Dummies re-re-invent the wheel (but it will be different this time)

[zeitgeist]

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/1002903578

xchrom (77,759 posts)

Why Marxism is on the rise again

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism


A public sector worker striking in east London last year. Photograph: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features
 

Class conflict once seemed so straightforward. Marx and Engels wrote in the second best-selling book of all time, The Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." (The best-selling book of all time, incidentally, is the Bible – it only feels like it's 50 Shades of Grey.)
 
Today, 164 years after Marx and Engels wrote about grave-diggers, the truth is almost the exact opposite. The proletariat, far from burying capitalism, are keeping it on life support. Overworked, underpaid workers ostensibly liberated by the largest socialist revolution in history (China's) are driven to the brink of suicide to keep those in the west playing with their iPads. Chinese money bankrolls an otherwise bankrupt America.
 
The irony is scarcely wasted on leading Marxist thinkers. "The domination of capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist party that gives de-localised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation," says Jacques Rancière, the French marxist thinker and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. "Happily, it is possible to hope for a world less absurd and more just than today's."
 
That hope, perhaps, explains another improbable truth of our economically catastrophic times – the revival in interest in Marx and Marxist thought. Sales of Das Kapital, Marx's masterpiece of political economy, have soared ever since 2008, as have those of The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse (or, to give it its English title, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy). Their sales rose as British workers bailed out the banks to keep the degraded system going and the snouts of the rich firmly in their troughs while the rest of us struggle in debt, job insecurity or worse. There's even a Chinese theatre director called He Nian who capitalised on Das Kapital's renaissance to create an all-singing, all-dancing musical.

I am only bringing one reply but as one might imagine there are plenty more

Insanity yer doing it right!

Lydia Leftcoast (45,426 posts)

14. With either system, the temptation is for the 1% to enrich themselves



When I was in graduate school, I knew several people in Russian and East European Studies who had spent a year in the Soviet Union, as well as emigres. They spoke about the inequalities in the system, so that while medical care was free, the upper echelon Party members received world-class care in world-class facilities while the average worker patronized a rundown neighborhood clinic. Housing was allocated in the same way: high Party members lived in luxury apartments, while ordinary workers might have their whole family in one or two rooms with a shared bathroom in the hall.
 
Resources were allocated to the largest cities and the smaller ones got the leftovers. One of my graduate school acquaintances was at Moscow University and being a friendly sort, made a point of talking to the cleaning staff. During the winter, she developed a respiratory infection that just wouldn't go away, and one particular cleaning woman was always fussing over her, bringing her herbal concoctions to try, and so on. At the end of the year, as my acquaintance was getting ready to return to the States, the cleaning woman asked her what kind of town she lived in. "It's a town of 79,000 people," she replied. "Oh, my dear," said the cleaning woman. "You can't go back there! You won't be able to get any decent food or medical care! Isn't there some way you can stay here in the big city?"
 
There was also a distinct lack of personal freedom. You couldn't live where you wanted to. If you wanted to move to another city, you had to get a permit. There was no unemployment, but you had to take the job that was assigned to you, whether it suited you or not. University students had to attend universities outside their hometowns, because the authorities not only didn't want rebellious students; they didn't want rebellious students who had ties to the local population.
 
Now there were some definite achievements. Their school system produced a literate, knowledgeable population and was a true meritocracy. Students with notable talents in science, math, performing arts, sports, and languages had their talents cultivated in special schools. Gender equality was also a big issue for them. They banned a lot of the traditional customs that had held women back in the predominantly Muslim areas of Central Asia. (That's why I think we should have let the Soviets have Afghanistan.)
 
However, whatever the system is, whether capitalist or Marxist, you need to have safeguards against concentrations of power. In our system, the 1% are the people with big money. In a Marxist system, the temptation is for the politically favored to hoard all the resources.
 
That's why I like a bottom-up form of Marxism that grows out of people favoring local businesses and credit unions and avoiding the national chains and banks whenever possible.

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are _____  ?

[I_B_Perky]

The dummies think that they are ones that will be at the top of any marxist/socialist revolution. What these stupid people do not realize is that the first ones lined up against the wall are the useful idiots like themselves. The rest are told to get off their ass and work or starve in the gulag.

Hey dummies? Wanna experience what I am talking about first hand? Move to North Korea and speak truth to power. Move to Cuba and experience government free health care.

For that matter dummies... go anywhere in the world you want to!!! Just get the hell out of this country!!!

[Mr Mannn]

Lydia Leftcoast (45,426 posts)

That's why I like a bottom-up form of Marxism that grows out of people favoring local businesses and credit unions and avoiding the national chains and banks whenever possible.

How is this even Marxism? Local businesses and credit unions are still pure 100% capitalism.

and there is no such thing as bottom-up Marxism. Can anyone point to such a system?

That said. Marxism cannot exist with an armed society. Once the people are disarmed, the powers that be will realize they are the only ones with guns. Bottom up, upside down, however you want to play at semantics, a new one percent ruling elite will be created. and since they have the guns, no one will be able to do anything about it.
Once any system owns all the guns, it creates a ruling elite.

In every instance, marxism has been ushered in with a bloody purge. Heck, the DUmmies get all excited at the very thought of a purge they control. A bottoms-up approach will be no different--its just semantics.

There is NO peaceful marxism. DUmmies known this. They revere the image of Che for this reason: Che is the face of the purge. they want to kill. They want it so bad they can taste it. Only that cursed 2nd amendment stands in the way.

[Chris_]

How is this even Marxism? Local businesses and credit unions are still pure 100% capitalism.

It's because DUmmies are stupid, just like they adopt Abraham Lincoln as an honorary Democrat when it suits them.

[zeitgeist]

It's because DUmmies are stupid, just like they adopt Abraham Lincoln as an honorary Democrat when it suits them.

They get confused because of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

[DumbAss Tanker]

How is this even Marxism?

It's never actually existed anywhere outside an under-performing hippie commune or two anyway, so it's impossible to say.

[Skul]

They have three cornered wheels?
I like three cornered wheels unless they have five.
Three cornered wheels are just as useful as marxism.

Bite me, DUmpmonkey.

[JohnnyReb]

They have three cornered wheels?
I like three cornered wheels unless they have five.
Three cornered wheels are just as useful as marxism.

Bite me, DUmpmonkey.

I was going to ask how many corners on a Marxist wheel...but you answered that.

I bet riding a Marxist bicycle is quite a work out.

[EagleKeeper]

They have three cornered wheels?
I like three cornered wheels unless they have five.
Three cornered wheels are just as useful as marxism.

Bite me, DUmpmonkey.

Great...now I've got another book I am "doomed" to read.

Second Law of Thermodynamics indeed.


Edit: Ordered through Amazon...sigh.

[jukin]

If big-gov totalitarian communism is so great why does it always fail?

If big-gov totalitarian communism is so great why does it always kill tens if not hundreds of millions of people?

If big-gov totalitarian communism is so great why do those people under their rule do anything to escape?

If big-gov totalitarian communism is so great why haven't they found the one person to make it work?

[claret1995]

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are _____  ?



DUMMIES????????????/