Is Marxism dead?

[Avonrepus]

What do people here feel are Marxism's prospects since the collapse of the Soviet Union and decline of Western Communist parties?

Do people feel it is still a serious political and ideological force or does 'Liberal Democracy' hold hegemony?

Interested to hear views for an essay I'm writing for that loyal Marxist, Alex Callinicos (assuming you have heard of him)

[eallen]

1. Dead as the parrot in the Monty Python skit.

There is a sense, of course, in which "we are all Marxists now." It's pretty hilarious to discuss Marx with a freeper, who doesn't realize that Marx had some very good insights into the nature of capitalism, many of which have been thoroughly integrated into western culture. But his dialectical materialism, and his prescription for getting past capitalism to some future utopia? Dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead, like the dinosaurs.

:hippie:

[izzie]

7. He was good on social stuff

The far right only seem to want a laissez-faire style if it means what they want will be bailed out by the US tax payers. Now that sounds like how Marx was used in USSR. The top few got every thing. Just what is that all about? And almost all based in military.

[Melodybe]

11. No, but facism is alive and kicking

[sarcasmo]

151. Corporate Fascism

[QC]

2. No. It's merely pining for the fjords. n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

3. It will be like the Pheonix... n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

34. Nice info link I found

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/index.php

[Inland]

4. Dead, and gone except in horrifically virulent mutations

in North Korea and Mindinao.

[JitterbugPerfume]

5. I love

people who dream impossible dreams

NOT SARCASM

[malaise]

6. No it is not. and further

it has a much better chance of reforming than capitalism. Read Ellen Meiksins Wood classic book Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism

[Avonrepus]

17. Going to read it tomorrow

Or get the gist of it, was going to on friday but would have missed bus back from library.

seemed like a weird argument given how Eurocommunism failed and how capitalism has continued to grow. If her argument is just that eventually capitalism will stagnate whereas communism will flourish, isn't that just rehashing what Marx said originally?

[malaise]

120. No her argument is way more detailed

than that.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Marxism was always "dead"

What does Marx say in the first line of the Communist Manifesto:

"Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa - das Gespenst des Kommunismus. Alle Mächte des alten Europa - der Papst und der Zar, Metternich und Guizot, französische Radikale und deutsche Polizisten - haben sich zu einer heiligen Hetzjagd gegen dies Gespenst verbündet."

"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism. All the forces of old Europe - pope and czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radical and German police - have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre..." (standard translation)

Notice Marx and Engel's language here: a spectre (a ghost), haunting, exorcise. Communism was dead, a phantom, from its beginning. Now, one can of course see Marx sniping a bit playfully at Hegel's notion of Spirit here, but I think it is telling that Communism is already dead (or ghostly) even in the first lines of the Communist Manifesto. Whatever people will say about Marx (usually ignorantly, having never read much Marx, or only read little and through severe ideological prisms), he was no fool, and understood very well the argument that Communism is constantly dying and rising from the dead: that's the nature of labor in a society that has divorced use value from exchange value (any capitalist society by definition). Labor enters into the ghostly relations of exchange value (all that is solid melts into air), so any action by labor is necessarily phantasmatic. Marxism today involves the capacity to imagine the action of the phantasm. How does labor, divorced from its material relations, act directly on the world?

[neweurope]

9. No. In times as these it has a chance again.

-------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Avonrepus]

12. In that case

When did it not stand a chance and why does it now?

[neweurope]

14. Well in Europe after the war - when everybody became

quite wealthy and even the workers had enough money to go on vacations and the like - it didn't stand much chance. Now that (almost) everybody is becoming poorer again, that computerization takes more and more jobs, China and India take more and more jobs etc. - I think it has a chance again. At least I see a chance for a marxist party. BTW Marx IS being spoken about again already - he's even on the cover of German magazine "SPIEGEL".

----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Ken Burch]

107. Of course, the postwar European social welfare states

were built by center-left and center-right governments(mainly by the Christian Democrats in West Germany, for example)as a way of building worker support for capitalism against Marxist-Leninism(the "actually existing" Soviet form of socialism which existed in various parts of the world from 1917 to 1989.)

It was the defeat of that mutated form of socialism(which, unfortunately, was often mislabeled as "Marxism" in the Western capitalist press even though it failed to meet Marx's primary objective, the transfer of control of the means of production to the workers, leaving the means of production in the hands of cynical, incompetent bureaucrats instead)that fueled the current assault on social benefits in Europe and the US.

[julianer]

108. Ah, someone who knows

what they are talking about!

Most people pronouncing the death or irrelevance of Marxism would be very hard pressed to explain exactly what it is.

It is hard work informing yourself, however, so most just parrot the phrases they have learnt from those who have most to lose from a widespread adoption of Marxism.

[6000eliot]

10. Not until capitalism is dead.

[Avonrepus]

13. Exactly

That is what Marx said, the next historical stage does not appear until the last has totally warn itself out. We're not there yet and that is partly why it can be argued communism has thus far failed, it was premature (as well as brutal and undemocratic).

[julianer]

109. No that isn't right

Marx postulated that historical periods ended when the existing means of production were no longer adequate to the development of humanity generally - when they no longer play a progressive role. What's more he didn't suggest that the people who owned the means of production would just hand over their privileges - he argued that the movement to the next social stage after capitalism was in the hands of the working class alone.

You are making the traditional mistake of confusing Marxism with the crimes that were committed in it's name in the Soviet Union. You may as well condemn Christ for the Shiavoists and clinic bombers.

[justabob]

22. good answer...

I have a question... Do you think that we are getting close to the end of capitalism? It seems to me that the neo-fascism that we are experiencing now will speed the end of capitalism as we know it. Maybe not, but I think with every turn of the screw the have-nots (and especially the have-somes) experience we are one step closer to Marx's predicted revolution.

[eallen]

27. Capitalism has been ending for a century & will do so for centuries more.

Those who think we are closer to capitalism's finish now than we were a hundred years past might try to find some objective measures by which they measure that decline.

:evilgrin:

[6000eliot]

35. What about the widening gulf between the haves and havenots?

I think Katrina pretty much proves that capitalism is in decline. I was in a flood 30 years ago that was nothing like this. I can't help but see the poor performance as a net result of economic decay. Which is not to say the rich aren't getting richer; that is precisely the point. The system is becoming top heavy, and will collapse under its own weight, IMHO.

[eallen]

36. Are you so sure the gap is wider now than in 1905?

Katrina exposed the gap. But didn't really provide a measure of it. I'd enjoy seeing numbers that show the gap is greater now than it was in 1905, say, comparing the ratio of the 99th percentile income to the 10th percentile income.

[julianer]

111. Why should we compare present day poverty with 1905?

Sure if you compare with a period when there were no social safety nets or welfare programmes poverty will appear lower now. But should we console ourselves that we are not as badly off as our great-grandparents? Whatever happened to social progress?

[eallen]

138. I responded to the claim the gap had gotten wider. That's about the past.

6000eliot was complaining that things have gotten worse, that the gap between rich and poor is wider than in the past. I questioned that, and asked by what measure the gap has gotten wider, on a historical scale. That response seems to me quite apposite to the claim.

Now, I agree with you, that just because things are better now, doesn't mean that we shouldn't work to improve them even more. But I also think it is important to understand our history. Those who kvetch that 2005 is some kind of historical nadir are, in my view, weakening the political causes they push, by relying on a false history to push those causes.

[julianer]

162. I agree that our populations

are much richer than previous generations. But that is because we fought for social improvements using our political parties and trade unions. These have largely gone and our previous gains are being taken away by globalisation of capital investment. If they don't like us slacking on a 50 hour week they can outsource to India and get 70 hour weeks for pennies.

So we are in a position of decline historically - if we don't act then our children will be much worse of than we are.

Our governments, even if they are 'our party', will no longer act in our interests - they will only act in the interests of investors and will do what they can domestically to 'attract' this footloose, irresponsible capital, by further attacks on our rights and working conditions.

[crispini]

170. The gap between rich and poor in the US is definitely getting wider.

I can't find data as far back as 1905 but here is data back to 1967.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie6.html

Here is an explanation of these terms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_metrics

[julianer]

110. You are a dogged defender of the status quo

I have noticed.

