wE WILL DO WHAT WE DO:
wE WILL BE ALONE.
I say again: the logic of ‘short term gain is all that matters in the long run’ is moronic. I’ll leave it to the other posters here to judge for themselves whether you, personally, are a moron, but I imagine your reactions here have not done your any favours in that regard.
Well, I’m sure you guys agree it’s about time to chill out a little.
Personally, when it comes to the personal life of Marx or Engels, I don’t give a crap. Whether he’s a hypocrite or not has nothing to do with the fact that his works are highly significant and worthy of debate. I’m not here to gossip, I’d rather discuss their theories.
Sure, Socialism and Communism haven’t “solved the world” quite yet, but there’s no disputing that Marx and Engels have changed the world and given tons of people plenty to think about - and that can only be good.
I’d rather be looking to the future than writing the guys off for any degree of lack of success that they have achieved relative to their intentions.
But whilst we’re still in ad hom mode, I’m going to ad hom to myself - I take personal issue with Capitalism.
I’m a chilled guy, a “Type B”, who values quality of life far more than consumer power and choice. Capitalism isn’t for me. It’s for people who thrive off stress, who live to work and/or people who base their self worth on, and who are compelled to socially compete based on superficial, fickle, material ownership.
The incentive under Capitalism is for “Type A” entrepreneurs to battle it out in an “efficiency” contest with one another until all jobs demand other "Type A"s as employees. "Type B"s are either weaned out or made miserable in the name of “Type A efficiency”.
What is this efficiency for? Hardly any of it anymore is for reliably supplying me with the bare essentials and a couple of extra comforts here and there. The vast majority is for girls who need a new look every 5 minutes and guys who need all the latest gadgets, and of course for everyone to get to work better and faster. Even aside from high street retail outlets that I avoid as much as I can, I’m surrounded by the industry of advertisements and financial advice, which is also based on facilitating this system of which only a small part benefits me.
I am dragged into all this because everything else is pushed out of the market. I only have the option to work for this system.
I want to have the option to work in proportion with what I want from others, but as it is the best I can get is a full time job that barely gets me by. I want people to value quality of life too, over increasingly decadent levels of standard of living and obsession with “increased growth (for what?)”. With a system more centred around that, perhaps I could get what I want out of life too.
Am I the only one?
I try not to waste or over-consume.
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Just so we know what we’re talking about here.
Name me ONE country that presently is structured around the Marx doctrine?
Matter of fact…name me ONE country in the history of man that had their government structured around the principles of Karl Marx.
OK…so, you’re arguing against something that has never existed nor ever will exist.
Thank you for this productive thread.
At least we remained respectful and there were no hard feelings.[/size]
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Cuba.
Ahem - Cuba.
Can it?
There is considerable debate over Marx’s intentions. Plenty of conspiracy theories about him being a British propaganda agent, though I’ve never found that they added up to much. Numerous people saying that he was a double-bluff of some sort, a capitalist in communist clothing who was helping advance the alienated, atomised, a person is just a cog in an economic machine paradigm that he described capitalism as.
I don’t think it’s ever wise to assume that a philosopher had good intentions, and I also think one can only assess their intentions by examining their lives. A philosopher is no different to an artist or a politician.
Clearly not. I think most people, whether they would name it as such, suffer from the cultural and psychological dynamics of the advanced capitalism, the growth-obsessed state capitalism that we have today.
Excellent. I hate to see food wasted. It’s one of the reasons I’m overweight.
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Cuba
Ahem - Cuba
Ahem…Ahem - Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, & China.
Those are the five countries that are now in existence who are widely recognized as Communist.[/size]
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Despite the awesome gif I’m going to have to take issue with what you’re saying. You asked for countries who actually followed the doctrine of Marx. China doesn’t. North Korea doesn’t. I don’t know enough about the others to say.
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I bow to you.
What’s the difference between the countries.
Again, I’m not trying to be a smart ass.
I’m not much into politics.
All I know is Communist/Non-communist.
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…that and the fact that I am sooooooooooooooosick if hearing of, The philosophies of Marks/Lenin.[/size]
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If you liked the kangaroo eating…[/size]
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Then why then did you mock so certainly that no country has existed or ever will exist in line with Marx’s doctrines?
Seems a little rude and unnecessary, no?
To return the favour, your posts are annoying to quote.
