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Words of wisdom from Gruntboy.

It claims to be a science. Since sciences have laws, a failure in a law disproves the science. Marxism (and its quirky derivatives) is fundamentally flawed in many ways, never mind one, hence disproving the whole pile of poo.

Take these examples:

"Workers by brain, as well as by hand"

Yeah, right. That's Marx trying to save his own skin right there. Come the revolution, the intellectuals are going to get dragged out into the street and shot. If this isn't the case, why try to curry favour with the blue collar chumps? I grew up in a working class area where intellectuals got thumped.

"From each according to his ability"

Basic flaw - assumption that man is good. Why should Vaclav work hard if Leon, sleeping under the tractor, is going to get his share of Vaclav's goods? This is an incentive to be as lazy as possible and take what everyone else has got.

So you see, life isn't always serious. Ascribe to Gruntism and let your children run wild and free because, like the old sayings goes, let your children run wild and free.

[Note: this is a joke. Gruntboy accepts no liability for your lack of a sense of humour. I read Marx years ago and quickly put it away along with such other out-dated political tat as "Mein Kampf". Or will certain people soon be espousing Mr Adolf's views alongside Marx's? Hmmm?]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Words of wisdom from Gruntboy.

*cough* oxymoron *cough*

So you see, life isn't always serious. Ascribe to Gruntism and let your children run wild and free because, like the old sayings goes, let your children run wild and free.

I don't have children can i run wild and free instead?

@Grunt, I find your views intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Originally posted by Gruntboy

"From each according to his ability"

Basic flaw - assumption that man is good. Why should Vaclav work hard if Leon, sleeping under the tractor, is going to get his share of Vaclav's goods? This is an incentive to be as lazy as possible and take what everyone else has got.

The only incentive I can see...is not getting shot by the "secret police".


How many did Stalin kill? 10 Million..20 Million...30 Million. What a true leader.

BTW.... Gruntie let them speak all they want...In the US you can't be shoot for doing this. Signed by a US Citizen

@grunty: I have only one question about your sig:

"God Bless America. "

- WHY ?

Why should he/she/they bless America and NOT Australia, or Africa, or Antarctica ? (Or whatever other continent that's around... )

Wouldn't it be better to change that to something a little more "political correct" like:

"[insert deity of choice] bless [insert location of choice]" ?

Just an Idea

No worries,

Beldin

Basic Flaw of Marx: He claims to be a historian then goes on to prophesize. Historians are never supposed to predict the future, only suggest possibilities.

Originally posted by Beldin
@grunty: I have only one question about your sig:

"God Bless America. "

- WHY ?

Why should he/she/they bless America and NOT Australia, or Africa, or Antarctica ? (Or whatever other continent that's around... )

Wouldn't it be better to change that to something a little more "political correct" like:

"[insert deity of choice] bless [insert location of choice]" ?

Just an Idea

No worries,

Beldin

Umm, unless you were joking, Grunty's reasons for that were that he was in the USA at the time of the September 11th....

@Nippy: Since Grunty labelled this whole thread as a joke I was taking some liberties...

No worries,

Beldin.

We had a brief discusion on the subject in the thread National Socialism. As I said there- you are mixing up a few things- Marxism, Stalinism and Leninism are three different ideas under the heading of Communism. Marxism is a theory(a very idealist one at that), Leninism and Stalinism are only vaguely based on that theory, even though oficialy they are the same thing.
I don't feel like getting more specific- my views are in the other thread. My views are summerized by the Churchill quote there.

The Real Marxism

I'm a Marxist


Some quotes from my great leader:
I cannot say that I do not disagree with you.
I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
There's only one way to find out if a man is honest...ask him. If he says 'yes,' you know he is a crook.
Why don't you go home to your wife? Better yet, I'll go home to your wife, and outside of the improvement, she won't notice any difference.
In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.
The Alps are a simple folk, living on a diet of old shoes. And the Lord Alps those who alp themselves.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.
I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it.
I married your mother because I wanted children, imagine my disappointment when you came along.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.
I must confess, I was born at a very early age.
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.
You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.

