"Workers of the World, Unite!!"

[solinvictus]

"You have nothing to lose but your chains!!!"
Damn, Bush is driving me further to the left every day with every action. The above tagline comes from a former staunch Republican, so keep that in perspective.

[Chicago Democrat]

1. You have a world to win!

:)

[rwenos]

2. Marx and Engels were "Staunch Republicans?"

In what sense, pray tell.

[solinvictus]

3. I meant me...

that I would post such a thing.

[rwenos]

4. Got it, I think

I understand. I got lost in your sentence.

Careful about quoting Marx and Engels. I'm utterly sympathetic with your being driven left by these fascist bastards, but I'm sick to death of RW crazies conflating all liberals and communists. My sickness isn't about you, it's about THEM and their crude, uninformed thinking.

[applegrove]

5. We are not followers of Marx & Engels. They have been

proven wrong many times. We liberals decided a long time ago (before communism was ever invented or Marx & Engels born) that we liked the idea of trade and the marketplace. That markets gave us a chance to get more out of life than we could make out of farming our backyards. Markets made for a middle class. And for jobs. And from freedom from servitute (a little bit late in some cases).

I like the "Unite" part but my tent includes all people if they are human and know how to share.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. That's a rather outdated view of things

Do you think that a "free market" still exists anywhere outside of criminalized enterprises? (I notice you used the past tense, appropriately, when referring to "the free market." If you read Marx's manifesto you might be surprised at what he and Engels actually said: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html Seems all too relevant today.

[solinvictus]

7. They actually said..

that an unchecked market economy led to monopolies and an oligarchy. Sound familiar??

[Hardrada]

9. Abraham Lincoln also made an observation

Similar to that but I forget the exact quote. Anyway, Long Live the Abraham Lincoln Brigade! Who fought so bravely against the fascists.

[solinvictus]

10. Adams...

One of the Adams presidents expressed a wish that the Boston and New York banking houses would burn to the ground. Lincoln also said that Civil War financial speculators should be shot, but he didn't have it done.

[ConsAreLiars]

11. From the Manifesto

(snip)
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.\

(and snip ...)

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

(And snip much more)
From:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm)

A good link to the writings of Marx and successors is at http://www.marxists.org/

Marx can be faulted for optimism, but his understanding of how capitalism functions was a breakthrough in the science of society. Interestingly, the icon of capitalist philosophers, Adam Smith, made a lot of the same observations about the mechanisms and tendencies at work within capitalism but did not see how these inherent flaws created its own nemesis.


(edit: add omitted word)

[Swamp Rat]

8. thanks for the link! n/t

[applegrove]

12. Part of that healthy mix means that you cannot just be for the 'worker'.

And yes - elites unchecked are bad. But that has always been a Liberal thing and Marx & Engles did not invent the notion that workers had to be represented. Long before they wrote their books Whigs were a big tent party and represented all classes of people. Which is why the Tories went into such a crisis and forced people like Disraeli to rethink how to appeal to all sectors of the populace rather than just the elites; and Disraeli went into this crisis at the same time as the Communist Manifesto was being written.
So Disraeli too was writing about classes finding a way for Tories to represent them all and not just the elites (he decided on patriotism and a neocon or two picked up on that theme).

Liberals were for the enlightenment. They were for people having freedom to be who they were and live a safe & rightful life away from servitude (serfdom was the issue when the Liberals got started). My problem with Marx & Engles - as for many thinkers - is that they were not pluralists. They wanted everything to revolve around the needs of the poor or the working poor. That doesn't work. What works is including all human beings in your 'tent' and asking them all to give up a bit. And you encourage movement amongst the groups in your tent. And promising them that the moment new & better information is available on any topic - your Party will share it or apply it or encourage it. So that all three classes & 300(?) other categories of humanity (and the distinctions get broken down because of liberalism and its' intentional & judicious blindness) find a home. Marx & Engles were not there.

[JanMichael]

14. So has Capitalism, what does that prove?

For one we're mixing political systems with economic systems but that's expected these days...

"We liberals decided a long time ago (before communism was ever invented or Marx & Engels born) that we liked the idea of trade and the marketplace."

Try not to speak for everyone because as far as I know there hasn't been a referendum on spokepersons; so, I would assume, you aren't her/him/ or it.

[Octafish]

13. All Hail Marx and Lennon!

America! Wake up. The BFEE are Traitors!

It don't matter if you're a Communist or a Democrat or a Republican.

When a Bush is in office, you LOSE! These are traitors!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3341.htm

[two gun sid]

15. Damn, I thought we had some Wobblies on DU.

"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common".


yours for the OBU,

two gun slim

[JanMichael]

16. I've been moving Left for ages it seems. And there's little that stops it.

Let's just say that I'm a Socialist now...or a Conservative Communist in some circels:-)