Marx's German birthplace unveils controversial statue of him

[mfd101]

Marx was a philosopher & would-be sociologist attempting to analyse & understand the appalling effects of 19th-century capitalism. His analysis & philosophy of history was useful and interesting at the time but is clearly way outdated now & has little to offer us as we scratch our heads facing the complexities of life in the 21st century.

 

But to blame him and his publications for the horrors of assorted totalitarian regimes in the 20th century is ridiculous. You might as well say that Yeshua of Nazareth and Saul of Tarsus were to blame for the Spanish Inquisition!

[Chomper Higgot]

9 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

Marx was a philosopher & would-be sociologist attempting to analyse & understand the appalling effects of 19th-century capitalism. His analysis & philosophy of history was useful and interesting at the time but is clearly way outdated now & has little to offer us as we scratch our heads facing the complexities of life in the 21st century.

 

But to blame him and his publications for the horrors of assorted totalitarian regimes in the 20th century is ridiculous. You might as well say that Yeshua of Nazareth and Saul of Tarsus were to blame for the Spanish Inquisition!

Spot on.

 

Marx cannot be regarded as the last word on the economic and social relationships between capital, power and workers.

He is a founding writer in the subject and his founding work has been developed into very many other branches of economics, sociology and the understanding of the power relationships around capital and workers. By no means all of these later developments of his work are left wing.

 

[canuckamuck]

1 minute ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Now read RB’s quotation, it misquotes the original in very specific ways.

 

It also implies the misquoted text as Marx suggesting a course of action. The original text that you have now provided is Marx observing and recording the views of others.

 

It’s never a good idea to give second hand quotes. RB fed you a line.

 

 

It is his words, He is speaking of communists a group he led and a term he popularized in the Communist Manifesto in the very same year as that quote which he has given. He was talking about the consensus of communists, his own group.

Do you wish to back pedal and stall any further.

[stevenl]

32 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

Marx was a philosopher & would-be sociologist attempting to analyse & understand the appalling effects of 19th-century capitalism. His analysis & philosophy of history was useful and interesting at the time but is clearly way outdated now & has little to offer us as we scratch our heads facing the complexities of life in the 21st century.

 

But to blame him and his publications for the horrors of assorted totalitarian regimes in the 20th century is ridiculous. You might as well say that Yeshua of Nazareth and Saul of Tarsus were to blame for the Spanish Inquisition!

Disagree it is clearly outdated, the by him indicated gross income inequality is happening right now, and having a big impact on society, see my earlier post on this.

[Grouse]

2 hours ago, faraday said:

 

Not really, no. I posted my comment because there has been a civil exchange of opinions.

 

How's the Grouse?

 

Water, or neat?

 

Ginger ale you'll be horrified to hear!

 

How's the cage?

[Chomper Higgot]

19 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

It is his words, He is speaking of communists a group he led and a term he popularized in the Communist Manifesto in the very same year as that quote which he has given. He was talking about the consensus of communists, his own group.

Do you wish to back pedal and stall any further.

Erm no.

 

You parroted a made up quote.

 

If we want to know what he meant we can read his original text.

 

[faraday]

9 minutes ago, Grouse said:

Ginger ale you'll be horrified to hear!

 

How's the cage?

 

Used to work in one, with Valve Oscilloscopes.

 

Whiskey & Ginger Ale is fine.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by faraday

[Scott]

Posts violating Fair Use Policy have been removed.   Taking a screenshot of something may still violate the 3 sentence rule.  

 

[blazes]

Of course, the best summing-up of all Marx's insights into the way society worked was Lenin's question "Who Whom" ['kto ktom'] ? 

 

That is, analyse whatever society you are living in and then ask "who is screwing whom" or "who is exploiting whom"? or "who profits from whom?"  and so on....just change the verb.  Answer that accurately and you know how your society "works".

[Grouse]

Frankly, a dose of Marxism

would do us a power of good. Right now the banks are shafting us, we have gross inequality and the ONLY aim of many corporations is the blind pursuit of shareholder value. Maybe it's time to man the barricades? ⚒

[Ahab]

9 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Hogwash.

 

Marx produced a philosophy, not ideology.

 

The ‘ideology’ was the work of others.

 

 

His "philosophy" involved taking away peoples stuff by force. The "ideology" that was based directly on Marx's philosophy also involved taking away peoples stuff by force.

