A Timely Quote From Karl Marx

[Matariki]

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and mechanical products, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

1. No, He Was A Jackass.

[Matariki]

2. Can you elaborate?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

7. Absolutely!

jack⋅ass
   /ˈdʒækˌæs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a male donkey.
2. a contemptibly foolish or stupid person; dolt; blockhead; ass.

[Oregone]

20. I wish I were as stupid or foolish as Marx

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Matariki]

45. Is that really neccesary?

[readmoreoften]

56. Absolutely. /nt

[reggie the dog]

61. how was he foolish?

das kapital is one of the best books ever written, communist manifesto is up there too. world workers unite

[maxsolomon]

3. that's one insightful jackass

[wuushew]

4. Why? Cause you say so?

The status quo is the only way human society can exist?

What great toems have you written?

[Warpy]

9. He was a jackass whose descriptions of the process

of unregulated capitalism were correct.

Unfortunately his prescription for Utopia suffered from the same fatal flaw as other Utopian writers, most ironically Rand: it relies on the perfection of humanity to succeed.

In practice, it was turned into just another aristocratic oligarchy, only one of the party instead of one of inherited wealth. Even party oligarchy became inheritable if the country remained nominally Marxist long enough and nothing changed for most people but the rhetoric.

[Matariki]

11. Agreed. His observations were correct

His prescriptions were lacking.

[jwirr]

16. I was looking for a way to say what you just said but I could not have

said it better. Thank you.

[readmoreoften]

32. Yeah, right. Marx was a utopian. Obviously, you've never read any Marx.

Yet you think that somehow global capital with allow itself to be 'managed' by good people for the benefit of most. I'd say you Keynesians are way, way, WAY more utopian than Marx.

[Warpy]

41. I read my way through Marx, thanks very much

and he was very much a Utopian.

Perhaps a lesson in reading comprehension might suit people who don't find that in many Utopian writers who fail to use the exact word.

[Hannah Bell]

51. Since most of his writing was descriptive & analytical, not prescriptive or concerned

with designing imagined societies, I wonder what you've read.

"I don't write recipes for the cook-shops of the future."

- K. Marx


However, I don't think Marx wrote the sentence in the OP, either.

[blindpig]

85. Great quote.

It strikes down one of the greatest confusions about Marx. It is for those present after Capitalism is removed to make the society that will come after.

[reggie the dog]

63. word workers unite

that is the only way you will beat back big capital. It is true. Thinking it will actually happen may be utopian, but saying it must happen is just truth.

[alcibiades_mystery]

47. Marx made almost no prescriptions at all

His discourse was primarily diagnostic, and largely an accurate diagnosis of the then emerging social system, as well as a cogent and ultimately accurate critique of both Enlightenment philosophy and established political economy (economics). Marx was no dolt. He didn't go around proclaiming Utopias, and generally bashed people who did, even among his own political group (see, for example, the Critique of the Gotha Program). I always hear this argument about Marx and utopian thought, but the evidence for it is thin indeed. Marx was a clear-sighted and realistic guy.

By the way, I don't remember any such quote in Capital, volumes 1, 2, or 3. Just saying. The very notion of "nationalizing" anything would be a stretched translation at best.

[pnorman]

57. The "prescriptions" of Marx were actually pretty vague, and also rather scanty.

What is generally termed "Marxist Politics/Economics" is almost exclusively the work of his "followers". Marx was alleged to have denied that HE was a "Marxist". (I believe that is correct, but I'm not up to Googling for it at this time).

I'm an admirer of such writers as Noam Chomsky (ie: essentially an "anarchist"), and have no great love for Marx. But his analysis of Capitalism (as it existed in his time) was spot on! So the only discussion worth having here, is how relevant 19th century Capitalism is to the present.

pnorman

[bulloney]

82. If you want utopian, read columnists who subscribe to the Cato Institute.

The newspaper in Lima, Ohio has some. They're on drugs, man. They think that the economy operates out of a vacuum and is not distorted by forces when you get government completely out of the picture. Capitalism by its nature is canibalistic. Big fish eat small fish until you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly. These players also invest millions in influencing public policy to tilt the playing field in their favor. Yet, these Cato bozos act like that can never happen in a deregulated market.

