before you even approach this discussion, it seems.


So not having capitalists to tend to machines is of no importance to economic productivity - workers can organise the factories themselves.
No they can't. They lack the competence. They lack the knowledge and experience. If you want to overthrow the current class of managers and bankers, you have two choices- entrust the management to the incompetents who will inevitably screw it up, or forge a new class of managers identical to the original one.


You're oversimplifying stuff. Yes, the capitalists will be thrown off their thrones. Yes, some may die.
But the idea is that everyone is part of this dictatorship of the proletariate. Thus no one is really being oppressed.
"Everyone" cannot be rulers. Division of labor, remember? It was Marx who invented the term, after all. Division of labor is the only way to efficient management, without it no organized activity is possible. A dictatorship would require a new ruling class and a classic bureaucratic hierarchy in order to function. Some would rule, others would clean the sewers.


As opposed to child labour for the capitalists (not out of free will either).
Child labor under capitalism was not compulsory, and as the overall wealth of the society grew, it became obsolete. For Marx, however, child labor was to be an integral part of the education process.

I said everything I had to say about Stalin. The man thought his idea of socialism in one country, of a command economy, of electrification could give the USSR the capital base it needed to get ahead according to the theory.
Couple that with what was essentially insanity, and you have the recipe for a totalitarian dictatorship.
The dictatorship Marx called for, the "active dictatorship of the proletariat".


And besides, the Manifesto is Marx condensed and written to sound nice. You hardly get any idea of the theory at all if you write this propaganda material. It just so happens that Kapital and the others are not as easy to read.
I've read Das Kapital. I've read the Geneva congress resolution. I HAVE read it. And as for "propaganda material"- I was replying to YOUR outline of what Marxism is. So if any one of us was writing "propaganda material", it sure wasn't me... ;)


Everyone who calls himself a Marxist and tries to forcibly move Marxian theory into the practical world could be called a Marxist.
But Marx himself didn't like the term, nor was he a "Marxist" himself.
So what? A contemporary term for a follower of Marx's theory is Marxist. Was Marx a follower of his own theory or not?

What you don't consider is this: Communism must be forced on people, it won't happen inevitably, and people won't ask for it. When it is forced upon them, they resist, or they simply go. Whether the people Stalin has killed were an actual threat to his regime is not something we can determine (owing to the fact that the people we could ask are all dead), the point is that communists cannot tolerate dissent, and can never loosen the reins if they wish to see communism realised. If they do, the best they can expect is what China is now.

I was perusing the thread and thought I should respond to this.

All revolutions or major changes in the makeup of a society's superstructure are "forced on people" to some extent or another. Do you think the first revolutions to replace feudal and semi-feudal production relations in the Western countries with capitalism stopped, sat down, and held a referendum before taking up arms? Hell no. All revolutions in history without exception were made by a minority of the most conscious, active, pissed off mofos deciding that enough was enough and inspiring and mobilizing the masses to support them throughout the process of their struggle. That's just the way it works, and it's totally hypocritical for capitalists to malign us for having a vanguard to come to power. How do they think their system got to where it was? Capitalism didn't just fall out of nowhere one day, I'll tell you that much.

And if hundreds of thousands of people taking up arms to fight for Communism in the Soviet Union and China, and millions and millions of people actively supporting them doesn't count as asking for communism, then what pray tell does?

Furthermore in regards to dissent and how suppressing it is necessary for the eventual realization of communism, I actually think the opposite was the case. Why did the Soviet Union fall? More importantly, why was Khruschev able to denounce Stalin and more or less steer the economy away from a socialist one to essentially a state-owned market one without a peep of from the masses, who by and large thought Stalin was a great leader?

Because Stalin repressed dissent - not just dissent coming from the class enemy but dissent coming up from among the masses and the Party themselves. And when you suppress opposing ideas and allow the only portrayal of them to be your own biased caricatures, people (even your supporters) will not recognize how to combat and defeat and struggle over them when they actually rear their head.

Mao had the right idea. He unleashed dissent in a tremendous way during the Cultural Revolution, to such an extent that people were fighting in the streets with helmets and guns and pointy sticks over the direction that society was going to take in China, whether the future held socialism or capitalist restoration for the masses. And that's as it should be.

But even that mass outpouring of fierce debate, struggle, and yes, revolution within the revolution, the framework of this struggle was set with a certain narrowness and that served to confuse the shit out of people in alot of cases. I've read Jean Daubier's account of his years in China during the GPCR, and all the documents he managed to dig up. And one of the things that struck me was that the mass organizations controlled by the reactionaries - the people seeking the very capitalist restoration that Mao was trying to prevent - all referred to themselves as Maoists and stated their goals and ideas within the framework of upholding Mao Tse-Tung thought. Why? Because there really wasn't any other way to get a hearing. You might not be drug out into the street and shot for saying "Mao is teh suck" but you couldn't really find and outlet to express an opinion to the masses which included the same.

I guess my point is, communists have to learn from the mistakes of the past. And one of those mistakes is not allowing enough room for dissent - both revolutionary and reactionary - to be expressed out in the open to all to hear, so people can understand and recognize the difference between the two. That doesn't mean allowing the real, hardcore reactionaries an absolutely free hand and the kind of power over the media and ideas they had before the revolution, but it does mean not just tying a gag around their mouth and expecting tha to be good enough.

The revolutionaries in Nepal, the CPN(M), have stated that they intend to allow for real freedom of speech, and competitive elections. Given that it looks like they have a real chance of winning, we'll see if our forces have sufficiently learned from our mistakes this time.

(Socialism itself won't be open to an electoral contest, but tough shit, honestly. All societies are class dictatorships, etc etc, and it's not like you guys would let us take power and put our system into place in an election under your own set of rules, even if we legitimately won. See Allende, see Arbenz, see all the socialist activists and leaders who "played by the rules" of bourgoiesie democracy and got chucked in prison anyway, etc.)

At any rate, in a society that would be "ready" for a socialist revolution, those policies don't need to be associated with "crimes" - other than taking capitalist property, and property rights are another romantic notion created by "moral philosophy".
Didn't you say that "socialism - the dictatorship of the "proles"." starts because 1) Workers don't get 100% of the value of the stuff they producewhich would mean that the "proles" revolt because they don't feel like they get what they deserve.

And if hundreds of thousands of people taking up arms to fight for Communism in the Soviet Union and China, and millions and millions of people actively supporting them doesn't count as asking for communism, then what pray tell does?

They were duped by communists. The Chinese wanted an end top Chaign Kai Shek, and the commies were nice to the peasants while they needed the peasants support.

Why did the Soviet Union fall?

Because they were presented with a choice, win the arms race, or eat.

More importantly, why was Khruschev able to denounce Stalin and more or less steer the economy away from a socialist one to essentially a state-owned market one without a peep of from the masses, who by and large thought Stalin was a great leader?

Stalin was a little bit dead at the time (1956), and there is no real difference between a socialist economy and a state owned, controlled market.

The masses knew that peeping could be a terminal illness.

We cannot know what people really thought about Stalin. We know what people say, and we know what people were supposed to think.

LOL!

They did have heating in most places. The trouble was, though, that it was often inconsistent and failed right when you needed it most. I remember when my little sister was born, they turned off the heat and hot water in the beginning of January, with some -20 Celcius outside. Imagine living in such cold for a couple of months when you have a newborn to take care of.

