marx: your opinions

[miscsoc]

I'm sure there have been threads in the same vein before, but I'm a newcomer. I arrived at my present reformist democratic socialist/social democratic viewpoint via adolescent Marxism/Leninism (i.e. via skipping class and sitting in the library reading State and Revolution), and I imagine many other members have had some Marxisant phase in their past, if not their present, which in some way informs their present political outlook.

Anyway, I'm just interested in what you all think of Marx - what's valuable in his work, what's not? Genius, fool? etc

I think some of his work is really valuable to modern reformist progressive politics; his description of alienation and his emphasis on class as the key political category.

edit: or generally, the marxist tradition

[stevedeshazer]

1. Groucho was my favorite.

Harpo close behind.

[miscsoc]

2. one of the eastern european

actually issued marx and lennon stamps after communism fell (i.e. groucho and john) to replace the old communist karl and vladimir stamps. czech republic?

[miscsoc]

46. here it is

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. No love for Chico?

sadness....

[Joe Bacon]

41. Zeppo Rules!

The best Marx Brothers movies were the ones with Zeppo in them! When he left, they always had someone else in "the Zeppo role", but they didn't come close to his genius!

[RM33]

3. I have been to Cuba several times

Marx was an idiot. The idea that people will work for free or some type of brotherhood motive is nonsense. People work to make money. Period. If people want to volunteer for something, that is different. But to volunteer all the time with no chance of economic advancement. No way.

In Cuba, the whole country looks like the inner city projects. Since no one owns anything, no one lifts a finger to improve things. Why should they? So the government can benefit? Their attitude is let the government fix it, they own it. So all the homes look like they are falling apart. The sidewalks are all busted up.

The worst thing is that in order to make this system work, the most force people. There will be people who don't like the system. So what does the government do with these people. They jailed, executed, turned into slaves.

[miscsoc]

i agree

I've never been in a communist country, but I've known people who grew up in them. Doesn't work. It was insane to think it ever would. Marx's communist pseudo-solution (everyone merrily toiling for the common good) is his weakest point; his critical description of capitalism is the strongest.

[underpants]

28. Well I have never been there ...but....

My wife and I spent a week in Key West a few years back and we spoke to several people who had a completely different view of Cuba. First of all they regularly took day trips there (something others in the US are lead to believe is not possible) and they loved it. They told us that the people were great, the place was great, the food was great, everything was great.

I stuck up a conversation with a guy with a rather large sailing boat who regularly traded medical supplies for Cuban art. He said that he loved the place (and he didn't need the money clearly).

[okie]

29. How does any of that make Marx an idiot?

The capitalist system also jails, executes, and enslaves people, doesn't it? As for Cuba, I'm not sure Marx would uncritically support the kind of system they have (though most would probably rather live in Cuba over a place like Haiti). People often make this mistake in assuming that Marx was creating an economic system that places like Russia, China, North Korea, and Cuba then followed. Marx wasn't really interested in things like that. He actually wrote very little about what would replace capitalism. His project was to analyze capitalism and the kinds of social relations it fosters. Thus, 'Marxism', if it means anything at all, is just a radical method of inquiry.

And he didn't really believe in 'nonsense' about 'brotherhood.' He might say that the kind of 'human nature' argument you're making here (where people happen to naturally desire money) is just a kind of ideological trick. Don't you think this might be a little convenient when the capitalist system requires people to believe they're out for themselves in the race for a bigger slice of the pie?

[Toucano]

39. Tell me, where does Marx say that "people will work for free or some type of brotherhood motive"?

I don't recall ever reading something like that in any of his works.

[leftstreet]

4. What on earth is a 'reformist democratic socialist?'

:hi:

[miscsoc]

6. someone who believes

in moving beyond capitalism, but not through violent revolutionary means - by experimenting bit by bit, keeping the stuff that works, rejecting the stuff that doesn't. And throughout subjecting ourselves to the will of the people through democratic institutions.

Basically left wing social democracy or social liberalism

[leftstreet]

7. Who's advocating 'violent revolutionary means?'

:shrug:

By the way, the most violent system we've seen to date is actually Capitalism.

