Originally Posted by !@#$%!

the part where that would be so terrible. i think that's a great thing going on.

now, if you actually believe that is bad, you should promptly disconnect your internet, return to sardinia, and live off the land, knit your own clothes, etc. oh and none of that "cosmopolitan" music and electronic gadgets please.. launeddas or nothing from you! of course you can only play in your local taverns. the world can't hear you.

What does this mean? I don't understand.
Again, if you have nothing constructive to say, just don't say anything as it irritates no end when a person has no point to make but continues disrupting a conversation, alright? It is obvious that you haven't even read the quotes from the communist manifesto that i posted, still you felt like giving a response to something you can't add much to yourself. Not good at all, i'm afraid.

Why Marx is man of the moment



He had globalisation sussed 150 years ago

Francis Wheen
Sunday July 17, 2005
The Observer

A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages of the Daily Mail last week. No surprises there, perhaps - except that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. 'Marx the Monster' was the Mail's furious reaction to the news that thousands of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favourite thinker. 'His genocidal disciples include Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - and even Mugabe. So why has Karl Marx just been voted the greatest philosopher ever?'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comme...530250,00.html

Take that! And this time make sure that you read it, before you open your mouths.


Why facts must figure

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...656380,00.html

I have also noticed that there seems to be confusion about the meaning of socialism and communism. They are not the same thing, socialism is a stage on the way to communism and not communism itself.

[MellySingsDoom]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Why Marx is man of the moment



He had globalisation sussed 150 years ago

Francis Wheen
Sunday July 17, 2005
The Observer

A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages of the Daily Mail last week. No surprises there, perhaps - except that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. 'Marx the Monster' was the Mail's furious reaction to the news that thousands of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favourite thinker. 'His genocidal disciples include Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - and even Mugabe. So why has Karl Marx just been voted the greatest philosopher ever?'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comme...530250,00.html

Take that! And this time make sure that you read it, before you open your mouths.


Why facts must figure

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...656380,00.html

The Daily Mail will I'm sure be running a two-page spread tomorrow entitled: "Mussolini: Misunderstood Leader Who Made The Trains Run On Time".

[demonrail666]

The reference to figures such as George soros is very telling. I have a relative who is a financial director for a major Japanese car manufacturer. You could never describe this man as a Marxist but I found, while talking to him recently, that he boasts a deep understanding of and sympathy with Marx's economics. He certainly believes that, while in many areas flawed, Marx provided a perfectly usable - and just - economic model. The core problem for him is that Marx's economics hgas been tied to a government infrastructure that, at least as it's laid down by Marx, falls short of the sophistication and credibility of his economics. In short, Marx was far more adequate an economists than he was a politician.

The challenge, according to him, is to try and fuse the fundamentals of Marx's economics with some kind of political infrastructure able to see beyond a dictatorship of the proletariat - a dictatorship he considers unworkable due to massive shifts in technology since the 19th C. Working primarily in Japan, he alluded to the idea that many Asian companies are already trying to work out some kind of a synthesis in recognition that Western capitalism has proven to be too volatile a system to prove genuinely uesful in the marketplace.

I suppose the point of this rambling post is that, as Wheen suggests, it's not just Morning Star readers who take Marx seriously, but people at the very top of large capitalist organisations.

[saoq]

i was reading the thread this morning and well.. let me add one or two things/

anyway what's essential today in marx's thinking is not the so called "scientific" conclusions (most of which were wrong) or his economical analysis.

there's a limit where Marx goes well beyond "science" or politics, a limit that's all that's needed for a revolutionary project

check out this quote from the german ideology:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

one can speak of the communist gestures people make in their everyday -or not so everyday- life : collaborating against the boss, skip work, sharing a house, building a barricade together, throwing stones to the cops.

[MellySingsDoom]

I was a little surprised, when reading the Wheen article, to note that George Soros says people like him should be effectively prevented from going too far, in order to support the "greater good" of society. Nice in theory, but a tad rich I would suggest coming from the same guy that forced the UK Government to devalue it's currency in the mid-90's. I feel that the issue with the current economic liberalism, which much of the world works with and under, is that protective barriers and measures are seen as a blockade to "progress", and as such these are being continually torn down regardless of the consequences to the many.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I suppose the point of this rambling post is that, as Wheen suggests, it's not just Morning Star readers who take Marx seriously, but people at the very top of large capitalist organisations.

I pointed out earlier on another post that some people who are at the top of large capitalist organizations, also happen to finance certain communist groups. It takes only an understanding of the economy and its flawed nature to see that it won't be here forever. In saying that, of the people who understand how the economy works , I admire those who make their existence a profitable one.

Originally Posted by saoq

i was reading the thread this morning and well.. let me add one or two things/

anyway what's essential today in marx's thinking is not the so called "scientific" conclusions (most of which were wrong) or his economical analysis.

there's a limit where Marx goes well beyond "science" or politics, a limit that's all that's needed for a revolutionary project

check out this quote from the german ideology:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

one can speak of the communist gestures people make in their everyday -or not so everyday- life : collaborating against the boss, skip work, sharing a house, building a barricade together, throwing stones to the cops.