That sucks. Especially since giving vodka to your sister to keep her warm was probably out of the question at that early stage of her life. The Party should have spent more money on taking care of the people of the USSR and less on adding to their nuclear arsenal. I mean, surely the ability to wipe the Earth clean of life ONCE is enough.

Disraeliland and The Holy Womble,

I'm really surprised here. Leonstine started this thread to put forth some definitions and lay bare the mechanics of Marxist thought.

Feel free to disagree with them, clearly you do, and you have raised good counter-arguments to Marx. But you are missing the point.

Reading through recent threads I have seen a lot of the same crap arguments that rest on an assumption on human nature. Here we have Leonstine, demonstrating the underlying ideas in Marx's theories. It is a service for anyone who is willing to discuss the topic to get educated. To break out of that old "people are greedy" nonsense.

Clearly, you don't need to learn this stuff, you know it already. But why do you feel you have to attack communism at every turn? Instead of attacking it, let it stand, comment on the summary of the ideas not their content. Leave these arguments for the other threads where the quality of Marxism and communism is discussed.

So far Leonstine has posted similar topics with regards to the Austrian school, Keynes, and now Marx. Should we assume then that he is a student of all those schools? At the same time? Are you nuts?

Really, right now you aren't being anything more than virulent ideologues.

On the downfall of Capitalism:
He doesn't make a moral judgement throughout his work (well, when he does it's not directly related to his argument, let's put it that way). He sees an internal logic to history, and since he reckons he worked out the past in his analysis of feudalism and before that, he thinks he can forecast what will happen in the future.
Two things to be said about this then:
1) Workers don't get 100% of the value of the stuff they produce.
2) Capitalism requires more and more labour to work. Once all the labour worldwide is in use (including kids etc) capitalists turn on each other and form monopolies. In the end, we produce so much stuff that we essentially solved the economic problem. There is no more scarcity!


This is the one part in your post that I'd amend, Leonistein, but otherwise that was an excellent synopsis of Marxist thought.

The problem isn't that capitalism requires more and more labor; it's that unlike every other economic system in history, capitalism produces with no respect to need. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The real problem with every economic system in history, according to Marx, is that while they meet the needs of their time, they also eventually produce the conditions that bring about their demise. For instance, while feudalism was the most efficient pre-industrial system available, the feudalistic pattern of driving off serfs from the land into the cities led to large numbers of men who honed their talents in trades, including the tinkers who developed machines that could vastly increase the rate of production over what the guilds of the day could produce. When you coupled this with the rise of non-feudal landowners who increasingly fought with the crown over use of the "commons" or common land that ostensibly belonged to the king but was coveted by the high merchant class and lower nobility, you had a recipe for the social foment that eventually led to the rise of the modern bourgeoisie.

The burghers of the day won first and foremost because they had control over the economic means of production, which meant first that they could directly drive their opponents under through better access to money and greater production, and indirectly through cultural capital such as that of the great ideas of the day. If you have control over the means of production, and those means of production meet the needs of the people, then it makes sense that people will conform their view of the world to a philosophy, government, and culture compatible with that view. Such was the case when social contract theorists like Locke and Hobbes drove out older theorists like Aquinas as the dominant thinkers of how society ought to be structured.

The same problem is evinced in modern capitalism in Marx' view. Namely, capitalism produces purely for the sake of devoting the profit of that enterprise into generating more capital: more factories, more goods, more services. Where earlier (and later) modes of production produced only when there was a need to be met, capitalism produces purely for the sake of production. The good thing that this has done is that it has virtually eliminated scarcity of goods. We now produce or are capable of producing so many goods that no one in the world would ever need to be without clothing, housing, and food. Second, third, and fourth, capitalism has shown us just how spectacular the things man himself is capable of creating, how productive nature will allow us to be given sufficient prodding, and saves us from "the idiocy of farm life", in Marx' terms. But capitalism doesn't stop at just eliminating scarcity. Because capitalism has no tether to actual need, eventually, it begins to produce far more goods than people have need for. Prices drop, capital flow slackens, all of which drives worker's wages down in an attempt by capitalists to make up for the lost income. This only furthers the problem however, and eventually the situation spirals into a financial crisis. The only way to solve the problem is 1) by the enforced destruction of goods by capitalists in order to limit supply, and 2) find new markets and better exploit existing ones. Those two conditions solve the problem for now, but they only make inevitable a greater crisis down the road.

Eventually, there will come a crisis so global and so complete that the proletariat will have no real choice but to revolt and reform the system away from capitalism and back to a mode of production in which the economic stimulus for production is need. They will nevertheless be able to survive handily in this era because capitalism built the infrastructure to easily deal with material scarcity of any sort. Moreover, the proletariat will want to do this, firstly because the culture of capitalism, with its emphasis on production over all else, has eliminated any real religious, nationalistic, or any other kind of attachment to a system of any sort aside from that of class. Put more simply, the bourgeoisie has in their relentless pursuit of greater production destroyed the idea of loyalty to your country, loyalty to God, or any other loyalty, which leaves the proletariat with only loyalty to each other in the face of common problems and common solutions. Secondly, capitalism has also provided the proletariat with the means of changing the system: the bourgouis ethic has concentrated them in the cities, the factory life has organized, disciplined, and regimented them, and the tools of communication that capitalism has produced has made them able to move en masse at a moment's notice. So with nothing to lose but their chains and a world to win, Marx said, they would seize control of a system that no longer represented their best interest, and like the burghers before them, replace it with a better one.

They were duped by communists. The Chinese wanted an end top Chaign Kai Shek, and the commies were nice to the peasants while they needed the peasants support.

So in other words, the masses of people are ALWAYS on your side, except when they're not, in which case they're suckers.

Isn't this the same logic you guys accuse us of using all the time?

Disraeliland and The Holy Womble,

I'm really surprised here. Leonstine started this thread to put forth some definitions and lay bare the mechanics of Marxist thought.

Feel free to disagree with them, clearly you do, and you have raised good counter-arguments to Marx. But you are missing the point.

Reading through recent threads I have seen a lot of the same crap arguments that rest on an assumption on human nature. Here we have Leonstine, demonstrating the underlying ideas in Marx's theories. It is a service for anyone who is willing to discuss the topic to get educated. To break out of that old "people are greedy" nonsense.

Clearly, you don't need to learn this stuff, you know it already. But why do you feel you have to attack communism at every turn? Instead of attacking it, let it stand, comment on the summary of the ideas not their content. Leave these arguments for the other threads where the quality of Marxism and communism is discussed.

So far Leonstine has posted similar topics with regards to the Austrian school, Keynes, and now Marx. Should we assume then that he is a student of all those schools? At the same time? Are you nuts?

Really, right now you aren't being anything more than virulent ideologues.
Getting on people's cases for arguing ideology in NationStates is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. My advice? Get used to it.

Disraeliland and The Holy Womble,

I'm really surprised here. Leonstine started this thread to put forth some definitions and lay bare the mechanics of Marxist thought.

Feel free to disagree with them, clearly you do, and you have raised good counter-arguments to Marx. But you are missing the point.

Reading through recent threads I have seen a lot of the same crap arguments that rest on an assumption on human nature. Here we have Leonstine, demonstrating the underlying ideas in Marx's theories. It is a service for anyone who is willing to discuss the topic to get educated. To break out of that old "people are greedy" nonsense.

Clearly, you don't need to learn this stuff, you know it already. But why do you feel you have to attack communism at every turn? Instead of attacking it, let it stand, comment on the summary of the ideas not their content. Leave these arguments for the other threads where the quality of Marxism and communism is discussed.

