Marxism.....From another board I frequent....

[OrangeEmpire]

I have just recently read the Communist Manifesto, and what a brilliant piece of literature! I know that in the 21st century many people believe that Communism has failed, but i dont think so. If only we could all go back to a time where bartering overtook such horrid things such as paper money, wouldn' the world be such a happier place? I also agree wit Mr. Marx that everything is about capitalism, its all about making money and that it shouldnt be, capitalism is forced upon us by coercive bourgeoisie and us simple working folk shouldnt put up with it any more. Workers of the world, UNITE!

Goodness they're cute when they're young and don't know any better...

Take a workplace. Any workplace. From a fortune 500 corporate boardroom to kitchen at your local greasy fast food outlet. What goes on there? Solidarity! Workers standing bravely, shoulder to shoulder, fighting imperialism, racism and exploitation whereever it rears its ugly head.

No.

And superheros aren't real either.

You find politics. You find back biting, lying, cheating and jockeying for position. Worker's solidarity my arse. In any and every work place environment, there's competition, and its usually for the boss' favor, a raise or a promotion. And it's usually at the expense of their fellow workers.

Shift your focus out of one particular restaraunt, warehouse, factory or office and look at the working class as a whole. A hundred and fifty years later, they don't appear to be in any real hurry to cast off the shackles of capitalism. Socialist and Communist parties in the states have one member for every thousands of citizens. Hell, the unionization rate is something like 15% of all salaried employees.

Workers don't want union representation because they figure it lets the lazy and shiftless workers get by with as much as a hard worker. Workers also don't like social welfare programs because they let lazy and shiftless unemployed people get by with as much as hard workers do. Workers sure don't want the government owning their workplaces, because lazy and shiftless managers get by with as much as efficiantly run enterprises do.

Notice a pattern here?

Workers have no interest in collectivism. Like everyone else, they're out to make a buck.

Socialism/Communism's problems don't stop there. Goodness, they barely even start there. In the absence of a free market where laws of supply and demand set prices and signal demand, how can planners decide how much of what goods to produce? This is why communist countries always suffered from shortages of various kinds.

If society were truly governed by the principle "from each according to his ability to each according to his need," what kind of economy would we end up living in. Answer: One in which ability were low (because ability determines the level of one's duties to society and expected output) and needs were high (Because "need" is the standard used to measure what alotment of production is allocated to whom). How would such a society handle inevitable free rider problems?

All of this assumes that it were possible to implement a socialist order. But how do you get there from here? Modern socialists may deplore the methods used by Lenin and Stalin, but truth is, there really are no other ways to implement such drastic changes in the social order. Inevitably, those whose interests would be harmed or threatened by a socialist revolution (the capitalists) would try to resist the change.

Thus, it would ultimately be necessary to suppress such resistance (the case of Salvador Alende's Chile illustrates how doomed a marxist government is in a liberal democratic political system.) It would ultimately be necessary to suppress those who sought to sabotage this system once it were implemented so as to bring back capitalism. It would ultimately be necessary to blame such saboteurs for the inevitable shortages and falling production such a system would engender. Of such necessities was Stalinism made.

Finally, there are grave problems with Marxism as a way of thinking. The idea that "all history is the history of class struggle" is absurd and not taken at all seriously by historians. This kind of thinking is called historical reductionism. There is no one "key to history" (or society) so to speak. Factors other than economic class and relationships to the means of production shape human experience, some times to a much greater degree. Such things as ethnic and national loyalty, religious faith and gender also influence human experience and shape society.

 

[jdsa]

Would hard-working workers be opposed to a union if it meant that they would be able to make higher wages than they would just by their hard work alone (even if it meant that the not-so-hard-working workers made more money too)?

 

[therealUT]

Would hard-working workers be opposed to a union if it meant that they would be able to make higher wages than they would just by their hard work alone (even if it meant that the not-so-hard-working workers made more money too)?