The question is how do you judge whether the status quo is any good? Is it because you do well out of it? Is it because you fear its replacement with a soviet style tyranny? I am seriously interested in your opinion on this.

My opinion is based on the inability of capitalism to provide for the bulk of the people. We have half the people of the world living in desperate poverty and a child dies from poverty every three seconds. To me, the economic system that produces this must also provide some incredible benefit to offset such suffering. If there is no counter balancing benefit then capitalism is indefensible IMO.

I can see no such benefit - personally I have always be a victim of capitalism (redundancies, unemployment, low pay, insecurity, high rents, etc, etc, ad infinitum) and never a beneficiary - and I have eyes to see the poverty of the world and the injustices and tyranny that capitalism uses to maintain or increase that poverty.

[eallen]

141. China is quite relevant to the issue you raise.

Since a significant fraction of the world population are Chinese.

Your concern is "the inability of capitalism to provide for the bulk of the people," where "half the people of the world live in desparate poverty." There are two conflicting claims frequently made about this. The first is that capitalism is creating this poverty. The second is that the half of the world that lives in desparate poverty mostly corresponds to the half that isn't capitalist, and that if they would only adopt capitalism everything would be fine.

I think the first claim is mostly false, and the second is half false.

I think the first claim is mostly false, because there is some truth in the notion that capitalism here will figure out a way to exploit the poor over there. But the flip side of that is that most of the people over there were dirt poor for the millenia before capitalism arrived on the scene. The peasant in China in the 16th century lived a meagre existence. That her descendants in the 21st century are still poor is not primarily due to the western world getting rich in the meantime. If Europe never had had a renaissance, if capitalism had not evolved, if modernity had not arrived, if Britain had never fought the opium wars, the peasants in China still would be poor. Most likely, more poor than they now are.

I think the second claim is half false because I suspect there is a sense in which the nations that want to modernize now face a distinctly different problem from the nations that were on the front of the wave. That said, China and India likely will become the economic powerhouses of the 21st century. Assuming China stays on track in moving toward capitalism as its underlying economy. You might think that capitalism isn't the goose that lays golden eggs. But China has been a test case for that, and they seem eager to keep the goose alive.

[julianer]

161. Thanks for your reply

To take your points in order:

Firstly, does capitalism create poverty or is the poverty natural and endemic to half of the world? I think it is fairly clear that capitalism creates poverty in the world and that 'we' do benefit directly from 'their' exploitation. That is why the trade and debt rules are so skewed in the interests of western financial institutions - to create unpayable debt that allows funds to be sucked out of poor countries directly to our banks and governments. It has been like this since the beginnings of capitalism - the 'third world' is used for resources and the extraction of 'debt' payments.

After all capitalism has spread to most of these countries and poverty is increasing. If capitalism was able to get rid of poverty there should be some signs of it by now. It is not really an argument to say that they were poor before capitalism anyway, if you argue that capitalism is an agent of poverty reduction.

If India and China develop into major capitalist countries is there going to be more 'wealth' to share around or will their increase in wealth merely be at the expense of some other population? My opinion is that wealth is not shared in any fashion and that if these two countries achieve economic power the poverty of their people will not change much - nor anywhere else.

Of course China, and to a lesser extent India, is also close to revolutionary turmoil as capitalism destroys the benefits of the planned economy without introducing such bourgeois concepts as democracy and freedom of speech.

[rug]

15. Not when New Orleans happens.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. It will come back as class conscioousness takes hold

events such as Katrina can have that effect

[Avonrepus]

20. but is class conciousness

as clear cut as it was in the 1840s? Katrina showed us the very poor of the capitalist system but those in between can no longer be as easily pigeon holed and most won't want bloody revolution or even perhaps gradual if it upsets, what is for them, a fairly comfortable life.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. look around how many of your MC neighboors are

happy or sure? Revolts are not led by the poor, but the middle class, that is why they have separted the MC from the poor, katrina exposed that... and many are going OH MY, it could have been me... so that starts the evolution of class consicousness

[fedsron2us]

18. Marx's analysis of capitalism is still the best around.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0717-28.htm

However, if you want to annoy right wingers try turning the words of their idol Adam Smith against them. There is a surprising amount of stuff in the 'Wealth of Nations' which is basically inimical to modern corporate capitalism.

http://deoxy.org/korten_betrayal.htm

[sandnsea]

19. "Freedom to earn my own money"

That's what a Chinese immigrant told me just a week or so ago. She has extended family here and they have been helping other family immigrate for 4 generations. Freedom to them is freedom to earn as much money as they want or need, not be forced to accept a flat amount each month that doesn't make ends meet. If she wants to work two jobs, she can. If she wants to try a business of some sort, she can. But also, if people need help, there are food banks and emergency rooms, which don't exist in China. In China, she said, you don't get to see the doctor without money. Free healthcare you say? No, it's all political or money driven, nobody sees a doctor for free.

Voting never came up.

Yeah, I'd say Marxism is dead. (I know China isn't Marxist, but still)

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Good you recognize that

try sweeden.... that is as close as you are going to get to a true socialist country, or Canada... Universal Health Care anyone?

it does exist, it is just that what Marx envisioned is not China and it was NOT the USSR either... look at sweeden

[eallen]

28. Marx's end state was a vibrant capitalist economy?

Both Sweden and Canada are modern capitalist economies, featuring all the characteristics of such: business dominated by corporations, markets in both commodities and labor, high level of international trade, highly developed capital, debenture, and equity markets, etc. If you look at the production side of either nation, it's not that different from what exists in the US. There's a bit more regulation with regard to worker relations. Otherwise, it's much of a muchness.

Now yes, both Canada and Sweden feature more social programs than the US, especially universal health care. But that occurs not on the production side where Marx spilt so much ink, but simply is a program layered on top of the economy, funded by the taxes those capitalist economies can afford to pay. A social democrat might point to Sweden or Canada as "this is what I mean." But a Marxist? Hardly.

:hippie:

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. depends on what school of Marxism you talk about

that said Sweden by law also has a limit on corporate pay and the difference between base pay and corporate pay.

If you talk of the Classic Marxism that Engels spoke about, you are right, neo marxism, there is far more room to wiggle....

And in the end the utopia of marxism will probably evolve into something like Sweden, or devolve into Feudalism (our boys want that) but the MC in this country is at risk of disappearing, and it is now when class will start to become a real issue

[eallen]

30. We're all capitalists now?

:evilgrin:

Maybe there is some hope if the discussion can move past the paleo-Marxists and the free market fundamentalists.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

32. Xactly

Sweeden, Canada, Germany, and France are just expansive welfare states...

[Maple]

60. Canada is Third Way

Neither capitalist nor socialist...

[eallen]

94. Canada is definitely capitalist. If you think it isn't...

Please tell us what feature of a capitalist economy it is missing. I have more than a passing interest, since I invest in some Canadian companies, and like all good capitalists, I want to make a good return on my investment.

Now yes, Canada has significant social programs layered on top of its capitalist economy. I think you would be correct, if you wanted to call that "compassionate capitalism," or "social democracy," or something of that sort. But I think it's wrong to say there's not a capitalist economy there. That's how Canada affords those social programs. There's a goose that lays those golden eggs. By all means, let's keep the goose out back, so it doesn't soil the front porch. Still, we should admit to the goose's existence, and maybe even take some pride in it, lest we forget to feed it, and lose out on its eggs.

:hippie:

[Maple]

96. No, it's not

No country is purely capitalist, not even the US. None are purely socialist either. But Canada is Third Way...that is, we use capitalism when it works best on a problem, socialism when it does....and sometimes a combo of both...or neither. And this is deliberate policy, not happenstance.

It's a transition state, and works well for us at the moment...trying to find practical solutions to problems rather than simply imposing ideology.

Which is why many people claim Canada is capitalist, and many others claim it is socialist...it is both, or neither depending on the situation. It depends on what you're looking at. A 'third way'

the philosophy here is:

When there is a problem, the rightwinger says, 'here's a taxcut, what's the problem?'

When there is a problem, the leftwinger says, 'here's some taxmoney, what's the problem?'

