Hello Microdot, Well this explains so much of what goes on at those Tea Party Rallies. Thoughts be Gone may explain how many of those Teabaggers went stupid but their leader, Sarah Palin…..didn’t require any at all.
Oh, I forgot he's a big bad biker dude, Conuter-threat specialist. In his case, he is demonstrating that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. Unless, of course, he's a bullet stopper with his bullet proof skull.
And I'm Barack Obama if he's a counter-threat specialist.
Well not sure La Gauche outdoes the Le Droit too much on the logic-o-meter. The authentic progressive, perhaps, ala Bertrand Russell. But Marxy Marx hisself was not too fond of formal argument. Reason tends to interfere with the Par-tay, whether of brownshirts, or comrades, or Joan Rivers broadcasting from the Osscars.
Marx was an economist. Marxist-Lenninism is the political theory.
Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic change. He argued that the structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism. Since we are seeing capitalism implode, which it has been doing for some time, there is a high likelihood that he is correct. The question nowadays is more how would a post-capitalist economy be structured?
This is especially true since the PRC is basically state capitalism forming a command economy. Although, State and corporate interests being one in the same is also occurring in the West.
Well, sort of. Marx offered a critique of classical economics, Smith, Ricardo so forth, based on the labor theory of value. He and Engels made use of much empirical-historical data. Do they offer a necessary argument for capitalist exploitation of labor?? Debatable (as Mill and many others thought as well). Exploitation occurs, of course, but it's not quite as obvious as the marxists thought. For one, labor and workers issues were addressed without revolution--there may have been "contradictions" of a sort (not really logical contradictions) within capitalism, but collective bargaining was written into US law in the 20s, along with many labor-oriented laws (safety, health, work hours etc). The middle class developed as well-- So in a sense Mill was partially correct insofar that many of the reforms demanded by marxists came about in Europe and the US without a revolution.
Moreover the history of communism in 20th doesn't look so great, does it. The Bolsheviks themselves had no problem making deals with prussians, and finally the nazis--the Bolsheviks were even detested by the German left. Some New Deal/socialist ideas still matter-- breaking up corporations , anti-trust, salary caps, putting a Bloomberg in jail along with his crony Madoff. That doesn't mean supporting maoists. Though I don't completely disagree with a Hegelian schema, at least from a "macro" view-- eventually History runs its course, there are tensions and struggles, and synthesis of a type (not always too pleasing)-- who knows the US could have a Hugo Chavez type in a few years.
Marx and Engels were socio economic pioneers. Their written philosophy has been with us for less than 150 years but what profound changes the work has provoked. The concepts formed off shoots and perversions. The idea of a "systematic" control of society and economy has produced some of humanities biggest horror shows, but as with any set of ideas, they take on a life of the interpreters projection. I think pure capitalism is an evil thing. It does not or will never "regulate" itself. Rands writings are social/economic adolescent masturbation fantasies. Chavez was a neccessary force to change Venezuelan society. As with Castro, the paranoid insular nature of the way socialism has developed in Latin America has more to do with the huge red white and blue dinosaur hulking in the north and our attempt to control ideology and our strategic interests. You will never know what Allende's Chile would have become.
8 comments:
Hello Microdot,
Well this explains so much of what goes on at those Tea Party Rallies. Thoughts be Gone may explain how many of those Teabaggers went stupid but their leader, Sarah Palin…..didn’t require any at all.
Sepp uses this too much in his janitorial duties.
Oh, I forgot he's a big bad biker dude, Conuter-threat specialist. In his case, he is demonstrating that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. Unless, of course, he's a bullet stopper with his bullet proof skull.
And I'm Barack Obama if he's a counter-threat specialist.
LOVE THIS ONE! Mind if I rip it for my own?
sho nuff, bro...it found me...
Well not sure La Gauche outdoes the Le Droit too much on the logic-o-meter. The authentic progressive, perhaps, ala Bertrand Russell. But Marxy Marx hisself was not too fond of formal argument. Reason tends to interfere with the Par-tay, whether of brownshirts, or comrades, or Joan Rivers broadcasting from the Osscars.
Marx was an economist. Marxist-Lenninism is the political theory.
Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic change. He argued that the structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism. Since we are seeing capitalism implode, which it has been doing for some time, there is a high likelihood that he is correct. The question nowadays is more how would a post-capitalist economy be structured?
This is especially true since the PRC is basically state capitalism forming a command economy. Although, State and corporate interests being one in the same is also occurring in the West.
So, go figure!
Well, sort of. Marx offered a critique of classical economics, Smith, Ricardo so forth, based on the labor theory of value. He and Engels made use of much empirical-historical data. Do they offer a necessary argument for capitalist exploitation of labor?? Debatable (as Mill and many others thought as well). Exploitation occurs, of course, but it's not quite as obvious as the marxists thought. For one, labor and workers issues were addressed without revolution--there may have been "contradictions" of a sort (not really logical contradictions) within capitalism, but collective bargaining was written into US law in the 20s, along with many labor-oriented laws (safety, health, work hours etc). The middle class developed as well-- So in a sense Mill was partially correct insofar that many of the reforms demanded by marxists came about in Europe and the US without a revolution.
Moreover the history of communism in 20th doesn't look so great, does it. The Bolsheviks themselves had no problem making deals with prussians, and finally the nazis--the Bolsheviks were even detested by the German left. Some New Deal/socialist ideas still matter-- breaking up corporations , anti-trust, salary caps, putting a Bloomberg in jail along with his crony Madoff. That doesn't mean supporting maoists. Though I don't completely disagree with a Hegelian schema, at least from a "macro" view-- eventually History runs its course, there are tensions and struggles, and synthesis of a type (not always too pleasing)-- who knows the US could have a Hugo Chavez type in a few years.
Marx and Engels were socio economic pioneers.
Their written philosophy has been with us for less than 150 years but what profound changes the work has provoked.
The concepts formed off shoots and perversions. The idea of a "systematic" control of society and economy has produced some of humanities biggest horror shows, but as with any set of ideas, they take on a life of the interpreters projection.
I think pure capitalism is an evil thing. It does not or will never "regulate" itself. Rands writings are social/economic adolescent masturbation fantasies.
Chavez was a neccessary force to change Venezuelan society. As with Castro, the paranoid insular nature of the way socialism has developed in Latin America has more to do with the huge red white and blue dinosaur hulking in the north and our attempt to control ideology and our strategic interests. You will never know what Allende's Chile would have become.
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