"The months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn,
'Whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it!' "
~ Groucho (in song) from "Horsefeathers"

Originally posted by Beldin
@grunty: I have only one question about your sig:

"God Bless America. "

- WHY ?

Why should he/she/they bless America and NOT Australia, or Africa, or Antarctica ? (Or whatever other continent that's around... )

Wouldn't it be better to change that to something a little more "political correct" like:

"[insert deity of choice] bless [insert location of choice]" ?

Just an Idea

No worries,

Beldin

What about atheists?

"Random chance/evolution bless [insert location of choice]?"

I, too, am a Marxist.

Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so,
and a torso even more so.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.
On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!

When her robe is unfurled she will show you the world,
if you step up and tell her where.
For a dime you can see Kankakee or Paree,
or Washington crossing The Delaware.

Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
When her muscles start relaxin',
up the hill comes Andrew Jackson.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Lydia The Queen of them all.
For two bits she will do a mazurka in jazz,
with a view of Niagara that nobody has.
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!

Come along and see Buffalo Bill with his lasso.
Just a little classic by Mendel Picasso.
Here is Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon.
Here's Godiva, but with her pajamas on.

Here is Grover Whelan unveilin' The Trilon.
Over on the west coast we have Treasure Isle-on.
Here's Nijinsky a-doin' the rhumba.
Here's her social security numba.

Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Lydia The Champ of them all.
She once swept an Admiral clear off his feet.
The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat.
And now the old boy's in command of the fleet,
for he went and married Lydia!

I said Lydia...
(He said Lydia...)
They said Lydia...
We said Lydia, la, la!

--Lydia the Tattoed Lady, by Arlen and Harburg, from The Marx Brothers' A Day at the Circus

Calling all Marxists - come out, come out wherever you are!

I can't believe mediev hasn't pounced on this thread yet!?

@Gruntboy: kudos to you!

@Voodoodali
and
@fable: you both claim yourselves as Marxists ... your posts confuse me (so does Marxism, I must admit). What are you (VD) attempting to say with your stream-of-consciousness quotefest? And what (fable) does Lydia have to do with this "discussion" (and I use the term loosely).

I feel like I'm back in that damn post-modernism thread!

EDIT for grammatical error

Re: Calling all Marxists - come out, come out wherever you are!

Originally posted by Lazarus

@Voodoodali
and
@fable: you both claim yourselves as Marxists ... your posts confuse me (so does Marxism, I must admit). What are you (VD) attempting to say with your stream-of-consciousness quotefest? And what (fable) does Lydia have to do with this "discussion" (and I use the term loosely).

@ Lazarus: Voo and Fable were claiming to be Marxists as in the Marx Brothers Groucho, Chico and my personal fave Harpo
Nice one Voodoo

I am so out of it

Originally posted by T'lainya
@ Lazarus Voo and Fable were claiming to be Marxists as in the Marx Brothers Groucho, Chico and my personal fave Harpo
Nice one Voodoo

O-o-o-o-o-h! See, I don't know any Marx Brothers stuff, and the only place I have ever heard Lydia is from "The Philedelphia Story." (Though I do now see the addendum on fable's song, referencing the Marx movie.)

Well, in that case, @VD and @fable: Ha! I thought you guys were being confusing - turns out I was just confused.

Well i just want to point out one thing.

Marx said communism could only exist after capitalism had thrived in the world.

His stages were as follows from what i remember:

1. No system
2. Feudal/kingdom
3. Capitalism
4. Socialism
5. Communism

If you look at a majority of Western European nations like France and Germany they are pretty socialist.
France and its 35 hour work week with higher pay.
Germany where unions run teh country.
Italy where Unions run the strikes which are on all the time.
The workers have alot of power.
And there is a larger emphasis on the social equality with unemployment packages being at the level of minimum wage etc.
Just food for thought.