The Third Way middle of the road approach is...'tell us the problem, and we'll see if we can fix it'

[eallen]

135. I agree that those who argue for "pure capitalism" are nuts.

But it's also useful, in my view, to distinguish between the underlying economy from government programs. When people say that Canada isn't capitalist, they typically point to its government programs, from education to healthcare. Those live entirely on the consumption side: extract taxes, provide benefit. That leaves the issue of what is the nature of the economy underneath, that provides the wealth to tax?

My observation is that in Canada, as well as Sweden, and every other first-world nation, the economy is thoroughly capitalist. A salesman or investor moving from one to the other feels pretty much at home. There are some wrinkles to figure out along the way. But the fundamentals are the same.

There are two ways to look at that observation. One is "of course," now the political argument has moved on to other areas. To which I respond: great! The other tack is taken by my other respondent in this thread, who seems to think that the suffering workers in Canada and Sweden should rise up and throw off the yoke of capitalism. You can see my response to that below.

[Maple]

152. There is no top and underneath

It's a mixture all the way through.

Americans find a lot of differences when they actually live here.

We also have crazies in another party who think we're a third world country, and need much more capitalism...so do what the voters do.

Ignore them.

[eallen]

153. Could you tell us more about the differences on work & production side?

I might want to join you there, sometime.

:hippie:

[Maple]

156. A GM/Ford/Chrysler worker makes 60K a year

plus benefits if you're talking unions.

Not required to work overtime, or do anything the person sees as unsafe.

Drug plan means that all prescriptions cost pennies...and of course we have public health nationwide. This helps us get car plants btw because it costs GM in the US more per car in health payments than the steel does.

Guaranteed pension, because we also have a back-up fund in case any business goes bankrupt.

Some years ago it was thought that GM Ford etc were on their way down, so we moved to Japanese and Korean car plants as well.

If we want more car plants, the govt also offers them a generous bonus to come here.

[julianer]

112. I see you have a vested interest in defending

capitalism. Shouldn't you mention this in all of your posts?

Capitalism doesn't produce wealth. It is a system of funneling wealth to capitalists. The social security systems that exist are not generous gifts of capital - they have been won by class struggle. Can you say exactly how the money you 'invest' produces wealth and how anyone else benefits from that?

And it is not us who get the golden eggs. It is people like you who 'invest in some Canadian companies' who get the eggs. We get the shitty shells.

[eallen]

134. Please, point to all the wealth produced by other economic systems?

So in your view, it's just a historical coincidence that the world has gotten rich when and where capitalism has thrived, and stayed poor where it has not? Marx would laugh at you. He recognized that the explosion of wealth in modern times was something that needed explaining, that capitalism was its explanation, and that capitalism was an extremely productive system. In his view, it was in some regards too productive. If you're not going to read any 20th century economist, at least read a 19th century economist. There's no small irony that Marx had a much better understanding of capitalism than many today, both those who extol its virtues and those who condemn it. Marx condemned it, but not because it wasn't productive.

Of course, Marx thought that socialism would be just as productive, and also more fair. Well, you can't get everything right. Marx was a careful reader of history, and it's interesting to wonder what he would say today, now that we have a history of socialist governments.

The Canadian government, like all in the western world, extracts taxes from its economy. Even foreign investors like myself pay 15%. You might think that Canadians would benefit more by nationalizing all their industry. I suspect many Canadians observe that none of the nations that have tried that have a viable economy, while Canada's capitalist economy is one of the best in the world. You can say the mass of Canadians are getting shitty shells from that. Most of them seem content to keep the goose alive.

[julianer]

163. No coincidence

I think it is you who doesn't understand Marxism! Of course he said capitalism was progressive (we've had this debate before so I'm surprised you are re-stating a point I've already argued against). It was progressive <i>in relation</i> to feudalism not <i>inherently</i>. It has reached the point where it is no longer progressive - if people need to be impoverished, or resources gained by war, or the climate destroyed, so be it.

I don't understand your point about nationalising Canada and whether Canadians would like it. Probably not. But if we are serious about ridding the world of poverty and war we need to do something like that everywhere. The other point is that they may be happy now but how about when they are living in the Hobbesian hell of free markets promised by our leaders?

[Avonrepus]

25. I agree

The collapse of Communism showed, amongst other things, people in east Europe didn't give a shit about what their leaders told them was 'freedom' they saw it as freedom to do what you wanted, not what you were told by the government.

THat is why no one gave a crap when the hammer and sickle was finally lowered over Red Square.

[rman]

131. Marxism is not "be forced to accept a flat amount each month....

...that doesn't make ends meet"

Same pay for everyone is in fact communist, not Marxist.

Also, ie looking at Cuba, this flat amount does in fact enable people to make ends meet - much unlike the flat amount that people are forced to accept in capitalist America (it's called minimum wage).

"China isn't Marxist"

True, as much as Marxism is not Communism, and as much as Marxism has nothing to do with "flat amount each month".

[NNadir]

23. Yes. As dead as Stalin. You can still the corpse in red square though.

Sometimes the corpse sings.

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you."

[Avonrepus]

26. isn't it Lenin?

in the Red Square.

Stalin is under a block of concrete in a park somewhere thanks to Comrade Khrushchev.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. At Least He Didn't Get An Ice Pick In The Noggin..

That would have been poetic justice....

"Stalin is under a block of concrete in a park somewhere thanks to Comrade Khrushchev"


Oh, I think Marx did a good job of describing capitalism ... It was his prescriptions for replacing it which didn't work...

[existentialist]

42. Marx and capitalism

Yes, Marx did an excellent job of describing pure capitalism--a searing critique as I have written elsewhere.

But Marx offered nothing about replacing it beyond sheer wishful thinking without foundation. His ideas for replacing capitalism are not worth the serious consideration of intelligent human beings.

[julianer]

123. What were these ridiculous ideas

full of 'sheer wishful thinking without foundation'? Any examples?

[julianer]

113. Can you tell me what those unworkable prescriptions

actually were?

In other words, have you bothered accumulation any knowledge on the subject before pronouncing on it?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

117. Mighty Presumptuous Are You...

I have a M A In Political Science and accumulated twenty four hours of post graduate work in Government at the Florida State University with a major in Soviet Union/Eastern Europe studies and a minor in Political Theoy.... I feel quite comfortable discussing this topic...

[julianer]

122. Well I note your

appeal to your own authority.

Perhaps you could reflect on your knowledge and answer the original question: what were Marx's unworkable precepts?

[NNadir]

37. I was referring to comrade Lenin, but phrased it poorly.

Now I will tell you that Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin slept together until 1961, after which they broke up.

[Zynx]

31. That's not a simple yes or no question.

In truth, some elements are present in the regulation of most capitalist economies today. Many people, in many countries most people, realize that pure free market capitalism is not an appropriate method for providing equal opportunity and for making sure that citizens aren't left behind. The excesses of the 19th and early twentieth century in unregulated capitalism taught us that the idea that pure free market capitalism is a deluded utopian concept.

Marx was correct in that the government has a significant role to play in insuring that all members of society have equal opportunity and that corporations and monied interests don't abuse the great masses of people. Now of course government efforts in our country and others have fallen woefully short in this regard, but it is not quite as bad as it was without regulation and social programs.

However, at the same time I think it can be said that we have proven that centrally planned economies do not function particularly well either. When nations have experimented with heavy government ownership of corporations there tends to be slower growth and a lower standard of living overall, though income distribution is fairer. In terms of economies that have experimented with attempts to achieve communism, they have failed miserably at providing a decent standard of living for the vast bulk of its citizens. While education and health care generally were fairly good in those countries(with exceptions such as North Korea), attempts to make a prosperous society fell quite short to say the least. Indeed, it is difficult to argue that the middle 50% of this country was not better off in the 1970s and 1980s than the middle 50% of the Soviet Union's population or the middle 50% of East Germany.

As far as I am concerned, market economies are still the best way to organize an economy though very significant regulation, even some government ownership of certain industries, is needed to curb the excesses that capitalism inherently creates and we need to use government to look after the disadvantaged because the market will not. Frankly though, I think the idea that we can ever achieve true communism, which is essentially anarchy under a different name, is a utopian pipe dream much the same as the idea that the free market will look after all citizens and make them wealthy.

[julianer]

114. Can you give me a link for the proof that centrally planned

economies don't work? And can you let me know what you mean by 'work'?

