― anthony, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nick, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Omar, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
But, I believe that most his thought was corrupted into some of the greatest evils of the 20th century. That's just my free market capitalist POV though. He seems too much of an idealist for my liking, Marxism just isn't practical, too dogmatic.
― jel, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― The Dirty Vicar, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Andrew L, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
N.B. This isn't true.
Bill
― Bill, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mark Morris, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Just to further the Nicky Wire imitations.
Marx's theories are all corrupted now, they were never clearly defined and as thus they were abused: even a clearly defined theory is going to be abused by those who see how to abuse it; one that is not laid out letter by letter is going to be abused even further. That's all I have to say about Marx.
― Ally, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― tracer Hand, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tim, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Josh, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I like Dr pepper.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 13:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― athos magnani (Cozen), Thursday, 13 November 2003 21:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 13 November 2003 21:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:39 (twenty years ago) link
― athos magnani (Cozen), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:44 (twenty years ago) link
oh, and I have grown a beard but it's more a lenin, not a marx one. but i have time to work on it.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:48 (twenty years ago) link
oh and, marx is classic, obv.
engels did more than pay marx's bills?
― athos magnani (Cozen), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:50 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 13 November 2003 23:57 (twenty years ago) link
Karl Marx, Capital, opened at random at Chapter 8, The Working Day
― Momus (Momus), Friday, 14 November 2003 00:28 (twenty years ago) link
― sucka (sucka), Friday, 14 November 2003 03:38 (twenty years ago) link
Oh but and Classic it is very sad the way academia treats marx today although I could just be getting a slanted picture of it all (fuck you Arts and Letters Daily! why isn't there a site just like you that isn't edited by a complete dickhead!?)
― Dan I., Friday, 14 November 2003 06:47 (twenty years ago) link
― dan I., Friday, 14 November 2003 06:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 14 November 2003 07:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan I., Friday, 14 November 2003 07:41 (twenty years ago) link
We have to restructure or the company will die!!
― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 14 November 2003 10:22 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Friday, 14 November 2003 11:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 14 November 2003 12:18 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 14 November 2003 12:21 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Friday, 14 November 2003 12:41 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 14 November 2003 12:42 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Friday, 14 November 2003 12:45 (twenty years ago) link
― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 14 November 2003 12:46 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Friday, 14 November 2003 12:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Friday, 14 November 2003 13:15 (twenty years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 14 November 2003 13:47 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Friday, 14 November 2003 13:49 (twenty years ago) link
― -Bruno, Friday, 14 November 2003 23:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 07:42 (twenty years ago) link
― fcussen (Burger), Friday, 13 August 2004 19:25 (nineteen years ago) link
Marxism as political, social, and esthetic systems= dud.
― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 13 August 2004 19:38 (nineteen years ago) link
Yes, there's that whole issue of capitalist interference in socialist and communist countries, which I think is important to recognize, because those countries probably would have been more successful otherwise. But OTOH it is/was a fact of the real world that communism and socialism had to compete with other ideologies. Capitalism out-competed them, at least in the historical short run, probably because it was more productive. That hyper-productivity may not be good for humanity in the long run, but it was certainly good for creating a military superpower that no one could keep up with without going bankrupt.
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, 17 September 2018 01:41 (five years ago) link
i think forced collectivization was a failure. a moral failure, and a failure for the socialist project because it blackened the reputation of socialism for generations. so the way stalin tried to establish socialism--if that's what he really wanted to do; i read parts of kotkin's bio and he argues that it indeed was--then he failed in a very serious way.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 02:02 (five years ago) link
(you should also apply those standards to every other state... like the US)― louise ck (milo z)
― louise ck (milo z)
do i have a history of defending the united states that i don't know about?
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 02:05 (five years ago) link
Slow down with the defensiveness, did I say you did?
Stalin isn't the entire story of the Soviet Union, of course.
― louise ck (milo z), Monday, 17 September 2018 02:29 (five years ago) link
Ive been listening to Richard Wolff’s talk here this evening, which I quite like, given in Spring 2016. Provides a great overview to history and Marxist theory
http://www.youtube.com/v?=a1WUKahMm1s
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Monday, 17 September 2018 04:18 (five years ago) link
hmmm, the link doesn't seem to be working (for me at least), and he has several videos on there. what's the title?
― Karl Malone, Monday, 17 September 2018 04:30 (five years ago) link
qualmsley's probably funding those stupid GOP with a hammer and sickle billboards
thesis 1: marx was german not russian iirc. thesis 2: i love marx but he wasn't perfect. thesis 3: i forget
KM, kingfish might mean this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L33Hhs0zv8
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 04:39 (five years ago) link
Oops, I formatted the link wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1WUKahMm1s
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Monday, 17 September 2018 04:54 (five years ago) link
jesus fucking christ
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 07:31 (five years ago) link
qualmsley i hope you were smashed because jesus fucking christ
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 07:34 (five years ago) link
fanboys itt
― NAGL usa (darraghmac), Monday, 17 September 2018 08:18 (five years ago) link
Marx' economic theory may have been important and the result of thorough, original work, but surely his political ideas were m/l unfounded?
