Was Karl Marx Right?

[noah way]

No, marx's had an agenda with his writings. The out come of capitalism can be anything, including capitalism. In a simple economy, marx had it right. But in a complex society, no one can predict want the out come is.

He predicted that capitalism would replace by socialism, but as we see in the real world, socialism is being replaced by capitalism.

What we are seeing in the real world is the success of countries that have strong social program and the failure of countries that are more capitalistic. Greece is not collapsing because of it's strong social system, it is collapsing because it has been shorted by speculators using the same financial instruments (credit default swaps) that they used to collapse the US economy.

Capitalism eliminates socialism because there is no profit in it. Either privatize it (so that profits can be made) or eliminate it (to reduce tax liability).

 

[OutofDate1980]

money is power. if economic philosophy doesn't fit political philosophy, one must change their economic philosophy to be viable.

they've been communist since when? now they have a capitalistic economic philosophy. are we to expect they are to go back to the relatively truer communism of their past? if so....they are doing it wrong.

I see that you understand this fiendishly clever communist conspiracy, the Chinese Communist Party must first establish themselves as the Bourgeois in order to create the conditions necessary for the Proletarians to rise up and overthrow the Bourgeois.

Your Comrade in Solidarity
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Frisco]

What we are seeing in the real world is the success of countries that have strong social program and the failure of countries that are more capitalistic. Greece is not collapsing because of it's strong social system, it is collapsing because it has been shorted by speculators using the same financial instruments (credit default swaps) that they used to collapse the US economy.

Capitalism eliminates socialism because there is no profit in it. Either privatize it (so that profits can be made) or eliminate it (to reduce tax liability).

Agreed. But there is also the little matter of whether or not the economic schema is against the backdrop of a hardline police state or a democracy.

China makes it clear that capitalism does not require democracy. Cuba has never embraced either, remaining until recently strictly socialist (read, "broke") with no democracy at all, and is only now making noises about wanting to "experiment" with capitalism.

It takes clever people in an already existing society to tweak the rules so that the most people can live with some measure of success and the fewest people languish and struggle. Socialism/communism is a primitive, caveman-like approach to complex issues, in my opinion, and can only work for a little while given the human need to compete and also given the diversity in people.

 

[RiverOfIce]

You are stating concepts for a simple society, then jumping off the cliff using complex societies.

In the real complex world, you need all economic system, socialism, capitalism, and others. No country in this complex world can exist as purely a socialistic society. Not with out 100% corruption, ie north korea. Nothing can be a 100% capitalistic society, see where we are today. The best economies balance all forms of economies.


As for the greece. There was a thousand and 1 social programs that greece promised to fund, they had to do it by taking out way more money then they could pay back. When the good loans dried up, they started to take out bad loans. Greece's social programs, helped dig the whole they are in. But that does not mean socialism is evil.

Here is a better system. You allow capitalism to work, because it will always create jobs. If capitalism can not work properly, then socialism takes over. For example, libraries, mass transportation, airplanes, street repair, and loan system, is just a few area where capitalistic profit line is too close and can harm the society. Those programs are required to be taken over by the government for the people benefit.

 

[Bob Maxey]

Marx talked a lot about working and wages, etc, in the same ways that Peewee Herman talked about being an astronaut.

Marx never worked, never earned a wage, could not even support his family, to the point of four of his seven children dying at childhood due to lack of support and nutrition.

Heck of a "thinker," though, pointing his finger at anybody who'd earned their way to the top as entrepreneurs, etc, labeling them various wicked things along with the system itself that allowed them to rise to the top.

The most overblown hack that ever lived, and he's revered to this day by the likes of Castro and a few of the early Russian leaders of the U.S.S.R. pre-collapse era.

The problem is that so many people quote KM having never read his work. Many do not know their history, KM's history, world history, or much else history. Easy to quote, but very difficult to understand; a brief read is no good, he takes understanding at a deeper level.

I suggest reading Hegel, a person that influenced Marx. Then read Marx.

In my opinion, you must know the times the author lived in and you must read more than the Wikipedia entry. And if your liberal education (not yours, specifically, Frisco) includes Marx, you might like to know much more than you were likely taught.

I do not care either way. Smiley.

I suggest reading a nice space adventure or perhaps a western... I suggest The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour. Just ordered a new copy and I recommend it highly.

 

[Frisco]

Karl Marx's writings remind me, in part, of Adolf Hitler's. National Socialism (NAZI) was "the answer." Volkswagen ("people's car"), workers ("working men") of the world unite! Uggh..

