Who thinks Karl Marx was right?

[leftofthedial]

Or mostly right?

[sasquatch]

1. I think he got it right on organized religion

Especially with the old confederate states in this country.

[leftofthedial]

6. I think he was pretty much right on that one

for all of western "civilization."

opiate of the masses

they become as delusional as any addict

wrap any kind of crap and nonsense in a deity wrapper and a bunch of fools will eat it like a burrito

[gmoney]

50. Mmmm.... diety burrito... (n/t)

[AndyTiedye]

17. Except This Relgion Isn't The Opiate of the People -- It's More Like Crack

Makes them mean and violent.

[leftofthedial]

18. crystal meth of the masses

half the time, it blows up before they're done cooking it

LOL

[non sociopath skin]

2. In the diagnosis ...

... but not the cure.

The Skin

[leftofthedial]

7. can you elaborate?

what would be a workable "cure"?

[non sociopath skin]

24. How many days do I have?

The Skin

[leftofthedial]

32. is capitalism the best we can do?

Or might some flavor of collectivism work?

or what?

[non sociopath skin]

38. I think a mixed economy is about the most workable we've come up ...

.. so far.

The Skin

[leftofthedial]

51. American restrained capitalism--a la the 90's?

european democratic socialism?

Some combination of heavily regulated capitalism, with socialized public programs?

[Lucky Luciano]

3. I think he is wrong...

His utopia will never be realized by any kind of revolution.

It is feasible for it to develop over the long haul in much the same way that the British Parliamentrary system developed.

By making a series of small baby steps, it does not shock the system.
People are too unprepared for a massive change like that...unless it is gradual....a little healthcare reform here....a little subsidy for poor people over there....etc

It has to be global or it will fail...that is another thing...and part of the reason that it requires an evolutionary way of forming.

[leftofthedial]

8. wasn't Lenin the one who pushed revolution?

I don't see the capitalist (owners) evolving at all. rather, I see them well able to quash any movement (like 20th century America) that elevates the worker. I think it takes events like the American and French revolutions (and the Russian, until it was taken over by the state capitalists) and radical labor movements to move the system in the right direction.

[patcox2]

44. He did not prescribe revolution, he was simply describing a process.

That he believed would happen "organically." Lennin added the idea that the revolution could be hastened by a small group of intellectuals leading the proletariat.

He may only have been wrong in failing to see that some democratic governments would be succesful enough in keeping power in the hands of the people that non-violent, gradual change would be possible.

Its debatable, though, whether this is really just the capitalists purposeful use of their power to ameliorate the effects of capitalism just enough to prevent the revolution, or whether its true power being weilded by the proletariat in order to check the excesses of capitalism. In other words, do they let us think we are free, so we won't revolt, or are we really free.

We were much closer to revolution during the great depression than people realize. There were many violent incidents. The new deal didn't happen randomly, it was the result of the forces Marx described, just not the same mechanisms.

[leftofthedial]

74. once in power, he used the rhetoric of "revolution" ruthlessly

to consolidate and ensure his personal control

[billyskank]

4. I think he was wrong about

the workers coming to global revolutionary consciousness, and forming transnational solidarity. It seems the petty concerns of nationalism are stronger than he thought for the proletariat.

I think he was right about most everything else. Especially the source of profit being the surplus value extracted from the working class ("wealth creation," indeed!) and that the tendency of the profit margin to erode over time.

[leftofthedial]

9. to what extent is "nationalism" (jingoism)

a result of state propaganda (which is controlled by the owners)?

and to what extent is it a post-modern expression of tribalism?

and don't you see "nationalism" being usurped (as I believe it is being usurped today right here in Murka) by growing tribalism and superstitious fundamentalism?

[billyskank]

42. I think it is to a very great extent a result of state propaganda

which is, as you say, controlled by the owners. And I agree that it is a modern expression of tribalism. People naturally identify with a group, and that tendency is channeled under the guidance of our elite into allegiance to a nation, a flag.

As for nationalism being usurped by tribalism, I think they are one and the same. I see nationalism as a single manifestation of tribalism. One's nation is one's tribe, writ large.