― niels, Monday, 17 September 2018 08:36 (five years ago) link
if anything they've held up better
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 17 September 2018 09:05 (five years ago) link
class conflict as historical model showing a lot fewer cracks these days than, say, newtonian mechanics
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 17 September 2018 09:09 (five years ago) link
yeah I was more thinking about his ideas abt communism
― niels, Monday, 17 September 2018 09:14 (five years ago) link
newtonian mechanics et al can be proven/disproven tbf
― NAGL usa (darraghmac), Monday, 17 September 2018 10:30 (five years ago) link
great name for a local auto-repair business though!
― calzino, Monday, 17 September 2018 10:44 (five years ago) link
LOL
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 17 September 2018 11:02 (five years ago) link
thesis 4: you're damn right i was smashed; sundays are for symposia. thesis 5: jesus fucking christ was a socialist in an impoverished traveling commune way before germany was even a thing, who was tortured and killed young for his beliefs, unlike karl, who died in his study at his desk almost twice as old as jesus on golgotha. thesis 6: all philosophy is a footnote to plato*. thesis 7: pass me the bloody mary mix you parcel of euthyphros. thesis 8: pounds table. thesis 9: >burp< thesis 10: impoverished children of the world unite!
*and achilleus was the first class warrior; fuck agamemnon
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 11:41 (five years ago) link
julius caesar was writing about germania pre jesus
― ogmor, Monday, 17 September 2018 11:48 (five years ago) link
i'm not sure that citing Jesus as a positive force for anti-capitalist values instead of Marx is borne out much by the entire fucking history of the world
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 11:52 (five years ago) link
marx is a positive force for anti-capitalist values, one of the most dynamic who ever lived! but he wasn't perfect! lost in scapegoating and piling on me for some reason is my original point that growing up as privileged as he did might handicap one rhetorically later on in life in the project of arresting a tide of capitalism that has seen the biggest gap between rich and poor in recorded human history here in the old US of A in the here and now under donald fucking trump and rupert fucking murdoch
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 12:00 (five years ago) link
I wrote in an essay once* "marxists believe that..." and then quoted something from the communist manifesto. and my tutor scrawled double underlined "marxists do NOT believe this!!" ... so I'm still basically unsure about what Marxism actually is, and the more I read the less clear I get. (*It was just before I switched from a Social Sciences to a maths degree. )
― thomasintrouble, Monday, 17 September 2018 12:18 (five years ago) link
Wait, how privileged do you think he was?
― Frederik B, Monday, 17 September 2018 12:24 (five years ago) link
as a straight white male im not touching that, trevor
― NAGL usa (darraghmac), Monday, 17 September 2018 12:40 (five years ago) link
way more than anyone i grew up around, frederik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Marx
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 12:46 (five years ago) link
How was he limited do you think? What part of his analysis would have been different if he was working class?
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 12:51 (five years ago) link
"this Hegelian philosophy stuff is a reet load of bollox, off t'pub?"
― calzino, Monday, 17 September 2018 12:57 (five years ago) link
his often obtuse syntax, that experts still struggle with, doesn't seem aimed at the joe six-packs of the 19th century
the condescension is worse in the much more privileged engels. for instance
"Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives. Because it is a process of thought he derives both its form and its content from pure thought, either his own or that of his predecessors."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm
i've known lots of people who don't suffer from 'false consciousness' as engels would understand it so much as a playful nihilistic fatalism about the possibility of change for the better resulting from growing up broke or worse
. . .
medicare / social security for all!
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:00 (five years ago) link
False consciousness in marxist theory isnt just somethinf the working class suffer from that engels, for instance, would say he had broken free from.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 13:05 (five years ago) link
It’s not really condescending. The theory is we think according to the terms provided by our age which prevents us from being able to see other ways things could be. They turn to the dialectic because they don’t believe the theorist can simply step “outside” their circumstances and understand things from a god’s-eye view. Insight comes from struggle, from working through the “contradictions” of the age as part of a shared project. It’s the opposite of codescending.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 13:09 (five years ago) link
The pre-marxist socialists were more elitist—designing utopias. Marx and Engels brought socialism back to earth by centering it in the class struggle.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 17 September 2018 13:10 (five years ago) link
yes! definitely! but i would add that sometimes when marxists discuss 'false consciousness' they fail to grasp how much delight fatalistic poor people take in 1) kayfabe antics of crude brazen assholes like trump and 2) playing dumb themselves in the face of seemingly comfortable lefties perplexed by what they (the poor people) experience as a pantomime of false consciousness (perhaps their only sustained act of creativity!) in a world that has been materially crueler to them than it has to many do-gooders. this is not a dismissal of marx or engels! this is monday morning hungover QBing two transcendent philosophers
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:14 (five years ago) link
I don't really see "owning the libs" type shit as being a significantly different formulation from any other "false consciousness"
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:19 (five years ago) link
As we all know, it was only poor people who voted for Trump.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:24 (five years ago) link
tbf this kind of thing has been extensively thrashed out in adorno vs. kracauer/benjamin and the rich literature following them, all of which depends on having marx as (one) starting point, so we might not really be able to talk about it without marx. but i still think the point stands that the "manifesto" and "capital" are two different works, and if you gripe about the convoluted academic prose in the one that's aimed at a convoluted academic conversation, as evidence that he couldn't relate to the working class, i feel like that needs to be supplemented in the ways that have been asked for upthread: which specific points in the theory would be different if he did not have as much privilege (however much it was)? why? the language is also convoluted because it's translated from german, of course, but it's fair to say that when he wanted to write in a different register he could. i've been reading marshal berman's /all that is solid melts into air/ and he's otm about the lyricism and rhetorical force of the manifesto, which now sounds like MLK to my ears.not sure we really need another "soviet union C/D?" discussion but i will go ahead and call any regime that kills tens of millions of people a failure, versus the admittedly external, a priori standard of "murder is bad." that applies whether its initial stated goal is "we will create a socialist utopia" or "we will kill tens of millions of people." we can argue about the causality of that failure as much as any other ("did the electric car fail because of conspiring powerful interests or because the technology wasn't there?") but surely it was a failure. not sure that has much bearing on marx though since the history of the 20th century suggests a range of other common denominators for mass murder at this scale, of which the development of totalitarian bureaucratic states looms largest.