So far Leonstine has posted similar topics with regards to the Austrian school, Keynes, and now Marx. Should we assume then that he is a student of all those schools? At the same time? Are you nuts?

Really, right now you aren't being anything more than virulent ideologues.
In case you've missed it, my point, all along, was that Leonstein has substantially misinterpreted Marxism.

Because capitalism has no tether to actual need, eventually, it begins to produce far more goods than people have need for. Prices drop, capital flow slackens, all of which drives worker's wages down in an attempt by capitalists to make up for the lost income. This only furthers the problem however, and eventually the situation spirals into a financial crisis. The only way to solve the problem is 1) by the enforced destruction of goods by capitalists in order to limit supply, and 2) find new markets and better exploit existing ones. Those two conditions solve the problem for now, but they only make inevitable a greater crisis down the road.

Capitalism does have a tether to actual need, it just doesn't have a pack of bureaucrats deciding what that need is (and inevitably getting it wrong, bread lines anyone?). The Market handles it through the laws of supply and demand, as well as competition.

Capitalist systems compensate for overproduction the same way they compensate for everything else. The price system.

Overproduction of a commodity will cause its price to drop. This means there is less incentive to produce it, so production of it will slow. This slowing of production means there is less of a good, causing prices to go back up. Eventually balance is restored.

The market accomplishes this by itself.

Some overproduction is a good thing, it means there is choice. If I go to buy apples, the supermarket will have stocked more apples than they will ever sell in a particular day, so I can pick the best apples. If they've only the number of apples they know they will sell that day, and not one more, then its bad apples, or no apples for me. It also means that unanticipated events can be handled. Precisely tailoring pesticide production in the USSR to the perceived need caused a harvest failure.

There is no inevitable crisis.

You're guilty of the same mistakes as Marx, determinism, and thinking that anything that can be called a flaw (regardless of whether it is or not) is automatic support for the alternative being put forward.

Eventually, there will come a crisis so global and so complete that the proletariat will have no real choice but to revolt and reform the system away from capitalism and back to a mode of production in which the economic stimulus for production is need.

Will the crisis be heralded by The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse?

They will nevertheless be able to survive handily in this era because capitalism built the infrastructure to easily deal with material scarcity of any sort. Moreover, the proletariat will want to do this, firstly because the culture of capitalism, with its emphasis on production over all else, has eliminated any real religious, nationalistic, or any other kind of attachment to a system of any sort aside from that of class.

You must be joking, "class loyalty" is precisely what on the decline, with more and more workers with their own share portfolios, and investment properties. Nationalistic sentiment has always run high.

Put more simply, the bourgeoisie has in their relentless pursuit of greater production destroyed the idea of loyalty to your country, loyalty to God, or any other loyalty, which leaves the proletariat with only loyalty to each other in the face of common problems and common solutions. Secondly, capitalism has also provided the proletariat with the means of changing the system: the bourgouis ethic has concentrated them in the cities, the factory life has organized, disciplined, and regimented them, and the tools of communication that capitalism has produced has made them able to move en masse at a moment's notice.

Another thing, class isn't a fixed thing. People move from class to class, usually upwards.

So with nothing to lose but their chains and a world to win, Marx said, they would seize control of a system that no longer represented their best interest, and like the burghers before them, replace it with a better one.

Off the deep end we go, into Year Zero!


There is nothing in capitalism that suggests that such a crisis in possible, never mind inevitable.

-snip-


pretty damn good job man, very good :)
though i think you could do with expanding the human nature arguements of communism a bit - the malleability of our nature is an absolute fundamental, core belief to the ideology, and one which many, many capitalists either don't realise, don't think about, or disagree with.
(bummer i can't find my favourite book on political philosophy right now - its got some good quotes on this subject from Marx and Owen... if i find it i'll post em)

If one is a real communist, in a Marxian sense, then I don't see why you would want to push for the revolution, when you know that you'll be faced with the same unsolvable problems Lenin and Stalin faced
and thats exactly why any thinking, self-respecting communist should vote UDCP and not RTP (sorry DHomme me old mucka) ;)

we realise the transition to communism requires a lot of economic change and, importantly, a change in people's nature - or the way people think.
i believe we're nearly there with the economic change with respect to scarcity, but certainly we are a long way off changing human nature; possibly many hundereds of years....


incidentally, talking about capitalism's usefulness to communism, i have this great quote from one of own number :D

Capitalism makes the wealth, Socialism redistributes the wealth, and Communism is the truly equal society at the end. You don't need more wealth if you already have everything you need.

Capitalism makes the wealth, Socialism redistributes the wealth, and Communism is the truly equal society at the end. You don't need more wealth if you already have everything you need.
That is a false, since it assumes that once accumulated, wealth would remain static- but wealth is being constantly consumed, and Communism is incapable of producing enough wealth to maintain the original level.

That is a false, since it assumes that once accumulated, wealth would remain static- but wealth is being constantly consumed, and Communism is incapable of producing enough wealth to maintain the original level.
ever heard of technology and the post-industrial society?

how about consumerism? you think the level of "wealth" created today is anywhere near realistic, needed, or - very importantly - sustainable?

Capitalism does have a tether to actual need, it just doesn't have a pack of bureaucrats deciding what that need is (and inevitably getting it wrong, bread lines anyone?). The Market handles it through the laws of supply and demand, as well as competition.

No pack of bureaucrats, eh? On the contrary, capitalism has them in spades. How do you think production decisions are made? The machines or whatever means of production you're dealing with don't just figure out how much to produce themselves; somebody, somewhere, is making some kind of production decision based on certain factors.

The difference between capitalism and socialism isn't that the former is natural and organic and the other is command, it's that they're "commanded" based on different factors. Production in a market economy is based on demand. What sells. What people are capable of buying. Production in a socialist economy is based (primarily) on human need. As any half-rate economist could tell you, demand and need are far from the same thing.

Hell, forget the economist - ask the third-world peasant or slum dweller who NEEDS food but doesn't have the purchasing power to qualify for what the market determines to be DEMAND.

Some overproduction is a good thing, it means there is choice. If I go to buy apples, the supermarket will have stocked more apples than they will ever sell in a particular day, so I can pick the best apples. If they've only the number of apples they know they will sell that day, and not one more, then its bad apples, or no apples for me. It also means that unanticipated events can be handled. Precisely tailoring pesticide production in the USSR to the perceived need caused a harvest failure.

This implies that flexibility and overproduction cannot be factored into a market economy. Why couldn't an economic planning board say, "OK. We need 1300 bushels of whatever this year. We can produce 2000. Let's produce 1800 or so, so that we have leeway in case of unforseen factors"?

Capitalism does have a tether to actual need, it just doesn't have a pack of bureaucrats deciding what that need is (and inevitably getting it wrong, bread lines anyone?). The Market handles it through the laws of supply and demand, as well as competition.

Capitalist systems compensate for overproduction the same way they compensate for everything else. The price system.

Overproduction of a commodity will cause its price to drop. This means there is less incentive to produce it, so production of it will slow. This slowing of production means there is less of a good, causing prices to go back up. Eventually balance is restored.

The market accomplishes this by itself.

Some overproduction is a good thing, it means there is choice. If I go to buy apples, the supermarket will have stocked more apples than they will ever sell in a particular day, so I can pick the best apples. If they've only the number of apples they know they will sell that day, and not one more, then its bad apples, or no apples for me. It also means that unanticipated events can be handled. Precisely tailoring pesticide production in the USSR to the perceived need caused a harvest failure.

