Wednesday, June 3, 2015
On the Fact that Che Guevara and the Castro Brothers Initially Tried to Portray Themselves as Pro-Democracy and Anti-Communist Freedom-Fighters (this, While They Were All Staying Up to 4 AM Every Night Beating Their Meat to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Etc.)
Ah, the old political bait-and-switch tactic. It never gets stale, now does it?
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6 comments:
Have you studied Marx? The dude gets a lot of undeserved press. Marx was not an advocate of totalitarian government. Quite the opposite. He is reputed to having said; as for me I'm no Marxist. Of course he was talking about as it was viewed and mis-characterized by capitalists of his day. The sell worked because people still believe it without checking it out for themselves. As to Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin et all you're right.
No, Karl Marx wasn't a totalitarian, just a naive mediocre thinker (whose understanding of human nature was comical) who thought that world be be one peachy nirvana if only everybody ditched the entrepreneur and shared like good little boys and girls (well, mostly boys back then) and, yes, it was Lenin who thought that history needed a little "push". I totally agree.
Many very educated individuals would disagree. Those would be the type who have studied Marx in great depth.
Marx viewed capitalism as a huge improvement over other economic systems. He saw that efficiencies created by innovation would eventually create surplus labor which has occurred thus increasing leisure time for all. His concern with capitalism was that unless it evolved into a more socialistic system society would become feudal with capitalists holding all the wealth and the rest of society would survive on the scraps. (My simplification)
Marx in my view was not only a philosopher but an economic theorist as well. He likely would have admired Henry Ford and his assembly line manufacturing as well as Henry Ford's understanding he had to make cars inexpensive enough that his employees could afford to by one.
While Marx strayed into utopia in his latter years he has been largely misrepresented and misunderstood by many. Marx died a disillusioned man and bitter at those individuals who he saw has hijacking his views and bastardizing them to fit their own purposes.
Not a Marx advocate but I do think his views should be properly and accurately represented. in
Marx was as wrong as wrong can be. Free trade and free market capitalism have brought more people out of poverty than anything else in all of human history. I mean, just look at the standard of living and average life span since the birth of Christ. It was essentially a flat line for 18 fucking centuries and it wasn't until the industrial revolution, the discovery of fossil fuels, and an elimination of trade wars that the 2 indices started rocketing upward. No, things haven't always been perfect but when you see a country like Sweden go from dirt poor at the start of the 19th century to the 3rd richest country in the world through capitalism and then all but get bankrupted by socialism, how do you not put your eggs in the liberty basket instead of the staist one?......You need to reread the Road to Serfdom.
I have grown weary of boilerplate of all stripes. I have become convinced capitalism will ultimately destroy itself. Next phase on the road to self dedtruction; neo fudalism.
The golden years of capitalism ends when the middle class ebbs, the working poor increases, and wealth becomes concentrated in a smaller percentage of the population.
Capitalists are sealing their own fate. With a little help from Citizens United.
The doomsayers are almost always wrong and I heartily recommend the works of Matt Ridley - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV0K7oNilAE
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