The governments of the US and UK certainly didn't agree with you when it came to WWII for example, when central planning provided the capacity to organise the population and production to win the war.

You say 'there tends to be slower growth and a lower standard of living'. Do you have any evidence for this? History shows the opposite in fact - the health care you casually mention is a major part of a good standard of living. Also you claim that they 'have failed miserably at providing a decent standard of living for the vast bulk of its citizen'. Do you have any evidence of this? Are you making comparison with similar societies, or social progress within one society, or are you using modern USA as a benchmark?

Your final point about mixed economies is fair enough - but how do you stop capital from rolling back those elements of a mixed economy that it doesn't like? Isn't that what is happening now? A social, mixed economy is no longer on offer.

[Zynx]

136. Proof: East Germany, Romania, Soviet Union, Cambodia

Overtime their economies failed due to inefficiencies and imbalances that are difficult to correct without markets. I did make the exception about health care and education, which were fairly good in centrally planned economies, but in terms of providing a decent economic well being, it is difficult to say that the middle 50% of this country was not better off than the middle 50% of East Germany or the Soviet Union. The fact of the matter is that their economic models were next to useless for providing economic growth which is essential to have regardless of whether or not you have a Communist economy or a market economy.

[julianer]

160. Well all of that is just assertion

Let me make it clear that I'm a critic of those 'socialist' countries - they were undemocratic tyrannies that benefited their own ruling castes of bureaucrats.

However in what way did the economies fail? They may not have had the latest electronic gear but then again most people in capitalist countries don't either.

I don't think you can examine economic performance without considering social wealth.

The actual evidence is that these countries would have been even worse off if they hadn't had centrally planned economies - see the increase in poverty, crime, disease and unemployment in these countries since 'liberation'. Also the falling life expectancy rates in the former eastern bloc.

[H2O Man]

38. Yes.

Marxism was an industrial ideology. We are in a high-tech society.

[julianer]

115. No, it isn't and no we don't

Marxism is about the means and mode of production - it makes little difference what the actual mode of production is (coal mines, software houses) so long as the means of production are in private hands and run for private interests.

[H2O Man]

116. Thanks for the laugh. n/t

[julianer]

121. Is this an answer?

[H2O Man]

140. Yep. It is.

Glad to know you are a dedicated UK socialist who also responds to what type of society "we" live in here in the USA! Ha-ha-ha! Very revealing. Very revealing, indeed.

[julianer]

159. Thanks for you sarcasm

I always know I've lost an argument when people get sarcastic with me.

I fail to see what is revealing about my participating in a discussion about Marxism. If you think I have some hidden agenda you could try questioning me on it - I have nothing to hide.

Is there some reason that I shouldn't get involved here or should us 'foreigners' just fuck off?

[Qibing Zero]

164. Just disregard him

He makes a very simple statement, then refuses to explain. The argument encompasses the world, and has little to do with America (unless you want to go into why Marxism was never a major force in the US), so there's no reason at all for you not to post. Hell, even if it were a topic just about America, your input I'm sure would be appreciated.

He obviously doesn't know enough about his original statement to elaborate, so you should probably just ignore him unless he decides to add something relevant.

[julianer]

165. Thanks for that

I was feeling a little lonely after being attacked by one of the stars of DU.

[leftofthedial]

39. nope. it's alive

and all around us

and woven all through modern political systems

and inevitably corrupted by those who love money.

[Qibing Zero]

40. In a sense

The pure communistic approach is still not going to work at this point in time. People are too afraid of such drastic change, but I think that eventually as we move toward having more and more social programs, and toward a more empathetic worldview (if we don't blow ourselves up first), communism may get it's real test. I think technology will be our route to a utopia, though, if anything. Some huge advancement will make a lot of our previous thought obsolete.

Of course, Marxism in it's harsh critique of capitalism is very much alive, and deserves to be. Despite the uneasy prospects of communism and revolution, Marx and Engels definitely put forth their case in an effective manner.

[bvar22]

41. Capitalism is DEAD!

Wal-Mart, Halliburton, and Exxon/Mobile WON!

[existentialist]

43. It is possible

to view large corporations as countries in and of themselves--and communist ones.

It is also possible to view the former Soviet union as what was once the world's largest corporation--and it failed miserably.

The concentration of power, including the special case where power is accounted in terms of money and property, tends to bring incompetence and corruption to the top.

Arguably both the United States and many of the corporations that have sprung from it as suffering severely from such accumulated incompetence and corruption.

(Which besides being why there is need for resistance, explains why there is hope in resistance.)

[bvar22]

44. I like your thinking.

Since the FREE TRADE TREATIES, The Global Corporations now exist outside the boundaries of Countries, and above the Governments of mere countries. They answer only to themselves and the secret tribunals of the Free Trade Organizations. There is no longer ANY type of oversight by the PEOPLE through their Representative governments.

[applegrove]

45. Dead. It didn't work. They were Utopians. They hurt people. Like Utopians

always do as their plans fall apart. They look for scapegoats. Ever wonder what it was like to live under communism? Now you know. Lies & lies to make excuses for wrong policy. All liberal democracies believe in trade, some form of markets and some form of government intervention.

The mix works. The Utopians do not.

[Qibing Zero]

46. You're misunderstanding a few things

Communism was a worldwide movement. The reason why Stalin's (and Mao's) 'socialism in one country' failed to be anything like communism was because of the fact those countries didn't control every bit of the resources they needed. If the weather wasn't good and the crops failed in your country, you were in serious trouble.

Also, it's hardly fair to blame communism for the crimes committed by the 'leaders' of those countries. They were utopians in their own view, but certainly not in that of communism itself. You'd be better off looking toward human nature, or the fact the communist revolution allows for a temporary period of control.

[applegrove]

47. Even the soviets & the Chinese agree that marxism is not the way to

go. People starved. Markets do help people get a tiny bit of savings. Marxism is dead.

Utopians are dangerous. Anyone who has a theory they want to impose on people by law - is dangerous.

If you do not live off of food that you grow on your own front lawn, you live in a market. Markets are 10,000 years old. A very human thing. We need them.

This lot in the WH are not even free market capitalists like they claim. They fluff up the stock market with one-time dumps of money and interfere in the value of gold, etc.

A mix & transparency in the market is the way to go. All countries in the world, including Cuba even, follow this in one way or another. Are you saying that all countries are wrong?

[Qibing Zero]

48. Well

You're still missing the point about communism being a world revolution. I'm not one to agree completely with it, not at all, but you have to understand that it hasn't actually been put into place in a scenario where it had a real chance to work. You have to drop all of the imaginary borders to even consider it has a chance. As we've established, 'socialism in one country' fails because of the lack of resources in an individual country, and the unwillingness or inability to trade for them. The general amount of country to country strife in the world prevents many people from even considering radical change, anyhow.

Your comment stating that anyone who has a theory they want to impose on people by law is dangerous is blank. That's basically the definition of government itself. Are you arguing against government in general here? That's usually a utopian ideal as well.

[applegrove]

50. All western governments are a mix of theories from the last 500 years.

All of them are. Until this lot in the USA, and Hitler, and Lenin, all others are a mix of policies.

And look up Tanzania if you want to see a place that really, really tried to make a go of socialism. It didn't work. They had right leadership and money from the Soviet Union & Canada. And it didn't solve all their problems.

Just as with kids, you try things. And if it doesn't work, you try something else. You evolve with the times and environment.

All countries do this. To say that you have a list all countries should follow and they can only pick from that list belies the fact that brilliant thinkers like De Soto or Keynes or yes - even marks in some ways, come along and come up with things that do work.

Socialized medicine works. It is more efficient (keeps costs down) and more equitable than private medicine. That is why everyone in the west with the exception of the U.S.A. has adopted it.


To say socialism should be tried ignores that it has been. It has been kept in small ways that work. But debunked. And every generation a few great problem solvers come along and give us something new to think and implement. Do you want us to ignore all the people who have been doing the thinking in the last 110 years? (okay neocons yes - cause they really aren't thinking - they are just stealing from the 1800s).

Why?

[Qibing Zero]

You still fail to understand the point.