[blindpig]

84. The reason you think they're on drugs is because it's a crock of

shit. Libertarianism is a made to order 'philosophy', invented for the sole purpose of providing a basis for opposition to socialism. It is a realm of hacks and sycophants of the rich, it's hollowness evident in the shambles around us. Check this out:

http://populistindependent.org/

[conturnedpro09]

49. Here, here!

I have relatives from Eastern Europe. Marx did them great harm. The Democratic Party is right to oppose Marxism.

[reggie the dog]

64. Marx did no harm to anyone in Eastern Europe

Lenin and Stalin did. I live in a Marxist influenced country, France, health care is a right, university tuition starts at 5 euros per year for the poor, we get 5 weeks paid holiday, we have a 35 hour work week. Marx called for workers to unite, not for leaders to exploit workers in the name of the Communist Party.

[Fire1]

90. Exactly. In fact, Marx modified his philosophies many times

upon the realization that the destruction of one class is inevitably the domination of another. His goal may have been utopian but ended up closer in likeness to socialism.

[reggie the dog]

65. great idea, ha ha ha

that is great, then working people in places like Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweeden, Finland, and Norway will continue to have a far higher quality of life than you do in America.

[girl gone mad]

55. Takes one to know one, I guess.

thank god it passed. :eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

77. Is OMC the one who uttered those immortal words? I've been wondering who it was.

[tkmorris]

81. Yes. Yes he is.

[Hannah Bell]

83. good to know.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

87. Of Course!

Was one of my favorite threads ever. I knew it would rile the knee jerkers lol. To this day I laugh my ass of at those who repeat the phrase back, because they don't realize the joke's on them.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

86. Wait... Did You Just Call Yourself A Jackass?

Cause the way I see it, if I must be a jackass in order to ascertain that Marx was a jackass, then so too must you be in order to ascertain that I am. :hi:

[eridani]

80. Is the OP statement wrong, then? If so, how? n/t

[corruptmewithpower]

5. Must have been some kind of religious figure.

His disciples murdered 100 million or so people in his name.

[jwirr]

17. And lets see how many have the disciples of capitalism murdered?

[corruptmewithpower]

30. Search: democide and genocide

You'll find much interesting info on man's inhumanity to man, if you really are interested to know. Otherwise, just keep shootin' from the hip, dude.

[jwirr]

48. I am old enough to remember the holocaust at the end, live on an

Indian reservation and know its history and am well versed in the costs of slavery. But I am sure that I have missed a few.

[Hannah Bell]

72. no, no, those don't count. those were "accidents" you know, incidental

to the settling of this great country. only war & famine deaths, all deliberately ordered by joe, mao & fidel, count.

ignore the fact that most of the financial dynasties in this country were started with 1) trading slaves, working slaves, or trading slave made goods or 2) stealing land....a minor bagatelle.

[Hannah Bell]

67. where have the commies been the last 20 years? why do we not yet live in perfect peace?

The DRC holds two major distinctions. First, it is the richest country in Africa in terms of mineral wealth... Second, it is the country in which the highest number of people – roughly, 4 to 10 million – have died due to war since World War II.

The official reason for the war is that it was caused by inter-African tensions...(but)..

“There is enough evidence to conclude that the U.S. backed and justified the invasion of the Congo by its proxies Rwanda and Uganda and then proceeded to join in and encourage the plunder of the country,” especially when taken in context with former US-backed Congo regimes, he says.

In their article “Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo,” Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski cite numerous examples of companies which directly or indirectly benefited from the DRC war, including Anglo-American, Cabot Co., Metalor and Sony...

....Ten Canadian companies were implicated in the UN report entitled "Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo,” published in 2002. One of the most comprehensive and damning reports on Western activities in the Congo, the UN report implicated 157 companies and recommended travel bans, legal action and investigation by states where these companies were located.

Though all 10 companies were accused of violating the guidelines of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and some were accused of bribing officials in order to have access to land, the Canadian government has failed to investigate the companies’ role in the Congo war, said Mining Watch Canada...

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1177

[Hannah Bell]

62. You want to compare famine & war deaths, which is what the bulk of those

"communists killed x million" screeds are?

I think you'll find the other team does equally well.

[reggie the dog]

66. which disciples would that be?

Lenin, Stalin, Mau, the Khamer Rouge, they all gave their people some bullshit about Marxism but were really there to secure their own power through fear. Some Marxists, like Castro or Chavez, actually did great things for their people without killing a shitload of them.