Blah. Narrow, primitive, flowery, fun to listen to, stirring rhetoric.

 

[Slug]

Karl Marx's writings remind me, in part, of Adolf Hitler's.

No surprise there. Both were in the business of trying to persuade with their writing, after all.

National Socialism (NAZI) was "the answer." Volkswagen ("people's car"), workers ("working men") of the world unite! Uggh..

A product of the time. The world of the 1920s was very different to that of today. It was recovering from the most devastating war in history, both in terms of loss of life and of rewriting the political and economic map of Europe, and The Great Depression was just over the horizon.

Blah. Narrow, primitive, flowery, fun to listen to, stirring rhetoric.

Narrow and primitive? I beg to differ - Marx's ideas were huge in scope.

Anyway, this is getting away from the topic.... I still think he was partly right.

 

[Frisco]

My second year in college I read a great treatise on Marx and his writings. Until that time I was enthralled by his rhetoric. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, after reading about that person's life. I have no respect for individuals who put their family in serious jeopardy so he or she can sit and &*^%! write.

Marx did that, to the point of the death of some of his kids, along with the horrid suffering of the mother of his kids. And it was all about his writing about what he had no ability to do: work.

I'm sorry folks, that person was a textbook example of spectacular hypocrisy: maneuvering his words to place blame on others (again, whoever was in charge at the time) for his failures and simple laziness.

It doesn't matter what portion of his sayings he might be perceived as being "right" about. It really doesn't. Look at what his theories have added up to in the world.

 

[drdoom]

I don't remember writing this.

 

[noah way]

My second year in college I read a great treatise on Marx and his writings. Until that time I was enthralled by his rhetoric. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, after reading about that person's life. I have no respect for individuals who put their family in serious jeopardy so he or she can sit and &*^%! write.

People who are gifted in one area are deficient in another. It's a natural balance. Don't be surprised when your hero or mentor displays an all-too-human failure.

 

[OutofDate1980]

The problem is that so many people quote KM having never read his work. Many do not know their history, KM's history, world history, or much else history. Easy to quote, but very difficult to understand; a brief read is no good, he takes understanding at a deeper level.

I suggest reading Hegel, a person that influenced Marx. Then read Marx.

In my opinion, you must know the times the author lived in and you must read more than the Wikipedia entry. And if your liberal education (not yours, specifically, Frisco) includes Marx, you might like to know much more than you were likely taught.

I do not care either way. Smiley.

I suggest reading a nice space adventure or perhaps a western... I suggest The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour. Just ordered a new copy and I recommend it highly.

I think the authors of Wikipedia actually read the body of works of Marx, at least they cited his writing as a source. Marx is widely known for The Communist Manifesto, which is a political tract. A kind of Reader's Digest version of his body of work for mass market consumption.


I seriously doubt anyone born after Gutenberg's invention of the printing press has read every published material.


There are those that criticize Marx because he lived in poverty for a period of his life and couldn't afford to provide medical assistance to his children, yet he lived in a period of the native form of capitalism and was denied by the government to earn income from a legitimate profession he could earn income from, sort of blame the victim.


We are using the medium of the internet to communicate, so in many cases, citing the original source and providing a direct link would be expensive due to copyrights.


Anyway, we've seem to have strayed from the demand side issue brought up in the OP, that was originally critiqued by Karl Marx.

 

[OutofDate1980]

Criticisms of Marxism; Criticisms of Marxism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"V. K. Dmitriev, writing in 1898,[1] Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, writing in 1906-07,[2] and subsequent critics have alleged that Marx's value theory and law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall are internally inconsistent. In other words, the critics allege that Marx drew conclusions that actually do not follow from his theoretical premises. Once these alleged errors are corrected, his conclusion that aggregate price and profit are determined by, and equal to, aggregate value and surplus value no longer holds true. This result calls into question his theory that the exploitation of workers is the sole source of profit.[3] Whether the rate of profit in capitalism has, as Marx predicted, tended to fall is a subject of debate. N. Okishio, in 1961, devised a theorem (Okishio's theorem) showing that if capitalists pursue cost-cutting techniques and if the real wage does not rise, the rate of profit must rise.[4] Real wages have risen, however, making this theorem undecisive to the real case."


"Many notable academics such as Karl Popper, David Prychitko, and Francis Fukuyama argue that many of Marx's predictions have failed.[43][44][45] Marx predicted that wages would tend to depreciate and that capitalist economies would suffer worsening economic crises leading to the ultimate overthrow of the capitalist system. The socialist revolution would occur first in the most advanced capitalist nations and once collective ownership had been established then all sources of class conflict would disappear."