[miscsoc]

9. well, most leninists etc

I agree with you about capitalism. I was just distinguishing myself from doctrinaire trotskyist/maoist/stalinist groupuscules who imagine change will come via some apocalyptic revolution like 1917.

I suppose I mean, I'm of the Hugo Chavez sort of mindset

[leftstreet]

12. God knows we could use a little Bolivarian Revolution around here

:-)

[miscsoc]

15. viva chavez

the most authentically democratic leader on the planet.

[The_Commonist]

5. I'm a Commonist, not a Marxist.

I've always thought Marx was a hypocritical idiot.
He's caused almost as much damage as republican Jesus has.
Most of the people I've known who were into Marx were weenies.
You won't get very far here with this, I suspect...

[miscsoc]

8. well, i might

I know that most of the lefties I know have had some acquaintance with Marx, and I'm interested in how his ideas might have impacted on the worldview of other democratic left types.

He may have been a hypocrite, but he certainly wasn't an idiot.

[TexasObserver]

10. I really enjoyed Richard Marx's music.

He had some awesome 80s hair, too.

[miscsoc]

11. i prefer george clinton

So wide can't get around it
So low you can't get under it
(So low you can't get under it)
So high you can't get over it
(So high you can't get over it)
Da-yee do do do do do do
This is a chance
This is a chance
Dance your way
Out of your constrictions
(Tell sugah)
Here's a chance to dance our way
out of our constrictions
Gonna be freakin'!
Up and down
Hang up alley way
With the groove our
Only guide
We shall all be moved




Ready or not here we come
Gettin' down on the one which
We believe in
One nation under a groove,
gettin' down just for the funk
(Can I get it on my good foot)
Gettin' down just for the funk of it
(Good God)
'bout time I got down one time
One nation and we're on the move
Nothin' can stop us now
(Aye aye aye aye aye)
Feet don't fail me now
Give you more of what you're funkin' for
Feet don't fail me now
Do you promise to funk?
The whole funk, nothin' but the funk




Ready or not here we come
Gettin' down on the one which we believe in
Here's my chance to dance my way
Out of my constrictions
(Do do dee oh doo)
(Do do dee oh doo)
(You can dance away)

Feet don't fail me now (ha ha)
Here's a chance to dance
Our way out of our constrictions

Gonna be groovin' up and down
Hang up alley way
The groove our only guide

We shall all be moved
Feet don't fail me now (ha ha)
Givin' you more of what you're funkin' for
Feet don't fail me now

Here's my chance to dance my way
out of my constrictions
Givin' you more of what you're funkin' for
(F

[Quantess]

37. My brother called him Skid Marx.

[grantcart]

13. Marx's historical analysis was brilliant but wasn't as original or as radical as people

think.

His basic analysis of capitalism as a system that will progress through increased concentration of wealth as competition works and eliminates inefficient players until fewer and fewer corporations have more and more market share was pretty accurate.

What he did not forsee is that democratic governments were able to initiate reforms and eliminate child labor laws and legalize unions and unions develop their own share based pension funds.

He used Hegel's idea of history basically being a pendulum swinging from one historical era to the next.

It is a two demensional perspective of a three demensional process. His projection into the future falters and becomes ridiculous with such ideas that all people will become interchangeable and you could be a factory worker one day and a purchasing manager the next day.

The need to incentivize human activity in order to get reasonable productivity is so basic that even with the religous zeal of the Puritans their colonies effort to 'give according to your ability and take according to your need' has always, over a long period, failed. This reality is the reason that Marx always requires a Lenin and a Lenin always will be followed by a Stalin. In order to eliminate basic market incentives, particularly in the agricultural sector, force will be needed to make and enforce the change.

[miscsoc]

16. yes,

have you read eduard bernstein?

[grantcart]

34. I can't remember him - my reading of Marx and all was 30 years ago lol

[Toucano]

40. It's public domain. LOL!

You can read it again anytime you want.

http://www.marxists.org

[miscsoc]

45. you should read his stuff on the site Toucano linked to

if you are interested in how Marxist ideas can be useful to modern post 20th c. liberalism/social democracy

One of the first gay liberationists in the socialist movement, too. Marx's own views are pretty backwards

Essentially he was one of the founding fathers of the centre-left, his is the stream of Marxism I tend to adhere to, as opposed to the Leninist variety.

