Karl marx.

[paramount]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Do most workers feel alienated at work. Paramount, do you feel sort of just plain shifty about the housing market, money, life, rrlationships? Maybe Marx has something descriptive to say about it.[/quote]

Well, I always have my house to work on when I feel a need for ‘personal expression’.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=paramount][quote=scaredyclassic]Do most workers feel alienated at work. Paramount, do you feel sort of just plain shifty about the housing market, money, life, rrlationships? Maybe Marx has something descriptive to say about it.[/quote]

Well, I always have my house to work on when I feel a need for ‘personal expression’.[/quote]

I suupose. Your past posts however seem to be pretty alienated to you house. That it’s all about money, markets, frankly it seems like Marx might have an unusual amount of important things to tell you…

[flyer]

I can definitely see how the ideas of Marx would be appealing to many today, per my comments on another thread:

“The world definitely seems to be evolving into a more hostile environment on all fronts, but it really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise when you realize, even in the US, much of the population are literally fighting for their lives when it comes to things like long-term financial security/survival (and all that includes–jobs, retirement, education, housing–etc.) for themselves and their families. Since a lot of anger goes along with that, it does tend to create chaos in society at many levels.”

Does this point to the self-destruction of capitalism as Marx predicted? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

[CA renter]

[quote=paramount][quote=CA renter]Yes, he was largely right. He’s one of the greatest economic philosophers in history. Like him or not, he was brilliant.

I’ve found that the **vast majority** of people who put down Marx and/or his theories have never actually read Marx. Most haven’t read Adam Smith, either.[/quote]

Is it brilliant to theorize that a brain surgeon and a janitor should be paid the same? No, and that’s essentially what Marx claims.[/quote]

No, of course they shouldn’t be paid the same. I know that some really radical communists would say that everyone should be “paid” exactly the same (different economic systems might use different mediums of exchange), irrespective of their contribution to society, but the vast majority of socialists, and many/most communists would agree that people could be compensated unequally, as long as it’s within reason and justifiable in some way.

While some would claim that our labor market in the U.S. is a “free market,” it’s not. Here, those who control money flows determine how those resources are allocated. It’s not about compensating those who provide the greatest benefit to society, it’s not about transferring the money that the end consumer is willing to pay for a particular good/service directly to the people who provide that good/service (the employer is the middleman who skims a portion of every transaction), and it’s not about who works hardest or who is most intelligent. It’s about the unequal ownership of capital, and the unjustifiably outsized rewards for the owners of capital that were created by those who labor for a living. That’s what Marx was opposed to. He believed that those who create the capital in the first place (workers) should be the ones to reap the greatest share of the surplus value that they’ve created.

Without labor, there is no capital. Labor precedes capital in every case. Even when one considers natural resources, the only way to extract value from those resources is to mine/grow them, assemble them, package and distribute them, etc. That all requires labor. Even land is worthless until workers build roads, ports, buildings, etc., or plant and harvest food from the land.

Marx correctly pointed out that unbridled capitalism ends in only one way: a relatively small group of very wealthy and powerful men at the top will own essentially everything, and everyone else must spend their entire lives working for these owners because the only “capital” they own is their labor, which has to be exchanged on a perpetual basis for life’s basic necessities.

Marx was right:

It’s the Inequality, Stupid

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequality-top-01-worth-as-much-as-the-bottom-90

[scaredyclassic]

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” Karl marx.

Sounds like a tea party dude.

[scaredyclassic]

Imagine just 60 years ago all the trouble we could’ve gotten into for discussing marx like this here in our free country.

[CA renter]

[quote=scaredyclassic]“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” Karl marx.

Sounds like a tea party dude.[/quote]

+1

[ltsddd]

[quote=CA renter]
Marx correctly pointed out that unbridled capitalism ends in only one way: a relatively small group of very wealthy and powerful men at the top will own essentially everything, and everyone else must spend their entire lives working for these owners because the only “capital” they own is their labor, which has to be exchanged on a perpetual basis for life’s basic necessities.
[/quote]

For a second, I thought you were talking about China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc…

[all]

[quote=ltsdd][quote=CA renter]
Marx correctly pointed out that unbridled capitalism ends in only one way: a relatively small group of very wealthy and powerful men at the top will own essentially everything, and everyone else must spend their entire lives working for these owners because the only “capital” they own is their labor, which has to be exchanged on a perpetual basis for life’s basic necessities.
[/quote]

For a second, I thought you were talking about China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc…[/quote]

Which is why I made the comment that China is not a communist country few months ago. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, but calls itself big bad wolf…

[FlyerInHi]

Ownership of wealth in the former “communist” states didn’t come about until after perestroika. Before the move to a market based economy, privilege was based solely on position and power, but the leaders didn’t own wealth.

My dad told me the story of when he worked abroad, he made friends with a soviet attaché. The guy didn’t really own anything. But he had access to caviar and vodka which he would trade with his friends. The guy died in a modest state provided apartment.

Power and privilege associated with position, such as in North Korea, is not the same as owning (legal framework to protect ownership) vast amounts of wealth.

Russia, China, Vietnam now do have billionaires and ownership in a capitalist sense. But that’s capitalism, not communism.

[The-Shoveler]

Seems like a system designed to motivate people to do the least possible they could get away with.

If I am not mistaken I think we have already seen how this ends.

[FlyerInHi]

The people on the Starship Enterprise are pretty motivated.

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=FlyerInHi]The people on the Starship Enterprise are pretty motivated.[/quote]

Probably part of the elite class LOL,

Things work better in the fantasy world.

[ltsddd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]
Russia, China, Vietnam now do have billionaires and ownership in a capitalist sense. But that’s capitalism, not communism.[/quote]

Isn’t that enough proof there that marxism is shit?

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=ltsdd]
Isn’t that enough proof there that marxism is shit?[/quote]

It’s shit for people who got swept away.
In the big scheme, the revolutions in Russia and China were just changes of dynasties. If they get established and are able to smoothly hand power over time, they will just become like us.

[Author]

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