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Communists.

Lady Luck

Are there any Marxists here? I myself am a commy and proud. Although it has been shown to be "flawed" in practice, I believe it "wasn't given a good chance" so to speak. Anyway, I am a Communist. Are there any other people who share my views here?

x x x

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Permabear

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Permabear

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asdasd

What will not be remunerated is sitting on your ass with a piece of paper which "entitles" you to money for nothing.

No welfare cheques, then? I think you and DF will agree on that one.

Pablo Sanchez

donegalfella wrote: »

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No one would advocate a genocidal/destructive system, in fact i would advocate the opposite with no need for future wars of misplaced ideas of entitlement and or ideology as it would theoratically be a world working twords a commen goal.

Permabear

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Permabear

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Pablo Sanchez

Sorry, responded to each point but it didnt show up correctly.

The person who says that the common goal other than the general well being of all (no hunger, access to education and advancement, decent living standards) is not somone who would ever understand the idea of communism.

Permabear

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Pablo Sanchez

donegalfella wrote: »

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Indeed it did, in the past, it was completly unsatisfactory. Under Soviet and other rule, the most important thing was to be able to say to the rest of the world that it was over providing to its citizens while in reality it was so poorly run (fear of failure on a local basis) that it could never 'do what it said on the tin'.

If the factors of production (whether agricultural/manufacturing etc) were combined there would clearly be more than enough for everyone.

smegmar

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

Of course history is written by the victor, so don't you think you may be getting a slightly biased view on what communism actually is and importantly is not. Much of what you hear is left over American propaganda from the cold war.

please if you are to argue any point in this thread know what you are talking about. Communism must be understood for what it is, a system of economy. NOT A TYPE OF ADMINISTRATION, you can have a democratic communism, in fact it is based around a democratic administration.

So Russia capitulated and everyone thinks communism doesn't work, I remind you Russia was just out of 5 back to back wars and a famine. Many states such as Cuba are doing well under Communism, despite 60 years of blockade by America, 60years of trade is worth around 600 Trillion dollars to Cuba. imagine how they would be given a fair chance.

If you consider the motivating power of the different stimuli financial gain does very low on the list, think of: love, pride, self esteem,respect, rage, despair and jealousy. There are things everyone would not do regardless of the financial gain, there are things everyone would do regardless of the financial loss.

If you want to be a slave and pay for the cost of your own slavery let the bankers and capitalist rule you.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

/arguement

ArphaRima

If you want to be a slave and pay for the cost of your own slavery let the bankers and capitalist rule you.

Good god man. How about educating yourself, working hard, innovating and being the man in the big house on the hill?
Its the aspiration that drives us.

Permabear

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asdasd

Many states such as Cuba are doing well under Communism, despite 60 years of blockade by America, 60years of trade is worth around 600 Trillion dollars to Cuba. imagine how they would be given a fair chance.

I think the Americans should remove the bockade just to stop that rhethoric. One trillion a year, huh? How come an utterly failed economic entity like Cuba would have had an extra "trillion" dollars to earn with its shoddy produce. It cant even replace the American fridges and cars left there half a century ago.

I have a modest proposal. As DF's photo shows many a proud citizen of the Socialist Revolution wants to leave, however dangerously for his life and his families' lives, on makeshift rafts. I take it more would leave were the borders opened. (Opening borders is clearly suicidal to communist States. So they don't. Remember 1989).

So my modest proposal. All the lovers of Marxism get to go to Cuba. I would wish North Korea on them, but the hermit State would not play along.

We'll pay their ticket. And all the Cubans who want to leave, leave. Come here. A one for one replacement. Good for us. We are rid of whiny Marxists. Good for Marxists who get to live in paradise. Good for the Cuban government who can eliminate bourgeois dissent by exporting it.

So we remove people uncomfortable with socialism from the Island prison camp, and send people favourable to socialism to it. Passports are to be rounded up when our stalwart Western Marxists arrive, after all that is what happens to the Cubans. So no leaving when you get there.

Despite all the rhetoric though, there has never been much of a rush to emigrate to Communism by Communists. The number of avowed Marxists will drop precipitously were we to introduce this scheme.

a less circumspect poster than I would call the typical Marxist an undiluted hyprocrite, or accuse him of having a mere theoretical love of communism, provided it happens to a different people, far far away.

smegmar

Of course we get most of out information about Cuba from American sources remember that.