[ngant17]

14. my visit to East. Europe

During my stay in Eastern Europe about 10 years ago, I stayed with a Czech family for approx. 2 weeks.

From what the family told me, in CZ overall things were much better during
the communist times. In fact, he owns a very nice 2-story house
with a large garden, specifically due to the socialist policies
which were in effect back then. He was given this subsidized
house as a reward for getting married early and having a family.
Today, with the pervasive influence of US capitalism everywhere
you go in CZ, to try to acquire a similar kind of dwelling would
be prohibitively expensive. It simply would not be possible
today.

The pervasiveness of US culture is bringing many negative things
for the Czech people. There is more greed, more self-centered
attitudes. Those kinds of social relationships were unheard of,
during the communist time. People were more friendly and
helpful. Now the slogan seems to be, "What`s in it for me?" or
"In what way does this benefit me first?" Ironically, it seems
that many of the former Communist officials in CZ are now the
biggest supporters of the capitalist changes taking place today.

My Czech friends characterized the people in the US as
descendants of fortune seekers, social outcasts, pirates,
anti-social types, greedy, self-seeking individualists prone to
violence.

Personally I think Karl Marx defined an economic system that would be superior to capitalism. I don't think the earth itself can sustain large capitalist economic systems in the long run. Waste, duplication of resources, pollution, unnecessary competition and many other things which are part and parcel of capitalism are simply not sustainable. Capitalism has been able to appear to work largely thanks to the economics of petroleum, but as soon as oil resources become exhausted, it will be necessary to abandon the capitalist economic system and replace it with more sustainable economies.

[miscsoc]

17. very interesting

i'd heard that somewhere before, about the way in which the old nomenklatura became the new plutocrats. and also that people who hadn't benefited vastly from decommunisation looked back to the old days in a semi-positive way. i'm not sure what to make of it.

[leftstreet]

18. Ostalgie

To Germans it means nostalgia for the 'east'

LOL believe it or not, lots of Ossis actually miss the Trabant:

[miscsoc]

19. there was a film about ostalgie a few years ago

"goodbye lenin". haven't seen it. the plot is, this woman goes into a coma in east germany and wakes up after reunification, and her children act as if they are still living under communism since if she finds out the truth the shock will be too much for her. or something, as i said, i haven't seen it.

here's a trabant monster truck

[amborin]

20. that was a cute movie!

[amborin]

21. the 'german ideology' is

always worth reading!

so, too, the volumes of capital; Marx's insights are still valid

[nealmhughes]

22. This is a seminar paper, not a forum post answer!

Read Hobsbawm, read Trotsky. Read Marx and Engels if you can stay awake on their purely economic works, Communist Manifesto ought to get you fired up, it is great pamphlet and easy to see how it has been banned by so many so often.

Summary on Marx: good historian, but too rigid. Did not have advantage of non-Newtonian thinking in his mental physics. Was a product of the Jewish Enlightenment and it showed, citizen of the world, not of Brandenburg or Prussia or London, discounted religion and nationalism completely because he found no need for them. Treated his family like crap. Unbelievably vain and conceited. Great proto-sociologist. Stopped time in 1840s in his theories, no idea that industrial reform would come along and of Bismark's worker's security state. Dated in a way, but gross observations are very valid to a point today. Have to disagree about all the history heretofore being that of class conflict when I see 21st century religious wars.

His idealism is laughable in a way, as human nature has not changed in 25,000 years, just read Trotsky on the establishment of the New Class of Bureaucrat and how he (Lev) loathed them and what they represented.

Remember that the last Russian Communist was killed in 1936 and Trotsky a few years later. What came with Lenin and Stalin were perversions, or as Trotsky said, "decadent Communism." Communism in one country was not Karl and Fred, that was Vlad. I have no idea what Mao's multiple tomes were about, too dense to even try to penetrate. The current Chinese version is nearly identical to Confucius I would say, with someone having the "Mandate of Heaven" and the others working together in harmony, they just slap a poster of Marx and Engels up when they preach. NK: that is just a cult of personality, nothing Marxist about it but posters and lingo.

[leftstreet]

23. How do you mean?

Interesting post!

But not sure what you mean here:

Have to disagree about all the history heretofore being that of class conflict when I see 21st century religious wars.

