Calling all anti-marxists

Post Reply New Topic

I am more against Bolshevism, Stalinism, Leninism, Maoism... basically all the fun "isms" that popped up named after various communist revolutionary leaders... than I am against Marx and many of his ideas himself. Though the evidence for the failure of planned economics is quite apparent. Another thing to consider is that a great deal of the Communist nations that arose were simultaneously making a social, intellectual and economic leap of several hundred years for much of the population. Many of the most repressive policies were aimed at "modernizing" rapidly according to a very strict plan. So in essence they had to create new ideologies to fit with the Marxist "workers paradise". Maoism is a good example, since few Chinese were industrial workers.

We have various socialized services in Canada mixed into a free market economy and it is working quite well. This model seems to be ideal. Though I would like to see cooperative corporation models along the lines of the Basque Mondragon Corporation in more frequency internationally.

...thank you for proving my point about why Socialism wouldn't work in America

Also, Canada is a democracy. More so than the states. Aren't you a Fascist? That should make you an *enemy* of democracy, seeing how part of fascism is absolute government authority ala WWII Italy or Germany.

I think the problem is media spin, not necessarily that Americans are stupid (which I do not think). People like Palin talk about how socialized healthcare involves "death panels". I mean wtf are they talking about? Death panels already exist, and many Americans will face them in their lifetime- socialized medicine would remove this, if anything



...

Our Prime Minister has more power with a majority than any President could ever have. Furthermore if the Conservative Party wanted to they could swap him out for another MP, since it is MPs that are elected

Anyone who is going to listen to media spin instead of doing some research for themselves is stupid. Therefore, the vast majority of Americans are stupid.


True, however in America the same conditions (President effectively being able to pass whatever he wants) can also happen if I remember correctly, just not as easily.

I just think communists need to realize that economics don't create the human state. When a person says "Scarcity creates it, then the economy once scarcity goes away" they make a non-falsifiable claim because they are telling you that you can't point to other animals and how they behave, you can't point to any existing form of socialism because - like Sharia - there is no nor has ever been a system that was really practicing 'Marxism', thus all claims that Marxism don't work are false (since its never happened) and that's another claim that is sealed behind a wall and is not permitted to be falsified.

I personally think hyper-abundance one day will make capitalism essentially invisible, you won't be able to tell it from a socialist setting because the difference in what one person can have over another via what they have in their own homes will be incredibly minimal. I do agree that scarcity largely creates evil, then again I'd also argue that human eugenic behavior and listlessness will also. Socialism/Marxism attempted in a system where you have any scarcity means it ends in collective penalty and compression of identity and potential per person.

Democratic socialism is in essence what you get when you take a capitalist and democratic system then include social welfare programs and increase the role of the state. These states are more capitalist than socialist. Even in the more Social Democratic states in Scandinavia there is a capitalist engine struggling to keep the weight of socialism from sinking the countries. The problems in Europe with state debt are almost a complete result of socialist policies involving public expenditures and loans.

still, this does not mitigate the irony of you citing orwell. he was by no means a proponent of capitalism in any way.

from "why i joined the independent labour party" (1938)



indeed, his special branch file had him down as a communist.

Last edited by peebo on 30 Apr 2012, 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If the vast majority of America is stupid then why do we always kick your butt at sports

indeed, his special branch file had him down as a communist.[/quote]

I wasn't really quoting him as defending capitalism either but as being against totalitarianism most of which has stemmed from socialism in modern times.

I also quite admire Marx for his intelligence and insight in coming up with the "end of the existence" ideology, however I've been shocked with how stupid his followers are thinking that such an ideology should ever be implemented until one has reached an "end of existence". Now, misunderstand me correctly here, what I'm saying is that once we've reached a level where everyone could have "The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" then socialism is the perfect ideology. However, as long as we haven't reached that level the choice is between socialism as in "everyone is poor" and "capitalism" some are rich and some are poor. I see the latter as the lesser of two evils.

Last edited by TM on 29 Apr 2012, 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Doesn't take that much brain power to play football

And note I said majority, not all.