Yes I know cuba is still a "poop" hole but what I am saying is it still manages to have better Health services then America, Education is free including medical internship. I bet you never heard of the 500 or so American medical students that go to Cuba every year to receive free training that is accredited worldwide. A Human Developement index of 0.855 ; higher then Egypt, Saudi Arabia , Brazil and Russia

yes it's not perfect but for what it has it's doing quite well. Cuba has a huge export economy in Sugar, Cigars, Metal ores, some oil and other crops that has been stunted by the American embargo.

dreamlogic

donegalfella wrote: »

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"Fruits of his labour" - The worker is given a portion of the fruits of his labour. The remainder of the fruits of his labour(and that of his coworkers) is appropriated by the capitalist.
Yes, if his wage happens to stretch that far, he then "may use" some of it to gamble on stocks and shares. But bearing in mind that most of these people you are referring to don't even own their own home, it would be unlikely that they would opt to waste their wages on such ventures.

donegalfella wrote: »

In the article..goes out of his way to paint <Lenin> as magnanimous, benevolent, polite, civil, and sophisticated. There is not a single mention of his millions of innocent victims.

You see the same thing happening with pro-western articles. You could substitute <Lenin> with the name of many 20th century US presidents here.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Social democrats are not anti-capitalists.

donegalfella wrote: »

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From wiki:

Records show Irish lands exported food even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland experienced a famine in 1782–83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests; an export ban did not happen in the 1840s.

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845–1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland as "the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Christine Kinealy, a University of Liverpool fellow and author of two texts on the famine, Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. However, the poor had no money to buy food and the government then did not ban exports.

Pablo Sanchez

Well as for using Cuba as a poster boys for communist failures we could all name any number of examples of capitalist failures...........Haiti, Bangladesh, most of Africa and so on and so on.

The income of a lot of the poorest countries in the world comes from western companies exploiting the locals to make cheap products to be sold at a profit over here and to other western countries.

This is a correct and just system? We base the success of our economies on the hard work of others with too little power to speak up for themselves. Its easy to say that communism is a failed/flawed ideology but its even easier to poke holes in the system that currently sustains us.

In fact it could be argued that the high priests of capitalism, the investment bankers (who make their living speculating on no actual tangible product) are the ones who have done the most damage to the capitalist system over the last two years.

Permabear

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dreamlogic

asdasd wrote: »

The American State goes to war regardless of what it's capitalist classes - from Oil companies to the millions of people in small companies - think. Or what the population thinks, often enough.

So who then is a state - in this case the USA - representing when it goes to war? Are you saying it has nothing to do with money or resources?

Permabear

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Ostrom

donegalfella wrote: »

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I'm sorry to take this off topic, but I have to respond to this.

For context, I am a sociolgist by training, I work as adjunct faculty in Dublin, and earn about minimum doing it, from experience in Ireland, this is set to become the norm for the next few years at least. I'm not sure 'Marxist' as you understand it fits the definition of what I do, but most of my work thus far has been based on Marx's later writings on pre-capitalist societies (particularly Ireland), and the study of settlement patterns.

Which brings me to my first point - as a previous poster mentioned in relation to the majority interpretation of Marxism on this thread (as a belief in the necessity of control of means of production, and as flawed in both theory and practice) - you are basing this on one specific interpretation.

As I said before, the majority of work I come across that would consider itself 'Marxist' works historically. I believe it is possible to distinguish (and rightly so) from your identified, and proven theoretical issues, and from 'Marxism' as an extensive body of comparative historical work across many disciplines and languages.

My second issue concerns your identified hatred of (and believe me, I am well aware of them also) the tenured leftie professor, with political intentions and classroom ideologies to push. I find that most of the people I talk to about this (beyond my own supervisor) have little time for explicit agenda pushing, and even less for the type of research you speak (Journal of Science and Society for one).

Again, I am sorry to take this off topic. If you agree with what another poster above said (sorry, I dont know how to multi-quote) about research value measured in its utility, or its 'scientificness', then that is for another thread - I hate it personally, as it undermines everything a good academic should work toward. Having worked with biology professors before, I can thankfully say that is not the case - there is no disciplinary bigotry, provided the work is sound I suppose.

