Capitalism vs Communism

[Badbird]

A Democract isn't the one who support communist.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Judging by your avatar, you seem to be a Beethoven fan. Using your logic, he never had a "real" job either.

Beethoven transcended reality. He worked for private commission(though yes I am aware the aristocracy paid him a stipend). But he was far too busy relying on his imagination instead of his ears. You try going deaf and writing music for posterity sometime.

Apples and Rubix Cubes man.

The only thing Marx ever transcended was paying anyone anything. That's right, the one person who he had in his employ, Lechin(sp?) his housekeeper; he never even paid a dime(he even used her if you know what I mean, and provided Marx's only living heir). It was only because of his wife's dowery that they had her at all. Jenny Marx, truly one of the saddest and most pitiful figures in socialist history.

 

[Caligulan Blood]

A Democract isn't the one who support communist.

Ask any democrat if Communism would be a good economic policy. They'll almost always say yes. Communism goes hand in hand with big government which is the democratic party's agenda ATM.

 

[Death Aflame]

Ask any democrat if Communism would be a good economic policy. They'll almost always say yes. Communism goes hand in hand with big government which is the democratic party's agenda ATM.

I think you need to be careful with the terms you are throwing around, they are called "loaded terms" for a reason.

What you are describing comes closer to what is more commonly accepted as Socialism, I'd argue, not Communism. I am speaking here from within Marx's own distinctions between the terms. In his theory, Communism is the endgoal: the stateless, classless utopian society, while socialism, particularly state socialism, is the means to that end. If we accept Marx's distinction then, communism has never existed in recorded history except in theory, and what the West often calls communism is some kind of 'socialism'. Of course, this distinction between the terms has its own problems as well.

Even then, calling the Democrats policies socialist (while implying the Republicans policies are not socialist) is problematic on a number of levels. First of which, what do you mean by 'socialist'? If big government is your sole factor, you would then have to include all governments from the past 40+ years of American political history as socialist as well, would you not?

 

[Death Aflame]

PS: Marx's personal life aside, there are certainly many problems with Marx's ideas and strategies (historical materialism, unfounded faith in "scientific" planning of economies, manifest and latent authoritarianism, being chief among them), but to paint all of his ideas as unimportant and rubbish, as you seem to imply, goes too far in the other direction.

Much of his analysis of capitalism and predictions about its development is important, if outdated in methodology. And I would argue that he did develop some useful concepts such as reification and commodity fetishism that are foundational for trying to better understand the more intangible effects of a commodity-capitalist culture. One does not need to be a Marxist to draw influence from Marx. I am certainly no Freudian, for instance, but his ideas have influenced my worldview on some level.

 

[Kara-Shehr]

Ask any democrat if Communism would be a good economic policy. They'll almost always say yes. Communism goes hand in hand with big government which is the democratic party's agenda ATM.

Really? i'd say its the neo-con agenda, which leans right wing and the first two things you said were unfalsifiable claims do you have statistics to back that up or is that just some BS you pulled out of your ass?

And communism is a pretty sensitive topic I haven't met anyone IRL who supports it. Especially considering it's history in America and how people perceive it in a negative light.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

PS: Marx's personal life aside, there are certainly many problems with Marx's ideas and strategies (historical materialism, unfounded faith in "scientific" planning of economies, manifest and latent authoritarianism, being chief among them), but to paint all of his ideas as unimportant and rubbish, as you seem to imply, goes too far in the other direction.

Much of his analysis of capitalism and predictions about its development is important, if outdated in methodology. And I would argue that he did develop some useful concepts such as reification and commodity fetishism that are foundational for trying to better understand the more intangible effects of a commodity-capitalist culture. One does not need to be a Marxist to draw influence from Marx. I am certainly no Freudian, for instance, but his ideas have influenced my worldview on some level.