There is no inevitable crisis.

1) You need to keep in mind that I am not a Marxist; I am a regulated capitalist by nature. So the snarky remarks aren't really beneficial, because what I am trying to do is explain Marxist theory clearly and simply, using some of the Marxist lingo used in the Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, the German Ideology, etc.

2) You've essentially provided a non sequitur with the first part of your argument. On the one hand, you claim that capitalism has a tether to need. In the same breath, however, you claim that production is really based on the anticipated demand expected of a product. The two aren't the same thing: the anticipated demand for supernatural-themed shows on TV, for instance, to judge by the ratings this season has not been anywhere close to what the actual demand turned out to be. So there was in effect overproduction. The same thing can apply for just about any good.

Well, the next question you need to ask yourself is: how do modern capitalist engines of production deal with those mistakes and misanticipations, as it were? Well, usually, they lay off workers in order to scale back production to meet actual need. However, if you do that, you are in effect limiting the amount of capital available to the public to buy your product, because now there are people out there who don't have money or jobs who once did. So in effect, you still have a problem with overproduction, because of less total wealth among the buying public. On a micro level, this isn't so bad, because other industries will usually be expanding to take up the slack. On the macro level, however, if lots of companies do this at the same time (which most of the panics preceding up to and including the Great Depression actually did follow this model), the results are catastrophic.

As such, I'm not seeing how your reasoning about the working of the invisible hand does anything other than ultimately prove Marx' point.

3) Blaming Marxist theory for the failures of the Soviet Union is akin to blaming Jesus for the Inquisition: they have very little to do with one another aside from the fact that they used some of the same terminology and one was carried out in another's name. Simply put, the Soviet Union pre-Stalin was still trying to move out of a feudal method of production into an industrial capitalist one. Post-Stalin Soviet Union simply replaced the Czar with the Politburo as the ultimate beneficiary of the still-existing feudal method of production. In neither case do they have any more than the most cursory bearing on Marxist theory.

In true Marxism, if a person needs a shirt, he will either make his own, or go the local shirt-making soviet and ask for one. One shirt needed, one shirt produced, zero overproduction.


Will the crisis be heralded by The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse?

Unless one of said horseman is labeled "Smartass", no.


You must be joking, "class loyalty" is precisely what on the decline, with more and more workers with their own share portfolios, and investment properties. Nationalistic sentiment has always run high.

1) As I said, I was offering a descriptive statement of what Marx said, not a predictive statement of how that applies to modern American capitalism. So the fact that America might or might not adhere to Marx' prediction of historical development is not a claim against the fact that he did, in fact, say it, which is what I was trying to claim.

2) If you want to debate predictive claims, then I would point out that while it is true that more and more people own their own stock portfolio's, it is nevertheless also devastatingly true that half of stocks are still owned by only the slightest majority of the public. Secondly, most people still make their living off of wages, not stocks. So when push comes to shove, people will tend to be bound far more to the fellow workers who are suffering than the CEO of the company with whom they share a couple hundred bucks worth of stock who is making out like a bandit. Hence, class loyalty.

Same thing with nationalism: what is the whole point about globalization? It is ultimately to say that if you just trust in the invisible hand to operate without regard for such nationalistic entities as borders, trade restrictions, or national industries, then everyone will be better off. If a country can't rally around a sense of what it is we as a people do or make, where we as a people live, or what we as a people will and won't allow into our country, how in the hell do you call them a people in any but the most trivial sense of the word? Marx would argue that you in fact cannot.


Another thing, class isn't a fixed thing. People move from class to class, usually upwards.


Marx never claimed that class was a fixed thing: classes rise, mix, change, and fall in his account all the time. The nobility, for instance, is an example of a largely extant class that once upon a time carried great social, economic, and cultural significance. The peasantry is another example of a lower-rung caste that is gradually disappearing.

He would, however, take issue with the claim that people move from class to class, especially upward. He would claim that there may be quite a few cases where that was the case in past social orders: commoners often got into the nobility in the feudal era by more or less jumping out in front of a mob to take down the local tyrant, or by valorous act on the battlefield, etc. He would even say that it is perfectly likely that some proletarians in the modern era jump to the bourgeoisie. But nevertheless, the general trend is quite clear: more and more people are being stratified into two castes, and most of those are going into the proletariat.

As for myself, I don't necessarily know if Marx was correct on this point or not. I do know that right now your assessment of the economy is way too rosy: in the last five years, the number of people living in poverty in the US has jumped significantly; the number of people living without health insurance in the US has risen from forty to fifty million, and real wages have stagnated or declined significantly since their high in the late 1960's. Put together, and I have a hard time seeing how people are usually climbing upwards in social mobility. What I do see is primarily an illusion of wealth being generated in the Clinton era, partly through a vast expansion of wealth in the monied class with some trickle-down into the upper middle class, coupled by increased real living wages that were the effect of longer working hours, not increased pay. That doesn't sound like the means of a significant shift in upward mobility to me at all.

we realise the transition to communism requires a lot of economic change and, importantly, a change in people's nature - or the way people think...
There you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth. This fellow wants to change the way society thinks--to suit either his vaules or your neighbors'. It's refreshing to see a collectivist be honest enough to get right to the bottom of this moral abomination. Change us? Come on. It'd be like having ten thousand girlfriends [all of whom work for the government] instead of that hot waitress you've been ogling.

So in short, you're saying "Society should value x and y, therefore we will change them so that they do value x and y. To me, this is no different from the 'cultural imperialism' you leftists spend so much time screaming about.

There you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth. This fellow wants to change the way society thinks--to suit either his vaules or your neighbors'. It's refreshing to see a collectivist be honest enough to get right to the bottom of his moral abomination.

So in short, you're saying "Society should value x and y, therefore we will change them so that they do value x and y. To me, this is no different from the 'cultural imperialism' you leftists spend so much time screaming about.

I think you misunderstand what he means, Melkor. According to Marxist theory, Marxists aren't going to change people's minds or do any kind of imperialism at all (and as another aside, even a cursory examination of Marx' writing reveals no compunctions at all with calling Western Industrial civilization emphatically superior to the resource-deprived barbarity of everywhere else, so a true leftist isn't going to do anything but cheer for "cultural imperialism"). It's the fact that the way in which society produces and distributes goods no longer meets the vast majority of society's needs that will change people's thinking. Marxists in this case are only the ideological herald for the new order. It is the relations of production that give it its force.

I think you misunderstand what he means, Melkor. According to Marxist theory, Marxists aren't going to change people's minds or do any kind of imperialism at all (and as another aside, even a cursory examination of Marx' writing reveals no compunctions at all with calling Western Industrial civilization emphatically superior to the resource-deprived barbarity of everywhere else, so a true leftist isn't going to do anything but cheer for "cultural imperialism"). It's the fact that the way in which society produces and distributes goods no longer meets the vast majority of society's needs that will change people's thinking. Marxists in this case are only the ideological herald for the new order. It is the relations of production that give it its force.
Except that said new order was supposed to happen some time ago, and it obviously hasn't. It's already been pointed out that most of Marx's theories were fairly short-term ones, set to take place shortly after the Industrial Revolution, not a century later. Now, the only recourse remaining to instill a Communist set of values is the coercion I had alluded to previously.

I suppose this is Leonstein's cue to come in and heckle me about how the Revolution in Russia was premature, but I'll maintain that it will always be premature--for the remainder of human history. Material values have never worked like that and they never will.