As for nationalism being usurped by religious fundamentalism, yes, I agree that here a great force is being unleashed. Certainly there are many true believers in the ruling elite, but there are also a number of others who believe only in power, and are using the fundamentalist community for their own ends. I think that these have no idea what they are setting in motion, and will come to rue it.

[leftofthedial]

49. I see American nationalism being replaced by a baser form of tribalism

that runs along regional, ethnic and religious lines.

true, one tribe is wrappig itself in a kind of hyper-jingoism, but that is false nationalism.

very similar dynamic, but nationalism, at least in America, used to include a compnent of egalitarianism athat is absent in today's jingoistic us-versus-them rationalizations for non-nationalist hatreds.

this is all fanned by propagandists and exploited by fascist "leaders" and criminals

[leftofthedial]

19. well, the owners are never gonna do anything but screw the workers

so, are we screwed as a species?

I don't think democracy can survive capitalism.

[AndyTiedye]

22. It's not capitalism anymore when the cartel buys the government.

well, the owners are never gonna do anything but screw the workers

I wouldn't say "never". There are some decent employers out there.

I don't think democracy can survive capitalism.

Democracy and capitalism can get along just fine.
What we have now is neither.

It's not capitalism anymore when the cartel buys the government.
It's not democracy either.
There is another word for it. It starts with an "F".

[billyskank]

41. Let's not shy away from terms

Communism is to socialism what fascism is to capitalism. So fascism is nothing more than unmitigated capitalism. The common thread between both communism and fascism is that in both the importance of the individual has shrunk to zero; they have merely approached the same destination from opposite directions.

[leftofthedial]

52. to me, fascism is just extreme capitalism

I disagree that capitalisma nd democracy can long coexist. It's a perpetual struggle and the capitalists eventually win as long as they are allowed to exist.

but I agree we have now crossed that line where the cartel IS the government.

[AndyTiedye]

72. Democracy and Capitalism Coexist Just Fine in Other Countries

I disagree that capitalisma nd democracy can long coexist.

They are coexisting quite well in other countries. But those are mixed
economies, you say. Of course. That is what works. There are some
markets that the capitalists will never serve adequately -- health care
for the working class and public transportation come to mind. The
government has to step in there. That is how capitalism and democracy
coexist.

It's a perpetual struggle and the capitalists eventually win as long as they are allowed to exist.

It can't be much of a perpetual struggle if one side eventually wins ;-)

Anyway, you can't stamp it out. It just goes underground. That's
how the old Soviet Union turned into a kleptocracy. Our own country
has as well, but we did it the American way, by way of an unfriendly
corporate takeover disguised as an election.

but I agree we have now crossed that line where the cartel IS the government.

That is why it is no longer capitalism. Consider how contracts are
awarded now. No-bid contracts to cronies, with Cheney's old company,
Halliburton, at the front of the line, getting billions of government
money with no accountability whatsoever.

What chance did any of Halliburton's competitors have?

I don't really have a problem with capitalism. It does some things
very well. Other things it needs the government's foot in it's back
to do. Still others it is not capable of doing at all. I am not a
purist on this. Mixed economies work. Nothing else has been
demonstrated to do so.

I respect a good honest businessman who gives good value to his
customers and treats his employees well. I think we all do.

The people who have stolen our country are something else.
They are robber barons.

[vogonjiltz]

75. Communism is state capitalism

ie, one big monopoly.

[AndyTiedye]

21. Labor Is Not The Only Thing That Has Value

I think he was right about most everything else. Especially the source of profit being the surplus value extracted from the working class

How does that apply to a commodity like oil? The "surplus value"
is being extracted from the Earth itself. The cost of oil has
almost nothing to do with the labor costs of extracting it. Not
much labor is required, and most of that is highly-skilled, and
economically a good bit beyond what you would call "working class".

Marx regards labor as the only source of value. In these days
of endangered and shrinking natural resources, that position is
indefensable. The value of natural resources is often far more than
just the labor cost of extracting them.

