This is very typical of Marxists.
That's very strange, because (as I believe I've pointed out several times) I am
not a Marxist.
At most, I think that Marx was quite insightful in seeing the ways in which capitalism would, very probably, self-destruct, but I think his reasons for believing this were flawed. For example, while 'dialectical materialism' was more prominent in Engels' writing than in Marx's, Marx seems to use a similar idea under a different name. For me, this is a problem, because dialectics is (IMHO) logical quackery, and dialectical materialism is even less supportable.
Then, whenever things go wrong .. they say "that was not Marxism
And they're right, as far as I can see. Show me any passage in classical Marxism that would condone Stalin's gulags or the murder or 30 million people who disagreed with that insane dictator. Point to a single line in Marx's writing that Stalin could have used to justify his actions. I bet you cannot.
This is why even Westerners call Stalin a "Stalinist" rather than a Marxist.
On this important point, how often have you heard the Catholic Church blamed for horrors like witch hunts and the Inquisition, activities that don't sound much like the universal brotherly love preached by Jesus. Would you agree with this claim?
The Spanish Inquistion was very typical of Christian thinking. Christians promise a beautiful utopia, but when things go wrong, they say "that was not Christianity."I wouldn't and I'm closer to atheism than any sort of belief in a god.
It is true that wealth accumulates at the top.
I'm glad you acknowledged that, after Oxfam's report of last week, that showed just 62 individual people own more than 50% of the world's wealth.
And so what? Would you prefer a socialist system, in which everyone gets poorer and poorer? If you'd rather be able to ascend economically, the only answer found to this day is capitalism. I really don't understand why all the hate towards capitalism, since all it brings is wealth.
Over time, capitalism manifestly
does not bring wealth. In the initial chaotic days of a capitalist revolution (as in China) in brings wealth to some while others starve. Given a long period of stability, most of the wealth that capitalism brings, ends up in the hands of the one thousand odd people who own 99% of the world's wealth.
That said, I repeat that I
would not prefer a 'socialist system', if that is code for a brutal dictatorship. I would like to see the spread of wealth evened out, perhaps by a return to wealth taxes (80% on any income beyond the first million, whether it's paid in money or services) and a simultaneous Iran-style embargo on personal and corporate tax havens.
I doubt whether even these efforts would be quite enough, as Sweden, one of the world's (effectively) highest-taxing nations, still produced one of the world's twenty richest people - Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea founder, with a nett worth of USD$35 billion.
However, all this is just fiddling while Rome (and billions of people) burns. I think we need a new system of economics to cope with a new dynamic climate. (I assume you know Neo-classical economics only works in equilibrium i.e. when time is not a factor!)
What to do? Here's the sketch of an idea that I thought of late last year. For me, it's new, so don't tear it to shreds!
Every basic economics textbook starts with Alice making 6 units of cloth per day and 3 units of fish, while Bob makes 4 units of cloth and 5 units of fish. Then they show that trade will lead to Alice and Bob working to their strengths, and maximising their combined productive capacity. Good stuff. Next they generalise it to an arbitrary number of people and skills, formulate the problem as a Linear Programming problem, and show how any society can maximise their total output by playing to each person's unique productive skills.
Capitalism achieves this maximal output (in the long run) provided each person is a rational economic agent. But people are not rational economic agents. So why not maximise productivity by putting stable, low-innovation areas (mining and agriculture spring to mind) under the ownership of the people (the government) with maximum productivity guaranteed by the Linear Programming model above?
The chaotic, unpredictable remaining (say) 50% of the economy could continue as now, so that innovation wasn't stifled. Only mature, stable technologies, that are vital to feeding and housing and providing pharmaceuticals for the health of the citizens need fall under the government's ownership. Of course, if better pharmaceuticals were developed by new genetic engineering methods, then that could be done in either or both sectors.
Finally, why do people hate capitalism? Because the wealth it generates is whisked away to a tiny number of rich people, while the workers are paid a comparative pittance, and if anything goes wrong (Bhopal, drug trial deaths, oil spills) suddenly the company is weeping about not having enough money to compensate the victims, and the owners and managers walk away from manslaughter charges with minimal fines. Because companies and corporations feed on externalities (cutting down trees, emitting greenhouse gases, polluting rivers, driving species to extinction, destroying ecosystems, etc.) and then stroll away without fixing the damage.
