Communists.

Permabear

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O'Coonassa

donegalfella wrote: »

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Perhaps the 'education' system that the mill owners so kindly introduced isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

ilkhanid

brianthebard wrote: »

That's a hugely skewed and uninformed reading of 160 years of history since Marx's communist manifesto ilkhanid. To reduce his entire works to "dictatorship of the proletariat" is frankly silly.

Than you must have only glanced at my post. I didn't attempt to reduce his work to anything. I acknowledged that he produced interesting and perceptive works on Capitalism and many other things, but he did not produce a detailed explanation as to how the changeover would come about. This lack led other elements to fill in this gap and this did not work out well in practise.

as asdasd put it, better than I did:
"....The mechanism about how the State would disappear, or how Stateless societies would transfer wealth according to need, and from ability ( without coercion like, I dunno, a tax law using State power), and what was meant by "need" anyway were all left up to the user...."

Or rather were left for the future to sort out as Marx did'nt get around to it. Other things left unsaid and unexamined were how law would function in practise,how resources would be distributed,human rights,the role of democracy in all of this, supply and demand at an individual level and more.

also..."Similarly no real Marxist sees China or the USSR as communist, because they are both simply instances of state organised capitalist production, with no change in the social relations."

Whenever people got into what was "real" Marxism....that's when the trouble started. Is'nt a definition of capitalism that it is privately owned economic production? Productive resources in the hands of individuals,for their own private profit, members of the Bourgeoisie as Marxism puts it. So if the State owns and uses these resources, and no member of the Government or administration individually own them,how can it be capitalism of any kind? China now is the nearest to this definition,but the former and the few still existing Marxist states were/are actually Command Economies.

Permabear

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Permabear

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MG

Communism doesn't work because it encourages and rewards underachievement. Trade unionism is a mild form of communism and look at how it's messed up this country, all in order to protect the underachievers.

DadaKopf

There's so much rubbish on this thread. I mean, how many posts did it take for that predictably dumb cliché about 'Marxism' failing because it contradicts 'human nature' to emerge?

Then you've got (except for a few) a collective display of complete ignorance about the whole marxian tradition which at the same time reveal a remarkably conservative ideological mindset of those people.

Here's one example: it took three posts for someone to equate 'marxism/communism' with genocide. Q.E.D. I suppose. But what about all the killing done in the name of Catholicism, Protestantism, Gnosticism, nationalism, liberalism, capitalism, the Westphalian order, 'development', paganism, scientism, etc? You think it's impossible to be a 'marxist' and a pacifist who condemns all such murderous actions? How immature.

donegallfella wrote:

Communism cannot survive without state coercion, because communism is not a natural order. Almost every mammal, man included, has an instinctive tendency towards property ownership. This is my territory, not yours. This is my hunk of meat, not yours. This is my mate, not yours. I am the leader, not you. And so on. But communism depends on the militaristic power of the state to thwart human instinct—which is why it so often degenerates into a genocidal bloodbath.

You see, this is just ignorant. You're attempting here to naturalise your own normative perspective on things: that, essentially, nature is selfish and cruel and attempting to organise a society to counter such instincts are doomed to fail. By contrast, you present a clumsy image of 'marxism' as an ideology which naively and potentially murderously attempts to impose some sort of absurd moral order upon human beings. However, the marxian tradition makes no secret of the fact that it is a normative tradition: it analyses the human world and proposes how humans can live a better life because the human world is made by humans, within natural limits. Your position is ideological in the opposite direction: life is cruel, so we must not hide from the natural reality that man is selfish and that this must, therefore, be 'the good life'. Following this logic, this view essentially naturalises an amoral perspective.

For the record, both perspectives, as with so many other ideologies, can and have justified terrible things.

'Ah,' you will say, 'I do believe that because this is human nature, limits must be placed on it by man!' So you accept, therefore, that normative theory is a good thing, and marxism as an openly normative ideology is also a good thing. So it is political liberalism and its progeny which attempts to conceal ideology.

A concrete example: the 'natural right' to private property. Is is *really* a natural right, or a desire by human beings in specific times and places? Even today, there are people in many other countries struggling to assert the rights of common ownership. Even London's commons are based on this principle. And, amazingly, concepts of 'property ownership' was radically different even in Europe until the mid 1700s.