What exactly are you responding to? Read how in all of my posts I mention the fact that communism is a worldwide movement, not a single country anomaly. You can't just put it into form in one country and say 'oops, didn't work!'. I don't support trying to implement it (I have some conflicting views about today's society), but I think that in time if we ever see a near-utopian world population, we'll be much closer to communism than most want to admit. It won't be as a result of revolution as much as it will technology though - so in that sense you can say Marxism may be 'dead'.

[applegrove]

57. Every currently former marxist country has agreed it does not work.

That they need markets. Every single one. Not to mention all the ones that didn't fall for it.

That does not mean socialist ideals are not in place where they work. In the west we adopted UI, SS, and in places other than the US, universal health care to share the risk across generations & groups of people, so that people would not crash to horrid infernos if times got bad. Also part of Keynesian economics.

Keynesian economics by the way is how Bush is keeping the markets roaring. He just pumps the market by corporate welfare instead of investing in people & health care & education.


I understand you perfectly fine. We just do not agree on what the world's decision is on the practicality & morality of communism is. Communism makes all people very poor.

[Qibing Zero]

62. Explain "Communism makes all people very poor"

Imagine the whole world converting to communism tomorrow with all of the resources we have redistributed. How exactly is anyone poor? There may be other problems (productivity in the long run if you don't run things right), but I don't see how we come about with everyone being poor.

It happened in Russia initially because it was at the time one of the poorest nations in the world. That was the reason Trotsky, Lenin, and crew originally believed socialism in just Russia would fail, and that it would take the communist worldwide revolution to achieve their goals. Sadly enough, they went on with it, and somehow dictatorship turned Russia into a superpower. If all of the resources they then placed into war and space-age technology were distributed to the people instead, would they have been poor?

[applegrove]

70. You can now make more money as a prostitute in Cuba than you

can as a doctor. So some doctors have become prostitutes to make ends meet and send a daughter to a better school or perhaps - away to school. Prostitutes in Cuba are in the tourism market. Doctors are in the communist market.

How is that for allocation of resources.

There is so much waste under communism, that it is a crime.

It works the same for the security guard or the field workers. They are very poor. And they don't have the option of getting a patch of land and working their buts off during the season and selling to tourists with lots of dollars hanging out of their purses.

Because communism is controlled - it puts up laws against ingenuity or luck or education or pooled resources. A family could not get together and start a restaurant. All government owned with foreign investment going not to the family that had a farm near a beach and built it up from there.

Let's not be foolish. Cuba was a cronie's cesspool of crap and inequality before the revolution. But the revolution did not improve things. New ideas are supposed to make things better on the whole.

[Qibing Zero]

74. Sometimes I just have this feeling

That you respond with irrelevant things on purpose. I remember thinking that way last we got into a discussion.

I think the problem though is that I'm taking this from a philisophical point of view, while you're looking at nothing but the real world implementation of it. That's why I'm trying to make it known to you that true communism has never existed, and therefore is extremely hard to argue on a basis of examples.

As for your post: How on earth does what Cuba is doing right now relate to communism and your statement that it makes everyone poor? Cuba is not even close to being an example of communism, especially noting your example of the inequality. Hell, I would stand to say that the closest form of communism the world has seen can be observed in Native American history.

[applegrove]

76. I'm sorry. I seem to be based in real world examples. If that doesn't

work for you - fine. I'm practical. I admit.

I don't recall the last time we argued. Do tell?

[Qibing Zero]

79. It wasn't as extensive as this, and I don't remember the topic,

but I do remember giving up after a few exchanges because of that fact. ;)

[malaise]

119. The Revolution in Cuba did not improve things?

Are you serious?

[Yupster]

86. Very nostalgic

This reminds me of me in college. I graduated a communist.

The dream, was that everyone would walk into a grocery store and take what they needed, and there would be no need for money, and think how productive we could be if we didn't have half our people doing non-productive tasks like banking and accounting which would be unnecessary.

The problem with communism at its core is that people won't work without a noticeable reward. When the people don't work, the government resorts to forcing them to and you end up with oppression, gulags, killing fields, kulak massacres, etc.

Now the communist answer to that is that in the future there will be a different ind of person, "communist man" who will work not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of society. Yeah, well maybe, but I doubt it.

[Qibing Zero]

88. My take on it all

I think the discussion is a very interesting one, but I only hold this:

In this day and age, we have the resources to ensure that every human has a chance to survive, and a chance to succeed. There is no need for people to starve or live on the street while others go around with billions flaunting it. I don't see how giving the people basic essentials (food, water, shelter) hurts anyone. I don't propose a complete redistribution of resources nor a communist world, just enough of a base to where life can exist on a meaningful scale. There will still be enough resources left over to use as a 'reward', if they must. Knowledge is really the better reward.

Personally, I think it pretty obvious that technological improvements have only made so much progress in recent times because of the fact we aren't as constantly working for our survival needs. The business world may use money as a driving force, but I'll hold that intellectual stimulation is the real factor behind it all. I disagree that a welfare state makes people less willing to work for things, and instead offer that the abuse given to the poor because of the belief they are somehow 'under' the rich is the actual cause for them being less willing to work for it. Failure comes often for the poor, and they don't have much to fall back on.

[Yupster]

83. Geeze - communism in one country or worldwide

I haven't seen that debated since I was in college in the 70's. One rofessor was a Trotsyite and another was a Maoist.

I wonder if the old ommunist history professors at my old school are still there and still communist today?

They were so confident back then. It seemed like communism was advancing all over the world, and then 10-15 years later, bam, it was gone.

I wonder what those old professors said about it?

[The2ndWheel]

51. From the general idea of you comments

"Anyone who has a theory they want to impose on people by law - is dangerous."

that's an odd thing to say.

[applegrove]

53. "Anyone who has a theory they want to impose on everyone by law

- is dangerous". I should have said everyone.

If something works - it gets adopted. One country tries it - New Zealand & VAT TAx and everyone else follows.

[Qibing Zero]

56. There's an inherant flaw to that

What if you're trying to impose freedom on everyone? What if you're trying to impose equality on everyone? Democracy? Not so much as in a world view, but in your own country. That's what we do with law, is it not?

[applegrove]

58. By imposing freedom & equality (which implies equal freedom) we are in

fact not imposing a strict set of rules on everyone that they have to abide by.

[Qibing Zero]

65. That wasn't your original statement, though.

I mean, freedom, equality, equal freedom... those are all theories no?

[applegrove]

72. Public good is also and idea. If you make that

the one and only law of the land you have communism. If you made freedom the only law of the land you would have no private property and you would have to resort to tribes because that would be the only way to stop yourself from being murdered or raped by outsiders exercising their freedom to rape. Then you would be vulnerable to murder if you stepped out of line of your tribe or the tribes boss.

There was freedom for a long time before rule of law.

A mix is better.

Do you see my point?

[Qibing Zero]

80. Of course.

I just don't see how it reflects your original statement. Maybe you meant to modify it?

[applegrove]

82. There was a falacy in your treatment of Freedom. I took it to mean

the "freedom from elites" the enlightenment talked about. Since you were talking in abstract and not really in anything that exists lately - I took the argument there.

Just a slightly different meaning of the word freedom.

[lostinacause]

59. Communism as a "world wide movement" would not solve the problem

it would only escalate the inefficiencies and issues regarding power gaps. Communism is a state that cannot exist because eventually someone will take power. Thus people like Stalin will likely get into power. Even if these issues could be dealt with there would be a number of other issues preventing communism from providing what its supporters believe it will.

[Qibing Zero]

69. Your definition of communism seems to have been skewed

It is indeed a worldwide movement, nothing else. Communist parties, on the other hand, are completely differnt animals. Do a little research onto the subject and the difference between communist and Communist.

I can't really respond to any of your claims though, because you haven't elaborated on them nearly enough. How would it escalate the problems regarding power gaps? What other issues that prevent it from working out are you talking about?

[applegrove]

73. Ask the Chinese why they are undoing communism. I'm too tired to

argue.

[Qibing Zero]

77. Well, Mao being in charge and supressing dissent is hardly communism

And the years since Mao have shown China's 'communist' attitude create a private sector taking up a larger % of their GDP than even countries like Sweden and Germany.

