And you accused me of being a commie the other day! The cheek!

i dont think you're far off the mark; the reason is that marxism is hegelian, and hegel presumed a teleological evolution of the word, much like in judeochristian myth, e.g. the messiah or the 2nd coming; marx gave hegel a materialistic turn, but preserved the prophetic knowledge of the ultimate goal, in this case world socialism.

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btw, i agree with many aspects of marxist analysis, especially those regarding ideology and social class. but i dont ascribe it predictive value.

ya calla, orate!!

and to think I was originally going to equate it to "the south shall rise"

(yeah I know hegel. haven't really been thinking in "hegelianese" terms now that i'm taking this 400 aristotle seminar class)

So, do you give in to fatalism, then? Marx himself never ever said that he was a prophet, and he surely understood that analysis has to be based on proven facts in order to instigate change. The fact that he's been calumniated for such a long time doesn't change the fact that he offered his writings/actions as an instrument for analyzing a possible strategy of positive change.

Edit - &&%$

me, a fatalist? not at all. i have NO IDEA of what the future will be, i don't believe in fate. i have notions and speculations but not certainty of any kind. i do hope that with gobalization we'll star to see international unions for example. but from that to predicting communism for all it's a bit audacious. if we've learned something about history is that it's unpredictable.

Well, revolutions are a certain thing in history, you can't deny that. Did the Romans ever predict this world in their time? No. Would they ever have thought of an industrial revolution taking place? No. The world moves round because of revolutions.

people are too happy with sitting on the sofa watching big brother and stuffing their faces with junk to be bothered about a revolution.

and yet predicting communism is scientific?

american apathy defeat all!

If it came down to statistics alone, we would find out that there are more people who don't watch big brother than there are in reality. If we want to perceive things the way we imagine them to be is one thing, but the reality is always more complex than our perception of it. At least that's what happens to most people.

What do you mean?

well sure, we could call them storms, same thing. you can observe moments of stability and moments of fast change in any dynamic chaotic sytem, like the weather. but revolutions are not always progressive. the barbarian invasions of rome could have been called the revolution of germanic peoples, and they sank the world into ignorance and obscurity for centuries. more recently, the iranian revolution that foucault so stupidly praised, turned into the totalitarianism of the ayatollahs rather than some paradise of the people. and don't get me started on stalin and mao..

Stalin and Mao you can keep, thanks. Revolutions have never been beneficial to every single man and woman, that's correct, but just because that's been the case till now, it certainly doesn't mean that it is the only rule. Capitalism happens to be the most contradictory system ever known to man, and one that has a history of massive bloodbaths more than any other in history. The good thing about it is that it has also awakened a different type of person to fight it back, a man and a woman who understand that in order to win, they have to think of themselves as machines.

Seems contradictory to suggest that someone else is fatalistic while saying that the fate of capitalism is communism.

Ugh, stop the ride. I want to get off.

but porky, you can't have an economy without markets. and they are goingto either self-regulate or they are going to be regulated by the state. in communist economoes the state did an abysmal job of regulating markets and responding to demand with appropriate supply. the result was stagnation and eventual deprivation. (and with these methods, stalin killed more ukranians than hitler killed jews).

i suckled from the tit of socialism and i even tried living in a kibbutz for 6 months, did you know that? its horrid.

[quote=!@#$%!]but porky, you can't have an economy without markets. and they are goingto either self-regulate or they are going to be regulated by the quote]

Did i say that? Of course you need markets in order to have an economy, let's not state the obvious, here. There are also good things that came out of capitalism, like the system of pensions etc. Also, communism would abolish money altogether, but that doesn't mean that the quality of one's life would go downhill as a consequence, the opposite would and should be true. Living on top of a mountain has nothing to do with communism either.

that reminds me, i've been meaning to start a thread about vbs.tv, it's internet tv station with lots of interesting stuff that frequently is related to music.
anyway, as far as living on top of a mountain goes check out episode 4 or 5 of the true norwegian black metal documentary.

http://www.vbs.tv/shows/index.php?show=Music%20World

[quote=sarramkrop] the life of a kibbutznik: eat, do a little work, eat, sleep. ive lived among communists. they used no money. everyone was guarnteed food and a roof over their heeads. very nice. they were also trapped and could not change their lives if they wanted to. it was quite humane, mind you, but endlessly dull. people's entertainment was to fuck around. another got drunk every night. daya in & day out. but the collectivity itself it was becoming bourgeois--they were hiring thai workers to do the more unpleasant jobs! the hilarity...

marxism holds the false premise that people can be educated into being selfless citizens of the revolution. but selfishness is hard wired in the genes. when trying to supress this natural instinct, other more terrible consequences often ensue.

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and of course we need markets, but who regulates them? that was my question-- WHO regulates them-- the party boss???