whats up with the view marxism was based on 'moral principles'

[michaell]

"BUT it just doesnt work"

i dont think its prevalent but i mean come on

marx published an article in 1849 as i recall where he publicly called for the wiping out of serbs because according to him they hadnt even reached the capitalist stage and were stuck in feudalism so there was no place for them in the soon socialist europe

he was a piece of shit

[Flash]

it's not as simple as that.
there is controversy as to whether it was truly marx who called for the extermination of lesser peoples and if anybody did so at all
http://communism-explained.blogspot.com.br/2010/05/did-marx-call-for-extermination-of.html

if you think there is something immoral about marxist social-economical theories then you should attack them directly.

my one and only qualm with marxist theory is that it is extremely naïve in thinking that a dictatorship can be forward-thinking and willingly give away its power once its goals (capitalism ~> socialism ~> communism) are complete.
that naiveté has led to many bloodbaths that I personally don't think he would have agreed with at all. he strikes me as a defender of the proletariat, which were massacred along with people from all other classes in china, cambodia, etc... It wouldn't fit.
But I'm just guessing, as is anyone.

basically his proposition of communism has one big hole in it that lets crazy evil fucknuts get away with stuff that other people of their kind typically had a much harder time getting away with.
but even if you factor in that we don't know what Marx's feelings would be on, say, the Khmer Rouge rule, if we rationalize the subject completely, they had almost nothing to do with economy, only with continuous centralization of power. and thus it doesn't even fundamentally concern Marx and his theories.

while I cannot ignore what I perceive as a fatal, and absurdly dangerous, flaw in his theories that has led millions to die, Marx is still someone I admire in some ways for his brilliant deconstruction of modern society and his angles on the history of humanity and on our economical processes.

Besides, we should always be wary of placing ANY thinker, especially the great ones, under a label of "good" or "bad". We almost never actually, you know, read their books - debating them over and over again based on annotated reads, dissections by third parties, and so on. And if we did read their books, we'd always find great thoughts we could, at the very least, respect, and some bullshit you absolutely disagree with on certain parts.

so no, not a piece of shit at all

[michaell]

i strongly disagree with everything youve said

marxism does not advocate a dictatorship diretly at all, nor does it espouse the single party rule

that element was implemented by lenin, as 'the transitional period' hence the term 'marxism-leninism'*1

however, ill get back to it soon..

i fail to perceive in what way marx deconstructed our society at all, neither from economic nor social standpoint

marxian economics are virtually pseudo science and most of it doesnt hold water, for instance his theory of value which argues that the value of a good stems solely from the exploitation of workers which makes no sense  both from an economic standpoint AND psychologic*2 (ill get back to it)

capitalism itself has come under strident criticism in the recent years from all sides of political spectrum, even the right wing today isnt what it used to be. most detractors claim capitalism is immoral, because of disproportionate wealth distribution etc, division of society

ok then, well lets look at it from another standpoint.

what if capitalism in its pure form is in fact the most equitable system ever conceived?

doesnt it after all give everybody the right to do what they want? a group of individuals meet and decide to set up a company, they are in a need of skilled, say, manual workers or other craftsmen who would implement the services, while they oversee it. and so a network is created, the existence of the company gives employment and enables its employees to sustain themselves financially. you may argue that it is unjust for the managers to earn more than them, but arent they performing far more difficult tasks?

now that sounds romanticist doesnt it?

after all, there are so many dark sides inherent to a humans nature, like greed and lacks of empathy

BUT now lets have a look at the marxian perception of those things

marx is vehemently attacking entrepreneurs as rapacious and oppressing the working class. isnt that biased? its as if everybody who had money became deprived of compassion and human feelings whatsoever, like the world was ruled by sociopaths? on the other hand we get the romanticist image of the manual worker, as if that was applicable to everyone..

now tell me the difference between these two views presented here

in a way there are no discrepancies, theyre both biased and overlook many factors

but at least the former makes people exert themselves AND extract creativity and logical thinking of those who endure subjection to it

socialism makes you submit to one model, scheme on the other hand

*

NOW lets talk about marx's personality

lets not demonise marx, he was just a man, but from what i can see, he himself was full of resentment and envy. ironically, privately, marx was a complete recluse. despite being such a vociferous advocate of the workers cause he didnt interact with the working class at all.

thats why his writings inspired many of his ilk, equally..no far more envious, narcissistic and rancorous, like lenin, who had no qualms about committing attrocities


if anything, it was the social democrats whose ideology, while derivative, revamped marxism and gave it a far more human face, more pragmatic too

[crackers]

i like marx i thought he was quite cool and communism is a good idea but just poorly executed goodnight

[valiums]

tba ur home for animoy dotta pizzazz and learned critique of social economic and political models

[michaell]

You ruined my thread faggot's!!!!!!!

