Was Karl Marx right? :)
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What are you saying that it isn't in Das Kapital or that Marx never wrote The Communist Manifesto, and that Leninists didn't (don't) constantly refer to Maxist-Leninist?
Hey,
Don't worry about the rich gettin' richer and poor gettin' poorer, if Harold Egbert Camping is right, we're doomed this Friday!
Don't worry about the rich gettin' richer and poor gettin' poorer, if Harold Egbert Camping is right, we're doomed this Friday!
What if his ilk consists of millions of muslims......it looks like capitalism lasted about 20 years longer than communism, if that is considered a victory...party on!
Somewhere in the back of the manifesto, he says, "We will sell them the rope with which they will hang themselves."
Suddenly, a communist country owns a huge portion of their debt.
A lot of their manufacturing jobs were lost to the Chinese, as well.
I would say he was right on that point.
Suddenly, a communist country owns a huge portion of their debt.
A lot of their manufacturing jobs were lost to the Chinese, as well.
I would say he was right on that point.
Marx was right on target.... in the 1850's. Before health and safety codes, child labour codes, minimum wages and the right to vote for the average joe in any major country outside the USA. Back then, any worker who thought he and his family were going to get a fair shake from the establishment was hopelessly deluded.
What happened was that capitalism generated enough surplus for a trickle-down effect to take place. Now a unionized worker has as pleasant a lifestyle as a mill owner in the 1850's.
Capitalism is still a corrupt oligarchy that stiffs the common joe and jane. But now, the common joe and jane are too comfy to give a shit.
What happened was that capitalism generated enough surplus for a trickle-down effect to take place. Now a unionized worker has as pleasant a lifestyle as a mill owner in the 1850's.
Capitalism is still a corrupt oligarchy that stiffs the common joe and jane. But now, the common joe and jane are too comfy to give a shit.
Marx was no more right than was Adam Smith.
Each was ultimately expressing views at the basic motivation of man/woman.
Unrestrained Marxism does not work any better than unrestrained capitalism and neither has ever exited in a pure form.
For the failure of Marxism one need look no further than the failures Russia, Cuba and China and now Venezuela. China to its credit is evolving into a hybrid of communism and capitalism and if you ignore the human rights abuses (which are not integral to its economy only for the purpose of this subject) then you have a system which seems to be working.
In the US the attempts by the former president and congress have led the world to the precipice and their response now rather than to embrace the sensible regulations enacted and proposed by this government to make markets work more efficiently and transparently is to attempt to repudiate therm.
Each was ultimately expressing views at the basic motivation of man/woman.
Unrestrained Marxism does not work any better than unrestrained capitalism and neither has ever exited in a pure form.
For the failure of Marxism one need look no further than the failures Russia, Cuba and China and now Venezuela. China to its credit is evolving into a hybrid of communism and capitalism and if you ignore the human rights abuses (which are not integral to its economy only for the purpose of this subject) then you have a system which seems to be working.
In the US the attempts by the former president and congress have led the world to the precipice and their response now rather than to embrace the sensible regulations enacted and proposed by this government to make markets work more efficiently and transparently is to attempt to repudiate therm.
The greatest fallacy of them all is that economics can accurately predict human behaviour.
Economics is great for predicting what has happened in the past but not so great at predicting what will happen in the future.
Economics is great for predicting what has happened in the past but not so great at predicting what will happen in the future.
I think you have it backwards. Economics does not predict human behavior. Human behavior can sometimes be a predictor of economic outcomes.
When did capitalism as an economic system promise that we'd never have recessions or even depressions?
As a matter of fact, capitalism TELLS us that we'll have recessions and depressions. And in the long term they're good things to have, though they're painful to suffer through in the short term.
If you're smart, if you prepared for trouble when trouble was on the horizon, if you've put enough tools in your toolkit, then you get through these bad times better off than you would have if things had remained static. That doesn't mean it won't hurt like a red hot poker up the ass in the short term, but if you manage things right you'll end up on top in the end.
I bought a rental property for 50% of what it should have sold for because
1.) the seller was selling it as property, not as a business (and sold it to where I got a ~25% cap rate on it)
2.) he overbought his home, and needed to sell the rental quickly so he didn't lose the home his family lived in.
That rental is where my basic living is covered. Food, utilities, and the basics in my life are covered by that rental, and everything else I make is gravy on top of that.
I took advantage of someone else's mistakes, and I'm not ashamed of that. That's what being smart means. It means being cool-headed and calm when everyone else is running around in a panic.
In a recession, there are great deals to be had. Be prepared to take advantage of them and look for them when they come up.
As a matter of fact, capitalism TELLS us that we'll have recessions and depressions. And in the long term they're good things to have, though they're painful to suffer through in the short term.
If you're smart, if you prepared for trouble when trouble was on the horizon, if you've put enough tools in your toolkit, then you get through these bad times better off than you would have if things had remained static. That doesn't mean it won't hurt like a red hot poker up the ass in the short term, but if you manage things right you'll end up on top in the end.
I bought a rental property for 50% of what it should have sold for because
1.) the seller was selling it as property, not as a business (and sold it to where I got a ~25% cap rate on it)
2.) he overbought his home, and needed to sell the rental quickly so he didn't lose the home his family lived in.
That rental is where my basic living is covered. Food, utilities, and the basics in my life are covered by that rental, and everything else I make is gravy on top of that.