A smart worker would be opposed to it. Higher nominal wages for less efficient work equates into lower real wages. Economically, unions, minimum wages, etc. do not lead to any actual betterment of the worker.

 

[milohimself]

Same old symptom. I've read the Communist Manifesto and Capital a few times each... An interesting insight into the economic and social times of the 19th century, a reasonable indictment of post-feudal economic disparity, followed up by a bold prediction on the future that didn't take human action into consideration past the point of revolution.

Karl Marx was a brilliant man, no doubt, but if not for the extreme tyranny of Russia's ruling class (and only Russia; which was probably the least ideal situation for communism to blossom due to many things) his prediction would have never even smelled fruition. He intended for communism to be staged in Germany or England. Conditions in Europe never got as extreme as he thought they would in any country except Russia.

 

[therealUT]

I think his Manifesto is brilliant in theory, however, many theories are brilliant until they are practiced. At that point, they hit many factors which absolutely cannot be accounted for. Marx, in all his brilliance, seemed completely ignorant of such factors, and hence, his form of communism has never taken hold in a single political entity...ever.

 

[milohimself]

Word up. Historical inevitability only works on paper, naidamean?

 

[GVF]

All nice reads. Very interesting. I have never read the Manifesto, may not ever. But, I do agree on the effectiveness of unions, etc. As a manager, obviously I'm not for them, but also for other reasons. For what the unions take from a paycheck ,they really don't offer that much to an employee. All the promises they make are mere bargaining tools they throw away like candy in order to get a few things to show they are "working" for the employee. When unions evolved, they were no doubt needed. Most companies have progressed beyond that need now and do look after the workers. a prime example is the automakers and what unions have done to their profits. Anything new in automotive is coming to the South where the states are Right to Work, and not union.

 

[milohimself]

Go read the Manifesto, and Das Kapital. I think they should be mandatory public school reading, it should be important to know what sparked the thing that forced the hand of United States foregin affairs for over half a century.

 

[therealUT]

Go read the Manifesto, and Das Kapital. I think they should be mandatory public school reading, it should be important to know what sparked the thing that forced the hand of United States foregin affairs for over half a century.

Speaking of mandatory reading in public schools...
Should be on the list
Common Sense
Leviathan
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Wealth of Nations
The Constitution (not just memorizing the Preamble)

 

[milohimself]

Immediately second the Thomas Paine selection. It's a drinkin' country, and so was the man who helped start it. God bless him.

 

[volinbham]

Obviously neither Marxism, Communism, Capitalism or any other single "ism" is a blanket solution.

Our form of capitalism is in fact quite regulated and has elements built in to prevent some the potential abuses or at least harsh losses that a full laizzez faire approach would bring. However, I believe that the current form of capitalism has done more to raise the standard of living for ALL who've adopted it than any other approach conceived.

There are certainly gaps between rich and poor, however, they are nowhere near the extremes we've seen in so many other approaches. Wealth is not nearly as concentrated.

I think Malcolm Forbes had the right idea -- his private jet had the words "Capitalist Tool" on the side!

 

[CSpindizzy]

It was an idea that fit well with the Industrial Revolution. But in the 21st century, there is little room for this to root except for in the Third World. Even there it would compete with religious fundamentalism, the drug trade, etc.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

The problem with the Communist Manifesto and other collectivist propaganda is that it is not rational economics it's political philosophy. Few people are aware that Marx developed his political philosophy which was essentially an anti-capitalistic rant loaded with historical error and logical inconsistency (exposition to follow) well before he attempted even the most rudimentary economic analysis to support his political reactionism. When his theories were exploded by Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Carl Menger, and others he retreated into isolation to finish Das Kapital (Capital) which he never fully completed and just revealed how lost his economic theory was.