[applegrove]

78. It seems the problem with communism - as with all Utopias - is that

they are "perfect dreams" and when imposed on people on the ground - must be enforced by rule of law. And that does not work nor has it ever.

[Qibing Zero]

84. Well, that's closer

But a communist would tell you that their dream is not that different from the American one. They would say that within equality, and without the feeling of being alienated, rests the ultimate human freedom. They would also say that being in such a situation removes the want of humans to exploit others, and because of such, there'd be no need for a government. You can't say people in these cultures have actually seen such days, because there was always a position of authority over them, and always someone else that was better off than they were.

Marx actually thought that society was naturally gliding toward communism and he just wanted to get people there faster. Unfortunately with things like this, you never know how it actually works until you get there.

[applegrove]

90. Yes - a communist would say that. A mixed market socialist would

sound very much like anyone else in the world. Since the world is made up of mixed market economies with socialist programs in places where they work.

[The2ndWheel]

87. Mixed economy utopia?

I don't know, it's somewhere around 2:30am and I can't sleep.

But wouldn't the mix be a perfect dream as well? And how do you go about implementing that everyone live in a mixed economy? By enforcing the rule of law? Even if that doesn't, and has never worked?

[applegrove]

91. No. A mix is a mix of ideas.

[julianer]

126. This sounds very fatalistic

Are you really saying that the choices facing humanity are the barbarism of Stalinism or the barbarism of capitalism?

[julianer]

124. The discussion is about Marxism

not the mess of the Soviet Union. No one denies that the SU was awful and who wants to re-create it?

However, you claim that 'communism' didn't 'work'. What does this mean? Are you suggesting that capitalism does 'work'? What does that mean?

[wuushew]

49. Western capitalism is a dead end

In the modern era, energy has become synonymous with wealth. The industrial revolution saw the massive utilization of fossil fuels which expanded the productive capacity of society well beyond what was the norm.

The steam engine and later the internal combustion engine allowed the effective labor in society to be multiplied many hundreds and thousands of times that possible by the meager 1/10 of a horsepower an average man could exert.

Unfortunately the Earth can not harness more energy than that which the sun provides (600 watts per square meter). The fossil fuel era allowed us to exploit millions of years of this stored energy in a wholy reckless fashion. A population and economic expansion occurred, which we now see is unsustainable.

Rich western capitalists have enjoyed ever increasing demand for housing, food and manufactured consumables produced by this demographic expansion. However our resource intensive society has reached the confines of the petri dish and to continue positive population growth will result in per capita energy impoverishment. Many things ranging from Social Security, to the national debt, to the nature of investments rely on the unrealized perpetuity of such house of cards systems.


The steady state paradigm necessary to continue industrialized society will see an end to land speculation and an end to stock appreciation based on growth. Feeble returns based solely on the value of efficiency improvements will be the only way earn money on investments or enrich society in any way.

When we look at historical stagnant societies like feudal Europe one cannot be encouraged. Without widespread opportunities for economic and societal expansion the stratification of wealth resulted in aristocracy and serfdom. Only redistribution of wealth will prevent a repeat of this in the necessary steady state world to come. The alternative are cycles of complete collapse and periods of growth between them. In such outcomes the successors to our civilization will never be able to match our feats due from our exhaustive plundering of the the Earth's resources.

[applegrove]

52. People in France are doing fine. Yes - the West has to rethink oil.

And if you didn't know - that is why they let so many manufacturing jobs go to asia. Because then we don't need the energy to make the civil goods. And Oil becomes China's problem.

yes - with Kyoto and other initiatives. We need to fix this mess we are in. Western Capitalism is still watched and policed by policy and regulation. Not in the USA. But the USA is not the world. You are just a sorry little experiment in the apple of some Neanderthal's eyes. Corporations should nowhere be in control of government. They are not built to be human. They are built to be machines.

They have their place. And this whole neocon thing is just a great big warning sign to the world. Sorry you have to live it. The rest of the world are learning from your mistakes.

[wuushew]

55. Eventually the rising tide will stop

A fixed pie will emerge in which the mechanisms of capitalism will continue to concentrate a larger and larger slice to fewer and fewer people.

Sure people will continue to make improvements in medicine and engineering efficiency, but I doubt the benefits of such advances will spread to everyone in society fairly.

Capitalism which fundamentally is a philosophy of concentration cannot co-exist with growth limits and societal justice.

The example would be the board game Monopoly®
where the number of dollars is fixed and the game play in no way creates additional wealth. The last man standing has taken all of his adversary's units of money.

[applegrove]

61. Agreed the concentration of wealth is gone crazy in the USA. That

is your experience after 30 years of Reganomics. Every other Western Country is seeing improved wealth distribution. Because as part of liberal democracy - they transfer a certain amount of wealth every generation.

USA is the only Western place that is fucked up that way. That and the former communist countries whose capitalism is baby in history and monstrous in practice. The government there is taking steps to break apart the combines, cabals.

In places in South America - many governments are undoing inequality with health care plans and redistribution of land.

USA is the place that is going backwards in time and trying to build an uber-elite in hopes they will dominate the world and America can keep its place - despite the fact it doesn't have the people or the resources to be in the lead when Brazil, China, India and Russian really get going. All those countries are doing things to reduce inequality (well in China it involves slowly undoing communism which resulted in huge inequalities and elites as communism often does).

USA is the problem. It is not representative of the distribution of wealth in other countries in the world. I think the USA - on the list of distribution of wealth - fits in right behind all western countries and right before Less developed nations. And it is going down.

Don't attribute the problems your mixed market economy is having with what is going on elsewhere.

[lostinacause]

71. I belive that it is not equality that produces these benefits. Education

and skill development play a greater role in the development of these economies. If you take a closer look at China and India you will likely see that their success is because people are willing to work hard and for a lower wage. We are also seeing the catch up effect.

[applegrove]

75. They are both working hard on equality. The communists took it so

far they starved and only the political elites had access to the very best health care & the like. So they allow for more industry. Millions of people work hard every day in India on equality. They have a ways to go.

Equality matters. It is the backbone of democracy. Otherwise crazies take over. They need to be beaten back in the USA. And every generation and tax on the rich must tie them to their greater community. Because it would be too easy to fall back into inequality and monopoly of information to the elites. Which was the dark ages.

[lostinacause]

99. The GINI numbers for China show increasing inequality up to 1995.

This was the most recent data that I found in a quick search.
It is from an academic source: http://www.gwu.edu/~econ270/Taejoon.html

While searching for the GINI numbers for China I also found a number of other articles (academic) that came to the conclusion that China's income inequality was growing.

[wuushew]

85. That type of trade is in no way beneficial to most Americans

The United States is a wonderful place to live from our viewpoint solely because of its disproportionate consumption of resources. That wealth represented by dollars would flow out of rich areas into labor pools like China and India before wage equalization is reached.

The only trade acceptable to me is comparative advantage in production methods, not relative differences in labor pools producing identical products.

If America is truly governed by populist ideas, the politicians representing working class Americans should not encourage activities which slacken labor pressures to detriment of the majority of the citizenry.

[julianer]

128. The UK is seeing

a growing gap between rich and poor. The post-war welfare states that were created by social democratic governments are being eroded and privatised.

Europe is facing sharp political ructions over the implementation of neo-liberal policies. France is already bubbling with class conflict and Germany and UK could easily go the same way in the near future. There are protests in Greece and Italy as well.

The choice is being removed from politics - you either elect social democrats/democrats to carry out social cuts or you elect tories/republiicans to do it. This is not a democratic set up and can't be sustained for long.

[lostinacause]

63. Capitalism is not a zero sum game. Monopoly also forces actions that would

be undesirable to partake in. There are a certain set of criteria for equating two things as similar to each other. Unfortunately your relationship does not satisfy those components.

[applegrove]

64. And there is no purely capitalist nation in the world. As much as the

neoocons say they want it, the USA will always have subsidies for defense & science & Intel. That will never end. What western countries are and what newly developed nations strive to become are mixed market economies. With a little bit of government, regulation and a little bit of market.

[lostinacause]

67. I should correct myself --> Economics is not a zero sum game.

You are correct in what you say. I believe it is for a different reason. For capitalism you need rule of law. Rule of law cannot exist without government and therefore taxes and intervention. Thus capitalism cannot exist.