Unlike all of the people who went and derailed the "Calling All Marxists" thread, I will be polite. Other than this I will not post here. Well, and to say that Vigilans is correct about the Canadian PM with a majority government has more power than any American president. It is sometimes described as an "elected dictatorship."

With a small culturally homogenous population.

ruveyn

And with a capitalist engine keeping the whole thing afloat. What it comes down to is that capitalism is innately too harsh for most people's tastes. They're fine with the "win and lose" bit so long as they cannot really loose too much. IE they prefer all upside and little downside, which ironically makes them like investors.

Certain aspects of socialism (welfare programs, programs for people who lost their jobs, health care) are adopted to mitigate the downside risk those people face. However, it also makes them unable to realize that life is risk vs reward, if you do not take risks you rarely get a large reward. You may get a small to medium size reward (lower middle to higher middle class) but you'll never get above that.

It takes more brian power then you think all sports take brian power to play and to play them well

Well, I am definitely not a Marxist.

The issues with Marxism aren't just uniquely issues with a state-organized economic system, but rather Marxism is more utopian than that, and looks to its vindication when capitalism necessarily collapses due to it's tendencies that are at odds with each other, and with the hope of a new organization for society after that.

The problems with the analysis are simple though:
1) Marxism relies upon the labor theory of value. The problem is that the labor theory of value is bad/false/whatever. It doesn't go in line with how the economic system actually assesses value, or how people actually assess value, it doesn't even necessarily work well with cost-accounting given that the amount of value created by a unit of labor is not a homogeneous unit, but rather varies based upon the quality of labor, the techniques used in production, even the kind of product.
2) The prediction of the end of capitalism is unfalsifiable, and we have no reason to believe it actually will work like it is predicted to. Most predictions humans make, even highly educated humans, are actually incorrect. Not only that, but the current economic system has now outlived Marx by about a century at this point, making this prediction more into the level of prophecy. Finally, the potential ways that capitalism could end at this point aren't even limited to Marxian predictions, as for all we know, capitalism could be destroyed by an AI Singularity or a transhuman species. Both seem to loom more on the horizon than a communist revolution at this point in time.
3) Marxist predictions on the labor market don't appear to be fulfilled to the spirit. In a Marxist story, increasing oppression is supposed to drive the proletariat to greater and greater desperation and enmity against the capitalist system. The problem with this story is that we've seen an increase in living standards for a very long period of time. If anything, less people are going to be willing to "fight the power" than in earlier periods of time. Maybe this is a hiccup. Maybe recent labor trends are going to fulfill Marxist prophecies, but at this point I think the rationales are kind of ad-hoc, as at some point a prediction loses plausiblity.
4) In practice, there is no clear way to fulfill the desires of Marxists. Do we just act as political terrorists? What then happens if we get into a fight and win as Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky did? Socialism in one country didn't work, and yet letting someone take the nation back is equally silly. Can we take actions that put us into a part of the existing political structure, as many Marxists did in Germany with the Social Democratic Party, or must Marxism always be revolutionary? When the new system finally comes to be, how do we manage a dictatorship of the proletariat? Democratic elections? Maintenance of the vanguard who are the most educated in Marxist doctrine and least likely to fall victim to the mistakes of the past? Can we actually move from this to a freer system? How do we even maintain an economic structure without the basic coordinating elements of a pricing system, without having our allocation problems overly coopted by politics and political corruption? Do we need a "New socialist man" to do this? Or is Marxism somehow "natural" for man?

In the long and the short, I just don't think there is a real value to Marxism. I mean, maybe there is some value to some elements of Marxian class analysis of the sociological structure, but the core of a Marxist political alignment seems dead to me.

Communism makes sense in 2 situations:

1. Where we're speaking of a relatively small group of people similar to "normal" tribal size for the human species where the betterment of the individual is the betterment of the group and vice versa.

2. In an "end of existence" world where there is no such thing as scarcity and where the goals of humanity are similar. IE, once we get robots to do all the work, we can mine Jupiter and Mars and have a Dyson Sphere around the sun. Keep in mind that as resource consumption tends to go up with supply and that humanity cannot be trusted to check its population level, I imagine that we could mine the eternity of the universe and people would just keep breeding till there is nothing left.