Except that Marx fundamentally failed to understand capitalism and how it is THE ONLY system compatible with human nature.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Really i'd say its the neo-con agenda which leans right wing and the first two things you said were unfalsifiable claims do you have statistics to back that up or is that just some BS you pulled out of your ass.

It's called common sense; which cannot be taught.

 

[metallicdistort]

I get the feeling Death Aflame is the only one here with real understanding of Marx. I'm guessing he's also a politics student

Marx did understand capitalism, he actually admired capitalism to some extent in Das Kapital. He also understood mankind's nature and even accepted that communism (not to be confused with socialism) was an unrealistic goal. Most "Marxists" aren't even aware of Marx's belief outlined in the Communist Manifesto that capitalism should be completelely destroyed, by opposing any measures to reform capitalism to benefit the proletariat.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

If I posted what college students don't know about Marx, we'd be here all day.

Again,

Karl Marx simply cannot be trusted though. His crimes against the truth fall on numerous heads. First, he uses out-of-date material because up-to-date material does not support his case. Second, he selects certain industries, where conditions were particularly bad, as typical of capitalism. His thesis was that capitalism produces ever-worsening conditions; the more capital employed, the more badly the workers had to be treated to secure adequate returns. The evidence he uses to justify this comes almost entirely from small, inefficient, undercapitalized firms in archaic industries which in most cases were pre-capitalist. In many of the conditions he cites(e.g. baking), conditions were bad precisely because the firm had not been able to afford to introduce machinery, since it lacked capital. In effect, Marx is dealing with pre-capitalist conditions, and ignoring the truth which stared him in the face:*zing* the more capital, the less suffering.

What Marx could not or would not get, because he made no effort to understand how industry worked, was that from the very dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the most efficient manufacturers, who had ample access to capital, habitually favored better conditions for their workforce; so conditions improved, and because conditions improved, the workers failed to rise, as Marx predicted they would. The prophet was thus confounded. What emerges from reading Marx is Marx's fundamental failure to understand capitalism. He failed precisely because he was unscientific- he would not investigate the facts himself, or use objectively the facts investigated by others. From start to finish, not just the Communist Manifesto, but all of his work reflects a disregard for truth which at times amounts to contempt. That is the primary reason why Marxism, as a system, cannot produce the results claimed for it; and to call it 'scientific' is preposterous.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

.
Marx an anti-Semite? He was born a Jew! He may've despised all organised religions, but he was not a racist.

Ferdinand Lassalle, who opposed Marx's views, became the victim of Marx's most brutal anti-Semitic and racial sneers: he was 'Baron Itzig', 'the Jewish my pals', 'a greasy Jew disguised under brilliantine and cheap jewels'. 'It is now perfectly clear to me', Marx wrote to Engels on July 30th, 1862, 'that, as the shape of his head and the growth of his hair indicates, he is descended from the Negroes who joined in Moses' flight from Egypt(unless his mother or grandmother on the father's side was crossed with a my pals). This union of Jew and German on a Negro base was bound to produce an extraordinary hybrid.'
[Source: Marx-Engels Werke, vol. xxx, p. 259]

Sorry it took me awhile to knock that ignorant statement down. Today I'm just bored enough.
Care to make any more uninformed statements?

 

[Badbird]

I get the feeling Death Aflame is the only one here with real understanding of Marx. I'm guessing he's also a politics student

Marx did understand capitalism, he actually admired capitalism to some extent in Das Kapital. He also understood mankind's nature and even accepted that communism (not to be confused with socialism) was an unrealistic goal. Most "Marxists" aren't even aware of Marx's belief outlined in the Communist Manifesto that capitalism should be completelely destroyed, by opposing any measures to reform capitalism to benefit the proletariat.

.

 

[Death Aflame]

Except that Marx fundamentally failed to understand capitalism and how it is THE ONLY system compatible with human nature.

Your latter claim is nothing but naked ideology and dogmatism (that is, if I understand you correctly).

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Your latter claim is nothing but naked ideology and dogmatism (that is, if I understand you correctly).