Add agriculture to your list.

[applegrove]

81. Trade is not a zero sum game. I think that is what you are trying to deny.

It is not. Trade works well for the little guy - why the people who wanted trade to be open were called liberals (before that trade belonged to monopolies of rich people or the church).

Liberals are into trade. And things out of the hands of elite monopolies.

I know we will not agree. I must go. I have more neocons to eat.

[lostinacause]

105. The people who benefit from trade partially depends on the institutions

in place. Changing who benefits more from trade is as simple as changing around who owns the property rights. In many ways trade is neither liberal nor conservative and in many it is both. Anyone claiming one party owns trade is wrong.

And yes trade is not a zero sum game. The absence of it can leave both parties worse off.

Economics too is not a zero sum game. Consider an economy that completely restricts trade; allowing trade will benefit all at no expense to any individual (all other things being equal and there being no risk taking involved). Because of this when considering wealth transfers it is good to remember that these come at an overall cost to society. This does not necessarily make them a poor choice but it is something to remember.

[wuushew]

68. How would wealth concentration work in your model?

I see no reason for the Henry Ford of tomorrow to pay his workers well if there is no need to create or expand an upcoming field of industry. The future of humanity I believe is steady state.

The September issue of Scientific American had excellent articles on the ecological and economic realities facing us.

[lostinacause]

101. There are two self benefiting reasons why Ford was willing to pay his

workers well. The first is that a high wage acts as an efficiency wage increasing the productivity of workers that Ford was able to higher and increasing the incentive to work harder or not slack off. Paying a higher wage would also work to create an image that might encourage people to buy their vehicles.

It is possible that he was also returning some of the gains that he received back to his worker to thank them for what they allowed him to accomplish. This is among a number of goodwill reasons why he could have paid a higher wage.

[lostinacause]

103. To answer the question in the subject; a more equal share of

production is always beneficial when it can be achieved at no cost to overall production. Wealth concentration is preferable to equality when equality is only gained through removing wealth from the system. When there are compromises to be made it depends on what the compromises are. This optimizes wealth and wealth equality.

[eallen]

144. That seems to me more a contradiction than qualification.

"A fixed pie will emerge in which the mechanisms of capitalism will continue to concentrate a larger and larger slice to fewer and fewer people. Sure people will continue to make improvements in medicine and engineering efficiency."

"Improvements in engineering efficiency" has been the major mechanism of the rising tide, right from the start of capitalism. We tend to forget about the better ways of spinning wool, better ways of weaving, better ways of forging iron, better dyes, etc., that came in the 15th and 16th centuries, from the early years of capitalism, because those technologies have long since been obsoleted and seem so primitive from our 21st century vantage. More than anything, what capitalism does is evolve practical engineering in ways that fit the mass market. Saying the tide will stop but this will continue is much like saying the current will stop but the electrons will keep flowing.

"I doubt the benefits of such advances will spread to everyone in society fairly."

Despite the last five years, I expect liberalism to continue its march. Call me an optimist. On the economic front, I think it's absolutely essential to capitalism that new technology spreads rapidly and profusely. Cell phones are the quintessential example. The spread might not be fair. But more and more concentration of the benefits of technology? In the four centuries of capitalism's history, you cannot point to a single technology that was sequestered by the elite, that didn't spread to the masses. Textiles. Electric lighting. Refridgeration. Radio. Cell phones. They're all stories of rapid spread.

"Capitalism which fundamentally is a philosophy of concentration."

I disagree. Capitalism is fundamentally a genetic algorithm for the improvement of business processes, including engineering processes. Do you think natural evolution is fundamentally a process of concentration? It does do that in certain ecosystems, as a side effect. Termites account for more biomass in a tropical rainforest than any other species. But that's not the core story of natural evolution. You're missing the forest for the termite mounds.

:hippie:

[Maple]

54. Yes, it's dead

and so is capitalism.

We are seeing the slow toppling over of both, so it takes awhile before most people realize both systems are gone.

Both were constructs for the Industrial Age.

And we are no longer in the Industrial Age.

New era. New system.

Forming for some time, and slowly coming to the the forefront.

[Hardrada]

89. Is the Age of Aquarius

finally getting here? (One hopes).

[Avonrepus]

92. there is no doubt communism is gone

Not so sure about capitalism. The form of capitalism in Marx's time is gone. The reason that he didn't see a revolution in his time was that captalism evolved. The mixed market capitalism we have today was made possible in part by all those Trade Unionists and socialists who Marx felt were of little help to the cause of the working class.

[Qibing Zero]

93. Oh, capitalism is for sure dying

The world view is turning more and more toward coming together for the benefit of all, despite what America is doing. You'll notice that even britain disagrees with the current administration on many of the up and coming UN issues, and rightly so. The administration's views on poverty, science, and the enviromment are detrimental to the entire world.

Once upon a time there were anti-trust laws in the US. Now, hopefully people are learning what happens when you let corporations run your government. Government exists for the betterment of the people - corporations exist for the betterment of the individual.

So yes, I would say capitalism in the sense of a pure rightist movement is dead. Europe has learned of the great things that come when you take care of your people. The freer market is killing America in times of need. The attempts to spread the ideology to poorer places in South America are now failing - and hard. People are waking up to the fact that the Great Capitalistic Cycle just does not give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed - especially starting in a situation where a minority of the people control the majority of the resources.

You can't kill the market though, you can only make it fair.

[Maple]

98. Capitalism holds back progress

every bit as much as Socialism (any variety) does.

And we are now at the stage where we need progress on a grand scale...not just local 'fixes' for local voters.

[lostinacause]

66. There is good evidence to suggest it will not work and so far no attempt

at it has been successful. Anyone who tries it is basically set up for failure. It is all but dead.

[wuushew]

95. kick

$$$$

[RedCloud]

97. We are still too primitive for Marxism.

So it is not dead. It just emerged briefly way ahead of schedule.

[lostinacause]

102. If we get to that state will it matter what political system we have?

[Hissyspit]

100. Question is misleading. Marx was right and insightful about a lot of stuff

and wrong about a lot, leaving out important factors. Just like most philosophers.

[eallen]

142. The funny thing is I end up using Marx against both left & right.

It seems to me that most on both ends of the political spectrum fail to recognize how well Marx understood capitalism.

:hippie:

[Hissyspit]

154. Life is seemingly contradictory forces and perspectives.

In a sense that is where philosophy comes from.

[bluedawg12]

104. Yup. n/t

[Lexingtonian]

106. Dead, buried, & 6 feet of earth shoveled on the corpse.

Marx's basic ideas about labor and capital will probably not be surpassed. Marxism, the attempt to create anew a coherent politics and culture and society from these ideas, has never actually worked- Marx's foundations are too flimsy to carry that. What China and the Soviet Union really did was retain their monarchical/feudal social orders and culture- the CP took over the political roles of the mandarin class/intelligentsia and aristocracy. Marx's writings were raised to Biblical status and bred forth a theocracy of sorts.

Marxism was an ideology for orderly large societies in the early/mid Industrial Age with residual agrarianism.

It'll remain an ideological banner for the dispossessed people of agrarian and industrial societies even though its economic contents will never be implementable or, if implemented, fail them. They use Marxism's (relatively small) political content, the way it asserts and argues justification for violent uprisings against economic oppression.

[julianer]

130. I think you make

very good points about the conditions in which the 'marxist' experiments of the SU and China were carried out and that they were not based on marxist foundations.

The examples of the SU and China you cite seems to counter the thrust of your argument, that is that communism had to adapt in reality to the agrarian nature of society, yet that it is a system of early industrial/agricultural societies

But I think the basically prescription free nature of Marx's political ideas allow them to be adapted to new circumstances quite easily, so long as the basic requirements of high technology and high levels of production have been acheived under capitalism.

I think you can say that these things are necessary for communism which is why Lenin and Trotsky predicted the failure of the Soviet Union if the revolution didn't spread. And they weren't wrong, were they?

The point about Marxism is that it is a critique of capitalism (Capital and the Grundrisse), an historical perspective (historical materialism) and a philosophical system of analysis and prediction (dialectical materialism). It is not a recipe for revolution or a draft for a new society.