[leftofthedial]

23. today, oil is, in effect, capital

as Marx understood it.

The economic consequences of oil must include the automobile industry, the highway construction industry, the plastics industry, the transportation and utility industries, etc.

But you're right. We (as a species) have nearly extinguished all the "free" resources, which have been part of the mix that has fueled capitalism.

[patcox2]

57. The value of oil is indeed directly related to extraction cost.

Come on, if you could get it at 1,000 feet in Oklahoma with nothing but a pipe for extraction technology, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper.

[AndyTiedye]

70. My Point Being That Most of That Cost Is Not Labor

Some of the oil extracted gets burned to run the pumps.
They often have to pump water in to get oil out.
They need, as you say, at least a pipe.

Beyond that, there is the value that oil is acquiring due to its
increasing scarcity.

[Vladimir]

80. You have to consider the whole cycle

Oil has no value until it is extracted and refined - for example, an oil-rich country which never extracts a single barell out of the ground might as well not be oil-rich. And if this country is invaded for their oil, the invaders must also extract the oil for their invasion to be of any use. It is only at the point when the oil is extracted that it acquires value, because it is only then that it becomes a commodity to be used or traded. And then you need to consider the whole cycle: the cost of finding the oil, building the extraction equipment, maintaining it, building the refineries, maintaining them, etc. The labour cost of extracting natural resources encompasses all of these, although of course a lot of the equipment will be traded as commodities and there will be surplus values associated with each of them also. But without this labour cost, without the means to extract oil, the oil is worth precisely nothing.

[GirlinContempt]

5. Me.

And I think it's starting to show.

[leftofthedial]

10. we have been in a class war for three generations now

and we didn't even know it.

Now we are getting our asses kicked.

[GirlinContempt]

28. If by 'we'

you mean US Americans, I'm not a US American. And if you look outside the borders, people are winning.

[leftofthedial]

35. I think the same oligarchy pretty much runs western society

and has enslaved the third world via the IMF and other institutions.

The US, Canada, and European democracies are each on a different timetable, but the corporations, not the people, are winning I fear.

[MissHoneychurch]

11. I lived in a State where his ideas were tried to get working

and I know it ain't working. People are too greedy (the politicians and people with power) and if something belongs to the community nobody takes care of it. People tend to only take care of their own property. So no, I don't think he was right. It might work in theory but not in the praxis.

[leftofthedial]

12. capitalism appeals primarily to greed

greed is a natural and unavoidable condition of humans

therefore, capitalism wins?

maybe organizing the state is not where to start. Perhaps we should start with the community. But then someone will chime in about all the failed communes from the 60's.

Surely, we do not have to organize ourselves around the basest instincts of the worst of us.

:shrug:

[MissHoneychurch]

16. there will always be people who want more power or more ...

you can't change the way people are. I would say the idea itself by Marx is not the worst it just isn't working.

[leftofthedial]

20. I don't believe it has ever really been tried

I think the watered-down "socialism" that has been tried in European countries has always taken care to include the needs of capitalists in its structure. Minimum wages (or welfare) have been implemented, but no caps have been implemented on the top end.

The USSR was obviously not Marxist. It just centralized and concentrated wealth in the hands of a few, while nominally ceding "ownership" to the state. State capitalism.

[billbuckhead]

26. State capitalism----sounds vaguely familiar like cost plus Halliburton?

[The Magistrate]

27. Not Quite, Sir

Where the state is the sole owner of property, and the economic system remains otherwise unchanged, the condition is properly refered to as "state capitalism" and can also, in my view, be properly refered to as the ultimate development of monopoly capitalism. A great many of the deficiencies of the Soviet economy are exactly the deficiencies in operation that are observed on smaller scale where a monopoly dominates a market without the least fear of challenge: tremendous inefficiency, and what can be mildly described as disregard for customer satisfaction, chief among them. The idea at the root of early Bolshevism, that state ownership equates to people's ownership, seems to be a blind alley, at least in instances where there are no real democratic institutions ensuring the government responds to the people's will. It certainly cannot be called Socialism in any meaningful sense, though it might lay claim to the title in a society where such democratic influences actually obtained.