[cottonseed]

6. Larry Kudlow

"We believe that free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity."

[IDemo]

8. timely Jefferson quotes here:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."

[Matariki]

10. Wow, yeah. Hadn't heard those before

chickens coming home to roost and all that...

[Greyhound]

28. Although it probably reflects his belief, he never said the first one.

It's origins are thought to be from a magazine in the 1930s.

Just so you know. I've used it myself before learning (here, where else?) that this is not a real quote of his.

[trotsky]

42. You are correct. Jefferson never said that.

http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Private_Banks_(Quotation)

The first part of the quotation ("If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered") has not been found anywhere in Thomas Jefferson's writings, to Albert Gallatin or otherwise. It is identified in Respectfully Quoted as spurious, and the editor further points out that the words "inflation" and "deflation" did not come into use until 1864 and 1920, respectively.

[Zywiec]

12. Another Marxism

The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.

- Karl Marx

Who wants to sign up for that?

:shrug:

[Matariki]

14. I didn't post that quote as a nod to Communism

which was also a failed system. But his criticism of unregulated Capitalism is valid - it's also proving to be a failed system.

What are we going to put in its place?

[pork medley]

34. Probably people who don't own any property. Most of the human race, in other words.

This excludes a lot of Americans, I know. I guess Marx wouldn't have counted on the r-r-revolutionary potential of Americans.

[killbotfactory]

37. It should be noted he's not talking about personal property

Abolishing private property doesn't mean that the community has a right to all your possessions. He's saying that workers should own their workplaces, and farmers their farms, instead of the owner of the business and extracting profit from you by basically forcing you to work on their terms or risk unemployment and all the nasty things associated with it.

[Zywiec]

43. Farmers owned their farms?

I thought they practiced collectivization?

:shrug:

[killbotfactory]

44. Marx didn't practice anything

The people who ruled, supposedly in accordance to his theories, engaged in such practices.

[reggie the dog]

69. you confuse the writings of Marx with Leninism

Lenin betrayed the popular revolution against the Tsars and sought his own power, he "collectivized" to scare the shit out of people and killed all who objected. He did not liberate anyone, he subjugated. That is not at all what Marx called for. Where in Das Kapital or Communist Manifesto did you see calls for collectivization and central government control??? World workers unite, it can easily be interpreted as a call for INTERNATIONAL LABOUR UNIONS!

[wuushew]

38. what about the Jewish Kibbutz concept?

:shrug:

[reggie the dog]

68. probably the several billion people who have no access

to water, food, medecine, and who have shitty housing. It would mean that the whole world would share. We live in rich countries that made their fortunes on the backs of the third world. Those we stepped on would gain from having no private property as they really have nothing to lose.

[Hannah Bell]

76. Yet another phony quote. Run the search for yourself & see.

http://www.marxists.org/

KM didn't want to abolish *all* private property. Not, for example, your house, your tools, your underwear, your car - not even your little bookstore, car repair business, flower shop, etc.

Only 1 kind of private property. From the Manifesto:


"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

Let us now take wage-labour.

The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.

In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.

In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.

From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes.

You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations."

[mdmc]

93. sure

why not.

[riqster]

13. Marx had some good insights, but

...his solutions were unrealistic and thus failed miserably in application.

Completely free-market capitalism sucks, as does communism. We haven't found quite the right answer yet.

[southern_dem]

15. I'm a fan of

social democracy that is popular in Europe. It's the right mix of government and private sector. Of course, the right wing nuts would label it as Marxist or communism even if it is nothing of the sort...

[riqster]

24. That has some definite points

...I am a big fan of Social Democracies as well, but am unsure of how well it would work in a country as large and with as many layers of government as ours.

[reggie the dog]

70. Socialism is Marxism

how is it not Marxist to collect taxes from everyone and use that money to nationalize struggling banks or industries in the name of the common benefit for all?

[eridani]

94. All government is socialism

That is, if you mean than socialism is about imposing taxes on the public and using them to pay for public goods. Some mean by it that every part of the economy should be part of the public sphere, but I disagree here. Nothing wrong with markets for iPods and the like. Public goods always need to come first though. You can have schools and roads without iPods, but you can't have iPods without schools and roads.

[Moostache]

18. Regulated Capitalism works pretty well...

The economy is always going to feature imbalances and bubbles, but controlling them and preventing outright thievery and fraud is the job of a well-empowered regulatory structure.