Marx said the new society would be the result of the wishes of the people who established it, whatever they may turn out to be. In other words real democracy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

118. Back In Grad School

Back In grad school we had to read Charles Lindblom's Politics And Markets...He was a leftist professor who argued that a planned economy would be the most efficient and fair distributor of goods and services but even he couldn't cite one nation that had central planning and a democratic poilty...


The profit motive or the incentive to acquire more wealth is what motivates most individuals to work harder.... Sure, there are some individuals that will work harder for the betterment of the group but even they are not totally selfless as they will benefit from the advancement of the group... That's why even formerly "communist" nations like China are experimenting with markets and private enterprise...


People keep bringing up health care... While I am in favor of access to health care for everyone regardless of income I believe it is naive in the extreme to think that you can remove the profit motive from health care.... Health care providers especially doctors are motivated by a mix of altruism and the desire to make the big bucks... To become a doctor, one has to stay in school till they are thirty or so, pull residencies where they go seventy two hours without sleeping, and commit themselves to a life where they are forever on call.... To think someone would commit to this endeavor to earn as much as a bus driver or cabinet maker displays a misunderstanding of human nature so great as to be infantile...

[julianer]

132. Naive in the extreme

to expect human compassion without profit? My god, I thought I was cynical, but I'm not a patch on you.

I don't know about you but I'd rather be treated by someone overflowing with the milk of human kindness than by someone interested in extracting money from me. Seems to me that if we reduced the amount doctors earned we would get better doctors.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

133. Nice Strawman

I said......

" Health care providers especially doctors are motivated by a mix of altruism and the desire to make the big bucks..."

You said....

" Naive in the extreme to expect human compassion without profit? My god, I thought I was cynical, but I'm not a patch on you."


Any health care system that intends to deliver quality health care needs to acknowledge as one of its first principles the need to give doctors incentives because of the enormous sacrifices they make to become a doctor and remain one....

[julianer]

158. My point isn't a straw man exactly

But I'm sorry I've misquoted you.

However I don't think doctors would still exist without money incentive - and those would be the best doctors.

If a doctor is motivated by money you probably won't get the best treatment.

[DrunkenMaster]

137. Even Karl Marx said

"I am not a Marxist".

Really.

[eallen]

139. That doesn't surprise me. But I'd love to know where.

Can you provide a cite?

[julianer]

166. It is quoted out of context

Engels reports in correspondence:

'Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late <18>70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."'

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm

Bottom of first para.

[Walt Starr]

125. Dead as a doornail. n/t

[Algorem]

127. The Ritz brothers were the really funny ones.

But Ritzism never took off at all.

[rman]

129. Marxist socialism is alive and well in Europe,

in a fairly healthy mix of socialism and capitalism - though there definately are forces in Europe that are pushing to the Right.

[Avonrepus]

145. I'd hardly say alive and well

Given that growth and unemployment has remained stagnant for over a decade and that the far right has seen far more success in recent years. With every single Communist party collapsing after 1989 and failing to regain popularity after reforming. See Italy and France in particular. Whilst Germany's SDP may only avoid defeat due to the uncharasmatic leadership of the right wing oppostion it is hardly a 'socialist' party like that of the Labour Party of the 1980s.

In addition, the forces pushing Europe to the right are not being counter balanced and I fail to see Europe becoming more 'socialist.' Especially if the EU is being increasingly put under pressure to compete with the USA and China, and in order to do so would be forced to cut back on welfare.

[rman]

148. There has been economic growth in Europe, and unemployment

figures have not been very high. There has in fact been a period of labor shortage.
However, consumer 'buying power' has remained constant at best while top salaries have been rising - this pretty much coincides with a large RW influence in various Eu governments.

It's true that there is little effective counter balance to RW forces (much as is the case in the US). I did not say Europe is becoming *more* socialist.

There is an alternative solution to the problem of competition with China and the US. That is to revise the trading rules that have made the competition into what it is in the first place. For one, worker-rights and wage standards can be 'internationalized' just as the trading rules have been. Instead of having the Trade Agreements demand a weakening of worker rights and environmental protection, it can be demanded those should be strengthened to meet European standards.
Then we won't have to compete with workers who earn either a few cents an hour and who have virtually no rights (in case of China), or earn a minimum wage that has not been corrected for inflation in decades, and have sub-standard worker rights (in case of the US).
It stands to reason that a majority of the population would want it that way. And contrary to what the RW would have us believe, it is possible to have a healthy global economy that way. What won't be possible under such a system is the near limitless aggregation of wealth by a small wealthy and influential minority - as it is happening now.
So we are by no means "forced" to cut back on welfare.

[julianer]

167. Actually there is a limited

increase in interest in Marx and Marxism and something of a rejuvenation of the European left.

The old communist parties are seeking alliances with broader left groups - the Linkspartei in Germany is polling at about 8%, the PRC in Italy is expected to join the government after the next elections, the French PC is reaching out to the left of the PS, the LCR and the counter-cultural 'altermondialistes'.

Respect has had some limited success in the UK. A poll in Germany last year showed 50% thought that socialism was a good idea that had been badly implemented.

Old beardy was on the front page of Der Speigel (I think) this month and KM won the world's best philosopher poll on BBC radio 4.

[MN ChimpH8R]

143. Prescriptively, yes, descriptively, no

Marx's analysis of the way things are/were and how they came to be that way is still valid and insightful if incomplete. The problem with Marx was his prescription for how things should/will be.

"The first thing any child learns to say after 'mommy' and 'daddy' is 'mine.' Any system that does not allow you to say 'mine' as a grown-up has, to put it mildly, a fatal design flaw." - Frank Zappa

[eallen]

147. Good answer.

There's a reason Marx sits as a seminal thinker that everyone ought to read. Thank you for answering the question in a way that brings that to the forefront.

[julianer]

168. The actual problem

is that people keep imagining that Marx handed down some sort of prescription about how a Marxist society should work. He did nothing of the sort.

What happens is that people think that Marx advocated something like the Soviet Union when, in fact, he would certainly have condemned its totalitarian, undemocratic nature.

[Threedifferentones]

146. The Soviet Union was not based on Marxism

Marx believed that one day the exploited working class would wake up and realise that taxing the rich to help themselves is simply the smart thing to do, and that this would eventually lead to a completely communal society. He did not predict nor call for a small party of people to take power for themselves in the name of communism. Lenin, either because he thought Marx's way was taking too long or because he wanted to use the ideology for a power grab, decided to take matters into his own hands.

Again, Marx was making predictions, not calling for revolutions. I believe that, if humanity is not wiped out first, one day he will be proven right.

[Avonrepus]

149. he did

Dictatorship of the proletariat was Marx's idea:

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Critique of Gotha Programme (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm)

Lenin just wanted to use it to suppress the m/c and to further his own ambitions:

We must suppress them (bougeoise) in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence.

The State and Revolution

[Avonrepus]

150. in addition

Marx felt that capitalism inherently breeds ignorance. People (particularly the W/c) do not realise they are being supressed, or accept it, and therefore it would be impossible to have a revolution of the masses as they can only understand why they are revolting once they have suceeded.

[julianer]

169. Lenin advocated tightly organised

parties because Russia was a totalitarian police state. Everyone kept getting arrested and sent to Siberia!

It's not like organising a party in a bourgeois democracy. The Mensheviks disagreed with this approach, hence the continued split with the Bolsheviks.

Of course Leninism has had a baleful influence on the left ever since with people taking his party organising principal - democratic centralism - and applying it under all circumstances.

You are right about Marx not giving prescriptions but he was an enthusiastic supporter of revolutions and saw the self-generating organisation of the Paris Commune as a model for the working class of the world.

[eridani]

155. No one nailed the basic problem with capitalism as well as Marx

Namely, that a system which trends toward having fewer and fewer people making more and more stuff, and not letting anyone who doesn't make stuff have any of it, is not sustainable.

but it's quite possible to agree with a doctor's diagnosis of an illness while disagreeing with his proposed treatment plan.

[LittleClarkie]

157. They're all dead actually

A shame too. Quite funny.

(I have a button actually, that says "Sure, I'm a Marxist" with a picture of Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Karl on it.)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

171. It's dead, but its shadow will be shown in caves for centuries.