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To: Toddsterpatriot; Willie Green; Wolfie; ex-snook; Jhoffa_; FITZ; arete; FreedomPoster; Red Jones; ...
[Toddsterpatriot :]
Karl [Marx] thought free trade would lead to the revolution. Do you agree?

Glad that you asked. Yes, but as one part of the whole process. Free trade/globalization was to integrate world economy into one whole, leading to the increase in productivity, lowering of wages and concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few winners of the global Monopoly game.

According to Marx it would make the very capitalism obsolete the same way as feudal aristocratic system became obsolete because of its victory (establishing order, secure trade, cities and central government with stable currency make knights superfluous and merchants powerful).

Marxist teaching was that the mature global capitalism will enter the dead end street when it will create the overabundance of goods while the workers will be in large part redundant and unemployed. This will lead to the contradiction between the abundance in the midst of general poverty.

According to the classical Marxism (as opposed to Leninism/Stalinism) the socialism will provide the solution using the tools late capitalism created.

Conservative response was to protect national borders and economies (tariffs), secure decent living for the working class (unions, safety nets etc), anti-trust laws and so on ...

But after fall of Soviet system (which according to the classical Marxism was premature as it started in backward countries without developed capitalism) the right wing of Western elites forgot all that and decided to move back to XIX century. (See my tagline)

The left wing very likely enjoys the gradual sliding of mankind into the revolutionary trap.

The Christian social doctrine, being truly conservative, is seen both by free market right and socialist left as a backward obstacle to progress.

337 posted on 03/03/2006 6:34:15 PM PST by A. Pole (Proverbs 26:11: "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.")
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To: A. Pole

Karl Marx, in making that statement, anticipated neoliberalism. Of course I abhor what Marx wrote, but in terms of his strategic ability to anticipate the areas where we capitalists would eventually make ourselves vulnerable geopolitically, I cannot argue with his logic.


373 posted on 03/07/2006 10:02:19 AM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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