The economic support for his critique of capitalism rests in his development of the failed labor theory of value. It is upon this now defunct theory of objective value that his entire house of economic cards was built. The theory is largely absent from modern discussion of the "economics of communism" because it cannot be defended rationally. As a result, apologetics for communism is cloaked in righteous-sounding terminology like "social justice", "common good", "equality", etc. This not only hides the oh-so-important flaws in the economic theory to which communism is irreversibly linked, but also attempts to thwart the rational philosophical debate that would emerge when trying to examine the practical effects of communist policy - namely the affects on the individual. The result is there is lots of rhetoric about how great the idea is...but few people have a worthy answer when asked a very simple question: What do you do with someone who refuses to surrender their property to the collective "utopians or the "temporary" state that seeks to establish a communist society before it "whithers away" (yeah right....)?

The answer is violence. The very idea of communism is to advocate violence against people. There is no way to avoid it. The only exception would be a voluntary commune where people pool their resources, purchase property and live together. This, of course, was tried by Robert Owen and other early socialists of the 19th century and was a complete disaster. Then along came Marx.

The Communist Manifesto is pure political reactionism loaded with outright lies, shoddy logic, and unsupported presumptions.

It begins with a lie:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Right off the bat you can see that he favors rhetoric over logic. The "history of society" cannot be characterized by such a crude statement. Other observers and historians have concluded otherwise. For example, Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America observed the very opposite in the United States - that class lines were dissipating among Americans and that social mobility seemed more dynamic in the States.

Marx goes on to describe that in each "epoch" of history the "haves" find a way to exploit the "have nots", offering only glancing attention to any kind of historical support. He assumes. But when you read on you see where his assumptions are based:

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

It was, in fact, the very opposite. Modern industry came about because of the rise of world markets in the 16th and 17th centuries. The growth of these markets greatly increased when the real "bourgeoise" was thrown off later on. When freedom and expanding property rights threatened the feudal order, European governments responded by tightening their grip over trade in an attempt to thwart free markets, less their power slip away. The subsequent reaction to this mercantilist policy in the form of the American Revolution freed markets which allowed capital to be more widely distributed and led to innovation, prosperity, and, ultimately, modern industry. The effects of this phenomenon were observed by Tocqueville.

Marx correctly observes that the state can be a "committee for managing the common affairs of the whole boureoisie" but he fails to understand that the American revolution was an attempt to rid the state of such an obligation. He is establishing what would become the quintessential misunderstanding of a free market society for decades to come - he is attributing the characteristics of mercantilism, which is at best a quasi-free market society, to the concept of capitalism and private ownership of the means of production.

Navigating through the remaining rhetoric we come to this:

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

He attributes the above and countless other qualities to his metaphysical construct called the "bourgeoisie" which would later be ascribed to "capitalists" and capitalism. But, once again, he is describing the actions of mercantilist governments reliant upon force, and not free, voluntary exchange. Numerous other examples follow. He equivocates by implying that these negative qualities are the result of private ownership of production rather than the actions of governments that attempt to control them, a course of action he will later prescribe as a remedy!

More rhetoric:

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

A common theme in the Communsit Manifesto is that the rejection of feudal society was a bourgeois plot to gain control of resources and that the emergence of a different "organization of manufacturing industry" was the result of some sort of socio-economic expediency. What an incredible obfuscation of the truth. He simply ignores the possibility that the rejection of feudal institutions were based upon the Lockean tradition of property rights which began to call into question the morality of the feudal order.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Part II

As an example, take the concept of primogeniture, which was the royal practice of forbidding a landowner (who was really a steward for his lord or king) from dividing up his property among his heirs by law. This kept the wealth concentrated into the hands of a few vassals to the king or lord who could then control resources and maintain political power by keeping them dependent upon his will. The king knew that allowing property to disseminate outside of royal authority would be a threat. Thomas Jefferson wrote a scathing critique of primogeniture (which was exported to colonial Virginia with the early settlers) in which he argued against it from the perspective of the rights of property.