Another concrete example:

asdasd wrote:

" In the concluding volume of Das Kapital, Marx remarked that the average man in a communist society would be able to go fishing in the morning, work in a factory in the afternoon and read Plato in the evening "

I mean, Jesus wept. The man had no idea how work has to happen in a modern society.

Has it not occurred to you that Marx and the socialist movement of the time understood very well what happens to working people in a modern society? The industrial revolution made it possible to feed and clothe everyone. At the time, people saw the potential for machines to allow people much more leisure time. Why should people continue producing quantity X in a factory when much more than is socially necessary has been produced? You ignore the reality that this is a normative statement: people should only have to work enough to provide enough for everyone; people should have as much leisure time to pursue their other, life-enriching interests, spend time with their family and friends; people should have the opportunity to learn and improve their lives. Your comment is an ideological statement in the opposite direction: people should not do any of these things. People should work to make more money for their employers, people should spend their leisure time shopping and watching mind-numbing television, people should stop thinking and accept everything the powerful tell them.


All of this predictable nonsense whenever a debate on marxism crops up just again displays the level of ignorance and ideological blindness about the subject. 'I don't know much about much, but I know I don't like communism!' Fuxache.

turgon

DadaKopf wrote: »

A concrete example: the 'natural right' to private property. Is is *really* a natural right, or a desire by human beings in specific times and places?

Let me put it this way. Theres a stray cat outside my house that I bring in for a few hours in the morning. A lot of her time is spent rubbing off my leg and the legs of chairs and tables etc. Putting her scent on these things so she can claim my house as her territory. Yes, I would say private property is the most natural thing.

DadaKopf wrote: »

People should work to make more money for their employers, people should spend their leisure time shopping and watching mind-numbing television, people should stop thinking and accept everything the powerful tell them.

In this big bad world of capitalism, whats to stop these disgruntled workers from becoming the employers?

DadaKopf

Yes, I would say private property is the most natural thing.

No, permission or right to use an object based on rules or customs can take many forms. As they do in the actual real world. As they have in the past. For example in feudal europe, and among native American societies.

Having and wanting use of something does not, analytically or philosophically, equate to a 'natural law' of private property. There is no necessary identity here. As I said above, and as you repeat here (let's get it straight), you're perpetuating this fiction of a 'natural law' in order to support an ideological position to which you subscribe. An attempt to 'naturalise', and therefore depoliticise a deeply political statement.

asdasd

A concrete example: the 'natural right' to private property. Is is *really* a natural right, or a desire by human beings in specific times and places?

Owning property is in humans totally innate. Where possible it happens. To suggest that the "social system" dictates how human beings feel about ownership, or not, is to hold a blank slate position on human morality, to assume that "social relations" dictate human consciousness. The idea of this is to create - like most cults - an unfalsifable position. You only believe X, because people who believe X are in the dominant position, say the Marxists.

This pseduo-intellectualisation is unscientific anyway, because unfalsifiable positions always re unscientific. But the claim that humans believe something; that consciousness changes because of the means of production changes ( jesus wept), is clearly falsifiable because communist societies have collapsed ( despite 70 years of being in a different form of social relations it didn't change consciousness), because the people in those societies did not change their innate humanness, and because, unlike 19th century charlatans, we know how the human mind works. It is not influenced by social relations, it creates them. It is influenced by thousands years of evolution.

Join with the the Intelligent Design if you have a problem with the last sentence, but do so outside of universities.

Why should people continue producing quantity X in a factory when much more than is socially necessary has been produced?

Because

a) socially necessary is "****". You dont get to determine what I ( or we) think is socially necessary. Clearly Elvis Presley, weed, beer, movies, sport etc. ( as Adorno told you) are not socially necessary since I could be feed and clothed as well as a 19th century peasant without them, but I dont want to live that ugly life, and I dont choose to. We dictate the market, it doesn't;t dictate us.
b) I will work harder to buy these "socially unnecessary" articles. So I produce more than what is "socially necessary" ( what a sinister, evil phrase that is).

Marxists are puritans. Not just dumb as dishwater.

But i what we really want from the Marxist cult is the answer to the questions - and there are many more - of how exactly the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes stateless, and how a Stateless society transfers wealth ( if any exists) from A to B.