Not really. The fundamental issue of socialism/communism is still not in place in any of those countries.

Modes of Production, and who owns them, is the most important part of Marxist theory. Whoever controls the means to produce has influence over everything. The workers themselves are supposed to own the plants they work in, yet that is certainly not the case. What you've described is not an increase in power at all, just an increase in perceived power (especially Italy). Anyone in the world could perform actions such as that if they realized their own power. Would it have been possible to have slavery if people simply refused, even to death, to be a slave?

I also certainly don't want to find examples from the country (Italy) that has the most common change in governments.

As for the French, their current laws are, at best, very interesting for study. I remember reading an article in TIME a few years ago detailing the latest economic debate in France. They were just passing a law changing the maximum (non-overtime) hours from 40 to 35. Of course, that's with keeping the same salary.

Here's the kicker: it wasn't designed to benefit current workers at all. The law was designed to help combat high unemployement. Everyone I showed that article had the same reaction: What?. According to French lawmakers, companies will gladly pay more money than previously in order to get the same amount of work. This might have touched unemployement somewhat (I don't know either way), yet it certainly decreased productivity.

Also, according to Marx, this change to Socialism was supposed to be immediate, drastic, with no looking back. The ball is obviously dropped on that part, so who says that it ever has to come at all?

Finally, this is a knock at both 'capitalism' and communism' camps:
I read about a theory in 11th. I forget who stated it, though IIRC it was described to explain the rise of capitalism from fuedalism. Simply enough: The thesis draws a desire for the opposite, it's antithesis. From the fight between the two, a synthesis emerges and become the new thesis. Capitalism in its purest form drew on Communism, and with the two duking it out we have the current world. You can't tell me that America's capitalistic anymore; you can't tell me that France is socialist. The current economic standard in most countries is a mix between Capitalism, Fascism, and Socialism.

Edit: It's Hegel's theory, called dialectical reasoning.

The stages of world history according to Marx:


1.) "The original society" (no personal property, thus no state, no religion, etc. - which are just a medium to protect the current mode of production - : everybody happy all the time)
2.) Ancient slave-owning society
3.) Feudal society
4.) Capitalism
5.) Dictatorship of the proletarians
6.) Communism - the state "dies" slowly - similar to 1.)

Sadly, Marx never explained how his communist paradise should work in a modern, sophisticated society.

Why marxism sucks? The two most important points IMO:

- it trades freedom for equality
- it is an ideology for "masses", but completly neglects the individual.

Well, Marx was quite good at analyzing problems of the society of his time, but his conclusions were a little... odd.

"The socialism claims profits are a scourge. In my opinion deficits are a scourge." - Winston Churchill

Very interesting and intruging discussion on Marx. I've read some Marx before, and here's what I think:

Marxism idealize human nature too much. It places too much trust in the masses, which are irrational, ignorant, and easily-persuaded. A smart person can easily manipulate the masses, like what Stalin did, and get all the power for himself. Human nature is just too fragile to stand the temptations offered by Marxism: power in the hand of one group. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". You give someone too much power, that person is bound to be tempted.

In conclusion, Marxism can only work on robots with no faults that plague human nature, where everyone, and I mean everyone is equal.

But seriously folks,

I think all the theories modern political systems came out of are utopian. In theory a democracy should have a bunch of political parties that are meaningful to the populace, and with adequate access to communicate their views to the populace. What do we have in the USA? Two parties, both of which are meaningless to the point of being indistinguishable at times. In a democracy, your vote should count. What did we get? Florida. A popular vote that elected one candidate, and an electoral vote that elected another. Democracy seems to have merged with a weird oligarchy where corporations control access to the media and to the populace as a whole. Corporations also control what gets to congress through lobbying. Socialism and communism have often merged with democracy or facism. I don't think it's possible to argue effectively about the merits of any of them, since we have never experienced any of them in their pure forms.