 

Marx's greatest failure besides his drivel that was published and is known as a "philosophy" is that he had absolutely zero idea about human nature. This lack of knowledge of what makes people function is why his philosophy and all ideologies based on it are failures. Another clue that this philosophy/ideology is an abject failure is the hundreds of millions of people that starved and were murdered in the name this evil and murderous system, and the millions more that will die as this system is attempted to be implemented correctly by some new numb skull somewhere on the planet.

 

There are well off people and economic inequality even in communist countries such as Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and others. If communism or it's close cousin socialism was successful at ridding a society of economic inequality , economic inequality should not occur under these systems, but it does occur under these systems.

 

Inequality can be controlled in limited cases (and economic inequality probably should be controlled to an extent), but trying to get rid of inequality is always bound for failure. It doesn't matter if it is economic inequality, attractiveness inequality, intelligence inequality, or just the willingness to work harder and longer than the other guy inequality.  You cannot eliminate inequality and it is a fools errand to even try.

 

To steal/adapt from a Winston Churchill quote, capitalism is the worst form of an economic system, except for all the others. Capitalism works because it recognizes human nature and encourages it.

 

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, Grouse said:

Frankly, a dose of Marxism

would do us a power of good. Right now the banks are shafting us, we have gross inequality and the ONLY aim of many corporations is the blind pursuit of shareholder value. Maybe it's time to man the barricades? ⚒

Or invest in a company that cares about improving the economic condition of the shareholders?

[RickBradford]

It's also well-known that Marx was an unpleasant person, full of resentment and bitterness, which were the well-spring of his 'philosophy'.

 

As a contemporary wrote:

 

Quote

"Everyone who contradicted him, he treated with abject contempt; every argument that he did not like he answered either with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it, or with opprobrious aspersions upon the motives of him who had advanced it.” 

 

No wonder the modern "progressive" Left adores him so much....

[Ahab]

2 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

It's also well-known that Marx was an unpleasant person, full of resentment and bitterness, which were the well-spring of his 'philosophy'.

 

As a contemporary wrote:

 

 

No wonder the modern "progressive" Left adores him so much....

The fruit never falls far from the tree.

[MaeJoMTB]

2 hours ago, Grouse said:

Frankly, a dose of Marxism

would do us a power of good. Right now the banks are shafting us, we have gross inequality and the ONLY aim of many corporations is the blind pursuit of shareholder value. Maybe it's time to man the barricades? ⚒

You are completely wrong, Cultural Marxism is what's destroying the modern white world.

Most corporations are run to advance all the 'isms' without any thought for shareholder profits.

 

You think Banks are run to make shareholders profits?

Ask the shareholders of those banks for the last 20 years, they only made losses.

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[mfd101]

17 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

It's also well-known that Marx was an unpleasant person, full of resentment and bitterness, which were the well-spring of his 'philosophy'.

 

As a contemporary wrote:

 

 

No wonder the modern "progressive" Left adores him so much....

Well, certainly one way to get round the message is to shoot the messenger.

[stevenl]

I am wondering what the point is of this discussion. 

 

Some come with well reasoned arguments about Marx's legacy, the main response to that is nonsense like 'look at Stalin, Mao and Venezuela'. People saying that really have no clue about Marx.

 

And 'he wasn't a nice man and neither are the left'. <deleted>.

Edited May 7, 2018 by stevenl

[Chomper Higgot]

33 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Or invest in a company that cares about improving the economic condition of the shareholders?

At the cost to everyone else, including the planet we live on.

 

Economic inequality is growing rapidly, nowhere more so in the US.

 

In 2018 ordinary working people are worse off than ordinary working people were in the 1970’s but hyper wealthy grow massively richer.

 

You were right above when you were banging on about taking other people’s stuff.

 

Capitalsm is taking away workers rights, pensions, retirement, affordable health care , affordable homes, affordable educationand handing the cash stripped from our society to a very small number of the hyper-wealthy.

 

Capitalism is failing.

 

It might not be failing for you, but it’s failing for millions.

 

 

[RickBradford]

17 minutes ago, stevenl said:

I am wondering what the point is of this discussion. 

 

Some come with well reasoned arguments about Marx's legacy, the main response to that is nonsense like 'look at Stalin, Mao and Venezuela'. People saying that really have no clue about Marx.

 

And 'he wasn't a nice man and neither are the left'. <deleted>.