Except that said new order was supposed to happen some time ago, and it obviously hasn't. It's already been pointed out that most of Marx's theories were fairly short-term ones, set to take place shortly after the Industrial Revolution, not a century later. Now, the only recourse remaining to instill a Communist set of values is the coercion I had alluded to previously.

I suppose this is Leonstein's cue to come in and heckle me about how the Revolution in Russia was premature, but I'll maintain that it will always be premature--for the remainder of human history. Material values have never worked like that and they never will.

Well, I certainly could be wrong, but I never saw any kind of timeframe argument presented by Marx when I read him. He simply said that when the proletariat was fully developed and the mode of production had become fully unsupportive of said proletariat, then a revolution would happen.

Moreover, there have also been lots of arguments, not entirely without merit I think, from Marxists who argue that a lot of the halfway measures that went up in the thirties or so around the world have actually delayed the arrival of the revolution by temporarily staunching or reversing the damage capitalism was doing to the proletariat. The welfare system, for instance, cushions the blow that unemployment does both to the proletariat and the system, Social Security cushions the blow to the financially infirm, disabled, or elderly. Medicaid papers over the lack of health care among the poor, etc. As these programs get scaled back, however, the proletariat will again begin a march to revolution.

There you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth. This fellow wants to change the way society thinks--to suit either his vaules or your neighbors'. It's refreshing to see a collectivist be honest enough to get right to the bottom of this moral abomination. Change us? Come on. It'd be like having ten thousand girlfriends [all of whom work for the government] instead of that hot waitress you've been ogling.

So in short, you're saying "Society should value x and y, therefore we will change them so that they do value x and y. To me, this is no different from the 'cultural imperialism' you leftists spend so much time screaming about.

this change in human nature - the change in the way people think as you put it - is inevitable as society changes. it is already beginning as we see a rise in those wishing to - though often unable due to the constraints of capitalism - engage in an 'altruistic lifestyle' (to neatly package it into a single term). this change will continue through society, i believe, as people realise our needs our met - and more besides - already, that having more and wanting continuously more still is not a healthy way to live, nor does it bring happiness. the tend will also importantly gather speed as education standards rise, and as the idea itself gains momentum.
political communists like myself may happily encourage this natural process without being in danger of "brainwashing" people.
for me thats one of the aims of socialism. i agree with Robert Owen (and Marx) in that people's nature, behaviour, thought patterns, or whatever you want to call it, is shaped primarily by environment - be that upbringing, your physical surroundings, or whatever; and that there is no fixed "human nature" of course. as with Owen, i think that if society removes the factors in one's environment that causes what he called simply 'antisocial' behaviour, then people and, as a sum, society will benefit. similarly improve all of society - use collective power to create great educational systems, great healthcare systems, a great place to live, greater equality, and a society in tune with environmental factors and running a sustainable economy (*cough unlike capitalism cough*), then people and society can benefit. this is (one very important part of) socialism in my eyes, and it is this which will encourage the necessary change in (current) human nature to facilitate communism. this is also why i believe socialism is definatley necessary before communism, and such a transitional time (as its time working towards a communist end-point) may well take so long; and also why a revolution is pointless.

to summarise: not "brainwashing" or 'changing people', but facilitating and encouraging a natural process


i'm a laid-back communist, me... i can wait for utopia and be satisfied that it may not happen in my lifetime. thats fine with me if we, as a species, are not ready for it yet. in the meantime (in RL of course) i may push for socialism in light of a longer-term goalset. while some communists may believe that a proletariat-lead revolution is inevitable (to get to socialism, granted, to be exact), i believe that this change in human nature is inevitable. i may do my best to encourage it just as many will do their best to discourage it;)



It's the fact that the way in which society produces and distributes goods no longer meets the vast majority of society's needs that will change people's thinking. Marxists in this case are only the ideological herald for the new order. It is the relations of production that give it its force.
indeedy :)

ever heard of technology and the post-industrial society?
All the technology in the world cannot make up for incompetent management. And in a classless society, the rule of the incompetent is an inevitability.


how about consumerism? you think the level of "wealth" created today is anywhere near realistic, needed, or - very importantly - sustainable?
I think it is still insufficient. It may APPEAR excessive to the Western eye- but if you redistribute it worldwide, it will spread very thin. The modern world is in the position of a Muslim family- the kind of family where one man works while the rest of the family- two of his own elderly parents, his four wives and their elderly parents, plus some thirty children- does virtually nothing. Even if this man earns a lot of money for one person, he will still be poor if he is obliged to feed the family.

Leonstein, you're really starting to fall apart here. Of particular disgust to me is your constant contempt for the application of morals, making it a point to put the word in quotes and placing it in an obviously trivial context.

Philosophy is not a bauble of the intellect, it is a force from which no man can escape. Every social or political decision has moral connotations that need to be weighed rationally before one can no for sure whether they should actually carry them out. Your contempt for morals says much more about your ethics than your counterarguments ever will.
Well, I got frustrated. You argue that "Selfishness" is a moral virtue (and to my knowledge Ayn Rand actually condemns Altruism) - I don't.
I've argued my personal ethics time and time again, and understandably, I remained the only person who believed in them.
In the end, I believe if Marx ever said anything correct, it was his materialism. There are no universal morals, the lot of us can't agree on the tiniest thing (income taxes?).
In Feudal times, I, you, every last one of us would have staunchly adhered to feudal morality - christianity, loyalty to the prince etc. There were no "my property is an extension of myself" then, hell, you didn't even own your own body.
And in a thousand years, we'll have another completely different society, with completely different ethics and morals.

It might sound harsh to simply dismiss a thousand or so years of great thinkers - but in reality they are only instruments of their time, justifications for what our situation dictates us.
And in today's society, the majority of people accept that income taxes aren't immoral, that there is some justification for paying them. Unless you somehow reengineer everyone to comply with what you, or Ayn Rand, or John Locke or whoever think is universally "right", their relevance to our life is depressingly small.

===============================================

I decided though to step back from this discussion. For ease of passage, I'll simply concede that everything Holy Womble and Disraeliland is 100% correct, that they are indeed the only infallible interpretors of Communist Theory.

===============================================

Didn't you say that "socialism - the dictatorship of the "proles"." starts because which would mean that the "proles" revolt because they don't feel like they get what they deserve.
I guess you would say that the definition of whatever constitutes property varies a bit.
Anyways, the issue central to this is only that Marx didn't think the burgeoisie was actually contributing anything (maybe some of them really weren't in his time?), and thus that they didn't "deserve" (there's that word again) the profit they were making.
Or perhaps, a better way to say it would just be that the workers wouldn't lie down and take it for all eternity, no matter who actually deserves it.

Interesting though is the underlying idea that shines through from Holy Womble's posts: That workers are incompetent and stupid, and without a rich person to guide them (whether rich already or getting rich for his competence), they'd fail. In other words: Rich = Competent, Poor = Incompetent.
Does that imply that Paris Hilton is smarter and more competent than you?