I took advantage of someone else's mistakes, and I'm not ashamed of that. That's what being smart means. It means being cool-headed and calm when everyone else is running around in a panic.
In a recession, there are great deals to be had. Be prepared to take advantage of them and look for them when they come up.
Essentially, history as a chronicle of class struggle: throughout history and each form of social organization, the social surplus acrues to the 'dominant' or ruling class, who then erect a pillar of institutions (e.g. legal) that serve to protect the interests of the dominant class.
Simple? Hardly.
Smith's observation of 'rational self-interest' as a motivator of (economic) actions has in no way been disputed and still forms the basis of microeconomic theory.
Ah, but Marx wasn't an 'economist' per se - he was first and foremost a sociologist and historian. And in that, he correctly demonstrated history as a chronicle of class struggle.
Capitalism is working just fine from an investors perspective, assuming you invest wisely. We're in a race to the bottom on wages for labour; everything that can possibly be outsourced to lower-wage countries is on its way out of north america. It means lower prices, but zero or lower wages for the common people here.
Others spend their time selling our natural resources. Or making fee money off of activities that fundamentally do not generate additional wealth for the country. Financial services? Bah. They are just leaches off those that actually produce GDP, which is going out the door.
The dismantling of our manufacturing capability rather than making strategic investments in it is the stupidest thing we have collectively done. Selling all our natural resources in raw form is up there too. Plenty of room to rebalance that equation.
Hey, I'm a fiscal conservative guy. But I got to call stupidity when I see it. Imagine running a household where the only source of income is digging up the sod from your lawn and selling it off. That's where Canada is headed.
Others spend their time selling our natural resources. Or making fee money off of activities that fundamentally do not generate additional wealth for the country. Financial services? Bah. They are just leaches off those that actually produce GDP, which is going out the door.
The dismantling of our manufacturing capability rather than making strategic investments in it is the stupidest thing we have collectively done. Selling all our natural resources in raw form is up there too. Plenty of room to rebalance that equation.
Hey, I'm a fiscal conservative guy. But I got to call stupidity when I see it. Imagine running a household where the only source of income is digging up the sod from your lawn and selling it off. That's where Canada is headed.
By the same token, I could argue that history is a chronicle of exploiting natural resources. Or of population control. Or of technological innovation. Or of gender inequality. Or a struggle between races.
Declaring history as a chronicle of class struggle is a pathetic attempt to frame the debate. If you frame a debate, then you dictate the rules and the direction of the debate. I'm not dumb enough to buy into that little debating trick of yours, though I'm not sure that you're aware that you're doing it or if you're just a drone of Marx who bought into HIS framing of the discussion.
Framing history as a chronicle of class struggle is a very, very narrow view of history and is therefore doomed to failure. Which explains why class struggle myopians are so pathetic. Historically, that is. :biggrin1:
Marx was a pathetic historian/sociologist. He outright ignored MASSIVE parts of human nature, advocating and pushing a system doomed to cause millions to die of starvation in countries that were actually on the road to feeding themselves (thanks to capitalism, not feudalism or communism).
Capitalism works. Capitalism, not communism, built the computer that you bang on to type your missives.
Are there faults with capitalism? Absolutely. Capitalism expects the worst of us, but doesn't do enough to reward us when we're "good". I can live with that, if only because capitalism is sturdy enough to survive a lot of "good" people in the system. ONE "bad" person in a communist state destroys the entire system.
Actually, that guy's more likely to blame the Wall Streeters and join the Occupy Movement.
Best as I can tell, the Tea Party folks are people with real jobs who just want the government to leave them the hell alone. You saw few "Give Us Jobs!" signs at Tea Party rallies, but that's pretty much all you see with the Occupy people (when the signs don't say "Give Us Money" or "Give Us" whatever else they want at the moment).
I agree Toguy52525, its not the system that is the root cause of the failure - its the human being that is the common denominator in all social/political systems that create the all the natural instinct of greed (or charity) built in.
Recall Orwell's Animal farm?
Smith insisted that the 'invisible hand' of competition would avail the avarice of the monopolist, but I don't think he envisioned the giant multi-nationals that exist today. I recall studies in 'industrial socialism' through people like Robert Owen (Owenism) who introduced theories of "human capital" and the need to invest in that as a production input.
Your 'rant' appears convincing, superficially, though you are clearly not an academic nor studied in Marxism/economic history.
'Class struggle' is indeed the basis of his analysis but by no accident; it stands as the most all-encompassing means of identifying and explaining social and economic organization over time.
What Marx demonstrated (using that framework), is that, unlike earlier forms of social/economic organization (hunter/gatherer societies, feudalism/manorialism), 'capitalism' was not part of a natural evolution, but a system opportunistically put into place by a dominant class at the demise of feudalism. In no system prior to capitalism, did an unequal exchange of labour for wages exist; nor was social/economic activity predicated solely on profit. Under the previous system of economic organization, both a lord and his serf benefitted from a more equal, mutually-beneficial exchange in which serfs were rewarded for the products of their labour, in kind.
And that is where most people miss the point. There is nothing inherently 'natural' about capitalism; it is merely a system put into place by a ruling class who seized an opportunity to do so, and propped up by system of (non-economic) institutions intended to preserve the position of that ruling class.