plus those are my own conclusions

[Flash]

marxism does not advocate a dictatorship diretly at all, nor does it espouse the single party rule

that element was implemented by lenin, as 'the transitional period' hence the term 'marxism-leninism'

This transitional period was mentioned by Marx - he said that between Capitalism and Communism, there can be only a transitional period called the Revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariate.
I never said that marxism advocates a dictatorship as refers to a single centralized party ruling despotically. I was referring to the dictatorship of the proletariat, a slightly different beast - I guess you can think of it as a "legit" dictatorship depending on the angle. There's a certain consensus, though it is sometimes disputed, that Marx believed in a moderate path to seizing the means of production and destroying the bourgeoisie, while Engels believed in a more violent approach; but to me it seems like they both could get pretty radical, since in the Communist Manifesto they conjointly tell of the need for the Communists (as the most advanced members of the proletariat) to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize the means of production and ensure that their victory would not be "supressed".

If this was about the Khmer Rouge example, that was just me describing something Marx would never have agreed with (as far as I can guess).

i fail to perceive in what way marx deconstructed our society at all, neither from economic nor social standpoint

marxian economics are virtually pseudo science and most of it doesnt hold water, for instance his theory of value which argues that the value of a good stems solely from the exploitation of workers which makes no sense  both from an economic standpoint AND psychologic

Regardless of whether we agree or not with some of what he wrote, the concepts he put out were still revolutionary, and he was trying precisely to deconstruct our society and its economic models (and, thus, social models, since those - at least in his view - can't truly be separated).
He developed the concepts of surplus value and surplus labour; base and superstructure; some of what he wrote about the capitalist mode of production, the accumulation of capital and historical materialism is basic high-school repertoire today; the very concept of class struggle as the moving force of society's changes stems from his work; the list of ideas goes on. Every major philosophy / history / sociology class I've taken has mentioned and given importance to those concepts, and this coupled with my own perception of these concepts as being mostly accurate leads me to think that they indeed had success in deconstructing the socio-economical models of those times in many ways.

As for the law of value, I'm not familiar with that subject at all, and doing a quick google search on it makes it seem too complex for me to grasp it readily, so I'll take your word for it. I wouldn't cast away his economic thinkings as "not holding water" though. Many of his concepts are extremely controversial and relevant to this day.

marx is vehemently attacking entrepreneurs as rapacious and oppressing the working class. isnt that biased? its as if everybody who had money became deprived of compassion and human feelings whatsoever, like the world was ruled by sociopaths? on the other hand we get the romanticist image of the manual worker, as if that was applicable to everyone..

now tell me the difference between these two views presented here

in a way there are no discrepancies, theyre both biased and overlook many factors

but at least the former makes people exert themselves AND extract creativity and logical thinking of those who endure subjection to it

socialism makes you submit to one model, scheme on the other hand

I understand your point about this animosity from Marx to the bourgeois. While I think most of his more well-known concepts are, generally speaking, true to reality, it does bother me that he spends much of his work dealing with these vague, exploitative, capitalist figures. But that is but a distraction from the point he's trying to make, and it is because he had a point to make that he wrote the way he did.
I don't think that diminishes his analyses of the workings of the economic model, but I do agree it can begin to feel like kind of a caricature. However, this atmosphere of generalization + animosity permeates the vast majority of academic texts I've ever read - the author talks about whole systems of living and tries to make himself sound factual but ends up attacking those who he mentions. It's a curse of writing about social themes - you can't afford to always be super specific, and it just starts to feel like you're attacking other people.

NOW lets talk about marx's personality

lets not demonise marx, he was just a man, but from what i can see, he himself was full of resentment and envy. ironically, privately, marx was a complete recluse. despite being such a vociferous advocate of the workers cause he didnt interact with the working class at all.

This extreme political passion is a feature I don't know whether to strongly dislike or respect and give place to. I don't agree he was as bad as you say he was, although I understand your reluctance at accepting his apparent portrayal of those in the upper middle class and up. I know, in my circles, examples of people who espouse marxism thinking and find themselves in a position of being envied, not of envying; some of them are extreme, some aren't. I don't think you can say his attitude in writing is so evident of his personality, but to me what really matters is that the basic question of whether marxist theory can be seen as being based on "moral principles" is still a yes - I do generally find empathy in, and with, his constant defense of the working class.
The fact that he was such an isolationist, in that sense, is to me counterposed by his sheer effort and his many years living on the edge of poverty, on Engel's donations, while reading and writing all day. I don't mean to be romantic, I mean this as a counterpoint and not something conclusive of his being a "good guy". If anything, this thread has reminded me of how hard it is to judge a character that's always been judged for us, while we were being taught about him for all of our lives.

[SrsSam77]

Essay thread mark 2
communism boogaloo