And @ Nikitas:
Thanks for the support, but I think Melkor is probably right. I shouldn't have expected to post this without getting yelled at. ;)

this change in human nature - the change in the way people think as you put it - is inevitable as society changes. it is already beginning as we see a rise in those wishing to - though often unable due to the constraints of capitalism - engage in an 'altruistic lifestyle' (to neatly package it into a single term).
Nonsense. Being nice to people is hardly a new phenomenon. Neither is taking my money for the purpose of being nice to other people. If you're referring to the decidedly liberal bent present in our generation, I'll give you that. But you should also probably realize that today's neoconservatives were leftists when they were kids too. Many were the children of immigrants who read up on Socialism and Marxism every bit as much as you have by the time they were our age. Unfortunately, some of Trotsky's ideas stuck and now they're actually trying to carry them out.

this change will continue through society, i believe, as people realise our needs our met - and more besides - already, that having more and wanting continuously more still is not a healthy way to live, nor does it bring happiness.
Come now, you can't possibly be insinuating that you know what brings people happiness. Even I don't pretend to know that much; since the presnce of happiness and the reasons for it vary from person to person. [i]Having and wanting more in and of itself isn't 'where it's at' anyway, so to speak. Getting these things is; provided it's done via a process of productive, goal-oriented action.

the tend will also importantly gather speed as education standards rise, and as the idea itself gains momentum.
Wait, what? You think everyone will magically turn into a Communist when given a better education? Funny, I'd have thought it would be the other way around. Typically, the well-read people I run into happen to think Marx was full of shit; and a great many of them aren't as ignorant about the ideology as you'd probably like to think. Observe, in this very thread, we have an ardent anti-Communist who has actually been arsed to read Das Kapital. Have you?

political communists like myself may happily encourage this natural process without being in danger of "brainwashing" people.
Except that you already admitted it would be necessary, only under the guise of "increased education[al] standards." Methinks that's code for 'spreading Communist ideas,' the opposite of which would be what really happens under an improved education system.

for me thats one of the aims of socialism. i agree with Robert Owen (and Marx) in that people's nature, behaviour, thought patterns, or whatever you want to call it, is shaped primarily by environment - be that upbringing, your physical surroundings, or whatever; and that there is no fixed "human nature" of course.
Tripe. Humans are similar in many undeniable ways, regardless of their upbringing. We all have the same basic concerns, motivations, and perogatives. We want to eat, we want to breathe, and we want to survive among other things. Environment does play an important role in all of this, but it is hardly the be-all and end-all of human nature. If Environment were the key deciding factor, every pair of siblings would be much more alike than they already are. I'm sure I could dig up a pair of twins somewhere that happened to have, among other things, an identical upbringing and completely different ideas about how the world works.

The keys to our mind lie not within the minds of others, nor within external reality itself; they're for us to find and use.

as with Owen, i think that if society removes the factors in one's environment that causes what he called simply 'antisocial' behaviour, then people and, as a sum, society will benefit.
This sounds like something I'd expect to hear from a fascist. For the love of Christ, listen to yourself; you want society to completely rehash its values because you don't agree with them; certain tendancies are 'antisocial' and need to be done away with.

I'm really going to be afraid of what happens to people like you when you turn Conservative in five or ten years. Conservatism + 'CLEANSE THE ANTISOCIAL' = bad.

similarly improve all of society - use collective power to create great educational systems, great healthcare systems, a great place to live, greater equality, and a society in tune with environmental factors and running a sustainable economy (*cough unlike capitalism cough*), then people and society can benefit.
Right. Unsustainable economy. You keep thinking that, meanwhile China, India and the US will be laughing all the way to the bank. 100 years ago, Marxists were saying the same thing; Capitalism was unsustainable and that it would fail before the century was out. Surprising to see this argument crop up again after years of absence; just when I thought you guys had actually learned something.

All of that aside, I'm still unimpressed, as I'm sure you gathered. You talk about people 'benefitting,' but really the only people who would be better off under Communism than Capitalism are the small minority of functionally incompetent people who couldn't get a job if they wanted one. Everyone else, meawhile, is laboring for the benefit of others. Back when plantation owners did this, it was called "slavery."

Also, 'collective power' doesn't have a very good track record. History is filled with examples.

this is (one very important part of) socialism in my eyes, and it is this which will encourage the necessary change in (current) human nature to facilitate communism.
I'm sorry, but "current" human nature isn't going to change. Most of the urges Communism would have us do away with are biological in nature. I've heard lots of stories about men going to great lengths to get food for himself; but relatively fewer about people bending over backwards to feed their neighbor. It happens, but not a lot [which is why it's usually a news story when someone makes an unusually remarkable effort. Nothing would be said about it if he were acting in his own interests because that is the normal state of things].

this is also why i believe socialism is definatley necessary before communism, and such a transitional time (as its time working towards a communist end-point) may well take so long; and also why a revolution is pointless.

to summarise: not "brainwashing" or 'changing people', but facilitating and encouraging a natural process

Natural process my ass. If it were a 'natural process' I wouldn't imagine Communism would have had such a hard time getting off the ground. It might have still failed anyway, but a 'natural process' is generally pretty hard to fuck up. When was the last time you heard about a team of scientists who, try as they might, couldn't grow penicillin on 6 week old bread?

If these wierd ideas you have about morality are, in fact scientific in nature [as many Marxists claim] there would be no issue with the functionality of these ideas. I think history has shown us that there is quite an issue.

A complete overhaul of morality and values is not a 'natural' process, because it would require a change in the fundamental nature and purpose of our thinking. Such a change can only be brought about by force, as Communist leaders around the world quickly realized after establishing their twisted regimes.

Well, I got frustrated. You argue that "Selfishness" is a moral virtue (and to my knowledge Ayn Rand actually condemns Altruism) - I don't.
I've argued my personal ethics time and time again, and understandably, I remained the only person who believed in them.
In the end, I believe if Marx ever said anything correct, it was his materialism. There are no universal morals, the lot of us can't agree on the tiniest thing (income taxes?).
People are just as cabable of disagreeing over fact as they are capbable of disagreeing over trivial nothings. The fact that we can't agree doesn't do anything to discredit the idea that values are formed under the guidance of objective criteria--most notably the valuer's life itself.

That said, Marx's metaphysics are pretty much spot-on.

In Feudal times, I, you, every last one of us would have staunchly adhered to feudal morality - christianity, loyalty to the prince etc. There were no "my property is an extension of myself" then, hell, you didn't even own your own body.
This is a ridiculous appeal. You can't honestly pretend to know what I or anyone else would think about the world if we happened to live, say, 1500 years ago. Provided I'm the same person with the same mind, I'll hate that system with every cell of my being; and I'll either make noises about it until they kill me or it actually gets somewhere.

Also, just because no one had conceived the notion of property rights yet doesn't mean they didn't exist--they were just being horribly infringed upon. We hadn't discovered, say, Europa before 1100, that doesn't mean it wasn't there. Same deal.

That said, Anachro-Communism is Feudalism if you think about it. Only instead of twenty warring city-states, you have 198 some odd equally grumpy nations. Instead of one Lord, you have hundreds.

And in a thousand years, we'll have another completely different society, with completely different ethics and morals.
Possibly. Still doesn't mean right and wrong have really changed, it just means the prevailing opinions about it are a bit different. I'm sorry, but subsidizing my labor was precisely as wrong five hundred years ago as it is today, and it always will be.

It might sound harsh to simply dismiss a thousand or so years of great thinkers - but in reality they are only instruments of their time, justifications for what our situation dictates us.
Funny to hear you refer to them as "thinkers" and then insinuate that they did precisely no thinking in the same sentence. If the 'situation' 'dictates' to us various moral axioms, then these people weren't really thinking, now were they?