[leftofthedial]

59. well put

[Robeson]

13. I think his analysis of capitalism is very accurate.....

...if it wasn't, the capitalist nations wouldn't have had an all-out war on Marxism ever since. So in essence, Marxist Historical Analysis is very accurate.

[leftofthedial]

14. I couldn't agree more

it scares the crap out of the owners (capitalists)

they wage reflexive, irrational, total war on it.

[The Magistrate]

15. A Good Historian, Sir, And A Poor Prophet

[non sociopath skin]

25. Amen to that, Sir.

The Skin

[LostInAnomie]

29. If social reform hadn't been made...

... I think it would have been VERY possible. Without innovations such as the minimum wage, workers rights, anti-trust legislation, etc. to slow down the bourgeois hordes, a communist revolution may have been possible.

The social reforms made by people like the man in my avatar prevented the owners from extracting the maximum amount of labor from the proletariat and turning them essentially into commodities. Without these reforms the capitalists would have kept pushing for ever increased expansion and efficiency, forcing longer hours for lower wages, and more and more people out of work. Social reforms allowed the workers to maintain some dignity, and this prevented them from forming the class consciousness necessary for a true Marxist revolution.

I think that right now the dominoes are being placed in a row. Corporations are no longer just national, they are global. Minimum wage laws are being undermined by outsourcing (and our own govt.). Organized labor hasn't been in such a weak position since the Gilded Age. If the trend continues and wealth keeps being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands I could see it.

*on edit - I think he was correct about the nature of historical materialism also.

[leftofthedial]

34. some view the minimum wage and other reforms

AS a communist revolution

the social reforms you mention in your second paragraph are being undone by the minute as we write this. Does this make a "worker's" or proletariat revolution inevitable?

[LostInAnomie]

67. I guess nothing is completely inevitable.

I think a lot of it will depend or how powerful the distractions are that are thrown in the workers way.

I personally could see a "Brave New World" scenario arising before I could see a Communist scenario.

[patcox2]

54. Marx would not believe a personality "cured" the excesses.

But rather that some dialectical forces were at work.

I see two possibilities, maybe three.

First, perhaps Marx did not appreciate that some forms of government would actually be capable of preventing capital from seizing power, that the proletarians in our society, for example, would be able to retain enough power to enact the "reforms" you speak of and which I also believe prevented the predicted revolution.

Second, perhaps Marx was right, capital does indeed control our government completely, but he failed to predict that the capitalists would exercise sufficient self-control and strategy to put in place just enough "reform" to keep the people happy (prevent the development of class consciousness).

So, did the people actually exercise their power to enact a legislative "mini-revolution," or did the capitalists exercise their power to throw us some scraps, to stave off the revolution?

Either way, its likely just a matter of timing.

Now I forgot the third possibility. Oh, that's it, that its just timing. We may be in an oscillating cycle; as economic conditions for the masses improve, class consciousness decreases, people vote republican, republicans enact legislation worsening conditions, class consciousness increases, people vote democratic (assuming the democrats ever become again the party of the working people), the democrats enact legislation improving conditions, and so on and so on.

Of course, most oscillating systems swing wider and wider and eventually collapse, in which case Marx will be proven a good prognosticator as well.

[izzie]

30. As a social science yes, He saw into societies workings

Some societies worked just as he wished but many did not progress if we look at his thinking on sharing every thing. One really needs to have the results of ones thinking to a point that is.

[tjwmason]

31. His big idea was historical determinism

He thought that growing crises in the capitalist system would inevitably and inexorably lead to revolution (or at least the over throw of capitalism). Clearly that idea's gone out of the window.

I think that he suffered from the most common failing - he perceived his times as normal. If the world which he saw (19th century England) were the end-state of capitalism, then I can well imagine that revolution would have occured, but capitalism changed and developed such that the people at the bottom are clearly better off than they were then.

