Excellent article on Karl Marx

[DrZoidberg]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/01/may-day-marx-capitalism-work-class

Here's a good first of May article on Karl Marx and what, if anything we can salvage of his ideas. I agree with him. I've read Marx and his critique of capitalism is still right on the money (lol pun). But he's frustratingly vague on solutions. And like the author points out, we can ignore that part. Marx isn't the patron saint of socialism. Nobody has claimed he was infallible. Some of his ideas are brilliant and many are downright retarded. We can take the useful bits and ignore the bad bits.

And he did change the world. We are all partly living in a Marxist society. We're all reading history like Marxists today. We don't even call it "Marxist interpretations" any longer. We just call it "history". The idea that welfare is a good idea, or that we use government policy to nudge people in productive directions all rests on accepting Marxist ideas. Today of course we don't call it "Marxism". We just call it "common sense". The idea that people adapt their behaviour and values depending on in what system or society find themselves in (or just follow incentives) is Marx. Before Marx we all blamed religion or that a person had an innate noble/corrupt character of some sort.

A big reason for rehabilitating Marx is that we are forgetting him. The left is becoming increasingly retarded by the day (my opinion). I get the impression that today's leftys are more focused on trigger warnings/being offended than how class structures are effecting us. The former is idiotic while the latter is a genuine problem. Socialism shouldn't be reduced to an exercise in watching our language.

BTW, I'm not a socialist. I can still see a value in Marx. Just like I can see the value of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman without being a libertarian (which I'm not either). These ideas are too fundamental for anybody to claim them to a team. Learning great thinkers ideas is important regardless of your political leanings, and Marx is undoubtedly one of the greats.

*steps off soap box*

 

[Nice Squirrel]

The left focusing on trigger warnings? Nonsense! Why recently I had to not only announce what I liked to be called, but the pronouns associated with me. I just rambled on incoherently referencing the movie C.H.U.D.

True story.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Where Marx excels is his description of the capitalist system in Europe at the time, but yes, his solution was not realistic.

 

[lpetrich]

Interestingly, some capitalism apologists have a quasi-Marxist view. They believe that there is a working class and an exploiting class, though their identifications of these classes are very different from Karl Marx's. You can see this in Ayn Rand's works, like her novel Atlas Shrugged. The book's heroes are the working class, while the looters and the moochers are the exploiting class.

 

[fromderinside]

Unfortunately observations, yours nor those of Marx, are solutions. Naming is probably the worst thing one can do. I read DrZoidberg's in which he, after agreeing with Marx, felt the need to deny he was a socialist for which he obviously has parallel views.

BTW, I'm not a socialist.

After doing that his analysis begins to fall on deaf ears a problem with associating or no with labels. Another issue is naming, associating a label with a name. lpetrich does this.

BTW, I'm not a socialist.

The point? We're talking labels and names not solutions. More on that later. My bride wants lunch so I'm out to the kitchen to prepare a New York steak and salad.

Later.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Interestingly, some capitalism apologists have a quasi-Marxist view. They believe that there is a working class and an exploiting class, though their identifications of these classes are very different from Karl Marx's. You can see this in Ayn Rand's works, like her novel Atlas Shrugged. The book's heroes are the working class, while the looters and the moochers are the exploiting class.

Any thinker that uses class as a strategy for analysis is a Marxist thinker. Marx invented such a fundamental shift in how we think about the world that we today would struggle with not seeing the world through Marxist eyes. Any such analysis we'd simply see as retarded. Ayn Rand came well after Marx, so she's bound to use a type of Marxist analysis. Even if she reads different things into the classes. The fact that she at all sees different classes of people is a Marxist view.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Unfortunately observations, yours nor those of Marx, are solutions. Naming is probably the worst thing one can do. I read DrZoidberg's in which he, after agreeing with Marx, felt the need to deny he was a socialist for which he obviously has parallel views.

That was my entire argument. You can be a Marxist without being a socialist. Simpy because the body of Marx's work, today, spans the entire political field. Good luck finding a political ideology today that doesn't on some level base their ideology on the acceptance of a Marxist idea.