Additionally, he correctly observed that a more equitable distribution of property would result if primogeniture (control of property rights by the state) were abolished. Once again, the results would later be evident. If Jefferson and the rest of the landed aristocracy's dream was to gain a "bourgeois" stanglehold on society for the purposes of exploitation then they failed miserably, as Tocqueville would observe.

Just a few examples of some poor predictions and outright lies:

The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class.

History proved Marx wrong. Nominal wage rates were declining in the late 19the century but real wages were on the rise - before the onset of labor unions.

Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers.

Nope. It also relies upon the competition for labor. Marx continually demonstrates a lack of understanding of supply and demand. He essentially implies there is no real demand for labor which would cause employers to compete.

Here we have the basis for his entire political movement, and the psuedo-economics he conceived to support it:

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

He offers no real philosophical defense for this statement because he has rejected Western philosophy and religion. On that note I am always surprised to come across Christian communists because the concept of individual property rights is well established in the Bible and a key component of the Ten Commandments. Christianity and communism are incompatible in this respect.

How does Marx propose that private property be abolished? He doesn't say it outright and for good reason. He knows. The only way to do it is through violence. This will elevate the working class to be the rulers.

And Marx is also a comedian:

We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

...and then, of course, they will give up power! This from a man who portends to understand history. Here is his twisted logic:

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.


My oh my..."vast association"..."public power"....heavy on abstract rhetoric and devoid of any rational discussion on practicality. Look at the words in bold and ask yourself why.

Marx concludes:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working men of all countries, unite!

There is no doubt he advocates violence against you if you will not surrender your property to the "vast association" or the "public power". He implicitly denies that you own yourself and that you can freely exchange and associate with others for your mutual benefit. Any discussion of socialist philosophy must include commentary on the moral legitamacy of property and exchange. Marx fails to do this and his entire life was spent attempting to chip away at the foundations of such institutions and practices, even going so far as to discount western intellectual thought as a flawed because its product was derived from a bourgoise institution. The entire assertion is one giant ad-hominem reasoning fallacy directed as Western thought.

The interesting thing is, he himself was a product of that tradition!

Given this fact, ask yourself...did he ever reject his station as an intellectual because of his misgivings? No, he spent his entire life living cozily in his apartment with his plants, supported by the donations of private individuals. Never did he drop his pen and take up arms with his proletarian brotherhood, an action that would be logically consistent with his conclusion that intellectualism was bourgoise vanity and consequently useless to society.

He lived his entire life as the nineteenth century equivelent of a Berkely hippie who dropped out of college and spent the rest of his life in Haight-Ashbury. Meanwhile, his theories were shredded to pieces by Menger, Bohm-Bawerk, and Mises.

His theories are simple politics...go count how many times he uses loaded terminology in his writings. His favorite one is "exploit" but he will not define what it means. If you think Communism is a good thing...then try to define that word in the economic sense - you can only reduce it to the labor theory of value and nothing else.

Aside from all this...foadisto makes an excellent point that was observed by Ludwig Von Mises. Show us how rational economic calculation can occur in a socialist society. The crickets continue to chirp to this day. Marxists would rather discuss the "vast association" and "societal exploitation" without defining his terminology.

 

[jdsa]

I finished reading "the possessed" by dostoyevsky a few months ago. his take on communism and yours seem to be very compatible.

on the other hand it's worth noting, we do have a fairly rich tradition of communism in this county in the form of quakers, amish, and 60's holdouts. i'm not sure you're being entirely fair to them when you suggest that the bible is incompatible with their way of life. also, let's not forget that the pilgrims and many ofthe other early settlers of the country were very much anti-materialism.

times have changed, prolly for the better.

 

[milohimself]

There are a ton of examples of small, communist-like societies. Those are all well and good, it works on a small scale. But not over an entire country.

 

[volinbham]

Those people in "Kingpin" seemed pretty happy. Even the bearded grandma.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Hey....they don't pay taxes so they have a huge one-up in happiness over us.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

Yeah Capit.......I mean Socialism!