A return to the regulatory environment of the pre-Reagan days would be a good start. Also inherent in this is a dire need to return to a progressive tax code that actually WORKS! There is no reason on earth that people who derive personal incomes from capital gains should be allowed to pay a lower effective tax rate than those who earn their money through wages.

It is really very simple, call the Reupkes on their "free-market" bullshit...tell them that we want a FAIR-market economy - one that relies on both the power of market forces AND the necessary implementation of market watch-dogs who are empowered to stop, imprison and financially punish those who attempt to bend, break or stretch the rules.

Excessive risks, exorbitant pay and disregard of regulations are all parts of what led to the current problems. None of these is an inherent flaw of capitalism...they are greed that was empowered by bribes and payments to get people to look the other way while CRIMES were being committed.

We do not need to completely shit-can the system, we need to completely enforce the regulations and safe-guards that USED to be part of the system....

[riqster]

23. In the near term, that is my preferred solution as well

It worked very well indeed from the '40s until those wackjob Reaganauts decided to break what wasn't broken.

[reggie the dog]

71. UNIONS

UNIONIZE OR ELECT SOCIALIST GOVERNEMNTS, BETTER YET DO BOTH!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Marx failed to see that installing one set of bosses for another would lead to the same result.

"Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton

Whether it's a CEO, President, or party boss.

[Matariki]

21. My education is lacking in this area, but, if I recall

the sort of Communism that occurred in China and the USSR wasn't what Marx had in mind. I think he expected something more organic to occur, not a system put in place by force.

I could be wrong about this. My education on Marxist theory and economics in general is scant at best.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. The problem isn't how they come to power, the problem is the power they wield.

Whether the power is inherited, (monarchy), installed by revolution or election, the result is the same. Too few people having too much power which inevitably results in someone, frequently very many someones, being thrown under the bus.

Marx envisioned a classless society of equals. But, he failed to realize that there will always be those who aspire to "leadership" and that most people wish for "leaders" to guide them to the promised land.

The best we can hope for, as a society, is putting curbs on those come to power.

[cobalt1999]

36. The problem is Marx didn't understand human psychology

People don't behave and work for the common good. People cheat, people lie, people are power hungry, people want to achieve status over each other, people need both the carrot and stick.

The entire "organic system" isn't viable with our species.

[killbotfactory]

39. People do work for the common good,

Because it is mutually beneficial.

People are greedy, but they are also altruistic. Reducing the human species to one singular trait like greed is a mistake.

[cobalt1999]

46. The human species isn't inherently altruistic

SOME people will dedicate themselves to the common good. Some will even do it when it doesn't benefit them even indirectly.

MOST people will not.

Name one society EVER in the history of our species where all worked for the common good. I won't hold my breath.

I'm not reducing the human species to ONE trait. We have lots of traits. Unfortunately, mostly bad ones.

[reggie the dog]

74. these are learned traits

they can be unlearned too.

[Selatius]

50. Marx basically wanted to set up parties and run people in campaigns.

The people who objected generally agreed with people like Mikhail Bakunin. He eschewed state avenues of control and favored more organic change, change from the bottom-up as opposed to being imposed from the top-down, regardless if the state entity is democratic or dictatorial. The schism that developed between Marx and Bakunin in those days continues into today.

He famously warned in 1873 that a revolution won by a marxist party could easily end up turning into a dictatorship where the new rulers claim to dominate in the name of the masses. To Bakunin, the idea of a small group of people executing a coup or revolution for the benefit of the masses flew against common sense. He felt that those who executed the revolution would too easily be in a position to deny working people their freedom.

As a result, he stressed organization that held power in the base where the people are. Electing people to make decisions for you is not the same as the people making a decision and then appointing somebody to carry it out. One is a trustee. The other is a mere delegate.

[reggie the dog]

73. When did Marx call for bosses????

He called on working people to unite around the world. This could be done through labour unions.

[anonymous171]

99. I thought Marx liked Democracy?

He just hated Capitalism.

[Xithras]

22. You missed the memo...the quote is a hoax

It started curculating around Wall St a couple weeks ago and spread from there. It was mentioned on most of the national news shows last week.

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/01/26/wall-streets-marxist-moment/

[Matariki]

25. Oh, I am so embarrassed

that'll learn me to post forwarded email on DU without a little research.

My apologies.

