Revealed! The Ancient Mystery at the Heart of the Worldwide Communist Conspiracy

[Karmadillo]

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2097-revealed-the-ancient-mystery-at-the-heart-of-the-worldwide-communist-conspiracy.html

Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 01 March 2011 00:28

Here is the deep, dark secret at the heart of the socialistic Commie Red Pinko Conspiracy -- the esoteric doctrine kept hidden by hooded illuminati since time out of mind, revealed at last by Terry Eagelton in the London Review of Books:

Marx, too, was an artist of sorts. It is often forgotten how staggeringly well read he was, and what painstaking labour he invested in the literary style of his works. He was eager, he remarked, to get shot of the ‘economic crap’ of Capital and get down to his big book on Balzac. Marxism is about leisure, not labour. It is a project that should be eagerly supported by all those who dislike having to work. It holds that the most precious activities are those done simply for the hell of it, and that art is in this sense the paradigm of authentic human activity. It also holds that the material resources that would make such a society possible already exist in principle, but are generated in a way that compels the great majority to work as hard as our Neolithic ancestors did. We have thus made astounding progress, and no progress at all.

My god! Time for art, time for leisure, time for aimless noodling around?! Have you heard of such a hellish vision of society in all your born days? No nose to the grindstone, no pickaxe in the salt mine? "Leisure not labour?" Heaven forfend! You see now why our hip-joined bipartisan elites (the double-headed hydra known as Beckobama, or Barakobeck; depends on what faction you favor) are so fierce in their efforts to save us from Commie-ism and force us all to "have some skin in the game" by "sacrificing" little things like entitlements, bargaining rights, benefits, vacations, family life and personal freedoms to keep Wall Street living high on the hog.

Of course, there's nothing new about Marx's deeply buried notion (buried no less assiduously by most Marxists as well). The yearning for idleness -- that is, for a deeper, freer, more human life -- has been a revolutionary idea since the beginning of recorded history. The Babylonians encoded it in their myths about their ruling gods, who staged a heavenly uprising in order to set themselves up on easy street. Which brings to mind a few idle lines quickly scrabbled down in the back of a copy of Gilgamesh a few years ago:

more...

[Cassandra]

1. A lot of hunter-gatherer societies...

put in only a fraction of the effort we put in to feed and clothe themselves (depending on location ). They had time for leisure activities, like cave painting.

[snagglepuss]

2. What a fantastic article. Chris Floyd is now a must read. Dammit I also love noodling around.

Gilgamish is also on my must read list, stunning poetry and so accessible-


"why shouldn't we in our turn overthrow divine order
in search of ease, rich pleasures and idleness?
...
Why then blister your hand with the heft of an axe
when you might instead lay it gently on some soft flesh?"



MUCHO MUCHO Thanks for posting this.



:kick:

[trackfan]

3. What Marx said was....

"And the worker who works for twelve hours weaves, spins, drills, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, etc. - does he hold this twelve hours spinning, drilling, turning, building, shoveling, stone-breaking to be a manifestation of his life, to be life? On the contrary, life begins for him where this activity ceases, at table, in the tavern, in bed. The twelve hours' labor, on the other hand, has no meaning for him as weaving, spinning, drilling, etc., but as EARNINGS, which bring him to the table, to the tavern, into bed."

--Wage Labor and Captial

[Octafish]

4. Mountain

Silver Paper

[Enthusiast]

9. Dang.

That brought back memories, or the lack thereof. I haven't heard that for 30 years at least.

[starroute]

5. So Marx was all about being in it for the lulz!

"It holds that the most precious activities are those done simply for the hell of it."

Karl Marx, meet Anonymous. Anonymous, meet Karl Marx.

:rofl:

[Matariki]

7. +1

excellent! :rofl:

[Matariki]

6. Excellent. Although I suspect we work harder than our Neolithic ancestors.

[Karmadillo]

8. Kick

nt

[socialist_n_TN]

10. Well it just makes sense doesn't it?...........

If the profit of our labor is distributed DIRECTLY to us as it should be, most of us WOULD find some way to fill in those hours with tasks worthwhile to US rather than the bosses. And Hell even those who WERE all hot to work all the time and accumulate could do so. I actually don't mind someone accumulating more if it's by his/her own labor. I just don't want to have to work ALL the time to eat, ESPECIALLY if the wealth is out there enough for EVERYBODY to be able to eat. It's just being hoarded by a few.

[ieoeja]

11. "We are soldiers, so our children can be farmers, so their children can be artists." - T Jefferson

A quote from another evil commie who apparently thought the purpose of progress was to create leisure, not more work.


Somewhere in Indiana there is a Caterpillar factory that once employed over a thousand people. Today, it employs a few dozen, yet manufactures more product than ever. No jobs were sent overseas. They were replaced by automation.

NAFTA, GATT, etc are chumps compared to technology when it comes to job elimination.

This is where Libertarians and myself part ways. You can not talk about natural rights when our economy is so extremely artificial. In a "natural" economy we would be working fewer hours and retiring earlier since our labor is no longer required. Instead we are working longer hours, have delayed retirement, and are discussing the "need" to delay retirement earlier.

How could it be "necessary" to delay retirement, when a relatively small percentage of the able-bodied people in this country could easily maintain the needs, and a good bit of excess, for the remainder?

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. It's actually a good reading of Marx

The greatest trick capitalism played was presenting Marx as some admirer of work qua work. Marx thought that the mode of work was shit, and stultified human creativity. He was and remains quite right about that.

The notion that "Marxists" have ignored this point, however, is ludicrous and ignorant.

[myrna minx]

13. K&R n/t