Marxism

[steve_bank]

No Robots
^I started with a response to your rant against philosophy, and it was you who then went into a rant against Marxism.
^I'm not interested in political discussion. As Marx puts it, communism is the overcoming of man as political being in favour of man as social being:

I just want to find people who might be interested in the same things as me. I also want to do what I can to bring about the new order by attacking the old.

Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a Gattungswesen [generic essence] in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.

Make your case here No Robots. Your view in part is that global Marxism is inevitable.

Hardly a rant on Marxism. Objective observations that Marxism failed on a large scale in Russia and China. Observation trumps debate.

Note in the USA there are open communist organizations. There always has been, even in the Cold War.

One of our recent Seattle city council members is a communist. She wants o tear everything down.

She got voted out along with others when policies failed and caused problems. That's democracy for you.

The problem with utopian schemes like Marxism is there has to be a way to resolve disputes and make decisions.

Some options on a large scale are direct voting and majority rule or representative democracy.

The American founders rejected direct democracy as anarchy, chaos.

To be human is to be political. High school peer groups have politics. Chimps have hierarchical structures.

 

[No Robots]

Hardly a rant on Marxism. Objective observations that Marxism failed on a large scale in Russia and China. Observation trumps debate.

However defective the implementation of Marxism in those countries, it did catapult them into dominant global powers in less than a century.

To be human is to be political. High school peer groups have politics. Chimps have hierarchical structures.

To be human is to be social. Politics is result of the individual's alienation from his own social power which is in turn the result of economic exploitation.

I will continue this next week. I am on a short vacation for Canadian Thanksgiving.

 

[steve_bank]

The thread is yours. Feel free to elaborate as you wish.

Russia and China were not global powers, they were small military threats with the overt goal of replacing western democracy with global communism by force.

The Soviet militray was unreliable. Only a small part of its tank forces were in operation at any time. Tey never developed quality manufacturing.

In the 80s I did some work reverse engineering Soviet air to air missiles. One was a copy of the Sidewinder infrared seeker. It had vacuum tubes instead of transistors.

What made China and Russia a threat was nuclear weapons.

 

[Bronzeage]

Will Rogers said, "Communism looks good on paper, but nobody has ever been able to make it work."

That's the basic problem. Every country which has tried to institute Marxism has devolved into a police state. It sort of works for small groups. A family is a kind of Marxist society. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", is the basic operating principle of a family unit. It helps that the needy ones are small and the able ones are big, which makes the family a benevolent police state.

There have been Marxist communes which have prospered for a while, but this was always a fairly small group of people. Once the population grows to the point where it's not possible to have a personal relationship with everyone in the group, it breaks down.

 

[bilby]

There have been Marxist communes which have prospered for a while, but this was always a fairly small group of people.

Communes suffer from the cup of tea problem.

If you are a member of a commune, you can't make a cup of tea. If you want a cup, you have to make a big pot of tea so everyone can have tea.

Which would be fine, except that Neil only drinks coffee, Joan only drinks hot chocolate, Joe wants two sugars and just a hint of milk, Sarah wants no sugar but lots of milk, Gillian will only drink from a bone china cup, Russell insists on his favorite mug (which you will need to wash first), Tina wants soy milk, but that ran out yesterday so you will need to go to the shops for some, Sam is a vegan and refuses to drink from a cup that has previously had milk in it, Teresa wants a freshly squeezed orange juice, and Martin would prefer a glass of rainwater.

So making a cup of tea has gone from being a minor three minute task that ends with a refreshing drink, to being a huge hours-long effort that will inevitably end with a heated criticism of your failure to account for someone's needs, wants, or feelings.

And nobody wants a cup of tea quite that badly. So nobody gets a cup of tea.

And this problem repeats for every single minor desire. Nobody can ever enjoy any little treats or luxuries. So everyone ends up resenting everyone else (particularly Russell, who is a lazy bastard).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

To be human is to be social. Politics is result of the individual's alienation from his own social power which is in turn the result of economic exploitation.

I will continue this next week. I am on a short vacation for Canadian Thanksgiving.

Huh? Politics is about banding together to combine the sliver of power each person has into something useful. Forget the ideals of empowerment, the total power is always 100%, you can't increase that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There have been Marxist communes which have prospered for a while, but this was always a fairly small group of people. Once the population grows to the point where it's not possible to have a personal relationship with everyone in the group, it breaks down.

Yup. The upper limit appears to be the number of people we can actively know--about 150 people.

 

[Elixir]

And nobody wants a cup of tea quite that badly. So nobody gets a cup of tea.

As it should be. Water is better for you, and the all seeing nature of communal consciousness will see to it that water is all you get. For your own good.

 

[Bronzeage]

There have been Marxist communes which have prospered for a while, but this was always a fairly small group of people.

Communes suffer from the cup of tea problem.

If you are a member of a commune, you can't make a cup of tea. If you want a cup, you have to make a big pot of tea so everyone can have tea.