[Matariki]

26. On the other hand...

Whoever made that quote up, is still correct.

[ColbertWatcher]

58. NAILED IT!

Apparently someone named "Pat Caufield" came up with it: http://www.belgraded.com/blog/off-the-record/the-mysterious-karl-marx-quote

Citing Karl Marx, who presaged: "The owners of capital will stimulate the need of the working class to take expensive, collateral loans to buy their condos, houses and technological products; and, at the end, these unpaid debts will result in the nationalization of the banks upon their bankrupcy, and so the state will be on the pathway to communism," Caufield emphasized the exigency of reestablishing preschool values in all post-adolescent Americans.

"Being too young to understand the concepts of capitalism or exchange their labor for money, preschool children are merely taught not to destroy or deface the material objects that comprise their classroom because doing so isn't nice," said Caufield, "The same will be true of the communes most Americans will soon inhabit. Though they may get away with breaking things that are collectively owned, breaking things isn't nice."

--News Mutiny

[RevolutionToday]

29. I love how Marx ALWAYS stays relevant no matter how badly whiny liberals want to wish him away

Marx was right about capitalism, he was right that the working class MUST own the means of production. Marx NEVER claimed to have all the answers, he was a scientist first and foremost. He did not write recipes for the cookshops of the future, it is our task to change our own class position not his. Marx would probably tell you to fuck off and do something productive on this incredible tool called the internet rather than bitching, but since he has been dead for over 100 years I will tell you that!

Newsflash: Liberalism has FAILED this country, and has UTTERLY failed to create real democracy anywhere on this planet. We are fucked in part thanks to spineless, status quo thinking mouthed by liberals from their leaders. Think about that, if your capable.

[reggie the dog]

75. at least someone here understands Marx well

[muriel_volestrangler]

89. Better to be a 'whiny liberal' who recognises reality

than an admirer of Marx who can't recognise a made-up quote supposed to be from him.

[JoseGaspar]

31. The quote is phony, but the real thing is very good...

This is from
Capital, Volume One
Part VIII, Chapter XXXI
GENESIS OF THE INDUSTRIAL CAPITALIST

available here:
http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA31.html#Part%20VIII,%20Chapter%2031

The whole chapter is very good and quite timely.

"VIII.XXXI.13 At their birth the great banks, decorated with national titles, were only associations of private speculators, who placed themselves by the side of governments, and, thanks to the privileges they received, were in a position to advance money to the state. Hence the accumulation of the national debt has no more infallible measure than the successive rise in the stock of these banks, whose full development dates from the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. The Bank of England began with lending its money to the Government at 8%; at the same time it was empowered by Parliament to coin money out of the same capital, by lending it again to the public in the form of bank-notes. It was allowed to use these notes for discounting bills, making advances on commodities, and for buying the precious metals. It was not long ere this credit-money, made by the bank itself, became the coin in which the Bank of England made its loans to the state, and paid, on account of the state, the interest on the public debt. It was not enough that the bank gave with one hand and took back more with the other; it remained, even whilst receiving, the eternal creditor of the nation down to the last shilling advanced. Gradually it became inevitably the receptacle of the metallic hoard of the country, and the centre of gravity of all commercial credit. What effect was produced on their contemporaries by the sudden uprising of this brood of bankocrats, financiers, rentiers, brokers, stock-jobbers, &c., is proved by the writings of that time, e.g., by Bolingbroke's.*60

VIII.XXXI.14 With the national debt arose an international credit system, which often conceals one of the sources of primitive accumulation in this or that people. Thus the villanies of the Venetian thieving system formed one of the secret bases of the capital-wealth of Holland to whom Venice in her decadence lent large sums of money. So also was it with Holland and England. By the beginning of the 18th century the Dutch manufactures were far outstripped. Holland had ceased to be the nation preponderant in commerce and industry. One of its main lines of business, therefore, from 1701-1776, is the lending out of enormous amounts of capital, especially to its great rival England. The same thing is going on to-day between England and the United States. A great deal of capital, which appears to-day in the United States without any certificate of birth, was yesterday, in England, the capitalised blood of children.

