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To: Billthedrill

Yes, the article was about Marx theory about why there was not support for Marxism in the USA like there was in UK. Marx thought it was because there is social mobility here. And it is the progressives who try to regulate things which stifles mobility.


11 posted on 11/04/2017 11:38:10 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber
Exactly, and Marx may have been correct in that claim with respect to the U.S. of the late 19th century and certainly afterward. He didn't regard the changes that he witnessed in Prussia in 1854 to be examples of class mobility, but in fact they were. His proletariat were ex-agrarians who flocked to the factories for work and disposable income, which they'd never had before, but they did not become poorer, more illiterate, and more "immiserated" as he predicted, but rather climbed to the status of petit bourgeoisie, which he viewed as an impediment to the revolution.

Even today if you go to a factory in what was Prussia you see what you see here: a large parking lot with automobiles bought on credit. The proletariat could never do that, by definition. What actually happened was that virtually the entire working class moved up a notch. He was correct about that being an impediment to revolution, however - now they had something to lose.

If you advance that already creaky model to 21st century America you see even bigger cracks in it - workers with pension funds in the U.S. are some of the biggest investors in common stock in the country - they're literally capitalists. And they voted for Trump, to bring this back to the author's original thesis. And the Dems just can't seem to figure that out.

12 posted on 11/04/2017 11:59:34 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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