 

[Frisco]

.. on a lighter note.. second from the left, now there was a Marx with vision.

 

[noah way]

The problem is that so many people quote KM having never read his work. Many do not know their history, KM's history, world history, or much else history. Easy to quote, but very difficult to understand; a brief read is no good, he takes understanding at a deeper level.

I suggest reading Hegel, a person that influenced Marx. Then read Marx.

In my opinion, you must know the times the author lived in and you must read more than the Wikipedia entry. And if your liberal education (not yours, specifically, Frisco) includes Marx, you might like to know much more than you were likely taught.

In other words, we are all ignorant products of a brain-killing liberal education. Do you have anything to add to this discussion other than your bias and insults, possibly something relevant to the topic at hand?

 

[noah way]

Marx predicted that wages would tend to depreciate and that capitalist economies would suffer worsening economic crises

Marx was an idiot.

 

[Frisco]

Anybody could "predict" what capital based societies had been experiencing, cyclically, for centuries.

 

[noah way]

Anybody could "predict" what capital based societies had been experiencing, cyclically, for centuries.

Who else did?

 

[OutofDate1980]

... It doesn't matter what portion of his sayings he might be perceived as being "right" about. It really doesn't. Look at what his theories have added up to in the world.

I think we should blame it on the parents, as young Karl was discouraged from his predisposed way of life.

"Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (Landsmannschaft der Treveraner) and at one point served as its co-president.[22] Marx was more interested in drinking and socialising than studying law, and due to his poor grades, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented University of Berlin,[23] where his legal studies became less significant than excursions into philosophy and history.[24]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

 

[OutofDate1980]

.. on a lighter note.. second from the left, now there was a Marx with vision.

Those be fighting words, as all intelligent life knows in this universe and all alternative universes that Harpo was the real brain.


Moderators, suggest we move this to a highly monitored thread due the controversial nature of the subject matter.


All the other issues raised in this thread are the equivalent to a discussion of how many angels can dance on tip of a needle.



Harpo would have said it far more eloquently then myself.

 

[Bob Maxey]

.. on a lighter note.. second from the left, now there was a Marx with vision.

Please do not post pictures of my family, unless you have express written permission of Major League Baseball. No wait.... I remember that picture. It was taken at the Apple Computer Corporation's iOS Developer's meeting.

Sorry, I accused you, Frisco.

 

[Slug]

It doesn't matter what portion of his sayings he might be perceived as being "right" about.

It did to the OP, according to his topic title.

Anyway, we've seem to have strayed from the demand side issue brought up in the OP

Just a bit, perhaps.

 

[cereal killer]

Capitalism is mass production to fulfill the needs of the masses.

The Masses, when they purchase products as individuals, are the true masters of the economy.

Individual competition in the work force, not union castes, is a vital key to the success of free markets.

To answer the OP's question, Karl Marx was wrong.

 

[BringItSon]

Companies, Roubini said, are motivated to minimize costs, to save and stockpile cash, but this leads to less money in the hands of employees, which means they have less money to spend and flow back to companies.

I stopped reading at this paragraph...

No offense, but this is very ignorant thing for a journalist to say. And prob just wrote it to get some attention or get hits.

Human Labors whether skilled or not are RESOURCES Therefore, it is simply beneficial to mankind in long run to produce much as possible with little resources possible.

If companies don't try to minimize their cost, you be buying your precious phones at 1,000 or 2,000 bucks. I understand that economy is in the shitter and people are frustrated, but you are pointing your fingers at wrong direction here...

 

[BringItSon]

The problem is that so many people quote KM having never read his work. Many do not know their history, KM's history, world history, or much else history. Easy to quote, but very difficult to understand; a brief read is no good, he takes understanding at a deeper level.

I suggest reading Hegel, a person that influenced Marx. Then read Marx.

In my opinion, you must know the times the author lived in and you must read more than the Wikipedia entry. And if your liberal education (not yours, specifically, Frisco) includes Marx, you might like to know much more than you were likely taught.

You gotta be kidding me... right??

 

[OutofDate1980]

... Human Labors whether skilled or not are RESOURCES Therefore, it is simply beneficial to mankind in long run to produce much as possible with little resources possible ...

Then in your view slaves, indentured servants, prisoners, and other coerced persons are compatible with a capitalist economy as they can provide resources at the lowest cost in some instances ?