Which would be fine, except that Neil only drinks coffee, Joan only drinks hot chocolate, Joe wants two sugars and just a hint of milk, Sarah wants no sugar but lots of milk, Gillian will only drink from a bone china cup, Russell insists on his favorite mug (which you will need to wash first), Tina wants soy milk, but that ran out yesterday so you will need to go to the shops for some, Sam is a vegan and refuses to drink from a cup that has previously had milk in it, Teresa wants a freshly squeezed orange juice, and Martin would prefer a glass of rainwater.

So making a cup of tea has gone from being a minor three minute task that ends with a refreshing drink, to being a huge hours-long effort that will inevitably end with a heated criticism of your failure to account for someone's needs, wants, or feelings.

And nobody wants a cup of tea quite that badly. So nobody gets a cup of tea.

And this problem repeats for every single minor desire. Nobody can ever enjoy any little treats or luxuries. So everyone ends up resenting everyone else (particularly Russell, who is a lazy bastard).

That's only eight people, so it's possible one person could cater to everyone's demands. That person would need to have an obligation to the others, which can be imposed, or happily assumed. How long they can or will maintain this is another question. There is a limit to the number of personal relationships that create a personal obligation. Nine people might be too many.

The problem with a planned economy is someone has to make a plan. The history of the Soviet Union is filled with anecdotes about the means of production being derailed by poor planning, and worse, plans based on politics instead of economics. No one is smart enough to think of all contingents.

Marxism is a philosophy closer to the "Wouldn't it be lovely" school than anything else.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Seattle bent a bit too far left. No shame in that.

There have been Marxist communes which have prospered for a while, but this was always a fairly small group of people.

Communes suffer from the cup of tea problem.

If you are a member of a commune, you can't make a cup of tea. If you want a cup, you have to make a big pot of tea so everyone can have tea.

Which would be fine, except that Neil only drinks coffee, Joan only drinks hot chocolate, Joe wants two sugars and just a hint of milk, Sarah wants no sugar but lots of milk, Gillian will only drink from a bone china cup, Russell insists on his favorite mug (which you will need to wash first), Tina wants soy milk, but that ran out yesterday so you will need to go to the shops for some, Sam is a vegan and refuses to drink from a cup that has previously had milk in it, Teresa wants a freshly squeezed orange juice, and Martin would prefer a glass of rainwater.

So making a cup of tea has gone from being a minor three minute task that ends with a refreshing drink, to being a huge hours-long effort that will inevitably end with a heated criticism of your failure to account for someone's needs, wants, or feelings.

And nobody wants a cup of tea quite that badly. So nobody gets a cup of tea.

And this problem repeats for every single minor desire. Nobody can ever enjoy any little treats or luxuries. So everyone ends up resenting everyone else (particularly Russell, who is a lazy bastard).

Communes fail because of W = F x d. Just because it is a commune doesn't mean the work disappears. What people find nice about our class system in the Western World is that it doesn't quite relegate easily. Born in the middle class, probably gonna being middle class. People don't like relegating downward. And Communes don't have a pyramid system. Everyone pitches in. Which is real cool... for a while. But then it gets arduous. One wants to break free of that and over time, the commune dissolves. US had plenty of these come and go. The class system provides a promotion setup which drives people to put hard work into the 'dirty jobs' to promote the next generation. America has been using this system to power its economy (to great success) since the end of slavery, but lots of pain.

Ultimately, there is no failure in Marxism or Capitalism or Libertarianism. They look at economics and civilization from different lenses and provide a valid perspective when one is trying to develop a system that'll provide a a decent quality of life.

One would have to be an absolute fool, however, to base their entire system on any one of these concepts alone. Be like wearing sunglasses at night because they work well on sunny days.

 

[Politesse]

No Robots
^I started with a response to your rant against philosophy, and it was you who then went into a rant against Marxism.
^I'm not interested in political discussion. As Marx puts it, communism is the overcoming of man as political being in favour of man as social being:

I just want to find people who might be interested in the same things as me. I also want to do what I can to bring about the new order by attacking the old.

Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a Gattungswesen [generic essence] in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.

Make your case here No Robots. Your view in part is that global Marxism is inevitable.

Hardly a rant on Marxism. Objective observations that Marxism failed on a large scale in Russia and China. Observation trumps debate.

Note in the USA there are open communist organizations. There always has been, even in the Cold War.

One of our recent Seattle city council members is a communist. She wants o tear everything down.

She got voted out along with others when policies failed and caused problems. That's democracy for you.

The problem with utopian schemes like Marxism is there has to be a way to resolve disputes and make decisions.

Some options on a large scale are direct voting and majority rule or representative democracy.

The American founders rejected direct democracy as anarchy, chaos.

To be human is to be political. High school peer groups have politics. Chimps have hierarchical structures.

Out of curiosity, do capitalist nations ever collapse or descend into authoritarianism?

 

[bilby]

And nobody wants a cup of tea quite that badly. So nobody gets a cup of tea.

As it should be. Water is better for you, and the all seeing nature of communal consciousness will see to it that water is all you get. For your own good.

Doh, a beer, I love my beer,
Ray, a bloke who serves me beer,
Me, a girl who loves her beer,
Far, that's where I'd go for beer,
So, let's have another beer,
La-ger's just a word for beer,
Tea? No thanks, I'll have a beer,
That will bring us back to Doh, Doh, Doh, Doh...

- Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music, 1965.