Oh, the point is to suggest that a statue to Marx, whose murderous ideology led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, is an obscenity and an insult.

 

The secondary point is to marvel at the dim bulbs who call for a return to Marxism, having apparently learned nothing from the appalling carnage it produced in the 20th century.

[Chomper Higgot]

2 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Oh, the point is to suggest that a statue to Marx, whose murderous ideology led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, is an obscenity and an insult.

 

The secondary point is to marvel at the dim bulbs who call for a return to Marxism, having apparently learned nothing from the appalling carnage it produced in the 20th century.

There you go again, Marx did not write an ideology.

Chunter on!

[RickBradford]

1 minute ago, Chomper Higgot said:

There you go again, Marx did not write an ideology.

Chunter on!

Marx wrote a manifesto in which his ideology was made perfectly clear.

 

In essence, it was one of tribalism and divisiveness: Us versus Them, kulak v peasant, victim v oppressor. Marx taught that there were no such thing as “excesses” in a revolution, and that “hated individuals” should be sacrificed to “popular revenge.” Pure tribalism.

 

The appalling slaughter which followed was a direct consequence of that tribalism being put into action, and was inevitable.

[canuckamuck]

16 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

There you go again, Marx did not write an ideology.

Chunter on!

I admire the way you faithfully represent the debating skills of the left. Never once wandering off course to fact check or even present a reasoned argument.

The man's very name is instantly recognized and inseparably connected to an ideology known the world over. The only other ideologies which are as closely connected to a man's name are major religions.

[blazes]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

Or invest in a company that cares about improving the economic condition of the shareholders?

 

Shareholders?  What about the sodding workers, mate?

[stevenl]

58 minutes ago, RickBradford said:

Oh, the point is to suggest that a statue to Marx, whose murderous ideology led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, is an obscenity and an insult.

 

The secondary point is to marvel at the dim bulbs who call for a return to Marxism, having apparently learned nothing from the appalling carnage it produced in the 20th century.

So you answer a post about 'why refer to Mao, Stalin etc. which has nothing to do with this' with a reference to Mao and Staling.

[mfd101]

34 minutes ago, blazes said:

 

Shareholders?  What about the sodding workers, mate?

In the more advanced & civilized parts of the 'Western' world eg Australia, the people you so generously refer to as "sodding workers" mostly consider themselves 'middle class', live in self-owned & mortgaged suburban houses, and are often shareholders in companies large and small, and - with universal superannuation cover mandated by the federal government - are in fact all shareholders in property & companies both domestically & internationally.

 

Has this solved all of life's problems? No, but it's a start.

[Grouse]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

Or invest in a company that cares about improving the economic condition of the shareholders?

The blind pursuit of shareholder value is one of the problems resulting in lack of long term investment and hollowing out. Great companies also care about their workforce, local community and environment. In other words, shareholders are not the only stakeholders ?

[canuckamuck]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

So you answer a post about 'why refer to Mao, Stalin etc. which has nothing to do with this' with a reference to Mao and Staling.

He was telling you that you have learned nothing from history. Which is blindingly obvious when you can't understand what references to Mao and Stalin have to do with Marx. 

 

Quote

According to Rudolph Joseph Rummel, the killings done by communist regimes can be explained with the marriage between absolute power and an absolutist ideology – Marxism.^[25]

"Of all religions, secular and otherwise," Rummel positions Marxism as "by far the bloodiest – bloodier than the Catholic Inquisition, the various Catholic crusades, and the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. In practice, Marxism has meant bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal prison camps and murderous forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and fraudulent show trials, outright mass murder and genocide."^[26] He writes that in practice the Marxists saw the construction of their utopia as "a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism and inequality – and, as in a real war, noncombatants would unfortunately get caught in the battle. There would be necessary enemy casualties: the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords. As in a war, millions might die, but these deaths would be justified by the end, as in the defeat of Hitler in World War II. To the ruling Marxists, the goal of a communist utopia was enough to justify all the deaths."^[26]

Link

[stevenl]

7 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

He was telling you that you have learned nothing from history. Which is blindingly obvious when you can't understand what references to Mao and Stalin have to do with Marx. 

 

Link

A theory that has not been academically accepted.

[canuckamuck]

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

A theory that has not been academically accepted.

By you

[stevenl]

11 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

By you

See your own link.