You are asking us to transform society, and the economy completely. You demand extraordinary outcomes, so you need extraordinary proof.

You want the woman outside my door today selling her cupcakes to be jailed because she was clearly employing someone else ( and thus "exploited" her employee's labour), you want to take ownership of the land from farmers because they would be less "alienated from their labour" by working for the State , you want to seize my pension ( all in stocks), you want my favorite restaurant owned by the State. It pains me to even imagine such a sick society. It would be a prison for mankind.

And you want all this even after you theory, and practice has been rubbished.

One last point - lets ignore the millions killed by Communism.

Lets just stick to the sick, inhuman theory. Lets pretend the deaths of millions never happened. Lets pretend the show trials,. the collectivization, never happened.

It is still bunk unless you explain exactly how the transition from capitalism to socialism works without coercion. How the 40,000 people who own businesses ( and their employees in Ireland) can have their property seized, how farmers can have their property seized, how shareholders - including most workers - will have their pension seized by the Communist State, without violence. And how that State miraculously withers away.

To even type this, is to deal with idiocy. I realize that millions of people died for nothing. Marxism is not just evil, but stupid.

shqipshume

Bertie and Brian and all other Fianna fail members they would be your best bet almost a communists country as is lol oh and mary harney perfect dictator all in her little rolly pollie self
blind leading the blind so to speak

asdasd

There is no necessary identity here. As I said above, and as you repeat here (let's get it straight), you're perpetuating this fiction of a 'natural law' in order to support an ideological position to which you subscribe.

No, he is pointing out how human societies organise themselves when free.

The feudalists obviously owned property, and their serfs wanted to own property, not to have it owned in common by the State. We know this in Ireland, because the land reform movement was divided between people who believed that landlord class should be abolished and the land taken into public ownership, or private ownership. The latter won because that is what people want.

Nobody is arguing "natural law" We leave such **** to philosophers.

We are arguing that humans have innate evolutionary characteristics.

As for the native Americans, it isn't much of an argument to say that very poor people have no property, its like saying that I was propertyless at birth, so that must be "normal".

( and if fact they did have private ownership, of homes ( teepees) horses, even currency)

turgon

I would like to elaborate on another point I made which was ignored.

Communists are obsessed with the idea that the capatilist is this big bad guy who whips his workers and treats everyone badly but for himself. All he thinks of is profits and ignores human suffering.

Well if the workers have problem with the factory or company they are working in ... whats to stop them setting up another??? They can all work under a manager who organizes and then divide the profits.

An example in the modern Ireland. You hear the farmers giving out about the crap milk prices they are being paid. If its that bad why dont these farmers set up a new co-op and set a better price for themselves?

No - everyone wants the government to do everything for them.

Permabear

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lmtduffy

MG wrote: »

Communism doesn't work because it encourages and rewards underachievement. Trade unionism is a mild form of communism and look at how it's messed up this country, all in order to protect the underachievers.

yes trade unionism let a property bubble grow unwarranted and failed to regulate financial institutions and then trade unions bailed out the banks and that protected the under achievers?

brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

Let me put it this way. Theres a stray cat outside my house that I bring in for a few hours in the morning. A lot of her time is spent rubbing off my leg and the legs of chairs and tables etc. Putting her scent on these things so she can claim my house as her territory. Yes, I would say private property is the most natural thing.

Are you a cat?

O'Coonassa

turgon wrote: »

Yes, I would say private property is the most natural thing.

If that were the case turgon then how come hunter-gatherer societies/bands have no such concept? What they have is shared. This fact has been documented by many anthropologists working in many areas of the globe. The concept of private ownership only arises in pastoralist and agricultural societies.

lmtduffy

donegalfella wrote: »

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The dole would be an obvious example, then there's government grants for businesses, government building roads and infrastructure that allows business (like ports and airports), education so you know people know how to do stuff, health so people live long enough to participate in the economy, government institutions that monitor the environment so you know some business doesnt poison us all and hey as I right this it seems like you might have a asked a silly question.
Its silly because its clear that a smarter, healthier society will do more more efficiently.


I

n 2006—in the middle of a global boom, if you recall—the McKinsey Global Institute reported that Sweden's real unemployment rate was 15 percent, three times the official government figure (Source: Financial Times). Jan Edling, an economist with one of Sweden’s largest labour unions, wrote a report stating that Sweden had a de facto unemployment rate of 20–25 percent (Source: Wall Street Journal). Mr Edling resigned after the union refused to publish his analysis.

so, its still a functioning society.

