Posted on 10/10/2011 8:14:04 PM PDT by stevelackner
Karl Marx believed that class conflict is what drives history forward. He envisioned a more perfect society that could grow out of the eventually doomed capitalistic one. This communist society would be classless in its highest phase of development. As Karl Marx famously said in the “Critique of the Gotha Program,” it would “inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!” Marx’s mantra meant the end of incentive, the fabric of any successful society. His political philosophy would only lead to disaster and totalitarianism.
He completely ignores the fact that success requires incentive. Man is not some “social animal” who “must be measured not by the power of separate individuals, but by the power of society.” Every man has his own individual wants and desires and will work to attain them. Man will have no reason to improve his abilities if he knows that the benefits are the same regardless. A man must know that he will have the potential to improve his status in order to want to work “according to his ability” in the first place. A classless society built on the redistribution of wealth would only punish those who produce and reward those who do not. Analogically, this is tantamount to having a school grading system in which all the “A” students would have to give up points for the common good to all the “C” students so that everyone could receive a “B.” Not only is this unfair to the student who studied for the “A,” but no rational student will put effort into the class knowing he will do just as well as everyone else. Marx has no conception of the economic disincentives that his system would induce. Marx writes in the Communist Manifesto that “the proletariat will use its political supremacy…to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.” Central planning, the end of all competition, is a recipe for disaster. The inevitable result of such a scheme would be shortages, deterioration, and black markets. A market-based economy allows for individuals to keep track of the production and prices, and the competition allows for progress. Competing individuals are the engines of a successful economy, not control of all production in the hands of an unaccountable state. To Marx the market does not only result in capitalist exploitation. He believes that the exploitative market insults the very dignity of man. He wrote in Capital of the communist society before the elimination of scarcity that “freedom in this field can consist only in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature.” The danger in what Marx is arguing is evident. He paradoxically claims that freedom would be the result of the “associated producers” having “common,” but what essentially translates into total control. He incorrectly assumes that men can somehow reach this ultimate stage of being “socialized” and that they would rationally regulate. He left unexplained how millions of individuals could be expected to act with one will, how they could become a “socialized man.”
According to Marx “the class dictatorship of the proletariat” is “the inevitable transit point to the abolition of class differences generally.” A dictatorship cannot be the transit point to the abolition of classes. Eventually the proletarian dictatorship is doomed to become just as elitist and corrupt as the bourgeoisie they sought to destroy. The proletarian dictatorship would succumb to the faults of every dictatorship, where the interest is in maintaining power. Even a proletarian dictatorship would fall prey to Lord Acton’s famous idiom that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There can be no transition from a dictatorship to a classless utopia.
The Marxist “system” was greatly influential in the twentieth century with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Lenin was his ideological heir, building upon and attempting to actualize Marxist theories. Marx predicted that a united and successful working class would overthrow the capitalist system. The capitalist system has only continued to thrive and the entire global economy is based on international markets. There never was the growth in the strength of the proletariat as Marx predicted. As Ronald Reagan predicted in 1982, the march of freedom and democracy has left “Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.”
Sorry. Marxism is alive and well in the USA.
another perspective
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/07/debtors-and-savers.html
Marx got one thing right. History does bear out the dramatic story of centuries of class struggle. But if we eliminate his one small flawed premise, we can see it all much more clearly.
The two classes are not the Labour and the Capital, the rich and the poor, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, or the workers and the elite. The two classes are the Debtors and the Savers. “The easy money camp” and “the hard money camp”. History reveals the story of these two groups, over and over and over again. Always one is in power, and always the other one desires the power.
1. Debtors - “The easy money camp” likes to spend (and redistribute) money it did not earn, either by borrowing it, taxing the savers for it, or printing it. They like easy money because it is always and everywhere constantly inflating, easing the repayment of their debts.
2. Savers - “The hard money camp” likes to live within their means and save any excess for the future. They prefer hard money (or in some cases “harder” money) because it protects their savings and forces the debtors to work off their debts.
1789, the French Revolution, “the hard money camp” had been in power since 1720 when John Law’s easy money collapsed, and starting in 1789 “the easy money camp” killed “the hard money camp” and took back the power. This is the way “the easy money camp”, the Debtors, usually take power... by revolting against the hard repayment of their spending habits.