Hang on. Perhaps all that isn't the fault of "capitalism." Perhaps it's the fault of a bunch of sociopaths who *call* themselves "capitalists" :-)
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tiagodz
8 years ago
Since you insist on the belief that capitalism eventually destroys itself, I should recall that the heralds of the apocalypse have been predicting such destruction since the first modest attempts of mass production started to emerge. Marx himself, living in London (which was the centre of the world by the time — but that's probably just a fun coincidence) predicted the chaos of this system, saying it wouldn't be capable of feeding 1 billion people in the world. One hundred and fifty years later, the world has 7 billion people who enjoy better life conditions, more food and are healthier than any previous generation (except for countries that hadn't experienced capitalism).
Socialism is an ideology. And, according to Karl Marx, an ideology is a "dress of ideas" that conceals intentions and desires. Regarding the ideology he developed, it conceals the intention to withhold all the power a state can draw to itself, in order to grant to those who are pulling the strings all the benefits they can obtain from an enslaved society. That is why you won't find in classical Marxism any references of gulag, the mass shootings, the red officers taking teachers out of their classrooms to be beaten to death etc.
The sum of 100 million deaths, all in the name of socialism, does not include soldiers killed in action, victims of civil war or of common crimes, not even infant mortality or life expectancy decay due to the economic inefficiency inherent in socialism. If those deaths were accounted, the figure would easily double (to be pessimist). This should suffice to make socialism, in a simple quantitative outlook, a more deadly scourge than two world wars combined, plus all the epidemics and earthquakes of this and many centuries.
Nevertheless, the advocates of Marx's ideology still try to compare this scourge to western phenomenons, just like your attempt with Christianity. The Crusades, for example, were an attempt to rescue Christians from the jihads, since the Islam left Arabia to conquer the Middle East (which was Christian). And since Christianity provides no advice whatsoever on letting others take away your people or your property without a fight, your statement has no substance and, most importantly, is too weak to hold as a comparison to Marxist-driven atrocities. Next, you may try to resort to blaming western democracies for wars initiated by totalitarian governments; you may try to morally balance intentional genocide with unforeseen effects of economical policies; you may try to blame the U. S. for deaths of civilians within countries submitted to socialist regimes in Asia, Africa or Latin America, where capitalism barely existed; you may also try to put on account of capitalist governments the existence of rapers, serial killers and other delinquents. This won't suffice to balance (quantitatively or morally) capitalism and socialism in terms of evilness. But there is another reason for this attempt to be impossible.
Unlike socialism, Capitalism is not an ideology. Unlike socialism, capitalism is an economic system that has existed and proved its virtues long before the first human attempt to translate such system into words. The first person who tried such translation was Adam Smith, and that was two centuries after capitalism came to light. And Smith was no ideologist, and only tried to come up with hypothesis to describe and explain an existing reality. On the other hand, socialism already had its ideologists, trying to establish rhetoric symbols to build the fantasy future in favour of certain class ambitions, long before it came to exist as a real political strategy.
Notwithstanding the fact that it has its flaws (I acknowledge it), capitalism not only has yielded immeasurable wealth, but has established practical means of sharing it to the people. Moreover, it has created institutions like parliamentary democracy, freedom of the press and human rights. On the other hand, all socialism has done so far is promising a better future while reestablishing slave labour (previously banished by capitalism), suppressing civil and political rights and throwing more than 1 billion people into misery. In addition, in order to sustain its power, socialism resorted to unthinkable cruelty towards its detractors, like impaling and flaying of prisoners (especially under Lenin).
Therefore, capitalism is a science, whereas socialism is an ideology — a dress of ideas to conceal its sociopathic ambitions originated from ideologists who are avid for power. Hence, comparing capitalism to socialism is comparing reality to the most perverse and pathological fantasy.
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Simon-140
8 years ago
Tiagodz, first I must correct some logical slips and misunderstandings.
Since you insist on the belief that capitalism eventually destroys itself, I should recall that the heralds of the apocalypse have been predicting such destruction..
Here you're using the logically flawed notion of physical induction. Just because people have made similar claims in the past, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily wrong
this time. Climate warming denialists are very fond of this sort of logically flawed argument.