[leftofthedial]

33. is capitalism now changing back though?

we've lost ground rapidly in the last 25 years

[tjwmason]

36. Capitalism is capitalism

It's worst effects have been ameliorated for some time, but it's essential nature is still the problem. The amelioration made people happier, and therefore less likely to revolt. As this retraint on capitalism gets less (in the U.S. at least, and Britain probably) dissatisfaction will almost certainly start to rise.

Marx's biggest error was his overestimation of human nature. We are greedy folk, and we do too easily sucumb to the "I'm alright, Jack" frame of mind. But as people begin to realise the damage that unrestrained capitalism can do to THEM, they will start to embrace alternatives.

That said, my biggest problem, personally, is the actual basis of capitalism. It makes money (or rather capital) the basis for the socio-economic structure - it strikes me that humans should be the basis, and money the slave of humanity rather than the reverse. How that can be achieved, I don't know.

[leftofthedial]

40. we also are primates

motivated by tribalism and superstition and fear

[Kellanved]

37. He was left!

:silly:

[leftofthedial]

53. nyuk

LOL

[Orsino]

39. Mostly wrong.

That doesn't mean he isn't worth studying, of course. A little Marxist thought would do us all a lot of good.

[Redstone]

43. Anyone who has lived in a communist country would probably

differ with your two options.

Communism doesn't work, never has, and never will, and Marx was full of shit, thinking that his theories could ever work in the real world.

He apparently never considered that it was people he was talking about, not robots.

Redstone

[Kellanved]

45. There never was a communist country.

Granted, the ideas are not exactly realistic, but "full of shit"? nope.

The "communist" countries used the term, but they weren't.

[AliceWonderland]

77. Hee. Good answer!

This always annoys me... criticize the ways and means of centrally-planned and/or Soviet and East Bloc countries, have a ball, but don't call them "communist."

[patcox2]

55. but the predicted revolutions did occur.

You are dismissing something you know not of.

[leftofthedial]

56. people are the problem

but his ideas underpin some amazingly successful endeavors

The New Deal
European-style democratic socialism

"Communist" countries have never been Marxist (with a few small exceptions). All have either been radical state capitalism (almost indistinguishable form today's United States of Enron) or cults of personality.

I'd say Sweden is probably the closest working example of Marxist ideas put into practice, but it is still mingled with capitalism, albeit highly regulated.

[Redstone]

63. People are the problem? That's exactly what I mean.

When someone expounds a way that he thinks people should live, without asking the people involved if they think it's a good idea, but insists anyway that people should live the way he wants them to, well, that's where my "full of shit" analysis came from.

And that's the reason why there's never been a "true communist" country: people simply do not want to live like that. There are not even enough succussful communes around the world to be statistically significant.

I'd agree with somone saying that "Marx's ideas were theoretically good, even though not applicable to the real world" or something similar, but in my estimation, just dreaming up pretty theories that don't work doesn't make someone "right."

Redstone

[patcox2]

64. His work did not prescribe how people should live.

His work described what he believed would be the evolution of society as a result of what was then a new thing, capitalism, appearing on the scene.

He described history, saw that throughout history there has been an economic struggle between the haves and have-nots. That the have's weild power in society and use it to exploit the have nots to make themselves rich. Think of lord and serf. Then he described how this related to what was then a very new phenomenon, industrial capitalism, he described the alienation and exploitation that capitalism made possible. And he predicted that eventually, the masses of exploited would have enough and a revolution would occur. As has happened throughout history.

He was right in his descriptions, and his analytical framework works very well.

Here is a serious question: Do you believe the corporations have taken control of the media and use that power to subvert democracy by misinforming the masses, to keep their puppet GW in power? If you do, that means you believe in the Marxist analysis of oour society. That statement is inherently marxist in its analytical viewpoint. Do you think its amazing that so many poor people vote against their own best interests by voting republican? That is an inherently Marxist viewpoint, you are observing that they lack the necessary "class consciousness" to see that politics is fundamentally a struggle for power between the capitalists and the working people. Ralph Nader said he was glad Bush won because the people would get so angry that they'd finally vote for drastic change. Thats a marxist viewpoint.

Its absurd to say Marxism is full of shit.