Another post that confuses me. How can Marx's economical anlysis be useless, when it is in fact essential to formulating communist ideas and political tactics? How can a science be wrong if it's a science and it is recognized as one?

[saoq]

well marx's thought is not monolithic. there are strands and strands.
can you understand the quote I posted?
communism is not about a set of ideas we have to put into practise. People will not revolt because they have read and understood Marx's Grundrisse. communism is not a regime. it's not about state/party-regulated economy.

it's the abolition of all forms of alienation: commodity, spectacle, proletariat, work, money, leisure, capital, economy, nation, art.
One can call these forms alienating mediations. They mediate our survival, which is the absence of life. So, their abolition is at the same time the coming into being of an autonomous human community.that's communism. in Marx's terms, it's about making impossible all that exists outside of individuals.

Originally Posted by saoq

well marx's thought is not monolithic. there are strands and strands.
can you understand the quote I posted?
communism is not about a set of ideas we have to put into practise. People will not revolt because they have read and understood Marx's Grundrisse.

Marxism is an instrument that instigates the dictatorship of the proletariat as a mean of establishing a communist society, but not the original cause for those strands of thought to generate themselves, simply a motivator for their continuing existence. Of course you have to put thoughts into practice, if you want things to happen. Thoughts alone don't do anything.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

How can a science be wrong if it's a science and it is recognized as one?

The problem is that for many scientists (of all political persuasions), Marxism isn't a science at all in that it can be neither proven, nor disproven.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

The problem is that for many scientists (of all political persuasions), Marxism isn't a science at all in that it can be neither proven, nor disproven.

Is that something that you would be able to prove yourself, then?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

What does this mean? I don't understand.
Again, if you have nothing constructive to say, just don't say anything as it irritates no end when a person has no point to make but continues disrupting a conversation, alright? It is obvious that you haven't even read the quotes from the communist manifesto that i posted, still you felt like giving a response to something you can't add much to yourself. Not good at all, i'm afraid.

porks, this is your worst post ever. unless you've confused me with someone else you were arguing with. if you're going to get cranky every time someone disagrees with your cause, you're not making a good case in favor of it.

i read the communist manifesto years ago. it's a nice cry for a return to the middle ages and the guild system, but one that will not happen. we're not going back to an agrarian past.

marx also conflated industrialism with capitalism, because the only industry existing in his time was the product of capitalism. what he was decrying were the evils of the dawn of the industrial era. we are way past that. 150 years past. his arguments don't apply to our circumnstances, at least not in any valuable, non-sentimental way.

i like marx, he made very valuable contributions to human thought, the holy family was particularly enjoyable; but everytime someone starts taking his word as some sort of holy gospel i can't help but to laugh.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Is that something that you would be able to prove yourself, then?

Yes, I can prove that Karl Popper rejects Marxism as a science by showing you the book that he wrote it in.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

of the people who understand how the economy works , I admire those who make their existence a profitable one.

That's a bold statement that I'm not sure you really agree with. Company shareholders who manipulate policy solely to maximise share prices are fully aware of how the economy works. I couldn't say that their actions are admirable though.

Unless of course, by 'profitable', you mean in a non-financial sense. In which case I obviously agree with you.

[saoq]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Marxism is an instrument that instigates the dictatorship of the proletariat as a mean of establishing a communist society, but not the original cause for those strands of thought to generate themselves, simply a motivator for their continuing existence. Of course you have to put thoughts into practice, if you want things to happen. Thoughts alone don't do anything.

well i disagree. that program (dictatoriship, socialism, communism) might have been appropriate a century ago, but not today. capital is not an externality to us anymore (i'm talking about the formal/real subsumption to capital difference: All life is commodity, in its content, not only form.)

a contemporary insurrection (say the riots in the french banlieues, 2005) is not an affirmation of the proletarian condition (an affirmation would be a request for a "workers' state or a proletarian democracy) , but a practical attempt to its abolition, and therefore a practical attempt to the abolition of all classes.
check out this concept: communisation

Originally Posted by demonrail666

That's a bold statement that I'm not sure you really agree with. Company shareholders who manipulate policy solely to maximise share prices are fully aware of how the economy works. I couldn't say that their actions are admirable though.

Unless of course, by 'profitable', you mean in a non-financial sense. In which case I obviously agree with you.

Do you not think that if you accept and embrace a system for what it is, contradditions and all, you might as well make the most of it or else simply have the option of being a slave or choosing the maximum quota of freedom that you are allowed, which is fighting against it? I'm not feeling terribly revolutionary today, so that's the best reply that I can offer at the moment.

Originally Posted by saoq

well i disagree. that program (dictatoriship, socialism, communism) might have been appropriate a century ago, but not today. capital is not an externality to us anymore (i'm talking about the formal/real subsumption to capital difference: All life is commodity, in its content, not only form.)

a contemporary insurrection (say the riots in the french banlieues, 2005) is not an affirmation of the proletarian condition (an affirmation would be a request for a "workers' state or a proletarian democracy) , but a practical attempt to its abolition, and therefore a practical attempt to the abolition of all classes.
check out this concept: communisation

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
Karl Marx

[saoq]

_ok