In either case, you are welcome to read our own and decide for yourself. I just feel it is important to make it known - I consider the variant of Marxism you talk about both damaging to the integrity of social science (in its predictive, prescriptive and utopian forms), and that necessary social change should come about in other ways - but again that is probably for another thread.

If there is any point to be made, it is that I would ask you to keep this distinction in mind with your criticism

With respect

dreamlogic

donegalfella wrote: »

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That is a different question. He might be there for only a few months. Or he might be there for life. The fact is that he is working on an assembley line in the factory at this point in time. And a portion of the fruits of his labour is being misappropriated by the capitalist.

Which specific 20th-century U.S. presidents have slaughtered millions of their own people?

Their own people? How is it relevant who "owns" the people? Or are you saying it's not so bad to kill people if they happen to live outside the state's jurisdiction?

And your point is...?

I was responding to your earlier posts in which 19th century Britain was mentioned as an example of a place and time where "the market" supposedly didn't prosper at the expense of human lives.

DadaKopf

efla wrote:

most of my work thus far has been based on Marx's later writings on pre-capitalist societies (particularly Ireland), and the study of settlement patterns.

Does this involve reading a lot of David Harvey?

Ostrom

DadaKopf wrote: »

Does this involve reading a lot of David Harvey?

Not really, mostly just archive digging lately. Most of the later works are still in translation (and in German) so it may be some time...

I would like more time to, but probably wont for another while. I used his online lectures when reading capital last year, found them useful.

DadaKopf

efla wrote: »

Not really, mostly just archive digging lately. Most of the later works are still in translation (and in German) so it may be some time...

I would like more time to, but probably wont for another while. I used his online lectures when reading capital last year, found them useful.

Yeah, they're very good.

Permabear

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Pablo Sanchez

====Haiti, Bangladesh, and Africa are examples of "capitalist failures"? How so?====

To be honest id be more keen to find out why you think they are not failures?

turgon

Gees, how is Africa a "capitalist failure" when the whole continent is under totalitarianism (which your system need to work, like it or not)?

Think about the biggest dump in Africa - Zimbabwe. I suppose the socialist red star on their national flag missed you a bit?

Or is it the part where the government forcibly redistributed land from whites to blacks? How, pray tell, is that anything other than socialistic policy?

I see whats happening here. You take a capatilist country and blame all its problems on capitalism. Which is ridiculous because you ignore things like the White/Black divide and the past colonialism. There other factors that make a country crap.

Whereas with communism its pretty clear cut. The reason the USSR was crap to live was by factors totally out of communism - such as lack of basic things (which, the only solution ye gave me was half capatilist anyway) and terror imposed by the state.

brianthebard

I thought you'd left the thread turgon. Interesting that you'd bring up Zimbabwe though, considering it was colonised by the well known capitalist Cecil Rhodes, and since you note that colonialism is a big factor in the present difficulties Africa face, it is very convincing when you say that capitalism is what has caused the problem in Zimbabwe. Likewise the Congo, Leopold colonised it for the purpose of capitalising from it, and in the process murdered half the population. Then the Belgian state used its resources for its own gain until Congolese independence. At which point the process known as neo-colonialism, or the imperialism of decolonisation by right wing economic historians Louis and Gallagher, kicked in. Thus the Congo has been exploited massively by capitalism and capitalist powers for about 120 years now, give or take a decade. Its good that you see that colonialism, and therefore capitalism, has done massive amounts of harm to Africa. Maybe you're finally coming round.

turgon

brianthebard wrote: »

I thought you'd left the thread turgon.

Well such ridiculousness as calling Africa capitalist was a bit too much for my patience. And then blaming its problem on this false hypothesis.

brianthebard wrote: »

Interesting that you'd bring up Zimbabwe though, considering it was colonised by the well known capitalist Cecil Rhodes

Yeah yeah yeah, and all sponsored by big governments back in Europe. If DF's Libertarian "paradise" was realized, colonialism would cost too much for an individual company. Its the kind of big government that you seek to create that was responsible for colonizing 1/4 of the World.

And seems as you are giving out about one capatilist, are we allowed give out about one communist? Because lets face it: some of your communists caused more hardship in their countries than Rhodes did in Africa.

turgon

And the boer war? And the zulu war? Funded by the big government back home. Big government you want.