VIII.XXXI.15 As the national debt finds its support in the public revenue, which must cover the yearly payments for interest, &c., the modern system of taxation was the necessary complement of the system of national loans. The loans enable the government to meet extraordinary expenses, without the tax-payers feeling it immediately, but they necessitate, as a consequence, increased taxes. On the other hand, the raising of taxation caused by the accumulation of debts contracted one after another, compels the government always to have recourse to new loans for new extraordinary expenses. Modern fiscality, whose pivot is formed by taxes on the most necessary means of subsistence (thereby increasing their price), thus contains within itself the germ of automatic progression. Over-taxation is not an incident, but rather a principle. In Holland, therefore, where this system was first inaugurated, the great patriot, De Witt, has in his "Maxims" extolled it as the best system for making the wage-labourer submissive, frugal, industrious, and overburdened with labour. The destructive influence that it exercises on the condition of the wage-labourer concerns us less however, here, than the forcible expropriation, resulting from it, of peasants, artisans, and in a word, all elements of the lower middle-class. On this there are not two opinions, even among the bourgeois economists. Its expropriating efficacy is still further heightened by the system of protection, which forms one of its integral parts."

[Hannah Bell]

60. Yeah, but the real one isn't a soundbite. consequently, most people will skip over it.

unfortunately, since it's more interesting.

[killbotfactory]

35. Here's a funny TV show from the BBC on Karl Marx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByOKZmQ72m4

I learned more about Marx this way, and what his actual views are, than in my entire lifetime of people dismissing him as the devil and his theories as bunk to be dismissed without discussion.

I recommend the rest of the series, too.

[Hannah Bell]

78. Mark Steele is a very funny guy. &, at least until recently, a member of the

Socialist Workers Party (I think that's the name), for anyone who might not know.

[ieoeja]

40. There is a reason FDR was dubbed "The Man Who Saved Capitalism".

Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush reversal of FDR policy has led us right back to the world in which Karl Marx lived.

[SergeyDovlatov]

52. Fake quote

1st. It doesn't sound like Marx.
2nd. What working class in 1867 could get credit
3rd. Searching through online copies of Das Kapital came empty.

If somebody wants to try their luck here are the links

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Capital_Vol_1.pdf
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Capital_Vol_2.pdf
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Capital_Vol_3.pdf

[Hannah Bell]

53. I think Marx didn't write this.

Doesn't come up in a search of Marxist internet archive which includes most of his works, including Kapital. And doesn't sound in synch with his work.

http://www.marxists.org/

[Matariki]

54. Yeah, yeah - my bad. Xithras pointed that out upthread.

And JoseGaspar posted the actual quote that the fake one is sort of referring to a few posts north of this one...

[Hannah Bell]

59. sorry, i noticed others had caught it after i posted. should always read thread

before opening mouth, i guess. :>)

[eridani]

79. A for diagnosis, D minus for prescriptions n/t

[cat1985]

88. Here Here

I remember reading Marx a year ago and finding his ideas extremely compelling

[crimsonblue]

91. No. But he did have a unique, profound model of society...

Myself, I subscribe more to interactionism or Postmodernism as depicted by Nietzsche.

[anonymous171]

92. Marx was right. The only problem I have with Marx is his attitude towards religion.

[eridani]

95. Yep. He was wrong about that "opium of the people" thing

Although looking at some of the various breeds of mouth foaming fundy whackjobs, maybe it should be considered the methamphetamine of the people.

[anonymous171]

97. Yeah. Those kids in Jesus Camp did not look very sedate to me.

[anaxarchos]

96. The easiest thing in the world...

... is to recite the catechism, taught to all, as if it were one's own.

This is what Marx really wrote:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people<1>.

The translator's footnote reads:

1. In the 19th century, opium was widely used for medical purposes as a painkiller, and did not connote a delusionary state of consciousness. Thus it is in the sense of making suffering bearable, not the sense of a drug-induced delusion that Marx uses the term here. Possible misunderstanding is promoted in some translations which render this phrase as the “opium for the people” rather than “of ” the people.

How is that either wrong or unsympathetic? If you mean that Marx was an atheist, well of course... but to dismiss that as "wrong" is as silly as dismissing science from religious scientists simply because they also believe in a little bearded man in the sky. More importantly, read the context of the quote, if you can make yourself do it. The whole is from the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, available here:

http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

The segment on religion is reproduced, in part, below. If you actually read it and can dismiss this with a few phrases, then you have much more self-confidence than most... perhaps entirely too much.

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people<1>.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."

[eridani]

98. People forget that opium wasn't demonized in the middle of the 19th century

They weaned babies with it, among many other things.