No it isn't. The only system that honors individual productive values(free enterprise, freedom of association, open competition) is the only one that both honors and rewards real human progress.

Anything else is a specious deception designed only for the sole purpose of productive and competitive value destruction.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

I also want to make something else clear, right now.

Auguste Comte was the first philosopher to articulate the ethical principle of altruism as sacrifice. His altruistic ethics held sacrifice as the goal of moral actions, regardless of the means, cost, or beneficiary. He projected selflessness and sacrifice as the ultimate good while claiming self-interest as the antithesis of that good.
But Immanuel Kant consciously and methodically laid the philosophical groundwork for the concept of altruistic self-sacrifice as a moral principle. Kant used brilliantly orchestrated, cleverly integrated non sequiturs to attack logic, reason, and the human mind. Kant is among the most destructive of all master manipulators. His philosophy provides ingenious systems of noncontextual, inner logic that offers beautiful sounding rationalizations for all kinds of violations of individual rights and destructions of values. Kant's works are essential for Fascism, Marxism, and every murderous regime of the 20th century. Plato begot Kant, who begot socialism's biological and philosophical father, Georg Hegel. In turn, Hegel begot Karl Marx and spawned mass murderers Lenin, Hitler, Mao. And Plato begot the philosophical father of religio-conservatives, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In turn Rousseau spawned equally bloody mass murderers Robespierre, Pol Pot, Khomeini.
All that blood, suffering, and destruction arise entirely through schemers manipulating unreal, arbitrary illusions and mind-created "realities" of mysticism in order to support and further their own personal, bogus livelihoods. No other reason or motive exists or has ever existed for purposeful death and destruction.

Also, no dictatorship is really atheistic. Various dictatorships only replace one mystical authority called God with another mystical authority called the State. Philosophically they are all equally mystical, destructive, and immoral. All professional mystics and value destroyers rely on the unearned guilt foisted on producers through various altruistic or God-concept hoaxes to extract material and psychological "livings" from value producers.
When in reality no external authority exists or has ever existed. No one holds any genuine authority over anyone else and the conscious individual is the highest, noblest possible good or cause in the universe. Social science and the concept of "minority rights" are a sham most especially because they usually deny the individual as the prime entity of human life.

 

[Death Aflame]

No it isn't. The only system that honors individual productive values(free enterprise, freedom of association, open competition) is the only one that both honors and rewards real human progress.

Anything else is a specious deception designed only for the sole purpose of productive and competitive value destruction.

It is naked ideology because you assume a definitive answer to what human nature is and that that answer coincides directly with your right libertarian ideological beliefs.

There are other issues with your bold assertion, most obvious is your confounding of capitalism with free markets as such.

 

[Kara-Shehr]

It's called common sense; which cannot be taught.

Communists support communism not Democrats and you wanna talk common sense?

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

It is naked ideology because you assume a definitive answer to what human nature is and that that answer coincides directly with your right libertarian ideological beliefs.

There are other issues with your bold assertion, most obvious is your confounding of capitalism with free markets as such.

I always preferred the term 'free enterprise' to 'capitalism'.

And I am a libertarian with a slight pivot to the right because I understand that our axiomatic rights are based on property, i.e. you own property the day you leave the womb: yourself. But then you end up getting a birth certificate, a social security number, a license, you get the idea.

Free country? Horseshit. All America does is fuck you out of rights you already had.

Communists support communism not Democrats and you wanna talk common sense?

How? When you clearly do not speak it.

 

[Badbird]

Communists support communism not Democrats and you wanna talk common sense?

For some reason Prismatic Sphere has the mind of a tea party member with his thinking that Dems are communists and socialists.

 

[Kara-Shehr]

How? When you clearly do not speak it.

Communist = Someone who follows the economic and social philosophy known as communism.

Democrat = Member of the Democratic party and adheres to it's political agenda which is liberal in a nutshell.

Idk how your getting confused.