 

[fromderinside]

Actually my point was a label or a name does neither lay out an idealogy nor specify how to execute a social contract. As you, probably, I look at social contracts as agreements among individuals in some grouping for how to act within a frame toward a shared set of objectives or values. Naming owners or workers only set up alarms by those offended by one's bias.

An example for how I'd approach building a compact.

Trade is among both workers and owners. Trade can be specified and quantified. Ergo rules of trade should be among the objectives a compact among individuals in a group. The use of money, fair transaction, regulations and laws are determined here. After those rules are established one goes to biases caused by being either an owner or an employee. Now we get into ethics and laws should be amended to match those sensitivities of one or the other. Notice I am traditional. First rules of the road for trade then rules of those practicing the trade function.

No where in this set up process need naming or labeling be necessary.

Besides anything done between parties to a compact is social, communal, individual with a goal of being equitable. If not the compact would fall of its own weight very quickly. An example is US confederation. It failed by including states without requiring responsibility nor imposing enforcable sanction among these entities. Its as if they were a set of nations who wanted to grow without rules for growth.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Good luck finding a political ideology today that doesn't on some level base their ideology on the acceptance of a Marxist idea.

Neoclassical economics, the basis of today's mainstream economics : Devoid of class, homogenous individuals are the analytical building blocks, no fundamental conflicts of interest and the market coordinates their "utility maximisation" so that, absent “distortions,” everyone gains.

Not that it wasn't influenced by Marx, oh no. Rather, it jumps through hoops and bends over backwards to avoid the implications of Marx's description of capitalism.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Good luck finding a political ideology today that doesn't on some level base their ideology on the acceptance of a Marxist idea.

Neoclassical economics, the basis of today's mainstream economics : Devoid of class, homogenous individuals are the analytical building blocks, no fundamental conflicts of interest and the market coordinates their "utility maximisation" so that, absent “distortions,” everyone gains.

Not that it wasn't influenced by Marx, oh no. Rather, it jumps through hoops and bends over backwards to avoid the implications of Marx's description of capitalism.

Ok... but that's splitting words IMHO. "Influenced by Marx" is basing one's work on Marxist ideas. It is based on a "materialistic" reading of history. All economics today is. And that puts it in team Marx.

The idea that our values aren't effected by market forces is laughable today. A cornerstone of conservative and libertarian political theory. Well.. that's an idea Marx first came up with. They're not denying it isn't true. They're arguing that it's a good thing. Still team Marx.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Actually my point was a label or a name does neither lay out an idealogy nor specify how to execute a social contract. As you, probably, I look at social contracts as agreements among individuals in some grouping for how to act within a frame toward a shared set of objectives or values. Naming owners or workers only set up alarms by those offended by one's bias.

An example for how I'd approach building a compact.

Trade is among both workers and owners. Trade can be specified and quantified. Ergo rules of trade should be among the objectives a compact among individuals in a group. The use of money, fair transaction, regulations and laws are determined here. After those rules are established one goes to biases caused by being either an owner or an employee. Now we get into ethics and laws should be amended to match those sensitivities of one or the other. Notice I am traditional. First rules of the road for trade then rules of those practicing the trade function.

No where in this set up process need naming or labeling be necessary.

Besides anything done between parties to a compact is social, communal, individual with a goal of being equitable. If not the compact would fall of its own weight very quickly. An example is US confederation. It failed by including states without requiring responsibility nor imposing enforcable sanction among these entities. Its as if they were a set of nations who wanted to grow without rules for growth.

Without labelling academics will be out of a job. Equally true in your example. Good luck formulating any theory without labelling and making it make sense. The problem isn't labelling. The problem is guilt by association and other logical fallacies. It's not the fault of academics that people don't understand the long words they use/invent. And politics is such a loaded subject that people rarely can think straight. Still not the fault of academics. We need those labels in order to talk about... well... stuff. I also think credit should be given when credit is due.