The quality of life there is higher than where? How do you know the Swedes are happier? I remember some report coming out a couple of years ago saying that the Irish were the happiest people in the world, or some such.

okay this states the Irish have a better quality of life, Ill give you that but it also lists best countries in the world based on a variety of factors
the results #1 Sweden #2 Denmark #3 Netherlands #4 Finland?
http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/best.html

more of the same- http://www.newsweek.com/id/54478

top 50 most stable and prosperous countries in the world Sweden number 2 be by the Vatican!- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3617160.ece

It should be obvious that Sweden continues to profit from the remnants of the free-market economy that existed prior to the era of social democracy. Not a single net new job has been created in the Swedish private sector since 1950. And Sweden grows steadily poorer by the generation, having slipped from the world's third-richest nation in 1970 to the eighteenth at present. If Sweden were part of the USA, it would be the sixth-poorest state in the Union.

[/QUOTE]

chirst it fails by your skewed standards, there is a mountainous wealth of literature out there showing that the Nordic model is the best, it is no coincidence those countries top so many lists so often.

And who is doing better overall the Scandinavians, care to back up your figure by the way?

lmtduffy

donegalfella wrote: »

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it also says "despite a study released earlier this year showing Dublin's murder rate is increasing faster than that of any other European capital city. "

"But Scotland and Finland's murder rates are still low compared to recent EU entrants from the Baltic area. "

brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

An example in the modern Ireland. You hear the farmers giving out about the crap milk prices they are being paid. If its that bad why dont these farmers set up a new co-op and set a better price for themselves?

No - everyone wants the government to do everything for them.

Co-ops don't set the price, supermarkets do.

turgon

brianthebard wrote: »

Co-ops don't set the price, supermarkets do.

Co-ops get a profit that could be reduced if the farmers managed it themselves.

Permabear

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brianthebard

turgon wrote: »

Co-ops get a profit that could be reduced if the farmers managed it themselves.

Apart from the fact that the supermarkets control the prices and thus the co-ops are hostage to their follies, if the farmers owned a co-op why would they want to reduce their own profits?

turgon

brianthebard wrote: »

Apart from the fact that the supermarkets control the prices and thus the co-ops are hostage to their follies, if the farmers owned a co-op why would they want to reduce their own profits?

They wouldnt be reducing their own profits. They could run the co-op as a non-profit organization, and let this co-op offer them good prices for their milk.

Sounds a lot easier than starting an armed rebellion and forcing everyone to believe in your ridiculous economic theory.

And if communism is so good why dont all the communists in Ireland get together and buy a big chunk of land and start yeer own mini collective state? If it works out (which it undoubtadly wont) we will all come and join you.

Black Swan

This thread has been cause for me to think of a paradox...

Were not the members of the very early Catholic church communistic in their commune behaviours? Further... Although the CCCP closed churches during the decades of their 20th Century reign, Christianity and communism have not always been in opposition, even during contemporary times? I can recall reading about the radical Catholic movement in Brazil, whom appeared to be neo-Maxist Christians, and depending upon how you read the movement-associated theorist Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, contributed a dialectical interpretation that was not too far from neo-Marxist?

Not that I would support a Marxian interpretation of reality, or Christian for that matter, as I find them greatly flawed in both being dichotomies in a Derridean sense.

Permabear

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Red Sleeping Beauty

turgon wrote: »

In this big bad world of capitalism, whats to stop these disgruntled workers from becoming the employers?

This is the idea. That the workers will own their labour, own the factory and own the means of production. Not private companies who serve their own wishes and market useless products and create surplus value.

Red Sleeping Beauty

donegalfella wrote: »

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And how many people died at the hands of capitalist regimes ?
How many people were murdered by American armed forces fighting wars backed by a military lobby and a lust for the control of oil?
What role did IBM have during the Holocaust ? and what of Coca Cola ?

johnnyskeleton

donegalfella wrote: »

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But it will also flow into the hands of the Bernie Maddofs etc.

DadaKopf

Discussion on Friedrich Engels on Pat Kenny now. Dunno if it'll be any good.