Nevertheless, the advocates of Marx's ideology still try to compare this scourge to western phenomenons, just like your attempt with Christianity...
I did
not say that the barbaric acts that were conducted
in the name of Christianity were a consequence of Christianity. I specifically wrote that the Inquisition and the Crusades had almost nothing to do with Christianity!
Secondly, Marxism was a Western phenomenon. Marx was writing in the wealthiest, most technologically advanced and industrialised country of his time. Much of what he wrote was directed at Germany, which was also one of the wealthiest, most technologically advanced, industrialised countries of the time.
Unlike socialism, Capitalism is not an ideology. Unlike socialism, capitalism is an economic system that has existed and proved its virtues long before the first human attempt to translate such system into words.
To write what you've written about is to confuse the situation beyond recognition.
Bartering and exchange "existed before the first human attempt to translate such system into words," but Capitalism did not, because it requires
capital. Fungible currency is a comparatively modern idea.
If you're going to successfully criticise Marxism, you must be aware of what Marx meant by certain words. When Marx wrote of "capitalism" as an economic system, he wasn't referring to Trobiand Islanders using bundles of banana leaves as currency. (No disrespect to Trobiand Islanders intended!) He was referring to people who accumulate wealth until they can buy the dreaded "means of production" ( i.e. factories) and employ wage labourers.
As for your claim that "Capitalism is not an ideology" even if you're using Marx's definition of "ideology" (c.f.
The German Ideology by Marx and Engels) I believe you are dead wrong.
Laissez-faire Capitalism is the most successful, viral
ideology that has ever existed. (I do not mean "successful" in terms of financial outcomes: I mean successful as a virulent meme.) It is so successful that most people in semi-capitalist societies don't even recognise it as ideology. Certainly, you seem to be blind to it and to regard it somehow "natural."
Laissez-faire Capitalism was tried in 19th C Britain, and the result was at least a million deaths due to starvation in Ireland, right on Britain's doors.
If you are a proponent of this bizarre ideology then please pipe up now! I thought I was talking with a reasonable person, who simply hated some historical events that are frequently ascribed to "Marxism," but someone who believes in laissez-faire cannot be reasonable, and is in no position to lecture
anyone about the cruelties inflicted by the application or misapplication of any ideology.
capitalism is a science, whereas socialism is an ideology
Rubbish. Capitalism is an ideology. The
economic theory of capitalism might have been science: certainly, neo-classical economic theory is a testable hypothesis, as Popper would demand. The problem is that neo-classical economic theory has failed the vast majority of empirical experiments that have been used to test it. It is a
failed theory.
It makes predictions that are wrong.
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*
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tiagodz
8 years ago
I thought I was talking with a reasonable person [...]
Personal attack. Unfortunately (although not surprisingly) that is what always happens when Marxists are faced with the truth of facts delivered by this perverse ideology. Facts that they refuse to acknowledge. It happens even to those who claim not to be Marxists, but still advocate it. But coherence is obviously not a virtue for them.
I'm sorry it has come to this point.
Have a nice life.
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Simon-140
8 years ago
Personal attack.
You're absolutely right. My apologies.
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*
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Simon-140
8 years ago
I suspect I was being too gracious in admitting a "personal attack." True, I wanted to make a personal attack mentally, but thank goodness my brain intervened and I began the paragraph with:
If you are a proponent of (laissez faire) then please pipe up now!
Thus, I have only made a "personal attack" if you happen to agree with laissez-faire economics - much as you attacked me on a personal level when you implied I was unconcerned about the deaths of people who were murdered under pseudo-Marxist regimes.
If you are going to attack people who find some redeeming features in Marxist thought, then you must be prepared to put up some sort of defense when someone attacks your own sacred cow - which in your case appears to be laissez-faire.
And, believe me, laissez-faire is a lot easier to tear apart than Marxism, because it's so trivially simple.
(In fact, there's a one liner that, strictly speaking, invalidates almost all Marxist thought from a logical viewpoint, but since you haven't stumbled upon it, I'm not going to tell. And even that one-liner doesn't completely invalidate some of the general ideas.)
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*
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TompaDompa
8 years ago
Now you got me curious.
Don't listen to the negative ones; their arguments are irrational.
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Simon-140
8 years ago
About the problem with Marxism?
