Hitetlen

Yes, that is stock answer, when there is no actual argument. You just declare it a strawman, and pretend it never happened. How conveeeeiiinient!

Bumble Bee Tuna

Here's a counterargument in the style of your OP:

Capitalist: My retarded economic system is evil and will ruin your life!

Marxist: Yes, you're right, your economic system is horrible. You should become a marxist.

Capitalist: You're right. Marxism solves all the world's problems and is much better than capitalism. I'm changing my name to Marxist2!

Marxist: Yes, that is correct. Now that we're all marxists, we will live in happiness, peace, and harmony for all time.

[MARXIST and MARXIST2 go on to live under a Marxist utopia in happiness, peace and harmony for all time.]



You see, when you create a mock debate where you control what your opponent says, what you have is the very definition of a strawman, and it's entirely useless as an argument.

-B

Hitetlen

I see your point, but there is a teeny-weeny little difference. I did NOT create what the Marxist says. I borrowed it from other posts on this board, even though I admit, I changed the wording (only a little) - but not the essence.

The Marxists adamantly assert that all profits are theft, that the workers keep losing their standard of living, that anyone who believes otherwise has been brainwashed by the bourgeois propaganda machines.

I did not invent any of these, just used them.

Therefore the strawman argument of yours is incorrect. (Just to belabor the obvious, I do not call you an idiot, or anything else derogatory for that matter. Some Marxists do not say anything else.)

Bumble Bee Tuna

Yes, and I'll bet you've agreed with someone on the boards before. Nevertheless, me hypothesizing a conversation that goes:

"B: Marxism is the greatest political/economic system known to man.

Hitetlen: Yes. I agree with you completely."

Would still be a strawman. Even though I borrowed it from something you actually said! No matter how you do it, when you start inventing the dialogue of your opponent, you are making a strawman. Nevermind that you absolutely DID change the eseence of the phrases when you changed the wording. Look, I could "Borrow" from things I've heard capitalists say, and end up saying something like:

"Capitalist: The 'invisible hand' of the market will always be the best solution to a problem!"

And I hope to the IPU that you would disagree with this characterization of your position. Even though it is certainly based on things I've heard real capitalist fanatics say.

The ad hominems, of course, are these:

"(Marxist is openly sneering now) "
"(Marxist screams now.)"
(Everything the marxist says ends in an exclamation point)

Could you demonize your opponents any more?

Look, if you want to engage in a debate on capitalism vs. communism, that's fine. But the OP is worthless as far as arguments go. It's a strawman, through and through. If you want a dialogue on the subject, have one instead of making one up. I know you think that you've fairly portrayed the Marxist position. You haven't, and you should let a real Marxist do it. To expect a Marxist to go to the effort to do so in this thread with an OP that seems geared toward insults and fallacies, however, is silly. Nobody will bother, it's not worth the effort when your opponent is not willing to engage in a real dialogue.

-B

Intelligitimate

Hitetlen

Looks like that something worthy is coming out of this, though it is not what I intended.

I have to go and quote now:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...5&postcount=26
That is the original, unedited exchange. I did not alter anything. Now tell me, how is this a misrepresetation of the Marxist stance? And that is what I wanted to point out. Where is the strawman here? I am serious. And this is the VERY expression that I chose as the basis of the OP. Unedited, unchanged.

If some fanatic capitalist says that, and you quote it, you are perfectly correct to ridicule it. It would NOT be a strawman. And of course I agree that such a dogmatic statement is ridiculous!

Oh, brother. I have been on the receiving end of all these. Ridicule, condescention, outright rudeness all the way. As you can see, we are not agreeing, but since you never used such kinds of words, I would not dream to use them against you. Disagreement does not mean and should not mean disrespect. But I reserve the right to be very sarcastic if being exposed to such behavior over and over again. I am not a Christian, who turns the other cheek

Correction. This OP was not geared toward the dialog about capitalism vs. communism. We had quite a few of those. Not once have I seen a coherent argument in defense of communism: only arguments from authority. "Marx said this, Marx said that, Marx defined it thus..." etc, etc. Well, such arguments don't carry a lot of water. Just because Marx defined "value" in a certain manner, that does not mean that I have to accept it.

No, I don't think that I fairly portrayed the position of ALL Marxists. But I fairly portrayed the behavior of SOME Marxists on this board. To those who behave in a civilized manner I owe an apology, which I hereby tender.

RED DAVE

From Hitetlin:
From: Recent Trends in Living Standards in the United States, by
Edward N. Wolff, New York University and the Jerome Levy Economics Institute, May 2002:
(Footnotes omitted; emphasis added; emphases in original dropped)

Source of the Above

So, we’re not quite full of shit. The gist of the above is that (1) real wages have declined; (2) living standards have been maintained only through the mass entry of women into the workforce; (3) poverty is on the increase, relatively and absolutely. I could quote figures from elsewhere as to distribution of wealth: that’s truly freaky. The amount of wealth of the bottom 20% of the US population is actually negative: they own nothing and are actually in debt.

The United States had, in 2005, 341 billionaires, whose net worth exceeded 20% of the population. Maybe you can live with that. For me: Up the Revolution!

RED DAVE

Hitetlen

First, a rather irrelevant note, my user name is Hitetlen, not Hitetlin. It does not really matter, I just point it out.

Question: does that study include the price changes and the analysis of the consumer basket?

It is very problematic to compare two time-segments of the same society or two different societies which exist simultaneously. The salaries tell you some information, but in the absence of the consumer basket and its analysis they do not yield adequate information. How much does a particular segment of society have to work to obtain the products in the consumer basket? How much money will be left for discretionary spending?

Statistics can be a real finicky subject. With directed sampling and proper presuppositions one can "prove" almost anything.

Now let me direct you back to the original question: Do you agree that "all profits are theft"? And another one: what use is the Marxist definition of value? It certainly does not explain the prices of products. (I remember what the Marxist / socialist / communist professors and textbooks said, but I don't want to put words into your mouth).

Bumble Bee Tuna

Being able to say that one line of your entire dialogue was unedited and unchanged doesn't make the whole thing work.

I disagree. If I took the words of some fanatic capitalist who is completely unrepresentative of the mainstream thought on capitalism, and used that as the position of a generic "Capitalist1" in a dialogue, It would indeed be a strawman where I pretended that all capitalists held such a position, which is much easier to attack.

Yeah, we've all been on the recieving end of condescension. Nevertheless, it doesn't excuse making ad hominems in your argument. Especially when your argument is instigating a discussion and not responding to said condescension.

No, I don't think you even fairly portrayed the position of SOME marxists on this board. The ad hominems ruin that idea, and even if every single line you had in your dialogue could be directly quoted to Malachi, it would still be unfair, as you are changing the context.

Again, if you want a dialogue on this subject, bring up your problems with the Marxist framing of value/profit/theft. Then let actual Marxists respond. It's never a good idea to write your opponent's argument for them.

-B

Hitetlen

Hmm, how many should I go and quote? There are more, you know.