Also, Leninist Russia was in line with Marxism whilst it existed.
I do tend to think of more knowledge and consideration of anything as a universal good. I don’t think I’ve actually ever questioned this - interesting point. Any arguments as to why it might not be?
I can only think of generic ones like loss of speed of action and potential corruption of orders by a questioning mind. But that would be short term, and I value long term more. Not that everyone else does though I guess?
K.
So where are these other people and why don’t they say anything?
I think I only ever hear moral arguments against Capitalism, and sometimes even an intellectual criticism of economic patterns that seem to inevitably emerge from it. But never a personal criticism based on one’s life preferences and psychological mindset?
Perhaps a personalised attack would be more effective than dry analysis and moral whining?
I’m roughly medium weight, though tending towards underweight. I also don’t waste or over-consume. And I’m still poor as well as minimal in my spending and slim. I just don’t earn much, like tons and tons of other people.
So back on topic somewhat, thank fuck for the minimum wage, otherwise i’d be screwed!
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I believe in minimum wage.
I am for ALL countries supporting a minimum wage.
I am for raising the minimum wage in America, where I live.
I don’t know ANYTHING about Marks or Lenin philosophies.
I don’t want to know ANYTHING about them.
They are Communist doctrines.
I have one issue; Organized Labor.
Independent, legally recognized Organized Labor agreements do not exist in Communist countries.
That’s ALL I need or want to know.
There is sooooooo much bullshit thrown around about what & who is a Marxist. Just tired of it.
I’m done.
I’ll let you get back to the important shit of backbiting and name calling.[/size]
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So kind 
My opinion of you has just improved 
I’m glad you’re for minimum wage. Why? Is it moral? Academic? Personal?
You would do well to read about Communism. If you did, you would realise that it doesn’t inherently disallow “Independent, legally recognized Organized Labor agreements”.
This is not to say that real Communist countries (in name) always allow it, they don’t. But the literature highlights an important distinction between direct and indirect democracy. In Communism, the government is supposed to be YOU (not some suspect elitist State like most people think of government). It’s not supposed to be a Totalitarian dictator saying what labour can occur and what cannot. It’s supposed to be a lot like Capitalism in this respect, only with a much greater degree of co-operation. Organised labour most definitely IS supposed to occur amongst regular people who ARE the government, discussing what to start and stop amongst themselves directly democratically.
Or, perhaps change of focus, perspective guys not from the point of view of how much and who read Marx, but from the perspective of say the mechanics of how the system works , can it be looked at it?
The minimum wage sets bar.but why the need for it? As has been pointed out earlier, the boss has to raise prices to accommodate the increase in prices. But does he have to? Yes, but not before the inflation kicks in to lower the value of money. Why does inflation happen?
It happens, because it has to happen. With no inflation,the bank can not pay an interest on capital.
Capital accumulation usually correlates pretty evenly to indexes of inflation and unemployment. In order to have a sustained interest on capitol, the money has to come from somewhere.
If, consumer spending goes down because of rising prices but flat wages, demand will go down, and prices will fall. So minimum wage is raised so that demand will bounce back up, and the market again will stabilize.
The federal reserves changes interest rates up and down to adjust for all these things; money supply, the price of commodities, rate of inflation, So that the system will work.
The other day I heard ex prez clinton in atlanta talking about the need for job creation. Why? Because if people will be unemployed they will drag the economy by not consuming. Then it's back to recession.
This process cannot be controlled beyond limits, curves, based on pure math because where bank cars were offered at 0 percent financing, and banks followed suit by matching their interest to the Fed's prime rate, the supply/demand curve was adjusted as an incentive.
A 0 % unemployment would mean, a maximum curve, from where everything had to fall. So that scenario is also not acceptable. There always has to be a slack, so that adjustment's can be made. 0% unemployment would mean many things: subsidies, job (busy work) government styled programs, fall in competitiveness, and moral--and a shift toward "socialism" FDR did that, but the rationale was --justification on basis of the war time economy, where ----the need for gov. Purchase of war material did not conflict with any competitive issues----because we were as a nation a united front.
But this is a peace time economy, and minimum wage has to correspond to all the indexes, to keep them running healthy.
So free enterprise appears to be a function of a market place is free in the sense that it’s always adjusted for this or that index, and now with the investment of global economy, many other things factored in , as well.