You know the idea of dialectics? (To progress beyond a thesis, you form its antithesis and then create a synthesis by finding a position that can explain both the thesis and the antithesis..) This sounds fine, until you're asked to define an "antithesis of a thesis.", If you take the antithesis to simply be the logical negation of the thesis, then you end up with a content-free tautology, such as:
Thesis T = "all swans are white"
Antithesis = not(T) = "all swans are any colour other than white"
Synthesis = T OR not(T) = "all swans are any colour you like."
In this case, the "method of dialectics" is logically valid, but the conclusion is vapid: it tells us less than what we started with.
Dialectics pre-dated formal logic, so the idea of an "antithesis" was formulated in terms of "opposites" rather than logical negation, but that just compounds the problem. For any thesis, their can be a vast number of antitheses, depending on what you're "opposing." How do you even define the "opposite" of a claim, if you don't use logical negation? For example:
Thesis T = "Dogs are friendly animals."
Antitheses
T1 = "Dogs are agressive animals"
T2 = "Dogs are aloof animals, like cats."
T3 = "Dogs are friendly, but they aren't 'animals' in the way they behave."
All these are possible antitheses of the original thesis, but which one should you choose when forming the synthesis? I think that's the problem [1].
With Marx, things get even more problematic. If dialectics defies definition then what does one do with an idea like "dialectical materialism"?
If anyone has worked out precisely what "dialectics" or "dialectical materialism" really mean, then I haven't heard of it, and (the last time I checked) neither had some of the world's most respected (analytic) philosophers! Dialectics and dialectical materialism still have their pundits in continental philosophy, especially amongst the post-modernists, but PoMo is essentially dead in its tracks without dialectics.
If I've skimped too much in my attempt to explain why I think dialectics is a flawed methodology, and hence why I think Marx is often on a shaky logical footing, then let me know.
On the other hand, if you're interested in why I find laissez-faire capitalism even more ridiculous, please let me know.
P.S. While I don't think any serious philosopher would find anything novel in what I've written, it really does seem to be the case that continental and Marxist philosophers just don't listen to analytic philosophers, who mainly come from anglophone countries. The reverse also seems to be the case. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily mean that neither side is producing anything of interest, or that they couldn't benefit from some sincere discussions and debates with their natural, cross-channel enemies. What a shame.
[1] Even fairly recent enthusiasts of dialectics have noticed this problem. For example, the Postmodern luminary Jacques Derrida developed deconstruction as a technique of literary analysis, from the observation that "binary opposites" can be regarded in three different ways. He summarised these three forms of opposition (for pedagogical reasons?) with the French word différence:
- différence can just mean 'opposite' producing the usual antithesis;
- différence can viewed as a pun on déférence, which acknowledges political or social power (as in "to defer" - to submit humbly). If you formed an antithesis with this meaning in mind, you'd get a very different, more socio-political result.
- différence, at least in English, can be viewed as a pun on "deferring" in the sense of postponement. Now, Derrida is making the point that an antithesis of a thesis can change with time. For example, in 16th C England, the antithesis of "Only Kings can rule legitimately" might have been "Only plutocrats can rule legitimately." (While both statements claim that legitimate rule is the domain of the super-rich, they differ over the "Divine right of Kings.")
In the 20th C West, both statements sound slightly preposterous, and the thesis "Only plutocrats can rule legitimately." is more likely to have the antithesis "Only democratically elected leaders can rule legitimately." Thus, Derrida's point is that 'opposites' change over time.
At this point, it is only proper that I point out that I have not studied Derridean Post-Modernism. I have only chatted with some friends about the subject, and read a few general articles.
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Stevicus-2
8 years ago
One thing that strikes me about Marxism (and I'm far from an expert here) is that it was largely formulated as a reaction against what Marx was seeing in Europe at the time. Countless people living in misery and squalor, languishing away in factories, while a relative elite few at the top were enjoying all the benefits (and doing none of the work).
Marx obviously didn't invent revolution or revolutionary ideals, although he might have seen that as a natural consequence of oppression. If enough people are treated like crap long enough (thesis), then they're going to fight back (antithesis), start a revolution, and then form a new government (synthesis). One can only hope that the new government doesn't turn out to be as oppressive or tyrannical as the old government.