Now, as to the failed so-called commmunist governments around the world, you should learn about lenninism and maoism before blaming them on Marx, they were very different from what Marx described.

[retread]

68. Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung have sullied Karl Marx and his work!

*

[leftofthedial]

65. the real problem is that we have no examples

of a place where people really get to choose how they live

in our culture, it has always been capitalists doing the choosing

and since Columbus, they've been choosing for most of the rest of the world too.

[Placebo]

46. He was mostly wrong.

I agree that class struggle explains a lot of things, but it doesn't explain history in its entirety. And I think communism in general is unrealistic and easily exploited by those who wish to obtain power and keep it.

[leftofthedial]

58. what idea does "explain history in its entirety"?

is not the class struggle the largest expression of our species striving for enlightenment?

is it not the soul of progressivism?

why have the owners been wagin unceasing class war for generations, if it is not a central struggle?

why has every triumph of the common person (Greek democracy, Magna Carta, American Revolution, French revolution) been hailed as a milestone of human progress?

Communism (as it has been practiced) is not Marxism and is beside the point.

[Placebo]

61. No idea does!

That's the point.

I don't see class struggle as the "soul of progressivism" or the end-all-be-all of human existence.

Damn Marx. Damn communism. And damn those who to this day are still pursuing these foolish philosophies.

[leftofthedial]

62. is there a class war being waged right now

or not?

[edbermac]

47. I only listened to his brother Harpo...

His words were clear, concise and to the point...

[leftofthedial]

48. when he was honking

but not when he played the harp

[patcox2]

60. Hey, what about consumerism?

Thats something he didn't count on, wasn't it? That in a consumer economy, the wealth of the capitalists is more dependant on the buying power and consumer tastes of the proletariat, as opposed to the industrial base of his time, concentrated on basic subsistence items everyone had to have, food, clothing, shelter.

It would seem that the inherent effect of consumerism is somewhat democratizing in a way not open to breakdown. The corporations must keep us happy, or we won't buy, they must keep us wealthy, or we will have nothing to spend. Another check on capital's power.

[leftofthedial]

66. judging by recent trends imposed by Murkan capitalists

they either do not understand consumerism or do not care

they are destroying the consumer class just as rapidly as they can.

[retread]

69. Seems the corporations may have found a way around that problem!

*

[Snellius]

71. Socialism out of the contradictions in capitalism

It's ironic that Marx's most far-fetched prediction, that the democracy of the worker would evolve out of the collapse of capitalism, seems to be taking an ironic course. As it's turning out, the most competitive "capitalist" country in the free world is a socialist state, and the calls for universal health coverage and government guaranteed social security are not coming from the bleeding-heart lefties but from those hard-nosed American capitalist corporations like GM and US Steel who can no longer compete.

[gizmo1979]

73. Never work with real people

to much greed.

[HEyHEY]

76. His ideas went against human nature

[The Traveler]

78. Labor Theory

The labor theory of value includes the proposition that natural resources have no value until labor is engaged to extract them. This makes more sense from the world view of the 19th Century than now ... back then, the world seemed an inexhaustible source of bounty. In the 21st Century, the world seems very constrained and overburdened with human demands for resources.

As someone else said, accurate diagnosis of the disease ... but not the cure.

[Vladimir]

79. Depends on how you mean

if we are going to pretend that Marx was behind every country that called itself communist, and that their "failure" somehow "proves him wrong" then yeah, my god he was full of shit! Or we could go on about "human nature", neglecting the fact that Marx's historical critiques are based precisely on the recorded actions of "human nature". Indeed we could pretend that Marx claimed to have the answers for all the worlds ills, while ignoring that his entire analytical theory is based on the premise that human society is evolving, and the rules governing it are evolving also.

Or we could be serious and admit to ourselves that Marx was one of the great intellectuals of all time, whose true crime is that millions of impoverished and opressed peoples have at one time or another looked to his ideas for inspiration in their fight against the ruling class. That all which he predicted did not come true is irrelevant - the fact that any serious scholar of politics and society cannot consider their training complete until they have read a fair bit of Marxist theory today speaks volumes more.