No. He doesn’t. He could just as easily accept a lower profit margin.
Many companies, especially larger ones reap huge profits that can easily be cut to adjust for increased employee wages - no problem. Some companies would have to go out of business if they did not adjust their prices to pay for increased wages, sure, but given the ridiculous amount of choice already available, I have no objections to the market taking such a hit. Any repercussions such as less perfect competition and a fall in demand for employees can be offset by what you call “socialist” measures being implemented, which I also have no objections to.
See, things like the “need” for perfect competition and the profit incentive are purely ideological. Things like “acceptable” profits for employers are purely based on what they can get away with, resulting in the ridiculously decadent shows of social competition that we see amongst the filthy rich concerning stuff they can buy and show off. This can take a hit, I have no objections towards that. Helping to reduce this ridiculous imbalance by charging taxes to fund for the “socialist” alternative is fine by me. And this doesn’t even need to eliminate financial reward, just scale it to something that works better.
These people have to accept such things in wartime, but in peacetime they are allowed to get away with it. Yet this just pushes everyone else down relative to them, and the whole economy suffers as a result exactly because the majority of the population suffers. Not cool.
You make out that the whole system has to work in the way it does and no differently, based on assumptions such as “interest must be charged on capital”. This just causes money to flow away from the vast majority of workers who produce the wealth so that the rich elite can splurge on luxuries. This is not optimal, even for them. Economically as well as psychologically. It is a question of distribution, and distribution according to Capitalism is not optimal.
You have to think outside the economic theory that appears to be centred around justifying the unsustainability inherent in Capitalism. Wealth cannot indefinitely flow away from the main bulk of people who produce it.
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A large part of the reason I do not want to know anything about Marks & Engels, Lenin or Stalin is that they represent Communist doctrines.
I LOVE ORGANIZED LABOR.
Organized Labor is my religion.
In the past Organized Labor was wrongly associated with the Communist Party during the Red Scare in America.
Matter of fact, at one time, all union members had to sign a pledge that they WERE NOT COMMUNISTS.
Organized Labor has enough detractors. Communism need not be one of them.
Organized Labor thrives in a Liberal Democracy. That’s good enough for me.[/size]
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From my experience a little knowledge can be extremely dangerous, particularly when we’re talking about people who’ve been bred to not really know anything. The first truly radical idea that someone comes across is often the one that makes the most lasting impression, and all future radical ideas will be compared back to that original one not just for intellectual or political or cultural value but for emotional impact.
Look at most terrorist groups - most of them are somewhat more informed than the average person around them (some of them are just cretins/sociopaths) and yet they turn to violence as a means of resolving political and economic conflicts. Indeed, without that additional knowledge (additional to the norm) they would likely not commit such violence, because they naturally could not find a justification for it. And an awful lot of terrorist groups have been Marxist or Marxist-inspired, including a reasonable proportion of the CIA/MI6 ones.
It probably would, you’re right. I often think that instead of making films investigating terrorist attacks I should have made films about the whole mentality of the war on terror, the psychological dimensions. I would have got more people watching, I reckon. There’s still time.
Anyway, if you want to make a film about how capitalism (or whatever you call the current setup) fucks with people’s heads, detaches them from reality, makes them hate themselves and each other, then I’d be up for that.
I don’t earn much either, but I always seem to have just about enough money to buy decent food, and I always eat it all. Eating’s good.
You seem like an intelligent person, can you not supplement your income through creative acts?
I’ll make the accusation on you and many others when speaking of Fascism.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear…
So you’ve successfully been convinced to write something off without ever even trying to get to know about it?
Don’t you feel like a bit of a muppet for having been manipulated into not wanting to come to your own conclusions?
It is very strange that you love organised labour and yet you have been turned against Communism when it would be right up your street. The only reason that trade union members had to sign a pledge that they were not communists was because Communism was suffering such intense slander and defamation that no movement could be associated with it and still acquire adequate support - even if the movement was actually perfectly in line with Communism.
You’ve been sold the forbidden fruit angle, perhaps you’re afraid to cross a line that’s been painted for you for fear of social consequence. It’s just bizarre, to me, to come face to face (well, via an internet forum) with someone so indoctrinated by propaganda. The irony is that you probably think Communism is more associated with that kind of stuff.