Although within roughly the same timeframe, liberalism was also on the rise along with nationalism. Leaders like Napoleon III and Bismarck were staunch nationalists, but also liberals in that they supported improved conditions and homes for the aged. If I recall correctly, I think the Germans were among the first to bring about social security and better conditions for the common people - but only as long as they were Germans, since there was also a great feeling of ardent nationalism (particularly after 1871).
In the U.S., the same basic idea was propagated in conjunction with racism. Andrew Jackson was popular because he advocated policies which helped the common white people at the expense of the Native Americans (i.e. "Trail of Tears") and the black slaves. He also removed the requirement that one must own land to vote, which expanded suffrage to all white males over 21 regardless of whether they were landed or not.
So, the alternative to Marxism in the 19th century was for the ruling classes in various nations to advocate making life better for their own common people, those of their own nationality or race, while simultaneously embracing the notion of "screw everyone else." In the US, we expanded our territory across the continent and didn't really care about the indigenous peoples we rolled over. England and France also became more liberalized while building up huge empires on other continents. Germany also wanted to do that, but they got to the game late and found that England and France had already grabbed the prime colonial real estate around the world. This is where German resentment started to increase, and nationalism started to grow more malignant and threatening to French and British interests, leading to further problems down the road.
In the West, Marxism never really took hold because the ruling classes found other ways of appeasing the working classes. While there were still some pretty violent strikes and labor actions, the government tried to support more reasonable solutions and reforms. Marxism took greater hold in countries where the governments and ruling classes were far more stubborn and rooted firmly in ancient traditions, such as in Tsarist Russia. The concepts of liberal democracy as they took hold in the West didn't really take well in Russia, making it more ripe for revolution and radical change.
That's been a large part of the problem regarding conservatism in recent decades, in that they are so heavily rooted in tradition and the way things used to be. They severely criticize liberalism and progressivism and associate them with Marxism. If more and more people condemn and reject liberal and progressive ideals, then the result will be a more ardent reactionary conservatism which will take hold, with attitudes not unlike the ruling aristocracy in Russia prior to 1917. The only remaining opposition might be revolutionary Marxists and a cacophony of rival nationalistic groups.
In the scene mentioned by the OP, Kes was taking more of a liberal position in discussing the social inequities, not a Marxist one. There is a distinct difference here which a lot of conservatives fail to notice because they're hellbent on making everyone think that liberalism = Marxism.
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TompaDompa
8 years ago
[...] Oxfam's report of last week, that showed just 62 individual people own more than 50% of the world's wealth.
You must've misread; it showed that 62 individual people own more of the world's wealth than the poorest 50% do.
I must say I enjoy reading your posts. Do please go on.
Don't listen to the negative ones; their arguments are irrational.
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Simon-140
8 years ago
Thank you for that correction: I heard about the Oxfam report on the radio while driving, and evidently misunderstood it.
Still, my misunderstanding seemed plausible, given the general disparity of wealth. You may recall a paper called The Network of Global Corporate Control by Vitali et. al (2011), which concluded inter alia that "only 737 top holders accumulate 80% of the control over the value of all TNCs [Trans-national Corporations]"
The paranoid side of me wonders what you enjoy about my posts, but I'll take what you wrote as a compliment 😄 When you put yourself in the position of not denouncing Marxism in a public forum, or worse, suggesting that there might be some residue of merit in Marx's ideas, you need all the encouragement you can get.
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"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*
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TompaDompa
8 years ago
It was meant as a compliment, yes. What I enjoy about them is mostly seeing well-reasoned arguments for a, dare I say, novel point of view.
Don't listen to the negative ones; their arguments are irrational.
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Simon-140
8 years ago
That is very gratifying! Apologies about the faux-academic tone of my reply: I forgot the maxim about irony being undetectable on the web. When I was in academe, the use of the passive voice, the spatterings of latin and so forth, used to amuse me no end. (When I left and tried writing a story, I found I couldn’t, so academe got the last laugh.)
Regarding the paper I mentioned previously, I’ve also found a TED talk by one of the authors. If you’re not into Big Data, this is probably more digestible: http://bit.ly/1Vhf8nl (It’s just a link to a TED talk – not a pornado or something nasty!)
____
"If you ain't a marine then you ain't *beep*
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