Only nine years later, 1797, easy money collapsed once again (as it had just done in 1720) and a new French monetary system based upon gold was again reinstated. This is the way “the hard money camp”, the Savers, almost always regain control: when the easy money collapses. On very rare occasions and only under highly favorable circumstances (like moving to a new continent!), “the hard money crowd” takes control by physically separating from “easy money” and declaring independence from the Debtors.
The American Revolution. Yes, the Constitution mandates hard money.
You see, Marx had it almost completely backwards when he said the rich exploit the poor for free income. Once we shuffle and re deal the two camps correctly we see that it is actually “the easy money camp” (the Debtors) that always exploit “the hard money camp” (the Savers), taxing them, destroying their savings, destroying capital, borrowing money only to repay it on easier terms, and sometimes even killing them. So are “the Debtors” the rich and “the Savers” the poor? Of course not! Is this clear enough?
Thanks stevelackner. Marx started in the ash heap, and has never left it.
Part of humanity seeks to form a political elite which can impose tyranny on the rest of the people. Collectivism is one methodology that has been used to promote the fortunes of the few. And Collectivism is still very much with us.
But even if Collectivism or Marxism is "dead", the Will to Dominate is not going away.
Some folks want to live in the castle up on the hill and look down at the serfs laboring in the fields. It has always been thus.
Not only is Marxism alive and well in some circles, it is stronger than ever. Except for the SDS and Black Panther types, the protests in the 60s and 70s were not overtly advocating socialism. Neither the Democratic Party of the 1960s and 1970s dominated by socialists. Instead it was overwhelmingly anti-communist.
Marxism in the 21st Century has changed, however. When Marx advanced democratic socialism in the 19th Century, he envisioned that it would create a better standard of living for the working class and lead to a communist utopia of abundance. The hard experience of the 20th Century proved otherwise. Most Marxists now acknowledge that their economic system will not deliver the prosperity of capitalism, but consider universal poverty to be a feature rather than a bug. We can thank the lunatic environmental movement for turning universal poverty into a desirable end state.
But even if Collectivism or Marxism is "dead", the Will to Dominate is not going away.
Some folks want to live in the castle up on the hill and look down at the serfs laboring in the fields. It has always been thus.
You hit the nail right on the head... The "leaders" of the marxist movements, whether socialism or communism, use the flowery language of fairness and egalitarianism to sway the "useful idiots" into becoming an army for "the cause," but it's really about nothing but centralized control, eventually over every aspect of your life. Marx's axiom "From each according to their ability, to each, according to their need," sounds really terrific until you realize that it will be that central government that tells you what you must produce, and what your "real" needs are.
Mark
Next protest: Occupy the Ash Heap
“it will be that central government that tells you what you must produce, and what your “real” needs are.”
That never worked in the USSR, or anywhere else. However those collectivist crackpots always want to give it just one more try. Go figure....
“There is only two places Socialism works. Heaven where it is not needed and hell where it already exists.”- Ronald Reagan
We can thank the lunatic environmental movement for turning universal poverty into a desirable end state.
0bama is creating an American Nomenklatura.
Marxism under a different name (or names) is alive and well in this land. Heck, it’s even alive under its own name at university departments. We have underestimated it for so long and now are paying the price for it. Obamao and his flunkies are classic rigid marxist ideologues (Warren, Axelrod, Ayers) adjusted for the 21st century. They are not fools to call themselves Marxist-Leninists or to join some joker Communist party as it doesn’t serve them, but clearly, marxism-leninism is what has fed their thinking and their intellectual journeys. They are the Robert Mugabes of this land.
Btt
And the Environmental is dead wrong again. The poor nations pollute the most. They dump their raw sewage straight into the sea.
As Ronald Reagan predicted in 1982, the march of freedom and democracy has left “Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.”
++++++++++++++
Not quite yet, Ronnie.
It is alive and well in the White House and in ongoing demonstrations all over the country. Killing the Marxist snake is turning out to be more difficult than expected.
The inevitable result of Marxist policies.
We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us...
It comes down to the Debtors being irresponsible and the Savers being the responsible ones.
“...and sometimes even killing them.”
The Debtors murdered about 200 million people during the 20th century. The irresponsible mob of Debtors who started the 1789 French Revolution really got things going with the guillotine. From then on the blood letting just went rampant.
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