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:31 (five years ago) link
good points Doc
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Monday, 17 September 2018 13:34 (five years ago) link
what I meant is that ideas about fx the dictatorship of the proletariat seem free flying fantasy compared to Marx' economic analysis
― niels, Monday, 17 September 2018 14:07 (five years ago) link
a relevant point about the style and prose of Capital is that it's actually relatively accessible, despite clearly written for an academic audience. he throws in lots of little witticisms and jokes, some of which i had to read a footnote to understand because they were inside-19th-century-philosopher-jokes, but still. generally it is difficult to read because of the ideas it contains (and the concepts that require defining, at least for me) rather than the way in which he wrote it, and that comes through even via translation.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 17 September 2018 14:47 (five years ago) link
thesis 11: marx/engels are the lennon/mccartney to hegel's elvis. sober or otherwise i prefer the hits to their deep cuts
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 17 September 2018 14:57 (five years ago) link
― difficult listening hour, Monday, September 17, 2018 4:09 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is a weird thing to say. newtonian mechanics is as essential as quantum or relativistic mechanics. they apply under different conditions.
― crüt, Monday, 17 September 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
This was in the lobby of a chain hotel I stayed in
https://i.imgur.com/Ptoj1XC.jpg
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:23 (five years ago) link
The internet has done so much damage we can never know or measure.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 05:44 (five years ago) link
so just coming from watching the first episode of the norm macdonald has a show show and i couldn't help but notice david letterman is looking more like a malnourished karl marx
― F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 06:15 (five years ago) link
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the question. If you're asking whether he accounts for the fact that machines increase productivity and enable the same person working for the same number of hours to produce more goods, yes, of course he does. But I doubt that he would frame it as "labor-saving."― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:26 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:26 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
labor-saving is like, it used to take 3 capital and 3 labor to produce one unit of output, but with new technology it takes 2 machines and 1 hour of work. both became more productive but labor has a smaller relative increase in marginal productivity along constant factor shares. so in the long-run, output relies on a tiny sliver of labour relative to capital, and the wage rate relative to the return on capital goes to zero. there's parts of marx where he sounds very labor-saving. for example, from wage labor and capital:
But we have already seen that, with every advance in the use of machinery, the constant component of capital, that part which consists of machinery, raw material, etc., increases, while the variable component, the part laid out in labour-power, decreases.
tbc, i asked because you said
one thing that strikes me a lot now is how bad a lot of the common criticisms of Marx's theories are, like I'll see one tossed off by some purported economist or political scientist and I'll think, "Um, no, he addresses that a few chapters into Vol 1."
and 'marx thought technology was labor-saving' is a common criticism of marx often tossed off by purported economists :)
― flopson, Thursday, 20 September 2018 20:56 (five years ago) link
Quite a few Capital reading groups springing up lol
Time for quarantine Capital reading groups.https://t.co/M9XTfhol3n— Prada-Meinhof (@Prada_Meinhof) April 8, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 12:14 (four years ago) link
Grimes in Los Angeles today.Photography by Jvshvisions pic.twitter.com/b2kemGSYhU— GRIMES CHARTS (@GrimezszCharts) October 2, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 October 2021 09:35 (two years ago) link
some cool ideas in the communist manifesto but i’m more into crypto gaming UBI pic.twitter.com/u0BdNH4tmV— james hennessy (@jrhennessy) October 3, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 October 2021 15:31 (two years ago) link
thats right
― mark s, Sunday, 3 October 2021 15:35 (two years ago) link
Wasn't gamer UBI the plot to one of the first Black Mirror episodes
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 3 October 2021 17:15 (two years ago) link