[miscsoc]

26. guess he meant

that to think of history solely in terms of class conflict is to oversimplify. the religious conflicts of our time show that there are other factors at work

[leftstreet]

27. What religious conflicts of our time?

There aren't any

[miscsoc]

30. well, the middle east is the obvious example

israelis and palestinians, sunnis and shi'ites etc. protestants and catholics in ni. obviously these conflicts can't just be categorised as religious and have substantial economic aspects. i'd tend towards a broadly marxist, materialist interpretation of the causes, but i'm not sure if i'd fully endorse marx's formulation there. i don't know if HE would, that was some rhetoric from a political manifesto after all.

[miscsoc]

25. couple of anal retentive corrections

god, this is useless knowledge, but Trotsky was (afaik) a pretty committed Leninist, I can't imagine that he would have said Lenin was a decadent communist, although he surely said that about Uncle Joe. Also it was Stalin who came up with the socialism in one country idea, although I'll qualify that because arguably Lenin put this into de facto practice beforehand. Anyway, I'm not much of a fan of any of the three.

The political works of Mao I've tried to read put me to sleep before the third page, but I've heard that he was a very good poet.

[Cal Carpenter]

31. His work is the complete antithesis of 'reformist progressive politics'

I think you may need to review some concepts. There is no Marxism in 'reformist democratic socialist modern progressive' (?)

Marx emphasizes class, that's about the only thing that makes sense in your post. Reform is not in the picture. Except insofar as it gets in the way of the working class revolution.

The Communist Manifesto is pretty short and available in full on line. If you want a better understanding of Marx you might want to read it.

[miscsoc]

33. but surely you can

appreciate the contributions he made towards understanding class in society and capitalism's historically revolutionary effects without embracing wholesale his prescriptions for political action.

i'm not a communist and i don't subscribe to the communist manifesto, which i've read several times, thank you very much. He wrote other things too, though, valuable things.

Perhaps Marx didn't advocate reform - in fact he certainly didn't - but that doesn't mean reformists can't draw on his many genuine insights in developing their own, non-communist politics.

There is plenty of Marxism in 'reformist democratic socialist modern progressivism' (?) - isn't the european social democratic tradition largely based on the ideas of bernstein, a contemporary and associate of marx who acknowledged his debt to the man while rejecting his revolutionary ideas and advocating an explicitly evolutionary form of socialism?

[Unvanguard]

36. Not really. Marx was open to the possibility of democratic revolutions.

The Communist Manifesto was written in a time before most European countries had any kind of real tradition of universal suffrage.

It was the opposition of some "Marxists" to reformist gains that led Marx to assert that he was not a Marxist.

[rug]

32. Essential.

[Unvanguard]

35. Mostly positive, but of Marxism, slightly negative, and of Leninism, extremely negative.

I generally like reading Marx, and much can be learned from doing so.

[Toucano]

38. Marx most accurately described the natural laws that govern economics.

Not unlike Jesus, many things done in his name are completely heinous and wrong.

Whenever someone criticizes Marx, I ask if they have ever read his work. Always, the answer is no.

For me, that says it all.

[miscsoc]

43. he certainly made big contributions

to economics. actually he was one of the great economists.

i think there is a lot to be legitimately criticized in marx, i've read lots of his work and have my criticisms

what you can't do is DISMISS him, or claim he has no value, after reading his work.

I agree that most of his critics are basing their view on the work of so called "marxists" working long after his death - soviet diamat propaganda, and so on. I've a lot of admiration for Lenin, for all his faults, but a lot of what is percieved as Marxism is some sort of bastardized Leninism.

[backscatter712]

42. Did a good job of describing the problem, but his solutions are completely wrong.

He was a pioneer in sociology, and among the first to describe how workers are exploited by the rich ownership class, but he goes off the rails when he suggests things like violent revolutions, dictatorships of the proletariat and such.

[miscsoc]

44. iirc, he wasn't very explicit about what he meant by "dictatorship of the proletariat"

depending on how you interpret it, the idea might not be so bad - as it was interpreted by Lenin, it is problematic, and as it was interpreted by his successors it is downright dangerous. But Marx never concieved of anything like the sort of system installed in the Soviet Union and its satellites.