And in today's society, the majority of people accept that income taxes aren't immoral, that there is some justification for paying them. Unless you somehow reengineer everyone to comply with what you, or Ayn Rand, or John Locke or whoever think is universally "right", their relevance to our life is depressingly small.
Except that the ideas they went on and on about were central moral tenets adhered to by the people who first formed and solidified this nation's legal processes. "Depressingly small." Pfffffffft.

Interesting though is the underlying idea that shines through from Holy Womble's posts: That workers are incompetent and stupid, and without a rich person to guide them (whether rich already or getting rich for his competence), they'd fail. In other words: Rich = Competent, Poor = Incompetent.
Are you refusing to understand this on purpose? His point is that the working man ceases to be the working man once he studies up on how to manage and maintain the enterprise he's working for. Your little equation is enough to make me want to crush innocent wittle kittens with my bare hands.

This is a ridiculous appeal. You can't honestly pretend to know what I or anyone else would think about the world if we happened to live, say, 1500 years ago. Provided I'm the same person with the same mind, I'll hate that system with every cell of my being; and I'll either make noises about it until they kill me or it actually gets somewhere.
I disagree. You wouldn't know any different, no thinker (:p) would have given you the theoretical foundations, in short: You wouldn't have been against the system anymore than you would have assumed America to exist.

Also, just because no one had conceived the notion of property rights yet doesn't mean they didn't exist--they were just being horribly infringed upon. We hadn't discovered, say, Europa before 1100, that doesn't mean it wasn't there. Same deal.
But Europa is a physical thing. We can go to Europa and land on it.
A "Right" is an abstract construct, it only exists as far as it can be enforced. That doesn't necessarily say that there is no such thing as a "right", but merely that it is of no relevance unless someone can actually give it some real substance, like a punishment if you violate it.

That said, Anachro-Communism is Feudalism if you think about it. Only instead of twenty warring city-states, you have 198 some odd equally grumpy nations. Instead of one Lord, you have hundreds.
Yeah, I argued a similar point with BAAWA, but he merely accused me of lying until I got sick of it.

Possibly. Still doesn't mean right and wrong have really changed, it just means the prevailing opinions about it are a bit different. I'm sorry, but subsidizing my labor was precisely as wrong five hundred years ago as it is today, and it always will be.
What if humanity has disappeared?
Does a falling tree make a sound if no one's there to hear it? ;)

Funny to hear you refer to them as "thinkers" and then insinuate that they did precisely no thinking in the same sentence. If the 'situation' 'dictates' to us various moral axioms, then these people weren't really thinking, now were they?
Maybe that should go into the paradox-thread!

Except that the ideas they went on and on about were central moral tenets adhered to by the people who first formed and solidified this nation's legal processes. "Depressingly small." Pfffffffft.
But again, their relevance is defined by the people who enforce them. Hadn't they formed the nation on those morals, they wouldn't affect your life nearly as strongly, and if they do then only because of your personal choice.

Are you refusing to understand this on purpose? His point is that the working man ceases to be the working man once he studies up on how to manage and maintain the enterprise he's working for.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=4930

I disagree. You wouldn't know any different, no thinker (:p) would have given you the theoretical foundations, in short: You wouldn't have been against the system anymore than you would have assumed America to exist.
Again, you're making some rather irritating assumptions as to your foreknowledge of the contents of my mind. Rand did not tell me how to think, she told me what I already knew. I read Rand, and I jump out of my seat, pointing to a phrase and shouting "Exactly!" excitedly. I don't sit there and think "wow, I'd never though of that before."

But Europa is a physical thing. We can go to Europa and land on it.
A "Right" is an abstract construct, it only exists as far as it can be enforced. That doesn't necessarily say that there is no such thing as a "right", but merely that it is of no relevance unless someone can actually give it some real substance, like a punishment if you violate it.
There's some truth to this, but it still doesn't negate the presence of an objectively-derived value hierarchy. Rights exist regardless of what the government has to say about them, and this has in fact been the underlying cause for every major political failure in human history, Communism included. This is the reason why ambassador DeSadesky was lamenting about people wanting "washing machines and nylons" in [one of] the War Room Scene[s] in Doctor Strangelove.

Yeah, I argued a similar point with BAAWA, but he merely accused me of lying until I got sick of it.
While I agree with BAAWA on many points, I've never been particularly impressed with his debating technique.

What if humanity has disappeared?
Does a falling tree make a sound if no one's there to hear it? ;)
I'm having trouble understanding what purpose this statement serves within the context of our present discussion. Are you asking me if human rights can exist without humanity? The question alone should answer that.

But again, their relevance is defined by the people who enforce them. Hadn't they formed the nation on those morals, they wouldn't affect your life nearly as strongly, and if they do then only because of your personal choice.
Again, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Yes, armed mobs can and regularly do ignore human rights and enforce only those which they choose to recognize. Rights can be taken away, but the real question is whether or not it's actually right to do this.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=4930
And....?

The workers obviously already know how to run the machines; it's sort of their job. The point the Holy Womble is trying to make is that extensive managerial knowledge and its economic implications are the among the defining traits of the 'ruling class' that Communism professes to 'wipe out.' Collective thought is not possible; humans don't have a hive mind. It's impossible for me to make decisions for another man, and it is similarly impossible for the entire workforce to control the company. In reality, a few people are dealing with the administrative aspects of the business, and the others are doing the labor. Just because different people are in charge of the plant doesn't mean tha the nature of administrative responsibilities has actually changed. You can't run a business if all 500 of your employees are in the boardroom at all times. For the love of God, you'd figure this would be some fairly rudimentary logic. No real change has taken place here; there's just a new class of administrators.

Again, you're making some rather irritating assumptions as to your foreknowledge of the contents of my mind. Rand did not tell me how to think, she told me what I already knew. I read Rand, and I jump out of my seat, pointing to a phrase and shouting "Exactly!" excitedly. I don't sit there and think "wow, I'd never though of that before."
But do you think you're that creative? That you could actually drop all your previous experiences, everything that you have been tought about the world, and start from a clean sheet?
Because that's what you would have to do to suddenly question Feudalism while living under it.
Today you can try and illustrate some sort of completely different society, and people are incapable of imagining it. Had you told people in 1300 that not the prince would be the ruler, but elected peasant leaders, they'd probably have told you that they wouldn't have the skills to do it.

There's some truth to this, but it still doesn't negate the presence of an objectively-derived value hierarchy. Rights exist regardless of what the government has to say about them, and this has in fact been the underlying cause for every major political failure in human history, Communism included.
Maybe there is some sort of ultimately always correct set of rights. But if there is, then we're unlikely to ever find it (this again assumes that they are like little bubbles floating in hyperspace which we can somehow "discover"), because then we'd all agree on them.
At any rate, every political system eventually fails of the leadership's values don't correspond to the majority's. Even more of a reason to in the long term say that the Government's laws and regulations are an accurate representation of society's agreed upon moral rules and guidelines.
Perhaps a minority is being "oppressed", anti-income-taxites aling with thieves and rapists, those that don't agree are in trouble. But I don't see a workable system where this would not be the case.

This is the reason why ambassador DeSadesky was lamenting about people wanting "washing machines and nylons" in [one of] the War Room Scene[s] in Doctor Strangelove.
Never watched it...:eek: :eek: :eek:

Are you asking me if human rights can exist without humanity? The question alone should answer that.
That was it.
If there is some set of ultimately correct morals, then they'd be eternal and unchangable - we'd simply not have discovered them yet.
But wouldn't that also mean that morality (and the rights that derive from them) existed before and will exist after Man ever thought a conscious thought.

