Cormac wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:No, I understood it. I was attempting to amplify, not argue.
Ah. Good.
I wouldn't like to be considered a Marxist.
Although, some of his analysis had something to it - specifically, the relationship of economics to politics. Although, in this he wasn't all that original...
One of my theories on Marx was that he really didn't see the proletariat as having any ability to contribute to government and that giving them the vote was meaningless. There ought to be a knowledgeable ruling party that would set the rules, and the proletariat would follow. The idea was that the equalization of everything (among the proles...) and selling the notion that that they were no longer ruled by a King would make them satisfied with their position. The conditions in, say, Czarist Russia were ripe for this because Communism could offer the serfs (who were no better off than abject slaves) could lift the serfs up a bit collectively, too. So, once you did that, then they would see they were better off than under their former despot and be happy with their lot.
What winds up happening, though, is the notion of a stateless communism, where the community functions for the collective benefit of the community never materializes because nobody knows how to make it materialize and how policy will be set and laws made without a State. So, there must be a State, and in a State which has plenary authority to control the citizenry, with the only goal to be communal advantage and communal equality, then there is nowhere to go but despotism over the individual.
We have some threads about this - particularly one about "what is 'true' communism" around the forum - it's a little old and inactive at this point. But, not a single proponent of Marxism or communism or any form or iteration thereof could (or can) explain how society is supposed to get to the "ideal" state and in fact to a person they can't even really describe what that ideal stateless society looks like (how laws are made without a state, how public policy is set without a state, how law enforcement is managed without a state, etc.). In my view, people have a fanciful notion of a society where everyone is treated equally, nobody has excessive wealth, everyone is cared for equally, nobody is hungry, and everyone is relatively happy, and they call that "communism" or "Marxism." Then they disclaim any responsibility for knowing how to get there and simply claim that the efforts so far have been screwed up by colonial countries and capitalist interference, or by the bastardization of the system by power hungry fascists. When asked how the "true" communism would come to be or how it would work, only generalities are offered - "there are many ways this could come to pass..." etc.
There also appears, in many proponents of communism and marxism, kind of a disconnect from it - like that living in a communist society would not impact them or reduce their standard of living in any way. There is sort of an unstated assumption that all it means is taking poor people and making them not poor anymore. That ain't it, though. If there was a global Marxist system imposed now, countries like the UK, Canada, the US, France and Australia, Germany, the Scandinavian countries - those are the wealthy elites who have been unfairly reaping the benefits of the labor of the poor in the world.....a great shift would take place, and everyone in the West would take a humongous hit.....if not get lined up against the wall and shot....but, that's another story...
..Pen will probably end up with a 24 hour ban.