Yes, armed mobs can and regularly do ignore human rights and enforce only those which they choose to recognize. Rights can be taken away, but the real question is whether or not it's actually right to do this.
But does that ultimately matter?

...No real change has taken place here; there's just a new class of administrators.
You're probably right, but I nonetheless believe that there are people who never had a chance to become rich. Particularly in the third world, where there are no "socialist" opportunities for kids to get higher education, Capitalism does not provide these people with the equality (of opportunity or of outcome) that we agree upon to be a good idea.
And in the Western world, you see the same thing. Many of the people of the "lower classes" didn't make a wrong choice, or didn't work hard enough - they never really got the chance to make a choice.
What about those people who have to go back to New Orleans now. Most couldn't make ends meet as it is - of course they didn't have insurance. Neither those people nor their kids have actually done anything to "deserve" their fate.

Social Mobility is greater than it was a hundred years ago, I don't dispute that.
But to say that it is satisfactory, or that taking away support for these people would actually result in more social mobility is wrong, unless you really do assume that every poor person deserves to be poor, vice versa re rich people.

No pack of bureaucrats, eh? On the contrary, capitalism has them in spades. How do you think production decisions are made? The machines or whatever means of production you're dealing with don't just figure out how much to produce themselves; somebody, somewhere, is making some kind of production decision based on certain factors.

You know exactly what I meant be "packs of bureaucrats". Nitpicks aren't real points.

The point is, for those of you in the cheap seats, is that capitalist economies aren't centrally planned, but production decisions are still related to needs.

The difference between capitalism and socialism isn't that the former is natural and organic and the other is command, it's that they're "commanded" based on different factors. Production in a market economy is based on demand. What sells. What people are capable of buying. Production in a socialist economy is based (primarily) on human need. As any half-rate economist could tell you, demand and need are far from the same thing.

More nit-picking. Anyone who passed 4th grade can see than my use of them was interchangable.

This implies that flexibility and overproduction cannot be factored into a market economy. Why couldn't an economic planning board say, "OK. We need 1300 bushels of whatever this year. We can produce 2000. Let's produce 1800 or so, so that we have leeway in case of unforseen factors"?

I think you meant a socialist economy.

No socialist economy has ever managed overproduction because the socialist economy removes the economic incentive for people to work and produce. They always fall short. The other problem is that the planning boards don't really know what the problems of production are, they are civil servants who can answer theoretical questions with theoretical answers, but they are neither trained and experienced workers nor are they trained and expreienced managers.

2) You've essentially provided a non sequitur with the first part of your argument. On the one hand, you claim that capitalism has a tether to need. In the same breath, however, you claim that production is really based on the anticipated demand expected of a product. The two aren't the same thing: the anticipated demand for supernatural-themed shows on TV, for instance, to judge by the ratings this season has not been anywhere close to what the actual demand turned out to be. So there was in effect overproduction. The same thing can apply for just about any good.

Some capitalist firms get their own planning wrong. Socialist economies frequently get their central planning wrong. The difference is that where one firm gets it wrong, its competitors may get it right. The market can deal with firms making mistakes. In a socialist state, there is of course only one government, and if they get the planning wrong (as they usually do), there are no competitors in the place to make up for it. Being a total economic monopoly, the socialist society has no need to try to be efficient in filling people's wants and needs.

In the real world, what I said, namely that capitalism is tethered to need, and that it is tethered to perceived needs, are both true. The market knows that people need bread, and they might think people need supernatural shows.

Well, the next question you need to ask yourself is: how do modern capitalist engines of production deal with those mistakes and misanticipations, as it were? Well, usually, they lay off workers in order to scale back production to meet actual need. However, if you do that, you are in effect limiting the amount of capital available to the public to buy your product, because now there are people out there who don't have money or jobs who once did.

Firstly, it depends on the industry. If Boeing lay off workers, they aren't concerned that their tea ladies will be able to buy fewer 747's and Longbow Apaches.

The notion that you need your workers to buy your products is a fallacy, and I can't imagine how people got it into their heads. If Rolls Royce lay off workers, that act alone won't affect their sales, unless they are only laying off board members.

Secondly: You neglect pricing. The price of the product has already dropped due to over production, less capital won't have very much effect because less is required to obtain the item.

3) Blaming Marxist theory for the failures of the Soviet Union is akin to blaming Jesus for the Inquisition: they have very little to do with one another aside from the fact that they used some of the same terminology and one was carried out in another's name. Simply put, the Soviet Union pre-Stalin was still trying to move out of a feudal method of production into an industrial capitalist one. Post-Stalin Soviet Union simply replaced the Czar with the Politburo as the ultimate beneficiary of the still-existing feudal method of production. In neither case do they have any more than the most cursory bearing on Marxist theory.

Nothing in Christianity made the crimes of the inquisition necessary. I have shown elsewhere that the crimes committed by communists, and their failures are integral to Marx's writing.

In true Marxism, if a person needs a shirt, he will either make his own, or go the local shirt-making soviet and ask for one. One shirt needed, one shirt produced, zero overproduction.

On planet Earth, the shirt-making soviet will have been told that more workers on the fields are needed, or more soldiers, so their workers are to report to the ag-soviet, or the army barracks. In reality, no one will have anticipated the need for a shirt, so resources will be moved away from shirts to other things.

2) If you want to debate predictive claims, then I would point out that while it is true that more and more people own their own stock portfolio's, it is nevertheless also devastatingly true that half of stocks are still owned by only the slightest majority of the public.

Why is that devastatingly true?

Same thing with nationalism: what is the whole point about globalization?

Each nation gets involved not because they have some vision of some globalised world, but to get as rich as possible. A nationalist motive.

He would, however, take issue with the claim that people move from class to class, especially upward.

Either he didn't say class was fixed, or he said people don't move from class to class.

He would even say that it is perfectly likely that some proletarians in the modern era jump to the bourgeoisie. But nevertheless, the general trend is quite clear: more and more people are being stratified into two castes, and most of those are going into the proletariat.

He was wrong.

the number of people living in poverty in the US has jumped significantly

What constitutes "poverty" is constantly revised upwards. Today in the US, "poverty" includes air-conditioning.

the number of people living without health insurance in the US has risen from forty to fifty million, and real wages have stagnated or declined significantly since their high in the late 1960's. Put together, and I have a hard time seeing how people are usually climbing upwards in social mobility

Whilst in Australia, real wages have climbed 14% over the last 10 years, and working class people do have stock portfolios, and inventment properties.

Whilst in Australia, real wages have climbed 14% over the last 10 years, and working class people do have stock portfolios, and inventment properties.
Is that because the US is so much more socialist then Oz?

I reckon the collapse of the dot.com bubble did more damage to the US than people generally acknowledge.
There were many many people who put their lifesavings into the stock market, and they got evaporated. There would have been a lot of confidence gone down the drain.

Is that because the US is so much more socialist then Oz?

The US Government is more interventionist than Australia's, and it was removing previous socialist policies that has powered the boom Australia has had.

There is a perception that Bush is right-wing, but that does not correspond with reality, his expansions of the Federal Government (not just in the national security areas for the War on Terror), deficit spending, prescription drugs scheme. The only right-wing things he's done are cutting taxes, and the FDMA.

I reckon the collapse of the dot.com bubble did more damage to the US than people generally acknowledge.
There were many many people who put their lifesavings into the stock market, and they got evaporated. There would have been a lot of confidence gone down the drain.

You're probably right.